Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

I think I was probably the only one on pushsquare still playing through Elden Ring, but I finally popped the platinum this morning - after 250 hours of playing!

It's my first FromSoftware game and I wasn't at all sure how I'd get on with it. In the end I've found it compelling pretty much the whole way through, but I'm definitely ready to play something else now!

@JigsawPieces Well done my man!

Will you eventually be playing the other FromSoftware games?

@JohnnyShoulder Thanks!

One of my friends, who's a total FromSoftware nut, has been encouraging me to play Bloodborne next, so I may well give that a try ... eventually!

@KAIRU Again! I do hope it's not 250 hours each time 🤣

@JigsawPieces Bloodborne is still my favourite From game. The more aggressive combat style is more my sort of thing; shields are basically non existent/useless and it has a mechanic where you can recover lost health by attacking within a short window of being hit.

The Souls games are much closer to Elden Ring mechanically, plus Demon’s and Dark Souls have both got remakes/remasters if you’re playing on PS5 too.

@JigsawPieces Bloodborne was my first From game, and after the steep learning curve and massive assistance of this community to drive me forward and not give up, I ended up absolutely loving the game. Within this year I’ve played Demon’s Souls Remake and currently about half way through Dark Souls Remastered. I’m planning to work my way toward Elden Ring, maybe by end of 2023.

So I’m not sure how it would go with doing things in the opposite direction where you start with Elden Ring, but I imagine that since you have the basic FromSoft principles down now, then each game that follows will be quicker to pick up.

I think for me, Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls were both about 80 hour games, but I didn’t platinum either one, although I did very thorough playthroughs with essentially clearing all the main maps.

I’m probably about 40+ hours into DSR and I figure halfway or maybe a little more than half. DS1 feels longer, but I think it’s because there isn’t as much of a hub world to act as a home base of operations like there is in BB and DeS. There’s a lot of trekking through the same areas over and over to get from point A to point B. It’s a brilliant game though.

But I can see the reluctance to jump right into another From game. I put several months and a handful of games in between DeS and DSR this year, so as to not get Souls fatigue.

And so it begins! Started last night and played for about 2 hours so just getting my feet wet! Started as a Vagabond and as I'm hoping to get the plat done in my first playthrough I'm playing half blind/half guide to make sure I don't miss or screw anything up.

I had a really good go at the first boss and after recently playing Bloodborne and Demon's Soul's I think with a bit more effort and concentration I could of bested him but after he was below half way health I just felt like dying was the better option as first time playing(may sound weird).

One thing I will say is that I've managed to stay relatively spoiler free, not that the story is ever really a main focal point but also haven't seen to much gameplay or boss stuff(except the fire giant and Melina always seem to be mentioned) but a big point I heard from people especially new players to From Software games was that the game doesn't really tell you where to go but once at limegrave, the grace sites literally point you in the rough direction, I don't know if this is new or added in previous updates.

Anyway got my map piece and acquired a steady companion, a giant gave me a fright and a pot needed a smacking, lots of exploring which is where I think this game literally becomes amazing, you can just wonder anywhere and after realising your not ready for this enemy, go elsewhere until you are.

I felt after Ragnarok a little bit of a lul and it's been about a week of just turning the console on for an hour or so and then back off because I couldn't get in to starting anything but last night took a punt on Elden Ring and I'm glad I did!. (Until I die annoyingly all the time)

@MaulTsir I wouldn’t worry too much about “messing up” a platinum run as it’s difficult to do much wrong I think, especially in the very early game. There’s only one item that is missable that would lock you out of one trophy but another player can drop it for you if needed.

I’d just play through it naturally to start. I used the powerpyx guide https://www.powerpyx.com/elden-ring-trophy-guide-roadmap/ which has headings to give you some direction if you need it. Any key steps are in red (and late on) if you wanted to scroll through to see what those points are.

@Thrillho Thanks for the info, I have been using the psnprofile guide but I'll have a look at the powerpyx one if I get on tonight. Any help can only be a good thing!

I've found my self just sort of exploring and trying to work things out, figure out what things do, I've got 2 map pieces and also a good few grace sites but I've definitely wandered to far because most things just one or 2 shot me 🤣 I did clear a camp close to wear the merchant sits, although on my first attempt the guy blowing his horn and every man and his dog coming out really give me a fright! So my next attempt was stealth mode!.

The Platinum for this one is really attainable I think. There's only that one missable item, and other than that it's pretty plain sailing. Not like some of the other Souls games where you have to collect every ring or something and that means playing the game three times or whatever.

I also think it's a largely enjoyable platinum. I liked doing it all. It wasn't a situation where it was like, oh great now I have to go around the whole map finding artefacts and there's 200 of them. You basically get it for just playing the game thoroughly.

@MaulTsir @johncalmc Yeah, it’s hard to lock yourself out of the platinum (other than not backing up your save before an ending) but there are so many subtle stories going on for characters that you can miss or inadvertently mess up.

I honestly have no idea how people found so many of those organically as it sometimes felt like is was needing to read three separate wiki pages simultaneously to figure things out!

@Thrillho Oh there's no way I would have known how to do some of it without a guide. I basically played the game through to the end and then looked at my trophies and then looked up what I had to do for the rest. There were some entire areas I'd never been to and didn't even know about. I do think going into it blind for a while is a great way to play but you'd be on for hundreds of hours if you didn't look up a guide at some point.