HoloDust said:
Honestly, I find ER's graphics to be, technically speaking, nowhere near the top - lucky for me, I don't give a rats arse about that, what I care for is beautiful art, which ER is full of. Actually, I find From's games to be a perfect example of what matters when you're budget restricted, and that is great level design, art and gameplay, even if they still have stiff animations from a decade ago. Yes, I've played and finished ER, I logged somewhere around 165+ hours (plus one frozen shoulder as a result of it). For me, Souls experience was always about exploration and terrific level design (with serviceable combat that doesn't; get in the way of it) - ER has both, but IMO, actual Souls have a lot more of those intricate levels where you suddenly realize "oh, so this leads to there again". I liked ER a lot, I just felt it was missing a bit more of that, although it had some fantastic "levels" - this is what I’ve meant by THE Souls experience, and why I would take any Souls over ER for exactly that. As for the open world aspect, I find it to be great - a lot of people were doubting Souls could be transitioned well to open world, I was always very certain that it would translate very well, even before there was any mention of ER, given that there were some old games that had great topographical design that Souls would fit perfectly in. But the thing is, with such a marvellous topography in ER, I couldn't shake off the constant feeling that, while I'm enjoying the hell out of the game, I'm missing it being a full-fledged RPG. I had to remind myself, it's Souls, and that they specifically said when they announced ER that it would be too much of a design step up from Souls for them to make right away a game that has towns and other common RPG stuff, but I still had this longing for THAT game. So when I say far from perfect - I could go on about open world RPGs that are to come in some not so distant future with some sort of AI acting as GMs (one is already being made by some of the original creators of TES II: Daggerfall), or what potential From Software's open world game can be in the future (which will, IMO, easily overshadow ER), or just stick to flaws in ER as open world Souls - but I won't do any of that, since it would take too long. All in all, ER is a phenomenal game, great transition to open world structure and spectacular design success for From Software - hopefully it won't be too long before next Souls, whatever it is, comes out. |
