Elden Ring.
Let me just repeat that.
Elden Ring.
Roughly twenty minutes of gameplay was released today and I. Am. Stoked. I am on my third watching of the footage and will probably continue to watch it all day long.
Let’s rewind a bit. A month before I went into the hospital, there was talk that a release trailer was going to drop during Geoff Keighley’s summer games fest thing. I didn’t get my hopes up too high because we had been teased before–specifically by him. And as the fest went on, it seemed less and less likely that the trailer was going to drop. Until, at the very end, it did. And it was wonderful. I had tears in my eyes as I watched it because it was everything I wanted–and more. I started planning how I was going to do two characters. One was going to be a solo character, a Pyro if possible, or a magicks-user if Pyro wasn’t available. Strengthcasting is my jam and it seems more viable than ever in Elden Ring.
In the past games, magic felt as if it was separate from melee. There was casting time and in some games, you had to level up in order to use certain spells/miracles/pyros. In this game, it seems as if you can switch from melee to magic seamlessly, which would be right up my alley. I had to laugh, however, because there’s a raining arrows spell that is lifted directly out of Dark Souls III (a boss used it).
Side Note: I speak of the Dark Souls fanbase as if it’s one unit, but it’s not. There are as many opinions in the community as there are people, if not more. But, there are some common beliefs that run through the community, such as you have to beat all the bosses solo in order to be a true Souls fan. And that magic is for pussies. Oh, and shields are for babies. All bosses are easy if you just fight them with the exact build you are not, and you must be a parry king in order to win any Souls game. My tongue is firmly in my cheek, but there are very firm ideas of what you should and shouldn’t do in a Souls game. Here is my Souls edict: Play it however you want and enjoy it. Play it your way–that’s what I do. My way is considered the hardest way because I do everything exactly the opposite of what is deemed proper. I don’t parry (or any of the other combat systems in the FromSoft games0 and I rely heavily on magicks. Then, along the line, I added strength so now I’m a strengthcaster.