Elden Ring provides one of the most complete video gaming experiences available on the market. Gameplay, aesthetics, lore, practically everything is firing on all cylinders at all times.

The level of replay ability provided by its simple but diverse character building system is immense. Every player will get something totally different out of it on their first playthrough, and half the fun is finding out what ludicrous build your friends have developed.

From an art design standpoint, few games match up. It somehow feels as though every single point in the worldspace was designed to evoke the sensation of viewing a painting. The world is eminently readable, providing the player a clear sense of direction at all times without resorting to many intrusive UI elements. The art itself is familiar to those familiar with From Software, but in this entry seems to have taken on a more baroque appearance, focusing so much on detail and clarity.

All of the improvements to gameplay are greatly appreciated. The ability to jump, guard counter, and ashes of war increase the depth of each encounter greatly.

The game struggles somewhat with boss design. While by and large most bosses are wonderfully designed (and indeed, many are among the greatest Fromsoft have ever designed, Malenia included) repetitious reuse of bosses, and, to an equal extent, the dungeons they are found in, dampen the enjoyment of these fights.

While the game lacks a main story, instead, as per previous Fromsoft works, there are multiple stories that play out over elaborate quest lines. These stories range from beautiful to boring, and unfortunately the best of these ended up being cut from the game. That being said the implied story is so massive and so hidden that I find it almost more intriguing than a traditional narrative.

Overall this game is easily the pinnacle of From Software, which itself is a seemingly impossible accolade for a studio that rarely releases even mediocre titles.

"Whew," the enamored g@me play0r sighs out in reverence as the boss clearly designed by someone who thought they were on a job for a mediocre Platinum title did three SICKASS ANIMEY slow-mo front flips, each dealing 70% max health damage to the player with around 8 quintillion HP (which was only reasonable to invest a few points into after getting some from the eleventh Piss-And-Shit-Smeared Tree Spirit overworld boss fight that also netted a BAD. ASS. spirit ash to help you circumvent said bosses in the future except it's objectively worse than half the ones you already have) which they got to by trekking across seven hills, seven lands, seven seas and seven hells, each populated by more barren stretches of land than the last with s p o o k y copy-pasted caves and catacombs breaking up the monotony of running into small platoons of disinterested enemies you can't even be assed to to swing a sword on horseback at on your way to the next 𝓛𝓮𝓰𝓪𝓬𝔂 𝓓𝓾𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓸𝓷 (VERY important areas they put all their ACTUAL level design into! which is why half of them are directionless slogs where everything looks the same and with enemy placement done by the one only Mr Miyazaki'ˢ ⁸⁻ʸᵉᵃʳ⁻ᵒˡᵈ ˢᵒⁿ who really liked the funny jump battan) so that they can find an NPC which mysteriously vanished one Saturday night a few weeks into the playthrough but is crucial for the conditions of one of the many different-colored endings outlined by the Purposely Vague and not frequently Irritatingly Nebulous lore (which is totally okay because that's how they always did quests dude :P it's NOT comically archaic in contrast to the world design xP) but at least there's some World Essence and Snail Drippings to pick up on the way in case you ever find a cookbook that teaches you how to MacGuyver the two into a portable ICBM and then not land the shot because the Lands Between Olympic Champion you're chucking it at read your input had superior reflexes, "From the Software has done it again!"


I gotta be honest man I think this formula has the studio stuck spinning their wheels and given ER's astronomical success they're probably not gonna try reinventing it anytime soon. The game isn't bad. I'll still play the DLC. But seeing it heralded as the zenith of the genre let alone Fromsoft's masterwork gives me a fucking migraine.

O jogo tem pontos fortíssimos como o sistema de combate ultra polido, as animações dos inimigos possuem um capricho fenomenal, a quantidade de armas, armaduras, combos, sets unicos, bosses secretos. É um deleite pra quem ama a serie souls e gosta de como a mecanica de um souls propriamente dito funciona.

PORÉM, Falando de gosto pessoal, nao me agrada a não linearidade exarcebada do game, é tudo tão livre que te disnorteia. Há quem goste e eu entendo quem vá apontar isso como um ponto possitivo do game, mas, o que me prende em um souls-like é a sua progressão cadenciada e linearidade.