I'm one of those people who never got the appeal of fromsoft games. I tried Dark souls and bloodbourne but they never clicked. Elden ring is the first soulsbourne game I've finished and I'm very proud of that accomplishment. It took me a long time to do so though, I first started the game in 2022 and got up to the red wolf of radagon where I got stuck and then gave up. It was at the start of this year that I decided to give the game a go again and that's when I really liked it, I breezed through the first few bosses and then had some fun challenges on some mid game bosses. It's when we get to the fire giant that I have an issue, this boss is easily the worst designed boss fight in any video game ever. He has way too much health and can one shot you if your not careful not to mention that he rolls away every 5 seconds. This boss single handedly got me to take a break from the game for 5 months. Until the other day when I thought "why not? Let's give elden ring another go" and after about 10 or 15 tries... I did it, I finally beat the fire giant. Following this the game was a breeze, I beat the godskin duo, I beat malikeith, I beat godfrey and then I got to radagon. I was at the end of a fromsoft game, I'd done it. I struggled on radagon for a while but eventually cleared him, he might be my favourite boss in the whole game if you don't account for the next part of the fight. The Elden Beast. This fight is so bullshit, after radagon you have like no heals left and then the elden beast can kill you in a second if you get unlucky with his moves, not to mention he is also tanky as hell and rolls around a lot like the fire giant. I didn't hate him completely though, I think he has a great design and is a really cool concept that was just executed poorly. This should go without saying but the visuals and music in this game are just so beautiful and it's clear a lot of thought was put into them. It's also crazy how many side bosses there are in elden ring, it's like every second turn there's a new one waiting to be slain. Overall, I had a super fun time with elden ring and I can't wait for the dlc now. I might even go and try some of the other fromsoft games to see if my opinion has changed on them.
(Side note: I haven't beat malenia yet, I'll get to that at some point. She is ridiculously hard, holy crap)

Marking this replay down as finished for now since I just needed to get the DLC-essential boss fights - Radahn and Mohg - done, and I managed that so I'm happy.

I didn't have that many brand new revelations about this game while I was playing it, to be honest. I thought I would have more to say but I ended up just relearning how good Elden Ring is, and that's about it.

I suppose I summoned more this time around. Actually, in my original playthrough of the game, I wasn't really able to summon at all due to my university wi-fi being dogshit, so it was a feature I got to enjoy for the first time and I like it! It made certain fights, especially duo battles, a lot less frustrating, and I wasn't required nearly as much to dedicate an entire day of my life to learning the ins and outs of a fight in order to beat it, which was a relief. Don't get me wrong, I love the dick-flattening carousel as much as the next girl, but I have a full time job now and nowhere near the same kind of free time to play it that way. I appreciated the extra support. It didn't even make the fights less engaging; it simply shifted the balance a little.

On top of that, I've gotten to play certain parts of the game with my flatmate using the multiplayer, which has been a treat. I'm not someone who plays multiplayer games particularly often, but I can quite easily get into a game like Elden Ring in this way. It's been so fun to basically breeze through the experience and help each other out where we can. We managed to beat Mohg together which was a trip, because that fight is insanely difficult and we ended up winning by killing him before he could activate his second phase. Absolute scenes were had in our little Glasgow flat at 2am on a Monday lol.

Elden Ring is just a really special game. It's a delight to play a game so willing - and eager - to be mean to you. It speaks to an untainted vision that the game expects you to meet it on its terms, rather than bend to yours. That being said, the many methods of approach to any given situation certainly make this a really accessible game, so I hope more people continue to play it into the future. It's a peach!

reviewing it again because why not

>elden ring implements better jumping
>"OHHHHH its like jett" - valorant player
>fuck you

I've put this game down and attempted to pick it back up again on four separate occasions now, across two different consoles, three different classes and with and without multiplayer. Nothing hooked me.
It's an absolutely beautiful game, and it's clearly very inspired. Unfortunately I just don't like how the game handles and I can't help but feel a lack of purpose in anything I do. It's not a matter of the game being too difficult, or a need to be contrarian. It's just not working for me. So, I'm officially shelving it. My PS5 will thank me for the extra space.

I wanted to replay this game before the dlc dropped but also I wanted to try and experience the game that everyone else seemed to enjoy WAY more than I did the first time round. I've replayed every Souls game multiple times even the ones I don't really like. I've seen the end credits roll on Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 multiple times and tried my hardest to get the most out of those games that I struggled to connect with. (This actually made me really love Dark Souls 2 despite its flaws and it's probably my favorite Dark Souls title)

All that to say is that when I did beat Elden Eing for the first time back in 2022 I didn't get it.

It was certainly a great game and one that I appreciated much more than I personally enjoyed.

Returning to this title has opened my eyes a little. I still don't love it as much as everyone else. Something just hasn't fully connected but I enjoyed myself WAY MORE this go around.

It might be the contrarian in me but I had to learn to play this game my way. It's probably why instead of some Katana or Greatsword build I chose the weapon class with the least amount of weapons in it. I used a duelwield Nightrider flail set. One I made scale with Dex and the other I made inflict frost buildup. I've never seen anyone else use Flails in this game and I figured I'd try them out. Definitely combines my love of dex builds with this game's stance mechanic that had me downing bosses in 3 jumping attacks. This build is only possible if you have a friend drop you the second Night rider flail or if you're in NG+. I wanted to have fun so I just had my boy give it to me in exchange for something he wanted to try.

While not extremely overpowered the build made my playstyle very fun. I hate using shields since Bloodborne and Sekiro are my two favorite Souls titles. I also refrained from using summons this go around because if Kai Cenat can do it than so can I.

In this new run I found myself not bound by expectation or build. I did what I wanted and played with the only rule being no summons. This playthrough really tested my skills as a souls player and in that reignited the challenge of the souls games I've not felt since first beating Dark Souls 2 for the first time. Beating that game was such a rewarding feeling. It felt like I overcame so much and earned the right to see those endcredits. I had the same feeling after beating Sekiro and Bloodborne for the first times.

I've searched for this feeling ever since and only Lies of P got close to giving it to me with the Nameless Puppet boss at the end.

This feeling was achieved in this playthrough

Just my tarnished, a few incantations, and two fails

We overcame the Lands Between

Now truth be told I haven't actually seen the credits yet. I stopped right after Godfrey. I haven't fought the Elden Beast yet because I want to know if the DLC will add a new ending. So I'm right at the end but am refraining until Shadow of the Erdtree.

But needless to say I now see what people see when they think about Elden Ring

A True Masterpiece Of Gaming

When it comes to video game awards, more often than not, they feel meaningless. Plenty of games have been awarded "Best of show" and achieved "WINNER OF 50 AWARDS!" only to be released and, at best, merely be very good and, at worst, not that good.

Elden Ring deserves all the praise it gets. It is an absolute modern masterpiece and one that will age like fine wine.

This is a souls-like game refined with an open world approach that in no way is bloated but instead uses it to its advantage. Take the visuals. The world of Elden Ring is lovely and bleak. Beautiful and sorrow. Its a testament to FromSoftware that they have done a grand job of world building, lore and visually. There is a minor blemishes but nothing to ever take away that fantasy immersion of sheer wonder and terror that Elden Ring provides. The audio is just fantastic from is orchestral score to the ambience being done to perfection.

This leads to how exploration is implemented. One one hand Elden Ring is all about exploring and taking your time in getting more powerful and skillful, knowing when you can push through and when to retreat and come back to an area/boss when you're more powerful/capable. Rushing or just being stubborn will just see you get your ass handed to you again and again with very little, if any progress. Therefore exploring is highly encouraged but instead of it just being a chore, it becomes a thrill. Not just in curiosity sake (you may find something that makes you more powerful or becomes a vital aid, you may find an area that is too tough which then serves as a goal) but in different kind of environments you can find. Elden Ring is so visually diverse that just finding a new area is a reward in itself.

And boy does Elden Ring make you work for it. If you're not familiar with Dark Souls type of gameplay, lets just say its punishing gameplay that pushes trial and error to the forefront, making you memorize enemies and environment hazards well enough to overcome them. Yes, you will get frustrated, angry and stressed in places. But this is part of the beauty of these types of games. They build up, knowing that, if you keep trying and learn, you will eventually overcome what is causing such pain and those emotions turn into feelings of relief and satisfaction, which make it very gratifying. And to Elden Ring's credit, its not as harsh as past FromSoftware games like Dark Souls trilogy, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or other well known "Souls-Like" such as Nioh.

This is mainly because Elden Ring also expects you to be smart rather then overcome via 100% skill and hard work. Yes, it's all well and good being able to dodge roll and exploit openings from your enemies. But sometimes, you can take advantage of the level design, hiding in a room and cheesing the enemy with a bow while it thrashes around, doing its powerful attacks in futility. Or using a summon to distract the enemy and use hit and run attacks. it's all about "work smarter, not harder" Make no mistake, you will be working hard but you'll also find ways to make the burden less so.

Even its issues can be a blessing? A Boss exhibiting dumb AI? Enemies falling to their deaths? In most games, that lessens the experience. In Elden Ring? That's a reprieve. A "thank god it's happening" moment. You don't scoff at the small mercies Elden Ring provides, you breath a sigh of relief. And in terms of actual issues, its really hard to fault the game. Maybe you can poke at the lack of lore? Well welcome to a FromSoftware game. It can feel longer than a usual souls-like game but that's just the nature of it being an Open-world game.

In reality, the only reason to not give Elden Ring a chance is because you don't like Action-Adventure and/or Open-World games. Otherwise, you owe it to yourself to play Elden Ring. Beautiful, fantastic gameplay with a ton of replayability. It's the kind of game to make you have faith in AAA games. It's a masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10

For me, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are almost twin games.

They share a lot of the same DNA, but the strengths of one are also the weaknesses of the other.

I think its biggest weakness are the bosses. i still have no clue why they felt the need to make every boss Nameless King and give them variable delays. Dark Souls 3 had the bosses and the character controller operating in perfect unison, while here they struggle against each other. Farum Azula is also just a terrible area and murders the pace of the game.

Even just removing Farum Azula would make my rating go up significantly. Still, Elden Ring is a fantastic, if flawed, game. In other words: It's a Fromsoft game.

Acho que Elden ring tem um dos melhores sistemas de combate que já vi em jogos. É bizarro a quantidade de builds que você pode fazer pro seu personagem dentro do jogo, fora a quantidade de chefes, a maioria tendo uma batalha épica.
Senti um pouco pela falta de uma história mais linear. A história do jogo é ótima, mas a forma de contar ela é péssima, tem partes da história do jogo que é contado na descrição de um item que você encontra na pqp depois de lutar com 300 inimigos, e essa descrição só vai fazer sentido se você tiver encontrado todos os itens necessários pra isso.
Outro ponto que me incomoda é o fato de que várias áreas do jogo você só vai passar reto dos inimigos que estão lá porque absolutamente não vale a pena lutar com eles pra ganhar tão poucas runas.