Elden Ring Nightreign Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Elden Ring Nightreign Review – Detailed Summary

Release Date: May 28, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, hosts Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Andy Cortez delve deep into the recently released Elden Ring Nightreign. This standalone adventure within the beloved Elden Ring universe promises a fresh gaming experience by reimagining the core design elements of its predecessor. The discussion covers comprehensive reviews, gameplay mechanics, multiplayer dynamics, and the overall potential success of the game.

Overview of Elden Ring Nightreign

Elden Ring Nightreign is developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco. Priced at $40 on Steam, the game has garnered a Metacritic score of 78, reflecting generally favorable reviews. Notable critiques include:

• Wesley LeBlanc (Game Informer) rated it 8/10, praising its challenging rogue-lite elements and the condensation of Elden Ring's mastery into single runs.

  "The reward for my efforts is the mastery, knowledge and adrenaline I spent dozens of hours building in Elden Ring condensed into a single run, and every success is as visceral and glorious as the last." (06:00)

• Mitchell Saltzman (IGN) assigned a 7/10, lauding its co-op gameplay and boss battles but critiquing its lack of crossplay and solo mode balancing.

  "It's one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around... Unless you're bringing two real-life friends on every run, it's hard to create the conditions needed to have this kind of experience." (06:45)

Hosts' Reviews

Andy Cortez

Andy, the self-proclaimed biggest Elden Ring fan among the hosts, rates Elden Ring Nightreign an 8/10. He emphasizes the game's thrilling multiplayer experience but highlights significant challenges for solo players.

• "I think it's a great time. Recommend the hell out of it if you are trying to play solo. Don't. It's gonna be a bad time for you." (07:25)

Andy expresses frustration with the game's current balance, stating that solo players might find the experience overwhelmingly difficult without a reliable squad. He appreciates the game's boss design and FromSoftware's signature quality but hopes for improvements in matchmaking and solo play mechanics.

Blessing Adeoye Jr.

Blessing provides a 7.5/10 rating after 23 hours of gameplay, having defeated 4 out of 8 bosses. He appreciates the intricate boss designs and multiplayer coordination but points out issues like lack of crossplay and balance disparities that hinder solo gameplay.

• "I have landed on mainly because I think what saves this game is that it is FromSoftware and it has so much of the quality of Elden Ring." (15:27)

Blessing highlights the necessity of Elden Ring knowledge to fully enjoy Nightreign, suggesting that the game serves as an advanced extension rather than a standalone title for newcomers.

Gameplay Mechanics

Classes and Strategies

The game offers various classes, each with unique abilities:

• Executor: A Sekiro-inspired class with parry abilities, suitable for flashy gameplay.

  "The Executor class is essentially a Sekiro class that has a parry ability that works exactly the same way as it does in Sekiro." (20:58)

• Iron Eye: A ranged class that encourages players to step out of their comfort zones.

  "I think this game does a really good job for getting you out of your comfort zone and making you try different things because you're at the mercy of what you have." (21:30)

Boss Battles and Co-op Dynamics

Both Andy and Blessing commend the boss designs, noting their depth and the strategic cooperation required in multiplayer settings. The game incorporates procedural generation, leading to varied and unpredictable encounters that demand adaptability and teamwork.

• "The boss battles for each of the runs are some of my favorite FromSoftware bosses I think I've encountered." (07:25)

However, the lack of crossplay and inadequate solo mode balancing pose significant challenges, making cooperative play essential for a rewarding experience.

Technical Aspects

Lack of Crossplay

A recurring theme in the hosts' discussion is the absence of crossplay, which limits the game's accessibility and matchmaking potential. Both Andy and Blessing express hope that future updates or community-driven mods might address these limitations.

• "They lack the crossplay. Really, really bad, really awful." (09:00)

Procedural Generation and RNG

The game's procedural generation introduces randomness in map layouts and boss placements, adding replayability but also unpredictability that can frustrate players seeking structured progression.

• "The map randomness gives you a fighting chance." (06:00)

Community and Future Content

Discord and Team Coordination

The hosts share experiences collaborating on Discord, highlighting the importance of effective communication and strategy in overcoming challenging bosses. They also discuss upcoming community events and tournaments, which promise to enhance the multiplayer experience.

• "We've not beaten all the bosses yet, but think about the fact that these runs are 45 minutes long and you get to a boss and like these are Elden Ring bosses." (07:25)

Comparisons to Other Games

Andy and Blessing draw parallels between Nightreign and games like Hades, Returnal, and Fortnite, discussing how its rogue-lite and battle royale elements integrate with Elden Ring's core mechanics.

• "It's making me feel the way that I love when I'm playing Hades." (21:50)

Final Opinions and Conclusion

Potential Success and Longevity

Despite its challenges, both Andy and Blessing are optimistic about the game's success, citing Elden Ring's massive player base and the depth of content as key factors. They anticipate that the game's unique blend of rogue-lite elements and FromSoftware's design philosophy will attract a dedicated audience.

• "I think this game will be a success just based off of 26 million sold of Elden Ring and people discovering that, oh, I do like this challenge and this is a lot of fun now." (44:59)

Continued Engagement

Andy plans to continue playing Nightreign well into the future, aiming to conquer all bosses and explore various playstyles. Blessing remains enthusiastic but cautious, contemplating the balance between the game's difficulty and his personal enjoyment.

• "I'll always go back to original Elden Ring. Like you won't have the, that sprint or the double jump which works like 70% of the time but no Elden Ring. Is Elden Ring." (58:02)

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Wesley LeBlanc (Game Informer):

  "The reward for my efforts is the mastery, knowledge and adrenaline I spent dozens of hours building in Elden Ring condensed into a single run, and every success is as visceral and glorious as the last." (06:00)

• Mitchell Saltzman (IGN):

  "It's one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around... Unless you're bringing two real-life friends on every run, it's hard to create the conditions needed to have this kind of experience." (06:45)

• Andy Cortez:

  "Refund that... If you're only looking to play solo, it's, you know, whenever people ask me, would you recommend Valorant to somebody who doesn't really have like a squad to play with, it's like, no, that's a nightmare." (07:48)

• Blessing Adeoye Jr.:

  "I think what saves this game is that it is FromSoftware and it has so much of the quality of Elden Ring." (15:27)

• Andy Cortez on Classes:

  "The Executor class is essentially a Sekiro class that has a parry ability that works exactly the same way as it does in Sekiro." (20:58)

• Blessing Adeoye Jr. on Solo Challenges:

  "This is pushing it even further... It's making you try different things because you're at the mercy of what you have." (15:27)

Conclusion

Elden Ring Nightreign presents a bold experiment by FromSoftware, blending the challenging essence of Elden Ring with rogue-lite and multiplayer elements. While it excels in boss design and cooperative gameplay, significant hurdles like lack of crossplay and imbalanced solo modes may limit its appeal to a niche audience. The hosts remain hopeful that ongoing updates and community support will enhance the game's experience, potentially cementing it as a noteworthy title in the gaming landscape.

Listeners are encouraged to share their own experiences and strategies in the comments, fostering a community-driven discourse around this ambitious extension of the Elden Ring universe.

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Note: Timestamps in brackets (e.g., 06:00) reference the original transcript's timing for each quoted segment.

Transcript

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Tim Gettys]

What's up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, May 28, 2025 at a very special time today we're starting before Games Daily. Normally, Games daily is a 10. Games cast is at 11 Pacific time, but we're switching that around. Why? Blessing at a OA Junior?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Cause I got to skedaddle. I'm going to laugh.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

On a flight. I'm popping on a flight to go to LA to attend Riot. I'm going to Riot. I'm going to see their new card game.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. Riftbound card game. Poppy Blessing out of you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's what they're calling me nowadays. Riftbound is essentially like their version of Magic the Gathering and they're doing like a big event for it. And so I'm peace out around noon to actually go to that.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool, cool, cool. So that's why we're doing Games Daily after this though, everybody. I see the chat getting all riled up. Don't worry, it's going to be a great day. Full of content. I'm Tim Gettys. Over there we have Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

Hello.

[Tim Gettys]

It's such a cool sweater.

[Andy Cortez]

Ah, a young tarnished. They don't say tarnish in the game, I don't think.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, no, because we're nightfarers.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, we're different. We're different people.

[Tim Gettys]

We're nightfares.

[Andy Cortez]

Different reality.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, we're gonna learn all about that because this, of course is our Elden Ring Night Rain review. And this of course is the kind of Funny Games cast where each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership it gets you. The show's ad free and you get a daily video slash audio from Greg Miller called Greg Way for a chance to be part of this show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. If you have any questions about Night Rain or Elden Ring in general, please send them through and one of these two beautiful bastards will answer that questions for you. Remember, we are an 11 person business. All about live talk shows. After this. Doing games daily, talking all about how Apple is jumping into games even deeper. Then the stream's gonna be doomed. The Dark Ages with Nicholas Scarpino. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is 15 minutes about what triggers Greg and two parenting questions.

[Andy Cortez]

I wonder if they're involved.

[Tim Gettys]

I do wonder. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood, but we'll tell you about that later. For now let's start with the topic of the show.

[Andy Cortez]

Tim, I got my Tom Talk. Not like the other one, but like this one. This is one of them.

[Tim Gettys]

So this. Okay. This is for the switch two.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Switch two.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay. You're all ready. You're all ready.

[Andy Cortez]

Tom Talk.

[Tim Gettys]

So this isn't the one that we. That I was telling you about because they haven't even officially announced it so far they've only announced the hard case for. Not announced they've released the hard case for the Steam deck is what I've been using it for. Which is just. Just the slightest bit thinner than this. But still you're getting pretty thin there.

[Andy Cortez]

This is pretty damn thin for a freaking cushion.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I like that.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's like I don't give a damn about like how much support is providing. I just don't want the joy cons.

[Tim Gettys]

To be the joy cons.

[Andy Cortez]

But then you bringing up. Just wrapping up the screen.

[Tim Gettys]

Uhhuh.

[Andy Cortez]

And bringing a controller then you're.

[Tim Gettys]

You're totally set. Now if you want to get real crazy, not so much for the switch cuz for that you should just do what I said. Pro controller. And then just the. The tablet part of the Switch too.

[Andy Cortez]

Bubble wrap.

[Tim Gettys]

But for a Steam deck or Asus Rog or any of the other type of handhelds, they sell these little things you can get on Etsy that just kind of wrap around the analog sticks so the sticks don't move.

[Andy Cortez]

That's what I want to throw in the back. I don't want them to get snagged in there with a. Yeah. On a. On a bottle of vitamins or whatever. I got on a trip causes the drift.

[Tim Gettys]

You know.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm very fascinated on the things that you take on on trips. Last time you had your bag because we. I think it was me and you were going to L. A and it was slightly opened and we could see the drugs in there. Me and Greg were like, yo, what's he, what's he doing?

[Andy Cortez]

So I always got my prescription meds, but then the other bottle is usually me getting a bottle that is like empty and I'll throw Aleve, Zyrtec and just like, you know, vitamins, vitamin C, chewables. Very important.

[Tim Gettys]

He's got a backpack, boys. And stable.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You put it all in the same container without a label?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, for those. Yeah, for like now. Do you know what they look like?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do you do that internationally?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Do you get worried that you'll get stopped at customs? They're like, what are these drugs?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Unlabeled drugs.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. This scary time that I accidentally brought a weed gummy in my hoodie pocket and it was still there when I, when I was on the plane. I was like, oh my God.

[Tim Gettys]

Everybody. Elton Ring Night Rain Review it's out tomorrow. The developer, of course, is from Software. The publisher is Bandai Namco. This is a forty dollar title on the Steam. Description is as follows. Elden Ring Night Reigns A standalone adventure within the Elden Ring universe crafted to offer players a new gaming experience by reimagining the game's core design. We got some current critic things going on, currently at 78 on Metacritic. Wesley LeBlanc, the homie at Game Informer, gave it an 8, saying, Night rain is at its best when I'm at my best. Which means FromSoftware's take on the rogue lite genre needs to meet me halfway, leaving its frustrating misgivings at the round table hold when the matchmaking works, when the map randomness gives you gives my trio a fighting chance, and when the storm doesn't punishingly throw an unfair wrench into the expedition, I'm excited to rise to the challenge. The reward for my efforts is the mastery, knowledge and adrenaline I spent dozens of hours building in Elden Ring condensed into a single run, and every success is as visceral and glorious as the last. And then Mitchell Saltzman, the homie at IGN gave it a 7 saying, when Elden Ring Night Rain is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it's one of the finest examples of a three player co op game around. The eight character classes are each fun to use and feature a surprising amount of depth. Despite their limited move sets, the new Nightlord boss battles are among the best FromSoftware has ever created and make the most of the three player dynamic and the fast paced race against the clock nature of each run leads to exciting moments of split second decision making and frantic rushes to try and finish up a fight before the circle closes in. But a lack of crossplay, dual matchmaking, and built in communication tools makes it hard to create the conditions needed to have this kind of experience. Unless you're bringing two real life friends on every run. And if you want to just play by yourself, I can't recommend it because of the poor solo mode balancing all of this amounts to an ambitious spin off that's exhilarating when you're able to create the proper conditions, and one that quickly flips to incredibly frustrating when you're not. Sounds a lot like the Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures boys.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh damn. Oh, I was expecting that. Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

This is a game showdown. Yeah, that was actually a review for Four Swords.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's get into your thoughts on this. Andy Cortez, you are the biggest Elden Ring fan that I know. What do you think about Elden Ring Night Reign?

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of what Mitchell Saltzman said there I kind of. I echo for sure. I think that it's a really fun game. I. If I were to give it a score right now, which I shouldn't because I haven't beat all the bosses, I'd give it. I'd give it like an 8. I think it's a great time. Recommend the hell out of it. If you are trying to play solo. Don't. It's gonna be a bad time for you.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Stay away.

[Andy Cortez]

Refund. Refund that. If you're only looking to play solo, it's, you know, whenever people ask me, would you recommend Valorant to somebody who doesn't really have like a squad to play with, it's like, no, that's a nightmare. Why would I wish that evil upon you? And I think for a solo player hoping to hop in, you are kind of. I think your mileage may vary because as reviewers that were playing with other reviewers and other streamers and other people that know what they're doing and largely quickly get the formula of what to do, a lot easier for people like me to hop in solo to match up with other people. Right. With randos. Because you hop in and right off the rip, somebody's showing that they are going to be the shot caller and they're going to be bringing up the map and they're going to be pinging the places you need to go. And if that doesn't happen, then I was doing the shot calling for my other two randos when I wasn't playing with Bless Tamor, Snowbike Mike and the and that's all great and fun, but that's probably not going to happen a whole lot. I think that it may be really, really rough for people hopping in with the general public for looking for two randos because one suddenly one. It's like when you drop in Fortnite alone and one squad mate goes somewhere else. You're like, ah, where are they going, dude? Why aren't they following the squad? Ah, they died over there. Oh, they left the game. You know, like that can quickly snowball into a really frustrating experience. And I think from software will always just be behind enough to frustrate you. They lack of. The lack of crossplay. Really, really bad, really awful. And I, I hope that they can maybe find a way to implement that. I doubt that that happens. I'm praying that the, the mod gods out there get some solo offline mods going. Because when you're with your squad and you die, you always have the hope that somebody can res you. When you're playing solo, you die. Your run is over and it's. It. It's really shitty and it sucks because in Elden Ring when you die, it's like, all right, let me go get that boss another chance. I wish I had three chances to come back as a solo player or something like that. Or maybe it's a different sort of vibe whenever you're in a boss fight. I don't know. There's better ways to balance it. But for everybody wondering, where's duos? Why can't we squat as duos? I totally understand your question because I. It doesn't feel like solo is even tuned for solo. When you. It feels like they just said, hey, I'm sure the numbers, they could show us the numbers and say like, oh, the bosses are less healthy, the bosses do less damage. I didn't notice a difference when I played solo versus in trio. So it's like it really just felt like they said, all right, you can hop in solo and you're playing against, you know, what a trio mode would feel like. So why not just do duos at that point? Because it. Because it doesn't really feel like this is balanced anyway. A lot of frustrations there. I'm talking a lot of about this game. And then it will still deliver those magical from software moments where you take on a big boss and the music is, you know, hype as hell and. And then you take an eagle on your right into the next spot and the vistas are insane. And the way that the world changes is really cool and imaginative and. And I also One of the most shocking things in Night Rain, I walked into the big bird guy. He's got a bird head. Tim. He's a big, big guy. Big night. He's got a bird. He's just like that dude. He's a bird with armor.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And you walk up to him and his. Talk to him. His accent. He's a Middle Eastern dude from the UK with an accent. I'm like, whoa. I'm just used to, like, the more I'm. I'm used to. Yeah. Like, holy. This is crazy. Walk up to the arrow guy who looks like the one archer Pokemon. The bird Archer in Pokemon. You know it's wrong. Walk up to that dude who reminds me of that Pokemon and he's like, we're going to do great here.

[Tim Gettys]

Look.

[Andy Cortez]

What the. You're an American in a. From software. It was crazy, Tim. Like, like armored core has different. It was. It blew my mind. I'm just saying welcome.

[Tim Gettys]

What's up In a good way or.

[Andy Cortez]

That was awesome. Okay. Awesome. It was cool to like just hear a normal. As American dude. Let's sound like solid snake out here. It was great. I think the game's a lot of fun. I think that. Highly recommended if you have a lot of people that you want to play with. Don't really recommend it right now if you are hoping to hop in solo because you're kind of rolling the dice on I hope my squad is good or I'm going to play solo offline, which is a nightmare. And just. It doesn't feel balanced at all. And I hope that one nice thing is you could play solo offline. And when you play solo offline, I hope that that's where the modding community comes in and says, all right, let's download a mod that allows me to die three times at the. At the nightly bosses or whatever. Game's great. Sorry, I've been yapping a lot.

[Tim Gettys]

How much have you played? You haven't beat it, you said.

[Andy Cortez]

But over 20 hours.

[Tim Gettys]

How much of it do you feel like you've like. Do you have a sense of how much you've completed?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I haven't fucking done a damn thing in this game. I've seen a lot of bosses. I have beat one. I've had about four other bosses down to just the smallest amounts. And when your homies go down, one really, really frustrating thing that I also hope that they can kind of tune is the way that you res your homies, Tim, is by attacking your teammates. You attack them, which requires stamina. But when you have a big ass, you know, hulking, building sized monster running at you. What do I. How do I prioritize my stamina right now? And when your teammate dies once, you get a circle with a third of a notch filled in, and when you damage them, the third goes away and then they come back. If they get downed again, it's now 2/3. So you have to break them down and it takes longer. Obviously, when you get knocked down a third time, it's three notches. I really, really, really wish that they're. I hope that they're listening right now. And it's like, if I take off one notch, let it stop there. Because if you get one notch down, enemy comes at you, you roll away. Maybe you get hit, you got a heel, it goes all the way back up to three. And it's like, this is such a nightmare right now. I. I'd like to say that I'm better than the average Souls player, but I'm not great or anything. I'm not Mitchell Saltzman, which felt like whenever we had success, we had Mitchell Saltzman in our party. Yeah, like whenever we had the homie Mitchell Saltzman from IGN hop in. That was when, like, oh, we're, we're. Oh, we beat that boss. And then I think I only beat the first. I beat the first boss three times because I needed to help other friends do it, like Tamor and Snowbike Mike. And there was only two times that we did it without Mitchell and but when we had him, we dominated and it was like, oh, great. But you may not always have that fortune. I think the game's really hard.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh my God.

[Andy Cortez]

And can be really frustrating at moments and, and that may come as a big surprise to people who beat eldering. Like, oh, shit, I beat it. I had to, you know, use my mimic or whatever. You played with the tools of the game gives you. But the game is like, can be really, really, really frustrating and difficult and I think it's awesome. But that may push people away who already felt like Elden Ring was a little too hard for what they want to deal with right now. This is pushing it even further.

[Tim Gettys]

Bless. What did you think of Elden Ring Night Reign?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So I played 23 hours. I'm going to give it a 7.5 out of 10. I have beaten four of the bosses out of, I believe eight overall. And a lot of that is due to the help of Mitchell Saltzman. I played a lot with Mitchell and he helped me get through some tough times. 7.5. I've landed on mainly because I think what saves this game is that it is fromsoftware and it has so much of the quality of Elden Ring. The boss fights for each of the runs are some of the. Some of my favorite fromsoft bosses I think I've encountered. Right. And they're all tuned toward multiplayer. Like it feels more tuned toward, all right, you got three person parties as opposed to being like, you know, like one on one, like you're typically playing or one. And a companion which feels like you're bowling the bosses sometimes in Elden Ring here, there. It feels like there's a bit more strategy as far as, all right, this boss is going to split into three. And so now it is 3v3. And like each of us have to manage like one part of this boss or like, all right, it is. We need two people that are doing long range to like, you know, pull an aggro while you have one other person come in and do melee damage. Right. Like, I think there is. You have like parts where the bosses are charging up for a big attack and it is all about us like going in and doing as much damage as possible. And they feel kind of like raid bosses in that way. And I think that stuff is fucking awesome. I think the bosses. The boss designs are really cool. Even though I think that I wish the final boss arenas were more. Are more varied, right? Because like you're kind of in the same arena when you get to the end of the run. As opposed. Except for like the skyboxes which have like.

[Andy Cortez]

That was.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, that was super disappointing for me. But I think still, at the end of the day, the times that I find myself really loving this game are the times where I'm like, oh yeah, this is Elden Ring. And then the other times where I'm not enjoying this game as much is when I'm like, oh man, this is FromSoft essentially trying to make a fortnight, like experience. And I don't say Fortnite as in it's the same genre because it's not. Right. This is. It's a weird ass game, right? It is Elden Ring, but it is a roguelike and it is a three player co op game. So when Andy says this game is hard, think about those three things. Because Elden Ring already by itself is a fucking hard game. You add in a roguelite element to it to where, you know, Andy's talking about. And I'm talking about like, we're not. We've not beaten all the bosses yet. But think about the fact that These runs are 45 minutes long and you get to a boss and like, these are Elden Ring bosses, right? And so they have the different phases in. That last phase is always a doozy. And so you get, oh man, I had one yesterday where a sliver of health left on this guy. And I'm like, my. Both my teammates go down and I'm like, I have to make a choice here. And my health is a sliver. I can either try and dodge, like, use my last stamina to dodge and then try to get a heal or. Or I panic and I heal immediately and what did I do? I panicked and I healed immediately, got hit down and guess what? Like that run is just done. It's not like Elden Ring where it's like, all right, cool, I died. I'm just going to go back again and try that boss over and over again. Like, this shit is actually like really, really tough when you think about the fact that, yeah, you have to rely on two other people also to be as good as you are or to be even better than you are, right? You have to rely on other people. It's Roguelite, it's Elden Ring. So this shit is tough. But when I think about the, the, the ways in which I don't love this game as much, it is the ways that they try to adapt this into multiplayer. It is the fact that there's no crossplay. And I think it's even more damning to when you think about sort of the Venn diagram that this game hits. Because in a weird way, when I think about who this game is for, I think it's a really specific audience. Like, I think this game is for me and Andy and not really anybody else that's not me or Andy. Like, you have to like one, you have to be a fan of Elden Ring. Like, you have to love Elden Ring. But then at the same time, you kind of have to be into the multiplayer. Drop in a map, mark points of interest. All right, go here, loot. Go here, loot. Take out this big enemy, go here. Like, you kind of want to have a pubg. You want to have a pubg type experience in terms of like gameplay loop and flow. And that is Andy Cortez to a T. And that is like, that's me to some extent, right? Like, I like that experience and I like the moment to moment here. But at the same time there are things like the wall jump where because this game is way more fast paced and way more about like getting around the map pretty quickly and going from place to place, they've added in a wall jump where it's exactly how it sounds. Right. If you jump against the wall, you can kind of like climb up. It is very janky. And it doesn't work the way that you want it to work all the time. Right. Like, there are times where I'm like, please get me up this hill, and then I almost get up. Then the geometry doesn't, like, land in the way that I think it's going to land. And so I'm like, all right, now I'm wasting time. And now the wall's coming in, and the wall is very aggressive, and so I'm taking damage. Right. Like, you have things like that. Yeah, you have. And going back to what I was saying about the crossplay, right, you want to have a big player base to matchmake with because, like, there are so many factors into play. You want to have some. You want to find good people. You want to find people that are also queuing for the same boss that you are. And that's not always the case at the same time that you are as well. The same time that you are. Right. Like, there's a lot of, I think, weirdness in terms of how they've tried to turn this into a multiplayer thing. And when it works, it works so well. But when it doesn't work, it's like, oh, man. Yeah. It feels like this is your first time making a thing that is this type of multiplayer game. That said, right? Like, there are so many things that I still do love. I love the character classes. I think there's a class here called. Oh, it's not Iron Eye.

[Andy Cortez]

Iron Eye?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, Iron Eye is the long range. I'm thinking of the Executor. The Executor. Because we can talk about this, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Executor class is essentially a Sekiro class that has a parry ability that works exactly the same way as it does in Sekiro. And so when you pull out your Sekiro sword, essentially, and you tap L1, it, like, builds up power in that sword and also staggers the enemy. So. So then you can do a super attack with it. And it is. It is definitely the class where it's like, this shit is not useful. It's for if you want to be flashy and if you want to have a fun time, which is me half the time, right. I had such fun with that class. But then for me, it was like, all right, when I want to lock in, I switch over to Iron Eye, which is the ranged class, which is a class that I never use in Elden Ring. I am not a ranged person. I want katanas all day. But I think this game does a really good job for getting you out of your comfort zone and making you try different things because you're at the mercy of what. What you have. All right, we need somebody that has range. I guess I'm going to be your Iron Eye. And as I'm running from spot to spot, I am finding different arrows, I'm finding different abilities. It is very much a roguelite as far as the amount of element stuff that's going on. Each of the big bosses has an element that they're weak to. So if I'm going to fight Tricephalos, I am like, all right, I need lightning. And so I'm going to get a lightning sword and I'm going to like be looking for lightning type items or items that are going to boost that element. And it is. In times, it's making me feel the way that I love when I'm playing Hades. Right? It's making me feel the way that I love when I'm playing a Returnal. You are looking for those in the moment. Oh, I want this so I can boost this ability kind of thing. And it gets very satisfying. Like, this is a bizarre game. I feel like we can talk about this game for a while because like I. There is as many things that I fucking love about this game for as many things that also frustrate me quite a bit about this game. So I land at a 7.5.

[Tim Gettys]

That's where I'm at with the two of you. I feel like you are in the very luxurious position that you have multiple squads at your disposal. Do you see yourselves playing this game a lot in the future or are you, Andy, I mean, let me ask you, are you going to complete all the bosses?

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Are you planning to play past that much?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I think so. I think also a lot of it goes to me wanting to. Well, the cross. The no crossplay nature of it kind of makes me go, oh, if I have any friends on PlayStation that are buying it on PlayStation, maybe they already pre ordered it.

[Tim Gettys]

What are you guys playing on, by the way?

[Andy Cortez]

PC.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

PC.

[Tim Gettys]

Both of you? Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. And yeah, so I. I definitely see myself playing it past beating all of the bosses because you still have that. It has that. That Rog Light feel or even like Metroidvania feel when you go back to an earlier level and now you're. You have stronger things equipped. You go, oh, we are. Look at how we're, you know, doing a new game plus run. Look at how we're rinsing these dudes now. Like, this feels great. I. I totally see the appeal to want to go back for sure. And it's. At its core, it's. It's still something that I love. It's Elden Ring. It's the combat, it's the movement, it's the risk, the reward, the abilities and how. Not just. Not just the abilities that you can use in game, whether you find, like, different spells or wands or weapons or whatever, but it's your. Your character's abilities, your. Your Night Ray Nightfarer abilities, where they have one ability, one ultimate. And finding different relics after runs that you get. Every time you complete a run, you are gifted a couple of relics, and they're these little colorful stones that have different traits tied to them. And the bigger the stone, it might have three traits. And you go, oh, that would be perfect for this class that I've been running. Oh, my God, this is gonna, like, change the way I like. It has those roguelite hooks that I feel all of the damn time after you beat any sort of mini boss in this game and they drop their little loot crate or I don't even know what. What it's called. I saw people in the Discord, by the way, shout out to all the Bandai Namco employees who were, like, helping out people through this experience, because there'd be people like, I need one for this boss. And people are hopping in, and it's like, probably the best Discord experience I've seen in a. In a preview period.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where people were able to just create their own voice channel in the Discord. You would generate, like, your own discord, and it would say, kind of funny, Andy, and a voice channel. And then Mike would join, and we played with shout out to Will Neff out there. Shout out to Will Neff. We play.

[Tim Gettys]

That's cool.

[Andy Cortez]

Unfortunately, his game disconnected. We were on, like, a. We were on a run that was, like, feeling special. His game disconnected. He couldn't reconnect. And it. Oh, man. We were like. Me and Mike took it to the limit still with just us two, because we were like, all right. We're like, it's 1:43am we keep this run going, right? He was like, hell, yeah, dude. We feel we're. We're too good right now. And we got to the. We got to the very, very end. And unfortunately did not. We did not beat the boss with just us two. But it has all those hooks that you like. I agree with Blessing that it's a lot of different mechanics and genres that are meshing that may clash in ways that don't feel like sometimes the music and the harmonies aren't perfect.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because you are not only experiment, you're dealing with the difficulty of a FromSoftware game with RNG. And sometimes that's tough where, you know, on. On one night you may get a certain boss, you're like, ah, man, I picked the wrong thing to upgrade. Yeah, I shouldn't have gone for that weapon. I should have gone for this ability. Because again, after every mini boss you beat, the smaller ones will give you two perks. And a perk may be gain 10, 000 runes right now, which means, oh, I can probably level up one time or the other one. The other perk may be have your stamina refill faster and you make that choice and it's like, oh, do I want these gains right now? Or do. Is. Am I playing like the long game? Am I so confident that my build is good enough for stamina regeneration that I can skip on that? Right now you have all those sort of split decisions or those quick decisions you have to make. I think my biggest problem with it though is while you're playing Night Rain, the way that we are playing it, the. The way that you play it to have the most success possible. If there were a difficulty mode it feels like we are playing, the play style we're using is meant for the hardest difficulty possible.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow.

[Andy Cortez]

And what I mean by that is there is no exploration. There is no time to look around and go, oh, you should we check out that. Oh, that might have a cool boss. Let's go. There's no time for any of that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

The ideal way to play this game is to essentially speedrun to all the pois, all the points of interest and go. Not all of them, but like to as many as you can and say, fuck the mobs. The like, anything that might be distracting or anything that might be about exploring all that, we are going to point A and then we're going to point B and then we're going to point C and gaining as many runes and like collecting as many perks as possible and then going to the first day boss and then defeating that and like.

[Andy Cortez]

It'S cool to get in that flow.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But so much about Elden Ring is the beauty of this world and how cool the that area looks. And oh, I want to like check that zone out now. But the way that you are forced to play it, which again, you're not forced to do anything right? The. The old classic Doom tweet. You control the buttons you press. But the way that you are playing it is if I want maximum success, those the three wolves are running by on the way, fuck it. If you try to kill them, that's like three seconds lost on this run. It feels like everything is a speedrun and. And it. While you're having fun, it's still taking away that sort of the. The sense of exploration and the sense of like wonder and magic of an Elden Ring world.

[Tim Gettys]

This might be a big question, but do you think obviously that them designing the first real multiplayer game, like there's been modes and stuff before, but this being from the ground up, a multiplayer essentially only product, do you think that them adding the different. The roguelite stuff and the more speed running type things are necessity? Do you think that overall that was the right call or do you think that there is potentially a better game if it were to lean away from that and more into what Elden Ring is more traditionally known for?

[Andy Cortez]

I think that there's a way to balance it to where you are not always against the clock because that is. That's just an extra added element that I don't know if it adds a whole. It doesn't. It adds to some tense moments, but that's not the fun I'm getting. The fun I'm getting is fighting a boss, feeling like I'm prepared. That's where I get my satisfaction. Knowing that like, all right, you're going to. You're going to bring your fucking A game and so am I because I made to. I made sure to check every damn place on this map to try to find the best thing possible. And I think there's a better formula here. We've. It sounds like I've just been shooting all the time again, probably an 8 out of 10. It's a great game. Really, really fun. Still has all the magic that I want, but I think that there's a better game here if you try to take a different approach to. Maybe it isn't the. The ring is closing in Fortnite style. Maybe it is. All right, we could pick, you know, similar to Hades, when you get to the end of a room and you go, oh, do I want to go through that door with that boon or do I want to go through this door with the health upgrade? I wish there was. I wish it was more conventional in that.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

See, funny enough, right, you mentioned that it feels like we're going in at, like, the most difficult difficulty level almost in a game. I do wonder if a lot of that is fixed. If they have. If they add in a difficulty level, which I know is very non from software and, like, not going to happen. Right. But, like, if you had a. And you. I wouldn't. Even if I'm. If I'm working at FromSoft, right. I wouldn't even pitch it as a difficulty level. I would pitch it as, like, the experience we're having right now is like the. I don't know, you find a cool word for it. You kind like, you find like an Elden Ring word for it. Like, you know, you're doing like, the locked in mode or whatever, which is.

[Tim Gettys]

Like the old insane addition.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Like.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, insanity on something like that. And then the default mode is like, all right, the ring doesn't do as much damage and you have a bit more time to explore. Because I do think this game is.

[Andy Cortez]

Such a mirror, like, nightmare.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Nightmare.

[Andy Cortez]

That's why we pay you the big bucks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like, you have a nightmare mode. That is. Yeah. But, hey, speedrun to every poi and, like, fucking lock in. Like, you need the. You need to do the meta. Like, you need to, like, you know, be locked into every single thing that you need to face. This boss is going to kick your ass. Because I do think that's a worthwhile experience. I think when you beat the boss, it feels good. Like when I had Mitchell Saltzman that's coaching me through, like, all right, go here, go here. We're gonna pick up this sword, like, and we're fully kitted out and ready to go. There's nothing like it. But also, yeah, that shit is fucking brutal. And I think that then contrasts with one of the favorite. One of my favorite experiences that I've had playing this game, which are the shifting. I believe it's called shifting worlds, right?

[Andy Cortez]

I believe so, yeah. Where shifting lands.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Shifting lands. Thank you. There was a run that me and Andy were doing. It was me and me, Andy. And we matched with a random. His name was Zion.

[Andy Cortez]

Never forget him. Z.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like giant with an X. You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Shout out, Zion.

[Tim Gettys]

Guys, let's go.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This was such a cool one because it's me and Andy. We're still, I think, a bit earlier on in our runs with this game, and we get the map, which I don't know if we did a great job of explaining at the beginning of the show, right? Like the map that we're dropping into is essentially battle world for Elden Ring, where it's a bunch of different Elden Ring style locations. Procedurally generated but like essentially remixed as far as where where they land on the map. And so we land and there's usually somebody who we are like, all right, who's going to be point person? I always look at Andy or whatever if I'm playing with randoms. I just pray one of them wants to be the point person and it is. You mark where you're going on the map and then we immediately run to these places. And some of the places will have a mini boss that you kill, get a bunch of runes and then get an upgrade.

[Andy Cortez]

So.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So you might go to a church that allows you to get an extra health flask so you can heal an extra time, but you're essentially going from location to location. In the shifting lands maps, they have one big special POI that in the cases that I've had, right, are either it's been a volcano, it's been a big frost mountain. And when me and Andrew were playing, it was the volcano and Zion sort of leads us there. Zion leads the way.

[Andy Cortez]

It's the first time we'd ever seen the sort of shifting lands thing happen, by the way, because like we're used to the normal map. Suddenly we look at the map and it's like there's this big red area looking like Mount Doom out there or. Or Death Mountain. And you're just like, oh, what is that? That's really, really cool. Near the start of the run, suddenly the screen starts shaking and you see just like massive fire and plume explode. You're like, whoa, that looks magic. Like, this is the. I love it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And it's the Elden Ring visual. So that looks off the chain. And so we go there and like Zion drops us into this mountain. There's a volcanoey area and. And we're like, oh, damn, where's Zion taking us? Right, we go. We get led through a bunch of different paths and we're taking out enemies. We come across this door, like this fog door they have in these games, right, that always like kind of marks a boss. And we take out three big enemies that are in front of it. And once we take out those enemies, we get the rewards. And then the door fades away and we're like, yo, where the fuck is Zion?

[Andy Cortez]

We're going deeper.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We're going, going deep in this volcano. And me and Andy are freaking out a little bit because we're like, yo, The. The. The circle is going to close in. Like, do we. We are. You are leading us further and further into the depths and we don't know where we're going. But Zion. And Zion's not on voice chat. We're not in a discord call with Zion.

[Tim Gettys]

He's just a random journey, like, experience.

[Andy Cortez]

And who. Who did Zion remind you of?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Who's that?

[Andy Cortez]

You said Addison.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Zion.

[Tim Gettys]

No, what if it is Addison?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Because, like, Addison was that friend where he's always leading me to some, like, place where it's like, where are you taking me? And it's like, always, like, you know, some cool spot in, like, the woods. And I'm like, oh, damn, that's dope.

[Andy Cortez]

We were saying Zion was like the junior, the senior. That, like, you're a freshman. You got in the car and you're like, man, I don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. Cigarette. Like, this is crazy.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, like, yeah, he smokes. And you're like, oh, I don't smoke. That's really cool. Yeah, Zion was that, homie. That's like, I don't know where you're taking us, but I'm excited to see. And so we go down another path. We drop down some ledges that are kind of obscure, but we drop down a final ledge and it's like this big boss. It's the magma worm. And we're like, oh, shit. All right, we're going to fight this thing. That seems way too strong for us. And I think that first time we weren't able to beat it.

[Andy Cortez]

We ran out of time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We ran out of time.

[Andy Cortez]

The zone was already closing in.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. So we had to escape. And then the next time me Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

Played, we were like, yo, we were with Mike.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We were with Mike.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, we were with someone like Mike. And we were like, all right, we know that we ran out of time. It seems like on day two, we gotta fast track to the volcano. Everything else, that's the priority. And I was like, I think I remember the path. I remember the path to go.

[Tim Gettys]

I need to know if you guys ended up beating this boss, but. Oh, we'll have to wait till after a word from our sponsor. This episode's brought to you by Mood. Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges. From sleepless nights to stress filled days, Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific health concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends. They'll deliver them discreetly right to your doorstep. And you can get 20% off your first [e-mail] with promo code kind of funny. I've been having a great time trying out their different gummies and am loving how each one feels. Their sleepy time gummies will knock you out in about 5, 15 minutes flat. No hangovers, no grogginess. Not only does Mood stand behind everything with an industry leading 100 day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code kinda funny. So head to mood.com, browse their amazing selection of functional gummies and find the perfect gummy for whatever you are dealing with. And please remember to use promo code kinda funny at checkout to save 20% on your first order order again, that's mood.com promo code. Kind of funny for 20% off. So you got Mike. You think you remember how to get in there?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Andy's leading us to victory this time.

[Andy Cortez]

Running down the path and I'm just like, I think we dropped down here. Oh, we did. We dropped down to this here. Yeah, we fought three, these three dudes. I remember. And then we run past on that little bridge. We take out those fire ladies. Holy. Oh my God. The big golden door is there. We're on the right path. This is great. Take on that squad. They're they, they're tough, right? It's Chad, if, you know, if you ever play Elden ring. It's a dude with the big like the three big fire guys, right? The fire pre, sir. I forgot how to pronounce him. Prelates. I don't know, you know what sort of accent it is. But one of them has the big sort of like goblet on his head and he shoots fire out of it. Kill three. Those three guys, nice, dude. They drop loot, we level up, the door opens, we run down and it's the big soul men with the dot. No, the skull men on the cars. You gotta take out the skullman on the car. You know the big, you know, cars in this game? Well, it's like, it's like a guy controlling a car, but it's like a big skull that spits out. You gotta jump on top and like American.

[Tim Gettys]

We got a Mustang.

[Andy Cortez]

Kill those guys. Drop down. Holy. We are on the right path. Run past the big hands. The big hands will get you. The big hands are also down.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I've had a brave through so many big hands.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I'm proud of you. A lot of big hands then it's like holy. I. Oh my God. How I made the right calls. I was shot calling. I've made the right calls. We dropped down Magma Worm time. Take on this big dude. You've seen him before, Chad. He's big like lizard.

[Tim Gettys]

Is he one of the eight or is this like a secret?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, this is like a secret boss.

[Andy Cortez]

That'S like one of the nor one of the many mini bosses in the game. There's a lot of mini bosses you take on along the way to try to get to the Night three boss which is like the ones that were made specifically for this video game. They were. They haven't been.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's another fascinating thing is that. Yeah. All the Night three bosses like the final bosses of the runs are all new for this game. All the other bosses are just pick picked from other from soft games.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like 90 Elden ring enemies and then sometimes you'll fight a boss from Dark Souls 2 and it's like oh, I just fought you like the other day when I. When I was playing Dark Souls 2. We take on the magma worm. B B B B B B B Holy. We did it, dude. And then we walk up like a smithing stone table and it's a. It's more epic than all the other ones we've seen. We walk up and it's like upgrade any of your weapons to legendary.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's like we're like holy cow.

[Andy Cortez]

We upgraded. Get the little steam machine. And it's like legend secured. I forgot the hell upgraded one of our like whatever weapon you wanted to the gold. You're like holy dude. This is insane. This is awesome. And that's where this game sings Zion dude. And then you're like how do we get out?

[Tim Gettys]

Never forget.

[Andy Cortez]

And then you see the little bird with the tree and you're like. Or. Or there's a tree that you summon a spectral hawk. Tim. It's a spectral hawk. You summon the spectral hawk flies you out and you're just like flying over this amazing volcanic landscape. You're like dude, this is from software is just so good at this. Like giving you that awe and that wonder. And you fly all the way out. And like oh man. It was. It's. It. It's those moments that make this game magical.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. And I wish like. And that comes all the way back around to yeah. I wish the game gave you more time for or at least like I don't know. I feel like the fast paced nature that the game is ideally played with kind of conflicts with the exploration A bit of finding things like that, right? Of being like, oh, shit, where does this go? Oh, shit. We found like this cool legendary thing. And I don't know how to balance it because I think part of that is them wanting people with knowledge to kind of spread the knowledge. Like, that feels like one of those playground conversations that I would have with people going to school and being like, yo, I played eldering last night, yo, have you tried, like, going up here? It's like, ah, no, I like a guy kept, you know, fighting the dragon. It's like, no, if you go past the dragon, you'll find a thing that'll help you kill the dragon.

[Andy Cortez]

It was made even more insane because prior to me to us doing that, us playing with Mitchell Saltzman and him going, oh, no, don't go down there to hell like that, that place is like off limits. And so when we actually did it, I was like, oh, my God, this felt even more epic, right? And I, I totally agree with Bless, where I think that those, those are at odds with each other because coming up very, very soon is going to be this big Elden Ring influencer tournament where different fromsoftware streamers and different, just streamers in general. And content creators are doing this big eldering night rain race where squads of three are going to be competing against each other and it's going to be like a really, really big deal. And the way that you're going to watch these people play is how all of us were playing more than halfway into this review period where you're not going to, it's those, you know, get, don't worry about those small, those short games gains right now. We're going for the big gains in the future. And like, and that, that takes away so much of it. And I, I, I hope that maybe the RNG is, is raised in some spots where it's like, no, those guys, those little mobs are worth fighting because they do drop this and these items that could be worth it. But for the most part, you are zipping past 70 of the map to get to that boss in that little area. This boss in this encampment, this boss in this encampment. And when the world's, you know, when you start a game, you see all the different spots on the map that it's like, all right, well, maybe there's a church here. We can get a healing flask. Maybe we can take on those camps first. And you see, that's poison. That camp is mainly poison enemies. This camp is mainly death blight enemies. We should maybe skip down, go to that. And it just feels like you are esports min maxing this game, but I feel like it's owed more. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's. It's kind of a bummer that, that you are sort of at odds with that. But I think if, if things can be balanced a little bit better, maybe more time is given to you, maybe that will. Will lead to more successes. But for the most part, I feel like we were failing for a lot of it. So somebody who thinks that's like, I think I'm okay. I think I'm pretty good at these games. Like I'm not amazing, I'm not that sort of level. But like I feel like a team.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of me, you and Mike should be pretty good.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm pretty competent at these games and it really sucks at like man, they was just getting beat down. But I love that challenge, you know.

[Tim Gettys]

So, so having said that, you guys are. You have the friends to play. You have this review period that you're kind of given the best case scenario to play at least this version of the game with the balance it's at currently. Do you see with no cross play and with everything you guys have been talking about, do you see this game finding success or do you think that this is going to be, all things considered, kind of a. Hey, that was a nice experiment. They tried, but they're probably not going to go back into this because it didn't really work.

[Andy Cortez]

I think this will be a cons a success because of the amount of content there is. I think because there's a lot of different bosses you can go try and go see when, you know, once you beat that first boss, the rest of the bosses unlock and then you can queue up for certain ones. You can queue up only for these two because maybe those are the only two you need or maybe it's like it. I'll queue up for all of them because I'm going to get good rewards and good relics to then equip to my, my heroes in the future. I. I do. I think this game will be a success just based off of 26 million sold of Elden Ring and people discovering that, oh, I do like this challenge and this is a lot of fun now. You know how many of those get refunded? I don't think that that is necessarily going to happen on Steam or something like that. I don't think there will be a big massive backlash of like, oh, this is way harder than I thought it'd be. But I do think this game will be a success and will at the end of the, you know, I don't know, maybe by the end of the year hit like 5 to 6 million.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. The thing is, I don't know how to quantify a success for this game. I do think that it's going to do well for what it is. But also I come back to what I was talking about with the Venn diagram as far as who is this game for? Like, I was thinking about it as I was playing this game where I'm like, man, my friend Re would love this game just from the fact of how when I play games with Re, right? She loves playing a pubg. She loves playing a fortnight. She loves playing games that are drop in, go to point of interest, you know, loot items, build your character and try to go for the win. Like that is what this game is. But Re never played Elden Ring, right? Or at least she didn't. She didn't really like get far in Elden Ring. She like played a little bit and then dropped off. And I can't recommend this game to anybody who hasn't played much of Elden Ring. Like, you need the Elden Ring knowledge going into this. This is almost like it's. This is. This is made me reflect a little.

[Andy Cortez]

Bit Elden Ring on crack.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's on crack. It's made me reflect a little bit on Ghost of Tsushima Legends, because Ghost of Tsushima Legends, when that came out, it was the multiplayer mode that they added into Ghost of Tsushima that came with a lot of.

[Tim Gettys]

And you were the biggest content in the world of it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was the biggest fan. That game deserved better, right? But they packaged it in with Ghost of Tsushima and I always viewed that as weird. I was always like, man, this game deserves so much better. And it doesn't feel like it's going to get the audience and attention that it deserves because it feels good enough to be a standalone thing. Elden Ring Night Rain. I'll put in the exact same conversation, but as I'm playing this, I am like, you kind of need Elden Ring. Like, you kind of have to play Elden Ring in order to fully enjoy this. Because you're going to be so fucking confused if you don't really know the language of this game, the feel of this game, like how to move in this game. And Elden Ring is, in a weird way, the tutorial for this game. So I think with that, like, you're looking at a very specific Audience right. Again, I come back to I think this game is for me and Andy but like I don't think this game is for every or even most Elden Ring fans. I think this game is for a specific Elden Ring fan who also likes multiplayer co op and like not battle royale but kind of battle royale style games as far as like what that gameplay loop is. So I actually don't. I wouldn't. I'm. For me it's not a foregone conclusion that this game is going to be successful necessarily or at least like the talk of the town for, for a long time I think. And when we get further down the line and look back it's going to be like a thing of oh yeah, remember Night Rain? That was a really cool thing and I but I think the conversation is going to move on from it.

[Tim Gettys]

I got a lot of super chats that I want to get to and some of them come back to this question a little bit. But Guitar Hero Arrow says please tell me that FromSoft pulled the ultimate move and has Night Train by Guns N' Roses blasting in the background during the final boss.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No spoilers.

[Tim Gettys]

No spoilers.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No spoilers.

[Tim Gettys]

Well gnr and then Chrono Rig says hey guys, now that you played more multiplayer focused fromsoft game, how do you think Duskbloods will play?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Like dude, I was thinking about this just from the sense of when. When I think about this being FromSoftware's t like shot at multiplayer and how much from doesn't want to let go of the from isms in making this game and how sometimes that can make it feel archaic for a most player thing. I was thinking about Dust Bloods and the fact that not only is that fromsoft it's also Nintendo. So that is as a multiplayer experience. I'm so fascinated to see what they come down on as far as that being because like those are two companies that I don't really look at as far as like how they approach multiplayer. Like I think the game's probably going to be good because it's from software, but I don't know. Andy, have you thought about like what actually Dust Bloods is going to be?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, I mean we know that Dust Bloods is going to be a PvP focused game that you can, you know, make friends with somebody else on this PvP run or you know, Miyazaki said that he was just really, really enthralled by the go the Tarkov sort of experience and finding somebody that becomes an ally and then suddenly they are on this journey with you, even though at first you were clashing heads. I think a lot of that stuff. I think a lot of those game mechanics he mentions about Dust Blood seem super fascinating in a. In the ideal situation where it's like, now imagine if your teammate did this and it's like, oh, cool, that sounds amazing. But I don't really know if. Huh.

[Tim Gettys]

I got Mike. I don't know.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't. I don't think that this experience may actually end up that way. But, like, at the end of the day, I still feel like it's probably going to be good because they're going to find some hook that, you know, keeps people there. Yeah, I think. I think a lot of our complaints so far can be tuned with sliders. Aside from the crossplay thing, when it comes to Night Rain, Dust Blood is a whole different beast that seems a lot tougher.

[Tim Gettys]

And that is exclusive.

[Andy Cortez]

Correct to Nintendo. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Switch to. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Loose Leg says new Mandela Effect unlocked. I swear, Night Rain was coming out on the 29th.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, no, you were thinking of Lost Soul aside.

[Andy Cortez]

Lost Soul aside.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think that's it out today.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know when is this out by Rain?

[Andy Cortez]

It's available to play today at 3pm Pacific Time, 6pm Eastern.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

So it's tomorrow.

[Andy Cortez]

In some places it's like an early release. Midnight release.

[Tim Gettys]

No Mandela Effect. You're correct. Pull up now says, does the pursuer From Dark Souls 2 hunt you like Morgott?

[Andy Cortez]

I've only ever been invaded by the Fell Omen, which is like. It's pretty much Morgoth slash Margit, who. Yeah, ends up just ruining a run. Oh, my God. So I saw a question from Lucid Dream in the chat. Who. Who asked? Question for Blessing Andy. Will you all be playing this outside of a stream? Like, is it. Do you think you'll go back to it and. Yeah, the servers went down last night because, you know, for maintenance to prep for the big launch. And I was hopping into solo matches offline, getting my shit kicked in, not having a great time because I just kept on dying. Kept on trying to find who is the right character for one of these solo runs. Since you can't res yourself. I don't know if there's a great answer to that, but I did have a decent amount of fun with the Revenant to his. The brand new character. The character, by the way, that we can't talk about their ultimate power. That's embargoed. I don't. It's kind of odd. We can't talk about what their ultimate does, but their other. Their main ability is it's a little girl. She's like, possessed a doll. She's like a dead girl who, like, possessed a doll. And she summons three different spirits. Three different. Either a fast little guy, a more medium kind of hitting dude with a hammer, or a gigantic skill skeleton that, like, does really, really big damage, has a lot of health. You could summon either one of those three. And whenever you kill somebody, their ghost comes back and fights for you. And that seems to maybe be the best character to play, as if you're doing, like, solo runs because you have different friends that can. Friends like spirit friends that can kind of like, get aggro from you. I feel like that may be the best one. So, yes, I will be playing this offline, not only just for streams, but this is a game that I enjoy enough to keep playing because it's all the ring and it's. I like seeing new things.

[Tim Gettys]

Senuggi says. Happy Pre SGF did you guys have any favorite combos with characters? Like, if you were the Birdman, who did you hope to squad up with?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I. I like this question because I don't. I don't think I had any specific metas as far as, like, the three characters, but there were times where pre going into a boss, there was one that was like a flying, flying boss. Like, was one flying and then like another on the ground. Like, you're fighting two creatures at the same time and they're weak to a specific element. And like, I'm talking to. It might have been Mitchell, might have been somebody else, but we were like, all right, how should we go in this? All right, let's maybe do. Let's do two Iron Eye actually. Like, let's do two range and then one melee. Because, like, that scene, like, having range on, like, a flying enemy is going to be ideal. Right? All right, cool. And we're going to have the range be the weaknesses. And, like, we organized it in a way that actually worked extremely well for us. And that was very satisfying. The fact that, like, we could do it that way and kind of have that Pre Run planning conversation to make that work. But, like, for me, there wasn't a go to because I do think that different bosses are going to require different strategies.

[Andy Cortez]

The Discord seemed pretty unanimous on Iron Eye being the goated of them all. Who's the archer? Yeah, the Discord seemed like, you're fucking up if you don't have at least an Iron Eye on your Squad. The squat. The. Yeah, you always want to have one dude who could. Who's more tanky, like the Raider class or the Guardian class. Who's the. The bird guy. You have either, like the Raider and the Guardian, along with at least one or two ranged. Whether it's Mike likes Mike. Good news for those in chat who are wondering, because I know, you know, Snowback Mike is. He has his. Oh, God, his. Steve's the source character who's the sorcerer. But he spelled source like the word source.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Thinking that it was short for source. I don't know. But Steve, you know, he was really worried about this because he didn't really vibe with the magic character during the first couple of betas. She has a very weird way of doing magic. She isn't just like. Her abilities are. If Blessing burns an enemy, and if Blessing is burning an enemy and they're kind of caught on fire, she can absorb the fire into like this Trinity thing on the bottom of her screen. And then if I hit them with ice, you can absorb that ice. And that joins the second part of the Trinity.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right, and then with the stains.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it reminded me of. And then the magic. If somebody just uses normal magic. If she. If Mike uses normal magic on the enemy, he can then absorb that magic. And then you kind of let that blast go. And it's like this floating orb of. Depending on the elements you're using, you see the. The different colors in this orb and it kind of like rotates around the character, the enemies, and it hurts them a lot. It's a weird kind of mechanic. And it's definitely not straightforward that as your usual, just Mike spamming the pebble ability, which is just like a kind of like spell thing. But once he started kind of getting into float, he was like, oh, like, I'm feeling this now. And I. I think as long as you have like either a recluse and an iron eye, along with a larger tanky sort of character, then you'll. You'll end up feeling like you're formidable enough for most of the enemies.

[Tim Gettys]

CJ splits on says would this be more user friendly if it was designed more like Monster Hunter with a big hub world and character customization optimization?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, I mean, I haven't. You've played more Monster Hunter than I have.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, that you're asking for a different game. I guess at that point, you know, that takes away the. The roguelite round base sort of structure of all of it, which, you know, it's. It's why we love the seamless co op. Just kind of running up to and exploring the game at your own pace. I really do look forward to see what sort of mods will come out for this and what the community will be asking for once the game comes out. To see what the PC modders will kind of how they'll change, make the nights longer, make the, you know, give you three RES's or whatever. If you're playing solo. I think there will be a lot of different ways to kind of change the the way the game is played.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This would be a different game also. But I was thinking about this as I was like I was just watching videos of Night Rain before this and as I was watching one of the boss fights I was like man, I would love for this to be a boss rush game. Like just let me do like let me in a a crew of three just do like boss after boss and just like almost do more of a traditional linear kind of roguelite experience as opposed to like the run in the storm closing and all that stuff. Again, be different, be a different game. But like I don't know. I do like the core of what this is.

[Andy Cortez]

Me too, me too. I I also kind of wish it was more of the traditional roguelite Hades structure as opposed to the free exploration kind of battle royale. R. I prefer the Roguelite RNG as opposed to the Battle Royale rng.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Where with the battle Royale RNG when the world summons in different elemental camps that you can go take down will pop up and it's like ah, we didn't get any fire camps this time around. That sucks. We gotta like deal with these other ones or whatever. I I would have preferred more of a sort of room based lightning but then that takes away the open nature of all of it. I don't know. There's a lot of different ways you can go with that.

[Tim Gettys]

Johnny Boz says do you think Night Rain will get you to go back to original Elden Ring? Or is Night Rain what you'll stick with when you want some fromsoft?

[Andy Cortez]

No, I'll always go back to original Elden Ring. Like you won't have the, that sprint or the double jump which works like 70 of the time but no Elden Ring. Is Elden Ring. Like I still have a, A no summons run that from last year that I plan on getting back to sometime. Yeah, I, I definitely think that I saw somebody in chat ask will this be a success if. Will you consider a success if people stop playing a month from now? Yeah, because there's eight bosses and when you beat the eight bosses, I don't blame anybody for moving on. Like, this isn't a.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

They've not sold it or pitched it as like an ongoing live thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Correct.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah. I don't expect them to add more bosses over time.

[Tim Gettys]

Bam Bam in the chat says, is this a contender?

[Andy Cortez]

It's a really, really tough year. It might be. Will probably will be a contender by the end of it. By. By the end of me seeing all these bosses and having as much fun as I do it, it was always kind of like that's going to be a sure fire win for me. I'm a little bit more down on it as I was during the betas, but I. At its core it's like with the beta and with this sort of like preview period, I'm at 46 hours. Like I've. I've played the out of this game. I plan on putting in at least like twice or three times this hour count by the end of the year.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, I don't really see it being a contender for me, but I think I'm also on like the other side of. I don't know how much of this game I'm going to play beyond this review. Like, I would love to actually like go and beat the other bosses. Right. But like one is the thing of it's busy time for video games. Like just this morning I think I've talked about like three different codes that are coming in of games I want to check out. But even beyond that, like I then had to ask myself how much enjoyment am I getting for the like difficulty of this game and one of the boss that I'm on right now, even though you can tackle them in any order, but I'm trying to go, go in order. The boss that I'm stuck on right now, I got to it and it's like this big statue, dude, that's fucking brolic as fuck and beat the shit out of me.

[Tim Gettys]

What a word.

[Andy Cortez]

That's awesome.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Fucking brolic statue. That beat the shit out of me.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't think I've ever heard someone say that in real life.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'll go to New York, but yeah, no, that shit is like.

[Andy Cortez]

I know. Yeah, that guy's tough, dude.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

After that fight I was like, I don't think I'm going to beat this game, dude.

[Andy Cortez]

I've seen every boss except for one and the final boss and no, wait, yeah. X one and the final boss. Yeah. I plan on playing this to the end of it. I plan on beating it and especially because that discord was popping off when people were beating the final boss and saying that is one of the best from software bosses ever. Like just straight up ever. That that final, final boss is like the one that takes a crown for like the coolest of all really.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Okay, I might do that then.

[Tim Gettys]

And then the final super chat of the episode, Arturo Tron says Addison's with a Y and it's not what you think.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good. I like that.

[Tim Gettys]

That is good.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I like that.

[Tim Gettys]

Let us know in the comments below if you're hyped for Elden Ring Night reign, if you're going to be trying to take down these eight bosses and if you have the squad to do it, or if you're going to try it solo and fail. After this, we're about to do kind of funny games daily with me and Greg Miller and then after that it'll be Nick playing some of that sweet, sweet doom the Dark Ages. Until next time though. Love you all.

[Andy Cortez]

Goodbye.