from software's game design has had a
undeniable and profound effect on not
only the gaming industry but the
industry of Jacobs the people named
Jacob such as myself with the massive
success of Eldon ring from software has
further established that a merciless
uncompromising gameplay first design
philosophy with little hand-holding or
assistance can also still be a massive
success that millions of people will
connect with and absolutely adore I am
certainly one of those millions and
while typically brilliant I also believe
that from software's games are
unfortunately far from perfect and Eldon
ring is sadly no exception and I want to
talk about it but first I must warn you
that I will be spoiling the absolute
Moonlight Greatsword out of all of these
games so if you haven't experienced them
for yourself particularly Elden ring I
strongly suggest you hit pause on this
video and go Savor that experience first
and come back in about 200 hours because
it is quite possibly the greatest
experience I have had playing a video
game in my 28 years of holding a player
2 Mad Catz controller that isn't
actually plugged in regardless I believe
it is no exaggeration to say that in the
world of video games from software has
truly changed everything
[Music]
Demon Souls was released in 2009 for the
Playstation 3 and was nothing like other
big games coming out at the time
especially in 2009 in a year where games
were becoming more and more cinematic
and accessible and forgiving to a casual
audience Demon Souls crawled out of a
wet Crypt and said I will kill you Demon
Souls like all the souls games that came
after it is a very challenging and
unforgiving video game a difficulty that
fans of the series often lovingly refer
to as hard but fair hmm
so let's let's maybe settle on hard but
mostly Fair after joining fromsoft in
2004 and working as a coder on the
armored Core Series hidetaka Miyazaki
took over as director on a struggling
High fantasy project that was running
into some serious issues during
development because the project was
already seen as a failure inside the
studio Miyazaki was basically like I'm
gonna take this thing and I'm gonna take
it in I'm gonna take it out back to the
garage I'm gonna do some stuff to it
inspired by fromsoft's own kingsfield
series Miyazaki wanted to make a dark
fantasy gameplay driven experience in
collaboration with Sony Japan Studio a
challenging but rewarding experience
that took gaming back to its Basics
something he felt was dying out at the
time during development Miyazaki
actually tried to keep the harsh
difficulty aspect on the low from
publisher Sony fearing that they might
want to change it for being a bit too
extreme much like a BMX riding video
game breaking down the basic gameplay of
demon souls will effectively break down
the basic gameplay for all of the Souls
games that followed because the very
core design pillars have gone largely
unchanged it starts with a character
creator that before you say anything I
know it gets better with time that lets
you pick a starting class dictating your
capabilities with different weapons or
magic a third person lock-on camera
system for combat that improves on the Z
targeting system that Ocarina of Time
introduced back in uh oh oh of nine
eight that you can control the camera
and attack people at the same time which
was kind of a breakthrough in and of
itself animation based combat that
requires you to commit to each action
and wait until the animation finishes
before you can do something else along
with managing how that action affects
your stamina bar or in the case of
casting spells your magic bar but I
didn't raise you to cast those spells
this is a claim over household just like
my father and his father before him a
Dodge roll that contains invincibility
frames or iframes meaning that if you
time your Dodge right nothing can
possibly hurt you similar to action
games like Devil May Cry corpse running
where if you die you drop all the
currency you've racked up from killing
enemies and you got to make it back to
that spot without dying otherwise you
lose it forever passive and non-passive
online interaction where other players
can leave helpful tips or uh whatever
the opposite of a helpful tip is along
with summoning or being summoned as a
random cooperator to help or invasions
to either kill or be kill you and you
know the gameplay of each individual
Souls game obviously goes a lot deeper
than that with different complex systems
and healing items and stupid convoluted
like World tendency that you
need a master's degree to
understand but the challenging and
methodical combat system that has always
been the Beating Heart of all of these
games a heart that's married to another
heart exploration you know how in my
Rockstar's game design video I Really
harp on how those games constantly
berate you with hyper-specific
instructions and yellow map markers and
assume you have the IQ of a tiny baby
rat yeah the souls games do do like the
exact polar opposite the tiny baby rat
is now actually a boss and you have no
idea what the is going on and what
makes exploration so compelling in Demon
Souls and really All Souls games is that
it is true exploration that really makes
you feel like Batman no it really makes
you feel like an Explorer there is no
detailed map that you can rely on and
consult only your own sense of direction
and understanding of a space this along
with a strong Challenge and an actual
fear of having something to lose but the
corpse running system makes discoveries
and victories feel that much more
meaningful and rewarding because you
really feel like you the player actually
charted and conquered a space and
overcame a significant challenge instead
of just watching Wally do it in
a cut scene the souls games have very
few cut scenes or long unskippable
passages of dialogue by NPCs or RPG
conversation trees where your choice
actually doesn't really matter instead
the store is discovered and slowly
unraveled by the player through
observing their environment and reading
item descriptions and inevitably
watching vati video videos because I
don't understand any of this so you're
saying the rat was like a king at some
point or I appreciate miyazaki's
approach to storytelling though because
it's very unique to the medium of video
games and was actually inspired by his
real life experience of reading English
language sci-fi and fantasy books as a
kid that he couldn't fully understand
but would fill in the gaps using his
imagination the story is so much more
about the general mood and atmosphere
and feeling of exploring a place rather
than scripted plot points or set pieces
the Innovative online elements of
summoning random strangers to help you
out was actually inspired by miyazaki's
real life as well or after his car was
trapped in snow on a hill a random group
of strangers showed up and helped push
the car out of the snow and then
mysteriously drifted off into the night
like ghosts drifting in and out of his
world at a poorly framed Pace 30 frames
second these games also have some
technical issues Demon Souls was not an
immediate success Sony decided to not
publish it in North America after
feeling pretty negatively about it
before its release during the Tokyo game
show in 2008 Sony president shui Yoshida
played it for two hours couldn't get
past the starting area and then stopped
playing and said this is an unbelievably
bad video game this is the same guy that
years later with Platinum bloodborne and
that game was like way harder so spoiler
alert from software changed everything
the titular line it wasn't until later
in 2009 when Atlas would publish the
game in North America that sales would
slowly start to pick up and critics
would start to take notice Western
audiences generally loved it because
apparently we're all sick masochistic
bastards and Gamespot even gave it their
game of the year the same year that
Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2 came
out but along with establishing the core
pillars of what a Souls game would be
it's important to talk about just How
brave Miyazaki from software in Sony
Japan Studio were for making such a
different kind of game Demon Souls was a
huge risk an imperfect weird brutal
passion project that was expected by
everyone to flop but refused to
compromise on its design goals and
eventually found an audience that really
connected with it and two console
Generations later an extremely faithful
remake was published by Sony as a launch
title for the PlayStation 5. and there
you have it that's uh that's it that's
the end
the it's the only game they ever made
[Music]
I love Dark Souls
but I also hated Dark Souls my brother
Isaac had played Dark Souls sometime
after its release in 2011 and had
repeatedly told me to play it I
eventually finally tried it uh got past
the tutorial section after a lot of
struggling made it to Firelink Shrine
wandered the wrong way into a graveyard
full of skeletons as I know a lot of
people did that graveyard eventually
became a dark tunnel of skeletons that
killed me a bunch of times and then I
promptly set this game and stopped
playing I can't remember for what exact
reason but a year or two later I tried
the game again probably because of my
brother's insistence once again the
bastard he is and uh it was different
this time it stuck not only did it stick
but it seriously changed my life I know
that sounds super dramatic but like it
completely changed the way I look at
video games and why I like to play them
and made me want to talk about them more
and examine them and it absolutely
ruined most of their video games for me
because once I finished it nothing could
fill the giant rat boss size
in my heart now if I were to go into all
of the reasons why Dark Souls is so
significant in gaming history we would
be here all day and my editor would
absolutely hate that I am going to kill
you but on my road to eventually talking
about Eldon ring I do need to touch on
three crucial aspects the vastly
improved on Demon Souls game design
super exploration DX turbo Edition with
freckles Estes flask I hardly know her
as best as I can an atmosphere
atmosphere you've been seen I feel you
inside my screen
I I also didn't like that what I mean by
super exploration DX turbo Edition with
vocals is that Dark Souls fundamentally
changed how level design and World
design worked within this gameplay
formula that Demon Souls established
while demon holes over here had a hub
world that let you freely fast travel to
different zones of varying locales and
difficulty levels Dark Souls over here
took a lot of its zones and stacked them
on top of each other like a stack of
pancakes and made sure that even if some
pancakes have chocolate chips or some
pancakes have bananas that they all
seamlessly flow into each other and make
sense as one cohesive World in this
beautiful interconnected short stack of
pancakes the blight down is like a
pancake made out of pigeons during the
first half of the game you have no fast
travel and all of the areas are
connected in multiple complex ways like
a maze so there's this palpable sense of
danger and tension that slowly Rises as
you venture deeper and deeper into this
beautiful mysterious world that is very
clearly inspired by berserk which is
amazing that tension is brilliantly
paired with the new edition of bonfires
resting points that let you catch your
breath for a second and spend your
hard-earned currency from fighting
enemies and bosses on leveling up your
stat points and refilling your
much-needed Estus flask I am of the
pretty firm opinion that the healing
mechanics found in Demon Souls and
bloodborne and kind of Dark Souls 2 are
vastly inferior to the standard Estus
flask system found in the other Souls
games the Estes has a specific amount of
healing charges that you can increase
throughout the course of the game and
the only way to refill your charges is
by resting at a bonfire which also
respawns all enemies in the area not
only does this provide an extra
incentive to seek out and discover
bonfires and push on while exploring but
it solves the dumbass problem those
other games have where your healing
items are a finite currency that you can
run out of meaning that if you're
struggling with the game and you keep
dying and you will you will likely have
to Halt progression just to go grind
mobs of weaker enemies for healing items
or currency that you can then spend on
healing items and not leveling up which
feels so unnecessarily punishing in a
game where enemies do this to you with
the Estes you at least know that for the
next bit you have a guaranteed specific
amount of heals and much like a survival
horror game the goal is to get to the
next area using as little Estes asbestos
you can I think one of the greatest
single improvements over demon holes
over here is the atmosphere I will never
forget how it felt to get lost in this
world struggling my ass off through
Undead Berg and Undead perish and
finally being rewarded by finding that
shortcut back to Firelink Shrine and
hearing that comforting music creep in
that that seriously changed the
trajectory of my firstborn son's life
he's getting into Brown now journeying
all the way down to First The Depths and
then Blighttown and then finding the
entrance that's a secret to the great
hollow and making my way down that and
finally ending up at Ash Lake gave me a
feeling that I will forever cherish the
inability to easily fast travel back up
to Firelink Shrine after I journeyed all
the way down there simultaneously had me
terrified and also in complete awe of
the vertical scope of this world and
there's so much of this game that you
can just completely Miss from software
it doesn't care if every player sees all
of the content that they made for this
game and that makes finding the stuff
that you do find feel that much more
special and memorable I know it's just
all smoke and mirrors and code and
textures but the illusion that from
software sells here is a powerful one
except for some clearly unfinished areas
towards the end of the game but those
don't exist you made lost Islip up
Gaslight Gaslight Gaslight unlike Demon
Souls Dark Souls was a pretty instant
success critics loved it and the game
reached a much larger audience right off
the bat thanks to Bandai Namco
publishing it all over the world on PS3
and Xbox 360 and PC with one of the most
janky PC ports to ever exist shout out
games for Windows Live R.I.P this also
annoyingly led to so many industry heads
resorting to the phrases it's like dark
souls or this is the Dark Souls of blank
when in reality all they're trying to
say is that it's hard going to Arby's is
like the Dark Souls of going to Carl's
Jr Hollow Knight is very clearly
inspired by from software's approach and
that game is undoubtedly the greatest
metroidvania ever made I love
Hollow Knight primarily because it
perfected a design aspect from Dark
Souls 1 that from software themselves
kind of started to abandon with
subsequent Souls games non-linear
exploration shut up already Jesus that
guy loves to talk hi I'm Jakey Jakey and
Jakey attorneys at law here at Jakey
Jakey and Jakey we have a lot of
expenses and a lot of those expenses are
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get your money right all right now let's
get on back to naked Jake in the Curious
Case of the floating rake with this guy
guy never even beat Digimon World 2.
that's a real Souls game I'm out of here
Dark Souls 2 bloodborne and Dark Souls 3
all have much more straightforward
progression paths than the first half of
Dark Souls 1. and while a lot of areas
in these games are technically connected
and sometimes offer alternate paths the
general World design is far less
interesting from a exploration point of
view and it doesn't mean that these
games are bad all of these games
probably each deserve their own 40
minute Feature Presentation breaking
them down but for the sake of what I
want to get into today I'm just going to
give you the SparkNotes version Dark
Souls 2 dropped in 2014 and was received
well and sold well it further grew the
Souls game community and deepened combat
systems while adding stuff like power
stances Miyazaki didn't direct this one
and it does show the atmosphere of each
Zone feels a bit random and unconnected
from the overall world but the boss
fights and DLCs are great and the game
enjoyed a large online community for
like PVP bloodborne was developed
alongside Dark Souls 2 and is released
exclusively for the PS4 in 2015 and I
used money from a car accident to buy a
PS4 and bloodborne instead of paying my
rent and contrary to what my financial
advisors might be saying and Logan Roy
looking asks I'd say it was a wise
investment directed by Miyazaki
bloodborne felt like the true follow-up
to Dark Souls 1. at least for people
like me that just want to swing a big
sword and Parry everything bye
bye magic go back to Waverly
Place faster combat that rewards
aggressive play intricate and varied
weapon move sets an atmosphere that just
drips out of your TV with such dedicated
attention to detail and talent in the
art design Department in rats Dark Souls
3 dropped in 2016 and by this point the
souls series was popping and beloved by
many people directed once again by
Miyazaki DS3 did everything right on
paper it kept some of the faster paced
combat and up enemy designs and
boss Transformations from bloodborne
while also return earning an expansive
Armory of weapons and Magic lending to a
buttload of different kinds of builds it
has a large amount of fan service and
callbacks to Dark Souls 1 and some of
the hardest bosses seen in a Souls game
yet it also just feels really really
good to play and looks beautiful but
also something about this formula was
starting to feel just a little bit stale
don't get me wrong playing through Dark
Souls 3 especially doing Co-op boss
fights with my brother was some of the
most fun I've had in any of these games
but that strong sense of exploration
felt in Dark Souls 1 that feeling of
charting your way through a mysterious
and dangerous world I longed for that
the Dark Souls series had completely
shaken the game industry and clearly
inspired other developers to change how
their games were designed and played but
playing Dark Souls 3 felt a bit like
listening to from software's Greatest
Hits versus hearing the band's new album
that would maybe take them someplace new
little did I know from software was in
the studio working on their in rainbows
as in the album in rainbows by Radiohead
as in radiohead's best album
as an element ring
some of you might be wondering Jacob
Matthew why did it take you so long to
make a video on Elven Rick and I have
two answers for you a last year I was
very busy working on an album called
rom-com shout out jkmerch.com and B this
game is just too damn big and felt too
daunting to dissect and talk about and I
also just wanted to keep playing it but
I feel like I'm finally ready to get
into it with my support group that's you
this is you this is all of you where do
I even begin though Elden ring isn't
perfect but that's also what makes it so
compelling it's not properly balanced I
mean none of these games are they never
have been fromsoft has pretty clear
favorites when it comes to certain
weapons and Buffs and spells you can
absolutely break these games in half if
you really want to but the sheer depth
of content that Elden Rings slowly
unveils to you during your 200 or so
hours of playing it the childhood
fantasy of exploring a fantastic
testicle magical world filled with
swords and beasts and you guessed it
rats is fully manifested in a way that
knows no contemporary there is no other
Elden ring than Eldon ring this isn't
just the Dark Souls of Dark Souls this
is the Dark Souls of breath of the wild
this is the Dark Souls of Red Dead
Redemption 2. if you took a time machine
back to 2003 and showed my wooden sword
in the backyard swing and ass that this
is what was coming in the future I would
have shot you in the head and called the
cops Elden ring is truly the adventure
of a lifetime but because I've already
spent so much time talking about the
core design pillars that all of these
games share I want to instead focus on
certain pillars that Elden ring
innovates on or potentially fails to
innovate on exploration and scale
Dungeons and Dragons
starring Chris Pine and difficulty and
accessibility where Dark Souls 1's world
is like a short stack of pancakes all
connected Elden Rings world is like a
giant stack of pancakes and you took all
those pancakes and you spread them out
across a giant table and most of the
pancakes are touching each other and
some of the pancakes have other pancakes
hiding underneath them and other
pancakes might transport you to barred
pancakes and up ways and some of
Pancakes are on fire and make you feel
fear I don't want to be in this Denny's
anymore yeah Miyazaki has stated that
Elden ring is the closest thing to his
ideal game that he would personally like
to play and that going open world
enriches this ideal experience that he's
trying to achieve a game where if you
saw something over there you could
actually go over there a game that isn't
open world just to be in the same
category as some bloated Ubisoft
but a game that's open world
because it needs to be in order to fully
capture the fantasy of being an
adventurer in a giant World riding
across a vast landscape on your trusty
Steed you first need to have that vast
landscape to really nail that feeling
Elden ring was inspired by breath of the
wild and it very clearly shows because
like breath of the wild Elden ring knows
and expects that your curiosity will
naturally lead you to finding
interesting things there doesn't need to
be an overwhelming list of things to
check off or obvious map markers going
over here it's over here because
that would totally Rob the player of a
true sense of mystery and Discovery when
exploring this massive World Elven ring
is very okay with hiding its hand this
is what the map looks like when you
start the game and this is what it looks
like when you finish the game and these
are the pancakes that are cooking
underneath you the entire time having a
chest throw a smoke grenade at you in
the starting area and being transported
and waking up in one of the most giant
late game areas and checking the map and
seeing it zoom out like that was an
experience I will never forget and the
lore behind the lands between is so rich
in detail and Intrigue miyazaki's style
of Storytelling through gameplay
combined with the Bible of world history
that George RR Martin developed for this
game will leave an MF feeling like
goddamn Amy Adams as in downright
Enchanted I know I haven't mentioned
sekideo once in this video because it's
technically not a Souls game but it was
a crucial stepping stone to towards
Elden Ring's development the addition of
a dedicated jump button may sound like a
simple thing but it completely changes
combat in the way you navigate this
world exploring the lands between over
like 200 hours rivaled the experience I
had exploring the first half of Dark
Souls 1. they both hit really hard but
for different reasons the first half of
Dark Souls 1 hits hard because of a lack
of a fast travel safety net meaning you
become very intimate with your
surroundings and the world design nearly
suffocates you with its complexity it
suffocates in a good way Elden ring hits
hard not only because it marks the
return of multiple areas connecting to
each other with a very non-linear path
of progression but because of just the
sheer scale of the world but because the
sheer scale and Intrigue of always
wanting to see what's around the next
corner is such a big part of this
experience much like breath of the wild
the game won't ever hit quite as hard on
subsequent playthroughs but because that
main draw of Discovery is no longer
there this doesn't mean you shouldn't
play multiple playthroughs of this game
because oh my God weapons and spells and
armored sets in ashes of war and
summoning summoning salt videos quest
lines that you can super easily Miss and
you will because they're super
convoluted and hard to follow you should
definitely play the game a second time
but I will say that on my second
playthrough I definitely wasn't as eager
to revisit all of the content once I
knew what was exactly around every
corner Elden ring has a massive amount
of unique and amazing content to
experience but there's also some super
not amazing content in there too in
Joseph Anderson's review which is great
by the way he talks about how amazing
his first fight with a dragon was and I
completely agree that first encounter
with the dragon and the big ass wet
field or whatever and he's like breaking
all of the physics objects it's amazing
it's such an awesome gameplay moment
that is just naturally experienced and
you're exploring the world world but I
also agree with Joseph's point that
because the game ends up having like a
billion other dragons that you find
there's seriously so many dragons and
they all mostly have the same moveset it
kind of takes away a bit of the oomph of
that first experience it doesn't mean
that first experience is invalidated or
made bad but more so it's like if you
ate pizza for dinner every night and
eventually you were like all right I
don't really want to eat dragon pizza
anymore can we can we have like rat
Pizza mom the same goes for a lot of
Elden Rings catacomb dungeons similar to
The Chalice dungeons in bloodborne or
the shrines and breath of the wild the
quality of experience you might have in
one of these copy paste Interiors is a
bit of a dice roll in all of the souls
games you never know exactly what items
you're gonna find as rewards while
exploring but the areas and bosses are
usually so interesting to look at and
explore that the real reward is really
just getting to experience that area and
fight that cool boss so Eva even if the
reward is something you're never gonna
use like another spell you don't
really regret doing it because it was a
really cool experience the same does not
apply to Elden ring all of these
catacombs are not created equally some
will have a cool and unique boss and a
really useful piece of Loot and others
will have a boss you've already seen a
bunch of times and an item that you will
forget about the second you leave the
catacomb funny enough this is actually a
problem that's remedied by a second
playthrough because if you have a Wiki
open you can just avoid doing all the
dungeons that aren't worth it but on a
first playthrough the one that's the
best and the most memorable you don't
know what all of these have so if you're
like me you're probably going to do all
of them and get pretty burnt out on
fighting the same little statue
in these pieces of for the most
part the enemy and boss variety on
display and Elden ring will blow your
back out most of the time but seeing
unique experiences that you've cherished
like the reveal in spectacle of fighting
astel Natural Born of the Void get copy
pasted into a separate dungeon or
fighting a godskin or both of
them for like the fifth time it's a bit
disappointing the nice thing about Elden
ring though is that you technically
don't have to do most of this if a boss
is too hard or if an area is too
annoying for you you have so much any
other options of things to do and bosses
to fight and places to see but this also
potentially leads to some issues with
the game's design previous Souls games
that had a more linear progression path
could quickly halt your progress with a
super tough boss and you would have to
either grind enemy mobs for souls to
level up or just slam your head against
the wall until you hopefully eventually
break through Elden ring being mostly
non-linear actually remedies that
problem and finally adds a sort of
difficulty slider to the souls games if
a boss is giving you a swirly just go do
something else maybe find a better
weapon learn some new skills or spend
time practicing your parries against
weaker bosses I don't know there's a lot
of stuff you could do then once you're
better prepared head on back to that
boss that was you up and say
it's opposite day you slug huzzah that's
pretty amazing right this makes the game
so much more accessible and less
intimidating to a new player that's
never been beaten to death by a rat
before but this system of sort of
choosing your own difficulty could also
potentially rob you of a compelling
experience this game is so goddamn big
that there's bound to be stuff in the
early areas that you won't find until
way later in the game and when you do
find it maybe it's a super awesome
unique boss battle with like a really
cool reward that you beat in like two
hits in some cases this feels amazing it
fully feeds into the power fantasy of
wanting to make the biggest alive
and can be super satisfying to just
totally fart on a boss that once had you
breaking two by fours from Menards over
your leg but sometimes it can feel
underwhelming and disappointing I think
the fact that the game doesn't have
level scaling for enemies is much better
than an alternative where it did because
level scaling can often make a game
World feel pretty artificial and your
progression feel pretty meaningless but
I do think there's a world where you
could have a bit of both I think if you
visit areas in the game that you're very
obviously over leveled for the game
could maybe flash a little prompt that
says hey do you want to make this fight
scale to your level to maybe make it a
bit more satisfying and maybe we give
you extra runes as a reward for upping
the difficulty I would love that Mark
Brown of game Maker's toolkit makes a
great point in his video about how
hollow Knight actually changes the
layout of early areas and UPS the
difficulty of enemies to keep things
more challenging and interesting later
in the game and I think that's a great
example of something that Elden ring
could have potentially done as well
speaking of roon rewards for defeating
enemies holy they are all over the
place in this game and make like zero
sense donkey talks about this in
his Elden ring video and I
wholeheartedly agree like the difficulty
of an enemy does not correlate to how
much money you get for defeating them
it's honestly ridiculous in a lot of
cases Also let's talk about respecting
stat points once you defeat ranala at
the Wizard Academy Raya lucaria you
unlock a way to use specific larval tier
items to real allocate all of the stat
points that you've spent money on and
this is amazing this means that if you
find a weapon or spell that you really
with but don't have the stats for
you can retool your character to be able
to use them and switch up your play
style and experience one of the many
amazing builds that you can do in this
game so why the can't you do the
same thing with weapons Elden ring
offers no way of transferring or
respecting weapon upgrades from one
weapon to another and it makes zero
sense to me you find so many
cool weapons in this game and it
is a total pain in the ass to make
switching to them actually viable yes
you can find the smithing bells that let
you buy an unlimited amount of upgrade
resources from the merchant but a what
if you don't find some of those bells on
your first playthrough where you're not
looking stuff up and B I don't
understand what the harm would be in
letting you get back some of your
upgrade resources from a weapon if it
meant that that weapon went back to its
base level right you would be so much
more excited to find even if it's
something out of your typical wheelhouse
the Resident Evil 4 remake which is
fantastic by the way I talk about it on
my second channels your quantity will
like subscribe rate comment five stars
lets you sell weapons you've upgraded
back to the merchant and you get most of
the money that you've put into upgrading
that weapon which is amazing so why
can't Elden ring have the same thing
another thing that can feel so ass
backwards and outdated are the NPC side
quests and how you progress them these
games have always had super convoluted
NPC side quests and I know it's partly
because Miyazaki knows that with the
internet everyone's going to get
together and figure it out so you can
afford to make it complicated whatever I
get that but I still think that some of
these more basic ones should be doable
by just using your common sense it's one
thing to have NPCs not progress their
dialogue or do something until you go
rest or leave the area when it's a
smaller a more linear game but it's an
entirely different thing to have that
same in a massive open world
game where people are supposed to move
around from place to place but will
never do it while you're watching them
so you gotta go rest at a bonfire and
then wait no wait I messed up you gotta
rest again to load the guy in because
it's not night time if you rested and
then died and then came back like what
the I went where the told me
to why does this require so many other
extra unseen steps I only and moan
about this because the writing and voice
acting in this game is so so good like
so heartbreakingly good and because the
storytelling and lore bits are so few
and far between you'll chase
after whatever scraps you can find but
at the end of the day I make these
videos to criticize the things that I
love video games I love them so so so so
very much and I love Elden ring more
than most other video games I am so
eternally grateful to be alive in the
same timeline that from software is
cranking out games of this quality Elden
ring is not only a continuation of the
Dark Souls franchise it is an evolution
of from software's trailblazing game
design a design that I think defined the
last 10 years of gaming and with Elden
ring could very well Define the next 10
Years of Gaming as well a massive
Journey with some of the most beautiful
Vistas I've seen since Windows Vista and
some of the most challenging grueling
bosses that I have taken on and overcome
since Windows Vista thank you to
hitetakamiyazaki and from software for
taking a chance with Demon Souls thank
you for making some of my favorite games
ever made and thank you for watching
this video I'll see you later gamers
foreign