Never judge a book by it's cover.
In lieu of everything I have laid out([...]), I will not be purchasing this game full price and I will be holding off on it until either I can get hold of it for cheap, or someone decides to make me play it by sponsoring me a copy of this game.

Well, shit. Someone did end up sponsoring me this game, and I had a go at it solo Saturday night, and had a full squad run last night with the bois who sponsored that game for me(or rather, sponsored it enough to make it cheap for me).

And, at the very least with my first impressions of that game of playing it, I have to admit that in my post about my initial thoughts on Elden Ring Nightreign… I was wrong.

Partially.

Look, I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong(I was, unapologetically) - but I’m going to break it down with every point I’ve claimed in the original post, and then add extra if needed.

“1. It feels like an unfleshed BR-styled bumrush gamemode.”

I have to admit that this game was fleshed out in the theme of Elden Ring very nicely, and I was wrong to take a look at it from the sidelines and being like ‘no way this shit is fun to any extent’.

And, for what it’s worth - it is a very interesting breath of fresh air, with a fun way to make fighting enemies in this iteration quite interesting!

However.

Due to the inherent format of the gamemode, it makes dying to a bullshit boss even more frustrating, as the recovery time(aka time to get back to attempt the boss again) is exponentially larger. This is something FromSoft had struggled with in the Dark Souls games(at the very least, ones that I’ve played) as sometimes running it back to a boss is inconvenient at best and annoying run-back at worst(e.g. running it back to Bed of Chaos in DS1, or running it back to Abyss Watchers from the swamp bonfire in DS3 before I knew the bonfire in the wall existed). With Elden Ring, they had a very good interim solution of using Statues of Marika to respawn you ordinarily right at the boss fog wall, which I really liked. But this feels like a step backwards.

I understand that this is based on what the format should be(an one-shot expedition), but it makes it difficult.

“2. it inhibits player creativity in builds.”

This one is hard to say it was wrong, primarily because of the game format - hero based roguelike. It’s still valid nonetheless.

However, there is means of progression in between runs - the Relics allow you to bring buffs, more starting gear(eg items) or different buffs to the starting gear, helping you in your future runs. Hard to say yet how well it’ll help in the grander scale, but so far it is a very welcomed addition to retain something in between runs.

“3. Simplified, to a fault”

This one wasn’t wrong per se - because it is simplified, but not to a fault. It’s simplified to streamline gameplay and make it more accessible, but I fear with the changed up control scheme they’ve done more confusion than actual good.

This is the third game that switches up the control scheme to allow for more input commands to be had! They already threw off my muscle memory in Elden Ring, and now they’ve done it again here!

That aside, unique abilities at the very least with the characters I’ve got to try(Wylder and Recluse), both felt quite balanced and I really enjoyed playing as the Recluse - hard to learn, but in turn has high potential!

“4. No more sense of difficulty”

Yeah nah boss, I take this one back. The difficulty is there, however you still gotta keep your wits about if you wish to pop off.

For example, at the start it is a bum rush to get your gear together. For example, the Recluse is effectively defenseless until she can find a melee weapon, after which she can use both magic for ranged action and the blade for up close & personal attacks. If you’re lucky, you can get a good weapon and be a god among men…

But you’re still a glass cannon, relying on your team to survive being one.

On that note…

“5. 3 players required for a good time.”

This one is very much valid. I have nothing to add to this point.

“6. It’s an asset flip.”

This is somewhat true, as they are recycling the enemies from the Lands Between off of Elden Ring, but keeping in mind this is a spin-off rather than an original game, this works.

Outside of that, the environments are actually good - sure, some buildings are recycled - but that doesn’t take away from the fun at all, so I can allow it to slide.

Bosses are interesting, but night 3 bosses are something else. Some say it’s a tribute to the bosses of the previous games; and while I can see the resemblence, the mechanics are definitely remade and retargeted for a 3-player party. I have yet to beat the boss, but it’s no problem. I’ll crack it wide open. Eventually.

Some new issues that arose

One issue that kept cropping up in my outings last night was inconsistencies between getting downed.

Sometimes, it’d work as expected and I’d be dead in a bit if nobody helped me up.
Sometimes, it does not have a death timer at all when it’s supposed to.

The breaking point was when we got fucked over by FromSoft’s connection crap, being forced to reconnect and in turn only being able to crawl around as the bleedout timer never started, and the only person who had the death timer kept respawning and getting rinsed by the boss.

This one could be solved by having a prompt to make you bleedout faster, to enable faster respawns if you’re away from your teammates, and to prevent softlocks.

Which also brings me to the point of having shitty connection problems.

With most FromSoft Souls games, connection is based off of host connection.
If you’re close to the host, you won’t have issues.
If you aren’t?
Oh boy.
Sliding, no hit/getting hit animations ever playing, hitreg being all over the place, among other connection issues.

With this iteration of the game, it feels like it’s worse.

No matter which one of the boys were hosting, we’d all be feeling connection problems - even on host side, which IMO is unacceptable.
And on this game iteration - even item spawns were lagging the fuck out!

Listen, having connection issues that only provide visual glitches - that’s one thing.
Having connection issues that actively tamper and slow down your gameplay, especially in a game where you have to act & think quick on your feet? Unacceptable.

FromSoft, pls fix.

My (new) conclusion

Despite the shortcomings of the release, I’d say this is still a very solid entry to the Souls franchise for FromSoft, and I came out actually having a good time with the friends we played with! Sure, we didn’t get a major boss killed, but it didn’t matter.

We were having fun!

And that’s what matters in this game IMO.

Anyway, that’s all from me in this saga of “Aurismat does an unjustified rant about a game he hasn’t played”.
Until then…

see you Space Cowboy…