"first off, pickle, and then try sage" -a message on the ground, providing a delicious soup recipe

as some guy who likes exploring in video games and isn't satisfied until every square inch of the map has been scoured, this game is incredible and peak. everybody knows its strengths at this point, probably, but i am crawling over the finish line two years after the game came out so you'll have to give me some grace here. do you get it. grace like the. grace in game. haha

really though, it is actually absurd how many unique items, tidbits of storytelling, beautiful locations, and just adventures there are hidden away in mostly every nook and cranny of this world. there were multiple times i'd doubt my completionist's urge, thinking i had to be insane for attempting to check the most random spot for a path or dropped item, only to find that curiosity rewarded. and then they hide entire area entrances and bosses through illusory walls and off the sides of inconspicuous cliffs. of course. that's definitely where i'm most thankful for player messages (it's a strand-type game) since they can both tip you off towards those esoteric secrets and warn you when a long, annoying pathway in fact does not have anything hiding at its end.

the diversity of enemies and bosses is something i have to shout out to the void as well. i've seen some grumbling over bosses, enemies, assets etc being reused over time, but i feel like the variety here is honestly incredible with far more diversity than any open world game i've played before. if you told me there were like 100 enemy types in this game i'd believe you. every encounter brings a new arena, new mixes of combatants, and oftentimes some cool lore or environmental storytelling to go along with it. even in those cases where bosses graduate from "big encounter" to "just another enemy" it still feels interesting - like this beastman dude is pretty interesting, wonder what "farum azula" is. then you get to farum azula and there's a ton of him and it makes sense that he's not special there, he's just some dude, some beastman of farum azula. there's absolutely nothing like the capra demon spam of the dark souls endgame, or the undead dragon spam on that wondrous note.

i feel like you could get a phD in the weapons, weapon skills, sorceries/incantations, all the craftables, the weird niche interactions between enemies, it's all so much that it makes me want to do multiple new game cycles just to understand and appreciate it all. not to mention fashion souls, which of course returns. all of this freeform collecting and character building leaves the difficulty curve feeling totally adjustable. i for one marked most of the runebears on my map for later, because screw those guys until i'm overleveled. my only real complaints off the top of my head: what the hell is the fall damage, and we need new rats

perfect timing for shadow of the erdtree, just need to get my ten hours of youtube lore video studying in. now we can devour the gods togethaaa

Okay, I finally got around to playing the game and LORD am I ever glad that I did. This whole journey for me started because I watched Kai Cenat struggle with the tree sentinel and I thought: Hey, I could probably do that. So I did that! ... and then I did a lot of other things I had never done before.

I just want to say that I am giving this 5 stars, which is an indication of my enjoyment of the game and not a comment on it's flaws or merits. Like anything else that is real, this game is not a work of perfection. That being said, There are few games I've enjoyed to the extent that I enjoyed Elden Ring which is why I will leave it with such high praise.

Let's hit on the few things I didn't like first.

I understand the the quest "system" is a vestigial organ from dark souls, but in my opinion a game with such a rich story needs a more consistent way to experience that story hoping you wander across the correct NPC or going back to deliberately re-check an area multiple times. In my playthrough, I had started Millicent's quest, progressed to what I thought was it's natural solution, and then left to "carry on" with the game. What I did not realize later in my playthrough is that her quest would be very important to me. At a loss of where to start, I look up a quest guide and find out that on my own I have basically everything I need for her quest and now just have to fast travel to a bunch of locations I've already been to meet her there? Why was this the case? Because I didn't revisit the same areas multiple times to progress the dialogue enough. It's unintuitive and somehow I ended up completing the quest on my own anyways. It's not just Millicent either. Despite playing with the intention of avoiding online guides I was simply unable to due to how bad the game is at pointing you in the right direction at times. This is fine if you want only 5% of players to experience any story elements in your games.

On occasion, the open world actually feels like an open world video game. This would normally not be a contention. But, because Elden Ring has so many distinctive environments and setpieces, it becomes pointedly obvious when assets are reused and enemies are copy pasted. There are lore reasons for some of it but it still broke my immersion on occasion and the catacombs and caves were very repetitive. Same thing with repeat boss encounters and cornily renamed bosses (I'm looking at you Godefroy the Grafted).

As for the positives: this whole experience was a positive. I loved every moment and felt that every moment of genuine exploration was rewarding and interesting. For me, this game comes on the heels of completing Another Crab's Treasure, which was my first completion of what you could call a "soulslike" game. The combat always fresh, and I had just enough respecs to try new playstyles and experiment with different items and spells. There was so much optional side content that I most likely missed that I could play another 40-50 hours and still not see everything. While some will say this quantity comes at the price of quality, I tend to disagree, This has been probably my most satisfying play of 2024, and fucking balatro came out this year.

Meu primeiro jogo Souls na vida, achei uma maravilha de jogo mas tem seus problemas.

Senti falta desse jogo ter um impacto maior em mim, quase tudo nesse jogo é muito bom mas senti falta de algo que não sei explicar, e existem tantas coisas pra explorar, seja talismãs dungeons o subsolo, q pra mim que ta jogando a primeira vez um souls achei tudo meio opressor demais, eu definitivamente não seguiria jogando esse jogo se eu não visse guias no youtube de literalmente como começar essa porra, mas no geral é um otimo jogo que tem uma trilha sonora que achei marcante e otimas boss fights, pra mim a Fight mais dificil foi aquele zé buceta do Gigante de Fogo. a Malenia eu demorei 30 minutos nela ate pegar o jeito e conseguir matar no geral tem seus problemas mas é um otimo jogo.