Tell us about your other hobbies

[BKDevices]

Haha, I would recommend that anyone (including you) who has the slightest interest try to stick with it for a bit to see if it hooks you, but I do get that. I'm actually playing DS1 for the first time right now, though much less obsessively. Hard for me to be objective about it since there are so many things Elden Ring improved on and so much more polish to it. DS1 feels so clunky but I'm starting to get a little used to it.

My biggest gripe with it so far, compared to ER, is that the world is just so dreary. I know that's intentional and contributes to the intended atmosphere, and I feel like I normally like that kind of thing. Maybe it's the juxtaposition with ER's world, but I feel like it's sort of bumming me out at times haha. Even though Elden Ring is a fairly bleak game, the world is pretty beautiful. Not to be too negative on it - I'm really enjoying it, but it's hard not to pick at the differences when jumping from one to the other.

I also think DS1 is a lot harsher in the way it punishes you for deaths.

[Nick]

Haha, I would recommend that anyone (including you) who has the slightest interest try to stick with it for a bit to see if it hooks you, but I do get that. I'm actually playing DS1 for the first time right now, though much less obsessively. Hard for me to be objective about it since there are so many things Elden Ring improved on and so much more polish to it. DS1 feels so clunky but I'm starting to get a little used to it.

My biggest gripe with it so far, compared to ER, is that the world is just so dreary. I know that's intentional and contributes to the intended atmosphere, and I feel like I normally like that kind of thing. Maybe it's the juxtaposition with ER's world, but I feel like it's sort of bumming me out at times haha. Even though Elden Ring is a fairly bleak game, the world is pretty beautiful. Not to be too negative on it - I'm really enjoying it, but it's hard not to pick at the differences when jumping from one to the other.

I also think DS1 is a lot harsher in the way it punishes you for deaths.

I actually really liked the hopelessness that the game evoked through its environments, visuals and general art style. It sort of makes me feel more invested in the small handful of friendly NPCs that we meet along the way. I enjoyed the dungeon-crawling and exploring in DS1, but found that the satisfaction of successfully staggering through the boss fights was being outweighed considerably by the frustration from dying over and over in failed attempts

The only other vaguely Souls-like game I put a lot of hours into was Hollow Knight (Switch). I'm more into platformers, so this one ticked a lot more boxes for me. It was going to be one of the very few games that I loved so much that I was going to milk every last pixel out of, 100%ing every last corner, but I accidentally fudged up my save file by progressing past a point of no return towards the end and was too heartbroken to continue. Strongly recommended though!

[BKDevices]

Nice. Yeah, I've heard nothing but praise about the DS1 atmosphere otherwise. Might just need to give it a little more time.

I've heard nothing but awesome things about Hollow Knight. The only platformer I've played at all recently are the Mario Maker games, usually trying to beat some of the nearly-impossible stages.