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ELDERBORN is the Dark Souls of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

flyinj

flyinj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,940
Out of nowhere this game appeared on Steam today named ELDERBORN:

store.steampowered.com

ELDERBORN on Steam

ELDERBORN - a Metal AF* Slasher with brutal FPP melee combat and souls-like/RPG character progression. In the times of legend, barbarian tribes need a new dark messiah. Be that merciless slayer. Uncover ancient secrets in the city of doom. Forge your own destiny! *Action Fantasy.
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

It looked pretty intriguing, and it was cheap so I bought it.

If you are into first person melee, especially Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, you need to check this out.

It is fantastic. Imagine Dark Messiah but with Souls mechanics. It has great melee combat and Souls like timings on the attacks, but in first person. There is also the awesome kick mechanic from Dark Messiah and levels designed with plenty of opportunities for kicking weaker enemies off cliffs.

So far I've gotten three weapons, and they have all had pretty cool unique mechanics. Apparently there are 10 total. The levels aren't up to Souls quality, but they are well executed and work well with the mechanics. It definitely has rough edges, but the core game play is solid.

The game play loop is the same as Souls. Fight enemies to a new bonfire (fountain in this case). Gather souls from dead enemies, if you die you respawn at the last fountain and you drop your souls where you died. You upgrade your stats at the fountain once you have enough souls. Progression is just 3 stats, and after a set amount of points you put into a stat you can pick a perk.

It also has an absolutely banging metal soundtrack. Also full controller support.

And it's only $12.

Some screenshots:
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Zukuu

Zukuu

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,809
Eh...


...bought on a whim. Trailer looks interesting enough and it's only 10 bucks.
 
aerie

aerie

wonky
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
8,030
At first, I thought that thread title was a bit ridiculous, but I get it. Alright, I'm sold. This looks rad, and totally like something I'd really enjoy.
 
Bede-x

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,383
It looks closer to Amid Evil than a Souls game from what little I've seen from it. And it doesn't remind me much of Dark Messiah aside from the kick and the perspective, which had a much more considered approach and more variety in terms of how to deal with things.

Still, wishlisted for now. I'll need to see more..
 
Mentalist

Mentalist

Member
Mar 14, 2019
17,971
Also available on GOG.

I'm keeping my eye on this one, though I generally like my melee combat 3rd person and my shooters 1st person.
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,126
was going to wait til i finished the game to give impressions. but work got in the way and less than two days the promo discount runs up so for anybody interested and wants to save a few bucks....

2 hrs in it's pretty solid, but you have to keep in mind it's a $12 game -- which, IMO, is more than bang for your buck, little to no technical/amateur hour issues here, plenty of content and replay value. caveat is it does very much hew to the Souls formula, particularly the "un-fun" parts where you're replaying a certain section like 10 times to "master" it, but the payoff is still there. just don't go in thinking this is a DOOM/Hexen run n kill type of deal because that it is not

combat is like dark messiah and skyrim had a baby, with bloodborne DNA sliced between. which is not a particularly great thing but not terrible either, YMMV on what you demand out of "muh sublime combat"

overall game's a steal per the asking price, if it's the type of tree you want to bark up
 
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ShinUltramanJ

ShinUltramanJ

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,949
I've been eyeballing this for quite some time during its early access period. At the time there was only like a single stage, so how is it now?
 
Conkerkid11

Conkerkid11

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,945
Bought this and I've been playing it for the past hour.

Ridiculously good game. Definitely deserves more love.

I'm doing the thing that I usually do in these games though where I've found a single weapon that I prefer and I'm completely unwilling to branch out. Though I blame the devs for making the spear so damn OP.
 
unicornKnight

unicornKnight

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,163
Athens, Greece
Does it also have the Souls difficulty?
Conkerkid11 said:
I'm doing the thing that I usually do in these games though where I've found a single weapon that I prefer and I'm completely unwilling to branch out. Though I blame the devs for making the spear so damn OP.
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There should be a game that makes the weapons break really fast so you have to keep using different weapons. That would be a cool as fuck mechanic that all players would want to be the new standard.
 
Conkerkid11

Conkerkid11

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,945
unicornKnight said:
Does it also have the Souls difficulty?
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Four difficulty levels you can change whenever you want: Normal, Hard, Elderborn, and Hard AF. The default was Elderborn, so I've been sticking with that. It's fairly difficult in the typical Dark Souls sense, where you can go through and absolutely wreck everything, but one slip up, and you can get hit with a barrage of attacks within seconds that immediately kill you.

Dunno if there's any bosses in the game. I haven't encountered any yet.

unicornKnight said:
There should be a game that makes the weapons break really fast so you have to keep using different weapons. That would be a cool as fuck mechanic that all players would want to be the new standard.
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There's making a single weapon in the game incredibly OP in all situations, and there's discouraging fighting enemies altogether because you don't want to break all your good weapons. There's a nice middle ground somewhere.

unicornKnight said:
Obviously, I was just kidding.
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Sorry, I'm still recovering from this thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-...breakability-in-breath-of-the-wild-is.167096/
 
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KKRT

KKRT

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,544
I think this is the best video about this game. Its only 5 minut long, its a review and its made by a someone who knows how to play

 
Zukuu

Zukuu

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,809
Finished it yesterday in a single day after 5 - 5:30h. So it's pretty short and after the initial 4 weapon you kinda get too many in quick succession.
It would have benefited from a dedicated weapon skill and a bit more length I feel. Overall it was a fun altough short experience.
 
Zukuu

Zukuu

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,809
Conkerkid11 said:
Bought this and I've been playing it for the past hour.

Ridiculously good game. Definitely deserves more love.

I'm doing the thing that I usually do in these games though where I've found a single weapon that I prefer and I'm completely unwilling to branch out. Though I blame the devs for making the spear so damn OP.
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Ha, I also exclusively used the
golden spear and 2h janus swords
. The last boss was a joke with these if you know what to do.
 
Conkerkid11

Conkerkid11

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,945
KKRT said:
I think this is the best video about this game. Its only 5 minut long, its a review and its made by a someone who knows how to play

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Definitely a solid review, but I don't think I'd recommend it for people who want to go in even slightly blind. I don't think there's a single moment in the game that video didn't spoil.
 
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