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Dark Souls 1 vs Bloodborne vs Elden Ring

dark souls 1 vs bloodborne vs rlden Ring

  • dark souls 1

    Votes: 65 23.0%
  • bloodborne

    Votes: 134 47.5%
  • elden ring

    Votes: 83 29.4%

  • Total voters
    282

TrebleShot

Member
I have only played the intro of bloodborne, Demons Sould and Elden Ring, DS and ER were both materpieces. BB I found extremely awkward.

But Im not the biggest fan of the game play in these games.

I am feeling it calling to me though, for the lore. Maybe I should play dark souls series.

Latest Sleep Token has me interested in that style of lore.
 

Saber

Member
Elden Ring > Bloodborne >>>>> Dark Souls

Theres some aspects of Bloodborne that prevents me to give it to the top
Theres alot of aspects in Dark Souls that prevents me to even give a good score
 

Arachnid

Member
Bloodborne is one of the best game experiences I've ever had, though DS1 isn't far behind.

The mind-blowing experience in DS1 will always be one of my fondest gaming memories.

Lordran_large.0.png
Fucking beautiful.
Who's the artist?
Artist is Judson Cowan

Dark Souls 3 is underappreciated. It's a masterpiece
I actually agree. It has generally the best roster of bosses, with some insane lore pay off from DS1.
 
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They're all good games and I've finished all of the souls games, but Elden Ring is far and away the best of them. Everyone will have varying opinions here though.

Although Bloodborne is a great game, it's the weakest out of these in my opinion. I remember playing through it and the expansion thinking that it was a great game but nowhere near the second coming that a ton of people here were making it out to be. I'll for sure play any remaster or remake if it ever releases but I'm sure I'll feel the same way.
 

laynelane

Member
Out of the ones you've listed, it's Bloodborne. But my real favourite is Demon's Souls, the original game. It drew me in like very few games do and was the start of my love for all Souls games.
 

laynelane

Member
Dark Souls will forever be my favorite. The world design is unmatched to this day and it's the only game where I felt like I truly inhabited my character on their lonely journey. It may feel rough around the edges nowadays and I would certainly love to see some of the QoL improvements brought to later titles (imagine not having to turn in fifty Humanities to Queelag's sister one at a time), but it's still eminently playable.

Bloodborne is brilliant for many things, but it will forever be held back by its limited armory and roleplaying potential in comparison to Dark Souls.

Elden Ring has very polished combat and nice use of verticality in its open world. That's about all the praise I can afford it, the open world is far too large and dependent on recycled content. The game sits firmly in the middle of Souls rankings for me.

The remastered version has that exact QoL improvement. After playing the original, I was really happy when I found out I was able to hand over those humanities in bulk lol.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
I prefer more focused games like bloodborne over Elden ring. I also prefer the challenge of the bosses in blood borne - just right.

Story is also good, atmosphere, soundtrack, and art style.

Elden ring is a hair shy of BB.

Dark souls is whatever at this point. Idgaf bout any of the 3 games compared to everything else FS has delivered.
 
Like a partner, you never forget your "first" Soulsbourne game. Mine was Bloodborne, and it's what I voted for.

I've played all Dark Soulseseses, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring, but nothing has yet matched that high of when Bloodborne's combat "clicked" for me the first time in the opening streets of Yarnham after getting wrecked for ~four hours.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I know that Elden Ring is huge and so on.
But there is something about simplicity of Dark Souls that make it infinitely replayable.
 
Like a partner, you never forget your "first" Soulsbourne game. Mine was Bloodborne, and it's what I voted for.
My first was Dark Souls III and I dislike it even after beating it multiple times. Its gameplay, responsiveness, and level design are awful.
...Plus, Sekiro and Armored Core VI have the best combat systems out of any From Software games, anyway.
Low bar and the trade off is thematic and mechanical railroading by design.

All three choices are heavily flawed and I could easily prefer any one of them on any given day depending on mood. If I chose only a vertical slice of a game then Bloodborne's DLC Research Hall would always reign supreme. Starts with dungeon cells housing various crazed hunters, goes through a interactive tower with deformed patients and ends with fighting Lady Maria. Nothing else by FromSoftware is on that level.

a98ef-16479504715959-1920.jpg
 
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laynelane

Member
Oh nice! I only have the PS3 game and PTDE on PC, never played the remastered.

I wish I'd kept my PS3 copy. I figure lots of people with the PTDE on PC didn't get the remaster, not much reason to really. The only other additions that really stand out is the ability to use multiple souls at a time and changing covenants at a bonfire. Not really worth the price for PC players who already had the game with the 60 FPS mod.
 
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Raven117

Member
Dark souls to me reigns supreme.

That melancholic beautiful world (and slower tactical combat v fast twitch) gave a feeling that few, if any, games even approach.

Bloodborne is also a masterpiece in its own right. That art design, the “twist” left me at first disappointed, but I couldn’t shake it out of my mind. It was only after I finished it months later did I understand just how deep that game got its hooks in me.

Elden Ring. While obviously a master piece as well, but to me, lacked a bit of the beauty of dark souls 1, or the outright weirdness of Bloodborne.

I think it’s time for From to give a straight up narrative a shot in as close to that mysterious way they go about things as possible.

In the end, they are like cherry blossoms. All perfect.
 
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Aesius

Member
Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne are about tied for me.

I liked ER on first playthrough better than either of them because the world is magnificent and I was already a Souls veteran by then. But it has far less replayability. I just don't want to dive into that world again, despite how enraptured I was by it.

They're all utterly fantastic games, though.
 
Really tough choice between the two, but I'd give the slight edge to Elden Ring as an evolution of the formula and grander in scale. Bloodborne is a close second though.
 
Dark Souls 1 has really good replayability because of the interconnected world. You can beeline to your preferred weapon right from the start and every playthrough will be different. It suffers in the endgame, though.

Elden Ring is the longest, but suffers in terms of replayability because the process of running around the open world hoovering up sacred tears and erdtree seeds gets pretty old. The DLC is also not really a step up from the base game, unlike both DS1's and Bloodborne's DLCs.

I think Bloodborne has the best overall quality from start to finish, and the DLC is probably the best single stretch of content that Fromsoft has ever done. The weapons are also extremely varied so every playthrough feels distinct. The fact that so many weapons are locked behind progression is annoying, though you can circumvent that for the most part using the chalice dungeon system.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Elden Ring is my All time favorite game.
Others might have things slightly better but ER has the most meat on the bone and to me this is oh so important for this genre.

Would love to have ER's style with the darker atmosphere of Demon's/Dark Souls or Bloodborne though.
 

bobone

Member
Literally the most difficult question I've seen on this board.

Dark Souls was the first time in years that I felt amazed by a game. Same feelings I got playing Mario and Zelda in 3D the first time.
Bloodborne is just the perfect story, world, setting along with the same incredible gameplay.
Elden Ring feels like the logical progression of Dark Souls when you give it consoles that are 20x as powerful.
 

vodka-bull

Member
ER is a kids game and I prefer a challenge if I play a Soulsborne. OG DeS was great as was Sekuro. But it‘s not like FS is the only developer competent enough to produce good Soulsborne games, Lies of Pi is one of the greatest games of the last decade and it surpasses any FS game easily.
 
these games are all so good. i plat'd bloodborne. they are unique in their own way. idk, just something about elden ring and it's scenery and scale will always get to me. bloodborne is probably the better game overall. dark souls 1 is still a 10/10/. tough vote.

i voted elden.
 
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ZehDon

Member
Elden Ring has perhaps the best exploration of any game ever made, with enough additional systems to open the game up to just about any type of player. There are few games that do scale like this and actually pull it off.

Dark Souls 1 has a super tight core let down by some frustrating design elements from a previous era of thought. It's an important title, but latter games improve upon it in a lot of ways.

Bloodborne is, by contrast to the above, actually pretty one note. It's also now overhyped, due to its more limited available owing to it being on only one platform. The meme-able "Where's the remaster!?" stuff makes it more talked about than it should be. It's a good game, but not as good as people might have you believe.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Elden ring would win if it didn't have so much of bullshit bosses.
Exactly what I think, at least in terms of gameplay, the balance of that have is all over the place due to devs having to account for summons but even then they didn't actually lasted with them so if they were gonna be so easy anyway why not just design without them in mind? Really I'm still salty at how I ruined my Malenia fight due to it being so easy with the mimic and so almost impossible without it, it made no sense at all.

But atmosphere wise, Dark Souls 1 is just unmatched.
 
Dark Souls. One of the best gaming experiences ever. I lost count of how many times I restarted it just to redo everything up to O&S. Just magical.
I never played Bloodborne.
ER is just a glorified troll that too many people are desperate to pretend is fun.



Suspicious Face GIF
Souls difficulty has started to become tedious. Bosses do huge damage forcing players to either play almost perfectly or use cheesy overpowered builds.

It's started to get old. I think bosses have more health than before upping the tedium and don't get me started on multiphase boss fights.
 

RafterXL

Member
They are all great, but Elden Ring is the best game ever made, don't bother @'ing me because you'll never say anything of merit about this, unless you agree.

And just because, if Bloodborne were an Xbox exclusive, it's been at 20% right now and we all know it.
 

Idleyes

Gold Member
This is a skill ranking disguised as a preference poll. Be honest, If you picked Elden Ring, you’re a casual explorer. If you picked Dark Souls 1, you’re a OG warrior. And if you picked Bloodborne, you know what it's like to be black in America my nigga.
 
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stn

Member
All amazing games, but Elden Ring is my pick. The exploration and open world takes it up a notch, and I like the fact that there are more weapons and gear options. Contrast that to Bloodborne, where I wore the same outfit and used the same weapon from beginning to 100%'ing the DLC. I also like the "look" of Elden Ring more than the other games, as it has some element of high fantasy.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I've played Demon's Souls (imported from China before UK release), Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro, Elden Ring and Demon's Souls Remake.
Out of FS' games, Bloodborne is the most overrated.
 

Regginator

Member
  • Dark Souls' first half is unmatched in terms of level design and exploration, but a lot of it kinda crumbles after the halfway mark. It doesn't stick the landing.

  • Bloodborne is a lot more consistent. It further refines the formula and streamlines it, trims some excess fat, has a better visual design and combat (though that's subjective), and I think it's overall a better package. The more personal story and lore makes it stand out for me, too. But technically it doesn't really do something new, aside from the more aggressive play-style that's being demanded with the rallying (which ties brilliantly to the story from a meta-level).

  • Elden Ring is just an open-world Dark Souls and it suffers more from that decision than it benefits from. The open world is gorgeous, but it serves no function aside from gluing one area to another. I think Elden Ring shines the most during its legacy dungeons, when it focuses on the traditional Souls dungeon crawling style.

BB (9) > DS1 (8.5) > ER (8)
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
Even tho Sekiro and Armored Core VI are not "Souls" game the reason they are my favourite FROM games other than their AMAZING combat is I actually care about the characters.

For example Bloodborne has fantastic lore but if you tell if I care about any of the NPCs I would say I just dont especially compare to Emma and The Sculptor in Sekiro and Wolf & Walter in ACVI.....In Bloodborne most of character's personality comes down to they gone insane.
 

WellSheet

Member
Dark Souls 1 for it being the blueprint that all Souls(and soulslike) should strive for with level interconnectivity and design.

Bloodborne has the win regarding the aesthetic and lore appeal (for me)

Elden Ring for providing nearly unrivaled FREEDOM while it maintains the core essence of the soulslike sub-genre with combat and exploration
 

thefool

Member
Dark Souls 2 is an improved DS1, so that one.

But between the three, naturally DS1. There's a sense of exploration and wonder the others don't have. Being big and empty doesn't change that, it only adds to the unpleasant repetitive nature of the game (Elden). Bloodborne has some really cools mechanics that makes it substantially different from the others, its gameplay deserves acknowledgement.
 
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SweetTooth

Gold Member
Dark Souls and Bloodborne are interchangeable depending on how I feel.

Elden Ring is great, but SOTE and some of the late-game bosses soured me on the experience. Too much bullshit.

Bloodborne is best for me, a complete cohesive package, absolute perfection.

Elden Ring comes second but I didn't like bosses soundtracks, they lacked the epicness of every encounter in BB .. except maybe last boss.

I loved From conception of open world games, ER is great in that regards, hell all Souls entries (except DS2) have phenomenal level design.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Dark Souls 2 is an improved DS1, so that one.

But between the three, naturally DS1. There's a sense of exploration and wonder the others don't have. Being big and empty doesn't change that, it only adds to the unpleasant repetitive nature of the game (Elden). Bloodborne has some really cools mechanics that makes it substantially different from the others, its gameplay deserves acknowledgement.
In souls, it feels like a journey you can tackle in many many many ways. With different builds or routes. Bloodborne the same but more linear and less builds.
With Elden Ring. It was great 1st playthrough but it got WAY too long but that was fine. the problem is with replaying it. Collecting all the golden seeds, redoing dungeons, repeated bosses... it feels like a slog.

DS1,2,3 I can replay what feels like endlessly.
It's a toss up between ds1 and 2 for me but ds1 probably wins.

edit: so original xbox 360/ps3 dark souls 1. The one without broken/missing ambient sound effects :p
 
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