FromSoftware at its absolute best. Where do I even begin?
Like Zelda BOTW, you're essentially thrown into the Lands Between and told "figure it out." It was intimidating at first. But once I got my bearings, I wanted to search every nook and cranny there was, and unlike BOTW, I was actually rewarded for my efforts with a new boss, or new weapon, or new summon, or new armor, or new NPC/quest, or new dungeon! The amount of varying rewards alone were enough to keep my exploration spirits high.
As far as bosses go, I'm aware that this roster is polarizing. First I will say that in terms of designs, nearly all bosses hit it out of the park. There are a couple of dud mini-bosses but I excuse that since the roster is so large. However, there is definitely a scaling issue that happens once you enter the last area of the main game, but in all honesty most FromSoft games have this issue to some extent. On my first playthrough, I did find myself caught in the "this is too hard by myself, too easy with summons/a buddy" camp, but on my NG+ playthrough where I forced myself to gut it out solo, I felt that patented satisfaction that you don't find in any other games.
My main reason for being okay with some boss difficulties is that the amount of weapons you can arm yourself with is astounding. I believe there are over 300 different armaments you can equip, and that leaves more than one for each situation. Knowing bosses resistances and switching your gameplan to attack that weakness is critical, and it's never been easier to utilize another weapon than in Elden Ring.
On top of that, you can re-spec your build almost as many times as you want! (provided you have enough larval tears). Having that option of totally changing your character's strengths and weaknesses is something that was absent in most other FromSoft games, and if it was there it was much more obscure with much less available respecs per playthrough. So I appreciated that feature immensely.
Elden Ring is as close to perfect you can get in a video game, in my opinion. To be as big as it is and perform as well as it does while you're playing is an achievement that I don't think enough people appreciate. Shadow of the Erdtree cannot come soon enough.
Like Zelda BOTW, you're essentially thrown into the Lands Between and told "figure it out." It was intimidating at first. But once I got my bearings, I wanted to search every nook and cranny there was, and unlike BOTW, I was actually rewarded for my efforts with a new boss, or new weapon, or new summon, or new armor, or new NPC/quest, or new dungeon! The amount of varying rewards alone were enough to keep my exploration spirits high.
As far as bosses go, I'm aware that this roster is polarizing. First I will say that in terms of designs, nearly all bosses hit it out of the park. There are a couple of dud mini-bosses but I excuse that since the roster is so large. However, there is definitely a scaling issue that happens once you enter the last area of the main game, but in all honesty most FromSoft games have this issue to some extent. On my first playthrough, I did find myself caught in the "this is too hard by myself, too easy with summons/a buddy" camp, but on my NG+ playthrough where I forced myself to gut it out solo, I felt that patented satisfaction that you don't find in any other games.
My main reason for being okay with some boss difficulties is that the amount of weapons you can arm yourself with is astounding. I believe there are over 300 different armaments you can equip, and that leaves more than one for each situation. Knowing bosses resistances and switching your gameplan to attack that weakness is critical, and it's never been easier to utilize another weapon than in Elden Ring.
On top of that, you can re-spec your build almost as many times as you want! (provided you have enough larval tears). Having that option of totally changing your character's strengths and weaknesses is something that was absent in most other FromSoft games, and if it was there it was much more obscure with much less available respecs per playthrough. So I appreciated that feature immensely.
Elden Ring is as close to perfect you can get in a video game, in my opinion. To be as big as it is and perform as well as it does while you're playing is an achievement that I don't think enough people appreciate. Shadow of the Erdtree cannot come soon enough.