Video Gamers Podcast - [Deep Dive] Elden Ring: Nightreign - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Gaming Hosts Ryan, Josh and Ace are returning to the lands between, taking on Night Lords and deep diving Elden Ring: Nightreign! A rogue-like spinoff of Elden Ring, can this game live up to its predecessor’s success, or is this a failed attempt at a gaming money grab? We break down the gameplay, the rogue-like elements, how it fits into the Elden Ring universe and more. This is one gaming packed episode you don’t want to miss, from the Video Gamers Podcast!  Thanks to our MYTHIC supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius and Phelps Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1 Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/  Follow us on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videogamerspodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Today we're returning to our adventures in Limveld as we cover the recent release of Elden Ring Night Reign. We've been playing it, we've been kicking butt, and well, if we're being honest, mostly getting our butts kicked. What does Ryan think about his first foray into the Dark Souls games?

Is Night Reign a cheap and simplified knockoff of Elden Ring, or does it live up to its pedigree? On today's episode, we're going to find out, but first, some introductions are in order I am your host Josh and Joining me he thought he was going to be doing a ton of dodge rolling But more often than not you'll find him crawling on the ground. It's Ryan. Yeah after I try to res you That's your that's your pie. You're like a paraplegic in this game. Oh, hey, man

I crawl with the best of them Ryan, okay? I knew you were instantly gonna come after me. Oh, yeah The people seen it too on Twitter was watching. I'm not sure I like that Oh boy. And joining us, you'll find him off looting everything in sight while Ryan and I do all the fighting and work. He's the ultimate Lord Commander Supreme of Loot Goblins. It's Ace. I would just like to say I was getting stronger before I came and helped you so that we all didn't end up on the floor all right It was gonna benefit all of us You know you just had to trust the process I there there was a couple nights in a row where like ace would just disappear

Ryan and I are trying to kill things to get to get runes so we can level up and ace comes back Just looking like a like a warlord So we can level up and ace comes back just looking like a like a warlord You know just just decked out to the gills man like just dual wielding like legendary and we're like Where have you been man? I just ran off over here real quick He's like he's like Gandalf just goes and solos the bellrog so that he can get all you know roll up in a new New white robe with staff and everything get all new loot and gear Freaking hey it helped though all right. Yeah, uh-huh helps you

Every group has a loot goblin ace You know I guess I'm just gonna have to roll. There's worse things to be in a group I guess than the look Man alright guys listen welcome in everybody it this one's been a while coming here. I mean Elden Ring night rain We've been talking about this for a really long time. It finally released. We were very excited to dive in I know there's a ton of people out there that want to know what Ryan thinks we have been twitch streaming a Lot of our playtime with night rain so people have been able to join in and kind of see how we have been Handling the learning curve We'll talk about our terrible terrible performance

That we just broadcast to the world a little bit later, because I'm sure that's gonna come up as well. You know, hey man, you win some, you lose some. That's just part of being a gamer. But one thing that we want to do, because we have not done this in a little while, is we want to start off by reading a review. We always read reviews every single time somebody leaves one, we read it.

We like to read them on the show as a thank you to people that actually take the time to write these reviews so Ryan I believe you've got one for us right buddy I do this one is coming all the way from Arc Ice thank you so much for leaving the review remember if you read it we promise we will eventually get to it. But again, Ark Rice wrote, this is the best podcast bar none. VGP is top tier podcast. I work from home and last week I decided to start listening to a podcast

and am I lucky to have found this one. Josh and Ryan are the type of guys you would want to have a beer with. They are funny, real, and generous with their time and money. I don't know about that, I don't got no money. They have interesting guests from all aspects of the industry and they will have you wish listing a ton of games. Although I just found this podcast one week ago, it has been on nonstop while I work and when I'm in the car. If you are

a gamer in your 30s and 40s, this podcast will instantly click with you. I was hooked within the first few minutes, even though Josh is much older and Ryan underrates Red Dead Redemption 2. Love you guys. Thanks for doing what you do. PS, can't wait to join the Discord. It sounds great. Well, it is great. It is great. I am always. Josh is much older than me. I am much older. The review was going so well right up till the end there, man.

I thought it went great. It just kept getting better and better. Oh boy. Yeah. Thank you, Arc Ice, for the awesome review. We're going to try to get to these. We know it's just been crazy. We're trying to bring everybody some more content.

We had Fan Fusion. I mean, really fun times, but a little a little bit chaotic But I mean everybody knows we love us some chaos at the same time So absolutely and then real quick a huge Thank you to a new member of our discord community who's been super active Which is awesome has been hanging out in our twitch streams with us as well Which we absolutely love to see and that is is a massive thank you to Andrew or Frieza for signing up for RareStats and helping support this show.

So thank you, Andrew, for not only supporting the show, but just being awesome and hanging out with us and talking games too. And Frieza is from Scotland, and all I can think of now is Frieza from DBZ in a Scottish accent. Yes, that's kind of where my brain goes to. I was going to put you on the spot, Ryan,

but that might just come out really bad as a Scottish Frieza. I'm going to have to work on that one. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't want to do that to you. Practice that one on the streams, maybe. There you go. All right, guys, let's do this, man, because I mean, we've been playing the heck out of some night rain I didn't I'll be honest

I didn't even check my hours, but if I had to guess because we've had some marathon sessions We're probably over 20 25 hours If I had to guess if not if not more That's it's all that looting you've been doing Oh yeah. That's all that looting you've been doing. It might be. It might just be. It doesn't go with you.

If you go by yourself and loot, dude, you can't bring it to our matches, just so you know. I know. So what I wanna do is I want to, I wanna just start off by saying, and Ryan, this one may not be 100% pertinent, but I do want you to answer,

does Elden Ring Night Reign feel like Elden Ring to you ace? Yes, it does but somehow it's it's faster. It's faster than Elden Ring That's the only thing I really noticed but it still plays like an Elden Ring game would if you were to Except for you know, no fall damage. So try to remember that when you go back to base Elden Ring try to remember that you know how many people are gonna die the first time they play Elden Ring again where they're just like oh cool follow me it's an epidemic gravity so I I do it's it's weird to me because it does feel like Elden Ring I know that I voiced that one of my main concerns was that this was gonna feel like a dumped down

Elden Ring we'll talk about that here in a minute But night rain does a very good job of healing like Elden Ring to me like you right at home It felt like I was like oh bro. We're back You know like this combat system the dodge rolling the creatures the visuals like, you know Even the UI like everything is right there. It is a little weird because you now have like triggerable abilities So it's like oh all sudden I got to push right trigger and left trigger together like that's a little strange Yeah, those are a bit strange, but I would also say Man, what was I now? I've forgotten

That's good cuz I was about to ask Ryan a question anyway here. So my question to Ryan, not having any experience with Elden Ring, is was this anything like you expected it to be? Because you have said many times, like dude, it's just a dodge roll simulator, I'm just gonna be rolling, rolling, rolling, all over the place.

And to your credit, you went in with a pretty open mind when we started diving into night rain but my question is Was this anything like you expected it to be? Yes, and no I would say if that's an answer it I did play blood-borne not a ton of it I put in maybe 10 hours 15 hours, and then I just kind of got fed up And I was like just I don't even know where to go I don't know why I'm going where I'm hours, and then I just kinda got fed up, and I was like, I don't even know where to go, I don't know why I'm going where I'm going, so I just dropped it and I never picked it up again,

and or the Elden Rings. So I mean, well, we'll get to that later, but from what I've played and what I've seen in my playtime with Bloodborne, it felt similar, but that slight tweak that had the pace that I love with like God of War, that action combat that's fluid but has that speed so it's not just a slog every time you get in a battle that takes forever. So I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing. I don't know how comparable it is to base Elden Ring, but from what I played, the pacing felt spot on for me.

I will say that I think Night Reign plays a lot faster. It's definitely a lot faster. Not in the combat. Like, the combat is very much Elden Ring, you know? I mean, imagine these boss fights trying to solo these, and I know that we kind of go, oh man, that sounds really, really hard. There, it's not, I mean, Night Reign is meant to be a three-person party, and so you're taking on these nightlords and these fantastic bosses with three people.

Elden Ring is meant to be a single player, but the pace of the combat really is not any different. I mean, I feel like they've managed to maintain what you know from Elden Ring as far as how combat works, but where where Night Rain differs is in just how quickly you need to be moving and doing things. You know, Elden Ring, take your good old sweet time, buddy. You want to just mosey through this dungeon you found? That's cool. And in fact, it's encouraged, because how many times is something hiding around a corner

in Elden Ring ready to bash you over the head if you're not paying attention? So, you know, Night Reign definitely feels like a faster pace in just the overall game to me, but the combat is the same as it is in Elden Ring, you know? So I was just curious because, you know, as we're playing, you're kind of like, guys, I'm kind of digging this combat, man.

Like, I didn't know this game was gonna be like this. And it kind of was cool to see you, like, realize how good that combat can be. But I didn't know if this was like what you expected it to be. No, I expected it to definitely be a little bit slower and to bring it up again. It just it reminded me of like obviously on a grander scale with the enemy types, but the Valkyries on God of War, like it got to that. You got to be precise, you have

to be timely with how you do your attacks and your dodges and stuff or you're gonna get punished and it does do that, you know. And I know we talked about the pace, I said it was spot on, I would say it's almost a little quick, you know, for like sometimes I would like to explore a little more, take a little more time with that without, you know, stuff coming in but yeah man it's uh it was it was good yeah yeah the combat was nice so let's talk about our initial concerns because we all had some okay and and you know my initial concern like I said was that this was gonna be dumbed down Elden Ring it's gonna be stripped down we're gonna lose a lot of what made Elden Ring magical

they're gonna simplify everything too far. They're gonna make it too approachable for people. And I said this multiple times. I am here to say that is not the case. No, no he's not. Blaine Nirene absolutely put those fears to rest for me. This game is hard. It is challenging.

It is not dumbed down in honestly any kind of meaningful way Like if I would struggle to say hey, this is this is like dumbed down from what Elden Ring was in fact Sometimes it's actually a little bit more complicated because of that pacing You know like you you have to keep moving and we'll get into the actual what a ground is like for people that may not Be aware, but I will say that my initial fears were completely unfounded This does not feel like a dumbed-down Elden Ring to me It definitely is a different game and it has mechanics that make it feel different

It makes it feel faster paced in a lot of ways But my concerns were completely put to rest when we got in here and we started playing and then I was like, okay Thank goodness guys, this is, this is still Elden Ring, man. It's just Elden Ring with my buddies on a much faster pace, you know? Yeah. Um, so what about you ace? Cause I mean, you, you're, you're a huge fan of Elden Ring. You've beaten it. You know, you've done millennia and stuff like that as far as side content. What were your fears going into this and where they found it or not?

So this is what I was going to say earlier that I forgot, but I was super concerned how they were going to take, you know, the Elden Ring format and make it a rogue like, especially a multiplayer rogue like, while also keeping that challenge and that intrigue and exploration that really you got from Elden Ring is like, why would you want to downgrade from Elden Ring? It's one of the greatest games you can play, especially with that seamless co-op mod we've been talking about where you could play Elden Ring with friends.

It's like, if I could do that, why do I need night rain? Night rain just blew all my expectations out of the water with how well handled it is. You don't feel overpowered at any point. You don't feel simplified in the mechanics. Never feel overpowered. No, no is you don't feel overpowered at any point you don't feel simplified in the mechanics never feel overpowered no no you don't oh man how many times that dog wiped the floor with us man on stream no but the addition of the you know abilities and the ultimate stuff like really adds to the game in a meaningful way in my opinion. And like you said, the speed is awesome. Yeah. So Ryan, for you, your biggest concern and

you were very vocal about this going into this was guy, it's just dodge rolling. I'm going to be rolling around. I'm going to, you know, guys, I've seen the videos, I've seen the gameplay. It's just a, you know, even the little meme with the raccoon that's rolling around on the ground, you know, this is what Elden Ring is like. So I know that was your major concern was like, hey, this is just going to be spammy, I'm just going to be dodge rolling all the time and you weren't sure how it was actually going to work. So now that you've had to, you know, the chance to play it, were your initial concerns, right? Does it feel like that's something that, yeah,

you know, that kind of is that, or was getting to play the game something that helped kind of put your concerns to rest? I would say that it 100% is what I thought, and I freaking love it, dude. Yeah, yeah! Yes, woo! There is so much more than just the rolling.

I mean, it becomes second nature and you just spam the roll, but you still have to somehow time it, and you're doing it for a reason, and then you're doing everything else that you have to do within that play through or that run. So there's so much more, but it was totally just dodge rolling with attacks, but it's fun.

You guys, it's fun. So like, I have nothing else to say on it now other than just, yeah, you spam the dodge roll, but it's for a reason and it's enjoyable. Is there any better feeling than when you break the posture on a boss and you get to go in for that crit? And that sound that, and you're like,

and then they kneel like fall, you know, and you're like, get him, get him, get him, run to the face, run to the face. So face so alright guys so let I'll tell you what we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come back we're gonna talk about what the actual gameplay is like and kind of what Night Rain actually is for people that may not be aware so that they kind of have a little bit better idea and then we'll give her kind of thoughts on this game and kind of our rankings and what we actually think about it overall as a whole. So we'll be right back. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you're a building contractor, your company's foundation needs to be strong. That's why our agents go the extra mile to

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Elden Ring, maybe haven't played this this maybe haven't played a Dark Souls game. Let's kind of give the breakdown on this a little bit Okay, okay. Um you start off in in a safe area. You're in the hold. This is where you can select your character There's like what like six seven eight characters Yeah, I know we didn't unlock too many. Well, no, we unlock the characters. I'm talking the nightlords will get But yeah eight characters eight characters So you do have different classes that you can choose from that will help fit your play style There are two unlockable classes that are fairly easy to get early on in the game But you know you have you know you have your fast speedy classes like the Duchess that is an unlockable character. You have your big, slow strength base, just barbarian,

gigantic hammer, uh, you know, class. You have your kind of in between where it's there, the kind of all arounders, uh, you have your magic user, which is called the recluse. You have your summoner, uh, you know, and so you get to kind of pick the class that says, hey, this is the way I want to play this game. You group up with your buddies and you say, hey, let's head out. And so you pick a boss, you get, you have to start with the first night Lord,

which is Triceratphos or something like that. Yeah, Triceratphos or something like that. Yeah, boy, did we struggle in the beginning to kill that boss. But you go out into this world, you're dropped off, it almost starts out like Fortnite. You're on this little bird, it's almost like, I'm glad, I'm like, guys, are we playing Fortnite here?

Like, what the heck? So you land and then, what do you do? Ace, what is the first thing that you know? Once you're on the ground. It's like hey the world is in front of you like you know Explain this to somebody that may not know what around us like well the first thing we you should do We learned very early is kill something and level up from level one Yeah, yeah level two right away because we were like level one at the end of the first day, and it did not go well No Because we were like level one at the end of the first day and it did not go well No

No, this game does not hold your hand. It does not tell you what you need to do to be successful It lets you just fail Spectacularly. Yep It lets you find out not to explore too far or the zone will consume you and it's guaranteed Yeah for sure And so we had some people ask that are familiar with Dark Souls or Elden Ring games is normally when you level up you get to, you know, distribute your stats right like hey I'm going for a Dex build I want to put these points into Dex. Night Rain does away with all that it is a very straightforward static leveling system you click level up and it just boom you level up you get more stamina you get more, you know, whatever stat your character is probably primary with. And that's it. It takes a half a second to level, but oh my goodness,

levels are so important in this game because they do give you health. They do give you stamina. They do give you, you know, like a stats that make your person hit harder and things like that. So you're running around, you have to level up Ryan, apart from leveling up, what are you doing? Like, you know, do you just have free reign of the map? Is there anything you need to worry about? How does the game make you progress? Typically, I'm following you and then you're following me.

And so we're going nowhere. That's bad. Wait, I thought you were following you. Oh my gosh. And then Ace is off looting. So yeah, I Said the pan if you don't follow that's not on me I see Ryan just running a straight line like he is on a mission. So I start just following Ryan I'm like Ryan knows where he's going man, and then after like three minutes of running Ryan turns around. He's like, oh, hey Josh

I'm like bro. Where we going? He's like, I don't know I'm like I've been going he's like I don't know for three minutes now man. Oh my goodness man. So well so it's it's kind of laid out when you drop in you know obviously like you said they did do a good job setting it up to progress quickly so you have an initial mob wherever you drop at every single time kill them you get enough runes. That's your current runes. Yup, runes.

Yeah, runes to, that's your currency to level up. And you go and do that, you get to level two right away. That's done. Then on your map, you have all these different areas where there's field bosses, there's churches where you can get extra potions, there's castles that have large enemies on them. So everywhere is kind of a path you can take to level up, get better gear, and just get set up for the end of the day where you fight that boss at the end of that night.

So your job is to just go as fast as you can, and the circle progresses inward, inward to a final point where the tree is, and that's where you fight the boss that night and Hopefully succeed and don't die a bunch like we do yeah This this very much uses the battle royale blue ring for sure. Oh, yeah, I was kind of surprised I forgot about and guys how many times have we forgotten about the ring don't go in a cave When the ring don't go in a cave. Don't go in a cave When the ring is moving

Also, don't be dumb like us and forget that this ring exists while you're fighting a boss or something like that Because if you get outside the zone you just like fortnight or another battle royale You do get some time to try to work your way back in but you will take constant damage And if you're big dumb dumbs like we are you will forget that the ring is coming more often than not, and then all of a sudden it's there and you start panicking. And panic never works out because now we're all running off in different directions, you're trapped behind a cliff or something like that. Oh, that was always the worst.

And if the circle kills you, or I guess just you die in general, you'll lose a level. You do. And levels are very important for maintaining your strengths. You can get it back if you get your stuff back. It'll reclaim your loot, you'll get the funds for it back, You'll lose a level you do. Yeah levels are very important for maintaining like your strengths You can get it back if you get your stuff back go get to reclaim your loot You'll get the funds for it back But if you can't and the circle comes past then you're you lost all your money and a level so it's it's you pretty hard Yeah

So that's basically the gist man is you have a whole bunch of points of interest on the map that you can go to The various points of interest sometimes do different things you You get runes that help you level up. You get equipment that gives you better weapons. You know, maybe you get some amulets that make you stronger or something like that. Get strong enough to survive and kill the boss in the first night. You move to day two, rinse and repeat. Day two is going to be harder. The monsters are going to be tougher.

The boss at the end of day two is probably going to be harder. So if you're under leveled, you're going to struggle. If you don't have good weapons, you're going to be tougher. The boss at the end of day two is probably going to be harder. So if you're underleveled, you're going to struggle. If you don't have good weapons, you're going to struggle. And this is legitimately like the loop. Yeah. You know, when you die and you will absolutely die and you fail completely, you'll get dumped back out of that run. And usually it gives you some relics that are the permanent upgrade that you can equip to your character to say, hey, this is going to shorten your cooldown timer, you'll start with a poison weapon, you know,

any number of things. So this is where the permanent progression thing comes in. I will say, if I'm going to be critical, I don't think that the permanent progression part of this game is very well done. Whereas in a lot of games like Hades or other rogue-like games, I often find myself chasing that progression carrot. But in Night Reign, it's kind of like, cool, you gave me this stuff. But really, the way that you're going to progress in Night Reign is understanding the gameplay loop. Like Ryan, you said, we were level one or two by the time we got to

the end of the first night because we just didn't know. And then you go, oh, okay, well now I understand how important levels are. So then you spend your next two or three runs trying to get high level, but then you don't have any gear. So you're trying to kill this boss with your starting weapons, and that ain't going to work so well either. No. You know, so- It does not pan out well ever.

Yeah, so I think the learning curve and how to deal with this game is the kind of permanent progression. Now they do give you stuff that you get to keep between runs, but again that's just these relics that you can equip to kind of give your character some starting buffs and that's about it. All right guys, let's talk about the Night Lords because this is the goal, right? Survive until night three. Night three you're going to go

and you're gonna fight the Night Lord. You select the Night Lord that you wanna beat or that you wanna fight at the beginning of the game once you beat the first one. Now, let's talk about that for a second. Ryan, we threw ourselves at the first Night Lord a dozen times. We were getting frustrated.

We kind of figured out, okay, we're learning the gameplay loop. You beat the first Nightlord, but this is when the game opens up to you, right? Because we didn't have the ability to do a lot of things that we knew existed in this game. So once you beat that first Nightlord, kind of the game opens up,

but kind of how does it open up for people? So once you do the first one, then you have the ability to choose between these other night lords that are wide range of different types of characters like the next one we did was like the gaping jaw guy which is yeah it was like a giant alligator with the sideways mouth thing it's crazy. So and then the the area changes a little too right once you do the different ones yeah so once you do the different bosses you you're in a different type of world that's a little too, right? Once you do the different ones, yeah. So once you do the different bosses, you're in a different type of world

that's a little bit different. Still kind of the same loop, but it's a different experience, which is neat as well. So I did like how, I mean, I wish it wasn't so hard to unlock that, but it does give you some sense of satisfaction when you do. And it opens up the world, you're like, oh, here we go, baby, now let's dive in.

When you thought maybe you were getting a little burnt out on that now you have all these options to choose from and it just kind of lights that fire again if you will it really does I as much as I hated it at first because I felt like it was blocking progression what the heck I know I can't we get it skill check it's like yeah I mean legitimately it's a skill check. It's Margit in Elden Ring. Like, yeah, your very first hard boss is Margit. And then it's like, if you can beat Margit, guess what? You can play all of Elden Ring.

Like you might struggle from time to time, but you know you can do it. And that's what the first Nightlord in Night Reign is, is it's like the gut check to say, bro, if you can do this, now you can experience everything this game has to offer. It is a little frustrating, but you're right, Ryan, to me, it really kind of opened things up. And I was even more amped to play after that where I'm like, guys, we have remembrances now, which are like individual character things that buff your character fairly well. You can play different characters because the play style is very different. You get new zones and biomes that you get to encounter and things like that. You get world events where the lava crater erupts and we're all turned around going,

what the heck is that? And idiots, instead of running away, we run straight up to it because we want to see what's going on. So, um, there are eight night lords, ace, what is fighting a night lord like? Oh man. I mean, if you're depending on who you're playing and how much aggro you're taking, it could be a walk in the park or you could just have him on your butt constantly. Like when we fought the first night Lord, Tricephalos, I was mostly playing the archer class, the Iron Eye.

I don't know what it is with bosses in this game, man. They got it out for the arrow, man. I just like- They hate archers. Oh, they do. They really hate the archers. I used to think you were whining so bad, and then I played the Iron Eye.

I'm like, let me try this archer and the those monsters hate you dude. Oh my goodness I was like right circle just pops up on your back Get him off I mean to me the nightlord fights are the equivalent of fighting radon. You're in this child Oh, yeah, you know, it is chaos. These things are massive. You have no idea what's going on. The move sets are kind of crazy. I mean, this is the pinnacle of the fight. They are meant to be very, very hard. You will struggle against them until you kind of learn their patterns and some of the technique and stuff like that.

My biggest complaint of all of Night Reign is that these bosses, I spend 90% of my time trying to run to the boss for him to just run away and then I have no stamina. Legitimately, I wish they had shrunk the arena down a lot. To me, this is the most frustrating part of this game is you're in this huge arena. It's like Radon's arena. You spend all of your stamina running to the boss. You get there. Okay, cool. He didn't run away yet, but now I have no stamina to swing, you know, or, or I finally make it to him and then he just jumps way across halfway across the arena. And then I go like, okay, well, I guess I'm going to

run over there now. And then I run over and then he freaking swipes at me and kills me. And then I'm like, Ryan, rest me, you know me you know he says that a lot yeah if only you had a grapple hook to you know just pull you to Them every single time like I need my fast characters that run out of stamina too quick The night lords in this game are absolutely fantastic dude if you want to feel like what it's like to go up against the most amazing Absolutely fantastic dude. If you want to feel like what it's like to go up against the most amazing Terrifying creatures that exist in video games and try to do that with your buddies these nightlord fights are absolutely top-notch You will get your butts handed to you. I mean they are no joke So the cool thing is it feels really really good when you take one of them down man Like it there's few feelings like that

But that's basically night rain like in a nutshell guys I mean it feels like Elden Ring it plays like a rogue like it does have permanent progression which may not be the best in my opinion, but the gameplay is Absolutely spot-on in my opinion. I want to play more like legitimately like I want to play tonight Like it is so much fun with friends. I Won my sorah. I know when this game released that there were some complaints about matchmaking. There's no solo play There's no duo play the game. I mean you can play solo, but you're not really you shouldn't solo Unless you're one of those crazy people in which case power to you. Good luck

My voice chat. Yeah, there's no voice chat I think that's the biggest detriment to be honest is if I did play a match with some randoms and literally it was all three Of us running off in three different just three different directions. They don't care. They don't care All right, and if two of you are like God, I'm just gonna follow this guy So because I don't want to be the idiot that just runs off on my own. So I'm following this dude Guy number three just runs off on his own and then he dies. So it is much, much better with friends, especially if you can be on comms with them. I think that's where this game really shines. So I want us to just, what are your thoughts on this, man? Let's, let's rank this game on what your overall thoughts are. And ace,

let's start with you as a man who loves Roguelikes, especially, you know 3d roguelikes like risk of rain to Elden ring night rain was just a freaking blast man Like I was always pumped to get back to it excited to play for the streams and just play together When you guys were gone at fan fusion, I was like man, I can't play night rain with the boys tonight. It's disappointment. I loved it man. I loved every little thing about it That's being said LD the it's not gonna be the original Elden Ring experience for me. That's just such a pure awesome experience

It's easy like a eight point nine Now eight point eight. That's a point nine. I'm gonna give it the eight point nine and for me that is high praise I love it. It was great. It was awesome. Yeah, it is talking on it too much. I You I think you're right. So Ryan, let's alright everybody in the world wants to know what Ryan thinks Yeah, tell us buddy. Come on for rain elder ring first first return to a Dark Souls game since blood-borne into Elden Ring, first return to a Dark Souls game since Bloodborne, Roll Simulator 2000 is what Ryan called these things. So Ryan, now that you've had a chance to dump a whole bunch of hours into it, resume a thousand times, what are your thoughts on Night Rain Buddy?

So, just right off the bat, I freaking love this game. I had so much fun. Like Ace said, it's the first game in a long time where I'm like, I have to make time to play this just because I want to because I'm jonesing for it. I'm excited. I watch a real or something or a short on on Instagram or something. And I'm like, oh, I want to go try that. And I was itching to play. I love playing Rivals with you guys. I have a blast. I love playing the other games we play, but I'm not craving it like I did with this. So right off the bat, that's what I had is that itch to play this game over and over. I loved the speed. I loved the combat. The world was beautiful.

Everything about that world was cool, all the interactions you can do, and you know, you're not safe even from the little schmucks, they can hit you pretty hard, you know, so you just walk around with a torch and he just goes, and he sticks it right in your face and you're like, ah! So it's, yeah, the ads people, ladies and gentlemen, circle around, press the air, they're called ads But anyways Having said all that I loved the game it was awesome

I have one big gripe and this is probably my only real large complaint overall the RNG I Was I was very upset with how much the RNG can be detrimental to a run? with having the Monsters have weaknesses to certain abilities and then you spawn on your run and you don't have You don't have the ability to get that because these different towers one will be poison or holy or things like that not having the ability to get the weapon to defeat the enemy that they're weak to or just being on Bad luck run where you're not pulling what you need and the circle shifts a weird way. I think the RNG

Affected your runs a little bit too much But other than that that was my one major gripe and I think it's a super solid game I think ace is pretty spot-on I would probably put this more like a.7 just cause of RNG, but that's for a Souls, my first Souls, like that's pretty high praise from me. Yeah, I get, man, this is, now my rating's gonna seem weird, man.

I didn't wanna go last now. I'm with you guys. I think this is a ton of fun. Elden Ring's a top five game of all time for me. I cannot, you know, I cannot speak highly enough of Elden Ring my concerns with Night Reign were unfounded thankfully this game is an absolute blast with friends I mean we had so many good moments playing this together I I don't think it's a perfect game I'm with with you, Ryan, on the RNG aspect. I'm with the people that go, dude,

this game with randos could be pretty frustrating, dude, like pretty frustrating for a lot of people. Um, you know, it is the heart of Elden rings, combat and the beauty of the world. There's, you still get that exploration because you're going to these points of interest and you're trying to do these things. I think this game is an absolute blast. The, the cliche one more round guys, one more round. This is the one. Yes. And then two and a half hours later, you know, you're on your third or fourth round at this point. Like this epitomizes that, that kind of meme, um, which we were doing you know guys sorry chat this will

be the one yeah so you know I would like better progression I'm going to give this an 8.5 I'm actually kind of surprised that I'm a little bit lower than you guys you know that's not to take anything away from the game I think it's fantastic it's just I think you're better off just playing Elden Ring with your buddies, man. You know, like the rogue-like nature is the only reason to me that Night Reign stands out or that you should play Night Reign over Elden Ring co-op mode.

Like it is faster paced. There is that kind of, you know, a run can be an hour and that's it, but like it's just inferior to Elden Ring to me. And again, that's okay because inferior to one of the best games ever made is fine. And again, I'm not trying to slay into Night Reign. I just, I think I see a couple of the flaws with it, a little bit more.

And then my brain just kind of goes like, guys, why aren't we just playing Elden Ring Co-op Mod, you know, at the same time? So I think it's great. It is a lot of fun. And my brain just kind of goes like, guys, why aren't we just playing Elden Ring Co-op mod at the same time? So I think it's great. It is a lot of fun. I think you really need to have some friends to play this with to get the full value out of it.

I agree. I will say I love the leveling system. I am a little concerned playing regular Elden Ring where most of the time, when there's that much, I know you love a skill tree. When there's that much, I know. You don't have skill trees in Elden Ring where most of the time when there's that much I know you love a skill tree when there's that much I don't know trees in Elmer ring I know but like you're saying all the all your abilities and your stats and all this stuff you have to be meticulous on your Build yeah, like that's usually not me. I'm like I I don't care. I just want to play I don't want to do all this

Eldering is much more just am I putting points into dexterity or do I want okay? Oh, that's fine right now, but there's no skill tree, there's no abilities. Like the base Elden Ring game makes it pretty simple. You just do get to say like, I'm tired running out of stamina, I'm going to put these five points in stamina. Cool, OK, OK. That sounds good then. Yeah.

I recommend Night Reign to just about anybody, to be honest. I think you don't have to be a fan of Elden Ring to appreciate what this game is. I think it will shine if you have friends to play with. So for me, it is a full recommend with the caveat that it's just immensely better if you can actually talk to the people you're playing with. For sure. And I think that was another concern I have with Elden Ring, but then Ace was telling me that they have the co-op mod and stuff like that.

So definitely I would also recommend this. It is absolutely probably a different game without friends or chatting with people. So if you want to play this, join our Discord, cause there's a bunch of people that bought it just because others were playing it. And I always see people in our LFG channel like hopping in together and playing. We'll jump in with you. I was playing

with People Wonder and Greg the other day so definitely join there because it is it is a fun game and it's definitely worth the play. Yes it's it's well worth the price in my opinion. Ace same same take for you. Yeah it's definitely well worth the price and it's pretty awesome. My biggest complaint with it is just the lack of cross play so like there are people who join our discord who like they're on PlayStation or Xbox like oh, sorry I hope they fix that I do imagine. They're gonna try to fix that and they are adding duos mode So that's good to that yeah, they mess with scaling too, so I'm sure that I'm sure they will yeah, I mean I I'm going to assume that they're gonna continue to support this game and add these things like that with cross play in the duo's mode

And I would not be surprised to see this just be like Something that gets constant updates Yeah, so Awesome. All right. Listen, that's gonna do it night rain in the books guys We got Ryan Ryan's want to play Elden Ring now that is if nothing else happens from this I am so glad that Ryan's like so guys we can we can play Elden Ring now. That is, if nothing else happens from this, I am so glad that Ryan's like, so guys, we can play Elden Ring together? Like, okay, let's do it.

Okay, like, let's do it. But that's gonna do it for this episode, everybody. If you haven't done so already, please write us a review. If you're on Spotify, you can rate us five stars. That really helps the show. If you're not following us already, please take a second to do that subscribe on YouTube

Follow us on Twitch follow the podcast man. We're trying to bring you as much content as possible We're trying to make video games fun for everybody Join our discord server like Ryan said And we're gonna be starting the alters tomorrow boys From this recording. I'm very excited about that one. So we'll be covering the alters on boys from this recording I'm very excited about that one so we'll be covering the alters on our next deep dive come hang out with us in our discord server come hang out with us while we stream games and and and are just absolutely the worst at night rain I don't know what happened there oh my

goodness oh real quick before we sign off to I wanted to ask so not have ever playing not Having ever played an Elden Ring game before how'd I do? Big head You've been gaming your whole life Hey bud! Josh is like, yeah. I tried not to give Ryan a big head, you did great. He survived. It's almost like you've been gaming your whole life. He didn't fall down near as much as I expected. That's true, that's true. We did have the Ryan, what was the acronym that we had?

Ryan Get Rekt Counter? Ryan Get Rekt Counter? Yeah, we had the Ryan Get Rekt Counter the first night that Ryan was ever playing, which did get up there. It might have been a little high the first night, yeah. Alright everybody, thanks for hanging out with us. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya! Peace out.