| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 5 | 9.70 |
| Overall | 9.70 |
|
The Souls games have become one of my favorite franchises in all of gaming. FROM has made various souls like games across different franchises, I have played them all all but definitely have a preference for the true Souls experience which I feel Bloodborne and especially Sekiro strayed from. Elden Ring may have a new name like those two but make no mistake this game is absolutely Souls in everything but name. The way the world looks, the focus on RPG elements, the many types of builds and the combat all are Souls like. Elden Ring differentiates itself by adding a massive open world, gives you a horse to traverse it and provides the player with more build options than ever before. Elden Ring feels like the culmination of everything Miyazaki and his team has learned from the many years of making souls like games, this is his magnum opus. Let me get the similarities out of the way, It controls just like every souls game with combat that hasn’t changed much. The weight of the characters, how the animations get locked way after you press a button, all the quirks in movement are present. You will build a character that can focus on gigantic swords or be a nimble ninja like character with katana blades. You can focus on magic to rain down death with a multitude of spells or just be a jack of all trades. The world is still as unforgiving as ever, everything will kill you quickly, there is still no pausing, no respite, it’s the same sense of dread all these games carry. If you never liked these games I doubt you will find enough changes to make this game bearable though I would argue it is the most accessible for new players. If you love Souls games then it stands to reason that you will love Elden Ring. Everything that made those games great is here in spades. Incredible level design, challenging combat and massive memorable boss battles. It retains the minimalistic hand holding that maximizes the sense of adventure. It has the unique online mode with player messages and the ability to join others games to fight together or fight one another. It could be argued that the formula is too stagnant, at its core the game still feels a lot like Demon’s Souls did over 13 years ago, but I personally still get great enjoyment of it and I find the new additions to the formula in Elden Ring had me the most hooked I was on a Souls game since the original Dark Souls. Now to get to the changes the main one being the open world. This game is MASSIVE! I thought it would be big going in and even I was shocked at just how the map kept expanding with new areas after new areas open in exciting ways. Before it released I read from some reviewer that he felt it was as long as three souls games stuck together and a laughed and thought that’s not possible… it is. After 170 hours I finally defeated the final boss and basically did all content I can do in one go. There is no better sign of loving a game than feeling a sense of sadness when the experience is over and having that urge to start it up again immediately, I felt both. I’m going to take you through a journey of how I felt as I progressed through the game as I feel that will best show what worked and didn’t for me. The game starts and I chose a key as my unique gift which gave me immediate access to this locked catacomb that most will completely bypass. Me always being curious, took this path which was clearly meant for a higher level but that didn’t detract me, it instead empowered me to show this game that I am not afraid! Immediately a giant stone chariot thing of death came out of no where and killed me again and again and again. I actually did manage to get to the boss room only to find there was zero chance I could beat it at my starting level. So my first hour and a half or so was spent bashing my head against a wall of difficulty that I wasn’t even meant to be done early but hey I could and it turned into a memorable moment for me. I finally emerge from the cave into this seemingly boundless open world and I see a golden knight on a horse. Well I bet this is a totally friendly knight who will guide me on my way; nah it’s souls, everything wants you dead so of course this knight murders me instantly. This triggers the tutorial on death, losing your runes and so on, basic souls information with one twist, your new horse. And what a horse it is. The horse is named Torrent and it can be summoned while in any outdoor field with the press of a button. Torrent controls like a dream mostly because it has the same physics and weight that your character does, only it can move faster and can jump further. Oh right jumping, there is a true jump button now which makes the platforming so much bette… nah it’s still a pain. This horse is basically an extension of your character and makes traveling a breeze, and better yet can be used in combat situations as there are many large scale enemies best taken on while on horseback. The horse combat is very basic with only standard slashes allowed but it works as a sort of new move in your arsenal. Torrent is a welcome addition to the series and I am thrilled they didn’t weigh down the horse with simulation mechanics that would have made it feel like a chore rather than a vehicle of convince (looking at you BOTW). I begin to explore this world and uncover parts of the map by finding map pieces, this gives you the layout of the region you are in. The map is minimalistic with only rest points and major locations being highlighted. Points of interests are inferred from the old school map drawing, if it looks like a drawing of ruins or a castle there will be one there. There are no towers to climb, no filling of the map with side quest icons, its minimalistic in all the right ways to create an amazing sense of adventure. I was off exploring, riding my horse through an open field, the ability to travel in every direction gives me that sense of excitement of the unknown, what will I find! Right away I traveled to a lake and found a warrior camped under a bridge that warned me of a dragon that makes his home on the lake. So of course I had to check this out, I ride toward the lake and a giant dragon swoops down and blocks my path. Feeling underpowered and not ready to battle such a majestic beast I made a note on my map using the marker system and went elsewhere. That’s the key element that makes Elden Ring so free, if something seems to hard you can always ride somewhere else and do one of many different activities to level up and come back later. It’s not like Metroid or Zelda where the world is blocked because you don’t have that item yet, instead it’s blocked because your skills aren’t good enough yet but the feeling of “I can’t wait to return here and overcome this obstacle to see what I missed” is still there in spades. Many of my first hours introduced me to many of the side activities that populate the lands between; mainly catacombs, ruins, caves and boss fight summons. Catacombs, ruins and caves all feature a similar look with repeating group of enemies but each one is laid out differently. I found a surprising amount to have some new fun ideas in them to keep them some what fresh. For instance 100 hours in all of a sudden there was this light mechanic where enemies were untouchable unless you brought them to patch of magical light. Some of these segments acted like puzzles where figuring out how to get the enemy to the light was a multi stepped process. That kind of variety kept me enjoying these side quests but I would be lying if I didn’t say most were time fillers. It was better than seeing the 10th combat shrine in BOTW for sure. These act like mini dungeons and they all have the same sort of structure and they always end in a boss battle though what boss appeared sort of felt as if the devs had a randomizer and just saved whatever boss came up for that mini dungeon. Each one will provide an item for completing them; every once in a while it will provide exactly what you want, though a lot of times it will be something your build can’t use, more on that later. Eventually it was time for me to hit the first legacy dungeon. These are the game spaces that are traditional souls like experiences that include intricately designed levels with many new enemies and a massive boss at the end. Stormveil Castle serves as this games opening castle level which is basically a souls tradition at this point and I believe it’s the best designed opening level in the series. I was in awe at the size of this place, every inch filled with something interesting to see, plenty of hidden paths leading to that out of reach item seen before. While exploring the torch lit halls I could hear some disturbing growls, I spot some multi armed creepy enemy stalking the dinner room below. Further on a find multiple locked doors guarded by large knights, a sense of dread permeates the entire area. There are multiple ways into the castle or you can be a fool and storm the front gate where an army of soldiers await with ballistas to murder you on the spot. Here is this massive open world game and still they took the time to create this perfectly designed traditional level that exceeds what came before, that’s when I knew this game was special. Many hours into the game and I would still come back to this level and find new paths I missed out, secrets that lead to an optional boss even. This castle had two major boss battles which were extremely tough at the level I was. These guys hit hard and fast, no punches are being pulled with these bosses, they are brutal. I began as a Dex build with a Uchigatana sword, my attempts at the bosses were ending rather quickly. I had to explore a bit and learn one of the new elements to this game, the spirit ashes which is almost like Pokémon where you find helpful versions of enemies you face that can be summoned only during specific moments (including mostly every boss). Most of the time they don’t do much damage but they do distract the boss allowing you to get some clean hits in. Yes it feels like using an online summon (which remains an option) so because I am usually a never get help type of player I tried not to use these that much for bosses. But when I felt I was at a loss I did use them early on. I loved the two major bosses of this area, just the right amount of difficulty and spectacle. The game was off to a rousing start, if 25 hours in could be a “start”. After the castle a whole new section of the map opened up, this enormous lake area and I still had a part of the map to the south and east to explore. This is where I hit a snag with the pacing of the game and a lot of the open world design issues began to rear its ugly head. I went on an exploration kick and began to see a lot of the same activities over and over. Like I described before some of these mini dungeons had good ideas but when this type of activity became my primary activity for 90% of my time for roughly 20 to 30 hours it really hurt my experience. It also didn’t help that I later found out the south area was where I was supposed to go first (seriously go south if you start the game) so when I arrived to this area I was like a god. There was no challenge and worse still it had a bunch of boring areas with no legacy dungeon to speak of. In fact if you take the first three major areas of the map there are only three legacy dungeons and one of them is rather small. This also means that unique “major” boss battles were extremely rare for this first part of the game. For a massive chunk of time (though not really that long relative to how huge this game is) I was not experiencing what I love about souls games, I was just riding around this world hitting up random repetitive activity after random activity. Yes I could have just focused on the story and moved on but that’s not me, I like to see everything so I feel this part of the game was balanced poorly. Also my character was not really progressing, I was using my base katana for nearly 60 hours, that’s the size of an entire normal souls game, but for this one it was still just the start. Rewards became a source of frustration because so many rewards were for builds I was not built for. Personally I feel the content itself is the reward for completing an area, I don’t need an item reward for motivation, but I also like to feel like my game is progressing and for the longest time I was just collecting junk I couldn’t use. I thought I lost another great series to the scourge of open world design but then something amazing happened, the back half of this game was filled with incredible locations that are some of the best in the series. There was a magical stretch of this game for like 50 hours where it was perfection. It began with me discovering that not only is there an over world but an underworld as well. While this part of the map isn’t as large as the overworld it is filled with traditional Souls levels. I don’t want to spoil them but there were locations that blew my mind, the way this world would connect to other parts of the map brings back memories of Dark Souls’ perfect level design. Off in the distance I would see some massive temple with no real way of reaching it, many hours later I discovered the path and that moment of realization that I am now in that area from before is so fulfilling. That’s one thing Elden Ring excels at, framing the world in such a way to give the player breathtaking vistas and show that area you desperately want to reach but can’t yet. For this stretch of the game I was hitting legacy dungeon after legacy dungeon and opening up more advanced areas of the map filled with compelling bosses and NPCs with many quests. The sheer variety in environments kept me engaged in ways few games could, I wanted to see it all and unlike the first part of the game the balance between optional side content and high quality legacy dungeons was much more in favor of the quality design. I usually have a moment of zen in every game I truly love and for this game the moment that stands out was this optional tower in Caelid and how different is was from the other towers. Most of the time figuring out how to reach these towers is the trick and once inside you simply take an elevator up to activate this power. Not the case with this tower which was easily acceptable but there was no entrance. Instead an army of enemies guarded it and they were station on platforms covering the walls of this tower shooting arrows at me and also showing me that the way inside would involving climbing and jumping my way up the sides of this tower. I finally fight my way to an entrance and inside are some threatening knights blocking my path to the interior of the tower. I discover the tower itself is a massive puzzle where I have to platform jump my way all the way down in order to activate the elevator that takes me all the way back up. This tower is not required, I am just exploring and I get this inspired location that’s unlike any other place in game. If there is a formula for what gets me most excited in games it’s the unexpected mixed with great gameplay moments and a dash of challenge, this game had those elements come together so many times. All aspects of the game were opening up at an excellent pace. Once I unlocked the ability to respec I started to really experiment with different builds, new weapons, and even spells. All that gear that I felt was useless before was finally becoming viable and it was a blast to find crazy new powers. There are so many weapons of multiple types and the unique named ones all have a different skill attack. All the base weapons can have skills in and their damage type interchanged at any rest spot. No longer are you locked into a upgrade path for one kind of weapon like say strength, dex, or magic; now on the fly you can change the type of scaling you get. This allows many weapons to be viable for many different builds. It’s a more simple system and I do miss the thrill of finding slabs of particular upgrade paths but it’s great being able to use your favorite weapon for any build as long as you have the base stats to use it. I did have issues with how rare the upgrading materials seemed to be; this is another byproduct of the slow start of the game where upgrades felt like they were never coming. Once I hit the back half of the game upgrade material came at a steady pace and I was able to level up a multitude of weapons to very high levels. Never have I experimented with more builds in a souls game, any I time I started to feel bored (or even too overpowered) I would try a different build which came with an assortment of new skills and spells to use. Namco made a big marketing fuss that George RR Martin was involved with the story and I will pay anyone who can show me where his influence is. Basically he wrote the backstory and MAYBE I can see some influence in that there are large royal families with many children and siblings wanting to murder each other for power. Still the way this story is presented and unfolds is just like any other Souls game in that it’s esoteric and mostly nonsensical unless you devote time to piecing together the lore from all the blurbs in the items. I will say the NPCs you do meet are more compelling than the average souls games; the issue is with how you are supposed to follow their quest lines. There are no quest logs but there are markers on the map showing you the NPCs you have met. This isn’t that useful as many times quest givers move as the game progresses. An NPC will introduce themselves and say something like “I must continue forth, till we meet again” and then you are supposed to randomly find them somewhere in this insanely massive world. In a linear game at least the developers can always put them in front of the player but because you can complete this game in any order, many times these NPC might pop up in an area you passed many hours before. Save yourself the trouble and use a guide to find out how to complete these quests, it would be impossible to do without. I did enjoy many of them because they unlock access to many secret areas that would be otherwise inaccessible and many have incredible hidden boss battles tied to them. Some of these characters have tragic stories, some are disposable disgusting monsters that you want to kill, others make you want to see them succeed. This game doesn’t have covenants which I usually love to partake in, but these elaborate quest lines that involve characters in different factions more than made up for it. In a world this big it is important to have characters that stand out and while the stories here aren’t really deep and still confusing from a lore perspective, at least it gives some compelling content outside just exploring and doing the main quest. The online aspect of souls games have always been a favorite of mine, especially invasions. There are some players that hate being invaded but I always found it to be a welcome event because it’s always chaotic, many times memorable. Elden Ring handles the online elements in a way that’s very user friendly in that the player gets to decide if they want to partake in online shenanigans. Automatic invasions while playing normally is out, but there is an item that you can find that allows invasions to happen when you play alone. I used this item a few times because I missed the threat and fear of invasions but after using it a few times I understood the decision to do away with random invasions. The main reason is the structure of the game doesn’t fit well with how invasions normally work. For one once online mode is activated no horses are allowed, so what happens is the moment you are invaded your horse vanishes which serves as a warning that someone is loading into your world. This brings exploration to a grinding halt and it becomes a game of just waiting for the invader to show up so you can fight and get back to the game, it doesn’t naturally happen like in past games. While in legacy dungeons it works a lot more like a traditional invasion but when you can decide when an invasion is allowed to happen you can alleviate the threat of someone killing you while carrying a hefty bounty of runes. Essentially it becomes a glorified duel mode where I basically decided now I will allow someone to invade me, almost always within a minute an invader would show up, we battle and then I would turn it off when I didn’t want to be interrupted anymore. Invasions still happen randomly when players are playing coop together. I think this is a fair trade off as if you want help from someone else the game should make it harder and letting another player invade seems like a good trade. I didn’t really play with others outside bosses, I was the one usually invading. What happens when almost every invasion attempt pits you against two or three players, well what do you think?! Unless the other team is incompetent you will be ganged up on and destroyed. You know what… I’m ok with that; being invaded and getting killed when not really expecting it is really shitty, especially after getting an online partner as dying would reset that connection. For those reasons I think it should be an overwhelming challenge for the invader so I didn’t mind being a punching bag. I had some laugh at loud moments chasing and battling some of these teams of players. Every once in a while I would actually kill them, or manage to kill the host which is all you really have to do. One memorable fight I had was under the giant legs of this walking mausoleum and I am fending off the coop partner while the host is shooting spells from afar. I kill the partner and shift my focus on the host, I rush in and get some hits in before he evaded me strikes and uses spells to keep me away. Just as the host is about to drink to heal a giant foot steps on him killing him instantly, I found it hilarious. I would alternate getting online and continuing my adventure because I love moments like that. I do miss having covenants devoted to online play and set online areas where these battles would play out, though there are hints that a PvP arena is coming later. There is one item in this game that acts like one of the covenant items that summon you to protect others, it’s a ring that you can activate so when anyone in that area is being invaded you can be summoned to help them kill the invader. This I left on all the time and I would be called in steadily but not too frequently as to be annoying. Sometimes it would be pointless as I would arrive and the invader is dead or already killed the host, other times I materialize very far away from the action so I am just running around a level lost while looking for the host. It’s a nice addition that feels very covenant like but without the tangible awards which I do miss. Overall it’s not the best online mode this series has had but it still provided me with many hours of fun moments, including helping others battle the many bosses of Elden Ring. I think most would agree that many of the best parts of this series are the bosses. They test all your skills, they bookend major levels and are the reason you build up your character so you can defeat these monstrosities. Elden Ring has so many bosses, SO MANY, and when you have so many bosses not all are winners, plus many repeat. While there are plenty of filler bosses I want to talk about the ones that are excellent, Elden Ring has a stunning collection of impressive boss battles that push your skills to the limit, too much so in some instances. As usual there are many types of bosses from the smaller fast ones to the huge lumbering monstrosities. Many are show stoppers; incredible moments that serve to enhance the experience to a thrilling crescendo. All it took was the first major boss, Margit, to prove to me that FROM brought their A game. One of the mainstays of the franchise are dragons. Now I am a sucker for dragons in video games, even when they get repetitive and boy does it get repetitive here. The first dragon in the lake was a momentous occasion, this fire breathing behemoth is guarding a lair which can be approached at any time leading to a thrilling battle. A few other times I was just riding around and swooping down from the skies a dragon begins to attack while I’m riding Torrent. Torrent changes the way dragon battles play out making them more dynamic as now when they take off and create space you can quickly ride to them. This also ends up with a cheapening of the fight as it becomes a lot of riding to their back leg and attacking. The first few dragons were great but they just kept appearing over and over and over. There were variations of the kind of attacks they did but many of the fights ended up with the same strategy. Later on they start to throw two or even three dragons at you at once which I did greatly enjoy as it’s a spectacle for sure but still kind of lazy. Sadly this kind of boss repetition happens all over the game. Many of the boss fights seem very interesting the first time you battle them but that sense of awe and satisfaction in battling a new boss fades when the boss repeats many times, almost never really changing the strategy. Plus some always guard a repeated location, for instance at the minor trees you will find a tree spirit guarding the tree every time. Bosses you find in the side areas repeat many times as well. Some enemies that served as open world bosses before become almost regular enemies later on. In fact the entire game has an enemy variety issue toward the very end of the game as whole groups of enemies repeat. For a game this big I do think the enemy variety as a whole is super impressive but it’s the curse of open world design rearing it’s ugly head having so much repetition of enemies and bosses. When the major bosses show up though, oh man what a show! Legacy dungeons ended with such great interesting boss battles many having some hook not found in any other fight. Late in the game there was this devilishly hidden optional dragon battle in a late game area that’s accessed by randomly falling down a hidden path, very easy to miss. So I reach this place and the king of all dragons show up in this incredible arena, all new attacks, no horse, just you and this elaborate impressive battle, one of the best in the game totally missable. That’s the magic of Elden Ring, you might see the same boss while exploring every nook and cranny or you might just discover an epic legendary boss battle. I am not one to really remember every souls game boss battles, some do stand out from previous games but I’m no souls historian. While I can’t give an accurate ranking of this games bosses against other games bosses I can just say I think this game will have some of the most memorable bosses on a whole of any game in the series. The thrill of battling Malenia with her relentless attacks, the unique move set of Horah Loux, the impressive scale of well I don’t want to spoil it but it’s a big big enemy. When a game makes me feel that feeling of “wow I can’t believe I’m fighting this” that’s special. All that being said I really have to discuss the major critique that many players have with the bosses and certain aspects of how combat is handled; bosses in general are too aggressive and don’t have attack patterns that fit with the traditional melee only build. This discussions open a whole can of worms about playing the game the right way, about using what the game gives you, about “cheating!!!” cause you used an over powered move. I frankly don’t care about most of that stuff, if it makes you happy do it, if you are having fun play as you like. But for some players they couldn’t play as they would like and I acknowledge that is an issue, so let me break it down as best as I can and explain why I still very much enjoyed these boss battles. Elden Ring is the most accessible game in the series as it allows for players to have many avenues to overcome challenging roadblocks, whether it be through use of spirits, weapons with powerful magic attacks or inviting other players. The developers seemed to adjust to the idea of players using these aides by making some enemies and many bosses extremely aggressive to make sure the overall difficulty of Elden Ring is not comprised. So at the same time ER is the most accessible and in some areas one of the hardest Souls game to date. To me that’s an impressive line to straddle and very important because at its core the success of Souls is directly tied to the players will to overcome great adversity. I think this system allows a player to set their own difficulty level so to speak and find a spot that is ideal for them. For me I was always a melee focused dexterity player that refuses to use online help for any boss. I do dabble in magic but never enough to really use magic as a viable strategy, most of the time I am using melee attacks and dodging. I started off that way in this game and quickly hit a brick wall on the first two bosses where I was probably under leveled and I decided well let me try these spirits and see how they help. As mentioned before the spirits aren’t very effective in dealing damage (at least the first few) but they distract the boss so you get plenty of windows for clean hits in. I decided to only use them when a fight seemed very unfair and toward the end of the game I decided to never use them as to really focus on defeating the final bosses on my own. There were some bosses where I welcomed the challenge, big story moments, and some bosses where I was just wanting to get it over with (the many repeats) so I would just use them and be done with it. Then there is the weapon and skill variety that is greatly expanded from DS3. Many legendary weapons have unique skills that are essentially magic attacks, they take magic points to use and can cause big damage from a distance and many times induce a status effect like bleed or freeze. I found these weapons to be a blast to use because it actually made the search for new weapons feel special. Before almost all weapons of the same type had the same animations, maybe one would have a better third slash or a small variation that allows for an extra hit, but for the most part a katana is a katana, a sword is a sword and so on. Now weapons of the same type could have vastly different powers. Using the katanas as an example, one shoots a magic blade out in front, another does a massive blood slash that quickly builds blood status effect. One of my favorite legendary swords had two different magic attacks, a magic beam and a large area of effect fire blast. As a player that always wanted to mess around with magic but always loved the thrill of melee this is a great mix. Add the ability to easily respec and I was exploring new builds, new weapons with unique magic attacks any time I got bored of the ones I was using. The problem with a game with so many weapons and skills is how to balance it all so that there isn’t a few of them that clearly are more powerful than others. Well as with most RPGs (especially any with PvP) there are a few weapons that clearly become the go to damage dealers. One attack in particular became the poster child for this, the hoarfrost stomp which shoots a bunch of ice out in a large path in front of the player and obliterates enemies. It was so powerful it had to be nerfed by a patch a few weeks after release. I used this skill for a chunk of time, during the part of the game I mentioned earlier when I was in the lull getting kind of bored. Does the magic attacks hurt the experience of the game? It can, with this attack in particular most any enemy encounter became trivial as I would just spam the frost attack and everything would die. Bosses were more complicated to battle but the attack was still extremely effective in stunning then and causing a lot more damage than a normal melee combo. Eventually I stopped using the attack for the rest of the entire game because the whole pushing one button thing was wearing thin. That said there were parts of the map where I was bored of fighting the same enemies and this attack streamlined the amount of time I had to spend. Once I reached more interesting locations I went with more complex builds that still had magic attacks but to me felt more balanced. This all comes back to the bosses which as mentioned before are very aggressive, more so toward the end of the game. Normally a Souls boss has a good balance between a string of attacks and windows for the player to get their attacks in. It’s all about pattern recognition, learning the timing to avoid an attack string then knowing when you can punish with an attack of your own. That ratio between attack and defense was pretty balanced in past games which leads to fights that can be mastered in impressive ways using the most basic of weapons and attacks. Elden Ring distorts that ratio with bosses that do elaborate long attack patterns with almost no windows to get an attack in. Most of the fights will be spent dodging all kinds of crazy attacks, these bosses have so many ways to kill you including massive area attacks that means if you do come in for an attack and the boss chooses to use the AoE you are kind of stuck. If you want to stick with melee only, no help runs, well it’s going to be frustrating and that’s where a lot of the criticism comes from. A good video game gives the players the tools to overcome challenges and that’s what Elden Ring does. All those weapons I described before allow you to attack the bosses from a distance creating way more attack opportunities. All of a sudden that ratio of attack and defense starts to even out just like past games, it’s almost as if the game is balanced around these swords and their powers, funny that. There are some weapons that clearly rise to the top and get recommended to be used for most of the bosses, that can be a valid critique that many people just get corralled into using one or two weapons for the toughest bosses. Still I did experiment quite a bit and I think there are many variable weapons and builds that can be used to defeat these bosses. What was most important to me is that the sense of challenge remains and I felt I had the same level of difficulty fighting these bosses with these special attacks as I did fighting past Souls bosses with just basic attacks. While the bosses are extremely aggressive they still have patterns that can be learned, attacks that can be dodged and strategies that can be honed after dying and replaying them over and over again. I would spend close to an hour on one fight and feel myself slowly honing on the exact timing eventually not being surprised by attacks that at first seemed unguardable. To me these bosses were spectacular, they push me to the limit, a limit that I still learned to push through by proper planning and learning the fight. Catering your defense to the boss is more important than ever. This game has a wide variety of talismans that act like rings do in past games giving specific stat boosts. I feel in terms of pre fight strategy I think Elden Ring offers the most options to customize your approach. This is where I don’t agree with the critique that boss are unfair, it only seems that way if you as a player purposefully limit yourself from using the tons of tools and abilities the game throws at you. I get the issue where a group of hardcore fans feel they got left behind when the developers decided to focus on making the game more accessible for everyone else. In the end if those players want to only play with melee and no magic then the way the bosses operate is a valid critique. I think for most this game goes above and beyond to let players customize their play and find their own balance that works for them to enjoy the bosses and the game as a whole. On a technical level Elden Ring is not the most graphically impressive game. It doesn’t look any better than Dark Souls 3, it clearly looks last gen with no improvements to any of the animations. Its still beautiful as the artists FROM employ are some of the best in creating stunning vistas to gawk at. Performance will vary, I played on PS5 and in the open world it would have moments where it would clearly chug but most legacy dungeons ran a smooth 60fps. The music is standard Souls fare but I will say the opening theme is maybe the best in the series. The push for open world especially in franchises that are very carefully designed is one I have mixed feelings on. Most of the time they loose something in the translation but I feel Elden Ring avoids most of the pitfalls by including more than enough classic style levels which have some of the best level design in series history. The open world adds an amazing sense of adventure and freedom when tied with how many customizable options there are to build your own character. Yes it can drag at moments and repetition is seen on a regular basis but the sheer volume of standout moments more than makes up for it. It’s almost an absurdity how much great content this game has, it takes an amazing development team to craft a game this large and make so compelling. Elden Ring is the best game FROM software has ever made, it is the new standard for Souls games and perhaps for open worlds. |
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Posted by Dvader Sun, 17 Apr 2022 22:08:05
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