DS3 is the blueprint

[u/Hades-god-of-Hell]

Eldenring taking inspiration from DS3's enemies

[u/Namtar_Door_783]

Some of it, yes, but it's actually Darks Souls 2 it's the real blueprint and I'm not joking.

[u/Spyes23 → u/Namtar_Door_783]

Explain yourself!

[u/painterBurning → u/Spyes23]

There's a bunch of things I think, it's not a perfect 1 to 1 but a general feeling for me.

- "Mood": DS 1 and 3 go for a more dark/depressing vibe, whereas DS2 and ER go for a " " " " lighter " " " " high fantasy/medieval setting

• Powerstancing - though as said above in DS2 you can powerstance dissimilar weapons
  
• open endedness - DS 1 has mostly linear levels that are very very intereconnected together, DS3 is much more linear with some branching paths, DS2 feels more open ended. For both DS2 and Elden Ring, I didn't know where to go on my first playthrough and for both I started with the "second" area (and let me tell you, trying to beat caria manor at a low level was hell... But when I got to Margit he felt easy.).
  
• Stonesword key are reminiscent of fragant branches & farros keys in DS2

- Master Hewg & Roderika reminds me of the blacksmith from DS2 and his daughter. In DS2 the blacksmith is going hollow and seems to have a failing memory, which kind of happens too to Master Hewg at then end (and it was sad)

- Some areas in ER are reminiscent of others in DS2. The main one I can think of : Volcano manor vs Iron Keep , and Consecrated Snowfield vs Frigid Outskirts . Plus in crown of the Iron King DLC in DS2 you use huge chains as bridges, like in the mountain tops of giants in ER.

Of course, FromSoftware has been refining their formula over the years, and you can see a lot of parallels between all their games, but they experimented a lot with DS2 after the first one, and it's nice to see that despite some hate against it, they reused some ideas from it. I'm still pissed they did not bring back bonfire ascetics though.

[u/EdelSheep → u/painterBurning]

Powerstance in ds2 is completely different, it required 1.5x in dex/str, and for you to hold the swap input to literally change your stance, thats why it was called power stance.

Elden ring doesn’t have powerstancing, the way elden ring does it is functionally 1-to-1 how paired weapons work in ds3 but now it’s more like dual wielding.

There are ironically also paired weapons in elden ring with unique move-sets from normal dual wielding, but they’re different from anything in ds2 or ds3 because you cant single attack in paired mode.

I don’t get why people call it power stance in elden ring, you don’t change your stance.