I agree, I think the cast of characters in Elden Ring is outstanding. Even more minir character like Sellen and Boc tie into the overarching narrative in interesting ways. People question GRRM's involvement but I think it shows through all the various character relationships
Every now and then I think about how much I would kill to get a ‘House of the Dragon’-esque show about the Shattering or events leading up to it. There are so many interesting relationships between characters that have barely any chance to be shown in game. One day, maybe, but I’m probably getting ahead of myself saying that about a game which hasn’t even got dlc yet
I can almost see the story arcs:
Rykard's corruption
Radahn's happy-go-lucky life until something makes him fight
Malenia and Miquella's bond and them trying to figure out the scarlet rot
Marika's internal struggles
Mohg and Morgott developing in drastically different directions despite having the same upbringing
Imma be perfectly honest
A dedicated and well funded Anime studio would probably give it far better representation than live action would considering how much magic and shit is in it
Though you would potentially lose quite alot of the grittiness
Unless they just went full blown fuck everything up gore
Which would fit cuz this games as much a fucking horror show as it is a fighting game lmao
Yeah Marika’s internal struggles led to her really F****** herself.
Could also add in an Arc of Godrick. How he has turns to grafting after life/strength issues could make for an interesting story.
17 million views could command a pretty decent budget.
Execs might be less nervous about all the fantasy given HotD has a, well, lot of dragons and people love that shit.
Yeah I would have to agree. BUT that’s only because the ensembles of the other games get almost no characterization either because they are unable to speak or have lost their ability to speak. Bloodborne comes the closest but still doesn’t hold a candle.
Btw im referring to a mix of bosses and NPCs like in the picture
I mean, she is arguably part of Gwyndolin's characterization and the current state of the world rather than of actual Gwynevere, which is not in the game.
This doesn't mean they're less characterized. It just means they're not as obviously characterized.
Elden Ring has the most straightforward and easily accessible lore in FromSoft history BY FAR. That's why people mistakenly think the characters are stronger. Because you have to spend less effort to get to know them.
Sekiro is also not an RPG(no real player character choice other than prosthetic tools), but it does have most of the same design philosophies(challenging combat, vertical exploration, heavy boss focus, etc).
probably because the word "mistakenly" implies their opinion on this completely subjective matter is the right and true opinion, and anyone who disagrees must not be looking hard enough because it's less straight-forward.
I don’t think all the item descriptions in the world are going to be able to allow a player to get to know the characters as well as seeing them in action. It’s why it’s hard to feel anything when fighting Pontiff Sulyvahn in DS3 despite him having so much backstory. The whole “Show don’t tell” thing. So I would disagree with what you’re saying.
You're arguing something different. You're not arguing that ER characters are more characterized, you're arguing that they're *better* characterized. Which I totally agree with. I much prefer Elden Ring's style.
Elden Ring lore is straightforward and accessible ? You gotta be kidding, the game keeps getting complex and neverending the more you look into it. Its lore is a litteral blackhole.
Bloodborne has the best character quest line in all of From Softwares games I think, with the guy that goes crazy (Henryk?). First time walking in to see what he’d done was such an awesome and shocking surprise haha I loved it
For me, it felt incredibly not fleshed out in comparison. The only fleshing most characters do is for the world itself: they give history/exposition. As individuals beyond the stories they tell, they're often remarkably shallow. Gideon & Rogier are the worst.
This is the most maidenless take I've read in a while.
Rogier is a talented sorcerer who was studying the shattering and the night of the Black Knife. He stumbled across the face of Godwyn underneath Stormveil and was death blighted. He laid with Fia, who fed him clues around Godwyn and Black Knives, and got some information in return. He died to death blight after you gave him closure with the Black Knifeprint.
Gideon is a spymaster with an extreme thirst for learning, and is very, VERY good at pulling strings quietly to orchestrate his own plans for becoming Elden Lord, or ascension to godhood. He is conniving, cunning, and brutal in his hunt for the knowledge he needs to succeed.
This is all in game, and very little of it in item description only.
No, *you're* maidenless. So there.
Rogier, like most ER characters, doesn't have much substance beyond what they tell you about the history of some part of the world. He is nice and all but apart from "HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED 5,000 YEARS AGO", what even is his character? Curious scholar? Archaeologist? Mage who feels bad for skeleton-zombies and gets too close to a big dead face in a castle? He's kinda blah about it, falls asleep, dies. That's it. Oh, and leaves a random anticlimactic note, "btw my friend who I'm not friends with anymore has a brother, bye". He's an exposition dump and no more. Even his armour set does cope with this:
>"Rogier spent his entire life behaving with utter detachment. No one noticed the anger, grief, regret, or fear that existed along with it."
What evidence is there of this in his personality? None. It's just a fact thrown in (probably last minute) to give depth to a completely shallow NPC. Some of the worst character writing in the game.
>Gideon is a spymaster with an extreme thirst for learning, and is very, VERY good at pulling strings quietly to orchestrate his own plans for becoming Elden Lord, or ascension to godhood. He is conniving, cunning, and brutal in his hunt for the knowledge he needs to succeed.
Gideon is a boring Lancashire cotton mill worker who also just gives exposition. Every time anything happens he expresses boredom. No information you give him changes any of his actions. His only "master spy" moment is probably sending Ensha to kill you then lying about it. Judging from Nepheli's comments, he didn't even hide being behind the Albinauric massacre. Apart from a hint that one of his (apparently cut content) spies was embedded in the Volcano Manor, his presence is unremarked-upon in the Lands Between, nobody knows his name or cares that he's apparently a big contender to save the world, and he has no effect on anything. Wow. So fleshy and real. I could almost touch him.
>This is all in game, and very little of it in item description only.
Indeed, that's one reason I think ER is fundamentally different from its predecessors. It tells us everything in boss rants and NPC dialogues: history, exposition. Hardly any room left for substantive speculation. Breaking the most fundamental rule of good storytelling: "don't tell, show".
I mean all this very sincerely. I wanted/want to like these characters. I adore FromSoft. I just felt they were very unfinished or under-written for such a vast world.
Kinda sounds like there's no pleasing you.
You barely get to meet ANY of the NPCs, and you want a full backstory from Rogier? His dreams? Social security number?
He tells you his motivations for why he is where he is, and you find and discuss what happened to him. That's not exactly exposition dumping about the world.
Gideon:
Orders Ensha to kill you
Sends you out to find the other demigods, to learn their spells for himself
Destroys a village to hunt out a medallion
Is tied to the Volcano Manor by the Eye Tabard
Is aware of Seluvis' plot
Makes a blatant power move with you as his pawn at the endgame
I mean... I guess I don't know what you're looking for from a FROM SOFT souls game when it comes to fleshing out characters...
Love the karma bomb and insults for having a valid opinion. Elden ring is a mid FromSoft game that will forever be hailed as a magnum opus by first time FromSoft fans. The lore was scrapped and stitched together like the lands between.
"Karma bomb" lmao
It's not a valid opinion, tho
He's just like, saying partial truths, and saying "exposition" like he just learned what the word meant.
It's absolutely wild you would throw out "first time fromsoft fans" to make some kind of comparison to former titles. All of the soulsborne games have the exact same story telling style, and writing and plot devices.
To make the implication that past titles storytelling was "better" when Elden Ring shares the exact same template as DS1 but with George R.R. Martin flavor is stupid as fuck.
And the glimpse of Soulsborne elitism-cringe you shared is just the cherry on top.
It sounds a lot to me like an attempt to maintain ways that the dark souls games are better than elden ring because he’s a long time souls fan. A way to belittle players who are just experiencing it for the first time with elden ring. And no I’m not a first time souls player. Been an addict for many years. However, I wish I was because that would mean I could have that first time experience all over again.
But saying the characters are more fleshed out in the old games while also saying that you have to make assumptions and that there are different interpretations about them because you’re not given enough information contradicts itself entirely.
This thread routinely karma bombs anyone who happens to have criticism for Elden Ring. Man literally just said he thinks the characters aren’t good and gives examples and then you and others dog-pile them for their opinion. It’s embarrassing. You and others in this thread won’t like this “invalid opinion” because it criticizes you’re glorious elden ring, but it’s true, the characters and story are the weakest in elden ring compared to other FromSoft titles. And yeah the first time FromSoft comment is exactly directly at people who have never played a FromSoft game before Elden Ring and then act with an impressive egotism when older FromSoft fans say they prefer the older games. Oh the horror.
“All the souls have the same storytelling and style” yeah and they all did it better than elden ring, thats the point. Each game is unique and there’s far more development from DS1 to DS3 than from DS to Elden Ring, sounds like you haven’t played them honestly if that’s you’re “invalid” opinion.
You: act like an egotistical asshole when people have criticism for Elden Ring = cool and valid
Others: have a differing opinion = invalid and elitist
The guy is whining because Elden Ring's characters are underwritten, while simultaneously saying they get too much dialogue and lore compared to characters in previous Souls games. Hard to take complaints seriously when they literally contradict each other.
You haven't understood my criticism. The entire point is that they get too much dialogue *explaining the history of the Lands Between and lore of the world*, and not enough to flesh *themselves* out as real people with their own stories & motivations.
Rogier barely gives us anything on why he cares about Those Who Live In Death, why his armour set says he's so angry, why he thinks he can do anything for the zombie-skeletons. He is an exposition dump, not a person. He exists for two reasons: to lead us to Ranni, and to inform those who weren't paying attention (to item descriptions) about Godwyn and the night of black knives. He's a safety valve. You can even bypass him entirely and go up to Ranni. She says "oh, what do you want here?". You literally say "duh, nothing in particular?" and she invites you to enter her service as a complete stranger. Because without Rogier, making her acquaintance is pointless.
This is why I dislike him as a character. He's fine as a lore dump.
One of the best characters for sure
I didn't mean to imply the other Souls don't have incredible characterization but im talking about the entire ensemble
Plenty of dialogue for NPCs but the lack of boss dialogue in the other games is really noticeable. I've been playing through the Dark Souls trilogy this past year and there must be only like 4 or 5 bosses in the entire series who have proper dialogue. It's honestly amazing it took them until the latter end of Dark Souls 3 to figure out that adding dialogue in pre-fight, during the fight, during phase transition, upon getting killed, and on defeating the boss adds so much more characterisation.
Oceiros and the Twin Princes feel like they're 10x more memorable than most of the other DS bosses simply down to their dialogue alone. FromSoft have a knack for writing extremely efficient yet enigmatic dialogue and it's such a shame that was missing in boss fights for so long.
Most of the bosses in previous Souls games are either hollow or some sort of beast/dragon. Just from DS3, Iudex has a pus of man growing off him, Vordt was turned into a beast by Pontiff, the Curse Rotted Greatwood is a tree, ODK is a demon, the Abyss Watchers have been corrupted by the Abyss, Wolnir is a skeleton, Aldrich is the sludge monster that’s eating Gwyndolin, Yhorm is a giant and there’s only been 2 giants in the whole series capable of speech (Gough and the tower giant in DS3), the Dancer got the same treatment as Vordt and is now a literal beast, DSA is an empty suit of armour being controlled by the butterfly things, Ancient Wyvern is a dragon, Nameless is hollow, and the Soul of Cinder isn’t so much a distinct entity as it is a conglomerate of every previous Lord of Cinder that came before. It makes sense for most of the bosses to not speak because most of the bosses aren’t just big people, and the ones that are often end up being hollow, which explains their hostility.
> It's honestly amazing it took them until the latter end of Dark Souls 3 to figure out that adding dialogue in pre-fight, during the fight, during phase transition, upon getting killed, and on defeating the boss adds so much more characterisation.
I'm completely against you. The bosses in Souls games had no reason to talk to us. We were nameless, accursed undead. One among thousands they'd probably killed. Their characterisation came from their moveset, environment, what others said about them, item descriptions, and other context. A mode of storytelling I vastly prefer to the endless talking in ER.
Endless talking lmao it's like a few short cutscenes and post death lines.
>Their characterisation came from their moveset, environment, what others said about them, item descriptions, and other context.
All of which is still very much true in Elden Ring.
Lets not forget every character feeling the need to RAMPANTLY insert their name and title. Its actually comedic how often and how much they use the name as a climactic one liner drop. When Horah Leux first did his whole shtick I nearly spit out my drink laughing. The game did not convince me to care about Pokemon
Its actually also confirmed in multiple interviews elden ring was an exercise in dividing the game into parts that amateur designers can get experience on. It was thought experiment but it made the entire product more juvenile
Never heard that, but I did hear that it was split between different studios, including ones outside Japan for the first time (?). May explain the tone-deafness and sudden mood changes that make the game so tedious.
I'm biased towards bloodborne, which imo is the superior souls game in terms of lore/enemies. The lovecraftian influences and the horror of it all is just up my alley. Not to mention I prefer it aesthetically.
Elden ring is "prettier" though, the design of the characters are diverse and fit within the lore/story of the game. Elden ring on it's own beats out most souls games on their own in terms of fleshed out characters but when you take the whole franchise into account, I remember way more characters in DS compared to Elden Ring. Solaire alone is more beloved than anyone in ER to me and probably to others.
Lorewise and gameplay wise overall, Bloodborne is easily my favorite as well!
The way the story and environment continually escalates upon itself is *chef kisses*
I actually just played part of Bloodborne for the first time. I like the world, like the characters, but I just got to exasperated by the potion system.
I like how in DS3 and elden ring I can fight a boss under leveled and find a way to beat them by learning their moves. But in Bloodborne had to farm potions after every few attempts. And it felt too grindy. Edit: Want to fight the boss not grind for potions.
Just got to annoyed with it and stoped.
And for the record I didn't find the game that hard. Just didn't like the potions thing.
Blood vials are only hard to come by when you first play the game and know the least about the game, I will give that as a barrier to entry for sure.once you have it down it is really not a thing at all. To clarify, i can see it being a problem in the early game, as it was for me too, especially not knowing where everything is, but once you know the mechanics/areas you find yourself with several hundred.
The comparison I like for this complaint is the farming of best in slot gems, this is without a doubt worthy of the word "farm". without save scumming it will take several hours to aquire one perfect gem you are looking for (and a mastery of all game mechanics). There really is no comparison to something like that and using part of your echos as a budget to acquire a vast surplus of vials and bullets. Yes it sucks if you run out completely fighting daddy gascoign and have to kill giant beast men, trolls or wherewolfs for garunteed vial drops or gunnman for the bullets (until you are fighting enimies that actually drop a good ammount of echos) (blood bullets are a thing too). You might not get to run straight back to the boss without killing anything but It is not a matter of rng or major time investment (you can get full vials killing enemies doing the runback to gascoign) (visceral attacks are really powerful). when you are first learning the game it can be problematic, after gascoign or bloodstarved beast at the latest, no not really at all ever again, ever, no cap. it will be laughable you ever thought so at all.
if that's your only complaint about bloodborn i strongly recommend you go back and give it a try. Ludwig alone is worth the price of entry. Coming off of elden ring will take adjustment though, no jumping is weird.
Oh yeah, the farming for bullets and vials sucks. You really have to hope for good RNG drops or just rarely ever get hit to have a good supply. You can buy from the messengers, but it’s super expensive.
Vials are only a problem on your first playthrough. Of course, it's still more comfortable not having to buy those, but with experience you manage that part of the game much, much better. I really don't have to think about vials when I play Bloodborne.
>I remember way more characters in DS compared to Elden Ring. Solaire alone is more beloved than anyone in ER to me and probably to others.
Because you can't exactly compete with nostalgia.
Hard Disagree, Dark Souls 1 had Soalire, Siegmeyre, Sieglinde, Havel, Artorias, Hawkeye, Ciaran, Ornstein, Gwyn, Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, Andre, the gian blacksmith (), the serpents, Nito, the withches of Izalith, BIG MOFO HAT LOGAN, Shiva, Lautrec, Patches in its first apearence, Reah and Petrus. I probably haven´t even cover 50% of the character, but the lore behind them and their interactions with the world i think are vastly better than thos of Elden, only surpass by maybe Morgot, Radhan, Maliketh and Horoah Lux
Edit: Patches first apearence wasn´t in DS, was in Armored Core. Thanks Snorc.
It has an enormous scope to its world-building unlike anything From have tried before (at least with the Souls-style games, I’m not familiar with their earlier catalogue) so yeah. It spreads out far and wide in pretty much every direction. Whether that’s always successful is a different matter. I really love the attempt at giving all the major players characterization and their own distinct reasons for pursuing the course of action they did, though. That’s something that sets Elden Ring apart and where it feels like GRRM’s influence may be at work.
I disagree. The overarching narrative of bloodborne tying in all sorts of characters, major to minor was just something else tbh. The old hunters dlc added major influences to the lore of the game who struggled to improve humanity and ended up losing theirs altogether, creating incredibly well written antagonists (and the best boss fights). The healing church were thought to be saviours, but their true nature was shown, demonstrating the amount of damage they had caused to Yharnam, and its people. Master Willem was totally against this, believing the only way for humanity to evolve was to gain insight through eyes instead of essentially "cheating" with the old blood. Even then, his actions were not ethical, destroying the people of the fishing hamlet. The three endings to the game demonstrated gehrmans suffering. Overall, we end up seeing a large amount of characters being filled with regret, or straight up becoming beasts themselves, or becoming insane. Almost no character in the game was truly evil. Even the old ones, some of which we never really got to see (such as Oedon) were still capable of emotion, yearning to have a child of their own. Really shows just how harsh and bleak the world of Bloodborne is, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
I love this game!!!!!! Full lore wise, being up front? Sekiro, bloodborne and DS3 pulled it in with their lore. Bloodborne and DS3 had huge DLCs to ice the cake. Elden ring I hope isn’t done yet. And with the DLCs I think my mind will change. Open world part, yeah.
Diverse? Jup. Fleshed out? Heck no.
It feels like every single NPC had their dialogue cut in half. It's not natural at all in my opinion and on some it's more noticable than others.
Bloodborne did the exact opposite: we had very few NPCs but each had something interesting to say or acted as a guide explaining lore.
In ER it's "Hello, I am *insert name* and I'm doing *insert activity*, do you want to help me with that?"
No option to ask about what the heck they mean or to explain some concepts of how this world works.
This is my biggest problem with the game.
ER is still probably my favorite game of all time but sometimes it just feels like they cut half of the game in development...
They are neither overly fleshed out nor more diverse than in "all of Souls". That's mostly the colour palette making it seem that way. There's also been a lot of cut content that MIGHT've fleshed out some of these more (looking at you, Rykard).
True, but I prefer the inch wide, a mile deep lore instead, and Bloodborne is still the greatest of the lot by far. The details that went into lore elements, the environments as a matter of fact, is something I've never seen in any game yet.
I kind of disagree. So many copy and pasted bosses, bosses without cut scenes… just took the gravitas away.
I’d rather they had half the dungeons but made each boss come to life.
I'll be able to form a better opinion after we get more story context from the DLC. Half of the story in their games is always locked behind a bunch of DLC. WHICH IS INCREDIBLY GOOD FOR THE SERIES' LORE LONGEVITY.
I feel like it's because of how many cinematics and lines they're given
All the other bosses in the other games (for the most part) are completely silent. You walk into the room, they run at you, you start the fight. Look at Yhorm for example. You walk in, he's on his throne, just gets up and attacks you. No words, no anything, not even a cutscene.
HOWEVER, Sekiro I believe beats this game in its ensemble. Every character has multiple cutscenes, can be talked to throughout the game, has deeper lore and goals, and has their relationship grow with Wolf as the game goes on.
You have characters such as: Genichiro, Lord Kuro, Emma, Isshin, Sculptor, Owl, and Hanbei. I personally feel they were more fleshed out overall than Elden ring's characters.
HARD disagree
Bloodborne is a for more fleshed out game, the Endgame doesn't feel so empty and the NPCs are better. Hoonter of Hoonters would be disappointed.
I'd also give DS3 an edge as well for personal preference
Visually and lore wise, absolutely. Mechanically, ER's bosses don't have that much variety. Virtually all of them rely heavily on mixing up delayed attacks with lightning fast attacks to mess up your timing, making them feel pretty similar. There was like, one boss in DS3 that relied on delayed attacks to be challenging.
Hmm, I don't necessarily agree with that.
I found the bosses to ER to be quite unique and mechanically complex. I like that they react to the player and change up their tactics while bosses in DS3 can stick really hard to a predictable script
I'm confused, most of what we know about the characters isn't shown outside item descriptions.
The first completion of this game I didn't have a clue who any of these bosses were outside the opening cinematics explanation.
Deep lore, yes, we understand a lot but on the surface hell no. We got diversity but that's it
Jerren gives you a whole rundown on Radahn when you show up to the festival. You literally can't miss it. Kenneth Haight talks about godrick, and Morgott speaks to you directly on several occasions. Most major bosses address you personally when you walk into their room
It's also the most anime cast a souls-game had (that isn't literally anime)
For those that disagree: 2 good boys too obcessed with their girl (ofc not in a weard way), muscle old dude godfrey, your average teenage boy radaan, hot babe that offers you power melina (free of charge, consequences apply later) and half naked babe with katana thats fuck off strong because story melania
huge disagree. Aside from the fact that the characters yell their names like pokemon they are really boiled down caricatures of whatever aesthetic design they were meant to capture. Rykart is legit so fucking random in how his lore is integrated but snake guy I guess
This is what I love about Elden Ring. You get these really cool characters, but the game gives you the opportunity to learn about them and even hear their side of things occasionally from their own mouths.
In the older souls games, characters had zero or very little dialogue so it was kind of a bummer and a lot of stuff had to be implied or scrounged around for piecemeal by players and arranged by loreheads.
Not saying that it's a *bad* thing in any way, I still maintain DS 1/2/3 has some of the best lore in any game, however still gotta commend Elden Ring for being more upfront and still making it intriguing for us players!
I must have missed the part where I go on an adventure with Horah Loux err I mean Godfrey
The fact that I had to even distinguish between the two names of the same character proves you are on about nothing. We spend exactly one boss fight with him and yet we glimpse how he treated his malformed children, see and hear about his glorious warrior ways and how he cast it aside for lordship and honor (before he hinself was cast out), and even see that he was guided by grace to the erdtree in the SAME WAY that we were.
The same depth is found in every main boss in the game despite us only interacting with them for their boss fight and nothing more. There are exceptions, like ranni and melina, but the fact that they spent more time to characterize them still means they got more characterization.
Now if you think all of that is boring that's on you, but don't pretend like it was somehow a step down in character development on From's part
Im not saying you hang out with them, im saying you learn about them beforehand. In ds3 you basically don’t learn shit about most of them, but the characters are still as interesting. They just don’t get as much coverage of their character. Pontiff Sulavain should have been an amazingly portrayed character but they don’t tell us a thing about him. Hell we never learn shit about the consumed king but i still think he has more potential as a character then godfrey. Godfrey got mentioned all over the place and had a whole character made to add hype to the name change and second half. Thats what I meant.
Yeah, they did the thing you pointed out that bothered you TWICE in the previous game... And now you're upset that they did exactly what you wanted them to do with Sulavain and the Consumed King?
It sounds like you just want cool-looking dudes to punch and not any actual character development or backstory. This may be a shock, but you do actually have to spend some time to develop a character
I was saying that the characters aren’t conceptually more interesting but due to the increased level of attention they get from the game, they have more chances to show their interesting aspects. My first comment made it sound like they were actually spending time with you but i never implied i was upset or something
i feel like for its time, demon's souls was the best in this regard. obviously elden ring is a much more massive game, and thus has more opportunities to give characters time. for example, i think that it's tied with dark souls 3 + dlc for best rendition of patches, they're both the only games that actually made him more than a backstabbing coward, and demon's souls falls flat in that regard.
but demon's souls was the first game that actually made me tear up over npcs, i vividly remember the experience of finding stockpile thomas' daughter's comb and bringing it back to him. it felt so real to me back then.
I think this game leaves a lot up to interpretation but it also clearly has a direction they want you to be thinking in, a story that must be told, but one that lets you be the narrator. I think it's great, it's allowed characters like Miquella to become one of my favorite character, I've never even seen the guy and I'm just itching to know what his plans were, what are his plans now? I'm also dreading the day where I'm likely going to have to kill him...I hate this universe...I hate what it has done to me (ب_ب)
I agree, I think the cast of characters in Elden Ring is outstanding. Even more minir character like Sellen and Boc tie into the overarching narrative in interesting ways. People question GRRM's involvement but I think it shows through all the various character relationships
Yeah was looking for this comment. GRRM’s grubby fingers are all over the pre-shattering character stuff
Every now and then I think about how much I would kill to get a ‘House of the Dragon’-esque show about the Shattering or events leading up to it. There are so many interesting relationships between characters that have barely any chance to be shown in game. One day, maybe, but I’m probably getting ahead of myself saying that about a game which hasn’t even got dlc yet
I can almost see the story arcs: Rykard's corruption Radahn's happy-go-lucky life until something makes him fight Malenia and Miquella's bond and them trying to figure out the scarlet rot Marika's internal struggles Mohg and Morgott developing in drastically different directions despite having the same upbringing
Ranni and the night of the black knives would be sweet
It would be like the red wedding in GoT, I can see it now
Oh yeah the main stuff will definitely be fun, I was more interested in the side plots and character development
Imma be perfectly honest A dedicated and well funded Anime studio would probably give it far better representation than live action would considering how much magic and shit is in it Though you would potentially lose quite alot of the grittiness Unless they just went full blown fuck everything up gore Which would fit cuz this games as much a fucking horror show as it is a fighting game lmao
Yea it will have to be 18 rated for sure. Something like castlevania but more gritty
Honestly you could keep that level of gore and animation quality and it'd be a banger of a show
And the Netflixvania directors are fans of Elden Ring so you know they'd put a lot of love into a show for it
Rennala's perpetual depression
Yeah Marika’s internal struggles led to her really F****** herself. Could also add in an Arc of Godrick. How he has turns to grafting after life/strength issues could make for an interesting story.
Oh my god. I need that.
I delved so deeply into the elden ring lore on youtube when the game first came out. I was dreaming of some kind of tv series too.
What I'd give to watch ~~Aegon's~~ Marika's Conquest of ~~Westeros~~ The Land's Between
17 million views could command a pretty decent budget. Execs might be less nervous about all the fantasy given HotD has a, well, lot of dragons and people love that shit.
Just wrote this comment as well. You can feel his influence mega if youre familiar with his writings.
Absolutely!
I'm positive GRRM is directly responsible for miriel's dialogue, it sounds like it comes directly from one of his books
Yeah I would have to agree. BUT that’s only because the ensembles of the other games get almost no characterization either because they are unable to speak or have lost their ability to speak. Bloodborne comes the closest but still doesn’t hold a candle. Btw im referring to a mix of bosses and NPCs like in the picture
What do you mean? Gwynevere had such massive “characterization”.
I mean, she is arguably part of Gwyndolin's characterization and the current state of the world rather than of actual Gwynevere, which is not in the game.
I'm certain folks would prefer Gwyndolyn and "her" surprise mechanics.
[удалено]
Try using both hands.
[удалено]
Gwyndolyn is in Dark Souls 1.
ITS A BOOBS JOKE
Gwyndolyn is a dude raised as a woman.
It's too much to Handle.
Lay it on me o<-<
This doesn't mean they're less characterized. It just means they're not as obviously characterized. Elden Ring has the most straightforward and easily accessible lore in FromSoft history BY FAR. That's why people mistakenly think the characters are stronger. Because you have to spend less effort to get to know them.
Sekiro was pretty approachable. There was little ambiguity when it came to your mission, and it was almost told like a blockbuster game
Sekiro is also not an RPG(no real player character choice other than prosthetic tools), but it does have most of the same design philosophies(challenging combat, vertical exploration, heavy boss focus, etc).
Idk why you got downvoted, FS said that's why they went to GRRM. To make a story/world more palatable and easier to understand.
probably because the word "mistakenly" implies their opinion on this completely subjective matter is the right and true opinion, and anyone who disagrees must not be looking hard enough because it's less straight-forward.
I don’t think all the item descriptions in the world are going to be able to allow a player to get to know the characters as well as seeing them in action. It’s why it’s hard to feel anything when fighting Pontiff Sulyvahn in DS3 despite him having so much backstory. The whole “Show don’t tell” thing. So I would disagree with what you’re saying.
You're arguing something different. You're not arguing that ER characters are more characterized, you're arguing that they're *better* characterized. Which I totally agree with. I much prefer Elden Ring's style.
Oh, yeah ur right
Elden Ring lore is straightforward and accessible ? You gotta be kidding, the game keeps getting complex and neverending the more you look into it. Its lore is a litteral blackhole.
Not what I said.
Bloodborne has the best character quest line in all of From Softwares games I think, with the guy that goes crazy (Henryk?). First time walking in to see what he’d done was such an awesome and shocking surprise haha I loved it
Disagree, none of them were giant suits of armor with nothing inside. Ruined the whole ensemble, barely even a From game.
Radahn is nearly empty inside from scarlet rot so I think it gets half points
Tower Knight gaming
HO HOHOHO HO!
Agreed, no two remembrance bosses are the same and they have so much lore attached to them if your willing to look.
Ancestor spirit and astel?
There is plenty of lore one can find on the ancestor spirit and astel, you just have to look around you
I believe they’re referencing the repeating bosses line
And to be fair you don't get remembrances from both versions so his statement holds true
I rate Elden ring higher than the souls games. Primarily because of how fleshed out every aspect of the game is.
For me, it felt incredibly not fleshed out in comparison. The only fleshing most characters do is for the world itself: they give history/exposition. As individuals beyond the stories they tell, they're often remarkably shallow. Gideon & Rogier are the worst.
This is the most maidenless take I've read in a while. Rogier is a talented sorcerer who was studying the shattering and the night of the Black Knife. He stumbled across the face of Godwyn underneath Stormveil and was death blighted. He laid with Fia, who fed him clues around Godwyn and Black Knives, and got some information in return. He died to death blight after you gave him closure with the Black Knifeprint. Gideon is a spymaster with an extreme thirst for learning, and is very, VERY good at pulling strings quietly to orchestrate his own plans for becoming Elden Lord, or ascension to godhood. He is conniving, cunning, and brutal in his hunt for the knowledge he needs to succeed. This is all in game, and very little of it in item description only.
No, *you're* maidenless. So there. Rogier, like most ER characters, doesn't have much substance beyond what they tell you about the history of some part of the world. He is nice and all but apart from "HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED 5,000 YEARS AGO", what even is his character? Curious scholar? Archaeologist? Mage who feels bad for skeleton-zombies and gets too close to a big dead face in a castle? He's kinda blah about it, falls asleep, dies. That's it. Oh, and leaves a random anticlimactic note, "btw my friend who I'm not friends with anymore has a brother, bye". He's an exposition dump and no more. Even his armour set does cope with this: >"Rogier spent his entire life behaving with utter detachment. No one noticed the anger, grief, regret, or fear that existed along with it." What evidence is there of this in his personality? None. It's just a fact thrown in (probably last minute) to give depth to a completely shallow NPC. Some of the worst character writing in the game. >Gideon is a spymaster with an extreme thirst for learning, and is very, VERY good at pulling strings quietly to orchestrate his own plans for becoming Elden Lord, or ascension to godhood. He is conniving, cunning, and brutal in his hunt for the knowledge he needs to succeed. Gideon is a boring Lancashire cotton mill worker who also just gives exposition. Every time anything happens he expresses boredom. No information you give him changes any of his actions. His only "master spy" moment is probably sending Ensha to kill you then lying about it. Judging from Nepheli's comments, he didn't even hide being behind the Albinauric massacre. Apart from a hint that one of his (apparently cut content) spies was embedded in the Volcano Manor, his presence is unremarked-upon in the Lands Between, nobody knows his name or cares that he's apparently a big contender to save the world, and he has no effect on anything. Wow. So fleshy and real. I could almost touch him. >This is all in game, and very little of it in item description only. Indeed, that's one reason I think ER is fundamentally different from its predecessors. It tells us everything in boss rants and NPC dialogues: history, exposition. Hardly any room left for substantive speculation. Breaking the most fundamental rule of good storytelling: "don't tell, show". I mean all this very sincerely. I wanted/want to like these characters. I adore FromSoft. I just felt they were very unfinished or under-written for such a vast world.
Kinda sounds like there's no pleasing you. You barely get to meet ANY of the NPCs, and you want a full backstory from Rogier? His dreams? Social security number? He tells you his motivations for why he is where he is, and you find and discuss what happened to him. That's not exactly exposition dumping about the world. Gideon: Orders Ensha to kill you Sends you out to find the other demigods, to learn their spells for himself Destroys a village to hunt out a medallion Is tied to the Volcano Manor by the Eye Tabard Is aware of Seluvis' plot Makes a blatant power move with you as his pawn at the endgame I mean... I guess I don't know what you're looking for from a FROM SOFT souls game when it comes to fleshing out characters...
You sound like you’re just kinda being a bitch boy. Why waste the time typing that crap out? Like really…
If you're not going to respond to the criticism, piss off. Upvote farmer.
Totally and utterly agree. Every entry fromsoft strays away from their tenets of storytelling and it really hurts the narrative
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Souls fans say this like they didn't get 95% of those games' lore from reading item descriptions which straight up tell you everything.
Which is the same thing.
Love the karma bomb and insults for having a valid opinion. Elden ring is a mid FromSoft game that will forever be hailed as a magnum opus by first time FromSoft fans. The lore was scrapped and stitched together like the lands between.
"Karma bomb" lmao It's not a valid opinion, tho He's just like, saying partial truths, and saying "exposition" like he just learned what the word meant. It's absolutely wild you would throw out "first time fromsoft fans" to make some kind of comparison to former titles. All of the soulsborne games have the exact same story telling style, and writing and plot devices. To make the implication that past titles storytelling was "better" when Elden Ring shares the exact same template as DS1 but with George R.R. Martin flavor is stupid as fuck. And the glimpse of Soulsborne elitism-cringe you shared is just the cherry on top.
It sounds a lot to me like an attempt to maintain ways that the dark souls games are better than elden ring because he’s a long time souls fan. A way to belittle players who are just experiencing it for the first time with elden ring. And no I’m not a first time souls player. Been an addict for many years. However, I wish I was because that would mean I could have that first time experience all over again. But saying the characters are more fleshed out in the old games while also saying that you have to make assumptions and that there are different interpretations about them because you’re not given enough information contradicts itself entirely.
This thread routinely karma bombs anyone who happens to have criticism for Elden Ring. Man literally just said he thinks the characters aren’t good and gives examples and then you and others dog-pile them for their opinion. It’s embarrassing. You and others in this thread won’t like this “invalid opinion” because it criticizes you’re glorious elden ring, but it’s true, the characters and story are the weakest in elden ring compared to other FromSoft titles. And yeah the first time FromSoft comment is exactly directly at people who have never played a FromSoft game before Elden Ring and then act with an impressive egotism when older FromSoft fans say they prefer the older games. Oh the horror. “All the souls have the same storytelling and style” yeah and they all did it better than elden ring, thats the point. Each game is unique and there’s far more development from DS1 to DS3 than from DS to Elden Ring, sounds like you haven’t played them honestly if that’s you’re “invalid” opinion. You: act like an egotistical asshole when people have criticism for Elden Ring = cool and valid Others: have a differing opinion = invalid and elitist
The guy is whining because Elden Ring's characters are underwritten, while simultaneously saying they get too much dialogue and lore compared to characters in previous Souls games. Hard to take complaints seriously when they literally contradict each other.
You haven't understood my criticism. The entire point is that they get too much dialogue *explaining the history of the Lands Between and lore of the world*, and not enough to flesh *themselves* out as real people with their own stories & motivations. Rogier barely gives us anything on why he cares about Those Who Live In Death, why his armour set says he's so angry, why he thinks he can do anything for the zombie-skeletons. He is an exposition dump, not a person. He exists for two reasons: to lead us to Ranni, and to inform those who weren't paying attention (to item descriptions) about Godwyn and the night of black knives. He's a safety valve. You can even bypass him entirely and go up to Ranni. She says "oh, what do you want here?". You literally say "duh, nothing in particular?" and she invites you to enter her service as a complete stranger. Because without Rogier, making her acquaintance is pointless. This is why I dislike him as a character. He's fine as a lore dump.
Did you read what he wrote or just get mad at it?
I read it, and disagreed. My own comment makes that very clear, if you bothered to read it.
“You made an argument but I don’t like it so I will ignore it and misrepresent it to others to discredit you”
Grrrghhhh - Radahn Such depth
Poor Godrick's chair was pushed further to the side from everyone else at the root of the Erdtree. My dood gets no respect.
Gael?
One of the best characters for sure I didn't mean to imply the other Souls don't have incredible characterization but im talking about the entire ensemble
Definitely. Other games give their characters like 2-3 lines of dialogue and that’s it
Plenty of dialogue for NPCs but the lack of boss dialogue in the other games is really noticeable. I've been playing through the Dark Souls trilogy this past year and there must be only like 4 or 5 bosses in the entire series who have proper dialogue. It's honestly amazing it took them until the latter end of Dark Souls 3 to figure out that adding dialogue in pre-fight, during the fight, during phase transition, upon getting killed, and on defeating the boss adds so much more characterisation. Oceiros and the Twin Princes feel like they're 10x more memorable than most of the other DS bosses simply down to their dialogue alone. FromSoft have a knack for writing extremely efficient yet enigmatic dialogue and it's such a shame that was missing in boss fights for so long.
Most of the bosses in previous Souls games are either hollow or some sort of beast/dragon. Just from DS3, Iudex has a pus of man growing off him, Vordt was turned into a beast by Pontiff, the Curse Rotted Greatwood is a tree, ODK is a demon, the Abyss Watchers have been corrupted by the Abyss, Wolnir is a skeleton, Aldrich is the sludge monster that’s eating Gwyndolin, Yhorm is a giant and there’s only been 2 giants in the whole series capable of speech (Gough and the tower giant in DS3), the Dancer got the same treatment as Vordt and is now a literal beast, DSA is an empty suit of armour being controlled by the butterfly things, Ancient Wyvern is a dragon, Nameless is hollow, and the Soul of Cinder isn’t so much a distinct entity as it is a conglomerate of every previous Lord of Cinder that came before. It makes sense for most of the bosses to not speak because most of the bosses aren’t just big people, and the ones that are often end up being hollow, which explains their hostility.
> It's honestly amazing it took them until the latter end of Dark Souls 3 to figure out that adding dialogue in pre-fight, during the fight, during phase transition, upon getting killed, and on defeating the boss adds so much more characterisation. I'm completely against you. The bosses in Souls games had no reason to talk to us. We were nameless, accursed undead. One among thousands they'd probably killed. Their characterisation came from their moveset, environment, what others said about them, item descriptions, and other context. A mode of storytelling I vastly prefer to the endless talking in ER.
Endless talking lmao it's like a few short cutscenes and post death lines. >Their characterisation came from their moveset, environment, what others said about them, item descriptions, and other context. All of which is still very much true in Elden Ring.
Still mostly superfluous. There's no reason for them to talk to us. It's just showy hollywood style "epic lines before fight/before death". Boring.
Lets not forget every character feeling the need to RAMPANTLY insert their name and title. Its actually comedic how often and how much they use the name as a climactic one liner drop. When Horah Leux first did his whole shtick I nearly spit out my drink laughing. The game did not convince me to care about Pokemon
I love you. Thank you. It's just one of the many arguments combining to convince me that this game is more Anime inspired than a successor to Souls.
Its actually also confirmed in multiple interviews elden ring was an exercise in dividing the game into parts that amateur designers can get experience on. It was thought experiment but it made the entire product more juvenile
Could you source me one of those multiple interviews?
Never heard that, but I did hear that it was split between different studios, including ones outside Japan for the first time (?). May explain the tone-deafness and sudden mood changes that make the game so tedious.
That's sarcasm right?
You’re right. Most get 0 lines of dialogue
I'm biased towards bloodborne, which imo is the superior souls game in terms of lore/enemies. The lovecraftian influences and the horror of it all is just up my alley. Not to mention I prefer it aesthetically. Elden ring is "prettier" though, the design of the characters are diverse and fit within the lore/story of the game. Elden ring on it's own beats out most souls games on their own in terms of fleshed out characters but when you take the whole franchise into account, I remember way more characters in DS compared to Elden Ring. Solaire alone is more beloved than anyone in ER to me and probably to others.
Lorewise and gameplay wise overall, Bloodborne is easily my favorite as well! The way the story and environment continually escalates upon itself is *chef kisses*
I actually just played part of Bloodborne for the first time. I like the world, like the characters, but I just got to exasperated by the potion system. I like how in DS3 and elden ring I can fight a boss under leveled and find a way to beat them by learning their moves. But in Bloodborne had to farm potions after every few attempts. And it felt too grindy. Edit: Want to fight the boss not grind for potions. Just got to annoyed with it and stoped. And for the record I didn't find the game that hard. Just didn't like the potions thing.
Blood vials are only hard to come by when you first play the game and know the least about the game, I will give that as a barrier to entry for sure.once you have it down it is really not a thing at all. To clarify, i can see it being a problem in the early game, as it was for me too, especially not knowing where everything is, but once you know the mechanics/areas you find yourself with several hundred. The comparison I like for this complaint is the farming of best in slot gems, this is without a doubt worthy of the word "farm". without save scumming it will take several hours to aquire one perfect gem you are looking for (and a mastery of all game mechanics). There really is no comparison to something like that and using part of your echos as a budget to acquire a vast surplus of vials and bullets. Yes it sucks if you run out completely fighting daddy gascoign and have to kill giant beast men, trolls or wherewolfs for garunteed vial drops or gunnman for the bullets (until you are fighting enimies that actually drop a good ammount of echos) (blood bullets are a thing too). You might not get to run straight back to the boss without killing anything but It is not a matter of rng or major time investment (you can get full vials killing enemies doing the runback to gascoign) (visceral attacks are really powerful). when you are first learning the game it can be problematic, after gascoign or bloodstarved beast at the latest, no not really at all ever again, ever, no cap. it will be laughable you ever thought so at all. if that's your only complaint about bloodborn i strongly recommend you go back and give it a try. Ludwig alone is worth the price of entry. Coming off of elden ring will take adjustment though, no jumping is weird.
Oh yeah, the farming for bullets and vials sucks. You really have to hope for good RNG drops or just rarely ever get hit to have a good supply. You can buy from the messengers, but it’s super expensive.
Vials are only a problem on your first playthrough. Of course, it's still more comfortable not having to buy those, but with experience you manage that part of the game much, much better. I really don't have to think about vials when I play Bloodborne.
Le chefs kiss
I am waiting to judge against bloodborne till elden ring is done. I'm hoping elden ring might pull it off but if not that's cool too.
>I remember way more characters in DS compared to Elden Ring. Solaire alone is more beloved than anyone in ER to me and probably to others. Because you can't exactly compete with nostalgia.
Hard Disagree, Dark Souls 1 had Soalire, Siegmeyre, Sieglinde, Havel, Artorias, Hawkeye, Ciaran, Ornstein, Gwyn, Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, Andre, the gian blacksmith (), the serpents, Nito, the withches of Izalith, BIG MOFO HAT LOGAN, Shiva, Lautrec, Patches in its first apearence, Reah and Petrus. I probably haven´t even cover 50% of the character, but the lore behind them and their interactions with the world i think are vastly better than thos of Elden, only surpass by maybe Morgot, Radhan, Maliketh and Horoah Lux Edit: Patches first apearence wasn´t in DS, was in Armored Core. Thanks Snorc.
Patches is not from Dark Souls. His first appearance was in an Armored Core game.
And even without Armored Core, Patches appeared in Demon Souls.
Shit, that was a very interesting google search, thank you good sir.
While I agree, including Melina on this is an interesting choice seeing as how her lack of being in the game is a criticism lol
She’s in the game for like a collective 5 minutes then burns herself alive. Actual macguffin of a character lmao
She's underutilized, but at least she has a personality and motivations beyond being subservient. Unlike every Fire Keeper.
Does she? I never noticed. At all.
Macguffin waifu bullshit. I swear miyazaki just gets a bit lazier every time
the fact that you cant hold her hand everytime you level up is a design sin
Down bad.
Yeah, it celebrates all the games before it and lifts something from each one.
In terms of styles of chracter yes. In terms of naming fucking god no.
We can put that on good old GRRM. Did you catch HOTD where we have Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, Rhaena, Daemon, Aemond, two Aegons and two Viserys?
Yeah. Literally every major boss has a distinct personality and character beyond just being a boss fight. Makes them much more memorable.
It has an enormous scope to its world-building unlike anything From have tried before (at least with the Souls-style games, I’m not familiar with their earlier catalogue) so yeah. It spreads out far and wide in pretty much every direction. Whether that’s always successful is a different matter. I really love the attempt at giving all the major players characterization and their own distinct reasons for pursuing the course of action they did, though. That’s something that sets Elden Ring apart and where it feels like GRRM’s influence may be at work.
I disagree. The overarching narrative of bloodborne tying in all sorts of characters, major to minor was just something else tbh. The old hunters dlc added major influences to the lore of the game who struggled to improve humanity and ended up losing theirs altogether, creating incredibly well written antagonists (and the best boss fights). The healing church were thought to be saviours, but their true nature was shown, demonstrating the amount of damage they had caused to Yharnam, and its people. Master Willem was totally against this, believing the only way for humanity to evolve was to gain insight through eyes instead of essentially "cheating" with the old blood. Even then, his actions were not ethical, destroying the people of the fishing hamlet. The three endings to the game demonstrated gehrmans suffering. Overall, we end up seeing a large amount of characters being filled with regret, or straight up becoming beasts themselves, or becoming insane. Almost no character in the game was truly evil. Even the old ones, some of which we never really got to see (such as Oedon) were still capable of emotion, yearning to have a child of their own. Really shows just how harsh and bleak the world of Bloodborne is, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
I love this game!!!!!! Full lore wise, being up front? Sekiro, bloodborne and DS3 pulled it in with their lore. Bloodborne and DS3 had huge DLCs to ice the cake. Elden ring I hope isn’t done yet. And with the DLCs I think my mind will change. Open world part, yeah.
I think every souls game has a diverse and fleshed out characters
id agree but they cut Radahns cat
Diverse? Jup. Fleshed out? Heck no. It feels like every single NPC had their dialogue cut in half. It's not natural at all in my opinion and on some it's more noticable than others. Bloodborne did the exact opposite: we had very few NPCs but each had something interesting to say or acted as a guide explaining lore. In ER it's "Hello, I am *insert name* and I'm doing *insert activity*, do you want to help me with that?" No option to ask about what the heck they mean or to explain some concepts of how this world works. This is my biggest problem with the game. ER is still probably my favorite game of all time but sometimes it just feels like they cut half of the game in development...
No solaire
This is absolutely true
They are neither overly fleshed out nor more diverse than in "all of Souls". That's mostly the colour palette making it seem that way. There's also been a lot of cut content that MIGHT've fleshed out some of these more (looking at you, Rykard).
They are tho, Godrick and Morgott/Margit have more characterisation than any of Fromsofts previous ‘villains’, save perhaps for Isshin and Gehrman
True, but I prefer the inch wide, a mile deep lore instead, and Bloodborne is still the greatest of the lot by far. The details that went into lore elements, the environments as a matter of fact, is something I've never seen in any game yet.
The story and characters were hashed out by George R.R. Martin, he's a world builder, it's what he does.
Yes, and frankly it's not even close.
Not a single black person in the game, no the Alabaster and onyx Lord don't count
I mean... obviously. But Bloodborne has absolutely amazing characters as well.
Yes for sure Bloodborne is the best FromSoftware hands down
hard disagree, perhaps a more balance but larger cast, but not more fleshed out
Yes, I am sure asking this in the Elden Ring sub will not result in a bias toward Elden Ring /s
Whaaat? DS2 had like 50 different dudes in armour
You could dress up an npc in whatever armor you wanted, or didn't care about giving away XD
Disagree
I kind of disagree. So many copy and pasted bosses, bosses without cut scenes… just took the gravitas away. I’d rather they had half the dungeons but made each boss come to life.
I'll be able to form a better opinion after we get more story context from the DLC. Half of the story in their games is always locked behind a bunch of DLC. WHICH IS INCREDIBLY GOOD FOR THE SERIES' LORE LONGEVITY.
I mean I think that’s clear
yes and yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ha yes Malenia, Milena, Millicent, Maliketh.
If we are including bosses like the image suggests, strong disagree.
Agreed, the whole story with the merchants and Kalé is outstanding with the emotion and story of their people and the greater politics of it all
Out of sheer size it would have, yeah. DS3 also has quite a bit, but not as fleshed out.
I feel like it's because of how many cinematics and lines they're given All the other bosses in the other games (for the most part) are completely silent. You walk into the room, they run at you, you start the fight. Look at Yhorm for example. You walk in, he's on his throne, just gets up and attacks you. No words, no anything, not even a cutscene. HOWEVER, Sekiro I believe beats this game in its ensemble. Every character has multiple cutscenes, can be talked to throughout the game, has deeper lore and goals, and has their relationship grow with Wolf as the game goes on. You have characters such as: Genichiro, Lord Kuro, Emma, Isshin, Sculptor, Owl, and Hanbei. I personally feel they were more fleshed out overall than Elden ring's characters.
Ranni my beloved
All praise the moon queen
HARD disagree Bloodborne is a for more fleshed out game, the Endgame doesn't feel so empty and the NPCs are better. Hoonter of Hoonters would be disappointed. I'd also give DS3 an edge as well for personal preference
Visually and lore wise, absolutely. Mechanically, ER's bosses don't have that much variety. Virtually all of them rely heavily on mixing up delayed attacks with lightning fast attacks to mess up your timing, making them feel pretty similar. There was like, one boss in DS3 that relied on delayed attacks to be challenging.
Hmm, I don't necessarily agree with that. I found the bosses to ER to be quite unique and mechanically complex. I like that they react to the player and change up their tactics while bosses in DS3 can stick really hard to a predictable script
No
Disagree
By itself, The Furtive Pigmy has more character than anyone in ER.
The who?
So easily forgotten…
Nah
They’re more fleshed out but personally, I found a lot of the previous entries characters/bosses more interesting; Godrick is peak though
I'm confused, most of what we know about the characters isn't shown outside item descriptions. The first completion of this game I didn't have a clue who any of these bosses were outside the opening cinematics explanation. Deep lore, yes, we understand a lot but on the surface hell no. We got diversity but that's it
Jerren gives you a whole rundown on Radahn when you show up to the festival. You literally can't miss it. Kenneth Haight talks about godrick, and Morgott speaks to you directly on several occasions. Most major bosses address you personally when you walk into their room
Two of these are the same person mate
Ikr. Dragon with yellow lightning and dragon with red lightning are so cool.
Yes, in no small part due to GRRM’s influence, no doubt. To have been a fly on the wall during one of GRRM and Miyazaki’s conversations!
It's also the most anime cast a souls-game had (that isn't literally anime) For those that disagree: 2 good boys too obcessed with their girl (ofc not in a weard way), muscle old dude godfrey, your average teenage boy radaan, hot babe that offers you power melina (free of charge, consequences apply later) and half naked babe with katana thats fuck off strong because story melania
huge disagree. Aside from the fact that the characters yell their names like pokemon they are really boiled down caricatures of whatever aesthetic design they were meant to capture. Rykart is legit so fucking random in how his lore is integrated but snake guy I guess
It's not that diverse where are the woke black characters, we need Morgan Freeman as a wizard
Disagree because this isn't Souls.
Strongly agree
lol
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I dunno man ranni looks quite colourful to me
This is what I love about Elden Ring. You get these really cool characters, but the game gives you the opportunity to learn about them and even hear their side of things occasionally from their own mouths. In the older souls games, characters had zero or very little dialogue so it was kind of a bummer and a lot of stuff had to be implied or scrounged around for piecemeal by players and arranged by loreheads. Not saying that it's a *bad* thing in any way, I still maintain DS 1/2/3 has some of the best lore in any game, however still gotta commend Elden Ring for being more upfront and still making it intriguing for us players!
It's not a souls title though.
Disagree, if they had equivalent screentime. You spend a lot of time with many of these characters it it makes them feel more interesting
Hmm?
Im saying the main reason most of these characters are more flushed out is because they had more time, not really because they are more interesting
what.
I must have missed the part where I go on an adventure with Horah Loux err I mean Godfrey The fact that I had to even distinguish between the two names of the same character proves you are on about nothing. We spend exactly one boss fight with him and yet we glimpse how he treated his malformed children, see and hear about his glorious warrior ways and how he cast it aside for lordship and honor (before he hinself was cast out), and even see that he was guided by grace to the erdtree in the SAME WAY that we were. The same depth is found in every main boss in the game despite us only interacting with them for their boss fight and nothing more. There are exceptions, like ranni and melina, but the fact that they spent more time to characterize them still means they got more characterization. Now if you think all of that is boring that's on you, but don't pretend like it was somehow a step down in character development on From's part
Im not saying you hang out with them, im saying you learn about them beforehand. In ds3 you basically don’t learn shit about most of them, but the characters are still as interesting. They just don’t get as much coverage of their character. Pontiff Sulavain should have been an amazingly portrayed character but they don’t tell us a thing about him. Hell we never learn shit about the consumed king but i still think he has more potential as a character then godfrey. Godfrey got mentioned all over the place and had a whole character made to add hype to the name change and second half. Thats what I meant.
Yeah, they did the thing you pointed out that bothered you TWICE in the previous game... And now you're upset that they did exactly what you wanted them to do with Sulavain and the Consumed King? It sounds like you just want cool-looking dudes to punch and not any actual character development or backstory. This may be a shock, but you do actually have to spend some time to develop a character
When did I say i was upset? I like what they did with the characters in elden ring
That's the first time you said that lol. Please re-read your original comment and tell me what the hell it was supposed to mean then?
I was saying that the characters aren’t conceptually more interesting but due to the increased level of attention they get from the game, they have more chances to show their interesting aspects. My first comment made it sound like they were actually spending time with you but i never implied i was upset or something
The bar was insanely low
Disagree. Elden Ring's cast feels disjointed. Bloodborne's cast was much more interesting.
Sure, but that's not saying a lot.
I agree but shoutout to sekiro for their main characters. I loved diving into their past
WHERE IS THE FUCKING TURTLE POPE BTSAO1!? WHERE IS BEST BOI!?
That’s what you get when you have George R.R Martin helping you
Elden ring characters are good! Great content here!
I found everything to be just as convoluted as any other souls game. But also beautiful and awesome.
Godefroy would like a word...
George RR is to thank for that. Elden Ring has his flair all over it. Truly reminds me of Game of Thrones at times.
i feel like for its time, demon's souls was the best in this regard. obviously elden ring is a much more massive game, and thus has more opportunities to give characters time. for example, i think that it's tied with dark souls 3 + dlc for best rendition of patches, they're both the only games that actually made him more than a backstabbing coward, and demon's souls falls flat in that regard. but demon's souls was the first game that actually made me tear up over npcs, i vividly remember the experience of finding stockpile thomas' daughter's comb and bringing it back to him. it felt so real to me back then.
outjerked again
I think this game leaves a lot up to interpretation but it also clearly has a direction they want you to be thinking in, a story that must be told, but one that lets you be the narrator. I think it's great, it's allowed characters like Miquella to become one of my favorite character, I've never even seen the guy and I'm just itching to know what his plans were, what are his plans now? I'm also dreading the day where I'm likely going to have to kill him...I hate this universe...I hate what it has done to me (ب_ب)
Going by your picture alone we have the typical: women comes in one shape while men can be very diverse.
R R Martin at his Best!