#but elden ring and DS1 too

[shinozaki-ayumi]

you guys ever get into a game (or some other media) and feel like, "yeah this is exactly where i'm supposed to be" or like "coming home" even though it's new to you? been feeling that so hard with soulsborne games over the last few months

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Elden could have been actually good if it had like 50 bosses that were unique instead repeating the same ones again and again

[indiiglow]

Impeccable vibes indeed 👌

^ those are the SAME GOD DAMN COLORS as that iconic Dark Souls 3 image and I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. So fucking good. 10/10

[gayleviticus]

i am a bit disappointed why later soulsbourne games moved from spell slots to an MP system. i think the cool thing abt ds1 was that you could have the perfect spell that never necessitates the use of anything else... and only 5 copies, meaning you need to suck it up and use less-than-ideal ones.

whereas elden ring it seems like so many spells are just not worth it over spamming the same one or two depending on the circumstance. and since they all use the same resource there's no reason not to just stick w the same old familiar ones.

and i get why esp for elden ring they'd use MP, bc i think it makes sense for the more kind of fluid exploration vibes of open world gameplay. whereas spell slots makes sense for ds1 which is more linear. but still.

[the-punforgiven]

Oh shit Seamless Co-Op has invasions now, that's neat

I like that you can choose to turn them on or off though, that's a cool feature for the people who don't care for pvp

That said, the thing I am most worried but also excited for though is that Seamless Co-op doesn't have any kind of anticheat at all as far as I know, so I'm really curious as to how the "Everyone can cheat as much as they want" thing is gonna affect the meta lol

[tarnussy]

ohh you have no idea how much I love the ancient forest area... it's like they took that one area in the Witcher 3 and made the trees 100x bigger and the area even more atmospheric asfsdcgsajdhvghdsvgfvsgdhfv

[sausage-rolll]

“You need to spend dozens of hours reading item descriptions and watching lore videos to understand the story of fromsoft games” factoid actually just statistical error. Lore hunter Georg, who spends upwards of hundreds of hours analysing the story and lore of these games and cross referencing interpretations of the plot is an outlier and should not have been counted.

[sadlazzle]

tbh i already kinda wanna do an incantation build after im done w the blood build. bc im doing bleed & blood now, im thinking maybe specifying again .. perhaps dragon communion incantation run ? who knows

[demilypyro]

All righty Scarlet, lemme get your thoughts on this.

How would you rank the Fromsoft hubs?

Firelink Shrine (Dark Souls 3)

Majula (Dark Souls 2)

The Roundtable Hold (Elden Ring)

Firelink Shrine (Dark Souls 1)

The Hunter's Dream (Bloodborne)

Before you say I ranked Elden Ring or Bloodborne too low. I just don't like how both hubs are permanently on fire at endgame. It's a little annoying to me.

DS1 Firelink loses points for how you lose it as a bonfire for a good percentage of the game (assuming you don't cut off one of the NPC questlines off early.)

DS3 Firelink and Majula both win a lot of points from me just for having a lot of NPCs that I care about still alive at endgame, and very calming music.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

im today year old when i discover the Princess Guard covenant symbol (DS1) literally has a depiction of Gwynevere that looks just like Marika 😭😭

and that's not even the only parallel:

Divine Blessing - Blessing of Marika

all the healing spells

Princess of Sunlight - "the Erdtree was once as warm as the gentle sun"

Twin Princes being implied to be Gwynevere's sons (or grandsons) - DLC final boss

Angelic faith of Lothric (with the Divine Pillars of Light spell that is literally a less damaging version of Light of Miquella incantation) was found by a holy maiden who is also implied to be either Gwynevere's daughter / or granddaughter

im so in love with the idea that they literally just took the one character that was so underdeveloped in Dark Souls (and the butt of the "faith build is viable" joke) & made her THE character of all time with a perfect story from start to finish in Elden Ring (& make faith build ACTUALLY viable too). that's so peak.

(and if you want to broaden it a bit more, there's parallel between Messmer and Halflight Spear of the Church too - a spear-wielding warrior guarding a slumbering princess at the edge of the Abyss, like how Messmer guarded Marika's village - her people's final resting place, that is situated right above Abyss region.

also Messmer - Manus parallel: a man losing someone he loves and so his humanity went wild and he succumbed to the Abyssal darkness. but despite it all, at the core, he's still a viscous, lukewarm lump of gentle humanity, eternally finding something dear that he had lost.)

[r0zeclawz]

is it just me or is the souls games weapon upgrading system completely useless. it was like fine in DS1 but it felt so awful in elden ring past the mid game

i just dont think theres literally any purpose in having to upgrade your weapons to make them be able to do any real damage. you already have stats that define your build and restrict the weapons you can effectively use anyway, so why restrict it even further. it feels so fucking bad to find a cool new weapon and go "huh thats cool. too bad its going to take so long to farm for upgrades to have any hope of using this" like. whats the fucking point!!!!!!! let me experiment let me have FUN

[pixelprofligate]

Finally beat the whole thing and, yeah, this is the best one by far. Not only does it have a lot to say, not only does it have the best NPCs, not only does it have the most poignant moment in any of their games, and not only is it genuinely funny as hell, but also its just lots of fun. Unlike DS1, DS3, or Elden Ring, none of the areas or bosses here ever truly frustrated me (minus one specific snow area but you know what that is), and I was always truly engaged with what the game was offering me. Just meet it where it is, and if you like the general gameplay Fromsoft games have, you'll have a good time with it. I genuinely think if you never gave it a shot before as a fan of these games, or played it once and didn't like that it wasn't just more of DS1, go back and give it a proper shot.

10 hours into Dark Souls 2 and this game fuckin rules actually anyone saying its the worst one is wrong

[huggingtentacles]

im sorry but i just looked into what invading is. this is The Most Griefing game mechanic ive ever seen

"if you want to play co op with people, you also allow people to join the game explicitly to hinder you"

and from what ive seen you. Dont Get Anything for invading. there is no incentive other than ruining the other persons singleplayer/coop experience

Like. This is by definition griefing. its okay to do it, its intended, but dont pretend its not griefing

Yes you do get stuff for invading and you are dumb as hell for writing this.

In ds1 you get humanity and covenant rewards, same in ds2 and ds3 with embers, you get rune arcs in Elden Ring and Insight in Bloodborne, and you get in-game currency for all of them.

I don't know what the fuck is your problem, but if your definition of griefing includes "being on the opposing team" then all coopers are griefing too and I have much more of a case to call every single coop player a griefer in that regard.

Literally get off my ass

[katyspersonal]

Gotta point this out for certain though, SOTE is definitely not the first time Fromsoft was creating the story with the direction of "well we thought it was the final draft, but we then decided to continue it which resulted in a retcon that makes it awkward"! Dark Souls 3 IS this thing too!

Dark Souls 2 pushed very hard for the idea that Drangleic was build on the ruins of countless kingdoms that raised and fell for absurd amount of cycles on the earth where Lordran stood all this time ago! This is why there are so many weapons and sorceries owned by characters from Dark Souls 1 "whose names were long forgotten" and more importantly, this is why "Old Ones" are reincarnations of Gwyn, Nito, Witch of Izalith and Seath! Not the first reincarnations, mind you, as Vendrick also beat them up back in his time! Literally the "How many times do we have to teach you, old man" moment hdhygnm

But, Dark Souls 3 kinda retconned this into a situation where all these magics, objects and legends just mysteriously got washed into Drangleic through all these traveling people, and "names being forgotten" is just a severe case of long distance and lack of communication with their places of origin... all while Anor Londo and Lordran literally still exist this whole time and only very few people had enough braincells to just go there ghthfyh (Aldia to convince Lothric to not be a Melina, Bearer of the Curse for some reasons but they told the world about Lucatiel, Creighton moving in Irithyll and.... fuckin Gilligan to become father to Sulyvahn, it isn't even a joke..)

And it makes the Old Ones + Daughters of Dark really funny because it just makes the original Four Lords and Knuckles Seath still end up in the same place after having somehow traveling away from Lordran despite not being quite themselves anymore. It is like fate. They are always destined to meet again only to be beaten by some human. Red strings of HATE.

And yet, it isn't as if DS2 and DS3 are just two variants that are both sequels to DS1 and you just choose which variant you like more! Dark Souls 3 calls back to Dark Souls 2 too much, DS2 events happened and their aftermath is in DS3 plot. The thing is.. here, Dark Souls 3 existing after all this doesn't make the overall trilogy story bad, but it does make it awkward, and absurd in some places! How everyone "forgotten" people who literally lived overseas and are still remembered there. (And imagine how much more awkward it would be if they DID include Patches in DS2 like they planned to! xD Also more fuel for me to not consider Queen of Lothric to be Gwynevere as to not create a character who ran from her problems twice, from the same problem :p)

I guess my point here is like... Fromsoft just kind of does it, and they might do it again. Dark Souls 2 was developed with the idea in mind that it would be it, every character in it hammers it into your brain, but then Dark Souls 3 happened! And it good that it did, the whole game is a meta commentary on what happens when people don't let the story end! And Elden Ring, by Miyazaki's admission, was created with cropping a lot of lore, plotlines and some characters (like Messmer) from original vision as the game was already too massive... but then they decided to make DLC with those ideas anyways! That likewise created retcons of some ideas that had previously fell into their places very neatly and made stories of Miquella, Malenia, Radahn and Marika flow less conveniently, but! they!! didn't even know at the moment!!! that they'd get to make the DLC!!!

I think they always could just do it again; give their product everything just in case if it flops and sequel/DLC doesn't get made, so the standalone thing feels self-suffucient! Fromsoft just looks like they don't take calculated risks but always act through the prism of "assume it already didn't sell well", and never abandoned this philosophy even while making base Elden Ring! Despite how much their reputation was proceeding them by the time! And honestly, when I understand there is likely pattern, it is hard to be mad at their decisions or how awkward they make the story. Like, yeah, sometimes the "the product made as if it already fropped" and "the surprise sequel/DLC" bits are practically Frankensteined rather than blend harmonically, but that's their thing! It isn't a perfect philosophy of creating their stories, but it is individual, and no company or specific writer could ever be perfect. (I think to truly enjoy someone's unique approach is to accept the sharp, inconvenient bits too rather than trying to "fix" it into perfection, but that's just my perspective on creativity process)

[mohgreal]

final boss sote spoilers again

i see some people saying how people upset at the final boss of radahn/miquella have never played a from game or that they should just not play them anymore but like.

ive played ds1,ds2,ds3,sekiro, armored core and elden ring and i can tell you that i cant remember when the writing and boss fight was pulled out of nowhere like here. i would argue its natural to be upset at a reused boss fight that feels like a undercooked concept with lore that came out of thin air. i feel like people forget fromsoftware can make mistakes too. theyre not perfect and if you really have been a from fan you would know how many times people hated a design choice they made (though this time its more reasonable tbf)

it just feels like fanservice which is something from has done (ahem ds3) but i dont get why they did it like this ?? okay ill shut up about the final boss thanks

[corviisquire]

Creatures have colors!!

Left to Right: @moonchild-in-blue @leonsleftbicep @ghxstly-death

@pear-island

Left to Right: @a-s-levynn @foundationsofdecay @polteergeistt

They have been colored along with making some minor adjustments. If anyone wants anything changed please let me know! These creatures are yours so name them whatever you want, develop lore if ya want, and do whatever you want with them. Possible next batch will probably be made later next week.

Art notes under cut :D

I put some music drops because music inspires me too much.

Moonchild-in-blue: The blues and purples!! Opals and the insides of muscle shells inspired me a lot with the coloring (particularly the stars and moon). There’s another shell that has that shiny blue and green lining on the inside but I can’t remember the name of it. It was a full moon last night but I forgot to take a picture! Thought of you but anyways I loved coloring the lady. It was fun but I first I struggled on deciding if I wanted more blue or purple.

Some songs I listened to a lot while coloring this:

Sweet Disposition - Temper Trap

Moon Child - F16s

The Night Does Not Belong to God - you know who

Leonsleftbicep: Colors go crazy! Idk what your favorite colors are but I chose The Blue. I also incorporated some red (for yummy contrast and complementary colors). I realized this looked very vampire media core. EyAH enjoy the critter!

Some songs I listened to while coloring this:

Blue Monday - Orgy

Military Fashion Show - And One

The Apparition - do I really need to say who?

Ghxstly-death: Per your request, red and black was incorporated! Was inspired by Mohg, Lord of Blood, from Elden ring cause he has cool robes and a trident thingy. I really like how it turned out. Like I’ve been doing with every design is adding the bling and I felt gold would work well.

Was resisting the urge to put the entire One EP right here:

Get The Balance Right! - Depeche Mode

Mascara - Deftones

Jaws - Slep tonka

SEVEN HOUR SHITTER (pearisland/perryisle): You use bright colors in your art all the time so we got the colors goingggg. Little guy reminds me of Pumpkin Patch protagonist or Hollow Knight. Idk. Not much to say except TRIPLE DEATH SLIME BARRAGE!!!

No normal music for you. only Kevin Macleod and Pizza Tower ST.

A-s-levynn: More Dark Sun Gwyndolin inspiration… (you can tell I have my dark souls art books open next to me right now). As requested, tendrils/tentacles were added! I think it improved the design a whole lot because it was originally very symmetrical and the tentacles added just the right amount of asymmetry to balance out the overall look. I’m a huge fromsoft fan (playing Elden Ring, waiting for new DLC, have dark souls 1 remastered but haven’t started it yet, have bloodborne Elden ring and DS1/3 art books) so lots of my art has elements from Fromsoft games (neutron activation).

And just like everyone else, some music for the soul:

Too Late - 311

Scared Together - Silversun Pickups

Dark Signs - eepy coin

Foundationsofdecay: Again, taking more inspiration from your blog, colors and stuff. The design had subconscious influence from the game sky: children of the light. Had lotsa fun coloring it. I don’t know much about you like favorite colors or flowers but I tried my best!

Songs that inspired me:

Let It Happen - Tame Impala

Flux - Bloc Party

Rain - tired currency

Polteergeistt: The oarfish colors… A lot Of these characters have cool blues so I tried to use some teal blues to contrast the red/pink(?). “Nintendo switch core” I’m sobbing. I fixed the feet. Now my Pinterest is filled to the brim with fish images (specifically oarfish, sea jellies, and blue lobsters).

The music!!!!!:

UNDERWATER BOI - Turnstile

The Illness (Teenagers Remix) - GoodBooks

Descending - exhausted dollar

Thank you so much. All of you are such lovely people. 🫂💕🫶