My armored hands scorch the hilt of my sword; I’m in a cave almost pitch black. The only source that brightens the environment a little is the halo of a tree of light. I stumble in the dark and climb the stone stairs. When I push the wooden door in front of me, it moes slowly and slowly swings to both sides. I keep climbing. I touch the lost grace that warms this cold gray catacombs with its yellow light; The light takes all my tiredness. I’m looking for the exit with my power restored. After a little progress, I arrive in a room with a stone pedestal in the center. When I walk to the middle of the pedestal, the piece under my foot sits in place and the pedestal begins to raise me up, out of this cemetery…
Instinctively, I know my way. The heavy, metal door must be the last obstacle between me and freedom. I bend over and put my hands under the door, my muscles stretch and hold my breath and lift the door up with all my might.
I gasp as the fresh air hits me in the face. As the gigantic plume of light covers the right side of the sky as far as the eye can see, I draw attention to the shattered stone bridge in its shadow. And, of course, the whole castle adjacent to it…
So I can set foot in Limgrave, where the search for Elden Ring begins. As if waiting for this moment for centuries…
That’s how it started with My adventure with The Closed Network Test, which Elden Ring did earlier this month. Now we longed to see something about Elden Ring that we doubted the authenticity of the game.
To be honest, especially after witnessing the visuality of Demon Souls Remake, I was a little annoyed that Elden Ring was an intermediate generation game and was using the improved engine of Dark Souls 3. I’d largely put this boredom behind me when I got into CNT, but if I hadn’t, I’d probably have changed my mind after I stepped into Limgrave. yes, the graphics engine’s a little intermediate, but the locations look great. While Demon Souls and Dark Souls focused on dark fantasy themes, Bloodborne was based on gothic and Lovecraft-hei fantasy; It’s hard to squeeze Elden Ring into a single definition. From Software,it manages to feed off all of its previous work and be different from them in this respect. When you suddenly step into the open world from the familiar underground dungeon-themed entrance, you experience this feeling intensely.
But Miyazaki soon reminds you that the game you are playing is a From Software game. You’re like, “Ehe, I can jump! Let me jump over here!” and “Oh, there’s a flower picking” and suddenly you’re in danger of the first big threat, called the Tree Sentinel. Or rather, don’t soften it by saying it’s standing, it’s going through you in a literal sense with its horse and spear. I was used to the first enemy coming out of Souls games kicking our adversary like this, so I pulled “NOPE!” and ran into the building I saw as the closest sheltered. Of course, From Software predicted that the players would do this and prepared a “little” surprise for this church: The Tree Sentinel can keep coming after you by tearing down the walls of the church! Fortunately, there’s a Lost Grace inside. You can think of these glittering Lost Graces that call you to yourself as the bonfires of Elden Ring. In addition to teleporting and traveling fast between lost graces you’ve opened, you’re always doing things like memorizing your spells, arranging your chest, adjusting your Flasks and the special abilities of your weapons, leveling up. One option that didn’t exist before is to be able to set the “time” of day. Now that it has a more free gameplay, the time of day has a big impact both atmospheric and gameplay. For example, if you want to enter an enemy camp, it is ideal to wait for the night as your enemies’ visibility is much more limited at night. There are also situations where some enemies are only around at certain times of the day. And then there are the dynamic weather conditions, but if it’s anything out of the atmosphere, I couldn’t discover it during CNT. Still, they play a big part in making the occasional land feel much more “alive” than in previous games.
Anyway, let’s get back to church of elleh, where we escaped from the Tree Sentinel and took refuge. Since this will be one of our first stops in the game, it actually gives us many tips on the full version of the game. For example, if you talk to Kalé, who is brewed by the fire here, he sells you some critical items that will allow you to try out many of the systems in the game. By taking the Crafting Kit, for example, you can turn on the game’s Craft system. If you buy the summons he sells, we can try summons, which I think Elden Ring will rely hele on a lot, and which are often shown in promotional videos. Honestly, I thought the summons would hurt that isolated atmosphere of Soulsborne games, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought. It was a good decision to be both optional and, if you don’t use it strategically, the bosses have to make a decision to crack one or two strokes. Crafting, as far as I can tell, is still optional. While using it can make your job a lot easier (Sleep Arrow was officially like cheating mode during CNT), you can also move forward by relying on your old-fashioned Soulsborne abilities without using it. Ancaaaaak…
Sonic the hedgehog called, he doesn’t want us rolling anymore…
We’re at the end of days where we’re fighting like rocks that’ve been left downhill for days and nights, fellas. Just as Sekiro forced us to change and rediscover the way we played “Don’t avoid, brother, meet the shot,” there’s a bit of the same here. Personally, I got beat up a lot in Elden Ring as someone who came out of the boss’s combo with somersaults and parendes in a low-level Dancer fight in Dark Souls III. That’s because the “immortality” frame that used to be rolling is no longer there. The sword doesn’t go through you undamaged, so you’re left with what you eat in your head for a burly. Something else came in his place, but of course. For example, it was incredibly easy to make a Guard Counter while holding down the block key. It’s almost like the game gives you the right to a free Parry. Oh, and I told you immortality is not in the rolling… Instead, they put him in a weird jumper. In summary, if you are used to jumping on top of the enemy in Sekiro, you will be very comfortable; If you’re not used to it, prepare your mind now. Because when you jump, you don’t get damaged by most moves, but you can also make some nice attacks. However, I have reservations about whether this is positive or negative; So I’m leaving my final decision to the final game.
One innovation that I think has definitely contributed positively to the fighting system is the Ashes of War system. This is actually an upper version of Weapon Art, which you might remember from Bloodborne. Each weapon still has its own special moves, but this time the different part is that you can tamper with these special abilities and pull them around in your own way. So you can hold it and press Weapon Art to send a wave of electricity at the same time. Even better, when you apply some Weapon Art to a weapon, it can also change what ability the weapon leverages. This paves the way for different options, such as “Let the damage of my sword increase with my Arcane property and not with STR”. (I have to say alone, my favorite weapon during the CNT was a double-edged sword called the Twinblade. It’s been a pleasure to turn people around with spinning Slash) Ha, before I forget, his Ashes of War talents are using a new resource called FP – which is kind of the point. In the past, those who preferred to play more me-heavy fighting and STR-heavy characters in Soulsborne games didn’t have much to do with that side, this time with features like both Ashes of War and Summons using this resource; I think it’s very appropriate.
No Leaping Pony in the game?
We don’t have a pony, but we do have a jumper that’s known as the “spiritual cub,” Torrent. It already makes sense that we have a mount, given Elden Ring’s vast map (although we can still beam to the Lost Graces whenever we want). But Torrent does more than just move us from point A to point B. If you’re a character who can cast spells, it’s incredibly easy to rain magic on your enemies from the back of a mount. If you prefer melee, it’s a click harder to get used to, but when you figure out how to approach the enemy from the side of your hand holding a gun, you start to relax. It’s easy to baboon crowded groups of enemies once you’re well accustomed to your control because the torrent moves fast, but even though it’s spiritual, he’s got a life, too. Naturally, if you’re careless, it’s not even a matter of time before you’re taken down by enemies. Moreover, since you are vulnerable for a long time when you fall from torrent, you have nothing to do but watch your enemies come to you with heavy steps and then pass you to the end of the sword while lying on the ground like a sacrificial sheep; It’s not nice. So if you want to devote yourself to mounting fights, let me mention that you can also use your Flask to improve Torrent.
But all in all, what excites me most about Torrent is that it also allows me to use the verticality of the maps. Closed Network Even in the limited space that we were able to navigate during the test, there were a lot of hidden places that we could reach using torrent alone. With Torrent, which can do double jumps in the air, we’re going to die a lot when we’re trying to get around the ruins and try out, “Can I jump from here to there?” when the full version of the game comes out. On the one hand, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t even enjoy it because soulsborne added a different layer of discovery to your games.
That’s what I remember most from the Closed Network Test, but rest assured there was a lot more to come. Although I was only able to test it on its first day due to the fact that the test opened in some absurd hours (which Margitt already ate a significant portion of it), what I experienced comforted me that Elden Ring was not a dream but a game that we will soon experience in all its glory. Of course, I’ve noticed the parts that are failing, that need to be polished, but they’re more like camel ears. In essence, we can continue to wait until February with peace of mind. Elden Ring is on its way and there’s not much left for him to reach the station…
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