Spoiler-free
I didn't want to do another list format review but I have so many thoughts about so many different elements here that I'm not going to even bother trying to try writing this out. Oh well! I didn't intend to binge this game but when I started this review I'd put 40 hours into the game over 2.5 days. You'll see a lot of comparisons to DS3 as it's the most recent entry (and the one most fresh in my mind).
- Don't be fooled by the name, it's Dark Souls 4. The bones here are clearly DS3's, but if you're a Souls fan who hated DS3 you should still give it a shot - most of DS3's most objectionable traits are either irrelevant here (due to being a different IP) or have been buffed out. There's a surprising amount of DS2 DNA here as well, from the theming, to the gameplay (power-stancing), and the exploration (Pharros' Lockstones)
- I'm not the type to get riled up by the idea of Souls games getting easier in the first place, but there are so many QOL improvements here that make the game better to play without necessarily being easier. Changing your character's name/appearance at any time, modifying armors to remove cloaks/capes, changing weapon/scaling affinity at any bonfire (without grinding materials!), more throwables/weapon arts blurring the line between melee users and mages. There are so many more options here that allow for more creativity without turning the game into a joke.
- Good GOD the environments in this game. DS already had a way of making you feel tiny, but the sense of scale here triggers something ancient in your brain. Climbing a mountain for hours only to reach the top and see walls as tall as modern skyscrapers overpowers the part of my brain responsible for video game logic and triggers an instinctive feeling of unease. I've played many games, but FromSoft is the only developer capable of eliciting this reaction.
- The new system that lets you chain successful blocks into a followup attack makes defensive playstyles a little more interactive/interesting without simply parry spamming. If you get good at it you can turn some bosses with lower poise into a meme, but it's not going to carry you through the required bosses to advance the plot.
- So far I haven't seen anything as wacky as some of the DLC weapons in DS3 (Aquamarine Dagger, Crow Quills, Door Shield, etc.) save for one weapon. It would be nice to have crazier stuff (assuming I'm not just missing it) but the fact that you can freely swap weapon arts at any bonfire single-handedly makes up for it. Edit: There's plenty of visually weird content here, but nothing as mechanically weird as the above. EDIT: These exist, you just have to do some serious exploring to find them. With the number of weapons in the game, you're going to spend a lot of your time finding boring straight swords, but finding the shield that fires a cannonball or the buckler that unleashes a poisonous snake bite will always be worth the time investment.
- Instead of having DS3's paired weapons, dual-wielding two weapons of the same type gives you the paired weapon attacks on L1 - power-stancing is BACK. I'm dual-wielding twinblades atm (more blades per blade) and I don't think I've ever felt this cool in a FromSoft game.
- Flails! I will always advocate for adding flails to any game but nobody ever does. If I could've made any addition to DS3 it would've been a flail and now I've got my wish in the best form possible.
- Movement is a lot better. The dismounted jump isn't going to blow any minds but it's absolutely better than the absolute joke of a jump in previous games. I've seen people complain about how they chose to "add stealth" to the game and the reality is that stealth already existed in the Souls games, the crouch just makes it less tedious (instead of slowly pressing the analog stick).
- A small negative: With the open-world, the leadups to bosses don't have the same mounting tension that a single, themed level could (think Anor Londo before O&S, or the Grand Archives before the Twin Princes). Story bosses make up for this by being hunkered down in some elaborate complex, field bosses usually make up for it through some other kind of spectacle.
- Multiplayer! You can now set multiple passwords at once for playing with different groups, and there are designated markers to place summoning signs around (and an item to automatically send yours there). Haven't done any PVP yet, will have to revisit this, but co-op is easier than ever and not getting invaded in singleplayer (unless you opt-in via an item) is really quite nice.
- Crafting isn't nearly as bad as I expected and can basically be ignored wholesale if you want to. This will be a dream for ranged players, though, as my crafting menu is like 80% different types of arrows. Only complaint here is that I am now constantly running into situations where I'm poisoned and I can neither make nor buy the anti-poison item yet.
- Bosses have all been fun and fair so far (cleared 2 of the big 5, have fought 3) and have a clear flow of combat. Nothing really feels like bullshit. Unless something serious changes in the last region (and change) I've left to discover I'd say this is the best overall batch of bosses yet and the fights themselves look gorgeous too, from the stages to the movesets. Needs more Royal Rat Authority. EDIT: I probably wouldn't say this is my favorite batch of bosses any longer - large bosses in large arenas leave you feeling like you're constantly running to them instead of hitting them, and late bosses especially have a problem with large AOE attacks that get spammed (which is a bit tedious). It's still a mostly good set of bosses, but the experience is wildly front-loaded, since the bosses that aren't tedious to fight often get re-used elsewhere which ruins the sense of novelty a little bit.
- Lastly - NPCs and hub area: I really like this hub area! They have some intriguing interactions with each other and it's got me genuinely interested in their stories. NPCs in general seem to have more to say on average although I suspect it'll be a lot harder to finish their quests without a guide unless you're routinely visiting areas you've already cleared. Favorites so far are Millicent, and the place that gives you invasion quests that makes me nervous 24/7 even though combat is disabled there.
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EDIT: Everything after this point was added after finishing the game. I still stick by everything I wrote above, but if you'd like more in the way of criticisms, this might be what you're looking for. Still keeping things spoiler-free.
- Completed the game around level 130 after 100 hours exactly - this is at a pretty leisurely pace (plenty of coop, plenty of exploring) but by no means a completionist playthrough. My stats are all over the place (no more than 40 in anything, except for 50 Vigor) so you could probably do this a lot earlier with an actual coherent build.
- NPC questlines are still fantastic. I've fully finished Millicent's, Hyetta's, Fia's, and Ranni's, with one of these being especially notable for unlocking an ending, a whole new section of the map, and a kickass boss fight.
- I don't really need a quest log, but as someone who didn't think to keep a journal or anything about where I've run across these NPCs, I do wish I could at least look back on a log of things they've said so I could try to find them at future locations. I also think it would be nice to have some kind of marker that shows me whether or not I've beaten the boss at the end of a cave/catacombs/etc (instead of fast travelling there and seeing if I'm allowed to fast travel out - not the fastest solution!).
- It really feels like they want you to run some kind of hybrid build this time around - running pure dex/str/quality feels like you're really handicapping yourself, especially given how many melee weapons have relatively high fai/int requirements.
-The game really undersells how important it is to kill the white scarab beetles. They often have some stupid good Ash of War abilities that you can get for 5 seconds of time and two R1s. Absolutely goofy. I just ran right past so many of these things because I remember it being explained as "oh they replenish your flasks and shit!"
- It's still nice not being invaded when playing solo, but PVP is pretty miserable for invaders. It's sort of balanced out by the fact that invaders can run some of the busted madness/bleed builds (or that one bugged deathblight build) with the intention of using it in PVP, but I've seen plenty of gank squads in my limited attempts at PVP and that shit always sucks.
- The bosses continue being great for the most part, but the pacing is a little weird as the end basically makes you complete several bosses rapid-fire. Most of the most annoying boss mechanics are limited to optional bosses, but the late game bosses love AOE-ground-pound-bullshit which is pretty annoying, even if you learn to deal with it.
- There's a fairly major change in world state towards the end (similar to the arrival of night in Bloodborne) that fucks with how you use bonfires in one region of the map. It results in some really genuinely intriguing story beats, especially in the hub, but most annoying is how it messes with your ability to play co-op. I assume using the "send sign to summoning pools" thing is how you work around this, but sometimes the summoning pools are placed strangely. Whatever! EDIT: It's not! You're just boned if your friend wants to play co-op in the area most affected by the world state change.
- It is so easy to upgrade weapons in this game. I've managed to get 9 or 10 weapons to +9 or +24 (depending on what kind of upgrade materials they use - basically one step short of being maxed out either way). It takes a LOT of runes if you're buying them from the Maiden Husks, and the bell bearings to enable buying them are often only made available in the late game, but the ability to just straight up buy your way to an upgraded weapon is a lifesaver, especially if you're trying out a new build.
I didn't want to do another list format review but I have so many thoughts about so many different elements here that I'm not going to even bother trying to try writing this out. Oh well! I didn't intend to binge this game but when I started this review I'd put 40 hours into the game over 2.5 days. You'll see a lot of comparisons to DS3 as it's the most recent entry (and the one most fresh in my mind).
- Don't be fooled by the name, it's Dark Souls 4. The bones here are clearly DS3's, but if you're a Souls fan who hated DS3 you should still give it a shot - most of DS3's most objectionable traits are either irrelevant here (due to being a different IP) or have been buffed out. There's a surprising amount of DS2 DNA here as well, from the theming, to the gameplay (power-stancing), and the exploration (Pharros' Lockstones)
- I'm not the type to get riled up by the idea of Souls games getting easier in the first place, but there are so many QOL improvements here that make the game better to play without necessarily being easier. Changing your character's name/appearance at any time, modifying armors to remove cloaks/capes, changing weapon/scaling affinity at any bonfire (without grinding materials!), more throwables/weapon arts blurring the line between melee users and mages. There are so many more options here that allow for more creativity without turning the game into a joke.
- Good GOD the environments in this game. DS already had a way of making you feel tiny, but the sense of scale here triggers something ancient in your brain. Climbing a mountain for hours only to reach the top and see walls as tall as modern skyscrapers overpowers the part of my brain responsible for video game logic and triggers an instinctive feeling of unease. I've played many games, but FromSoft is the only developer capable of eliciting this reaction.
- The new system that lets you chain successful blocks into a followup attack makes defensive playstyles a little more interactive/interesting without simply parry spamming. If you get good at it you can turn some bosses with lower poise into a meme, but it's not going to carry you through the required bosses to advance the plot.
- So far I haven't seen anything as wacky as some of the DLC weapons in DS3 (Aquamarine Dagger, Crow Quills, Door Shield, etc.) save for one weapon. It would be nice to have crazier stuff (assuming I'm not just missing it) but the fact that you can freely swap weapon arts at any bonfire single-handedly makes up for it. Edit: There's plenty of visually weird content here, but nothing as mechanically weird as the above. EDIT: These exist, you just have to do some serious exploring to find them. With the number of weapons in the game, you're going to spend a lot of your time finding boring straight swords, but finding the shield that fires a cannonball or the buckler that unleashes a poisonous snake bite will always be worth the time investment.
- Instead of having DS3's paired weapons, dual-wielding two weapons of the same type gives you the paired weapon attacks on L1 - power-stancing is BACK. I'm dual-wielding twinblades atm (more blades per blade) and I don't think I've ever felt this cool in a FromSoft game.
- Flails! I will always advocate for adding flails to any game but nobody ever does. If I could've made any addition to DS3 it would've been a flail and now I've got my wish in the best form possible.
- Movement is a lot better. The dismounted jump isn't going to blow any minds but it's absolutely better than the absolute joke of a jump in previous games. I've seen people complain about how they chose to "add stealth" to the game and the reality is that stealth already existed in the Souls games, the crouch just makes it less tedious (instead of slowly pressing the analog stick).
- A small negative: With the open-world, the leadups to bosses don't have the same mounting tension that a single, themed level could (think Anor Londo before O&S, or the Grand Archives before the Twin Princes). Story bosses make up for this by being hunkered down in some elaborate complex, field bosses usually make up for it through some other kind of spectacle.
- Multiplayer! You can now set multiple passwords at once for playing with different groups, and there are designated markers to place summoning signs around (and an item to automatically send yours there). Haven't done any PVP yet, will have to revisit this, but co-op is easier than ever and not getting invaded in singleplayer (unless you opt-in via an item) is really quite nice.
- Crafting isn't nearly as bad as I expected and can basically be ignored wholesale if you want to. This will be a dream for ranged players, though, as my crafting menu is like 80% different types of arrows. Only complaint here is that I am now constantly running into situations where I'm poisoned and I can neither make nor buy the anti-poison item yet.
- Bosses have all been fun and fair so far (cleared 2 of the big 5, have fought 3) and have a clear flow of combat. Nothing really feels like bullshit. Unless something serious changes in the last region (and change) I've left to discover I'd say this is the best overall batch of bosses yet and the fights themselves look gorgeous too, from the stages to the movesets. Needs more Royal Rat Authority. EDIT: I probably wouldn't say this is my favorite batch of bosses any longer - large bosses in large arenas leave you feeling like you're constantly running to them instead of hitting them, and late bosses especially have a problem with large AOE attacks that get spammed (which is a bit tedious). It's still a mostly good set of bosses, but the experience is wildly front-loaded, since the bosses that aren't tedious to fight often get re-used elsewhere which ruins the sense of novelty a little bit.
- Lastly - NPCs and hub area: I really like this hub area! They have some intriguing interactions with each other and it's got me genuinely interested in their stories. NPCs in general seem to have more to say on average although I suspect it'll be a lot harder to finish their quests without a guide unless you're routinely visiting areas you've already cleared. Favorites so far are Millicent, and the place that gives you invasion quests that makes me nervous 24/7 even though combat is disabled there.
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EDIT: Everything after this point was added after finishing the game. I still stick by everything I wrote above, but if you'd like more in the way of criticisms, this might be what you're looking for. Still keeping things spoiler-free.
- Completed the game around level 130 after 100 hours exactly - this is at a pretty leisurely pace (plenty of coop, plenty of exploring) but by no means a completionist playthrough. My stats are all over the place (no more than 40 in anything, except for 50 Vigor) so you could probably do this a lot earlier with an actual coherent build.
- NPC questlines are still fantastic. I've fully finished Millicent's, Hyetta's, Fia's, and Ranni's, with one of these being especially notable for unlocking an ending, a whole new section of the map, and a kickass boss fight.
- I don't really need a quest log, but as someone who didn't think to keep a journal or anything about where I've run across these NPCs, I do wish I could at least look back on a log of things they've said so I could try to find them at future locations. I also think it would be nice to have some kind of marker that shows me whether or not I've beaten the boss at the end of a cave/catacombs/etc (instead of fast travelling there and seeing if I'm allowed to fast travel out - not the fastest solution!).
- It really feels like they want you to run some kind of hybrid build this time around - running pure dex/str/quality feels like you're really handicapping yourself, especially given how many melee weapons have relatively high fai/int requirements.
-The game really undersells how important it is to kill the white scarab beetles. They often have some stupid good Ash of War abilities that you can get for 5 seconds of time and two R1s. Absolutely goofy. I just ran right past so many of these things because I remember it being explained as "oh they replenish your flasks and shit!"
- It's still nice not being invaded when playing solo, but PVP is pretty miserable for invaders. It's sort of balanced out by the fact that invaders can run some of the busted madness/bleed builds (or that one bugged deathblight build) with the intention of using it in PVP, but I've seen plenty of gank squads in my limited attempts at PVP and that shit always sucks.
- The bosses continue being great for the most part, but the pacing is a little weird as the end basically makes you complete several bosses rapid-fire. Most of the most annoying boss mechanics are limited to optional bosses, but the late game bosses love AOE-ground-pound-bullshit which is pretty annoying, even if you learn to deal with it.
- There's a fairly major change in world state towards the end (similar to the arrival of night in Bloodborne) that fucks with how you use bonfires in one region of the map. It results in some really genuinely intriguing story beats, especially in the hub, but most annoying is how it messes with your ability to play co-op. I assume using the "send sign to summoning pools" thing is how you work around this, but sometimes the summoning pools are placed strangely. Whatever! EDIT: It's not! You're just boned if your friend wants to play co-op in the area most affected by the world state change.
- It is so easy to upgrade weapons in this game. I've managed to get 9 or 10 weapons to +9 or +24 (depending on what kind of upgrade materials they use - basically one step short of being maxed out either way). It takes a LOT of runes if you're buying them from the Maiden Husks, and the bell bearings to enable buying them are often only made available in the late game, but the ability to just straight up buy your way to an upgraded weapon is a lifesaver, especially if you're trying out a new build.
7 Comments
something i'd love, is if instead of a GOTY awards list, we had a 'best uses of scale in a videogame' list. FROM understands the unique position videogames are in to explore overwhelming scale, I think Bungie frequently does with certain areas in Destiny. Of course you have your space games like Elite Dangerous too.
Other than that though, I'm having a hard time thinking of games that really shoot for the gut, right in that sinking feeling you get when you acknowledge your own insignificance.
Other than that though, I'm having a hard time thinking of games that really shoot for the gut, right in that sinking feeling you get when you acknowledge your own insignificance.
That's fair, I don't play too many games in the space setting but some of them do a fantastic job of making you feel absolutely tiny. It's definitely the verticality of Elden Ring that makes it feel so huge - not just visually huge, but spatially in terms of traversal. I actually quite like the way they use ravines/cliffs to make you take the long way around, especially the ones that are just too wide to jump across
"spatially huge" might be the dumbest thing ive written today
Added a section at the end about my thoughts after completing the game
I haven't used it myself but you can check to see if a dungeon/cave is completed. If you open the map and press Y/triangle a list of sites of graces opens up. If you press R3 (or L3) a check appears near the name of the selected grace.
ah shit. if i just ended up missing this?? will have to check this tomorrow and see if i just missed it
jobosno
2 years ago