OK. I’ve dithered. I’ve dallied. Today, however, I’m making the final call. And until I do, WE’RE NOT FUCKING LEAVING! More realistically, I’ll ramble on and on until I get bored and end the poist. Hopefully, I’ll come to a conclusion before I reach that point, but we’ll see.
In the last post, I finished by talking about the NPC questlines in both games. I concluded that it was a draw as to which game did it better.
I have to say that I’ve been playing Dark Souls III for the last week and enjoying the hell out of it. It has been the final boss and the two DLCs. And the Nameless King. I have been able to summon for them all–oh, I no longer do the Champion Gravetender (first boss of the first DLC) because it’s only for access to the PvP arena, and you get that item later, anyway.
I have been able to summon humans for all the bosses except the Soul of Cinder, much to my surprise and pleasure. The online was off for a year because a hacker, but it’s now back. Ian laughs at me when I express surprise that people are still playing because as he pointed out, I was still playing. Which, true. But I kinda thought that with Elden Ring being out, people wouldn’t be playing the older games. I’m glad that’s not true, even if it means I get invaded.
Dark Souls III is ultimate comfort food to me. I was doing the loop of killing the thee Lothric knights near the Dragonslayer Armour bonfire because I wanted Sunlight Medals Thirty of them, to be exact. I want the incantation you get when you turn them in at the Sunlight Altar, but then I realized that I can get the even better version (the miracle for the thirty Sunlight Medals is a better version of another miracle itself) for the Soul of the Lords (final boss’s soul). The base miracle is Lightning Spear. The upgrade you can get for the thirty Sunlight Medals is the Great Lightning Spear, and the one for the Soul of Cinder’s soul is the Sunlight Spear.
Now that I almost have the Faith to use Sunlight Spear, I don’t really need to get the Great Lightning Spear. I kinda want to get it just to have it, but I don’t want to grind for that long. I could try to get summoned as a Sunbro and do it that way (you get a Sunlight Medal for every boss you help someone defeat), but I don’t like being a summon. You get severely nerfed as a summon, and like PvP, you have to be practice to be good at it.
I’m not going to talk about the hundo chievo in each game, but if I were, I’d give the point to Elden Ring, hands down. It’s the easiest of the plats to get, ironically, as it’s the biggest game. The reason why it’s the easiest, though, is beacuse there is no ‘collect thirty of this covenant item’ bullshit. Thankfully. You can get all the acheivements in one go except for the three endings bit. If the save-scumming had worked, I could have done it in one, but it didn’t. I made my peace with it because i knew I was going to be playing the game again and again, anyway.
10. The combat mechanics. Combat is a huge part of the From games. Some would say the most important part, obviously. It’s what you spend 70% of your time doing. Fighting. Hacking your way through swathes of enemies. Facing iconic bosses with the might and strength of a warrior.
I will say that the comabt is similar in the two games. Two flasks, one red and one blue. Estus Flask and Ashen Esus Flask in Dark Souls III, and Flask of Crimson Tears and Flask of Cerulean Tears in Elden Ring.
I will note that it’s a inside joke in the community how some of the cosmetic changes are funny as hell. Like the aforementioned Estus Flasks to Flasks of Tears. Same with Bonfire to Site of Grace, Souls to Runes, and more little touches like that. The Souls to Runes one is the funniest because people call them souls in all the games. In Bloodborne they’re called Blood Echoes. In Sekiro, it’s Sen. Doesn’t matter. They’re Souls. Weirdly, though, I have a much easier time remembering the alternate names in Elden Ring than in previous games.
Anyway, back to combat. Elden Ring has added to the formula that Dark Souls III honed with a few major changes. One, horse combat. Personally, I don’t like it. I find it more cumbersome than helpful as I helplessly swish my sword from side to side. I rarely connect with the enemy, and if we are both on horseback, then it’s the hilarious dance of us circling around each other and constantly missing our blows. In the RKG Discord, people have said that it’s satisfying when you connect, but I put it under the deflect in Sekiro–something I’ll never master. Torrent is a net gain, but horseback combat is tedious and something I avoid when possible. My biggest pet peeve about it is that you can’t cast over your shoulder as you’re riding away from the enemy/boss. To me, that defeats the whole purpose of horseback combat.
The one unabashed positive addition is the dedicated jump button (A on the Xbox Elite 2 controller). In the old games, I tended to mostly use RB to hit. Occasionally, I’d use RT, and because I use shields that allow me to use my weapon art one-handed, LT when the fancy hit me.
It was safe, and it was boring. I rarely used RT or did combos. It was just RB, RB, block, and then back away when I needed a break. Oh, and of course, casting magicks when that was appropriate. I joke that I have perfected the ‘walking backwards whilst casting’ move, but it’s true. I did it quite often in Dark Souls III and nearly constantly in Elden Ring.
Oh! Yes, the jump button. It changed everything. The jump attack was so good. That plus the guard counter (block, RT, ching! That’s my description of it) have really changed up the combat and made it feel fresh again. Plus, the Ash of Wars that are similar to Weapon Art from the previous game, but better–and add to that the sheer breadth of the magicks–and I have to give the point to Elden Ring in this category.
Look. I could keep going for days about this, but I’m not going to do so. Here’s my final verdict for now.
They are both number one, but for different reasons. Dark Souls III is my ultimate comfort game, and I love doing the exact same thing every time. I love my look and my weapon/magicks, and I adore Yuria. She is quite possibly my favorite NPC of all time. I know that people find it strange, but I don’t care. This was the first game I played when I came out of the hospital, and it’s the one that brings me the most joy.
On the other hand, Elden Ring is brimming with so much to do and so many ways in which to do it. I want to experiment and do things differently (even if I end up as a strengthcaster every time in the end), and there’s the freedom to do just that. FromSoft brought their Dark Souls mentality into an open world, and while it’s not perfect, they changed the genre for good.
I know it seems like a cop out, but I truly love both of these games roughly equally, and I don’t want to rank them. That’s my final stance. For now.