Ben Stovall Blog

Tag: elden-ring

  • 2022: Year in Review

    2022: Year in Review

    As we come upon the end of 2022, I wanted to take a moment to look back at all of the media I’ve enjoyed this year and talk about what I loved. Consider this a graduation of a “Ben Recommends” post, one plus-sized entry to talk about several games, books, movies, and TV shows that I didn’t devote an entire post to earlier in the year. Not all of these projects were released this year, but they were things I experienced for the first time in 2022. As always, we’ll avoid spoilers as much as we can, so without further delay, let’s dive in.

    Books

    I didn’t read as much as I’d planned to this year, but there was certainly no shortage of quality books that completely ensnared me. The craft on display inspired me to keep honing my own writing, to pursue the best I can manage and always improve.

    A Memory Called Empire & A Desolation Called Peace

    Arkady Martine’s Hugo winning duology was instantly one of the best books I’d ever read. I remember a moment – the first “on-screen” interaction between Ambassador Mahit and her predecessor Yskandr – that I just felt floored. Every time I pick up a Hugo winner, I find something, an idea or an impeccable presentation, some way to present a thought in a way that I hadn’t been able to consider or articulate myself, that just reminds me why I was so drawn to writing in the first place. I read Desolation before 2022’s Hugos were awarded, but I had no doubt it my mind it would snag the win.

    The Rage of Dragons

    I first picked up Evan Winter’s novel to read while I was unable to engage in my more persistent distractions, but I found it so gripping that even when I’d finally returned home, it was still consuming my time. Reading it reminded me of the way Game of Thrones made me feel when the show had been at its best, even despite how different the two tales are. The book is so deliberate, so consistent, that even moments that might drag in a lesser novel remained just as enthralling here. I can’t wait to catch up with the Fires of Vengeance and join everyone else in waiting for the next novel.

    Elder Race

    Adrian Tchaikovsky is an author whose name I’d see pop up on the fantasy subreddit time and again, so I decided to give Elder Race a try to dip my toes into his work. I finished the entire novella in a day, moving only when my spot on the couch started to become uncomfortable. Only once I’d finished did I set the book down, adding more of his work to my wish list for the holidays.

    Movies

    I only found my way into a theater a handful of times this year, catching The Batman and the new Marvel movies, and when I did sit down with a movie at home it was often one I’d already seen. Still, there was a notable exception that deserves a spot of recognition here.

    Knives Out & Glass Onion

    Say what you will for Rian Johnson’s entry into Star Wars, but the man knows how to craft an exciting mystery. I finally got around to seeing Knives Out this year, and I immediately knew I had to share the movie with my mother. It’s a wonderful film with surprising twists and turns all throughout, and Glass Onion certainly serves as a great sequel to expand the canon on Benoit Blanc.

    TV Shows

    There were a lot of new shows this year that I didn’t ever get around to watching. I’ve heard great things about dozens of shows, but never had the opportunity to check most of them out. Of what I did see, the two below really stick out as the best of the best.

    Better Call Saul

    I was a huge fan of Better Call Saul since the first season. Each time they finally got added to Netflix, I slammed through each episode, hungry for more. Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan worked a miracle, following up one of the best television dramas ever with a spinoff sequel, that, for me, surpassed the original. It’s a master class in pacing, in setup and payoff, in following through, even if it might become predictable. The final season stuck the landing, and I can’t wait to see what these guys do next.

    Andor

    If it hadn’t finished so close to the year, I think Andor would’ve had its own entire post. This show was something I’d always wanted from Star Wars: a gritty, grounded story about people rising against the tyranny of the empire. It isn’t afraid to take its time, to build clear stakes and show us who these characters are. Despite the darkness it is hopeful – things are bad, but there are those who are willing to fight, to build a tomorrow they will never see, so that things will be better one day.

    Video Games

    The video game industry continues to swing wildly between the best and the worst it can be. In the same year that we get Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok as examples of the pinnacle of what games can be, we get Diablo: Immortal, a blatant pay-to-win cash grab, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet releases as a buggy mess with very little in the way of innovation despite being one of the highest grossing media franchises in the world. I’ve always been a bit of a patient gamer, only buying games on day one when they’re a highly anticipated release, but I still got around to a lot of games that were new this year.

    Vampire Survivors

    I was an early adopter of this tiny little game, picking it up at the start of February in early access. Very, very few games are as much of a value trade as this ended up being. For that $3 price point I got 54 hours of excellent gameplay, and they just released a $2 DLC that I’m excited to get around to diving into soon. For a while, I was keeping up with each patch and collecting the achievements as they came, but I hadn’t played since April until a couple weeks ago and I had a lot of new things to check out when I got back into it.

    Potionomics

    I was never someone who was interested in dating simulator games. I’d confidently skipped over them all, certain I wasn’t missing anything. Then, I saw someone playing Potionomics on a stream and decided to give it a shot. It had just enough of a game laid overtop that I bought in, and I enjoyed the game immensely. I stuck around for two full playthroughs to get all of the achievements on Steam and I have no regrets. I don’t think it’s completely changed my opinion on dating simulators, but if this team releases another one with another decent game on top, they’ve at a minimum earned my interest.

    Dicey Dungeons

    A friend of mine played this game on Game Pass and immediately knew I’d love it. That same day he sent me a gifted copy, and he was completely correct. This little roguelike battle game has been an absolute blast to play. The game gives you items to equip on each run that you use rolled six-sided dice to dismantle your foes with. There’s appropriately six characters to play as, each with their own unique dice interactions and mechanics: the warrior can reroll dice to get better results, the rogue wants lower dice values to unleash a flurry of attacks, the robot rolls each dice one-at-a-time with a hard cap on how much their CPU can handle each turn. With lots of comedy buried in the enemy profiles you unlock with each achievement, this game is overflowing with charm.

    My Game of the Year: God of War Ragnarok

    Ragnarok is a sequel in the most honest sense of the word. Everything about God of War (2018) is improved upon here: the gameplay is smoother, the systems are more developed with more options, things are expanded naturally, and the story and performances are top-notch. Elden Ring is absolutely one of the best games I’ve ever played, but Ragnarok appeals more to me as a person. It would be a lie to say Elden Ring lacks a narrative, but presentation between these two games couldn’t be more different, and I’m a sucker for a great story.

    There’s also something to be said for the difference in boss design in these two games. While you have so much more freedom in how you build your character in Elden Ring, there’s certainly a value in the way a God of War boss can have mechanics that require a specific answer to be dealt with. In Elden Ring and the Dark Souls games, what you’re capable of as a character can be so varied that I don’t believe there’s any mechanics in the game that the dodge roll can’t avoid. In Ragnarok, there was a boss that I needed to interrupt with a weapon throw, or a couple mechanics that I could use a specific arrow from my ally to interrupt, and it felt fantastic to go step-for-step in these dance-like encounters. Neither of these design philosophies is better than the other: what you gain in player choice and freedom in Elden Ring is incredibly valuable, while the limited choices you make in God of War can still adjust your playstyle, just not nearly as much as the decisions in Elden Ring.

    2022 delivered some truly incredible stories, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have the opportunity to experience them. I’m excited to see what new stories we can share with one another in 2023. As always, thank you for reading. I hope you have a happy New Year, and I’ll see you again soon.

  • How Elden Ring Could Perfect the Soulsborne Formula

    How Elden Ring Could Perfect the Soulsborne Formula

    I’ve been following the Soulsborne series since I was in high school. I didn’t pick up the series at the time, busy as I was with school and a few other games (spent a lot of time playing MMOs in high school), but a friend of mine had the game and played through it at my house, the go-to hangout spot. Just watching, I knew the series was something special. But I was of a mind that I’d get frustrated battering my head against the same bosses over and over again, and didn’t give the game a shot.

    When Dark Souls III released, I took the plunge. My worries of frustration were immediately snuffed. The game was fair first and foremost – it wasn’t like the major boss encounters in the MMOs I was playing, where bad performance from one group member could sink the whole attempt. It was just me and the boss. If I died, it was because I did something I shouldn’t have.

    Seeing how much I’d fallen into the game, a friend of mine gifted me Bloodborne, and I slammed through it hungrily. Through both games I settled into fighting evasively with a big sword, weaving around attacks to find my openings.

    That playstyle (and my lack of passion for the aesthetic) led me to bounce off of Sekiro, but spectating alone proved enough for me to appreciate the game. And hopefully I’ll come around on it eventually and give it another go.

    That response to Sekiro made Elden Ring’s announcement feel like the exact thing I wanted to hear from FromSoftware. It’s been my most anticipated game since 2019, and a month ago I finally got my hands on it.

    It did not disappoint.

    A Perfect Storm

    It’s been a week since I finished my first playthrough. And I do need to clarify first – I definitely started another character the following day and if my six completions of Dark Souls III are any indication, I’ll sink several more hours into Elden Ring before I set it aside entirely.

    I’m not here to discuss the story, though. No interest in spilling spoilers today. Instead, as you might have guessed from the title, I want to highlight the game’s design.

    Adding an open world to Elden Ring could’ve been a mixed bag. I think, ultimately, it’s vastly more beneficial than detrimental to the game. In previous Soulsborne entries, if you came to a difficult boss, it was a roadblock. There might be some optional areas, but for the most part, you needed to break down the barrier before your story could continue. Now, it doesn’t have to stall out your experience.

    I know the first time I encountered our friend the Fell Omen, I was not yet good enough at the game. I wasn’t used to the delays in the enemy swing times, I was dodging far too early, and I built to wield a big sword in two hands so I wasn’t parrying either. Margit whooped me. In another Souls entry, I might’ve been more prepared for that first boss, but in Elden Ring I wasn’t.

    But, after an undisclosed number of YOU DIED screens, I turned away from that fog wall and opened that map up again. I’d basically gone straight to Margit from the opening of the game. What else was out there anyway?

    A whole hell of a lot. I got better at the game, I leveled up, and I came back and got my revenge.

    There’s two ways to look at that experience. You could say that the difficult spikes in the game’s primary progression path are uneven to justify the open world. I prefer to look at the game as offering more paths to explore than I expected. I know people that returned Dark Souls III after hitting a roadblock on Iudex Gundyr, the first boss. If those players give Elden Ring more of a chance since they can travel elsewhere, it can only be good for the game.

    Open World Done Right

    For the most part, I’ve cooled on open-world style games. Every now and again, one will come along with innovations or a setting that catches my interest, but there’s a dozen Assassin’s Creed games and only one Breath of the Wild (for now). That piece of Elden Ring was the one thing that made me consider pumping the breaks. But, FromSoftware knows how to do it right.

    Gathering? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stomach a game that forces you to entirely stop moving to collect crafting materials after Elden Ring allowed me to sprint passed rowa bushes and flowers on horseback spamming to grab them all up. Crafting? I almost entirely ignored it, but I know the value that it has. The consumable items like throwable firebombs and weapon enhancements can be used so much more now that you can find items in the world to make more of them.

    Even FromSoftware’s own systems were iterated on in a new way. Getting more flasks for defeating powerful foes or groups of enemies made exploring much easier to sink into. Stakes of Marika allowing a respawn location outside of sites of grace (bonfires) is inspired. I absolutely dived into the open world bosses and areas without hesitation, even if I hadn’t found a traditional checkpoint in a while.

    And exploration was so rewarding in Elden Ring. Each small little dungeon had something interesting in it. Even if the aesthetics or bosses became repetitive, there was nearly always something about the delve that made it different from anywhere else you’d been. Finding a Cleanrot Knight in a cave before I’d begun encountering them in the world forced me to respect their moveset and learn how best to battle them with how I’d built my character. For me, it never got stale to explore the game.

    I’d be surprised if a game better than Elden Ring comes out this year. But even all my love for the experience doesn’t mean the game was perfect.

    The Shortcomings

    FromSoftware’s approach to storytelling has its ups and downs. Every single item and piece of dialogue can help illustrate the world and lore in such a mystifying and enticing way that leaves you hungry for the next discovery. The other side of that coin, however, is how easy it can be to miss something.

    In my playthrough, I’d already been to many of Elden Ring’s endgame areas and reached the final few bosses before my friends directed me to huge, incredible dungeons I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Having no direction to find those places – even when some of them were directly related to quests I’d begun with the game’s NPCs – can lead to so much missed content. It can be convoluted in a way that isn’t intuitive to follow.

    Between that and the other instances of open world exploration, my character ended up vastly over leveled for some sections of the game. While that same ability paved my path to success against Margit, it felt worse in these areas – because I hadn’t left them to come back to them stronger later on. I’d arrived already more powerful than I would’ve preferred to be. While I still fall on the more positive reception to the open world in Elden Ring, there is absolutely something to be said for the difficulty scaling FromSoftware is able to achieve in a linear experience.

    And, as another potential detriment of the open world, its vastness may prove to be a deterrent for repeat playthroughs. While I’ve already begun a second character myself, I absolutely struggle to imagine plaything Elden Ring as many times as I did Dark Souls III. That’s not to indicate that it isn’t worth the cost, though. My one completed playthrough clocked in just under half the total time I’d spent on Dark Souls III. It’s a vast experience with a lot on offer.

    Though I might be tempted skip Melania next time …

    Looking Forward

    In conclusion, there’s lessons I think FromSoftware can take from this ambitious project that, in my eyes, is an overwhelming success. Truthfully, if there’s one AAA developer that can leverage that opportunity to learn, I believe it’s FromSoftware. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some sweet DLC, but if that’s not in the cards, I’ll be there waiting for their next release.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go collect my runes.