With the official release of Eldon's Ring of Law half a month away, thanks to the invitation of Sony and Bandai Namco, I was able to play the full version of the game for 6 hours in advance. Without further ado, let's get straight to the point (this article doesn't contain spoilers, but will come with some introduction to the settings)
New real-machine demo:
・ The gods and faders who rise together
The opening CG of "Eldon's Circle of Law" still maintains the boldness of the previous soul game, as the inheritance of the "Dark Souls" series, this game also inherits the epic sense of "Dark Souls" that is more inclined to the Western fantasy style in terms of world view and performance. Players can expect a grand show similar to the kings of Dark Souls 3.
The class selection at the beginning has changed somewhat from the online test, after the strong White Wolf Warrior and Magic Knight who had previously been shown in the online beta were removed, and the official ten classes were: Wandering Knight, Swordsman, Brave, Thief, Stargazer, Prophet, Samurai, Prisoner, Secret Agent, and Destitute (Useless).
As usual, except for destitution, the other professions are in the 9-10 levels, and there are two more prominent values, this time I chose the "secret agent" biased towards physics and faith, with its own mute and blood return prayer, as well as 90 physical damage reduction shield, one-handed sword. However, in the early stage of actual combat performance is more weak, choose well next time do not choose.
Explore the magnificent junction
Like Queen Malika suddenly descending her divine power, after the beta wall of air disappeared, the whole junction was suddenly opened up in front of me. So I rushed to Melina almost immediately, and then rode the Lingma Torret and began to gallop in different directions. After hours of non-stop (and full screen You Died), I explored a new area that was about 4-5 times the size of the web beta map.
Head east from Nyingforgessy to the "Galidd" corroded by disease and war, where famous attractions include Miyazaki Hideko's beloved poison swamp Ionian swamp, the magic town where mage monsters gather, the dragon tomb where flying dragons walk everywhere, and the towering Red Lion City. To the south from Nymphug is the Weeping Peninsula, and at the end of the peninsula can be found another castle, Moen City. At the same time, the direction of the junction extension is by no means limited to the horizon, and at the foot of a golden tree I found a ladder full of runes, which took me directly to the new area "River Shifra" under Nymfuge. Visually this is still only a small part of the junction area, and from the existing content and trophies, it is speculated that the overall size may be more than ten times that of the online beta.
As FromSoftware's first attempt at the open world, I believe that after getting used to the exquisite map design of the Soul System Box, you will be very curious about how the developers will balance the pace of exploration on the big map and how to fill a wider space. From the current point of view, their answer seems to be: reduce the cost of exploration with relatively tight blessing points and the mobility of the spirit horse, increase the variability by giving different monster types and landscapes to each area, reward curiosity with richer NPC feeders and other new elements, improve replayability visually and content with changing days and nights, and finally provide the player with a familiar battle rhythm with castles and dungeons.
When stepping out of the range of Nymph Geshe, you can immediately see a large number of new monster types, the setting is basically matched with the environment of the region, such as the scarlet ** on the Garid has a huge dog head and dinosaur body deformed monsters, the jungle of the early peninsula has a bunch of big bears rubbing trees, and the hitherto river is swimming in the ghost monsters that appear from time to time. Since the strength of the monsters is probably gradually increased based on the spawn point, if you choose to explore directly at the beginning, the combat difficulty of these monsters may be higher than that of the early dungeon bosses.
This raises the question of how to balance the tempo of Raider Boss and Explore Maps. After all, FromSoftware's games have never had a clear main line and mission guidelines, especially if newcomers who have not participated in the network test have a problem in the early stages, which may be amplified in this game. Fortunately, whether you choose to explore the unknown map or raid the current content, you can get enough benefits. With most of my time running around and basically avoiding combat, Lune, who I picked up, rose to more than 20 levels, and when I stood in front of the evil omen again, I already had 6 +2 holy grail bottles.
・ Take the soul world to the next level
Aside from the open world, the biggest selling point of "Eldon's Circle of Law" was written by "A Song of Ice and Fire" author George W. Bush. R· A story co-created by R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki. Compared with the relatively clear main line of "Only Wolves", the narrative structure of this game returns to the fragmented narrative that FromSoftware is keen on. From the NPC lines, item descriptions, and the design of the map scene, you can feel the grand shattering war, and the subsequent aftermath, and there are even inscriptions on the map to record the deeds of the Fragment Kings. Although it is regrettable that there is not enough time to piece together these details in this trial, I believe that the interpretation of the official release will still be fun.
FromSoftware games are never inferior in their action and special effects while maintaining their friendly mass. The Eldon Ring of Law is still the same in this regard, the handsomeness of various weapons, magic, and prayer has even reached a whole new height, the intersection of day and night can reflect different aesthetics, I also saw powerful bosses that only appear at night when I tried to play, and when the gold tree that is always visible shines in the night, the player seems to be able to feel its never-ending call to the fader. In addition to the magnificent city of Stonewell, the decay of Gehrid and the quiet depth of the River Shivra also exude a different kind of beauty.
Even if you don't have as much purpose to wander around, you can have enough fun, such as pedicure on the Sobbing Peninsula to pedicure the "Walking Spirit Temple", hitting the can brother's ass with a big sword, etc., all of which are activities that make people physically and mentally booked. In the corner of the map, you can also find "paintings" similar to treasure maps, as well as "golden seeds" and "holy grail bottle drops" that increase the capacity and healing amount of the Holy Grail Bottle, which are all good surprises.
One of the obvious feelings of this trial is that the NPCs in "Eldon's Circle of Law" will have more than all the previous soul games, and the number of NPCs and the content of the dialogue have been significantly improved. During the exploration, npCs can often be heard calling, while giving a quest line. Rewards after completion are very tempting, such as portals marking new areas on the map, and some NPCs will also come to the "Round Table Hall" of the game's fire-transmitting sacrifice site.
In the online beta version, in the dialogue with the discouraged brother at the door of the birth point, it can be learned that "the faded person without the witch cannot go to the round table hall", and in the official version of the game, the player only needs to prove his courage to his witch Melina, there are a large number of NPCs that can be dialogued in the round table hall, and the interaction with one of them will definitely make the player addicted, and the specific content is waiting for you to explore on your own.
Because the map of the open world at the junction is very three-dimensional, many NPCs in large maps can only locate their direction through sound at first, so the sense of space brought by the 3D sound function of the PS5 headphones can play an immediate effect. In addition to making the exploration experience smoother, SSD's quick reading disk also allows you to challenge the boss at a faster pace (referring to the number of deaths).
Hidetaka Miyazaki's smile
As a skilled undead/hunter/ninja, you can basically calm down most of the time for Miyazaki Hidetaka's usual methods such as backstabbing, flame pot throwing explosive barrels, and mobs pushing down the stairs. But the premise of the above operation is the need for a relatively closed space, so in the vast environment of the open map, how should Mr. Hidetaka Miyazaki show his "goodwill"? Just yesterday I had a new understanding of this.
When the shell lang who pushed the dung ball suddenly blew itself up and took me away with me; when I bullied the little monster that was dancing in the middle of the road, and then suddenly was bombarded by the shells on the distant mountain; when I was fighting with the large monsters in the wild, and the corpse next to me suddenly stood up; when I shivered on the ground of the standing cone in the poisonous swamp, and then turned my head to see the red spirit rushing over... A familiar smile seems to emerge from underneath the "You Died" on the screen.
So when a certain lady of the "Cimei Shanmu" asked me to go to the depths of the poison swamp to retrieve a certain prop, I directly turned the horse's head back to Stonewell City, or first went to talk to the "pick-up" Greg. Towards the end of the trial, I finally stood in front of the first Broken King to face according to the normal procedure. From the previous official real machine summary, it can be seen that the difficulty of his battle has been significantly improved on the basis of the evil omen, especially after the second stage of pulling out the dragon head, the violent rhythm and ultra-long range of the attack can bring great challenges, and the soul summoned to help the battle will almost be killed by him, and after killing him, it will drop items similar to the king soul in "Dark Souls".
Hidetaka Miyazaki once said in an interview that it is precisely because of the freedom of exploration in this game that players can be more fully prepared, which also gives the development team a better reason to give players more ruthless battles. So if you go straight to the point at the beginning of the game, the difficulty will be a few notches higher than that of Guda and Cold Valley Knights in Dark Souls 3.
All in all, there's still plenty to explore and many puzzles to be solved, but if you like any soul game, or are curious about Western fantasy action genres and willing to take on the challenge. Then please spend the rest of the half month with me.