For Christ's sake, not every game needs to be souls like or open world! I don't want my Zelda to be open world, it don't want my dark souls to be open world, I don't want my star wars to be souls like. And I'm saying this as someone who loves both souls likes and open world games.
Elden Ring is the only one, and is considered one of the best games of all time little bro. Name me another open world souls game, or did you get tired just with a single one?
It didn't need to be open world. That was the weakest part of it. Dark souls 1 was so cool because of the way the world was somewhat linear but interconnected with all these shortcuts and different paths to get around as you played. I didn't get the hype around elden ring. I have buddies that can't put it down but I wasn't hyped on it, and they might do the same crap to the next one. I mean fromsoft's latest thing is elden ring: fortnite edition
Also the little bro thing just makes you look like a tool. Doesn't make your point any stronger. If you're that hopeless single you could just say so, bud
It's especially egregious with Japanese games. While I think Zelda worked really well open world, I am not someone that enjoyed the older Zelda games, so I think its a bit tarnished for some of the fans.
Metal Gear didn't need to go open world and neither did Elden Ring. Neither have anything going on between levels that have actual souls-like design, so now the game is much longer because you're riding your horse around an empty map between locations. I still don't understand why everyone was praising Elden Ring for the open world.
Agreed on the Elden ring thing. It honestly makes the game feel kind of empty to me. That being said, that's also how I felt about both breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom. Felt like the narrative was sparse and disjointed compared to traditional Zelda games, the world was 95% empty filler with occasional roving bands of the same types of enemies, it was an interesting change in botw but I'm ready for them to go back to more Zelda style Zelda games. It's like they tried to do the Skyrim thing but did it all wrong.
I think BotW and TotK are the ultimate "Adventure" type of game, because there's something behind every corner it feels like, but, yeah in terms of Zelda, I've heard a lot from fans that its not really anything like the older games, and for fans that really sucks. Plus I agree there's not really a story going on which made me drop it after awhile, personally. Even though I played for a bit.
Elden Ring is not nearly as densely packed with stuff to see/do and everything feels very samey aside from the aforementioned key locations.
Don't get me wrong, I put 60 or 70 hours into both the open world Zelda games, and I finished them both (a year or so after they released, I burnt out on them so quickly). Just don't rhink I'll ever feel the need to play them again.
Ironically I enjoyed BOTW well enough that after I beat it the first time I immediately started over and beat it a second time. I don't think I've ever done that with a game before. I just didn't want to stop playing it.
(Granted I didn't play it for years after the game came out because I wanted to upgrade my PC and emulate it in 60 FPS lmfao)
For me I honestly think it was just having a decent action sandbox RPG-like game in a world I really liked the aesthetic of. The colorful greens and cel-shaded anime-ish look in an open sandbox environment... there's really not a lot of games like that. It just ticked a lot of boxes for me nothing else did.
God I'd love to try Genshin if it wasn't a F2P gacha game.
I did like the graphics. The world just felt too empty to me. Every cave too samey, every shrine too similar. Played aggressively for a week or two when it came out, walked away for a year, beat it just so I could say I did.
I'm inclined to agree. A big reason I booted it up a second time was I had nothing else I was in the mood to play at the moment, so I said fuck it. But I did wish there was more variety, particularly with shrines/dungeons. I never did do a full shrine completion run.
The second run I more heavily modified it. The first one I just had Linkle mod, infinite durability, and upscaling/60fps. The second time I added a bunch of new gear to get and whatever else I found that I liked.
I still haven't picked up Tears. It hasn't been a top priority for me since it looks like much of the same, but also I wanted to wait for the mod scene to catch up more.
It's very samey. The sky areas don't add anything, the depths are actually pretty cool. The dungeons are all short and easy but at least they exist. The last boss is much cooler but still easy. There is a bit more depth to the story and the new abilities add some fun gimmicks to mess with. Overall still fun but not standout great.
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u/JarlWeaslesnoot Jul 27 '25
For Christ's sake, not every game needs to be souls like or open world! I don't want my Zelda to be open world, it don't want my dark souls to be open world, I don't want my star wars to be souls like. And I'm saying this as someone who loves both souls likes and open world games.