Elden Ring

Obtained platinum trophy in ~170 hours at lvl 192. Not interested in co-op/PvP, played offline.

The wondrous and massive world of the Lands Between is literally awesome, the lore intriguing and captivating. Exploring the castles and wilderness, caves and catacombs quickly became an addiction. There are some performance issues but I'm not that bothered by them. Still, the performance isn't anything to write home about. There also aren't any DualSense features on PS5.

Since Elden Ring has been widely praised, my review focuses on criticism.

My biggest complaint is that many of the enemies and bosses feel disappointingly unbalanced, which is a big issue when a game centers around combat. A band of towering giants with flaming swords? Who cares, bring it on! But see those rats sniffing about? You better run or die in a ditch. Many basic enemies, like dogs, deal more damage than the bosses. How is that intentional?

There are bosses that offer a fair and fun challenge, but many (or even the majority) of them are just ridiculous. Either they're too strong, tanky and fast or total pushovers. Who's going to die in two hits, me or the boss? When the hard ones aren't already hard enough they come in pairs (yay...) and the weak ones die to a couple of swings (that's it?).

When so many of the bosses fall into these two extremities, it means that many of the fights aren't particularly fun nor memorable. They feel repetitive or anticlimactic. The hard bosses are prone to extremely delayed attacks, likely to throw off souls veterans. Their AoE attacks and combos deal massive damage. Even if you survive one with a sliver of HP left, the bosses are often scripted to attack when you heal, so a lot of the challenge boils down to making zero mistakes. Add spirit summons, one of the major additions to the series, to the mix and many of the fights feel like they have almost random odds of victory.

Many boss fights have clearly been designed with spirit summons (what the gatekeepers refer to as "easy mode") in mind so they're definitely part of the intended gameplay. I still wish more bosses had been designed solely for single-player (no spirit/NPC summons) like in the previous games. I shudder to wonder how big a pain in the ass a spiritless run would be.

FromSoftware had already perfected the "souls-like boss" in their previous games. Elden Ring proves that these games work better in a more focused and linear setting. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely enjoying the game (plenty of bosses included), but it doesn't strike me as FromSoft's greatest work yet. The gameplay feels oddly dissatisfying during certain fights.

A handful of other complaints:
Considering how vast Elden Ring is, it's baffling how vague and directionless the NPC quests are, to say the least. Trying to figure out where an NPC has moved requires more blind luck than anything else. I don't need the exact location on the map, but I'd prefer a few hints to Fextralife.

Item/magic quick select feels quite old-fashioned. They should've implemented something more modern (similar to e.g. TLOU or Dishonored). L3 as the sneak/dismount button is frustrating, to put it mildly, but I haven't suffered accidental dismounts since switching L3 and ↓, allowing me to change items easily while walking. The map markers feel lacking, there should be more options or different colors. Can't compare the equipment in the shop menu. Fall damage feels inconsistent. Most items seem almost redundant.

The best content in Elden Ring are the legacy dungeons, like the Stormveil Castle or the Volcano Manor. The peerless level design makes the exploration so damn satisfying and fun. Character design and art direction are thoroughly superb, even breathtaking at times. Elden Ring has improved many aspects of the "soulsborne experience", but for me, it doesn't reach the heights of Bloodborne, Dark Souls or Sekiro. I would still recommend it to anyone interested in challenging action RPGs and open-world games, however, if the next FromSoft game turns out to be yet another Dark Souls, I'll pass.

Game of The Year 2022

simply perfect. The best game I've ever played in my life and there is so much content and beautiful landscapes to explore, enemies are ruthless and even a simple enemy feels like a boss fight at first until you learn how they move and attack and then they become much easier to deal with. Fromsoft is my new favorite developer.

So f*cking stupid game. Every one kill you like an insect. There is no way to find out what is next mission and what to do. Character moves like an elephant and enemies moves like cheeta. Its stupid at all.

I am conflicted about this game.
Its the greatest time ive had playing a game ever,but it also fumbled on many things
Exploring stormveil castle blew my mind!it was so fucking incredible,fighting radahn in this “festival”felt like such a push forward in fromsofts boss design,like they were trying new stuff and i couldn’t wait for the late game bosses,and areas and lore!!!
But when i did i was distraught,i had 0 fun fighting maliketh,godfrey,mogh,morgott and that last boss was an ABSOLUTE JOKE.being forced to resort to ashes or just roll 20x before being able to attack once is just not it.
When i first started playing fromsoft games the npcs were so fresh compared to the others games boring npcs that didnt shut up with the same soulless dialogue,but after going through fromsofts whole catalogue and then playing ER,i can affirm that it didn’t just get stale and overplayed but got even worse than the earlier entries.
By the time i was done with the game,those feelings i had 150 hours earlier were drained by the nonsense the late game presented.
And i was so tired by the end that i couldn’t even watch any lore videos so storywise idk anything that happened through my entire playthrough.
And i know miyazakis whole take and how he approaches story telling but not a single improvement has been made since ds1,and i feel it’s only gotten staller and staller to me with every single entry.
I personally dont wanna resort to a vaatyvidya video to know whats going on in the game.
But still with so many undeniable flaws this game is lightyears ahead of any game I’ve played,hence the 10/10

- Gameplay: 6
- Story: 8
- Characters: 8
- Sounds: 5
- Graphics: 6
- Level Design: 4
- My Opinion: 5
- Device Played On: PC