Video Gamers Podcast - Revisiting Elden Ring - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Gaming hosts Michael, Josh and Paul are revisiting our Elden Ring thoughts with a special holiday release. Winner of Game of the Year, Elden Ring took the gaming world by storm and launched an already amazing gaming genre into even more popularity. With a special intro and our thoughts looking back, this is a can’t miss episode. Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. What's up, squad mates? This is Paul, and I am here with Josh and Michael. We are currently in the middle of our Christmas break to spend more time with our families and to prep for the new year. We will be back with fully new episodes

starting on January 9th, and we have chosen a couple of our favorite episodes to re-release this one here is elden ring and in light of the game just winning game of the year at the game awards we thought this would be a nice way to honor it here josh what do you want the people to know about this episode before we get it started uh number one phenomenal episode to go along with a phenomenal game um you know everybody at this point has heard of Elden Ring I am still amazed at the amount of people that have not played Elden Ring despite selling 20 million I mean honestly it's pretty crazy

it just won game of the war the year award rightfully so we kind of all pegged that I know that God of War Ragnarok was really in the running there for a little while, but Elden Ring deserved it. And we're about to cover everything Elden Ring that you could imagine. We're going to give our thoughts on it. We're going to place it on the leaderboard. If you have not played Elden Ring because you think, maybe I don't like Dark Souls, or this isn't my style of game, I think you're going to find that even people like Michael who have never played Dark Souls really enjoyed Elden Ring. All right, Michael, I don't know why, but you've been dying laughing here for the last three minutes.

I'm completely lost because I missed whatever made him start dying, and he has been dying for three minutes now. I can't stop. It's one of those where you get a giggle attack and you can't stop. I thought about, what were we talking about right before? We were talking about the clacker. Oh, the clapboard. In my head, I was like, yeah, the clitterer.

Oh, Michael. There we go. It's that mishap. And it got stuck in my head. I'm like, no, it's the chitterer. I'm crying. And you know, this has happened twice in my entire life where you can't stop laughing about something. And I'm like, you've got to record.

Just take a deep breath. And so I'm trying to center myself. But in my head, I keep coming across as a clipper. Well, that has nothing to do with Elden Ring. But that was a very funny outtake on one of our episodes. I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, it's all good.

I thought we broke from it anyways. I don't know why, but I just got this giggle attack and i'm like i can't stop laughing about it and i'm like i'm trying like just center yourself you're good but oh it's the best there's nothing funnier than when you just literally fall on the floor laughing and you can't stop so uh michael in regards to the actual episode of angleton ring anything that you remember this was one of your very first deep dives. I think it was your second one. I think you did Lost Ark first. And then I think Elden Ring was your second. So this was pretty early on after you joined us. Yeah, I remember being kind of scared a little bit, you know, like a little nervous. I don't know, because I've always just, you know,

what I like about this show is that we treat it like a conversation. So I don't think you notice a huge difference, you know, as far as what happened on that episode but it was interesting because i'm wondering like hey i've listened to 100 episodes of the show what should i talk about when do i jump in and it was just it seemed like it was really what i remember about it was just a lot of combat talk because there's no story i think i made fun of parts of it but um i just i have no idea where i'm going with this at all i remember being surprised at how much you liked it i was because i was like this is going to be a real test for michael because michael normally does not really like these kind of hardcore souls like games and you

ended up actually having a lot of fun no i did and it's funny too because i think right before this we talked about like one of my favorite things to do in a game is cry at a story and really get immersed. And I didn't know much about the Souls universe when I recorded this episode. I'm sorry, before I played this game. I knew a lot by the time I recorded this episode. And most of it, in my mind, was negative. Like, where's the story? I remember at one point when I was playing this game, I even reached out to you guys.

I was like, are there any NPCs I can talk to that's like a vendor and just be nice to? And you're like, everybody's trying to kill you like everybody and so i was surprised at how much i liked this game i think i i know i married this game i know it was very high for me um and i think i married it because it's tactical prowess it had done things that i hadn't seen before like i actually remember feeling like when i'd hit a hit a sword to a shield i feel like i felt that like the the physics in this game were unlike anything i'd seen before and that's what still sticks with me today when people ask about the game i'm like the physics are so incredible the the combat is so great and it just really i mean you can see it too because if you look at like i go on my steam list almost all the time and i've

got like you know 50 friends that are online or whatever there's almost always more than one of them playing elden ring right now like right now now in this moment. Yeah, when I think back to Elden Ring, I think what made the game so special was just stepping out into the open world and you just start going around. And you're going to discover little caves and dungeons. And even within those caves, there's like hidden passages and optional bosses. There was just so much to explore and find in this game and just tinkering with all the different weapons you know you've got your short daggers you've got ones that have bleeding mechanics you've got giant two-hand swords and then like are you gonna wear a lot of armor which slows you down or are you gonna go with more of like a speed build and to me this

game just really gave you like a wide open playground to just tinker with how you want to do combat, figuring out what works for you. Obviously super memorable boss fights. Anything else to add, or are we ready to get this one started? Just get, it's so good,

man. This, if this, if this deep dive doesn't sway you to play it, then nothing will. And even then you really should play it. And also much to polish the grin. Thererin, there is a plethora, a lush plethora of dull browns and greens in this game. Enjoy the color palette, ladies and gentlemen.

Absolutely. All right. I think we're good to go. Let's not delay any further. Please enjoy our deep dive of Elden Ring. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. Pull up a chair, come hang out with us for the next hour plus while we talk about gaming. If you have not already done so, please remember to rate our show five stars and leave us a written review. You can find us everywhere on socials at MultiplayerPod.

And if you want to help support the show and get some awesome perks, like two extra episodes every week, you can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com to become a Patreon supporter. Today is a Deep Dive Monday. This one's been anticipated for quite a while. We're going to spend the entire episode breaking down Elden Ring and what we think of it. But before we do that, let's introduce everybody. I am your host, Paul, and I'll just mention right here that I have been quite sick, and my gracious co-hosts have pushed this recording a couple of days while I was getting better.

Hopefully my voice will hold up pretty well, and hopefully I won't miss the mute button for coughs and sneezes. And joining me, the Tarnished, he's called back to the lands between to reassemble the shattered Elden Ring and to become the new Elden Lord. It's Josh. You stole my joke, Paul. I was actually going to say you're sounding a little tarnished there, buddy. Fair enough. But since you called me tarnished, then I can't do that now. And I don't know what tarnished say. You died.

Exactly. And, you know, I was going to pour a nice warm tea and I could not find any in my house. So we're rolling with the Diet Coke. Don't know if that's the best thing for a strep throat victim, but it's all I got. It's what we're going with. All right, and then joining us, he just wants to receive hugs

and be held by Fia, the deathbed companion. It's Michael. It's so funny. Hey, everybody. I was waiting for that Diet Coke reference to be my intro, and so I'm sitting here going, like, iced just I was waiting for that Diet Coke reference to be my intro. And so I'm like sitting here going like iced tea, Diet Coke. How is he going to relate this?

But Deathbed Companion, I don't know. I die a lot. So, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. He likes those Fia hugs is what it is. I do. Creepy. It's the one and only thing in Elden Ring that's pleasant, is just receiving a nice hug.

It might give you a debuff and hurt your health. She steals some of your health. Yeah. But what are you going to do? All right. So before we jump into all things Elden Ring, Josh, you've got a couple of reviews to read. I do. We've had a few more listener reviews. As of this recording, we are eight reviews away from the legendary 300. I mean, everybody's seen the movie 300. There's a reason that 300 is a great number. So help us get there. If you haven't left us a review yet, please steal a friend's phone, leave us a review, and there's a good chance we'll read it on the show like I'm about to do on these two.

This first one comes in from Dalton is the best and it's titled Best to Listen to Anytime. Been listening and these guys have talked me into my first rating of any podcast. Great insight and banter. Always looking forward to hear more. Loving Lost Ark as well. What server are you guys on? Oh. Well, we were on Voltan.

Yeah, I'm still on Voltan. Michael's still on Voltan. Still loving it. Paul is in on the Quitter server. I did uninstall Lost Ark this week. Oh, official? Yeah. I was kind of hoping that you might come back you know at one point

like he married it two weeks ago and then killed it yesterday hey man you don't mess with too busy too many games no it's a great game i stand by the rating just you know got to move on to the next deep dive i can only juggle one game at a time. That's really all it comes down to. Paul is the consummate professional, man. Kudos to you, Paul. Well, one game at a time plus Hearthstone. Well, yes. I need one casual game that I can, you know, play if I'm in the bathroom

or on an appointment or something like that. People don't understand forced gaming, no matter how good the game is, is still difficult sometimes. Sometimes your brain just goes, I want to play something different. And then that's when you need Hearthstone or rocket league or whatever no yeah this this is my first deep dive of a game that i've played because of the podcast like lost ark i was going

to play anyways and so i totally get it it was like uh like regardless of what i thought of the game it's like i have to play this game and now i'm like give me my last so lucky michael you're so lucky that this was your first forced game. Many more to come. Yeah. All right. And then this next one comes in from the Royal Titan, and it's titled, Oh, Man, Where to Start. I absolutely love this podcast.

And every time I turn it on and hear Paul's buttery voice, I can't help but sit back, relax, and enjoy sweet gamer bliss. These guys are professional, family-friendly, and always entertaining. If I could make one request, I would definitely like to see the Just Cause games covered, because those are some of my favorites, particularly Just Cause 3. I would love to see a deep dive. Definitely recommend this pod for anyone young or old, gamer or not. It is worth it. Oh, yeah.

I almost forgot. Go waffles. Oh, what a great review. I love it. And I don't think anyone's ever said my voice is buttery, but I'll just take the compliment. By the way, Just Cause, fantastic series. I love Just Cause 3. I have never played any of them, so maybe.

Are they PC ports at this point? I don't think so. Oh, yeah. They're on PC. Maybe. I'm just saying, our legendary supporters can make us play any game they want. Make a decision, guys. I might be confusing my Just Causes, but I think just cause three is the one that starts where you get on top of your airplane and you are standing on the wings while shooting at other people and other airplanes.

It's very much over the top action. It's a little bit like the Far Cry series. It's totally up my alley. Sounds like my kind of game. Which one stars Sean Connery? Sean Connery? I have noy i have not a video game oh okay then i have no idea but i'll play them that'd be great i'd love it also paul's buttery voice right now with the strap is more like the butter that's been left out on the counter for like three days

and there's some breadcrumbs in it just a little gravelly yes yes a little gravelly it's got got crumbs it's going a little bit rancid i still think it's not at its peak oh thank you michael well yeah what great reviews thank you so much for anyone out there if you haven't already left one it's uh completely free it's a great way to help support the show it helps us get seen by people searching so we would love to have more of you leave reviews and then also we wanted to give a couple of shout outs we want to say thank you to legendary supporter red letter for helping support the show and also epic supporters yoda and michael the butler so thank you so much to all of you out there who are patreon supporters who the heck is that guy

oh man all right well any other housekeeping guys or are we ready to jump into elden ring let's jump heck yeah all right we got so much to jump into Elden Ring? Let's jump. Heck yeah. All right. We got so much to talk about. Let's do it. Let's deep dive Elden Ring. All right. The description from Wikipedia reads, Elden Ring is an action role-playing game developed

by From Software. The game was made in collaboration with fantasy novelist George R.R. Martin, who provided material for the game's setting. The game is presented through a third-person perspective, and the player may freely roam in its interactive free-form exploration open world. Gameplay elements include fights, looting, horseback riding, interacting with NPCs, and maintaining the character's status through leveling up, enhancing equipment and weapons, and learning spells. All right, now, funny enough, Elden Ring won the Game Awards Most Anticipated Game,

not just in 2020, but also in 2021, and the game got pushed back again and ultimately released on February 25th, 2022. And with the exception of Cyberpunk 2077, I think this might be the most anticipated game we've ever covered. What do you guys think? I think you might be right. Cyberpunk, I feel like, had a bigger hype train. Elden Ring was like this kind of low-key hype to where there was some video that got released like a snippet and people were like yo is this Elden Ring are they finally showing something and it was it like it was Elden Ring and it was officially like a trailer that they hadn't released yet but it showed zero gameplay

it was just some dude like hammering on the ring like something out of Lord of the Rings and it was like a pirated video like this should not have been released. And then the hype level kind of started to grow. But the craziest thing about Elden Ring was From Software did the exact opposite that CD Projekt Red did. CD Projekt Red hyped the tar out of Cyberpunk. And I mean, they were just like, dude, this game is so big and so great and so amazing. It's going to blow your minds. From Software actually lied about the size of their game and made it seem like it was smaller than it actually was. So what From Software did is they took the hype train and they said, yo, slow you know our game's not as big as people are hoping it's not gonna be you know as groundbreaking as people might think it is and then when the game released it's way bigger than what they were giving like letting on it also goes to show that if you want to win a whole bunch of consecutive video game awards tone down the hype on the game

a whole bunch and then just never release it just say it's being delayed year after year after year and you'll just win award after award yeah look at star citizen man they're up to like what 400 400 million in funding and the game still hasn't released oh man yeah there's a couple games like that that have just been we've been waiting forever uh okay so I will say here at the outset that we are only going to be sharing light spoilers. We're going to talk about the open world setting. We're going to talk about the combat, some of those things in more general terms. We might talk specifically about the first one to two bosses. I don't remember exactly how many bosses are in this game.

It's something like 112. And so we're really only going to talk about you know maybe the first dozen hours or so so don't worry we're not going to share any like deep spoilers of anything late in the game all right now josh in the past you have commented that dark souls is basically its own genre now and so from software they're the same people who made Sekiro. They did the Dark Souls game, Demon's Souls. They made Elden Ring. What is it about the Dark Souls genre that makes it stand apart from other action RPGs? It is 100% the combat and the gameplay. You are not playing a From Software game for an amazing plot or any kind of coherent story you are 100 playing dark souls sekiro elden ring because you want to do battle with absolutely fantastical creatures in a like a real combat setting uh you know yes there are spells elden Ring kind of brings magic even more to the forefront. They've existed in the Dark Souls series.

But yeah, this is I want to gear out my guy. I want to give him a weapon and I want to go take on a dragon, you know, and have that dragon absolutely obliterate me like a dragon should do. And then I want to run back to that dragon and I want to try to hit him in the foot one time and then he obliterates me again. And then you start to learn the patterns of the bosses and the timings and stuff like that. And it's just, it's mano y mano in that regard. Sometimes, you know, you're, you are fighting multiple enemies, but everything about the Dark Souls series and Elden Ring is you play it because of the gameplay alone. Like If you're looking for more, you're probably not going to find what you want. Now, that said, there is some actual neat

atmosphere and tone and elements. And there is actually some plot and some story to their games, but it is not the focus at all. It's more like the seasoning on the side. Yeah. I think the only thing I would add on to that is that it's highly tactical combat. It relies very much on precise timing, learning strategy based on the individual enemy or the individual boss. And I think that's the other thing. Very big, epic bosses. They tend to be 100 to 1,000 times your size. You're not fighting little piddly bosses. They are enormous. It's highly cinematic and certainly really difficult. Josh was right the whole time about hitting bosses in the feet, though. I feel like I hit a lot of

bosses in the feet because they were so big and I can't jump real high, so I'm just basically slashing at their feet a lot. Yeah. In between the toes, right? It's a sensitive spot. That's a piercing motion between the toes, and I don't want to think about that. Now, Michael, this was your very first game in the Dark Souls world, right? This was your very first. How did you feel about the difficulty level,

and how was it compared to what you've heard over the years first i was afraid i was petrified kept thinking i can't get along with tarnish stamped on my behind um no i was terrified at first because everybody told me like hey these games are hard you know i'm a buddy shane that's played all of them all the way through and he's like it's's hard. Get ready for it. You're going to throw your controller a couple times. You're going to want to smash your face against your keyboard. It's going to be awful, but you'll get through it.

You'll be fine. Just keep trying. And then I did. And honestly, I think the difficulty level was perfect in so many ways. Like playing it, I never walked away saying, I am mad. I don't want to play this game anymore. I don't want to keep going. Probably because the open world concept. But I kept going, no, I want to do better. And I did do better. And if I wasn't ready for the boss, I'd go places, get a little bit of courage up, killing things I knew I could kill or gathering up whatever I

could gather. We'll talk about it later. But ultimately, I thought it was almost too easy. And because I think it's because it had been hyped up so big for so long that these games are so hard, you know, and everybody told me this is impossible, this and that. And I was able to beat a couple bosses within like, I don't know, a half dozen tries. And I was like, I thought that was going to take me all day. But I actually I thought it was appropriate. I thought that was going to take me all day. But I actually, I thought it was appropriate. I thought it was good. Yeah, I think in some ways it's a lot easier than you might think if it's your first entry. And in some cases, it's actually quite a bit harder.

And a lot of that depends on your build out and on which boss. There are some bosses that famously are much easier if you are a certain build. There are some that are a lot harder. And being like an open world setting, it gives you a little bit more choice of what you want to do. Now, Josh, since you and I have played multiple Souls games, I think you've played Sekiro and a couple Dark Souls. I've played a couple Dark Souls and Bloodborne. What is it that you were hoping to see that would be new and different from Elden Ring? And how do you think it delivered? The open world aspect is like the heart of why Elden Ring is different than any of the other titles from software.

And I don't think anybody really knew like how is this open world going to work? Like people are familiar with the Dark Souls games, but historically they've been very, I won't say on rails because you do have options in where you go, but a lot of the environments are very either claustrophobic or dark, and you have to get through them to be able to progress. Whereas Elden Ring, they said, hey, we're going to have an open world, everybody. And they went, how does that work? And even though we saw trailers of a guy on a horse riding around through a lake and through woods and stuff, you still kind of went, yeah, but how does the open world work? How does that work in the Dark Souls format? And that was the main thing. I knew the combat was going to follow the same formula. I didn't think they were going to reinvent the wheel there because in my opinion, they've honestly already mastered that wheel as far as how the combat and the flow of that goes.

It was more so, are they going to give you more choices? How is the open world going to matter? Like, do you have the choice of going anywhere? Are monsters going to scale based on your level? Are they not? Are you going to just be in a random area and there's some impossible monster that you might come across and smack your head against a bunch before you realize, like, I can't kill this guy right now. And so that's what I was most hopeful for. And they absolutely delivered in that regard as far as, did it change the format of the series? Did it change the way that these games feel? And I think it did 100%. Yeah, I think the number one thing I was looking forward to is exploration. So not just being on

this real linear path, you got to go here to here and fight this boss, then this boss, then this boss. I historically never finished any of the Dark Souls games or Bloodborne. I thought that they were games that I really respected, and I understand why people love them. And for me, I was really hoping that the open world exploration would really kick it up a notch. And I think it absolutely did. The most fun that I've had playing Elden Ring is in the open world exploration, finding a cavern, or finding a little mini dungeon, and then walking through and discovering what is in here. What kind of boss is there at the end of it? What kind of enemies? Are there any hidden

passages? And I thought that that stuff really kicked this game up probably a good four to five notches. Because when it was linear, I found it to be relatively boring. But just having the open world aspect, I think this game has much, much broader appeal to all people. And I'm absolutely positive that we're going to see more open world stuff from software in the future. Open world doesn't mean a lot if the world is not populated with stuff, right? Anybody can make space in a game. And that's not hard to do. But what you do with that open space matters. And that's where I think Elden Ring really got it right. Because as you're exploring... And I love exploration. This is one of those things I've come to realize is games that have exploration in them, I find... If you ask me,

Josh, you like exploration games? I'd be like, nah, man, that's not my style. But then any game I play, Subnautica, Satisfactory, some of these outer wilds that involve exploration, I absolutely love. exploring this open world and found some dark knight that was on a horse wandering a trail. And you're like, what the heck is that guy? I'm going to go hit that guy and see what happens. Or you've got the two gigantic giants that they love to show off in the trailers that are pulling some cart behind them. And they've got a couple knights and guards around it. Those are random events. They are not static. If you die, those guys are gone at that point. And so the world is filled with stuff like that. And that's where I think they got it absolutely right in that regard. Yeah. And yet one of the things that I think you're so right about is when you think of an

open world, I think of Skyrim. And you've got these vast areas where you've got to ride through and get from point A to point B, and you might run into something along the way here and there. I feel like everything in the open world in Elden Ring had a purpose. Every spot, every bridge, every tree was meticulously placed with some event that can happen around it. So roaming through the open world was never boring. It was never, I'm trying to get here. On the contrary, it was actually kind of terrifying sometimes because like Josh just said, that Dark Knight, by the way, you can only

spawn at night. And I went, the first time I fought him, I don't think this is a spoiler, he's pretty early. But I'm sitting there fighting the Dark Knight and I almost had him. I'm going back and forth fighting him on the bridge. By the way, don't ever fight on the bridge with a horse. I had him down to about 10% health. I rounded a corner for a second, did a

funny thing with my horse, and I went right off the bridge. And that was my first attempt with him. And I thought I had him. But the funniest thing is I respawned and it was day. And I'm like, where is he? I want to kill this guy. I've got to fight this guy. I've got to do it. And the fact that they think about those types of things, these are random placements, but there's certain times and certain things, whereas normally it's just a regular night on that bridge and he's easy. And I think that's what made the open world so impressive is everything felt like it had purpose and that made the world feel more rich. Well, and there's also things like ambushes. So for example, if you go underneath this bridge,

then you're going to get ambushed by waves of enemies but if you defeat them all you're going to get a special reward at the end of it or it could be that if i run past this spot all of a sudden a giant uh cannonball is going to spawn and then start to roll down the hill after me and if it hits me i'm gonna die so the world does populate that kind of stuff in it so it doesn't feel static it definitely feels like a living breathing world and that's exactly what you need from an open world game whether it's like this or red dead or gta it's not just big big is not good enough it has to actually feel interactive and elden Ring absolutely gives you that in spades. I love that Indiana Jones

moment, by the way. Yes, certainly inspired by Indiana Jones, I think. And it's not just one area. I don't know about you guys, but there's a couple spots where you do get ambushed like that. Every time it always made me laugh. All right. Now, I think we all started out as different classes. What did you start out as, Josh? And why'd you pick it? I went with the warrior. Having played these games before, I knew that I enjoyed melee builds. And so I wanted a build that would kind of fall into that. I like dexterity-based weapons as well, because I think in Dark Souls 3, I went heavy tankish, like heavy armor armor big giant great

shield you know just tried to absorb everything i could and so for elden ring i wanted to play a little bit more of the agile guy with you know dexterity based weapons that are quick you know that don't hit like trucks necessarily and that kind of stuff so i went with warrior um i mean i don't know if it really matters. It's one of those things. But I enjoy it. I've been liking my time with it. You start off with like dual scimitars too.

So a little throwback to like Drist of Urdan from my Dragonlance days. But yeah, that's who I went with. Who did you go? I decided to go with the vagabond so i did a very quick google search and just uh just looked up you know uh starting classes elden ring and i had read that they said vagabond was a good one to start because you've got higher strength and they said you're going to be able to swap out weapons a lot easier because you're going to meet the requirements so you can go ahead and test out axes or halberds or swords or whatever it might be. And so I liked having that flexibility.

And I had also read that if you're not very good at timing dodges, which it's one of my minor complaints about the Dark Souls series is that you have bosses that love to come forward and then stop and wait two seconds and then finish a slash, which by the way, nobody would ever fight like that in real life. But they do that to artificially make the fights harder. And I read that they said if you go all strength with the Vagabond, you can use a colossal sword in one hand, a great shield in the other, and you can absorb more hits instead of relying on dodging. And so that's why I ended up going with Vagabond. What about you, Michael? How'd you roll? I also went Vagabond, but for different reasons overall. I thought, you know,

I've played a few fighting games before. I don't know what to expect with Elden Ring. And so I was like, I'd like to be able to block something and so knowing that I could have a shield have a higher strength and play a character where I don't have to worry about playing with magic quite as much yet because I thought about going full caster and just saying I'm going to do that but then I knew with some games you have to learn a whole different complex casting system and this is a new game and I said if I like it I'll do multiple playthroughs anyways so I'll go sword and board starting out and then roll a caster a second time through but I liked having sword and board because it actually worked out really well with just exactly what Paul said being able to block

occasionally you know I knew people that had no block ability at all they had to jump a lot more I wanted to be more lazy and so I just did that and it was it was it worked out really well because it fit my fighting style and would I like to go back and try something different? Absolutely. But I kind of could because the Vagabond also can put his shield behind his back and use the sword as a two-hander anyways. So it worked out really well. Oh, gotcha. I didn't realize that you went Vagabond.

So we actually did start out as the same class. Yeah, we try to save as much as we can until we talk on the show. All right. So Josh kind of already alluded at this earlier there's not a whole lot of a story to elden ring like all of the souls games it's kind of knitted together by a really loose storyline that's not very detailed if you are a person that cares a lot about story like i do i know michael tends to care a lot about story this might be one I know Michael tends to care a lot about story, this might be one of the drawbacks to Elden Ring. You basically kind of get told, yeah, you're called back to this land. You're something called the Tarnished. None of it is

really explained in a lot of detail. You're supposed to reassemble this Elden Ring that got shattered. There's different demigods that have parts so as you kill them you can reassemble the ring and become the Elden Lord I don't even really know what that means I don't know why I really care to become the Elden Lord but you don't really play these games for deep story now I will say that Elden Ring does do something that the other Dark Souls games does which is that they do sometimes give you details of story through context. So you might hear someone talk about something that happened at a castle. And then as you go to the castle, you might see remnants of a war. And you can kind of put little things together, but it's certainly not story forward. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, you're not playing this game for the story like i said earlier if that's what you want if you're looking for an amazing plot an amazing story that you know ties together cohesively these games are not for you you know which i find regard which i find hilarious because they consulted george r martin who is known for being lots of words. Like the paperback versions of Game of Thrones are like three inches thick. And so when I learned about that, I'm like, wait, hold on a minute. This game had a story? I found with the story, honestly, I watched a YouTube video giving me all the story in a lore video. And I found it actually made me like the game more because I understood what was happening.

Because I'm like, Paul, I need a story. And that's one thing that I kind of was like at first, not sure what I'm doing here. Why is everyone I talked to trying to kill me? Is there anybody who's friendly? I don't know. This is kind of scary. And then understanding more about what's happening was nice. And I kind of felt my place in the world. And I also just kind of got over it because the gameplay was good. Can we all just say that there's a very high chance that george rr martin worked on this game for about 12 minutes and kind of just gave it his seal of approval i can't imagine he was writing detailed lore for this game i feel like

george rr martin just wrote down okay there's a thing called two fingers and it's literally two fingers and you're gonna just have someone interpret what they want i feel like that's maybe like all he really gave to the storyline i have trouble thinking that it was much more than that but i could be wrong no i don't think you are although in homage to george rr martin all of the bosses names start with the his initials there's not a boss in the game that doesn't have g r r m george r r mark yeah yeah there i got it right i was like wait well you you also have names that were very similar you've got margit and more got and you've got godfrey and you've got god rick and i felt like they could have maybe been a little more creative with the names um but yeah they're not going to adapt

Elden Ring anytime soon for Amazon I don't think we're gonna see that no and I feel like I feel like George R.R. Martin's involvement in this is like Bruce Willis nowadays where it's like two days on set two million dollars we just want to put your name on it yep that's it yeah yeah I was a little underwhelmed I was hoping maybe for just a little bit more story then in Elden Ring, you meet the two fingers, and then they kind of come into play a little bit. And I feel like the story sort of unwinds a little bit, but it's still not a cohesive story at all. But you do get those little snippets and pieces of a story as you play. So it's almost like, well, I want to play a little bit more to try to figure out what the heck is going on here. No, I had that in mind the first time I ever ran across a random NPC quest.

Like, I come across this bridge, and the guy's like, hey, they stole my home down south of the forest. And I'm like, I'm going to go get your home back. I'm going to learn this part of the story. I go and get his home back. I come back, and he's like, thank you. You can fight for me. And that's it. And I was like, that's it. i was like that's that's it like i just okay all right now i we gotta talk about what we've all been

waiting to talk about which is the combat right so this game has got a slew of weapons uh i jotted down just a couple you've got axes swords daggers claws flails halberds all of them work different also different weapons have different skills attached to them which is kind of like not an ultimate or anything like that but it is like an additional ability that you can use with that weapon or it could even be an ability attached to a shield if you want you can play this game fighting with a shield captain america style and you can decide to either do a wield or you can use a two-hand weapon you can use a weapon in one hand a shield in the other you can forsake melee combat altogether and just be a pure spellcaster you can roll you can run you can block all of which use your stamina meter i mean this game has pretty detailed combat.

How did you guys feel Elden Ring pulled that part off? I'm curious what Michael thought, because this is his first game. And so I want to hear his thoughts initially before I chime in. I thought it was really nice to have so much diversity in what I can do. Like even just being a vagabond, which is you're using a weapon, you're using a sword. Like I said earlier, I found out that I could put the sword in both my hands

and just for just a moment, toss the shield behind me and work with a two-hander. What I liked also as I went through different types of weapons was there are so many different types of swords, you know, and so many different types of two-handed swords. When I first started out, I had the starter sword,

and it was great. I was pretty quick with it. I'm like, one-handed sword that I can use as a two-hander if I want to do a little bit of extra damage, but sacrifice block. And then I'm like, all right, I'm graduating up. I'm a big boy now. I'm going to grab this big, great sword two-hander

and play with it for a little bit. And I almost immediately put that one down, because I realized that my fighting style was more, as a guy opens up to swing, I want to be able to move faster than him and stab him real fast before he can actually get his attack off. And so it kind of worked out to me where I was able to try several different things. And I ended up going back to basically the exact same thing I started with because I just liked it so much. But as far as the combat goes, the one thing that I like about the combat the most and the fighting is it feels very real.

The way that like the weapons clash together, you almost feel it happening, which I did like about that. When you're stabbing a shield, you know, you're not getting through that shield. You know, it's not like you can stagger this guy's shield away.

It's like, I got to find a way around this guy. And I really liked the way that you had to roll roll and and the jump attacks and things like that that made it so that i had to actually think about every single move not just running in slash slash slash or block slash that's why i liked yeah this is not a button masher game in fact i think it punishes you for button mashing. A lot of the monsters will respond. I don't know if the game is reading inputs. I'm pretty sure it is. But a lot of monsters will respond. If you start smashing your attack button, they'll attack you first,

and they'll keep attacking to keep you staggered or something like that. So timing in Elden Ring is literally everything. Now, while you have a slew of weapons, armor, magic, abilities, styles, I mean, the customization is honestly unheard of. I can't think of another game that gives you that much ability to do combat how you want in a game. But I think that there's a style for everybody, but you've got to be very meticulous and methodical in how you fight. And I think that puts a lot of people off because a lot of people want to go in there and they want to just smash the X button or click the mouse to make something happen. And the game punishes you for that. And so I think there's that large barrier of entry in the combat because even a trash mob is deadly.

I mean, how many times I have died many, many times to trash mobs because they got in a hit or two on me and they take off a quarter of your health you know and so there's a very different mindset when it comes to these types of games and from software and what they do with it that is opposite of what a lot of people are used to now for me i absolutely love the combat in this game because number one i like a challenge but number two if i, it's because I messed up. It's not because the game was unfair. It's not because, you know, oh, you know, anything else, right? Like, I've seen people beat this game completely naked with a dagger. It's 100% skill based. Now, it might take a while to develop those skills. But I like the fact that if I die, it's because I missed time to my dodge, or I didn't learn that that boss's pattern or, you know, I went way too far too quick.

And so I came up against a monster that I'm just not ready for in that regard. And I'm just not that good to take that monster on naked. Yeah. To your point, when you say that you can go in with literally just a dagger, this game taught me so many lessons when I wasn't expecting it just not to get too full of myself and also that honestly your weapon and your armor don't matter as much as your skill i would get so excited and just be like this is just a couple trash mobs i'm gonna mow them down real fast get back inside this castle go do what i gotta do and i would misstep just like you said josh and i

would die easily to these trash mobs and be like it doesn't matter what weapon i'm using for the most part or what armor i've got i've just got to be smarter about the way i do this yeah and that's kind of a two-edged sword like on the one hand i love the fact that it is skill-based on the other hand i never got all that excited if i found better armor, because the armor in this game almost does not matter at all. The only thing that really matters is what style weapon you like, and then you're going to just roll with that. So it almost makes the loot that you get a little bit less important. Now, the one thing I did want to say is that normally in a game that has a

stamina meter, and every time you use an ability you use stamina usually I hate that in games but in Elden Ring it's just so perfectly balanced where your stamina meter actually fills really quickly it's it's only there to not let you sit back and hold your shield for 30 seconds in a row and then keep countering. It's just solely there to force you to do something else. I found the stamina meter to be perfectly balanced. It requires strategy and it's never annoying. And I thought they did that perfect. It makes you make decisions.

Honestly, to me, that's what the stamina meter does better than anything else or in any game. And you hit the nail on the head, Paul, because it's like, if I have a really good shield that can absorb most blocks, my stamina will eventually deplete and then I have to do something. And so I love the fact that it's like, I have to make a decision. Am I going to sit there and spam dodge eight times in a row so that this guy can't hit me, but now I'm out of stamina. So I either better attack, I better back off, or it forces you into some sort of action. And it's like you said, it recovers so quickly that you're not really penalized for that. It kind of sets the flow

for combat, I guess. And you can certainly, through your stats and stuff like that, up the amount of stamina you have. But I'm with you. Normally, if I start sprinting somewhere and I see my stamina dropping, I'm like, oh, this sucks, man. I hate stamina. But you're right. It works flawlessly in this game to where it is not a detriment in any way. I think it actually enhances it. And I feel really dirty saying that, but it's true. Yeah. I'm with you guys, though. I normally cannot stand stamina meters and will just be like, let me just pump everything to stamina and walk around stamina potions. I feel like the stamina in this game almost makes it more like a good game of chess where you can't sit there and only defend or only attack. You have to blend what you're doing and actually make decisions like what Josh was saying and adapt your fighting style.

And oftentimes it was based on the boss too, you know? And so it just, it was good. One thing that did make me laugh is when the game teaches you how to do jump attacks. And I immediately had to message Josh. And I said, Josh, they've never had jump attacks in Souls games, right? And Josh is like, no.

And I said, this feels so weird, but I love doing it. Like I had my colossal sword, which was enormous. I had my Zweihander is what it was called. And I was jumping in the air and slashing it down on enemies. And it's really fun, even though it feels almost wrong in a Souls game. But it added that extra level of combat that I really appreciated. It's one of the evolutions from like the Dark Souls series to Elden Ring is they've done a lot of that stuff. So. It's one of the evolutions from the Dark Souls series to Elden Ring is they've done a lot of that stuff. So jump attacks being one of them, there's the

counterattack now where if you block an attack and then immediately hit, I think it's heavy attack. Heavy attack, yeah. Right, that you'll do a counterattack. That hasn't existed before. So they've actually honed the combat system over and above previous Dark Souls games to where, in my opinion, this is the best combat that FromSoftware has made. Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. When I learned about the counterattack that hold down the heavy attack button after blocking, being a shield user, I was just waiting for opportunities to do that. And it was all I did at one point it's great yeah

a a minor thing that I did not like about my vagabond is that I thought I'd be able to play this game with heavy armor and a giant shield and a big old sword and I thought I'd be able to block a little bit more and what I found out is that in the open world it served me very well i could mow down pretty much any common enemy but as soon as i did any boss fight because i had a heavy load i rolled so incredibly slow that i always had to end up playing half naked so my guy would have like this heavy chain mail or not even chain mail it's like plate armor on my chest and i've got no gauntlets and i've got no pants because now it would reduce it down to a medium load and now i can roll like a madman so it was kind of funny that it took me a little while to realize that

i fought the first boss a lot of times and i kept reading online they're like you just have to dodge this three point combo. And I'm like, no, you literally cannot do that. And that's when I realized that actually the weight that's equipped on your guy seriously impacts how quickly you can dodge. And I was a little disappointed that every single boss fight I had to remove or replace pieces of gear. So maybe you could argue that that makes it more strategic.

But on the other hand, I kind of just wanted to be like a slow, giant, you know, warrior that could keep doing chipping away damage over time. And it kind of forced me to play a little differently. Yeah. All right. That just goes into the mechanics of the combat, though, because if you're at a certain weight, your guy feels heavy. When you go to dodge roll, he hits the ground harder than if your guy's light. I always play at the medium load and I will give up better weapons and armor to stay in that medium weight

range so that I get the good dodge roll. And then you can even go down to light where your dodge is much quicker and you have like a longer invincibility frame and all that but it just it kind of goes into the the thought that goes into combat in this game and the different aspects of it and how in-depth i mean we could easily spend the entire show talking about combat but yeah i love the combat systems if anyone out there is thinking about picking up the game if you end up it, just know speed is so much more important than armor. Do not try to play heavy armor. It will not work. You're far better served with speed. And I felt like I had wasted a little bit of time building my guy. I wish I would have known that going into it. Also, apparently, if you're a magic

caster, the game is also a lot easier. That's kind of become a little bit of a meme right and i went with this really slow melee fighter and the first couple hours were pretty miserable i really enjoyed it more once i kind of learned the in-game system yeah i kind of did the same thing where early on because i i was like sword and board heavy armor it's what i want and then i realized i'm like i'm not moving very fast which i thought was cool for the physics in the game to add that but i was kind of disappointed that i swapped out my heavy armor with this chain mail and other stuff to be able to move more and i was like there should be because certain bosses you do have to be able to move fast to beat them it's not something where heavy armor

is going to help you and i'm like well there should be a tactic where i can wear heavy armor and still pass this and there really wasn't yeah same with like whether you turn on tracking or not you also move and roll quicker or slower and so you kind of have to figure all that out all right now elden ring does not have any kind of skill tree you do level up your character through runes so in some of the other games you collect souls or whatever it might be in elden ring it's runes. So in some of the other games, you collect souls or whatever it might be. In Elden Ring, it's runes. If you defeat an enemy, you get a certain amount of runes. You can sell any gear that you have to get more runes, and then you can use those runes to pump up your attributes. You've got strength, vigor, mind, endurance, dexterity, intelligence, faith, and arcane. And every time you level up your character once, the number of runes to

increase any skill go up dramatically. So in the beginning, you can level up relatively quickly, and pretty soon once you hit level 50 or so, it really starts to slow down. I did think that one aspect of the game that I thought was really neat is that you had certain weapons that would scale differently based on different abilities. So, for example, if you've got a big, giant, colossal sword, it does a certain number of base damage. But then it would also tell you this scales on a D level with dexterity. So if I pump more and more dexterity, it's only going to get so much better, but it might scale a B with strength, meaning as I pump in more and more strength,

my weapon is going to do more and more damage. And I thought that was actually really neat, very clever. And it really helps you kind of look at your gear and try to figure out what attributes do I need to add? Do I need health? Do I need stamina? Do I need strength? Do I need stamina? Do I need strength?

Do I need something else? And I thought that that actually worked really well. I love how the stats in this game come into play because they actually matter. How many games do you have charisma or constitution or strength or whatever? And it's like a side thought, right? It's like, eh, the game's really not going to play that different. With Elden Ring, your stats determine your build, determine your combat style, determine how you actually play the game. Now, they do give you the ability later on to respec. So that does come into play for those that have like build paranoia. I get it. I understand that. But you can respec later on. I actually just respect my character a couple of days ago

because I wanted to try out a new sword. Um, but that's the thing. The stats actually matter. And they matter so much in the sense that you can't use a lot of the gear that you come across because you don't have the requisite stats for it. Oh, you can't equip it. You can equip it, which is cool. Right. But then it's like much weaker than it normally would be. So you can at least try it out, but it tells you, Hey, you don't really know how to use this. Um, so I like that aspect because it actually matters. And again, it forces action upon your part by saying, Hey, when I'm leveling up, I'm not a strength-based build. I'm going dexterity and endurance so I can dodge roll like a maniac. But man, I really want to use this shield that I found. So maybe I'll

pump a couple points into strength so that now I can use that shield. And I really appreciate that the stats matter, I guess. Yeah, the stats really do bring a balance to the game. Absolutely. Because as a strength person, I was dumping everything into being able to hit harder, being able to block better. And then all of a sudden, I got this ashen spirit. There's these companions you get in this game that are like ashes, and they can come help you during fights and so forth. And I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, why can't I use this? I'm using my wolves. I'm using all this stuff.

Well, this guy took an insane 104 of this arcane meter just to cast it. And I was like at 61. And so I'm sitting there thinking, no, I want to go back in time and redo it because I want to use this guy. But at the sacrifice of what? More strength, not being able to use my heavier sword

and so it really does make you balance out how do you want to play the game you can't play the game in god mode so get rid of that idea you have to figure out what your play style is and do what you want to do i do think it's cool that you get to respect though because i i am that person though that gets terrified of being stuck with something and saying i can't ever change this i have to go redo all this game content maybe if i play it one way one time through i may not want to do it again but i did like how how it did balance the game but you can respect if you really absolutely want to go back and change things yeah and you do have to get past a certain boss in the game so that it does require you to put in a pretty good amount of time before

they allow you to respec and you do have to have a certain item in order to do it but they do give you the option which is really nice especially since i love when games let you respec on the fly in in elden ring they don't let you do it you can respec but you have to be able to to do it at the right time all right now let's talk a little bit about the boss fights. And we've already done that a little bit, but not a whole lot. I don't know if you guys saw in the news this week, but they have come out and said that fewer than 50% of people who bought Elden Ring have defeated Margit, the very first mandatory boss. So they're still in the 40% range. Michael is raising his hand. Does that mean you have not defeated

Margaret? I did not care to. I was having fun in the open world. I killed a lot of bosses. I did. And I've killed some of the harder ones, too, that weren't like, you know, the guy that I killed way down south supposedly is hard. He's supposed to be hard. It's just a normal mob, but Michael thought he was a boss. Right. He was wearing a different color

armor than the other guys he was around. Michael's been killing the crabs. He's been killing the crabs in the lake. They're six-foot-tall crabs. These are bosses, right? I killed a lobster boss, too. Oh, that's funny. So Michael's one of them. You're one of the 60% or so that haven't even beaten Margit. Yeah, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to actually bring that up on this podcast or not.

I did put 52 hours in the game. And I enjoyed the game. But again, people play and they're like, I was going to get to it eventually. But I was having so much fun with my completionist attitude of i'm gonna finish this whole area everything here before i go and do that castle and also because i was scared of it but it's mostly that's a testament to the open world nature of the game though the fact that you could put 50 plus hours into it without even really worrying about the first hard boss fight is a testament to how much there actually is to do in the open world in the game

oh how funny all right so i don't know how you guys feel i loved the exploration i loved the open world the boss fights i think for most people that love souls games those are the highlights for them i i actually felt the opposite i loved every second that I was exploring and in the open world. The boss fights, I get that they're supposed to be hard. I'm not complaining about the difficulty. All right, I went through multiple mandatory bosses in this game. What I don't like is when it's essentially boiling down the boss fights into a rhythm game where you have to do exactly the dodges at the right time. I find that to ultimately get a little bit boring. I know that the one thing I did mention to Josh is that I love the idea of learning boss fights and progression in MMOs because it's

a shared experience. You're doing it with other people. You're communicating while doing it. When I am just by myself and I have to fight Margit six or seven times and get my butt handed to me, now I go to YouTube and I watch a couple clips. Now I go back into Elden Ring, swap out some gear. I do it five to six more times. Okay, I'm really struggling with that dodge. Let me just watch the fight a couple of times. And then I hop back into Elden Ring and then I finally beat it. Ultimately, that doesn't do it for me. I would like that a lot more if all of Elden Ring was somehow multiplayer, because you can summon a helper for boss fights or in certain areas. Ultimately, I actually found the boss fights to be the parts I enjoyed the least. I was kind of curious of what you guys thought.

I love them. I am a Souls fan. So you kind of alluded to that, that people that like the series like the boss fights. I really, really enjoy them because one of the complaints, and maybe you guys will voice this, is that a lot of people feel aimless in Elden Ring. I hear the, where am I supposed to go? Point me in the right direction. And I hear that complaint from a lot of people. I've seen it in a lot of the reviews and stuff like that. The boss fights are where you go. That's the gleaming beacon in the game that says, hey, go explore the world. Be Michael. Spend 50 hours wandering around and enjoying this magnificent world that they've created filled with just all kinds of stuff and experiences and hidden catacombs and stuff like that. But when you want to know what you're supposed to do, go fight the boss. And it's

like you said, people will get wrecked. And then they go, well, maybe I'm not supposed to be here yet. And it's like, maybe you're not. Because if you level up, that boss fight does get a little easier. Now, there is nothing that's going to substitute in this game for skill. So you have to develop the skill to beat the boss. Doesn't matter how strong you are. You have to have some skill to be able to beat that boss. But for me, that's what the boss fights were. It was like, you know what? I'm going to put that on pause. I'm going to go explore.

I'm going to chill and have a good time. Okay, now it's time to focus. Time to die, boss. Yeah, I feel like the only reason I'm not getting fired from this podcast right now for not doing the very first boss in the game is because Paul kind of understands where I'm at with this. No, but I did experience like there's that giant tree guy that was tough. There was the tiger lion guy down south. I don't know their names, which is terrible.

Oh, you fought Redman in Castlemore. Yeah. Okay. That's a hard boss. Yeah, he was tough. Did you beat him? He took a lot of work. Or did you just run away? Okay. Yeah. Okay, that's a hard boss. Yeah, he was tough. Did you beat him? He took a lot of work. Or did you just run away?

Okay. No, no, no, no, no. Because that was part of my complete everything down here before I go to this north area. And then I went to the north area anyways because I realized I could just skirt around it and just get up there. But that was, like you said, though, Josh,

is the whole point is the game is kind of aimless. And my whole thing was always like, where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do? And everyone's just like, just get up until you're ready to fight the first boss. And I just kept going down and fighting all the minor bosses and then the bosses down there

and just exploring the world. And I'm like, eventually I'm going to go do that and go to the next area. But I was having so much fun doing that down there instead and just open-worlding it. And also because every time I turned a corner, there was a crypt or a dungeon or a cave or something where there was another boss. And that was, you know.

The one thing I can say, though, is the boss did get easier depending on what of my ash companions I was using. Because it was easier to turn the boss around and just stab him in the butt a whole bunch. Yeah, summons help a lot. But, yeah. You know, here's the other thing I'll say about the boss fights. This is where any of the FromSoftware games really shine. When we say you're fighting bosses, you are fighting the most fantastical, disfigured, unique monsters you've ever seen. I cannot think of another video

game that has the plethora of monsters and bosses and the mechanics and just the design that From Software has mastered, to be honest with you. That's why when I say, hey, you're running through the world and you see a black knight, what's the first thing you want to do? I'm going to go hit that guy. I want to see what he does. He's going to slaughter me. I know this before I even approach the guy. But it's like, I want to see how he slaughters me. And I think it's absolutely fantastical. I love that feeling of first initiating combat against a new boss or something like that. It is 100% given that I'm going to die horribly. But when you start to realize, hey, I can fight this guy, maybe I'll kill him. It took me, no lie, probably 30 tries to beat Margit and probably maybe 20 to beat Godric, who were the first two bosses in the game.

But I love that because when I beat them, I literally jumped out of my chair and cheered, talked a whole bunch of smack to their corpse. My family's laughing at me from the other room, that kind of stuff. But you feel like you actually accomplished something. See, I'm almost the exact opposite. When I finally beat the boss, I go, finally, this game's going to get fun again because now I can explore the next area. So I would always enjoy beating the boss, but it was more for what's going to come next. All right.

So let's talk a little bit about the positives and the negatives of Elden Ring. Okay, I know this episode is going to go long. I think we all knew it was going to. We're already about an hour in. But let's start with the positives. What do you guys think Elden Ring does best? fun but i think the thing that i got the most out of this game that i haven't felt in a long time in many games is this feeling of trepidation like you can go into a cave or a crypt and it could just be there you walk in there's a chest sitting there and you grab it and you get the loot and you walk out or you could go in there and you're in there for two hours and at the end there's this crazy hard boss that you have to fight. You don't know what's around every corner, but you have this somewhat bit of fear to it. And I thought the feeling that it got out of me without having a story really was impressive. I am a story person. I've said it before. I love to cry at video games and movies.

I love to have it make my heart really make my blood pump and feel things. And to feel something like this from this game with really no story, I thought was really impressive. And it's just, it's a testament to the world building. The world building was really good. It felt very real, kind of like what I talked about earlier with the combat system. Or just, I'm sorry, not even the combat system. The way you interact with other things. When you walk into something, it feels like it would feel, or just, I'm sorry, not even the combat system, the way you interact with other things. When you walk into something,

it feels like it would feel, you know, this rock. Like when you swing it with your sword, the clang, the sound effect, the feeling on the controller, that felt real. It's very, yeah, it's very tactile. And it made this open world so much more alive than I was expecting it to be,

which added so much more feeling for a game with no story. And that's what I liked. For me, gameplay. I mean, if you make a video game, you either better master the story, you better master the gameplay, because it's not going to be enjoyable otherwise. I mean, people talk about graphics and sound and all that stuff. But if you don't have gameplay or story, you don't really have a good video game at that point. And Elden Ring, to me, absolutely masters the gameplay portion of it. Now, like I said, we've kind of talked about the combat. I won't go over that. But I will touch on something that Michael kind of hinted at is it is the feeling, and this is unique to From

Software, and this is why I say it's almost its own genre at this point, because the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring, they give you this feeling of almost dread because the worlds that they build, and they've perfected it with Elden Ring, in my opinion, is it's this world that is lifeless. All of the NPCs are lifeless. All of the creatures, it's like everything in this game is dead, right? Like, nothing is bright and sparkly. There's no butterflies. There are, they're smoldering, so they're on fire. It's like, it's the most depressing world you could be a part of. And yet it's so alive with stuff going on. It's the perfect balance. I don't know how they do it with their world building. I love the absolute fantastical nature of everything. The bosses and the minimal lore and all that stuff, it all ties together into

this package that is so unique in the way that it feels. Only From Software can do this, in my opinion. And they do it so stinking well that they have spawned a genre out of it. Josh, the game even had a depressing-looking Santa Claus. How do you make Santa Claus look sad and depressed? It's the first merchant you come by. He's wearing a Santa hat. I'm like, the Santa Claus, that's a despair. But that's it. Everything in the world is sad. Everything's dead. It's lifeless. It's that feeling you get of like, I would not want to live here, man. Oh, no. And yet you have this hope of like, I'm going to beat this boss. I'm going to get this weapon. And it's like,

I don't know how they do it, man, but I absolutely love it. What about you, Paul? What works for you? I think a couple of things that work really well is, again, open world. I think we all agree with that. Without talking about different zones or whatnot, I remember the first time I was near a certain body of water, and I talked to an an NPC and he says, no, don't go anywhere near the lake. You're not ready for that. And as soon as I started running into the middle of the lake, a giant dragon pops up and it's an optional boss fight. So this game has stuff like that, where out of nowhere, you start getting chased by a massive grizzly bear or a dragon or you run into an ambush. And that stuff works really well. And then also hidden paths

and secret passageways. And I'm not even talking about where you hit a rock and it magically disappears and then you can walk through. There are things like that in previous Souls games as well. But what I'm talking about is when you get on an elevator lift, it'll take you all the way to the top. But you'll also notice that there's other passageways if you jump off the elevator lift. Now you can go figure out if there's a certain piece of gear or an optional boss down that path. And I thought that that kind of exploration is really what I love in an open world game and i thought that stuff worked really well i think the last thing i would mention is a lot of the optional bosses will give you the loot that you see on them and that's something

that has always bugged me yes with other mmos that don't do that like i kill a boar in world of warcraft and it drops a dagger. And it's like, what are we doing? Like how, where was the dagger? Was it like someone stabbed the boar and then it healed over it? Like I don't get it. But in this game, if you see a boss with a giant flail with three spiky balls, guess what you get if you kill that boss? You get a spiky three ball flail that you now get to add into your loot and i don't know why more games don't do that that makes perfect sense to me and

other games do that too but i really appreciate that elden ring seemed to understand that uh what what about the other side of things okay what about criticisms what do you guys think elden ring fails at i'll say this. The subsequent systems. They've improved the graphics. They've improved the gameplay. They've improved the world building and all that stuff. I will say that, and I know that you and I, we don't try to reveal our thoughts on a game before we record.

But we've kind of touched on this a little bit, Paul. And I do agree that what are you doing with menus from 1990 in a video game that's in 2022? You know what I mean? The UI in Elden Ring kind of sucks. And I like that the UI is minimal. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that when you go into a menu, it's terrible. And it's like you can have all of that feeling that I've been talking about that FromSoftware does. You can still have that and give me a menu that's easy to navigate, man, or a menu that compares items. Yes. Josh, you're touching on – and this is going to sound nitpicky, but I'm sorry. There is no excuse for this when I go

into a merchant and I see 80 pieces of gear okay well none of the merchants have that many pieces but whatever right 20 20 pieces of weapons and armor and I mouse over all of them there is no way to compare it to the gear I have equipped now this, this game has a million stats. Armor is not just simply an armor number. It's got armor versus slash damage versus pierce damage versus magic damage. What does it scale against? And I have to try to memorize 14 stats, exit the merchant, pull up my inventory, look at my item. Oh, crap. Wait, what was it versus magic again so many times and it's so frustrating but if you are comparing your own gear that's already in your inventory it will highlight the things that go up or down so the game has comparison just let me compare inside the shops

it makes no sense no that's that's the thing too, is I get the game is supposed to be hard, right? But when I'm taking my cell phone out to take a picture of my computer screen, to take a picture of the stats on my gear, and then go talk to a merchant and pull my cell, that's not hard. That's just annoying. I've literally done the same thing. I started taking a picture of the stats with my phone and then pulling out the actual piece of gear that I wanted to compare it to. There's no excuse for that. I'm sorry. I watched one guide that had beginner tips for Elden Ring because I watched nothing. I played probably eight to 10 hours without looking up a single thing. And I hated Elden Ring. I hated it so much. I told you guys, I said, I'm sorry. I

know we don't normally don't talk about things i wish i could refund this game and then finally i just said you know what i don't care i'm just gonna read guides i'm gonna do everything they tell me to do because i don't know where to go i don't know what i'm supposed to equip i don't know anything in this game and the very first guide i looked up this is not even a joke the very first tip they gave was keep a physical journal next to your computer to write down what quests you receive because this game does not have a quest book and it's like yes like michael said the game is supposed to be hard the menus are not supposed to be hard the lack of understanding is not supposed to be hard. The lack of understanding is not supposed to be hard. I picked up so many side quests

that they told me at the time to go collect something for them, and I just forgot. Like, I'll watch clips online. I'm like, oh, I totally forgot about that NPC. And the lack of a quest book or even, I don't even need it to be super detailed. I don't need them to mark with an objective

where Margit is and where to go fight the first boss. Okay, I'm not saying that, but the only guidance they give you in this game is from save point to save point, which are the sites of grace. It gives you a little bit of an arrow that shows you where the next one is, but they all go in different directions

because there's multiple zones. So ultimately, it doesn't help you a lot. I just wish there was a miniature quest book that just simply said, hey, this person wants you to recover this item inside Stormvale Castle. That's all I need to know. That's all I want. And then it could say that they are located south of the castle. That way I know generally where to return. I think that would more than suffice. But the lack of a quest book, I don't understand why it's not in the game. Yeah, I agree with you.

There are things that they could have done to make the game better in that regard. And I don't know why. Because it does not take away from the feeling of the game. It doesn't take away from the difficulty of the game. It's just a quality of life thing. And quality of life stuff never messes up a game. Let me ask you guys a question. All right. How would you feel... Okay. How do you feel when you buy something from Ikea and you open it and you see the instruction manual? Okay. Now imagine that Ikea no longer provides instruction manuals at all. And then they're like, here is everything you need.

It's going to make the most beautiful bed. And once the bed's built, you're going to love it so much. But now I have to spend hours of research on YouTube to learn basic woodworking and how to build things. And then through trial and error and through hours and hours of work, I somehow managed to build it. That's a little bit how Elden Ring felt to me in the beginning. There is so much stuff in this game that you will just miss that the game never tells you when you talk to someone and they stop talking you have to talk to them six times in a row and then they give you

a really important piece of loot yeah and if you just talk to them and then walk away you're not even going to have the ability to spirit tune like the whole idea that you have to talk to every person 14 times is another thing that I don't quite understand. I feel like the game, I feel like people laud these things as it being hardcore. And I just see it as being lazy. Like they don't teach you what to do. They intentionally make things secretive. And I don't think that's something that's a positive. I should not have to read.

I should not have to spend as much time researching the game as I do playing the game. And I feel like with Elden Ring, I would have a two-hour chunk to play. And I'd have to spend 40 minutes of it reading research on YouTube before I could even play the game. And that part, I don't like. And I feel like that could have been avoided if they just simply added the tiniest bit of quality of life. And I'm not complaining about difficulty. I'm not asking them to make it like Ubisoft games. I've seen all the memes, right? If Ubisoft made Elden Ring, here's what the UI looks like. I'm just talking about bare, bare basics of the game. And I feel like this game would be a 10 out of 10 but i found a lot of things to be quite frustrating with this yeah see i really do love the minimalist

ui but paul to your point i did look up a video on this guy on the bridge that i'm talking to and it says talk to him four times i'm like but the first and the third time he says the exact same thing so you think he's just an npc repeating himself but no you got to talk to him one more time that's just silly it makes no sense yeah uh yeah you know i i think the last thing i would also say is because when you die you lose all your runes It's almost like you have to set aside grinding sessions just to level your character. Because if you're just out there exploring, you're going to die.

And if you die in a bad spot, you may or may not be able to recover those runes. So I also found it to not be terribly fun when I had to put my exploration on hold. And now I'm just going to go grind for two hours because I feel like I'm falling a little behind and then getting back into the game. The game, to its credit, you don't always just earn runes. You do sometimes get items that you do not lose when you die. And then if you activate it, it gives you runes. I almost feel like when

you die, they should make you only lose a certain percentage or something i don't know i i i don't mind death having major consequences but i don't like when it then forces me to solely have grind sessions so i don't know that that's kind of like another nitpick i have with the game any other thoughts before we move on i was just gonna say i mean i think it's there. There is the need to grind. There's a ton of videos where people have found spots where you can farm like millions of runes fairly easily. And so it is that kind of trade off that, you know, you want to feel like your character is getting stronger and you had to work for it.

But nobody likes doing something repeatedly over and over and over again just to be able to progress in a game as well yeah there might be some kind of better balance i feel like on the pendulum all right so before we move into our final segments here i just wanted to ask you guys do you think elden ring will win Game of the Year for the Game Awards? It depends on how good Starfield winds up being. Starfield? Yeah. Or what about God of War Ragnarok?

Oh, that does come out this year. I keep forgetting that. I think it's up there, man. I mean, as of right now, the answer would be yes from me. Now, I don't know. Like I said, there's two big, big games coming out this year that have not released and won't release for a while. So those could be in the running. But otherwise, I think so. Yeah, I think there's also a bit of recency bias. I think that God of War Ragnarok really has to not do well for it to not get it even over Elden Ring. And I think part

of what Elden Ring might actually have going against it is the fact that it is hard. It doesn't really have a story. Things like that that might get a lot of casual gamers away from it and to say, I just don't really want to take off that chunk today, but God, I'm a Ragnarok. I can play four times through.

You know what I mean? I don't know. I would say no. I'm going to what I mean? I don't know. I would say no. I'm going to put money down that it doesn't win. I don't know what kind of money I'm putting down. But Josh said yes. I say no. Virtual runes you're putting down.

I say yes right now. Like that's, you know, to clarify, I think if God of War Ragnarok does release this year, I mean, you know, you guys know how much I love God of War, you know, and Starfield hopefully is the best thing since sliced bread. That's what I'm, you know you guys know how much i love god of war you know and starfield hopefully is the best thing since sliced bread that's what i'm you know really want to believe but so i think there are games that definitely could beat it in the actual game of the year but for now i don't think anything competes at this point i just hope that when josh plays god of war like his first session i just picture him sitting with his controller painted like kratos oh i do yelling yelling at the tv no shirt no shirt on either i go full i go full

kratos man he's gonna get totally swole just to play a video game and look just like kratos oh yeah he went full kratos at halloween so he's his wife his wife can do the makeup yeah i feel like elden ring is definitely the heavy favorite at this point it would be like the minus 200 favorite or something in in in uh the betting world i i don't understand why games seem to never be able to offer story plus gameplay plus length i feel like the best games always give you two like halo infinite the single player campaign right the gameplay is fantastic the story is fantastic it's six hours long yeah elden ring fantastic gameplay you could spend hundreds and hundreds of hours and not get

bored but there's no story and then you can play games like like we're currently looking to deep dive red dead and i know that a lot of people don't really so much like the gameplay but it's got a great story and it's very long so it's like i don't know why it's so hard to do all three but you know maybe that's why like 2018 god of war is it's not a 60 hour game but it is like a 20 to 30 hour game and maybe that's like as long as you can do before it starts feeling monotonous but you know Elden Ring I think it's got a chance but I kind of hope that we get a game that can provide all three because the lack of story in Elden Ring really does hold it back just for me personally but I know a lot of people just don't care yeah that game was supposed to be Cyberpunk 2077 by the way yeah it was and again

story fantastic length fantastic gameplay technical issues we had a lot to a lot left all right so uh I think it's time guys that's everything that we think about elden ring let's jump into some community reviews what you got for us josh all right so i pulled uh as we always do i you know you guys kind of picked up what we think about the game a little bit um always like to go to steam to say hey what do other people think what are some of the good reviews what are some of the bad reviews um and i knew we were going to go long. So I intentionally picked some shorter reviews this time. This first one is recommended. He's got 50 hours on record and the review says,

so I wanted to try the, you have died. So I wanted to try out the game because you have died. So I want it. You have died. It's good. Which by the way, the, you have died has stayed the same since dark souls one yep like it has never changed it's literally still the same graphic maybe it's higher resolution but it looks exactly the same and you get very used to that screen oh you do all right so this next one is

not recommended 168 hours on record wait what yeah elden ring more like stuttering okay not the best pun i've heard the one of the main complaints for the for the pc port is that it doesn't run like it should on a pc a lot of the negative response to elden ring has been just because of the pc port. It's locked at 60 frames a second. It doesn't really have ultra wide support. Again, a lot of the stuff that we're seeing with a lot of PC games that are releasing, people expect the full spectrum for PC stuff, and Elden Ring does not do that. I would be able to play Elden Ring at greater than 60 frames a second, but I can't because the game itself is locked at 60 frames a second. When it launched, multiple, multiple,

fairly severe bugs where people's controllers weren't being recognized. People were not even able to get to the 60 frames a second. So there were a lot of technical issues and there still are. Frame rate and stuttering being probably the two premier ones that people are still pretty upset about. So that one was just funny because the stutter ring and Elden ring went so good. I was like, I can't not throw that in there and give this guy credit. So,

okay. Yeah. Right. All right. This next one recommended 81 hours on record. The note said chest ahead at the edge of a cliff with nothing in sight. There were plenty of bloodstains, but they must have missed the jump. I had to be sure. Okay. I'm so glad you picked this review because I realized that we never talked about the in-game

comment system. Now that has existed since Dark Souls 1. All right. And I thought that was such a revolutionary idea to allow you to write a note. And if you're connected online, it will share your note with other people and you can see their notes and you can rate them either thumbs up or thumbs down. And the ones that get upvoted get shown to other people. And Dark Souls 1, it already was a running joke. You know, try jumping. And then, of course, you jump off this ledge thinking maybe there's like a magical bridge or maybe it'll teleport you. And no, you just immediately die.

And, of course, everyone immediately just started trolling. And that has carried through to Elden Ring where on day one, guys, when you step down to the open world, thousands, thousands of calls. And every single one was the same for jokes. It was didn't expect secret passage. It was you don't have the right. It was fortnight. It's just the same running jokes which are funny once but when you open 700 comments and that's all you see over and over it got so old so fast now josh i know you said you turned off comments

on day one right away i left it up and by like day three the comments really sorted themselves out and honestly at that point almost every comment was liar ahead because people would start posting liar ahead and that would get upvoted. And that's all that was left. So that was almost every comment I read. I did laugh at one where it looked like you might be able to fit through a crack in a couple of walls that didn't quite line up. And the comment said, no chonky boys allowed. And I was like, OK, that's kind of funny at least that's a little different but yeah there's like the same jokes that i feel like are really just

uh it's it's just like beating the dead horse over and over again i didn't i had never played any souls games and i had never heard of the comment system before i played yeah imagine my thought when i'm walking up and i finally look at one of these plaques on the ground and it says liar ahead and i'm like what riddle no do i do i have to figure this riddle out i'm like oh a riddle and i'm like what am i looking for and so sure enough that's the santa npc and i walk up to him and i'm like what's he saying i don't trust this guy and i stood i stayed in that church of marca or whatever for like an hour like trying to figure out what this guy was saying that was lying to me no joke it actually happened that's funny i did i did do one other thing that a comment said you remember the guy

that you talked to outside of stormvale castle and he tells you hey there's a secret way go through the back the comment read kill this merchant and take your loot or something and oh i slaughtered him josh i killed him and it was it was so sad because you know i always play like paragon when i do mass effect or whatever yeah i just start slice and dicing this guy and he goes why why are you doing this i just killed him and i don't even remember what i got it was probably nothing all that great but that is something that's very funny in this game is you can kill a lot of npcs you can kill almost any merchant in this game and they're no longer going to be in the game but you're going to get some loot for killing them. And I think that's kind of clever in the game as well. Yeah.

We stay dead. Yeah. Okay. All right. Last review, not recommended. Six hours on record. This game looks like it has a lot of fun content, but I'll never know because I am not good at it,

and I keep dying. The fun is overwhelmed by the frustration. I'm 48, and I'll be dead soon in real life. I don't need to spend my remaining time practicing for it. Wow. He's only 48. I would like to think he's got some time. I mean, yeah, it's but there are this game is just not made for some people.

You know, some people don't want a difficult experience. And I think they they went into this blindly and said, hey, I'm hearing this hype about Elden Ring. Let me pick it up. And then they went, what is this? This game's terrible. All right. So that's the Steam reviews. You know what time it is, boys.

It's time to guess the overall Steam score on a scale of 0 to 100. What do you think Elden Ring is rated and Michael won the Lost Ark which means he gets to go first you gotta go first man I so this is tough because I I know that it's like a game of the year contender and I know so many people love this game I also know a lot of people really hate this game and are going to review it down so i don't know i was spot on i think i think with lost ark i said what 76 or 78 and i think that i think more people are gonna upvote this so i i'm gonna say 72 and i may be way low or way high. I have no idea.

Josh, do you want to go second? I think you won the deep dive prior to Michael. So I wrote down my guess at 84%. I was trying to be cognizant of the fact that I knew that there were technical issues that were ticking people off. And I know that there are a lot of people that probably tried Elden Ring that have never played a Dark Souls game or any FromSoftware game in the past. And we're going to go, what the heck? What kind of game is this? Why do I keep dying so much? And then not enjoy it. So while I think that it deserves a much higher rating, I like to win. So I guessed 84%. Oh, man. I was hoping you'd make this easier on me josh because i was gonna go one above or one below but there's not a whole lot of window in

between you guys um i'm gonna go oh man i'm gonna go one above josh i'll say 85 85 yeah all right it's gonna be pretty close all right paul darn you 86 percent 86 what are the recent do you have it pulled up right now or no uh no i don't have it pulled up that was the overall i'd be curious to know recent reviews as opposed to right at release because i have a feeling if you looked at recent it's probably in the mid 90s or something like that all right i feel like i haven't won one of these in a while um also there are this is all the reviews because the game is so recent that there's no recent and overall okay i couldn't remember if it was two weeks or one month but okay yeah because we do know that it got a little bit review bombed in the very beginning. Right. All right. Well, that's nice to see that it's recovered and rebounded from all that. All right.

Yeah, I didn't think that it was worth the 72 that I guessed, but, you know. That's what you thought it would be. All right, Paul. All right, DJ. Let's spin that record. Hey there, Melina. Have you been covered in bees recently? I just assumed because you look sweeter than honey.

That might be your best one yet, Paul. Oh, man. Oh, boy. It might be. This segment is called Make Love, Marry, or Murder. This is where all three of us give the game our individual rating. Do we see it as long-term marriage material is it something that you might just want to play for a few hours and

it's worth checking out but then dropping or is it a game you should stay away entirely um i'll go ahead and go first i think this is a game that you guys and probably most of our listeners thought that i would murder um but i i in no way shape or form can i murder this game this game is a mary all right now i don't think it deserves game of the year contention i think it is a fantastic great game with one huge caveat read every guide just pull up on your dual monitor, Elden Ring, what's the first area called? Limgrave?

Limgrove? Yeah, Limgrave. Whatever it's called. Just search Elden Ring Limgrave Guide and just scroll through it and do whatever it says. It will not make the game easier. It just simply points you in the right direction and it will take the guesswork out

and then just feel free to explore the area once you get to it and then i think that the game is absolutely fantastic the first eight hours i really hated and i could see why a lot of people would drop it i think the game straight out of the box kind of sucks because of the game's lack of direction i really do but as long as you have that set of instructions for the ikea furniture then it all of a sudden is well worth it and i would give it a mary i'm so what about you michael i i had a really hard time with this and my my hard time was because i i really really like games with a story. And I really, really want to get more out of it.

The game is beautiful, but it's so bleak, you know? It's like The Walking Dead. Yeah, it really is. Except The Walking Dead, well, the first two seasons had a good story. And that's the whole thing about it. The TV show, by the way, not the game. Game was fantastic. But my whole thing was, I don't know if I wanted to give this a make love or a marry. I'm not going to murder it.

I had way too much fun playing this game to murder it. But my thing comes down to, do I want to go pick it back up after I put it down for a while? And the answer is, yes, I do. I want to go back at some point and i want to play a caster even though it has no story really and even though i i don't think that it it really has a lot of things that really you know brought the story along obviously there's no story sorry or the problems with the hud and all that stuff i think the feeling that it gave me is addictive and so i think i'm gonna marry it even though i went the whole week thinking until yesterday i was gonna make love to it i'm gonna marry it because i do want to play it again and i'm i'm ready to once i have a break again go pick it back up again yeah if we didn't

have another deep dive on the horizon i told josh i would love to respec and test out casters i have not cast a single spell in this game because i pumped everything into stamina and strength i couldn't cast anything if i wanted my fp meter is literally a centimeter on my screen meanwhile my stamina covers you know half of my screen but i i would love to be able to experience the other parts of the game i just simply don't have the time or the ability if we didn't have the podcast though i would love to experiment with that stuff a lot more. You guys remind me why you're such good friends of mine. I'd never doubted either of you for a second. It's a Mary for me. You guys knew that. I mean, I absolutely love Elden Ring. As a fan of the Dark Souls series, I think that this has mastered just

about everything. I get it. Honestly, I don't begrudge people that say, hey, this isn't the game for me. It's not. It's not the game for everybody, but it is most certainly the game for me. I could not be happier with how Elden Ring turned out as a fan of From Software. I'll say this. Normally, I'm ready for the next game that we're going to deep dive because I have a short game attention span and I don't generally stick with games for too, too long. And while I know that the next deep dive is going to be an amazing game i like i'm actually a little sad that i don't get to just keep playing elden ring at this point because i i have that much fun with it i love the exploration i love just about everything it does except for its really really terrible menus

yeah and there's a zero percent chance any of us would beat this game even without the podcast as much as i love there's no way as much as i love dark souls and elden ring i would never finish it no matter how many times i dive into it and have fun with it i will never beat the game i like i know that they've talked about how this game is going to have the highest percentage of people beating the game i bet it's still going to be like two percent yeah of players most people are going to fizzle out it's almost a little bit too big in that regard that very few people will finish but that being said people keep breaking speed run records which is the latest i've seen is 27 minutes insane to me dude now that did get nerfed with the latest patch they actually said hey this completely

nerfs the ability to speed run like they were. So I don't know. I guess they'll have to figure out a different way. The way people were figuring out, okay, so if I stand on this ledge and let this enemy tackle me, then we can fall 200 feet and the enemy dies and not me. And things like that help with speedruns. But then other people were doing things of, I'm going to jump off of this ledge but then i'm gonna alt f4 restart the game and then it's gonna put me past all of these mandatory bosses it's very clever in the things that people were exploiting the latest i think i saw was 27 minutes to beat the game um which is pretty wild but if you beat this the normal way you're talking

probably a couple hundred hours. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's huge. The game is massive. That's why I joked in the very beginning that they actually lied about how big the game was to throw people off. Yeah, it's always better to under-promise and over-deliver.

All right, well, guys, let's go into our last segment. Let's go to the leaderboard and see where this game stacks up. All right, guys, our leaderboard now has a total of 67 games. If this is the first time that you have listened to one of our episodes congratulations on making it 90 minutes in uh but if you go to multiplayerpodcast.com right there on our home page we have every game that we have done a deep dive episode on we have to come up with a consensus rating of where we want this game uh rated compared to every other game that we've covered just to touch on a couple of games here we've got some things like number one god of war 2018 we've got at number five rocket league number 10 hearthstone 15 risk of rain 2 20 the forgotten city 25 no man's sky we've got some things way down at the bottom like uh fall guys at 58 sorry for those of you who love

it and we've got hood outlaws and legends at 65 and battlefield 2042 all the way at the bottom at 67, which is where it deserves to be. Uh, looking here, all three of us gave it a Mary, but it's a little bit of like a qualified Mary. I almost feel like it's a shotgun wedding.

Uh, so it's not, it's like, like someone asked in our discord, does this have a chance at number one? And I was no no chance no no chance anywhere near number one but we did all give it a mary what what are you guys thinking where where are we looking so we also all three gave a mary to lost ark and i believe both of you married forgotten city and those are at 18 and 20 and as much as i love this game it

sits below those for me what about you josh i this is a top 10 game for me to be honest now i know that's going to be an uphill battle with youtube most likely but for for me and my love of this game and the like what it does i i would put it in our top 10 easily. See, when I'm looking at these, it's always a little bit of personal preference, right? So it's always going to be biased. You know, we're not looking at this like a journalist critic. So personally, would I rather spend $60 on Elden Ring or would I rather spend $20 on Risk of Rain 2? I'd rather buy Risk of Rain 2. Um, but when I'm looking at this, I think, I think it's definitely a top 20 game. So Michael's thinking lower than 20. Josh

is thinking top 10. I'm thinking 15 to 20 range, you know, actually maybe in the teens. No, I'll take mine back because I think as much as I love the forgotten city, there's not a lot of replay value with it. There's a lot more replay value with Elden Ring. I think I still think if you were to say, hey, what game do you want to play tonight? I'll probably pick Lost Ark. So I'd say right behind Lost Ark at 19. I would accept higher than that in the mid-teens

because of Josh's love for it, and I wouldn't be upset about it. I think somewhere in the early teens is perfectly fair. I think anything from like... I would not put this above Divinity Original Sin 2. I would not either. I think Divinity the early teens is perfectly fair. I think anything from like... I would not put this above Divinity Original Sin 2. I would not either. I think Divinity is a perfect game. I would not either.

Like, that's honestly... I was just looking at that and I was going, I wouldn't put it above Divinity. I would put it above Warzone. I know Paul loves Grand Theft Auto Online. So I feel like anywhere 11 to 13, I would not lose sleep over you know as far as that goes because the game what the game does it does phenomenally and you know it does my thing is like

i i fully understand that this is not some people's cup of tea you will not like elden ring if you don't like a certain thing you know what i mean mean? As far as that goes, but the game and hate it, the game. Yeah, honestly, you might, but the game is phenomenal for those people that like it for what it does. It does so well that I think it deserves to be recognized for that.

Yeah. Like if someone says I've never played a dark souls game, should I buy Elden ring that has popped up in our discord many times, 50 times. Right. And what's our Discord many times. 50 times, right? And what's our answer every single time? Uh, I don't know that I would recommend it for you. You have to, like, give them a questionnaire, and then it's like,

if you answered yes to four of these questions, yes, you should buy it. If you answered no to one of them, do not buy this game. Right. It's funny that we have a game sitting here that comes with a disclaimer and a questionnaire before it that's going to be top 15, you know? But it's funny that we have a game sitting here that comes with a disclaimer and a questionnaire before it that's going to be top 15 but it's that good

it's great though it is good but if someone says should I play satisfactory the answer is always yes it doesn't matter it doesn't matter young or old just go play it right so for this game I think

I'd put it below Divinity which we, I think I'd put it below divinity, which we have at 11. I'd put it at maybe, maybe even 12, 13 or 14. We're talking war zone, grand theft auto online terraria. But what are you guys thinking?

I vote number 12. That's me. You know, I think that's too high, Michael. I know some of these you haven't played since you're new to the show yeah and see that's that's where i'm gonna defer on that one because like the next game that i've played after grand theft online okay grand theft grant there's an extra word in there guys believe it or not it's grand theft auto online i don't know if you knew that or not but

uh the next game after gtao uh is gonna be see what I did there, Lost Ark, which is like five spots lower. So I don't know. I'd put it. I'm fine with what I really am. Okay. So have you played Grand Theft Auto online? Yes. Do you think Elden Ring is better or worse?

They're just so different. Well, that's the beauty of the leaderboard. That's why it's so hard. That's the beauty of the leaderboard, though. I think it's better. Okay. Let's put it at 12, then. If we're putting it above GTA Online, then let's also put it above Warzone.

Warzone's got too many cheaters. Yeah, I agree. Warzone's kind of fallen off a little bit lately. Okay. This is going to respect the people that absolutely love Elden Ring and say, hey, I want to see where they ranked it. And if you don't like Elden Ring, you probably just don't like the game in general, which is fine at that point. Yeah. And to be fair, this is the first game from software that I would marry. The other ones I had zero interest in, ultimately. Bloodborne, I absolutely hated every minute I played it,

and I couldn't wait to quit, and then I was done. So I do think that if you previously did not like these kinds of games, Elden Ring is still worth checking out. But watch some videos and just know what you're signing up for. I completely agree. I mean, I had 52 hours of fun and didn't even try one of the story bosses, and I still married the game. Like, that says a lot. What also says a lot is that I need to get more backbone now that I'm starting to become a season's

veteran of this podcast. You gotta fight for your spot. I gotta go back in time or forward in time next time we do a leaderboard review because Lost Ark is coming up. I'm still playing Lost Ark. Oh, it's Thursday. Reset.

Gotta fight for your stuff, man. I'm still playing Lost Ark. Oh, it's Thursday. Reset. You gotta, you know, gotta fight for your stuff, man. Yeah. All right. Well, guys, this is not our longest episode, but we knew it would go long. I know that we keep mentioning what our next deep dive will be, but it will be Red Dead Redemption 2, which, spoiler alert, is my second all-time favorite game. So you guys know that. I absolutely love Red red dead can't wait

to talk about that one we are jumping back into that game here over the next couple of weeks and come hit us up on socials we really would love to hear from you guys let us know what games you want to play and if you want to join on patreon go to multiplayer squad.com one of our perks if you are a legendary supporter which i know not many people want to do this but for a hundred dollars you can actually pick any game you want and it will force us to deep dive it and so if there's a game you absolutely want us to cover that we have no interest in you can still have your way and we might rank it below battlefield or it could be number one you never know but there is that option available and we would love to hear from you guys on discord there's a link in the episode description

anything else to add guys praise the sun nice nice all right well thanks for listening everybody we'll see you all on thursday happy gaming see everybody cheers all We'll see you all on Thursday. Happy gaming. See you, everybody. Cheers, all.