For me it's Diablo II. Granted I've played my fair share of D2 since launch, and also recently on a private server with a comrade from hexbear, but I still feel like years later the game didn't grab me as much as D1 did.
Granted I don't hate D2, but for a game that I keep coming back to, D1 takes the prize.
Does Elden Ring count?
As a follow-up to DS3 (yeah I’m not counting Sekiro in this), enemies move too quickly, boss movesets a little too erratic and the world way too open for my tastes. I’m a grown-ass person with things to do, I don’t wanna waste the two hours I have to myself each day dicking around and getting dicked-down for exploring some corner of the map, only to find loot that doesn’t apply to my build. It doesn’t respect my time.
I also don’t think I’m alone in thinking that replayability is harmed by making progression more of a slog than other Souls games. I need to grind more enemies (that are spread out, mind you) to level up my VIT stat so I don’t get 1-shot by bosses.
Build variety and boss-runs were definitely improved over other entries, I will admit. If these QoL improvements were made in a Bloodborne follow-up (peak souls imo), it might be the best Souls game made. Maybe I’ve outgrown the franchise tho; the tryhard-edgelord culture it invites is not for me.
Agreed. I love the world’s aesthetics and each area is peak game design but I’ve found myself not wanting to replay the game at all just because of how much of a chore it is to get through it all. I’ve played through DS3 about 30 times and I could play 30 more times and have no issue, Elden Ring I’ve only played about 7 times and that’s only to see how hard the NG+ cap is. The balance in difficulty is all over the place and I’m severely disappointed that some major bosses are weaker than others whereas Souls bosses always had a linear difficulty, if that’s the right way to put it.
Like you said about the weapon variety and skills being one of the best parts of the game, it still doesn’t get me to want to keep playing because of how huge it is and for little reward. Miyazaki said they won’t be as ambitious with further projects and I think that’s a good choice, I think they proved they could make an open world and they did but it just has many flaws. I’m kind of in a predicament between enjoying the world itself but also wanting that world to offer more in terms of enemy variety and things to explore and having been rewarded for that exploration because on one hand, you have a stellar game design that just fits perfectly with the lore, that being a world in decay for 5000 years until you reach it. From that level of discovery and detail to architecture they really did a good job. But on the other hand traversing through these areas on a new run just becomes tedious and most of my time is spent using Torrent to rush to a place I need to get to in order to progress the story which is all I want to do.
I think open worlds are a fad and give credit to FS for attempting it, they did a good job imo with every aspect of world building and design. But coming from DS3 where it’s more linear and you actually feel a solid progression I feel Elden Ring was lacking in that feeling of satisfaction. I think playing it for the first time was the best time I’ve had with the game but every other time I’ve played it I’ve just been turned off by how much traversal the game requires especially with how sparse areas are with items that don’t even fit with your build. I think the DLC being more compact helped solve this issue and brought back some of that Dark Souls-esque level design but at the detriment of again, having too many sparse areas with no reward at all. There were too many areas with little to no reward and you’re just left dissatisfied.
But it’s like I said, as a fantasy game taking in every detail and traversing the world is spectacular but when all I want to do is fight things it just becomes much more of a chore and also the difficulty spikes is just over the top. Bosses are too overpowered, weapons, spells, incantations are overpowered too which can sometimes trivialize the game entirely. It just feels like an overall unbalanced tragedy for a game with peak design. But I hope they do learn from it with future titles. I don’t want an open world souls game again but if they’ve learned from Elden Ring then I hope they improve from the mistakes they did the first time around. But all things said, it is genuinely the best open world fantasy RPG you could play right now.
A smaller Elden Ring would have been a less bad game but also a considerably less good one. When I played through that game at release I had absolutely no idea where the edges of that gameworld were, and it allowed me to be lost in it in a way no other game has managed to. I'd not trade that feeling for any amount of replayability.