They didn't top bloodborne bro

I think I may be too old for this man, life is hard enough without ramming my head against a brick wall boss for hours at a time, the environments and lore developments in the DLC are fantastic though, I just feel more 'Here we go again' than 'Oh cool! A new area!'

I am burnt out on souls games. After nearly 500 hours across all titles I need to hang it up for a while

Need that armored core i guess lmfao

Yeah I felt the same lol I got 650 hours in ER alone.

Think I just need the next from game that’s not dark fantasy

Bloodborne got everything except the gameplay. That's where elden ring tops it I have way more hours on elden ring than Bloodborne and I have a platinum trophy on it

And here im tryna get into souls games

But idk im in the same situation as you, I dont know if I would be patient enough to do this if its as really hard as they say it is

Especially for someone that never tried these games

I was once in your seat, sir PIMP.

Elden Ring was my first Souls-like/From Software game. I started out clueless and ended up a Lord. Elden Ring became one of the greatest games I have ever played and turned me into a fan of the Souls-like genre.

After Elden Ring I played Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls 3 and then the Elden Ring DLC (Shadow of the Erdtree). All of these are now among my favourite games of all time.

I got Sekiro as well but didn't finish it (got stuck at some boss and eventually moved on with my life).

I want to try Bloodborne next but I'm not really interested in buying a Playstation 4/5. I played Elden Ring and DS1/DS3 on Xbox Series S.

They're totally worth it dude, this is just coming from someone who's played 350+ hours of Elden Ring on one playthrough who's also got stuff going on atm, these are not relaxing games to unwind to lol

The Soulsborne games are some of the best ever made, DS1 is one of the most replayable games ever, the experience of playing the trilogy is really incredible, and if you ask me, Bloodborne is the greatest game of all time, don't get put off by this old timer, these games can give you feelings that no others can

beat the last boss in ~1 hour of trying

not really spoiling anything major but i'll put in spoilers just in case anyone itt is still planning on going in blind

first stage took me a while to figure out but it was pretty easy after learning that i could just stick to him, circle to the left, dodge all his swings and then punish. i was using blood tax on the sword lance so i would just use that to punish and i'd usually get a bleed proc every 2 uses. 2nd stage was some bs though. made it a bit easier by summoning commander andreas when i got the 2nd stage so he could soak up some damage for me

prerelease i saw a bunch of people saying this boss is harder than malenia i definitely disagree. malenia has a genuine 1 hit kill move with a pretty tight dodge window and for that reason she's still harder. this final boss is really only difficult in it's 2nd stage and even then i think it's primarily panic rolling that he punishes. he's definitely tough, but he never felt "unbeatable" to me. don't really see where all the "rng" comments about him are coming from though, it felt like all his moves were fairly telegraphed and there were plenty of windows to heal and attack

overall i thought the dlc was amazing. i disagree with how it seemed most people were reacting to the difficulty of it though. i don't think i'm particularly amazing at these games and i finished in 28 hours and never felt stuck anywhere. for being post game content i felt the difficulty was just what i expected. idk maybe it's because i had just finished my 2nd playthough before the dlc dropped so i was already locked into how to play souls games

a few areas like the hinterlands and the finger ruins felt half baked tbh. i don't need there to be bosses or huge dungeons in those areas but for being such large portions of the map, there wasn't much there. maybe they had bigger plans for those areas but they had to be cut idk

Why did you talk to me like that 😂

But yeah im mostly thinking to get Elden Ring cause it seems more of a spectacle than the other linear ones

I’m busy alot so thats why im contemplating if its even worth it considering it probably wont help me relax it would just tense the situation even more

But I like freedom in games so thats drawing me in

Its not really a old timer thing, nothing is really putting me off more than the fact that I need to be invested more and balancing that with being busy like I replied above

Guess if I do decide to get it, I’d mostly likely look into methods and strats, builds I can abuse in order to simplify the experience just to enjoy the world more

Cause Im sure theres a way, there always is

You havent really beaten elden ring if you used anything other than Lamenters mask tbh

Bloodborne is a worse game than Elden Ring but it wins because it had style points and better overall atmosphere imo

Between DS3, Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Dark Souls or Sekiro I think you can make a case for any of these to be the best

You can, I was in a similar spot as you.

I actually didn't buy the game when it first came out, even though I'm a huge fantasy geek and the game looked amazing to me, cause I had a 6 month old daughter, a bunch of stuff to do at work that spilled over to my personal life & I thought I wouldn't have enough time and patience to play a soulslike, even if it's an open world one. I never played any other FromSoft game before ER.

But I got the game for Christmas later that year from my brother, so I didn't have any choice but to give it a go.

When I got stuck, I'm not ashamed to say I consulted a guide. When I felt like I couldn't beat a boss, I'm not ashamed to say I switched to a more broken build (dual wield blood bandit swords + jump attacks for the win lmao).

Then, as time went on, I found that my skill levels actually increased enough so that I can try a build that's more my preferred playstyle and isn't broken at all (STR+Faith and pure STR). Played the rest of the game on my own terms and enjoyed the hell out of it.

So, there's def a way to make the game a bit easier and not be stuck on an enemy or whatever and still enjoy it. With time, you'll prob get good enough so you'll destroy any boss with a "normal"/non-broken build.

Top 3 game of all time for me, and I'd recommend it to anyone tbh.

I had a similar experience with Death Stranding

I took it up around Covid, July 2020 something like that, didn't like it at all so I just uninstalled it

2 years later around the same time summer 2022 I ended up giving it a go again, felt fully immersed for some reason and I ended up getting a platinum, one of my weirdest most accomplished platinums considering this game is one of the most boring games if you ask certain people about it

So I figured if I can platinum THIS game out of all games, then anything's possible I just need to be in the right mindset

So I feel like I might like this game, I just need to be able to have some time and abuse the builds probably

Shouldn't be no shame in looking at guides neither that's what its for

I can't think for everything, when I play I like to unwind

The depths of your foolishness!

I disagree I think they can definitely be unwinding, at least after your first playthrough. The reason I have so many hours in ER is I love making new builds, I’ll literally vibe to a YouTube video while playing just running across the lands between getting all the gear/items/spells to complete the build while going through the game.

Never realised that lake of rot had so much stuff to it, I've always just run thru it The katana you get from the boss there seems cool tho, kinda wanna use it if I go dex next time around

50 deaths later I’ve finally killed Radahn

I really don’t get the Milady. Anytime I use it in PvP, it’s like I can’t flinch or poise break anyone. But let it be used on me even if I have 88 poise I get flinched with one hit? wtf

This s*** is so irritating

I never really tried online multiplayer until today and man this would be incredibly fun if it wasn't for the lag/input lag. Y'all think an ethernet cable would make a significant difference or is this standard with the online mp? I'm on Wifi.

Got a lot of souls games to get through. But the bullet and bought a pc setup . Gonna wait for sekiro to hit sale on steam and ill replay that on ultra high settings

I aint never lied

Its amazing lmao and its aesthetic is also dope, i took all my int extra stats and jammed them into arcane since i prefer faith spells better. Made the sword even more op.

Oh s*** i didnt know that

I sent Thollier to Trina and hes stuck in a half asleep state atm not progessing

I did what Priestess asked me too and i got her weapon and her form for dragon transformation, i'll def do the other way in ng++

Her weapon she gives you and her stone to transform is super dope, i like cosplaying in one of the dragon form while using beast claws lmao

Didnt read the spoiler stuff but yeah i agree on difficulty. I get through these games easier than most people, but that still doesnt change that it still feels the same baseline wise. Its not a huge difference.

And there is literally a mechanic that makes everything easier.

Only the intial area before getting reused to everything and Messmer himself felt like a step above in difficulty - but thats literally what scardutree fragments are for and its specifically baked into Messmer and the Lava Golems.

But we go through this with every FS game. Even AC6. Its ridiculous.

And most of the time imo, its people that make the experience harder than it actually is. Not using items, not being aware of your surroundings, not trying new strats out, dont read, put a dumb arbitrary restriction on themselves or they literally upgrading their stats/weapon randomly (which is bad in pretty much every rpg not just FS ones).

Lot of people do literally just head first in without any thought or plan and then cry and wonder why they been stuck on a boss or area for half of a day.

This game is not harder than Sekiro or the Bloodborne dungeons. Thise are the two benchmarks omo for what "hard" is in FS. ER and every kther FS game is challenging as but its not impossible.

I dont get it.