Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Elden Ring Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Go to http://purple.com/KINDAFUNNY and use code KINDAFUNNY for 10% off any order of $200 or more! Download the DoorDash app and enter code KINDAFUNNY for 25% off your first order! Tamoor joins us to review FromSoftware's Elden Ring. Epic Creator Code: KindaFunny Follow The Kinda Funny Team On Twitter: Tim Gettys: https://twitter.com/TimGettys Andy Cortez: https://twitter.com/TheAndyCortez Blessing Adeoye: https://twitter.com/BlessingJr Tamoor Hussain: https://twitter.com/TamoorH Barrett Courtney: https://twitter.com/SadBoyBarrett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Geddes and I'm joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at a Yo-Yea, Jr. Tim, I, of course, had to swing by Wendy's to get the peach mango for the season. What season is that? Where did you go? Wendy's. It's review season.

Honey. Oh, honey. Great one, Tam. Honey, look out of the crops, honey. The peaches and the mangoes are perfectly growing. It must be review season. I can just imagine you. That's what they say.

Isn't that right, Nitro Rifle, Andy Cortez? It sure is. Shout out to the goddamn minor key change right there in the cat in the kind of funny jingle. Carter Harold. Kill in the game. We've been trying out these new custom review intros. And I just love that I can hit up Carter and just be like, yo, dude, we're thinking horizon. And then like four hours later, he just boom.

Here's a perfect horizon version of the kind of funny theme. Hey, we're thinking Eldon Ring. And he's like, do you have any ideas? What that sounds like? I'm like, well, I YouTube date and apparently the theme song leaked. So what about this? And then he says back that. I'm like, yeah, you fucking nailed it.

So that's really cool. Have you ever thought of getting Carter to make individual theme songs for you each? Oh, oh yeah. That would be cool. One day when we have a studio, we can properly make Andy defend the kind of funny world championship. I want us all to have our own theme songs. And you know what, Mr. host of the number one, two, three, four, five, six and seventh best video game website,

at Gamspot.com. Tell me who's saying, I think we need to make sure that you have your own intro as well. Oh, I would love that. I would love that. That would make me so, so happy. But I do want to say that here I am

hosting this show, the kind of funny games cast, and we're out here. We're about to talk about Eldon Ring for the next hour. So we have a whole bunch of gamers here that's going to talk about that shit. But then there's me.

You know, people out there, I've heard them in the comments. Like Tim Geddies, I don't know that you're a gamer. You really have it anymore? Have you lost it? And I don't know, I don't even see any respect from you guys. Here I am, hyping you up, giving you your proper intros.

Andy, while Barrett brings up the picture that I just sent him on Slat, can you just give me a proper intro of some sort? Can you hype me up for a second? The best baby blues in San Francisco, the motherfucker who beat Cuphead, Timothy Geddes. Let's add something to the list, everybody. I fucking want to see. Let's fucking go.

Oh, my God. Good job, Gettys. Wow. They said it couldn't be done, and I was one of them. I can't believe this happened, but with the support and help of my friends on this panel, we made it happen, everybody. I fucking, I did it last Friday, and I had to hold this into myself. I was like, I can't tell people.

I need to wait for the games cast to reveal this. But, oh, man, I feel so good about it. What is the G and Gettys stand for? Gamer right there. I'm a fucking gamer, everybody. What I do right after that? I booted up Elton Ring. How long did I play it?

Not long. I'll tell you that. And you know what I switched to, boys? That's Sekiro. Let's say. We're in. I'm like, now we're in. We'll see how it goes.

But I'm sick with it. You'll know. Sick with it. Once you get in the flow, you're going to fucking love it. Tim, how did it feel to press L1 when someone was trying to swing a sword at you and go? Kaching. Yeah.

You know what? I'm getting that. I understand that dodging dairy magic. But you know what? We're going to talk about that a whole lot because this is the kind of funny games cast where each and every week. we get together to talk about video games and all the things we love about them. You can go to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games to get it or roostuteuteith.com.

You could also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast. We'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad free, if you wanted to watch it live as it's recorded, and if you want the exclusive post show, you've got to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like our Patreon producers, Gordon McGuire, at James Davis makes, pranksy, Tyler Ross, Delaney, Twining, first respondent, and the Julian the gluten-free gamer James Hastings and Casey Andrew have all done.

We appreciate you all so very much. If you don't have any dollars to toss our way on Patreon, that's totally cool. If you're out there gaming like the real gamers that we are over on the Epic Game Store, please use our Epic Creator Code kind of funny. And anytime you're buying any Fortnite bucks, Rocket League bucks, any of the bucks, it helps us without costing you a penny more. Little housekeeping for you. I'm super dope.

So please tweet at me at Tim Geddes. Let me know that I'm fucking. I saw a lot of hate. I saw a lot of comments like, oh, Tim thinks he's gonna beat this game. He's never gonna, oh, I beat it. Then I saw people, oh, Tim thinks he's gonna platinum. There's no chance.

Well, I fucking did it. Where are the haters at? Where are they all at? They're quiet, they're quiet right now. Everyone is being real quiet. I can hear the leaves changing colors. They're so quiet. Holy shit.

Oh, man. Now, Gia finally has a real reason to love me. You know, I understand. Oh my God. God. I was gonna say to him, like, your beard has been getting more and more along and more gray.

And I liken it too, the aging mechanic in Seifu. That's what's happening. Is that also because you've just been so entrenched and see if you've not had time to like do your thing? 152 now. I am 52. That is true.

That is true. Anyway, enough bullshit. Enough of all this stuff. Let's get into it. Eldon Ring. A lot of people predicted might be kind of funny. He's game of the year at the end of this whole thing. Y'all have been playing it.

Y'all have some thoughts. And I want to hear him. Andy Cortez, you are the lead reviewer here. That kind of funny for Eldon Rink. want to start with you. How long have you played the game and what are you thinking about it right now? On the patented kind of funny scale that is one through five, terrible, bad, okay, great, amazing. First off, like a hell of a game to be my first official review on. Everybody knows that from software games are not only difficult in terms of gameplay,

but they could be a little vague in terms of direction. And playing this game without any YouTube, videos to look up. Just me and Tam and Imron texting each other. Have you been... Why did that group chat? Kids, let me tell you, man. I've been alone.

No, no, no, no. No, not a group chat. Separate DMs. It was me and Tam and then we started running in a couple DMs. I have put in 63 hours of this game on PC and about nine hours on Xbox.

I decided to start a new game, play with Stoneback Mike so we could test out some co-op. this game is an absolute five out of five amazing from me. I can't get enough of it from Software has built something really special here. They essentially took a Dark Souls game and made it big. And a lot of people use that as a sort of way to knock the game, but it's kind of the best situation possible.

They took the magic of really cool NPCs to talk to. Um, secrets everywhere, like exploration is at an all time high in this game. This game is gigantic. Okay, I, I'm giving it a five out of five and I have not beat it. Keep in mind. After how many hours, 69? 63. 63.

It got to a point where me and Tam were playing it. We kind of realized, wow, this is a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be. We weren't really expecting the scale of this. We sort of understood. what From Software wants you to do in terms of progressing the story and progressing the actual narrative and campaign to actually get to the end game of it all. And it got to a point where I was like,

I don't want to rush this. I am loving every second of this. I want to keep exploring. I'm still exploring. I'm still seeing things I've never seen before. Last night I had a big breakthrough for another dungeon that is not, it's not priority. In other words, like it's just one of these side dungeons

that you can do if you want, but going there, it's massive and it feels really important to a lot of what's happening. Talking to NPCs there, backstabbing other NPCs, there's just like a lot of cool shit happening with the internal politics of the story. But the game is unbelievably big. Like, I can't stress that enough. The map keeps expanding. We keep on going to new areas. And suddenly Tam sends me an image of his new map and I go, oh, shit. and I unlock a further part and go, oh, shit.

Like, this is gigantic. And not only is it big across, the levels of verticality in this game are absolutely astounding. Finding caves up top, knowing that there's something down there. There are so many moments where I get to the edge of a cliff, and I think, oh, down there is death. I'm just going to fall. That's just, that's like any other cliff in a soul's game.

You fall off, you die, which is still likely the case. But you look down there and there's shit. down there to go explore. How you get down there is up to you. There's a lot of paths you can take. There are ways that you could drop down. There's ways you can risk. This game is, I think, just so impressive in terms of having the level of from software, imagination, and polish, but in a gigantic skyrim like open world. Like, I haven't felt this way about a game since, take a fucking guess, Breath of the Wild. I haven't felt this way about a game like this since then. Andy, you mentioned, you're talking about, like, the scale of the game and it being, you being 63 hours long, so I haven't been beaten it.

And that's one thing I wanted to bring up early, because, like, I think the number going around was 30 hours, because they said this game is going to be 30 hours for you to just beat or mainline the game. Right. I have no idea in what world anybody's beating this game in 30 hours. The context for that is, it is very much the case. Like, this is something, this is the revelation that Andy and I had where we realized what was happening. The context for that is, it's effectively. the same setup as you can at 30 hours you can, the

breath of the wild equivalent is you can go and fight Gannon. So there's a part of the map, an area of, or there's a part of the map and an objective within your overall objective that is basically the final objective. And once you've done two things, I'm trying to avoid spoilers

here, once you've defeated two Eldon Lords, you can go take on the final area if you want to. But it's going to be an uphill structure. The game actually says when you go into this area it's going to be rough in here so make sure you're prepared

but so you can in 30 hours go in there and fight uphill struggle and then that makes so much but then you're leaving yeah you're leaving so much on the table to like to compare it to Breathful Wild and we'll throw it back to you in a second because I know you're still going but like to compare it to

Breath of Wild right like we're in that game you have the four divine beast to take out and then you can go for go to Gannon but you can go again in any moment to beat the game Alden Ring has like a similar sort of set up but it is more like I think it's like seven or something like that of like things to do, uh, that'll, that'll probably help you out in like your journey to the final thing. Uh, and with that, like, I'm probably on thing too right now.

And I am like to show me when I go, right? Like, I'm like 25 hours into the game. And I feel like I've barely scratched the service and put in a dent. And so like, it makes a lot of sense that like, okay, once I do this next thing, I'm probably going to open up the final thing, but I'm just not going to want to go to the final thing. I got to the final thing. Uh, after a lot of exploration, a lot of me and Tam going back and forth. How did you get in there? Where is this place? And it was just a lot of me and Tam taking photos of our screen and texting it to each other. I finally got there and Tam set. I was going to say, I think I've used my actual phone to talk with someone in the last three days more than in years. Like me and Andy like calling each other like every day, like actually speaking

on the phone, not Discord, not on like something else. It's like I was like this is wild. man. He's like the doll wheel. So I had gotten to this final area and I wasn't really aware of it but then Tam was like, oh, I think that's the final zone. And I said, you know what it makes sense? Because

it has a different way of going through it that wasn't like the first part of the game. It's like very, very vague and I want to just try to avoid spoilers as much as possible. And then I thought, oh, okay, I see what they're doing. You need two

defeated Eldon Lords. So that probably means that defeating the other Eldon Lords probably going to be a diet version of what we just experienced. And it's not. And it's still fucking awesome. And I went to a place last night that Tam had been to

way before I did. And it is as large and as intricate as you would hope it be. With all of the familiar from software, level design principles, all of that stuff is still in play. The incredible boss fights,

mini boss fights, there is so much to do in this game and I I'm so stoked for everybody to finally get their hands on it because this is something really special. Yeah, I am in love with this game. Bless, how long have you played so far and

do you feel comfortable putting us a score on it so far or even to score for your experience so far or no? So I don't. I played about 25 hours and like if I were to score my experience so far, I would put it around like a four out of five being great. I'm like very conflicted with this game. And the more I play it, the more I'm enjoying it as like a work of art and game design

more so than enjoying it as a game itself. Because like on one hand, I think it's exactly what Andy is talking about in terms of the from software game design, the art design, the world design, having that level of like quality and like each of the areas where you go into one area and like, you know, Andy, you make the breath Wild comparison. I think it's going to be a very popular comparison for people to make. I want to make the comparison. And I'm like, trepidation is about making the comparison because I know a lot of people are going to be like, oh, you compare every single open world game to Breath of Wild. But I think the way to make it even easier for people to understand is like playing this game after Horizon

is like the exact antithesis to that kind of open world where it is not an icon spill. It is not you go on your map and knock off the activities or whatever. It is legitimately like they have the Fallout 3 moment of opening. the vault and you walk out and they have two of those moments in this game what the fuck are incredible uh they don't have two man they've got they got four or five they've got four oh no sorry i've reacted to the b-rolled that we just saw of this man just fucking rocket jumping on a horse yeah these these those spots are littered across the open world tim in order to help you out with getting onto higher this i've not seen what is this i've not seen that i'm not seen that you've not seen that no where's

So all of these things So these are little side Oh no I know where that is I know where that is I know where that is. But no no no my bad my back These are These are side activities that you find

Around the open world and it's a painting of somewhere Of this gigantic place And you go to that location and something special will happen So this is how big the game is I saw that hours ago to the point where I forgot it And I was like, What is this? That's how big this game is.

And I thought that was like a visually like representative of like what I think you guys are talking about with Breath of the Wild, right? In that comparison. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the perfect one to point to in terms of like the world is very much designed. Like every inch of the world feels like it has thought put into it. And it is vast.

And it is very impressive in a way where I take two steps. And like the placement of an enemy is meaningful for whatever for some reason. There is like some kind of point of interest. I'll go over here on them like to the, let's say, southwest of the map. And there's like a walking building. I'll go to like the northeast. and there's like some other thing where I'm like, what the fuck is that? And I'm asked myself that question, what feels like every 10 to 20 minutes while playing the

game in the way that like in another very big open world game that came out in 2017 that I really love. That's one of my favorite games of all time. That game did a lot of the same things too. Drawing your interest to every play. Yeah, drawing your interest. It even has like the thing where you do like one of the fallout three open the vault moments that we're talking about.

And I immediately took a screenshot and I sent it to Andy and Tam. And it's the thing of you walk out and you see like fucking four to five different like big buildings. You see like a vast landscape. You see like valleys. You see like big hills. And it's like, oh, I can go anywhere now. Like I can literally do any of this, any of these things. And blessing that moment is caught on camera in our let's play that's coming out tomorrow.

Oh yeah. So you can watch. That's moment number one. Like in that. You can watch Blessie experience that tomorrow. That is in a less play, right? Me experiencing that first like leave the vault moment. There is a second leave the vault moment that is even.

today as if people are later. The gameplay embargo is a day later. There you go. So yeah, you can check that out tomorrow. But yeah, there is like a second one of those that blew my mind even more to the point where I had to put down my controller. I was like, I can't believe how big, vast and absolutely gorgeous this world is. So I think on that note, they knocked everything out the park. The part where I get conflicted about the game is more so to do with the game design.

And that's more so to do with the ways in which they translate the from software ethos of game design into this big, open world that is like we're not going to hold your hand we're going to make everything um kind of obfuscated and very difficult and for me that's taken so much fun out of exploring the world not necessarily like the combat difficulty because i fuck with combat difficulty i really like you know struggling with combat in that way more so in the way of like i'll chase shit down and feel like i end up with nothing all the time right and like it's the thing of like i'll all like chase down let's say i'm talking about a point of interest right like i'll find a

cave or I'll find something that seems curious. I'm like, I'll let me check that out and I'll follow whatever it is. And the journey will be cool, right? The journey will be the thing of like, oh man, okay, I'm taking down this cave. Oh man, I meet this guy who's like maybe about to rob me. All right, cool. I fight him halfway through. He's like, wait, no, we're cool.

And I'm like, I don't trust you. I'm still going to kill you. I kill him. And I like take his things. And I'm like, none of this shit is going to be good. It's going to be helpful for me. Like the gear I'll pick up from him feel like, well, either be like, cool, this doesn't work with my character class.

or it's already weak than whatever I'm rocking. And I find that happens over and over and over again where the rewards for me chasing the things that piqued my interest don't feel like they ever amount up to anything worthwhile. Like I've done multiple catacombs, which are kind of like the mini dungeons in this game, and the ones that I've completed have given me Ashes of War, which are like these cool special abilities.

And none of them have been things where I'm like, cool, I'm going to replace my current ash with this. Like I feel like I'm costly, in terms of the actual gamified reward that I'm getting, in the game. I feel like I'm getting stuff that just doesn't match up to things that I already have, or just don't match up with my class. On top of that, I feel like there's a disconnect between how the game wants me to play and how I, and I think many people are actually going to play the game, where in traditional from software games, I'll use Bloodborn as an example, I get to

places where I'm like, cool, there's this long stretch corridor. I'm trying to get to the next lamp in Bloodbourne. And, you know, I know that I'm supposed to be here because the lean. familiarity of the game. And so I'm going to take out these enemies and get the blood echoes and continue to level up my character. And there's like a certain level of like steady progression you're making in Bloodborn that makes sense for wherever wherever you're at in the game. And sometimes you might end up somewhere that's like you're not supposed to be here, right? You get kidnapped and it's like, cool. Now I'm at a high level area in Bloodborn. Eldon Ring, because it's so big, you can kind of go anywhere. And I found myself ending up

places time after time after time again where I'm like, I have no idea if I'm supposed to be here. And it's frustrating because what that has resulted in is me going to the same field of giants that I can take out called Storm Hill, which is like, there's like probably like six or seven giants that just hang out on Storm Hill. And for each giant, I kill, I get a thousand ruins, which are your blood echoes or your souls in this game. Good XP farming, I think. Yeah, great XP farming spot here. The problem with the problem with it for me is the fact that I've done that like 35 times. Like, no joke, I go there over and over and over again because it's the only place I can rely on in terms of, okay, I can farm here for XP. and then also like, I don't feel, like, I, I, this is like, oh, reliable for me

where, like, there's not really any other place in the map for me where I'm like, oh, yeah, I know I'm supposed to be here. I'm going to continue to try and grind out this area. Half, like, most of the areas are areas where I'm, like, I'm probably underleveled, and the game doesn't really communicate to you at all where you're supposed to be, because for the kind of open world game it is, there's not anywhere where you're supposed to be. You're kind of supposed to just go out and explore, but I think there's a level of non-hand holiness that on one hand is very novel and very cool and very forward looking but on other hand

i think makes it so that i just retreat and i just go like cool i'm just going to continue to farm and continue to find the gamified shit that i can in this game so that i can feel powerful and i can go do the thing like feel unable to go do the thing um and again i'm only 25 hours in like you know the this is only a problem that i've started to like really feel the ramifications of at like hour i'll say 14 after i beat the first boss because that was like the thing that i knew uh I needed to do. And like the game opened up and I'm like, cool, let me explore. And the exploration just hasn't been as like rewarding and novel or not novel and rewarding, I'll

say, as I've wanted it to be. That said, there are so many other like dope like 10 out of 10 S-tier things that the game does that like I can't sit here and just like, I don't want to spend most of my time slandering it because I think like the game is phenomenal in so many other aspects. But I'm in that weird place of like trying to figure out how I feel about it because it's so different and so like specifically from software. and I don't know if they knock it all the way out the park, even though they knock so much of it out the park.

Tam, you are reviewing this for gamespot.com. How long have you played? What kind of funny score would you give it? I am at 60-ish hours now. And on the kind of funny scale, I'd give it a 5 out of 5. On the GameSpot scale, it's getting a 10 out of 10. Damn.

That is a rare score, which is made less rare because I've given a few 10 out of tens in my time. But the way I see is I only play the best games, baby. But yeah, I, interestingly, a lot of the things that Blessing says are really kind of not working for him are fundamentally reasons I would give it a 10 out of 10. Like there's an idea that. So with the grinding thing that Blessings talked about, like I've never found an area that I felt like I need to grind to be in. I found areas that I've realized that I should probably not be in and just went in another direction and realized there's areas that I can be in. And that's kind of like what this game

is about and what I love about it. It's just completely hands off. And that is typical for from software, right? But it's just not what we expect from a open world game. So the crux of my review is what makes this game special is that it's like so contrary into the way that open world games are designed and from my perspective over designed they are so molly coddling they are just like you need to go ahead they're designed to kind of always make you feel good and make you feel like the hero but as we've come to know from softwa's games aren't designed to make you feel like a hero they make you they're designed to from the outset tell you're trash you're nothing you're a tarnished you're a plague ridden rat you're a you're an undead, cursed undead.

That's what these games are about. And then they leave you with the challenge of prove yourself in this world. Prove yourself and show that you deserve the respect. Instead of giving the respect just willy-nilly in the way that most open world games do, where you like pick up something off the floor and it's an item and it's like, oh, it's an S-tier item. Or you help someone, I don't know, like find their missing dog. And it's like, oh, thank you.

This has changed my life. This is so good. This is a game that makes you. for the feeling of satisfaction. But at the same time, it's a game where that satisfaction comes really easy because it's deeply rooted in a sense of discovery and exploration. The amount of times I've been wandering into,

like wandering around and like stumbled into a massive castle and been like, oh my God, I did not know this was here. It's like so many times. At the same time, I get that same level of satisfaction from like dropping down off a cliff, turning around and seeing that there's a little cavern there and then going into that cavern and it's marked on the map. And the thing that I really love about it is

it creates this texture and like a realness to the world. Like it doesn't feel like a game designer placed this hair for you to have a game experience with. It feels like this is a weird ancient world and this cavern is just here. This wasn't designed for me to see. it's going to be, it was disinformed in this landmass. And then you walk into this cavern, the amount of times I've gone into a cavern

and been like, wow, there's nothing in there. And then looked closer and been like, oh, there's a lot in here. And then carried on all the way to the bottom and like ended up in a boss fight that was impossible. And I've just been like, I can't do this. I need to go somewhere else and come back later. And then returned many, many hours later just with like a massive sword and just absolutely curb stumped that boss.

That feeling of never being guided, never being told. and instead just a game trusting that you have a sense of adventure and a curiosity and trusting you to know that I'm not supposed to be here or maybe I should come back here later that is such an empowering feeling in this game and it's something that was a big part of breath of the wild as well right like those games are designed to be in the classic dark souls fashion quite linear in a lot of ways so when we got let onto this open world that had a lot of the fundamentals of a Zelda game it was a breath of fresh air. It was revolutionary for a lot of us. That is the same impact for Souls games, where it's like,

yes, they have an illusion of openness, and they do have small degrees of openness within each game, but we've never had a truly open world experience. And then now that they've given it to us, and they've done it by also filtering that through the lens of their own design ethos, it is once again a revolutionary experience. It's a whole breath of fresh air, and it is like the antidote to games like Horizon, which I think are excellent. Like Horizon's a great game. But when I see those icons pile up, man, I'm just like, how much do I really care about that activity? How much do I really care about that character? Whereas this game, there's no icon. So I go to a place, find a character, and I don't know what

it is in store for me. Maybe it will be something that's not super deep, but at least it made the world slightly richer. And at least I can take pleasure in the fact that I found this, I uncovered this. And if I'm lucky, I can send a picture of it to Andy and be like, have you seen this yet? And Andy will be like, no, I've not seen that. Where is that? Tell me. And I'll send it to him and he'll go there. Or I can ask Andy, hey, someone's mentioned this thing. Do you know where it is? And he'll be like, yeah, I saw it there and let's figure it out together. Like that sense of kind of community, that is what Souls games are about. That is what the original, you know, kind of demon souls thrived off of. No one knew about Demon Souls. No one was buying Demon Souls. No one was playing

demons, but the people that were having this experience where they had this hard, hard game that was so hard to understand and obtuse, and they came together and they figured it out together. And you can ask Andy, that is what we've been doing for the last few days. And it has felt like nothing I have felt since that first Demon's Tollels play through. Wow. Before we move on to the many questions I have about this, let's talk about our sponsors. Your to-do list is absolutely bonkers between those meetings. Aaron's chores in making sure you get some you time too.

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Now that we're back, I kind of want to segue from what Tam was just saying of the breath of wild comparisons that I do think are going to continue to come up. And a lot of that being that this is the first like real open world version of a genre that has now defined itself over the last couple years. Playing Breath of the Wild, I think the big thing was it feels like Zelda and it is Zelda, but it doesn't have the dungeons and it's not traditional in that way. is there something about Eldon Ring that you guys feel is missing that the other games have, the Bloodborns and Sekaro's and the Dark Souls games,

that because it's open world, it doesn't have this one defining feature of those games. For me, I think that, so firstly, I'll say I struggle to find a lot wrong with this game. Like, I feel like there's nothing bad about this game. It's just the way that you,

it lands with you. Like, I think Blessing. would it agree? I don't even know if I'd agree. It's the thing. I'm still figuring it out. Because I think I would say that my complaints are things that are bad about the game.

Okay. Yeah. But I also like I think those same things are things that other people will take. Yeah, exactly. So from my perspective, like one, you know, something that blessing might hate is something that I would, I probably would be like, I really like this thing. So that's the kind of game that is. But like the one thing that if I had to kind of focus in on is the combat is what the combat is.

You know it pretty much. Like it's still that same thrilling, strategic, kind of very well-paced and thoughtful combat. And I love it to death and I think it's amazing in this game. It's so thrilling. But what it doesn't have is a kind of like uniqueness to it, if you get what I mean. It feels a lot like Dark Souls 3. It feels a lot like Dark Souls 1. Whereas a game like Bloodbourne, it is more built around a certain rhythm of gameplay.

mechanics where, you know, the visceral, the gunshot, that kind of stuff, and the aggression. It was kind of built on the idea of being aggressive and on the front foot. And Sekiro has a more defined combat system as well, where it's like counters and, you know, split second timing and proper deflects. It doesn't have anything unique like that. It's got this top tier fundamentally, like, close to perfect combat system for me. And then it's layered on things like the... special weapon abilities and a jump attack and

and kind of this new counter system, which is like when you got your shield up, once you take a hit, if you hit R2 immediately, you kind of do a heavy counter attack, which is kind of like the bloodborne visceral gunshot combo. You just saw it right there. Yeah,

and not exactly the same, but it doesn't feel as good, but it is that. But otherwise it is the combat you know and love, and the way it's enhanced is by these ridiculous weapons and abilities and that kind of stuff. So that is the thing that is the closest,

to something I can say it's missing. But in all other respects, like, I'm struggling, man. I was like, I was like playing it. I'm like, I hope this is, I don't want to give another tense, though, frivolously, but by the time I was done, I was like, no, this is absolutely a tense. Be true to yourself, Pam. By the time I was done, I was like, this is undoubtedly. Like, I think this is one of the greatest games of all time.

Holy shit. Wow. So, bless, let's start with you on this one. What are the, what are some of the cons? Actually, you know what? Let's go to Andy for the cons, because you already were a little negative on this. Andy. So cons, a lot of the negatives for me, I would say PC performance, not great.

I'm running into a lot of frame drops and things like that, and we don't have the day one patch yet, but hopefully that will alleviate some issues. I'm talking like 60 frames, and then I might for a couple of seconds drop enough to where it's like, that's noticeable. Nothing that is going to make me put the game down by any means, but definitely something that's there to call out. I want to just call. I know people will say, like, wow, you were so negative about your horizon experiences. So, like, there's definitely negatives here for me. Performance is one of them. I will say quality of life things that I would hope from software would improve more upon.

And I think that they've done a bit of it. Whenever I do see a quality of life thing, Tim, it's like getting a quality of life thing, Tim, it's like getting a quality. of life thing from Nintendo where you go, huh, okay, they do get it, you know? And every once in a while that will happen with FromSoft and you go, God damn, they are listening or they are understanding why this way is just better, right? This doesn't, you don't have to stick to your guns on this little issue. It's okay to improve this menu icon or this menu decision. But there are a couple of things where you, around the world, Tim, you can pick up these

things called run, golden runes or whatever they are. They're equivalent to finding souls out in the wild. Golden seeds? No, no, they're equivalent to finding blood echoes that you pop to give yourself more XP. Oh, yeah, ruins. They're called like golden runes. Yeah, they have different levels to them, Tim.

So like golden run one gives you, I don't know, 50 rooms. It's like a 200. And then golden room seven might give you like 7,000. So you pop that. It's an instant sort of XP hit that you can then use. to level up or you can then use to purchase something, whatever it is you're trying to do. And there are some moments where in your inventory might be full of them. You might have like 10 of golden ruin level one, 12 of golden room number two.

A lot of the times I want to use them in mass. Every time I use one, it takes me out of the menu. I have to go back into the menu, reuse one. So there's a lot, there's some things like that that like in ways that Horizon just decided to move everything to your stash and not have that be an issue because they understand that hey you know what sure we want to make an immersive experience but it's less annoying to have to deal with going to an inventory stash so they removed that totally and I love that they made that easier for the player these from soft games will still have

moments like that I wish co-op was improved in a way that didn't have to be so ungameified everything in Souls games always has to kind of have a reason and a purpose for it. And that's usually why I love a lot of these things, but I do wish the co-op was more, just make it a video game. I don't need to have this furl finger remedy thing to bring in a friend from the other world

to summon him. And if I don't have enough of those items, I can craft them or if I'm out of those items, I can go look for them in the open world. Like, it becomes, it's tedious. It's not hard to do, it's just tedious. I wish my first, could just join and it would be a seamless experience.

There are also moments where when I was playing co-op with Snowbike Mike, it's really neat to just run around the open role with your friends. You can't both be on horses though, unfortunately, so that kind of stinks. You have to just be on foot. And if my friend summons me in one spot and I run all the way, we adventure together, killing a bunch of shit on our way, having a blast. When we get to a dungeon, I have to exit his world. I have to then go back to my world, my world in which I will spawn at that last space that I already was.

And I have to travel all the way back to him. Put down another summoning item. He has to see that on the ground, summon me back in. It's just tedious stuff. These games aren't meant to be played co-op in that way. It's very much so like, no, this is here kind of because we're allowing it to be here. And it kind of just makes me really yearn for that co-op experience because I've never really cared about co-op and Souls games. But being able to play it and experience it, it's really fun.

And I was actually having a lot of fun with it. I just wish it were made easier because I know a lot of people going into this game are going to, this might be a lot of people's first Souls games. I know a lot of people who have never played a Souls game because it's really been kind of scary or intimidating to get into, a lot of people are going to go into this one. This is going to be from Software's biggest game easily. And they're going to expect a seamless experience when they hop into their friend's game in Apex or in whatever other game where it's just, hey, invite me to your lobby. All right, cool, I'm in. And that won't be here. So that's kind of

an annoyance as well. Aside from that, I just, aside from that, I just think everything is fantastic. I want to pick back off of like the new player thing too, because like that's a conversation we've been having a lot about Eldron Ring leading up is the amount of new people are going to probably hop in and the idea that this game more than other Souls game is probably going to be more approachable because they've talked about it being more approachable. I do not think it's going to be more approachable. I think one of the things they mentioned is that I think Miyazaki said that like this is going to be the most finished from software game. It is not. Like I think it might be the one of the least finished from software games. I think the tutorialization is bad in it.

And like, I think that comes down to it having a lot of the elements that you know from other, from software games and Souls games, you know, in the way that like XP works and the way that like, uh, equipping your character works and all these things. But like, you know, in our less play that me and Andy did, right? Andy kind of had to explain to me like, how did two hand items versus like, you know, one hand items to go to like equip and unequip my right hand and my left hand, right? Because like the one other, I guess Solzzi from software game I've played, I guess outside of Sekiro would have been bloodborne. And Bloodborden, I don't think, had like the too-handy thing. And I couldn't even tell you if, like, Dark Souls in those games did. I assume they might have done, or they might have had. That text pops up and you just missed it. And I just want to point that out because I miss it the first time as well. I missed it. The text pops up and it says, here's how you two-hand a weapon.

And I had missed that my first time. So I figured other people might miss it as well. I do think for a game that is so mechanically deep and has so much going on, you have to go beyond just like a quick pop-up text for a lot of this stuff. Because like you even had to, like, Andy texted me when you're quite a few hours into the game of like, hey, if you go to the pause menu and look to the right side, you have things that you can equip in kind of a like weapon wheel situation if you hold triangle and use items as opposed to like scrolling through them on your inventory menu on the down B pad. Stuff like that where I'm like, these are things that people should know and things that like would have been helpful if the game was, if the tutorialization stuff was presented better. and presented and was presented in a way that felt like it was for new players.

Like, Eldon Ring doesn't feel like it is for new players at all. And it doesn't need to be, right? Because, like, you know, I think this is them trying to expand and, like, you know, try and make their game bigger. And at the same time, in a lot of ways, more hardcore, which I completely respect. But I do think that, like, a lot of the tutorialization stuff is, feels like it's of, like, a past from software that doesn't need to do it like this anymore, especially because, like, a lot of the systems are repeat systems from their previous games.

And, like, part of why I enjoyed Bloodbourne was the fact that, like, not only am I discovering the world and what's going on, I'm also discovering how to tackle these systems at the same time. The fact that these are the same systems, I don't think means that, like, you need to obfuscate it in this way. I think you just, you know, tell people how this shit works without it being a thing of, like, now you got to play for 50 hours where you understand exactly, like, how to do X, Y, and Z thing. I also will say that playing this game, you know, I've played Demon Souls on stream. Bloodborne on stream, I played Dark Souls and one on stream, and I always had chat to help me out. And that's one thing also is that like, it was harder this time around because I didn't have that explanation. I wasn't playing a six-year-old game that people know back and forth. So not having that was definitely tougher with in terms of direction, in terms of certain game

mechanics. I also wanted to point out and piggyback of what bless, piggyback off, piggyback off of what Blessing was mentioning with a lot of the tutorial stuff. Yeah, I think the, when I was mentioning quality of life, that pouch, that sort of quick weapon wheel thing, even though it's not a wheel, but you'll understand it once you see it, definitely makes things easier. And I think that is one of those quality of life things that they improved upon. But, yeah, throw out some more tutorials out there for us. I think when Miyazaki mentions that he thinks this will be the most completed,

in his mind, he's thinking, at least what I'm assuming he's thinking, is that boss fights are easier here. Yeah. You will have less sort of, you will have less stop signs in your way, preventing your progress, because this game is definitely more approachable with boss fights. You can summon these spirits that you found along the way. you can upgrade these spirits that you found and they become stronger

and you can all spirits. Huh? Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, exactly. Game has spirits. Yes, yes, yes. So like, essentially, whenever you beat an enemy

or sometimes you just find these spirits in random chests or random NPC might give you some, um, you, these are things you can summon in your fight to help you along. Some boss fights will have random NPCs waiting for you at the entrances. There's a lot of different. ways that you can get help in this game. I do think, though, on the opposite side of that, that it might instill a false sense of

confidence because for the most part, I haven't struggled a whole lot with the bosses, except for the ones that I was clearly under-leveled for. That happened a couple times. But walking around in the open world, you can't just summon these spirit friends wherever you are, Tim. So you might be walking down a corridor, and there's two nights there, and they're really tough to beat and you can't summon your spirits. So now it's like, oh, where's your friends at, dog? It's just you? Come on. Let's fight. And I got my ass whooped by a couple of non-bosses more than a

lot of the regular bosses because it's like, man, this dude's really, really hard. And I've maybe grown dependent on these spirits a little bit. So you kind of have to like, hey, my ass is getting checked right now. I kind of have to understand that you got to fight. You can't just expect the enemies aggro to go towards your spirit friends you can you know it it becomes a lot easier in that sense but yeah navigating sort of these bigger dungeons where these um where your spirit friends are not equipable it can get a little bit tough in those in those moments so bless we talked a lot about the things you might not be loving what are the things you love about this game i do i do you think the game has the from software level of like quality in like the the

And in like dungeons and a lot more the linear areas. Right now I'm in like the I'm in a dungeon on my way to what is essentially the second like the second big boss in the game of like the main seven or however many the number is.

And the moment to moment of like going through that like all right I'm just trying to reach the next grace point right. What are they called Andy? Yeah the bonfire. The grace size of grace. Sites of grace. Thank you. Yeah.

I'm trying to reach the next great site, right? And like, we just been calling him not bonfires. The non-bomboffires, yeah. Going about that, like, over and over again and like, you know, the actual combat and linear moments in the game, I think, do shine. And I think are super dope. And, like, the boss fights have been incredible. I think, honestly, if I had to pick my favorite thing from the game currently, it probably

would be the boss fights and just the way in which they just happen, where I will be exploring the world and I'll all come up on, I think they're called Evergals, which I don't totally understand. Ever jails, okay. And I don't totally understand like what they are, but like I just love them because it is like a kind of like an altar area where you walk up. It's literally like Phantom Zone where like certain characters, enemies are basically trapped in a jail.

And it's like a fantasy jail like the ISO cubes from Dred or the Phantom Zone from Superman. They've been cast there. Yeah, they've been like put there for. their crimes or whatever. Like when they happen they're cool as fuck by the way they spell jail the old English way which is G-A-O-L

yeah and I can be against every gal it's so cool it's so cool it's so cool I called it Evergal the first several videos and people were like ever and I saw Vadi videos sort of like

experience of the golden ring and he was like and here you walk into this Everjail and I was like Evergill what jail what what? Evergol me like you go in there and like you go in there and then

then like a horrible night that looks like is ready to kick your ass just materializes and slowly starts walking towards you and you're like fuck yeah this is me for the next two hours that shit is so dope because it's like it's not only that right it is it is the the encounters that'll happen in the most random and like the most cool ways where i'm like exploring i'm on horseback and i see a big tree and i get to the tree and it's like cool oh this is an erd tree what the fuck is an urt tree and then like a big tree guardian will turn around and start swinging at me and now I'm in a boss fight and I'm like I don't know why I'm in this boss fight but I'm here now and I'm finding this thing like I had like

I had that cool moments of the game I had that movie moment where I was like standing next to a pile of rocks and then I turned the camera and the rocks like an eye open and then it stood up and it was a dragon and I was like what the fuck and I just like jumped on my horse and just sprinted in the other direction to get away from it like those are the kind of moments that you're like and like walking. And that's my favorite, like that's my favorite moment in open world games. And like that's the thing is, you know, I feel like I'm being hard on elder ring. And that's only because it's from software. And I consider them one of the best developers in the game. And so for me, it's like,

go hard or go home. But this is the type of open world game that I love. And they are going about it with a philosophy that I love, which is like, hey, let's just let people discover shit. Let's put up, let's cover the map with a whole bunch of cool dope shit for people to discover and like let them go at it. And so it is the average nails. It is those like weird trees. things. It is like coming up under dragon and being like, is that a fucking dragon and then getting to a boss fight with a dragon? It is like, there was one for me yesterday where I was, for a while, I was chasing after this structure because I saw it. It was like, uh, uh, on, like on one of the hills and like the second fallout three coming out of the vault moment, right? Where I'm overlooking

and I'm like seeing all these points of interest. I saw three or four buildings standing next to each other in the far distance. And I was like, I want to go there because that might be where I'm supposed to go next. I can't tell, but let me try to go there. I mark it with like the beacon that you have, which I wish they did. And maybe they do and I just haven't figured it out yet. I wish I could mark things while still like being in the world, like not having to pull out my map.

Because there would be dope shit that I see in the open world where I'm like, I want to mark this. But I open my map and I'm like, I don't know where this is at on my map. I wish I had like a telescope or some shit. But I digress. There's a telescope in the game, but I don't know if that's a built in the camera. I've never tried to mock something in the open world. Yeah.

And that's very much, like, that's a breath of a lot mechanic that, like, because they, that has the beacons, uh, two in the same way. So I wish I could do it while I was still in the game. But like, I chased after the, chase down those four buildings, uh, fought a bunch of shit to get, I fought like two giants that were like ghost giants to get there. Um, got there, looked at like the, what were essentially like these big tall altars. Uh, and I was like, okay, what the fuck are these? I went to each of them.

It was like, you need a key. You need a key. I was like, okay. that I go to the top of the hill, finally found the key. And I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to use this to open one of the altars, I guess. I use it and then teleports me to a different part of the map that I was eyeing before, but I didn't know how to get there.

It teleports me there. And I'm like, oh, shit. And then I get into a dope-ass boss fight out of nowhere. And it's like, for me, that's like, that is the dopest, tightest shit you can do an open world game. It's just like, let people discover shit and get lost. I had a moment where I opened a chest and it teleported me to a place that was literally hell. And I was like, how the fuck do I get out of here? Every enemy is just shitting on me immediately.

And like the panicked, like, run, like, away from enemies and out. I was like, I just, it's like searching for just like a bit of light from the outside that I can like run towards so I can get out of there. And when I got out of there, let me tell you the sense of relief that I had. Like, even now I think about that place. And I'm like, fuck that place, man. Me and Tam experienced that sort of moment around the same time. And the, first off, the music team just absolutely killed it. When you were a teleport to that spot, I have never felt so uncomfortable.

It is the most unsettling, scary music I've ever heard. And it's just, it's kind of just like violins, like really off key in a way. It's, it fucks you up mentally. Like, I needed to get out of there immediately. The way I describe the music in that area is like it's the kind of music that would play when the serial killer is about to pounce on or is like stalking their prey the next person they're going to kill but not in a movie in a documentary. Holy shit.

That is a way of like I don't like where this is going one bit. It was so unsettling because you're so used to everything that we've seen of this game so far, all the preview coverage. It's a lot of natural vegetation. It's beautiful trees. And sure, there might be some scary monsters, but it's comfortable and it's familiar. But there are moments that you are kidnapped in a way and sent to other places that are really, really just awful to be. I want to comment on all the conditional stuff that I really, really love.

And it's something why I – another reason why I love what Front Software does with their games, similar to when we talk about, Bloodbourne and we talk about when you hit that moment where you beat Rom, the vacuous spider, and the whole world changes, right? There are a lot of moments in Souls games like that where you do something and things will fundamentally change your experience. Eldon Ring does that in kind of interesting, smaller, subtler ways. Nothing on that grand scale. But their day-night cycle is not only fantastic to look at, when we were doing the Let's Play with Blessing and Blessing fought Margat the Fell,

who's the first kind of main bossy fight, Blessing got that cutscene at night. Oh. And it was so much cooler at night. Like, during the daytime, it's a cool cutscene to witness because of just sort of the lighting. And I think their engine, like,

obviously not BluPoint level in terms of looks, because that is a PS5 game only. But I absolutely love and wasn't expecting to love the visuals of this game as much as I do. Dude, the visuals are incredible. The atmosphere is incredible. Yeah, I shouldn't have been worried about that because their art direction is absolutely top tier. Like, no, I think they have some of the best art direction in gaming out there. And so they make the most out of what a lot of people would say is, you know, a bit of a dated type of

engine in terms of shaders and lighting and things of that nature, but I haven't for one second felt like, oh, this is ugly. I think everything I've seen is great. I think in terms of, I think the only thing visually that stuck out to me was at sometimes, I'm playing on

PS5 in performance mode. Every now and then I would see like frame drops, but it wasn't anything that crazy. It just was very subtle, but then also I would see pop in. Aside from that, like visually, the color usage in this game is so good where you will see such bright foliage versus like gray stone structures.

But even though they're stone structures, there's still like a bright gray that really pops. In our let's play, we came across like a big kind of like gateway to, to another part of the map. And like as I was coming across it, I was like, damn, that looks good. And we're talking about like a gate. Like it wasn't anything special. It was just a gate.

But it's like, he made the quote of like, you know me. I'm not the type of point at a gate. That's a good looking gate. Like I'm not a thing. It looks super nice. Yeah. Everything looks so good. For me, the moment where it really cemented was toward the end of Stormvale Castle, which is one of the first big structures that you'll encounter.

There was a big boss fight with one of the big Eldon Lords or whatever the fuck they're called. And that, the fucking, like, area in which you fight in is so cool. And I think it was in one of the gameplay demos, like gameplay trailers that came out last year. That area is so cool just from both like the fight itself, right, in the enemy that you're fighting, who has like really cool design to him to the, like, fucking swords and like a fucking dragon and like everything they they have there that sets the scene let alone like the verticality of the way that the path kind of winds down and the winds back up on the other side it is top notch and the world is filled with that stuff um it's honestly like maybe some of the best level like the best art design i've seen in the open world game yeah i i think

what they also really do to kind of add that extra polish right because i do think that yes the engine is a bit dated and immediately I'm going to keep on making the blue point comparison because Demon Souls looked kind of what we expected next gen to look like and that is a PS5 only game and obviously that's not cross generation

for a reason and this is cross generation. The I think what added a lot to it is like the smoke effects, the environmental weather effects, the wind passing by and flying through the volumetric fog of great

following metric fog in this game. Holy cow, it looks really, really damn good. Especially when you're walking in force at night got a lot of those sort of Red Dead 2 vibes. Yeah. When you're in force and you're kind of like the sun is kind of diffusing through what would be a foggy area. It's usually dead sick. Yeah. But what I wanted to comment more about the day night cycle and the conditional things that you experience, there are nighttime only bosses. There are not only nighttime only enemies. Yeah. But these nighttime only bosses that I have experienced have caught me off guard every time. And it is the coolest shit where I'm walking. It's like, all right, I'm walking to a place.

I've been here a lot. Granted, it's always been during the daytime. I just never made note of that. But suddenly I walk up somewhere and something flies down on me. And I see the fucking boss bar pop up at the bottom like, oh, my God, this is the coolest shit ever. And this game is filled with that stuff. This game is filled with surprises, and I feel like from software games have always done that. They've always found really cool ways to surprise you and make you go, holy shit, that's really cool and clever.

But on an open world, it just takes it to a different level. Not only the nighttime bosses, but when Tam was mentioning going to different locations, I had, I've obviously had several of like, holy shit moments. But one of them in particular, I got to a random building in some area, and I was like, what's in here? and there's a lift and I go down the lift and the lift just kept going down and it just kept going and kept going. Dude, I know exactly what you're talking about. And that was a fucking cool moment.

And suddenly, I'm looking at it, I'm just like, what the fuck is happening? Where am I right now? And like, I am just, and I'm lucky a lot of these moments are recorded. I'm just like, where the fuck am I? What is this?

This is gorgeous, but I'm terrified. And I think that's what they do such a good job of where you, you may not be I think what I liked about what I really really love about this game is that I feel like I am this adventurer who is like Tam was mentioning

fighting the odds, right? And I have leveled up and I feel experience at this point and I'm terrified to be here but I still feel like I can give this area a shot and I'm going to give it my damnedest, right? I'm going to go out there and I'm going to try to take down whatever's out here. Do I dare go further though?

Should I just call? Should I say, fuck it? Let me go back up that lift because I don't want to see what else is out here. What if I lose progress? There's so much risk reward with all this. And if you go fully through that area and if you find the lift at the other end of the area and go up that lift and find out where that takes you, holy shit, this fucking game, man. That was the moment.

That was the moment where I realized we're not finishing this. Yeah. Like when you breach into what you're seeing, I was like, Andy, I don't. think we're finishing this not for not for no for embargo it's not happening that and then later on like we that keeps happening to the point where i was like andy i'm giving up on finishing this like i'm not i'm not going to i'm giving up on rushing through this i'm just going to slow down it was so great it was like that moment where you and your you and your uh classmate friend agree that like we're not doing we're not finishing the essay yeah we're both doing this together cool cool cool it felt it felt

so good for like me to say that and then annie to be like yeah i'm not we're not put like let's slow down and I was like, thank you. And it's the best decision because I've experienced so much cool as shit. What I've done now, what I've done now is I've gone back to the lowest point of the map, which is right in the south, and I'm like meticulously going to every part of the, the kind of like map, the topography that looks like it could be something. And it is just a pure, joyous kind of experience where sometimes I'll go and I'll find nothing. Sometimes I'll walk into a small village. They're worshipping a fire. They look at me and suddenly start shooting fireballs from their eyes and I'm like what the fuck is happening in here

and then like I'm off doing something else and it's like it's a game like it's one of those infinite games where it's like I can play this forever I can play this forever so I mean I feel like a lot of people are going to because like I will be surprised if there's any review by the time this comes out that actually has the game finished for how would be incredibly suspicious of that review yeah I'd be like there's no way but also this is a game that I foresee unless I drop off which is very possible. I've already gotten to the point of rage quitting a few times.

I see myself playing this game for months. I got some salty texts from blessing. Yeah, I was very much. Tam's gotten like, maybe Andy's gotten like

the height of it. But like Tam has gotten like me at the height. Also me at the low. It's being like, I've played this game for eight hours. I've not done shit. I've read every single one and I've been like, I understand this one hundred percent.

I get it. Like I've had these moments as well. But then you just, you just keep playing for every moment. You're like, oh, I hate this. There's a moment. You're like,

this is the great. thing ever. I wanted to point out where Tam was sort of mentioning what what Blessings issues were were with the game and how Tam sees those as positives and I largely felt a bit of the same when when Blessing talks about finding these secret caves and caverns and tunnels and not feeling like you're getting rewarded I think I'm in the complete opposite because I just get super stoked whenever I see one of those because I know I'm going to get a boss fight out of that I know I'm going to get some sort of loot out of that and what a lot of

So broken that your reward is to get your out of K-5 boss. I love it, Andy. You got you're all way down from now. Let's go. The thing I asked is your loot good? Like, my, because I understand the idea of like the journey is the reward. And like, you know, getting the boss fight is a reward. And like, I love that stuff. And honestly, like, a lot of this, a lot of these things are the same things I would say about breath of the wild.

Somebody came to me and was like, oh, unlike the corox seed. I'm like, it wasn't about the corox seed. It was about solving the puzzle. But like, and I understand that that is going to be the thing. people turn around for me in this game. And I totally understand that I get that. I think the thing for me with the gamified nature of this, or not with the un-gamified nature of this game is that like, I think in some points they needed to gamify more where I'm at for so much of my journey in Eldering, I've been like, I want to get more powerful. I want to level up. I want to find the next

piece of gear that is going to turn me into a god. And not the kind of God that's going to fucking kill everything in my way because I understand that this isn't that kind of game. They want you to suffer. But also in the way where I'm like, I feel like I'm getting something like anything out of my journey that I have to show for other than, cool, I saw a cool boss and then I got a T-shirt as a reward, right? Like, I want to get to the end of a cave and get a dope-ass sword that I'm going to discard my current

sword to use, and I'm not getting that. Like, I get there and I'm like, I get to the end of the cave, do a boss fight, and I have, like, I come out and I'm like, I got nothing to show. And for me, I don't know, for me, that's a flaw. On the opposite side, I'm leaving, not only beating that boss, I'm leaving with a shit ton of runes, with a weapon I might

completely change to. And if it's a ton of I love these tunnels because when you're inside of these Minecrafts, these minecraft tunnels, you are getting smithing shards to upgrade your weapons. And that is like incredibly important. You want to go to these tunnels because you're always going to see a random dude just like pickaxing at a wall. And you know, oh, there's going to be items there that I can loot and then use that when I go back to the blacksmith so that he can then upgrade the current weapon on me. using. So like whenever I see a tunnel, I'm like, oh, this is gold for me. Because not only, maybe I won't be able to upgrade the weapon I have now, but I have another weapon that's lower

level that I've been waiting to find the right items to upgrade that later on. So it's always about the loot, but it's always maybe I'll get a cool weapon. If not, I'm going to have 8,000 runes. I'm going to have 16,000 runes after I beat that boss. So like, there's always a reward there for me. I've never looked at these Souls games to be on the equivalent of Borderlands where it's like, oh, whatever gun I get there, that's going to replace my whole thing because it kind of, it has to fit what your play style and what your build is.

But leveling up the stuff that I have anyway is always the reward anyway. I think for me, that stuff worked better when the games are linear. I feel like when it's open world, and it is so much about like going off and being, I guess being rewarded for the exploration, I would think that the reward would be turned up a little bit more.

Because like in Demon Souls or in like even Bloodborne, right? I'll solely down with the idea of like, cool, my reward here are the blood echoes, and it is like maybe, possibly I get a weapon that I'm going to keep in use, right? But like, those are rarer cases, but I think they worked in a game like Bloodborn where it's a little bit more contained where like 25 hours into Eldon Ring, I feel like I've won, barely scratched the surface, which is kind of cool, but also I'm like, man, like I wish, I need a bit more from the game here because even with like my runes, I almost dislike the runes system in this game, because it's the same. It's the same as always worked in a

from software game where it's like if you die, your ruins get left wherever you were. You have to go back and chase down those rooms. I feel like it dissentivizes open world exploration to an extent where I don't always want to go down the same path. If I die and I lose my ruins, that means I have to go down the same path to go and grab my things. That also means that the more I feel free to explore, the more I'm going to have more ruins and the more I'm like terrified to lose my runes. And I end up just going back, teleporting back. to one of the sites of Grace to turn them in, or in my case, I'll have, like, I'll need, like, I'll need to turn in 10,000 ruins to level up. I have 8,000. Cool, let's take a trip to

Storm Hill, farm some giants, get up to that next level. Cool, now let me turn it in and go about exploring the world again. And I feel like my gameplay loop just keeps getting reverted to that same thing of, like, cool, you're getting, you're making a little of progress. Don't get too, too excited, because now, like, you're going to be scared to take two steps anywhere in this game, because you're just going to get killed and lose all your shit. So I can't say my experience of that has been different for any other from soft game though. But I think in a other from soft game, them being linear makes it better. Like losing your runes in a linear from software, I'll just use BloodBorne because that's the game I play the most, right?

Losing your Blood Echoes in Bloodborn, I'm going to go down that same path because I only have one path to go down, right? Like the game is linear enough to where I don't have to worry about that. In an open world game, it's like, dude, I have a million paths to go down. the game wants me to explore, obviously, because everything is tailored around exploration in terms of, like, the pathing and everything. When I lose my blood echo or my runes in Eldon Ring, I have to go chase down that same path. And for me, it's like, I don't know, like, it doesn't seem, it doesn't feel right, I guess, for the exploration of a game that is so wide and, like, wants me to kind of like, it wants to push me to explore. I feel like the, I feel like the, the rune system goes the opposite way, where it makes me not want to explore. Ooh, a system that I would love for them to bring in Bless.

Real quick, I want to say, I want to get to what you're about to say, Andy, but Tam needs to go. So I want to give him a real quick moment of what are the last things you want to say about the Eldon Ring experience so far for you? Yeah, I think like a lot of the things that Blessing has said is fundamentally, like we said earlier, like it is 100% true. I think this is going to be a very divisive game. I think that for the people who it really resonates with, it's going to be a game that really stands up as one of the greats for them. And I'm one of those people. Like I definitely will understand when people say, you know, it doesn't work for me. It's frustrating.

It's not rewarding enough. But for me, I am currently in a position where I'm like, I think this is, like I said, the antidote to what has really made me tired with modern video games. If you get what I mean, like the gamification. of everything, the constant need to tell me I'm great and give me shiny things and overwhelm me to the point where nothing is meaningful anymore. That has been something that I really struggle with. Even in games that I know that I'm enjoying, like Horizon, like, you know, dying light for aspects of it, this is the complete opposite where it's like, I'm rediscovering the power

of a good open world and what it can really bring to a game. the sense of discovery and exploration, adventure, and the curiosity it can inspire, and then the kind of fundamental gameplay, if it's strong in combat, how rewarding it can be to overcome challenges. And for me, like I said, I know some people won't get it. For me, this has been kind of a spiritual and really, like, uplifting experience in a lot of ways. There was a period recently where I was like, I'm just not feeling games right now. Like I'm not feeling nothing's hitting, nothing's connecting with me. And the moment I started playing this, I realized why.

And it is because of all that I just said. And I feel empowered again. I feel like revitalized. And I feel in the same way that most people felt after they played Breath of the Wild, or while they were playing Breath of the Wild, that's what I'm having right now. Like the world is shinier and brighter and a little more exciting to be because I'm playing this game and it's giving me so much. I think it's an incredible experience.

So, Tam, I'm going to leave you with the most difficult question to answer. And I only want a yes or a no, nothing else. And then you leave this Discord call. Okay. I know you're not done with this game, but with where you're at right now, is this the best from software game? Yes. We'll see you later. We'll see you later.

Okay. Bye, Tim. I didn't expect that. I didn't ask me yes for that. I really did not expect a yes. Now, jumping off that, Andy, I know you want to say what you're about to say, but real quick, do you have an answer to that question? I think Bloodbourne is still my favorite. And I think they do a lot of great things similarly, but I think getting into the lore of Bloodbourne was, is what really threw it to a different level for me.

And a lot of that required watching videos and watching people break down the lore. But when it's all said and done, like, I just think that game is fantastic with the story it's telling. The thing I wanted to mention a blessing about losing your runes in a system that I hope that they, I had wish that they had brought in was the Securo purchasing money bag sort of thing. Where in Securo, Tim, in the same way in any Souls game, in Securo you have money that if you die, you leave it there and you can go pick it back. Or you lose half of it. It's a bit of a different system. But in Securo, if you don't want to risk that, you can buy these money bags. and those are items that you just hold in your inventory.

And I wish that there was a way. And then if you want to use that money, then you can kind of like pop the money bag in the same way that you would pop these kind of bunch of runes that I was mentioning earlier. And I wish that there was a way in here that you could buy like some sort of run, who knows how they would from soft it up,

like a run case or some bullshit. So that if I know I have 10,000 runes, and I'm not close to leveling up but there's I don't want to die and possibly lose these let me buy a $10,000 run case or whatever and that stays in my inventory and I can then

you know adventure freely without the fear of losing those 10K because right now it's requiring me I believe like 29,000 roons to level up and sometimes I'll have like 22K and I'm like shit this is like this is a lot of roots this is a lot of ruins

and I got to be really careful about what the next play is. Luckily, though, I think dying in the open world is not the worst case scenario because the horse riding is super simple and super easy and fluid. And being able to get on the horse and just run to the spot, pick up a ruin, piece the fuck out. Like the amount of boss fights that are optional boss fights that I've been encountered with that I can just ride off away from have been great. Great because in normal circumstances in a front software game, you turn the wrong corner, you turn the wrong corner and there's a big monster there waiting for you. There's nowhere to really go because of its sort of linear nature.

But in a lot of moments, I see a big boss. If it's like, ooh, I don't want to fuck with that right now. I just keep on riding. And it's all good. And I think the game does a great job with saying whenever you're comfortable, come back here. Because there's a big monster here that you might want to experience because it's really dope. and it's likely one you haven't seen before. I think that's one, another impressive thing is the enemy variety.

Dude, the enemies are so dope. There are so many different enemies, and to a certain point, you're going to get some clones where maybe this one shoots fire now instead of lightning. But it's nothing egregious to the point where I'd say, like, oh, they're just reusing bosses. Like, I've never felt that way about this game.

I'm constantly seeing new things. Again, 63 hours in, I'm still seeing new enemies that I've never seen before. And I opened up my map and it is maybe 20% uncovered. It's fucking, but it's exciting. Like I'm so excited that I'm at that point that I still have so much I haven't seen yet. I got a bit spoiled with seeing a different biome on the Sony trailer today. So if you are planning on watching that, be careful because it gives away, it shows off some bosses, some main bosses that you may not want spoiled.

but it also shows off a couple of biomes where I go, oh shit, I didn't even know that was in this game. I've seen all sorts of different areas to be inside or to explore, but that is not an area that I've seen yet or even knew existed. I got to a biome the other day where, like, it looked different from anything else I'd experience in the game because I just kept going east. And I hadn't gone that far east before.

And so I went, all of a sudden, the vibes are different, right? Like the sun shines a different color, basically. and like I get there I get to the grace thing the sky is red the sky is red yeah I sit and it's like some weird looking birds that are pursed there around like moon rises

yeah I'm like oh dude I don't know about these birds and then I start to walk down a path and I see I'll just say like I see like an army of the undead and I'm like that doesn't seem great and I'm like I can probably take it and I swing at one the health barely goes down I'm like I'm not I'm going back home

I'm not fucking around in this area but like different volumes are so cool And that's where you know, like, I am level gated. This, I should not be here yet, but I will come back here one day. And I do think the thing that Tam was mentioning about sort of the, the obtuseness of directions and where to go, I have gotten just so much satisfaction out of listening to these NPCs. Just tell me where to go. And I don't deserve a pat on the back for following basic directions, but I have just become so accustomed to just,

oh, that quest dog will just stay somewhere. And I've got to the point where I am marking stuff on my map and I Not only can you mark down these pointers that Bessing was mentioning to kind of you would see when you're exploring there's a big blue beam from the sky That's where I marked but you can also just like many maps in many games put down a Little icon of a sword or a little icon of a vendor shop or something It's constantly surprised me in that in ways where I'm interacting with this game in ways that I have an interaction with a game before in a long time. I just think it does so many great things right.

I do think that it's no surprise to me that this game is really, really lacking on accessibility options. That's something I just kind of expected. I shouldn't write it off, but it is what it is. It sucks. I wish that they would address that a bit more because it's definitely lacking in those departments. In that same discussion, I am surprised and I know this is new, and people are going to fucking tear me apart,

but I don't care. I am surprised this game doesn't let you pause. We were talking about accessibility things. Like that is a thing that's always been precedent from software games, but again, this one being an open world game, I do think there's certain changes

that are worth adapting. And especially for accessibility, I think that would have been a welcome addition because it sucks to be out in the open world and you're exploring for 30 minutes or whatever. And it's like, cool, I got to do a thing. But I'm in a game that at all times you could be in danger and I can't pause here.

So I got to like, you know, go find the next, site or grace site or whatever yeah thousand percent uh i do i i do want to answer the question of like the um from software like is it their best game and like obviously like i think for me i still put bloodborne and securo above it but i do think each of these games do something that is better than the other where i think the best combat system for me is still secero like i i the way securo plays in combat is so good bloodborne i'm still most attracted to that world for the um the lore and like the universe that they set up there

with all of the like the cosmic yeah the cosmic horror stuff and like the I was trying to think of the name of the dude that like came up with Cthulu Lovecraft with all the lovecraftian elements of that game like

I think that stuff still shines so well and like that combined with me as Aki's brain I think it's just so it's off the chain especially playing Elder Ring and coming across some scary elements in Elder Ring that maybe might be some of the most terrifying shit I've seen in a from software game yet like that stuff is super dope but then yeah elton ring i would say it has maybe some of the best

enemy design on that front like coming across a boss or an enemy randomly in the open world with any new one i'm always terrified to see what their deal is and like what their animation is like like there is an enemy that i fought recently where i i hacked at them with my sword all of a sudden they started freaking out like their body was doing like fucking crazy things moving essentially like a mosquito would right where it's like all over the place like their body hops around and all that shit And like that stuff is so impressed to see just in animation, let alone in just the visual design of the enemies. And like the, like Andy was saying, right? Like there was so much enemy variety.

And even in like the, the enemies that are the same, there are still things about them that like could surprise you. Like for me, there was a, I was in a region that is hilly. And as I was running uphill, I saw a giant. And I've seen giants plenty of times in this game. And I've killed a lot of giants in this game. So I do not get scared of giants. but all of a sudden, because I'm on a hill, I see this giant ball up

and then roll down the hill at me. And I'd never seen that before. Oh, I never seen that before. I was like, oh, shit. Yeah, no, like, I'd never seen it before. I was like, what the fuck is happening right now? And, like, he hits me and takes out a trunk of my health. And I was like, I didn't know you could do that. They adapted.

And, like, those are the moments that are excited. Yeah, they're like, there's a hill. We're going to fuck you up on this hill now. And that's one thing I love about the attention of detail that from soft pays to a lot of these areas is they didn't just make an open world game for a quantity approach, right? Like there's so many decisions in this game

that are impactful in important ways and so many of these enemies that are placed there for certain reasons and they act certain ways because of where they are. You see that so many times. On the Blood-Born podcast that we talked about that I sort of re-shared recently because it's still one of my favorite things that we've done.

There's a moment, Tim, where you are in an area near the end of the game, and you notice that you fight one enemy, and that enemy is like the only one of its kind around this place. Everybody else in that area looks different. And it doesn't really occur to you why that enemy is here, but they're here for some reason, so who knows? And then later on as you keep on exploring, you end up getting to a place where you are above the area you,

just passed over in a way that you look up like a normal person you look at them there's nothing there but you are kind of like ascended and hanging over the place where you just were and this place is filled with all of that one rare enemy down there and you're like that person probably fell that enemy like found a way to fall through this ceiling and is was now in that first place so like there are so many instances of that that are so well thought out and and like they They just, they care about all of those moments. They want all those moments to have purpose. They're not just placing an enemy here to make it harder.

They're placing it there because it likely serves the story in the world in some way. And it's really, really special shit. That's awesome. I'm sure we're going to talk about this game a lot more over the rest of the year. Andy, how much longer do you think you have in you until you beat it? Like, if you would have put a date on it, right now as of recording, it is February 22nd. When do you think you're going to beat this game? I'm at a point where I like I kind of want to start a new play through.

To have like a fresh sort of like for stream and stuff like that. Do I continue this game? Do I on my Xbox I've been playing with Mike for a bit and you could do four player co-op. But obviously it's not crossplay. So that sucks. That's another one of those like of course they wouldn't have crossplay. why would Frumsoff even think of that? If I were to continue this play-through, I would say I'd have maybe another week or two.

I don't know how many days I'm playing, but like, obviously what I've played so far is like overdrive. In the first three days I had put in like 40 hours. And I was like, man, I am like one of the days, Tim, you were like eaten and sleeping Eldon Ring for one of the days. I had woken up at 4.30 in the morning. I couldn't fall back to sleep. So I was like, I'll play on the Lundring right now. It's five in the morning. And I'll take a nap.

And I never took a nap. And I played from five in the morning until like, I don't know, eight at night. And I just kept on going. One break you took was when the, I remember that day because you told me when your chair came. And you're like, oh, I should probably leave my room to like go set up this chair. And so we like took the chair out of the box. And you're like, yeah, I've been playing since five in the morning. And I was like, Andy, it's 3 p.m.

Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah. I mean, there's just so many moments of this game, Tim, that you don't think that there's anything left to explore there. Or you think you might have hit sort of a point where maybe the world is blocking you off from getting there, but you end up finding a path to that place that you've been looking for forever.

And that begins an hour and a half to two hour journey of, and it's just there's constantly moments like that. Yeah, there's constantly moments like that. And, yeah, I would say that there's still. a lot of the map that I have yet to explore. So I'd give myself maybe another like 20 hours to beat the game. So if anyone's noticed, Andy, not being on other shows, it's because one of the snakes is actually named Elden.

Yes. That is a last name ring. We're about to do the post show where we're going to talk even more about Eldon Ring, all the thoughts, the blessing, and Andy have so far. But for everyone else, thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Gamescast. It has been many weeks of reviews. if you haven't caught up on all of them, please go back. We have a great seafood review.

Oh, my Mike just fell. A great seafood review. We have a great Horizon review, a great dying light review. And now this, I think, I think. Next week, I think is the first non-review episode of Gamescast we've had since January. I believe. I think. I don't know if that's the case.

Well, I mean, like, you know, like a big main review. It might be. It might be, you know what? I actually am thinking right now. Like I'm looking at the calendar right now. Yeah, I think it is. I think it's a review. When I looked at the calendar yesterday, that was not the case.

Things are changing left and right. It's going to be fun over here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. So stay tuned for a lot more of that. What a time to be a gamer. You know what I'm talking about? Man, I'm so unhealthy right now. Let us know in the comments below how excited you are for Eldon Ring, what you thought about this conversation.

and stay tuned for way more of these conversations and patreon.com slash kind of funny games supporters stay tuned for an amazing post show that we're about to do. Until next time, love you all. Goodbye.