This is like saying Einstein was pretentious because you don't understand the theory of relativity. Just because something is obscure or esoteric, doesn't make it bad. You just have to be willing to invest the time and effort to understand it. Maybe FromSoft lore isn't for you, and that's fine, but saying it sucks is kinda embarrassing.
lol I have to say though, I respect the boldness it takes to put this video on TH-cam! And I can’t hate too much because I have some pretty hot takes myself, probably the biggest being that Skyrim is irredeemably bad
Einstein's theories of general and special relatively are mathematically proven and transformed our understanding of the universe. Engineers and astrophysicists who do understand relativity can use it to establish a network of satellites that lets you track your position on the Earth. And maybe teach it to others. If you sat Fromsofts writing team down at gunpoint and asked them to make their "obscure and esoteric lore" overt and exoteric to you, they couldn't do it. Because they don't have a fleshed out history or plot that they then hide parts of. What they do is string together little hooks and prompts that suggest one, then fall back on "uh time and space is convoluted, it's a dream, it's cyclical" so the devs can pretty much just do whatever the hell they want (usually, recycle cool shit from their other IPs). It's not pretentious in that it's a pragmatic and high value for much less effort then bothering to do a coherent, comprehensive narrative the player will never see anyway and might grow restrictive until it gets retconned. There are many cases where writers decided to come up with answers to mysteries that were far less interesting than fan theories anyway, and only made the setting more boring for having done so. It's also truer to the actual study of history where we simply do not and never will have the full story, so we have to rely on educated guesses/make shit up, which is fun. The pretentiousness comes from fans who pretend that the full picture exists and they have it by making ass-pulled assumptions and drawing parallels where none exist.
@@JoeRogansMom Wow. You can't glaze a game with writing like Dark Souls then say Skyrim writing is bad. Peoole gotta learn to just Ignore some people's nonsense.
I don’t like spoon fed stories either just saying I don’t think Elden rings is anything special and feels pretentious. As someone that writes in a pretentious manner, I know lol
@copyninja8756 I don't think though that any of the Soulsborne lore is inherently "pretentious." I think of pretentious as smug for the sake of smug, sometimes contrarian and hipster and in art I think pretentious is usually overly exclusionary or gatekept. I think Soulsborne lore is the opposite. I think it's inclusionary to the point that entire communities have formed just based off the lore of the games and it's talked about at great lengths by people. Those games aren't really meant to be the whole story and history of all the characters and the world, it's just the glimpses you get based on your interactions of those worlds. In other words it's just first person narrative by a non omniscient narrarator.
I mean lore is great just I want to expeienc3 that story and those events that hide behind the lore Imagine if they md3 a game of the story that is the lore and then made a game like darksouls or elden right in the aftermath of the story of the previous ame that became the lore for the latest
I enjoy the lore a lot. I've thought about these games more than any other media, and the fun is trying to figure out what the history of these worlds are, as i see it. I understand it's not what everyone's looking for, but for me, it's incredible.
Respect the opinion. I just think you misunderstand Fromsoft’s perspective on art. Watch or read a couple of Miyazaki articles, you’ll see his perspective and the evolution throughout the years. You’ll see how he deals with issues and advantages of his prior games, implementing them and innovating them in future games
4:47 saying stuff like this and then trying to call anything pretentious 💀. Also it's only realistic that elden ring and ds lore be obscure it is the lore of lands that are basically anarchists states set in a time where maintaining information was hard enough already. even if on was a character in the game hardly anyone knows anything because weirdly enough when a massively apocalyptic event dominoes into multiple happening at once its kind of hard to know what is going on. maybe the reason that the lore of something like idk why did Marika smash the ring is so obscure is because nobody knows in game except for Marika maybe. maybe the reason that nobody knows what's wrong with metyr is because she doesn't even know. the point is that this mystery helps keep some realism and actually solidifies the world building. also while it may not be for you for a lot of people forming theories is one of the best parts about the lore and losing that would also destroy a lot of the charm for a lot of people.
Oh ya 100% I get this I love mystery in storytelling especially in games, for example elder scrolls is just a bunch of mysteries. My issue is the more you dig into souls lore it just feels like it’s primarily goal is so be hard to understand just as a plot device itself, that way the community can just imagine things to make the game more “interesting”. It’s a personal taste thing I just find what the lore even is to be so boring and uninteresting but that’s awesome for people that do enjoy it. I love mysteries but not the way fromsoft does them
Once you figure out that writers keep things "ambiguous" to maintain engagement, you start to realize how annoying it can be. And it feels refreshing when an author actually answers your questions, even if you maybe correctly predicted them. I feel elden rings specific lore was mostly annoying and obtuse. After experiencing the Dark souls trilogy, it wasn't interesting anymore to straight up not have answers for the 4th time in a row. And the fact that its still mostly behind item descriptions and not directly communicated to you is just more annoying nonsense. It was great for DS1 but after more than 10 years of the literary equivalent of the Turkish ice cream guys constantly moving the ice cream away right as your about to grab it, you eventually get tired of it. GIVE ME MY ICE CREAM MICHELLE ZAKI!!!
Americans actually worship From games, just look at steam reviews. Barely above 50% of Japanese players rate Elden Ring’s DLC positively, while almost 90% of American players do.
I love Elden Ring but I can understand why it wouldnt be in your top 10. Elden Ring does really tie in the world like how The other Fromsoft games do. Also sometimes the world can feel a bit empty epically with Shadow of the Erdtree. The lore part I do disagree though the story telling of Elden Ring is the same as Darksouls I dont think it intends to be pretentious. Its just the way Hidetaka Miyazaki does his story telling
The ONLY way I could understand what the hell was going on in their games was watching videos. The way these games tell stories is so hidden and scattered, I could never figure out what was going on without a guide. I still have no idea wtf the story of elden ring is. Did we FIND the ring? What about it was "elden"? I don't know!
I think that Elden Ring's lore is massive but suffers from not having a coherent theme tying it all together, I think the lore of the previous games was often better because it didn't have that problem.
I don't think so. The coherency of the themes is precisely what ties together the disparate aspects of the lore. It's what allows us to see a bigger picture from the incomplete fragments we're given.
@@tiitussaukko4645 Elden Ring was the first game, since Bloodborne, that was primarily and fully spearheaded by Miyazaki. He hopped on halfway through dark souls 3’s dev cycle to fix the game, and he let his codirector deal with Sekiro while he oversees its process whilst focusing on ER. Making ER the first game in 7 years, at the time, that he directed himself, created himself, and influenced himself, from beginning to end. Of course, with ER he had to make use of more talent, but he still directed them and influenced them as a main director of the game. Whereas the other games I mentioned, subsidiary’s of Fromsoft took more control of those projects (DS3 and Sekiro) than Miyazaki did
I subscribed to this channel because I liked what you were talking about but with this, you’re just fully talking out of your ass💀 FromSof has amazing lore
@2yt4u.14. u clearly are resorting to ad homenem so its clear ur reading the wrong books that clearly had failed to educated u in how to make an argument , I'll respond with an arguement of reason once u make an argument of reason by disagreeing with the claim that" jrr Martin is on of the most influential authors to write fantasy that is alive today " or ill not br intrested in beating around the bush with u at all
Goddammit bro I understand you perfectly, I am right now making a DND manual of Elden Ring. A complete module with its own rules, items and lore. I always said that the ideas on the lore are interesting but bad used, bad explained and with so many holes that is scary of how many could considere this the best way to tell an story, (story that dosent exist almost xd). And I have to like, create a lot of things around the world, gods, moments, races, world, etc. Because the lore is freaking Ambiguous and obscure and I am also tired of that in some way. Of course I am not saying that the mystery or even some obscure parts on the lore are all bads, is just that, sometimes it would be better if this obscure parts where less and the clear ones bigger. Like the lore on the manuals I am making, are my assumption many of them, taking inspiration on many videos and the community work. And that is fantastic, at the point of view of the community, but to need to see a video of one and a half hour of lore that is almost a Hypothesis talks about the game lore... And not in a complete good way.
I hate the point ur making but I respect where ur coming from... u know the most uncomfortable thing to live with as a human is uncertainty thats the reason humans invented religions and belifs to have an illusion of certainty and dark souls games and its world just present to u that fear of uncertainty in its purest form so its only natural that you didn't like that hollow and unceratin knowege of the world its set it but that the whole apeal ... interpretation
The lore is actually not messed up. It is fragmented in a way that different people can have different experience and can come to different conclusions. As a result, if you try to collect every single piece of evidence on some topic, you will find yourself in dilema, as there are many contradicting information on same topic. For example, the endless debate about Radagon and Marika, where they one forever, was Radagon a Fire Giant and Marika absorbed him, was Radagon first and Marika evolved as his godly alter-ego, where they melted into one being by Hornsent in jar, etc? You can play the game 100 times and have 100 different stories. Yes, it is FS game, they used similar cryptic and indirect storytelling, but in Elden Ring subjectivity plays greater role than in any previous game they made. Yes, you will never get an specific answer, yes you may never put that puzzle together, but i think it was intentional. It might not be for benefit of the game, it might not be enjoyable for everyone, but it serves specific purpose.
I think this take is absolutely correct. With the dlc, it becomes more and more clear that fromsoft doesn't actually want to explain anything, and instead either add more content that doesn't explain anything new (midra) add content that only very vaguely explains things and really just adds more questions than answers (metyr) or things that just blatantly contradict or undermine things that the community had reached a consensus on (consort radahn). Elden ring was fromsoft trying to outdo themselves on every single aspect from their previous games, and in many ways they succeeded, but instead of trying to improve on the formula of the lore they had created in the other games, they just increased the nonsense aspect of the lore.
I agree that there are quite a few aspects of Elden Ring’s lore that are poorly explained for the sake of it (such as the Gloam Eyed Queen, the origin of the Scadutree, or what exactly happened to Godwyn). However, the things you mentioned are not good examples of that. Consort Radahn does not contradict any established lore from the base game. Many people in the community did speculate that Miquella’s plan was to ressurect Godwyn. However, it is important to remember that this was nothing more than mere speculation. There was never any actual concrete evidence in the lore to support this theory and resurrecting Godwyn would contradict the few things we do know for certain about the circumstances of his death. Moreover, Metyr actually explains A LOT of previously unexplained parts about the base game lore. It gives us valuable hints towards the origin of the Two Fingers and gives a well written explanation as to why Marika’s Golden Order was doomed to fail from the start. Elden Ring lore is most definitely not perfect but I believe it is unfair to say that FromSoft has made no attempts to provide explanations for certain aspects of it. Also, it is important to remember that ambiguity is a HUGE part of what make’s FromSoft’s lore so compelling. If we had clear explanations for every part of the world then the lore would be no different than any other fantasy game. The ambiguous lore is part of what makes FromSoft games unique.
@@jameslough6329 I apologize, I didn't mean "contradiction", per se. I meant something akin to "cheapening" the original value of the lore. Castle Sol holds much more meaning and value if you interpret Miquella's consort as Godwyn rather than Radahn. I'm not terribly informed about Metyr, and she certainly explains some of the questions about the origins of the fingers that was a question in the base game. Yet, her introduction still introduces just as many questions as we originally had. I believe there has been a slight misinterpretation of my arguments (or I just wrote them badly). I wasn't saying they didn't make an ATTEMPT to provide explanations, but rather their attempts were inadequate and simply more frustrating. Furthermore, about ambiguity being why the lore is compelling, I have to only halfway agree with you about this. Ambiguity is an important aspect of why their lore is compelling, and is certainly a unique style, but it should be in moderation as all things. I believe that Elden Ring was an indulgence into crypticism and ambiguity, which is why I dislike it - because fromsoft got too confident in their formula and overstepped the boundary. Furthermore, there are tons of fundamental, yet unanswered questions even post-dlc. Why does our tarnished want to go on this journey? What even is the elden ring? These should not be left ambiguous, because they are a motivating factor in our journey, but are still not explained. Additionally, the style simply does not fit elden ring as compared to the other games. Look back at the dark souls games and bloodborne. So many things are ambiguous because there is simply nobody there willing to explain them -- it's a dying world. It makes sense that we wouldn't understand things when the world is on the brink of collapse and people either don't have the time to bring us up to speed or don't want to. In elden ring, there is an entire coalition of tarnished who COULD explain everything, but don't simply because it is a fromsoft game. Even still, there are people in the dark souls games who DO explain much more than anyone in elden ring, for example Frampt or aldia - but there is nobody like that in Elden Ring.
I think you're missing what is the essence of fantasy and particularly in from soft games : the possibility to build around this world, to imagine the history from a simple viewpoint (the viewpoint of the player.) You're being immersed in a world that is way bigger than you, that have an enormous history, and of course there are holes! You can't understand a world by yourself. That's why there is an big community of fromsoft fans that speculates and tries to make history and archeology. And that's what fantasy is about : to fantasize, to imagine great wars that left little to no historic trace, to imagine the prehistory of the world you're suddenly immersed in, it's about making sense of something inextricably complex. It's a really reccuring theme in these games, with Gods, old civilizations, it all seems absurd at first, as our existence here does.
@ well therein lies the dilemma - how much do you reveal and how much do you leave to the imagination? The souls games (yes, all of them, including Elden ring) have an atmosphere that captures the imagination and sets the mood for the gameplay. But it is my opinion that Elden ring took the “imagination” part of these types of stories too far. You need a skeleton in order to imagine the meat on the bones, when fromsoft is leaving fingers, shoulders, ribs, femurs, and teeth out, AS WELL AS telling you to assemble the skeleton yourself… that’s too much agency on the part of the player. Yes, it leads to a sort of “archaeology” aspect for the community, but for the average player it’s just confusing. A good example of this in game that I feel represents this is the endings - besides the flame of frenzy ending, how many players actually understand what their ending really did? In fact, beyond just player understanding, nobody really knows because they left out the bones for those areas. Nobody really knows what the dung eater ending or the fia ending does - and we as the player should have the right to informed choice for which ending we want to pick! Additionally, many players will come across radagon and instead of saying “wow, the guy the lore talked about!” They would say “who is this?” For a final boss, that is kind of unacceptable.
@@Kqmanif you think Elden Ring is “too far” you’re not gonna love Miyazaki’s next project😂😂 he states that he wants to do an even more “abstract fantasy” than Elden Ring. A game that would be even more confusing and more obscure than Elden Ring. He’s not devolving or straying away from how he does lore, he’s slowly achieving true perfection with his worldbuilding
Ambiguity requires trust. The problem with Souls lore is not that it is ambiguous in the way that it feigns, just showing you some small glimpse of a grand design that all coheres. It is really just a means to an end so they can shuffle assets, NPCs, and enemies around as they please, without worrying about breaking continuity because they deny you any functional continuity to be broken in the first place. This became incredibly obvious with the Elden Ring DLC, where for the first time in any From game I've played they provided us with a DLC that does not take place in the past or future, or in some kind of dream world, but seems to be an actual, physical place in The Lands Between, at the same time as the events of the base game, and they just gloss over blatant continuity issues like Miquella's flesh being abandoned in Mohgwyn palace despite our very first objective upon entering the DLC being tracking down bits of Miquella's abandoned flesh. And that's one issue among many. Any deep investment you have in a world like that is just you making a fool out of yourself, frankly.
Saying these souls games have good story is like reading a bunch of sticky notes on your refrigerator and thinking "wow what a great book". it's lazy writing, and like you said, most of it is hallucinated by theorists on youtube.
The story isn’t handed to you it is designed for you to interpret the story as you wish and for it to develop over time with only the bare bones information being present it is your job as the player to uncover the story for yourself and it is left up to interpretation.
@@PinkxPnther ah so Mizayaki saying that to him there is an ending that is canon to Dark Souls 3 but he didn't say what it was is good way to tell a story
@@hainguyn948 I'm not trying to defend the nonsense lore from elden ring and such, but it should be pretty clear that the age of the dark is the canon ending to ds3, especially with the entire theme of the game being the world is dying and should be put to rest.
Story and lore are to VERY different things. Souls games have always primarily focused on lore rather than the actual main plot of their games. What you are describing in your comment is lore and not story. The lore of Souls games is exceptionally well written.
@@Kqman Just because Elden Ring’s lore has a few vague concepts about the world that are left unexplained does not mean the lore is “nonsense”. The backstories to all of the major characters are extremely well written and you can easily see how they each contribute to the overarching themes of the game.
Thank you. ER was amazing, but there is no following the story. My guess is that the budget dictated obscurity. I’m sure that take will annoy everyone who loves this game. However, anchoring the story a little bit would have made for a potentially more interesting game rather than suggesting that if you smoke enough weed, this game will change your life maaaaan….
I will admit, Elden rings lore is poorer in cohesiveness than dark souls or bloodborne and thats one of my biggest gripes, but saying it sucks is pretty plainly an overstatement.
??? I don't get all of these stupid kids commenting the lore sucks and stuff like what? The lore is better than 90% games story that we have this day. You just need to find out about, the items descriptions tell the story, the armor, the architecture, everything. Freaking dumb calling it sucks.
Elden Ring has the same issue as the last Zelda games : open worlds kill level-design. In previous SoulsBorne game (as weel as in previous Zelda games), the places were a character of their own, they were masterfully crafted, you were anxious about what was waitng for you around the corner. Elden Ring is huge, but flat, there are no real "dungeons", only a s***load of mini-dungeons pretty much all looking the same, the OG From Software experience is diluted, at bo moment you're scared to progress, mostly because all you have to do anyway is to run from the danger, but you're not surprised, you can pretty much see everything coming. Another flaw in the game design is that you get a double jmp quite right from the start, which means everything is badly scaled... in, let's say a metroidvania game, you earn the double-jump abilitie, it allows you to preogress further in the game... in ER, it's only here for the sake of being here, maybe they tgought like "OK, we get it, you people don't like our games not having a proper jump, so we put a double jump in ER". I played again DS1 and 3 (I don't really like DS2) after playing ER, and while back in the days I haven't been impressed by DS3, replaying it after ER gave me the feeling to play a real masterpiece in comparison. To me, ER is a good game, but not a good SoulsBorne. As for the lore, I don't really care, I'm more into atmosphere than anything else, I prefer games that say little about their universe over story-driven games.
But it does have dungeons that are very unique from one another… also what do you mean it’s badly scaled because of double jump? It still has plenty of areas that offer the Metroidvania feel of finding something that lets you explore more.
This is like saying Einstein was pretentious because you don't understand the theory of relativity. Just because something is obscure or esoteric, doesn't make it bad. You just have to be willing to invest the time and effort to understand it. Maybe FromSoft lore isn't for you, and that's fine, but saying it sucks is kinda embarrassing.
Don’t ruin this for me hahaha
lol I have to say though, I respect the boldness it takes to put this video on TH-cam! And I can’t hate too much because I have some pretty hot takes myself, probably the biggest being that Skyrim is irredeemably bad
Einstein's theories of general and special relatively are mathematically proven and transformed our understanding of the universe. Engineers and astrophysicists who do understand relativity can use it to establish a network of satellites that lets you track your position on the Earth. And maybe teach it to others.
If you sat Fromsofts writing team down at gunpoint and asked them to make their "obscure and esoteric lore" overt and exoteric to you, they couldn't do it. Because they don't have a fleshed out history or plot that they then hide parts of. What they do is string together little hooks and prompts that suggest one, then fall back on "uh time and space is convoluted, it's a dream, it's cyclical" so the devs can pretty much just do whatever the hell they want (usually, recycle cool shit from their other IPs).
It's not pretentious in that it's a pragmatic and high value for much less effort then bothering to do a coherent, comprehensive narrative the player will never see anyway and might grow restrictive until it gets retconned. There are many cases where writers decided to come up with answers to mysteries that were far less interesting than fan theories anyway, and only made the setting more boring for having done so. It's also truer to the actual study of history where we simply do not and never will have the full story, so we have to rely on educated guesses/make shit up, which is fun.
The pretentiousness comes from fans who pretend that the full picture exists and they have it by making ass-pulled assumptions and drawing parallels where none exist.
@@JoeRogansMom Wow. You can't glaze a game with writing like Dark Souls then say Skyrim writing is bad. Peoole gotta learn to just Ignore some people's nonsense.
@@frank.garcia10 this comment is about to ratio ur vid bro😭
“Put these foolish ambitions to rest.”
If that's what you call pretentious lore, then I want all my games to have pretentious lore
just because you want to be spoonfed doesn't mean them not doing it is pretentious.
I don’t like spoon fed stories either just saying I don’t think Elden rings is anything special and feels pretentious.
As someone that writes in a pretentious manner, I know lol
@@frank.garcia10 Can you explain what about the lore in Elden Ring is "pretentious"?
@@8BitChad I'm assuming that info is in the video
@copyninja8756 I don't think though that any of the Soulsborne lore is inherently "pretentious." I think of pretentious as smug for the sake of smug, sometimes contrarian and hipster and in art I think pretentious is usually overly exclusionary or gatekept. I think Soulsborne lore is the opposite. I think it's inclusionary to the point that entire communities have formed just based off the lore of the games and it's talked about at great lengths by people. Those games aren't really meant to be the whole story and history of all the characters and the world, it's just the glimpses you get based on your interactions of those worlds. In other words it's just first person narrative by a non omniscient narrarator.
@@8BitChad the lore itself might not be pretentious, but the community surrounding it sure is.
idk i love how the games feel like a fever dream
I mean lore is great just I want to expeienc3 that story and those events that hide behind the lore Imagine if they md3 a game of the story that is the lore and then made a game like darksouls or elden right in the aftermath of the story of the previous ame that became the lore for the latest
I enjoy the lore a lot. I've thought about these games more than any other media, and the fun is trying to figure out what the history of these worlds are, as i see it.
I understand it's not what everyone's looking for, but for me, it's incredible.
Respect the opinion. I just think you misunderstand Fromsoft’s perspective on art. Watch or read a couple of Miyazaki articles, you’ll see his perspective and the evolution throughout the years. You’ll see how he deals with issues and advantages of his prior games, implementing them and innovating them in future games
I strongly disagree, however your points are well organized and compelling, subscribed.
Appreciate that!
4:47 saying stuff like this and then trying to call anything pretentious 💀. Also it's only realistic that elden ring and ds lore be obscure it is the lore of lands that are basically anarchists states set in a time where maintaining information was hard enough already. even if on was a character in the game hardly anyone knows anything because weirdly enough when a massively apocalyptic event dominoes into multiple happening at once its kind of hard to know what is going on. maybe the reason that the lore of something like idk why did Marika smash the ring is so obscure is because nobody knows in game except for Marika maybe. maybe the reason that nobody knows what's wrong with metyr is because she doesn't even know. the point is that this mystery helps keep some realism and actually solidifies the world building. also while it may not be for you for a lot of people forming theories is one of the best parts about the lore and losing that would also destroy a lot of the charm for a lot of people.
Oh ya 100% I get this I love mystery in storytelling especially in games, for example elder scrolls is just a bunch of mysteries.
My issue is the more you dig into souls lore it just feels like it’s primarily goal is so be hard to understand just as a plot device itself, that way the community can just imagine things to make the game more “interesting”.
It’s a personal taste thing I just find what the lore even is to be so boring and uninteresting but that’s awesome for people that do enjoy it.
I love mysteries but not the way fromsoft does them
Once you figure out that writers keep things "ambiguous" to maintain engagement, you start to realize how annoying it can be. And it feels refreshing when an author actually answers your questions, even if you maybe correctly predicted them. I feel elden rings specific lore was mostly annoying and obtuse. After experiencing the Dark souls trilogy, it wasn't interesting anymore to straight up not have answers for the 4th time in a row. And the fact that its still mostly behind item descriptions and not directly communicated to you is just more annoying nonsense. It was great for DS1 but after more than 10 years of the literary equivalent of the Turkish ice cream guys constantly moving the ice cream away right as your about to grab it, you eventually get tired of it. GIVE ME MY ICE CREAM MICHELLE ZAKI!!!
Exactly, was awesome at first.
Now it’s more: wait are you guys just messing with us the whole time?
Average Americanized opinion of Fromsoftware games lol
do not lump me in with this man im begging u
Americans actually worship From games, just look at steam reviews. Barely above 50% of Japanese players rate Elden Ring’s DLC positively, while almost 90% of American players do.
I love Elden Ring but I can understand why it wouldnt be in your top 10. Elden Ring does really tie in the world like how The other Fromsoft games do. Also sometimes the world can feel a bit empty epically with Shadow of the Erdtree. The lore part I do disagree though the story telling of Elden Ring is the same as Darksouls I dont think it intends to be pretentious. Its just the way Hidetaka Miyazaki does his story telling
The ONLY way I could understand what the hell was going on in their games was watching videos. The way these games tell stories is so hidden and scattered, I could never figure out what was going on without a guide. I still have no idea wtf the story of elden ring is. Did we FIND the ring? What about it was "elden"? I don't know!
Most of those videos are inaccurate
That's exactly what is great about it!
I think that Elden Ring's lore is massive but suffers from not having a coherent theme tying it all together, I think the lore of the previous games was often better because it didn't have that problem.
Let's not forget that Elden Ring's lore wasn't made by Miyazaki
I don't think so. The coherency of the themes is precisely what ties together the disparate aspects of the lore. It's what allows us to see a bigger picture from the incomplete fragments we're given.
@launcelotdulake8075 What is the theme then?
@@tiitussaukko4645 Elden Ring was the first game, since Bloodborne, that was primarily and fully spearheaded by Miyazaki. He hopped on halfway through dark souls 3’s dev cycle to fix the game, and he let his codirector deal with Sekiro while he oversees its process whilst focusing on ER. Making ER the first game in 7 years, at the time, that he directed himself, created himself, and influenced himself, from beginning to end. Of course, with ER he had to make use of more talent, but he still directed them and influenced them as a main director of the game. Whereas the other games I mentioned, subsidiary’s of Fromsoft took more control of those projects (DS3 and Sekiro) than Miyazaki did
Hi frank!!
Howdy 🎉
Nah it’s cool and atmospheric
I subscribed to this channel because I liked what you were talking about but with this, you’re just fully talking out of your ass💀 FromSof has amazing lore
It’s just not for me lol I know it’s not the popular opinion but I have no problem voicing my real thoughts as you can see 😂
I start to believe that souls games have no story and the TH-cam story analysers say whatever come to their minds.
You're just stupid lol
No one plays these games for lore.
Imagine hiring JRR Martin the greatest writer of the preasent moment to write "pretentious lore"
greatest writer xD yeah no. do you read books? or are you just a fromsoftware cheerleader?
@2yt4u.14. u clearly are resorting to ad homenem so its clear ur reading the wrong books that clearly had failed to educated u in how to make an argument , I'll respond with an arguement of reason once u make an argument of reason by disagreeing with the claim that" jrr Martin is on of the most influential authors to write fantasy that is alive today " or ill not br intrested in beating around the bush with u at all
@@zainroshaan aint reading allat
@2yt4u.14. i bet u arnt
its clickbait relax guys
Goddammit bro I understand you perfectly, I am right now making a DND manual of Elden Ring.
A complete module with its own rules, items and lore.
I always said that the ideas on the lore are interesting but bad used, bad explained and with so many holes that is scary of how many could considere this the best way to tell an story, (story that dosent exist almost xd).
And I have to like, create a lot of things around the world, gods, moments, races, world, etc. Because the lore is freaking Ambiguous and obscure and I am also tired of that in some way.
Of course I am not saying that the mystery or even some obscure parts on the lore are all bads, is just that, sometimes it would be better if this obscure parts where less and the clear ones bigger.
Like the lore on the manuals I am making, are my assumption many of them, taking inspiration on many videos and the community work. And that is fantastic, at the point of view of the community, but to need to see a video of one and a half hour of lore that is almost a Hypothesis talks about the game lore... And not in a complete good way.
Sekiro is the only non pretentious from soft game
I hate the point ur making but I respect where ur coming from... u know the most uncomfortable thing to live with as a human is uncertainty thats the reason humans invented religions and belifs to have an illusion of certainty and dark souls games and its world just present to u that fear of uncertainty in its purest form so its only natural that you didn't like that hollow and unceratin knowege of the world its set it but that the whole apeal ... interpretation
You’re right bro, pretentious is the perfect word for it. In my opinion, Elden Ring is the only soulsborne where they really messed up the lore
No they not?
The lore is actually not messed up. It is fragmented in a way that different people can have different experience and can come to different conclusions. As a result, if you try to collect every single piece of evidence on some topic, you will find yourself in dilema, as there are many contradicting information on same topic. For example, the endless debate about Radagon and Marika, where they one forever, was Radagon a Fire Giant and Marika absorbed him, was Radagon first and Marika evolved as his godly alter-ego, where they melted into one being by Hornsent in jar, etc? You can play the game 100 times and have 100 different stories. Yes, it is FS game, they used similar cryptic and indirect storytelling, but in Elden Ring subjectivity plays greater role than in any previous game they made. Yes, you will never get an specific answer, yes you may never put that puzzle together, but i think it was intentional. It might not be for benefit of the game, it might not be enjoyable for everyone, but it serves specific purpose.
@@capollyonMiquella abandons his flesh twice.
@@societyman6591 ok. And? What was the point?
@@capollyon Basic continuity errors that concern the main objective of the DLC are in fact evidence that the lore is messed up.
Rage bait video (I bit)
souls lore is the best but this video sucks
Alternative video title lol
Your opinion is wrong
Wow, what a stupid thing to say.
I think this take is absolutely correct. With the dlc, it becomes more and more clear that fromsoft doesn't actually want to explain anything, and instead either add more content that doesn't explain anything new (midra) add content that only very vaguely explains things and really just adds more questions than answers (metyr) or things that just blatantly contradict or undermine things that the community had reached a consensus on (consort radahn). Elden ring was fromsoft trying to outdo themselves on every single aspect from their previous games, and in many ways they succeeded, but instead of trying to improve on the formula of the lore they had created in the other games, they just increased the nonsense aspect of the lore.
I agree that there are quite a few aspects of Elden Ring’s lore that are poorly explained for the sake of it (such as the Gloam Eyed Queen, the origin of the Scadutree, or what exactly happened to Godwyn). However, the things you mentioned are not good examples of that.
Consort Radahn does not contradict any established lore from the base game. Many people in the community did speculate that Miquella’s plan was to ressurect Godwyn. However, it is important to remember that this was nothing more than mere speculation. There was never any actual concrete evidence in the lore to support this theory and resurrecting Godwyn would contradict the few things we do know for certain about the circumstances of his death.
Moreover, Metyr actually explains A LOT of previously unexplained parts about the base game lore. It gives us valuable hints towards the origin of the Two Fingers and gives a well written explanation as to why Marika’s Golden Order was doomed to fail from the start.
Elden Ring lore is most definitely not perfect but I believe it is unfair to say that FromSoft has made no attempts to provide explanations for certain aspects of it. Also, it is important to remember that ambiguity is a HUGE part of what make’s FromSoft’s lore so compelling. If we had clear explanations for every part of the world then the lore would be no different than any other fantasy game. The ambiguous lore is part of what makes FromSoft games unique.
@@jameslough6329 I apologize, I didn't mean "contradiction", per se. I meant something akin to "cheapening" the original value of the lore. Castle Sol holds much more meaning and value if you interpret Miquella's consort as Godwyn rather than Radahn.
I'm not terribly informed about Metyr, and she certainly explains some of the questions about the origins of the fingers that was a question in the base game. Yet, her introduction still introduces just as many questions as we originally had.
I believe there has been a slight misinterpretation of my arguments (or I just wrote them badly). I wasn't saying they didn't make an ATTEMPT to provide explanations, but rather their attempts were inadequate and simply more frustrating.
Furthermore, about ambiguity being why the lore is compelling, I have to only halfway agree with you about this. Ambiguity is an important aspect of why their lore is compelling, and is certainly a unique style, but it should be in moderation as all things. I believe that Elden Ring was an indulgence into crypticism and ambiguity, which is why I dislike it - because fromsoft got too confident in their formula and overstepped the boundary.
Furthermore, there are tons of fundamental, yet unanswered questions even post-dlc. Why does our tarnished want to go on this journey? What even is the elden ring? These should not be left ambiguous, because they are a motivating factor in our journey, but are still not explained.
Additionally, the style simply does not fit elden ring as compared to the other games. Look back at the dark souls games and bloodborne. So many things are ambiguous because there is simply nobody there willing to explain them -- it's a dying world. It makes sense that we wouldn't understand things when the world is on the brink of collapse and people either don't have the time to bring us up to speed or don't want to. In elden ring, there is an entire coalition of tarnished who COULD explain everything, but don't simply because it is a fromsoft game. Even still, there are people in the dark souls games who DO explain much more than anyone in elden ring, for example Frampt or aldia - but there is nobody like that in Elden Ring.
I think you're missing what is the essence of fantasy and particularly in from soft games : the possibility to build around this world, to imagine the history from a simple viewpoint (the viewpoint of the player.) You're being immersed in a world that is way bigger than you, that have an enormous history, and of course there are holes! You can't understand a world by yourself. That's why there is an big community of fromsoft fans that speculates and tries to make history and archeology. And that's what fantasy is about : to fantasize, to imagine great wars that left little to no historic trace, to imagine the prehistory of the world you're suddenly immersed in, it's about making sense of something inextricably complex.
It's a really reccuring theme in these games, with Gods, old civilizations, it all seems absurd at first, as our existence here does.
@ well therein lies the dilemma - how much do you reveal and how much do you leave to the imagination? The souls games (yes, all of them, including Elden ring) have an atmosphere that captures the imagination and sets the mood for the gameplay. But it is my opinion that Elden ring took the “imagination” part of these types of stories too far. You need a skeleton in order to imagine the meat on the bones, when fromsoft is leaving fingers, shoulders, ribs, femurs, and teeth out, AS WELL AS telling you to assemble the skeleton yourself… that’s too much agency on the part of the player. Yes, it leads to a sort of “archaeology” aspect for the community, but for the average player it’s just confusing. A good example of this in game that I feel represents this is the endings - besides the flame of frenzy ending, how many players actually understand what their ending really did? In fact, beyond just player understanding, nobody really knows because they left out the bones for those areas. Nobody really knows what the dung eater ending or the fia ending does - and we as the player should have the right to informed choice for which ending we want to pick! Additionally, many players will come across radagon and instead of saying “wow, the guy the lore talked about!” They would say “who is this?” For a final boss, that is kind of unacceptable.
@@Kqmanif you think Elden Ring is “too far” you’re not gonna love Miyazaki’s next project😂😂 he states that he wants to do an even more “abstract fantasy” than Elden Ring. A game that would be even more confusing and more obscure than Elden Ring. He’s not devolving or straying away from how he does lore, he’s slowly achieving true perfection with his worldbuilding
Ambiguity requires trust. The problem with Souls lore is not that it is ambiguous in the way that it feigns, just showing you some small glimpse of a grand design that all coheres. It is really just a means to an end so they can shuffle assets, NPCs, and enemies around as they please, without worrying about breaking continuity because they deny you any functional continuity to be broken in the first place.
This became incredibly obvious with the Elden Ring DLC, where for the first time in any From game I've played they provided us with a DLC that does not take place in the past or future, or in some kind of dream world, but seems to be an actual, physical place in The Lands Between, at the same time as the events of the base game, and they just gloss over blatant continuity issues like Miquella's flesh being abandoned in Mohgwyn palace despite our very first objective upon entering the DLC being tracking down bits of Miquella's abandoned flesh. And that's one issue among many.
Any deep investment you have in a world like that is just you making a fool out of yourself, frankly.
Saying these souls games have good story is like reading a bunch of sticky notes on your refrigerator and thinking "wow what a great book". it's lazy writing, and like you said, most of it is hallucinated by theorists on youtube.
The story isn’t handed to you it is designed for you to interpret the story as you wish and for it to develop over time with only the bare bones information being present it is your job as the player to uncover the story for yourself and it is left up to interpretation.
@@PinkxPnther ah so Mizayaki saying that to him there is an ending that is canon to Dark Souls 3 but he didn't say what it was is good way to tell a story
@@hainguyn948 I'm not trying to defend the nonsense lore from elden ring and such, but it should be pretty clear that the age of the dark is the canon ending to ds3, especially with the entire theme of the game being the world is dying and should be put to rest.
Story and lore are to VERY different things. Souls games have always primarily focused on lore rather than the actual main plot of their games. What you are describing in your comment is lore and not story. The lore of Souls games is exceptionally well written.
@@Kqman Just because Elden Ring’s lore has a few vague concepts about the world that are left unexplained does not mean the lore is “nonsense”. The backstories to all of the major characters are extremely well written and you can easily see how they each contribute to the overarching themes of the game.
Thank you. ER was amazing, but there is no following the story. My guess is that the budget dictated obscurity. I’m sure that take will annoy everyone who loves this game. However, anchoring the story a little bit would have made for a potentially more interesting game rather than suggesting that if you smoke enough weed, this game will change your life maaaaan….
I will admit, Elden rings lore is poorer in cohesiveness than dark souls or bloodborne and thats one of my biggest gripes, but saying it sucks is pretty plainly an overstatement.
yeah the lore suck
??? I don't get all of these stupid kids commenting the lore sucks and stuff like what? The lore is better than 90% games story that we have this day. You just need to find out about, the items descriptions tell the story, the armor, the architecture, everything. Freaking dumb calling it sucks.
Ya I talked about why in the video I think that style of lore can be cool too just not a fan of souls like lore in general
Elden Ring has the same issue as the last Zelda games : open worlds kill level-design.
In previous SoulsBorne game (as weel as in previous Zelda games), the places were a character of their own, they were masterfully crafted, you were anxious about what was waitng for you around the corner.
Elden Ring is huge, but flat, there are no real "dungeons", only a s***load of mini-dungeons pretty much all looking the same, the OG From Software experience is diluted, at bo moment you're scared to progress, mostly because all you have to do anyway is to run from the danger, but you're not surprised, you can pretty much see everything coming.
Another flaw in the game design is that you get a double jmp quite right from the start, which means everything is badly scaled... in, let's say a metroidvania game, you earn the double-jump abilitie, it allows you to preogress further in the game... in ER, it's only here for the sake of being here, maybe they tgought like "OK, we get it, you people don't like our games not having a proper jump, so we put a double jump in ER".
I played again DS1 and 3 (I don't really like DS2) after playing ER, and while back in the days I haven't been impressed by DS3, replaying it after ER gave me the feeling to play a real masterpiece in comparison.
To me, ER is a good game, but not a good SoulsBorne.
As for the lore, I don't really care, I'm more into atmosphere than anything else, I prefer games that say little about their universe over story-driven games.
But it does have dungeons that are very unique from one another… also what do you mean it’s badly scaled because of double jump? It still has plenty of areas that offer the Metroidvania feel of finding something that lets you explore more.
It is a good SoulsBorne :)
As soon as you said “no real dungeons” it just made think you didn’t play the game.
Elden Ring lore is George RR Martin from Wish
George RR Martian was literally one of the lead writers of Elden ring 😂
Except it was the real George RR Martin...
@@PinkxPnther that's why I'm saying it... his other work is actually good
@@Replica2901 you can't even write properly lmao.
@mercylavigne I bet my English is better than yours despite the fact that it's not my first language.