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Forums - Sony Discussion - Am I alone in liking HFW more than Elden Ring?

 

Which did you prefer?

HFW 14 35.90%
 
ER 19 48.72%
 
Neither 3 7.69%
 
Both equally for different reasons 3 7.69%
 
Total:39

I love From games. I loved Bloodborne and played it multiple times, even got the platinum for it. I played DS3 and loved it. At the PS5 launch I launch I bought Demon Souls and absolutely loved it. 

I was looking forward to Elden Ring and pre-ordered it. I took time off from work and put over a hundred hours into. I skipped HFW on purpose knowing I need my time with Elden Ring and it will be the better of the two games. Reviewers certainly thought so.

what happened?

this is the first time I've played a From game where I got tired of it before it had finished. The game started to drag and I stopped caring about side quests and dungeons, all I wanted to do was to finish it. 

did it start well?

yes it did. I loved every moment of it. I was in awe seeing the game open up and the tree in the distance. The first time coming across a convoy, my journey to the underground or being whisked away to Caelid. The Melania quest and the legacy dungeons were amazing. 

where did it go wrong for me

i think i hit a fatigue point after the capital city. I don't think it was one single thing but a combination of things:

1) copy and paste feeling dungeons

- let's be real, this is the most copy and paste we've ever come across in a From game, from enemies, bosses, dungeons and collectible bosses (that's what I'm calling the dragons). Usually every from game has had purposely created everything and everything felt fresh and new as you progressed or had a reason for being there. This at times felt it was there for the sake of padding the world.

The Bloodborne chalice dungeons worked as they were outside of the main story and were optional, but here they were part of the main game.

These small dungeons all started to feel the same and had similar traps and puzzles, with repeating bosses and NPC's. 

2) copy and paste bosses

- Whether it is the dragons, the dungeon bosses or the Ever whatever it is, you never felt like you were fighting unique bosses by the time you had done a few. You kinda accepted it is padding.

 

3) cookie clutter weapons, spells, spirits, ashes

- Bloodborne I think had the best weapon set. Switching weapons, using the tricks, all of it was amazing. I never felt that in ER. Tina of weapons, spells, sorcery, etc but most of it just put aside as as they weren't worth it. Even Nioh does a better job here, but When ring again in these areas felt more like clutter for the sake of padding. 

 

4) diminishing returns on leveling up

-Again, if this was not an open world game, it would be fine, but here you are completing tasks and doing things and you got a wall where leveling up does nothing. You already have pointless weapons, spells, sorcery, spirits, ashes and then your levelling up starts to mean nothing. Maybe this is another reason why I stopped caring about doing more and just wanting to rush through the game.

 

5) difficulty spike when you hit the last quarter of the game.

Easy peasy, and then you hit the last quarter / third of the game and the difficulty jumps for NPC's and bosses. Fuck the fire giant and Melania. The Haligtree journey to the bottom was a piss take with the trumpet enemies (not difficult, but a piss take) and in the end I just ran through it. A lot of the final third / quarter of the game I treated this way including the snow area. 

There is more to discuss, but I can't be asked typing, but let's move into Horizon.

1) graphically it is better in every way

- yes, from games are but about graphics, but that don't stop horizon being a thing of beauty. Holy shit does this game look good. It's not just how it looks but the level of detail on machines and moving parts. Simply climbing vents when your body weight tugs then down a bit when you latch on. Simply stunning.

2) the sound is amazing. Not saying ER is bad, but the different insect noises, animal noises, types of water noises, machinery noises, enemy sounds, DS sounds for actions and interactions.

3) DS use is God tier. I will argue it's better than Astrobot. You can feel the rumbling boulders, the ridges of rope you zipline on, the explosions, the tightening of the bow, and the list goes on. Effort was made here for immersion for the gamer and it pays off massively.

4) weapons have a sense of purpose and use. Weapons, not just one or two weapons, but weapons. The same goes for armour. Machines and humans both go hand in hand with a range of weapons and strategies and it makes both with while exploring and using. The game does a good job of making it easy to swap out and change, as well as encourage the player to use different strategies and load outs.

5) combat is way better. It has levels and allows creativity. You can plan ahead, rush in, user stealth, user different weapon strategies. It feels like Monster Hunter in many ways and the best parts of monster Hunter, with a hint of from and some card game where you build your deck for best chances against the enemy. 

6) the platforming is better. Yes it's barely existent in ER, but there are parts where you kind of platform, but here it just feels GG made the effort to invest time into it and make it better and more fun 

7) the dungeons are better. They are varied, have better puzzles, have great atmosphere and have rewards which are worth it. You actually get something for putting the time in.

8) in terms of story they both do well in their own way as they both have their own style, but I think HFW learnt from GOW 2018 and From, and learnt to tie in side quests to the main story, as well as flesh out the world and what's going on in it.



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I didn't put this before, but I'm not saying ER is a bad game, I'm just saying that where HFW is a 10, Elden Ring is a solid 7.

Bloodborne for me is still the best From has created, filled by Demon Souls.



I haven't quite yet finished Elden Ring, and I also haven't even played Forbidden West, so I can't exactly compare the two, but I'll say something anyway. Up to now, my all-time favourite open world game is Horizon Zero Dawn, and I imagine when I do get around to playing Forbidden West I will love it as well. However, I also think that when I'm done with Elden Ring it will take that spot from Zero Dawn for itself. I'm still easily putting in several hours each day into the game, and I'm over 110 hours in at the moment. It's not a perfect game, the Haligtree section you mentioned is an unbalanced an annoying mess for example.

For most of the other stuff you mentioned, however, I never minded any of it. The small dungeons and repeated bosses didn't really bother me (for the most part, there were a few awful ones), but in my opinion they are fairly easy to ignore if you don't like them. There are still things I can't talk about because I just haven't done them in the game yet, but as things stand right now, Elden Ring will probably end up being one my favourite games ever.



I never played the Horizon games because they don't look too interesting for me. But I will say I did enjoy Nioh 2, Dark Souls 3 more than Elden Ring.

Bloodborne I would put, but that would be a lie. Considering I finished that game quite quickly and it wasn't anything special. I did however enjoy combat much more in Bloodborne compared with Elden Ring. But too clarify why I think Elden Ring is better is because the first 50 hours of Elden Ring was better than the ~20 hours of Bloodborne. I can't fault the last 50 hours of Elden Ring too much when the beginning of the game was great fun.



The game just stopped engaging me after a while. It's not like Horizon has got padding or repetitive quests such as outposts, battle arenas, and grinding sections, but the gameplay loop is just more rewarding and fun.

I thinki enjoy From games more when they have the interconnected areas with their staple level design as supposed to the diluted open world where the intricate level design is only reserved for legacy dungeons.



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Souls is my 2nd favorite franchise and I think elden is average.

Major complaints in order:

1) majority of bosses are really uninspired and frankly lame.

2) far too many repeat bosses. Especially with dragons.

3) difficultly is wildly uneven

4) catacombs and dungeons are uninspired and lazy.

5) graphics are just bad.  

In the souls series, Elden is the weakest.  Souls 2 is better.  With blood, demon, souls 1 and souls 3 being leagues better.  

I beat elden at 102 hours, beat all optional bosses other than malenia.  Just didn't like that battle.  The HP recover is cheap. 

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 08 May 2022

I know this is gona sound blasphemous to some here but I still have sekiro at the top of fromsoft games. The fluidity of the combat is just on another level to any game. I felt like elden ring just regressed to the ps3 gen when it comes to combat and it really disapointed me. Hinestly I'm not even at halfway of the game but I did notice the repetitivenes of the game already.

I will also put horizon avove elden ring. For the main reason that coming from zero dawn I felt this game improved in every way I wanted it to and that got me exited as i played. While from elden ring I felt a bad regression and I keep thinking about it as I still play it.



It takes genuine talent to see greatness in yourself despite your absence of genuine talent.

I recently finished Horizon FW, completed all the side quests, explored every little bit of the map, played for well over hundred hours and still want more.

For me it's the perfect balance of story and open world exploration / gameplay. All the quests are beautifully crafted and feel unique throughout. There are repeating elements of course but no two locations feel the same. Game play is fun, open ended, approach as you want.

Sound is amazing, music fits perfectly and never got old. (I didn't have the repeat same song bug fortunately). The music ramps up perfectly during encounters with specific tracks for the 'mini' bosses, then fades down again after the fight morphing back to the exploration music loops. 3D audio works great, headphones or 5.1 surround, both sound amazing in this game.

60 fps mode was a bit of a mess at the start. I switched to 30fps mode which became very stable after a patch. Never looked back, 30 fps is perfectly fine for this game. HDR was a bit of a mess as well, but it's the calibration that's off. Turning the brightness and especially the highlights down fixes it. Then it's just pure eye candy all the way through.

They created an amazing world, from snowy mountains to deserts to jungle to tropical island paradise.








Now I'm hesitating to start Elden Ring already, still too much on a high from Horizon FW. My oldest finished Horizon just after me and moved on to Elden Ring already. He doesn't sound all that impressed, not sure what to do, running around and killing stuff. It's his first Souls games though. I'm playing Shadow of the Tomb raider as intermission (was a freebie add on ps+ some time ago), palette cleanser. The difference with Horizon is stark, back to regular gaming.

Anyway if Elden Ring is only half as good as Horizon, it will still be better than most. It's just that Horizon is enjoyable from start to finish with almost zero frustration points. Games can be fun without needing frustrating difficulty spikes! I'm glad Horizon lets you configure the difficulty exactly to your liking. I enjoy tougher enemies, but only in the sense it takes more effort to beat them, not that they can 2 hit kill me. So I upped the difficulty for the enemies while lowering the damage received to Aloy with auto healing enabled. Perfect balance for me. So much fun to strip the enemies down while fighting, tearing off panels and components. So much detail in these models, unbelievable!



You are not alone in that regard, which is fine I guess, both Elden Ring and HFW are fantastic, and you are right in saying that Bloodborne remains Fromsoft's best game, because thats just facts. But heres the thing tho: You are not gonna become a better person by bringing everyone else down. Its the exact opposite. You should be a force of motivation and positivity for everyone around you. And I know it a shame that Stoya retired, but thats just life.



I fully appreciate Elden being a big game, but repeating bosses 6 and 7 times is just lazy. I don't know how many Burial Watchdogs I killed, but it was a lot.

Knight Calvary, many of those.  Whom, IMHO were too similar to Tree Sentinels, and there were multiple Tree Sentinels.  

And far too many times in the game boss fights were basically "hey look, two of them!!!"

For a series known for amazing boss battles, I only genuinely enjoyed maybe 12 boss fights, out of the 80.  

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 08 May 2022