@Nigrum Angelum "But what makes you think From wants ER to be their 5th Souls games/Soulslikes?"
I think I made it pretty clear already, the fact that it's so similar, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of tropes and characters etc, to the other souls games.
Up to and including reusing multiple finished and unfinished stuff from the past souls games, like radagon's red wolf, the cursed spirit and of course the imps that are repurposed lothric slaves.
"but they also said they wanted to apply what they've learned from making Sekiro."
This and that are two different things, DS3 is a souls game yet they clearly applied there what they learned from Bloodborne, the fact that they want to add to a souls game what they learned in a non souls game doesn't make it a non souls game.
And reminder that BB was meant to be a departure from the souls series as well, yet it's similar enough to souls games, both prior and following, that people immediately dubbed it a souls like and expanded the "souls" games to "soulsborn" games.
And what was true of BB is even truer of ER, you just can't make a game that close to souls games and not want it to be a souls game (in terms of genre).
"And yet, despite all that, there's too many enemies in the game that felt as if they're designed with Sekiro's gameplay in mind, but minus Sekiro's gameplay."
... You mean aside from the literal copy pastes from dark souls 3 ? Or using enemies that would be right at home in Dark souls 3, like all the foot soldiers and knights ?
"while that means they didn't have to change their approach to their game design with ER"
What ? Of course it did, an open world in the way ER did it and a world with no or minimal loading screens like DS1-3 are absolutely two different things, Miazaki even mentioned that difference when talking about how there would be two different kinds of areas, namely "legacy dungeons", which are traditional souls levels, and the rest of the world, which is closer to what you find in traditional open worlds.
Those are two very different types of levels with different constraints, you absolutely cannot compare them in such a simplistic way.
"Soulslikes has yet to have one."
Sure that's valid when talking about stuff like hollow knight where there are so many changes that calling it "souls like" is very borderline, but ER has 1) the standard button set ups of the souls games with very minimal modifications, 2) the same estus system as DS3, 3) the same core elements of light attacks, heavy attacks, block, rolls, parries as all the souls games, 4) the same kind of magic system (just greatly expanded in terms of diversity and number of spells), 5) very similar defense system to all the prior souls games, especially DS3, 6) the same type of statistic levelling, 7) bonfires you can rest at and level up at, like in DS1, as well as restore your estus, etc, 8) the typical souls like storytelling which relies heavily on short NPC dialogues and item descriptions in conjunction with scenes, 9) boss fights taking place in arenas closed by fog walls, etc.
It is absolutely just as much a successor to DS as DS was a successor to DeS, I don't see how that can even be doubted for one second.
"I've already mentioned that there's a reason people where reacting to it, right?"
And I've already agreed to that, I merely pointed out that reacting to it isn't the same as it being better.
"people weren't really praising only the VA per se"
" someone in other video's comment section pointed out how the VA for intros of Fromsoft's previous games has always sounds like someone who's just narrating the background story from the outside, i.e as if reading a storybook to an audience. Whereas the VA for ER sounds like someone who's genuinely lived to tell the tale of that world, as if it's their own personal experience, and the dialogue lines reinforced this ("In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between")."
I've responded to that, in your case.
I don't know why you act as if I didn't adress that.
"Again, it's not just the VA performance alone"
First of all, yes it's the VA performance alone, that's what was mentioned in your first comment, that's also what was mentioned in the previous comments :
" This narrator managed to make a character called "Loathsome Dung-Eater" sound like some epic awesome figure I can't wait to meet."
"The voice acting in FromSoft’s games has always been pretty good but the VA for the opening cutscene went hard "
Secondly, if we agree on the VA performance on its own being not better but different, why can't you just say "oh sure we agree on that, I just think that when you take that other stuff into account it makes it better". And no, mentioning everything that's not VA out of nowhere whilst never clarifying whether or not you agree that the VA performance on its own is merely different or actually better is not doing what I mentioned.
I know I'm not one to talk on the subject, as I'm very much the type of guy who has trouble letting go of a bone I picked, but it seems like you went into this discussion thinking I was criticizing the VA, and shifted the goalpost when I clarified I wasn't because you couldn't let go of your initial impression of "this guy is making a criticism I disagree with".
"Again, it's the whole experience is what's better, because Fromsoft is stepping up their game."
And again, I don't really agree with that either, if we're talking about the intro as a whole.
It's a different style, in some ways innovative (like the narrator's performance), in some ways a return to the traditional (like using still images, or focusing on the characters that you'll meet more than on the state of the world or the bosses you'll fight, which again harkens back to DeS), but I don't see anything that's "a step up".
I could see the argument for that in DS1, when they switched from stills to 3D renders, because that's a step up in terms of production at the very least, whether or not it makes the cinematic "better", but despite how good everything is, I don't see any significant improvement going from the souls intros to that one.
"do you think the old lady from the previous games would be able to pull off what the new guy did with ER's intro, together with the dialogue lines, the BGM arrangements, and the background illustrations considered?"
I'd say no though not confidently so, but I think that's a nonsensical question, because again those are just different types of performances.
It's like asking if natalie portman could've played the part of arnold schwarzenegger in terminator : no, but that doesn't mean arnold is a better actor.
It's the same here, just because two different voice actors have two different registries doesn't mean one is better than the other.
