Arermi
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This review specifically details all the wrong I think the game does. Because if I talked about all the good, it'd be way to long, and people are more interested in what the game does wrong anyway so.
Problems In Communication
The Map in this game rubs me the wrong way. I feel like a lot of the points of interest, or rather, structures you see on the map,are insanely misleading. So as an example, say you’re exploring the Weeping Peninsula, you’ll see a structure on the map. You go towards it, and it turns out it’s just a big filler structure. LIke there isn’t anything there, it’s just to add ambience or character to the map. But then, say you see a small huddle of ruins on the map. You decide to ignore it, because you assume it’ll be a waste of time, it’s really small, and looks like a bunch of nothing. But turns out, there were some really cool items there that you might’ve used in the future. Then I’d say that’s pretty bullshit. I think when obtaining a Map Fragment, the map needs to do a better job in making it clear when points of interest are important, and which one’s aren’t. And it almost tries doing this, when you see Catacombs/Dungeons on the map. Because they’re illustrated as orange circles. But it doesn’t commit to that at all. Also…it didn’t tell me that. So that’s nice. Just think the map needs to do better in communication. Edit: Oh and also. It gets worse. When traveling in Liurnia, there’s this giant plateau of sorts. I wanted to get up there. Well according to the map there’s a lot of structures in that area. So I go towards it and I find it that below the plateau, there’s a place called Village of the Albinauries. I do the village, pretty standard, I go to my map and….I’m apparently in the plateau I was talking about. Like my ass is literally standing on some of the structures on that plateau. Nope, despite the structures appearing the same level on the map. In reality, there are varying levels. Some are below the Plateau, and some are above the others, standing on the plateau. The map failed to communicate any of this, which caused insane confusion when trying to figure out how to get on the plateau and what structures were actually on it, and not on it.
I have a problem with how the Graces work in this game. Rather…there to be quiet and hidden from the player at times and they should’ve made them more clearer and distinct. IDK why when traveling around the map you hear those weird orbs that when killed give you an Estus, or give you a special item. It feels like the audio for those should’ve been the audio for Graces. Because holy shit is it really easy to miss a Grace in this game. There are times I’m right next to a Grace and I have 0 clue until I backtrack and I’m like “I was literally here, or very close to here already wtf. How’d I not see this?” I think it’s worse when you compare them to previous souls games. Take Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3s bonfires are A, much bigger visually, B, have a louder audio que, and C, are in a fairly linear game. There’s little to no reason for you to miss a Bonfire in that game. In comparison it feels like Elden Ring downgraded from Souls 3. When, considering it’s an open world game, should’ve upgraded. Very weird.
Posture Bar. This is by far the most egregious issue in this game. IDK why the devs decided to add more nuance to the combat in the context of jumping attacks and Ashes of War to break stagger, but not add a posture bar. When the literal last game they made had a posture bar. It’s very confusing. If you had a posture bar in Elden Ring, it would radically change the way a lot of these fights are broken down. There could be a lot of scenarios where I’m close to breaking a boss posture, but I was backing away playing safe, when, if I had known, I would’ve rushed in and broken it. I can’t fathom why they would remove this system from the game, when again, their literal last game had one.
Another big one is the Dectus Medallions. Now for the Left one, I don’t really have a problem there. It’s in a Fort in Limgrave. Pretty standard exploration would lead you to it, and, most importantly, it scales to your level. The Right one's location. Is fucking absurd. The Right Medallion is located in Dragonbarrow. This place can only be accessed through a teleporter in Limgrave. Or doing Sellia. No matter which route you take, and how far you are in the game. You are nowhere near the level of Dragonbarrow. I was level 60, with a Somber 6 weapon, and I didn’t remotely stand a chance. What this would normally communicate to the player is, oh, this place is kind of out of my league. I’ll go explore other things, get stronger, and eventually come back. Nope. Apparently the Right Dectus Medallion is located here. Despite the fact that this place is literally harder than Altus, the key to Altus is here. This is literally the equivalent of putting the key behind the locked door. How the fuck was the player supposed to know that the Dectus Medallion is here? Especially when the game goes out of its way to communicate things like this to the player all the time, like with you going and getting your ass kicked against Margit, telling you to explore more of Limgrave and come back. Very weird.
Another example would be Moghs Shackle. You get this item very early in the game called Moghs Shackle. It says you imprison and bind Mogh down to the Earth. You obviously have no clue what that means, because Moghs still a ways away. You progress through the game, until 30 hours later, you arrive at Mogh. You fight through his first phase, ya know, pretty standard phase of a fight. Then his 2nd phase comes in, and he takes your health while adding to his. Alright. That’s a pretty weird mechanic that I haven’t encountered before. Is there a way to address that? Oh wait yeah. I have that shackle I got 30 hours earlier. Lemme try that. Get through the standard first phase, then you get to the 2nd phase, where you find out it does absolutely nothing. You, confused, use google senpai to figure out that Moghs Shackle doesn’t actually do shit against the 2nd phase. It’s meant for the 1st phase. The way to counter the 2nd phase is through a crystal tear that you add to your physic. What the fuck. This is such a strange way to communicate this that it boggles my mind. Why the fuck would I wanna use Moghs Shackle for his fairly standard, easy-intermediate to learn first phase? His first phase isn’t an abnormality compared to every boss in this game. Why the hell would I assume the Shackle would need to be used here? His 2nd phase, an actual abnormality compared to most if not every boss in this game, isn’t where this specific item for this boss is used? What????? Why did you have the specific item at all then? Most players would see the special abnormal 2nd phase trait, and the special item specifically for this boss, and would make the connection that the item must be for that 2nd phase trait. Why in the fuck is the item used for the very normal, not out of the ordinary, 1st phase?????
Mechanical balancing
Bosses: Bosses are kind of a whole category in and of themselves. Judging them individually isn’t really important, it’s vastly more important to judge the sum rather than the parts. To list off a few stinkers that I didn’t vibe with, I’d say Magma Wyrm, Flying Dragon Agheel,Falling Star Beast, Ancestral Spirit, Twin Valiant Gargoyals, and Astel, Stars of Darkness are fairly bad. While fights such as Crucible Knight, Leonine Misbegotten, Elemar of the Briar, Crstalin Spear and Ringblade duo, Crucible Knight duo, and Erdtree Avatar are fairly well constructed. I’d say overall, the bosses in this game are mostly just to standard to be badly made. The ones that have the most depth are obviously the mainline bosses. And for those, I’d say Radahn and Elden Beast are kinda bad. Godskin Duo, Godrick, Radagon and Fire Giant are just okay. Wolf of Radagon, Renalla, Rykard, Sir Gideon, Dragonic Tree Sentinel and Margit are fairly good. While Godfrey (both of them), Maliketh, and Morgott are excellent. Overall, the bosses in this game aren’t bad. The one’s placed in catacombs are again, mostly too standard to be badly made (with some exceptions). And the one’s placed in the Overworld, while as a design decision I don’t like, aren’t necessarily bad……………….though fuck Dragon bosses. Every single one of them is bad. Ha. 6-7/10 for the game's bosses overall.
AI summons: I don’t like AI summons. These things are cheeeeesy. These bosses are designed and balanced with 1 v 1s in mind. The way the enemy AI works is, if you hit them once, all of their attention is catered towards whoever hit them. Meaning, it can take attention away from the player, and give them a chance to heal. Or, straight up initiate a free attack on the boss. Just for the AI ally to hit them, and the attention to then be shifted back to the AI. I don’t like these things. I think they completely break a lot of the balance and great design these bosses strive for. “Oh well just don’t use it” not only is this a reductionist standpoint. Meaning you’re telling me for the game to work, I have to limit a valuable asset the game is granting me. Which makes little to no sense. Why the fuck do I have to fuck myself cus the games fucking up. But also it downplays a lot of the great designs of souls bosses. Artorias is a boss specifically made for you searching for very very VERY tight heal windows. If an AI Ally hit Artorias. You’ve destroyed the entire point of the boss. A lot of Elden Ring bosses operate on the same thing.
Level Design
I have surprisingly little to say in regards to negatives on this front. One of the more frustrating things is because of how multi-layered the levels are thanks to jumping. Things can get fairly complicated in navigation. DS1-3 worked really well in this regard because it was always easy to tell what was a place you could go to, and what wasn’t. Anor Londo, looks big, but when exploring it, is easily digestible. Lyendel is not easily digestible. It’s insanely multi-faceted and complex. I looked for literal hours where the underground sewers of Lyendel were, just to find out it’s in this obscure well in this area that I already explored a lot of, and thought it wasn’t in. Shit that obscure and lowkey, shouldn’t be the sole entrance to a whole other area, when the area the entrance is in is this bloated. A lot of level design can be chalked up to unnecessary areas you go to and get nothing out of. Making the area bigger in size, but less in substance. Which only adds confusion. But, with all of that said, I think most areas are fairly well made. There’s a lot of rewards for exploration, there’s shortcuts with helpful backtracking, there’s good grace and Stake of Marika placements, there’s honestly not a whole lot to say about negatives in regards to Level Design in it’s totality. It’s again, fairly standard, despite some fundamental flaws with navigation due to the added depth of the movement.
Problems In Communication
The Map in this game rubs me the wrong way. I feel like a lot of the points of interest, or rather, structures you see on the map,are insanely misleading. So as an example, say you’re exploring the Weeping Peninsula, you’ll see a structure on the map. You go towards it, and it turns out it’s just a big filler structure. LIke there isn’t anything there, it’s just to add ambience or character to the map. But then, say you see a small huddle of ruins on the map. You decide to ignore it, because you assume it’ll be a waste of time, it’s really small, and looks like a bunch of nothing. But turns out, there were some really cool items there that you might’ve used in the future. Then I’d say that’s pretty bullshit. I think when obtaining a Map Fragment, the map needs to do a better job in making it clear when points of interest are important, and which one’s aren’t. And it almost tries doing this, when you see Catacombs/Dungeons on the map. Because they’re illustrated as orange circles. But it doesn’t commit to that at all. Also…it didn’t tell me that. So that’s nice. Just think the map needs to do better in communication. Edit: Oh and also. It gets worse. When traveling in Liurnia, there’s this giant plateau of sorts. I wanted to get up there. Well according to the map there’s a lot of structures in that area. So I go towards it and I find it that below the plateau, there’s a place called Village of the Albinauries. I do the village, pretty standard, I go to my map and….I’m apparently in the plateau I was talking about. Like my ass is literally standing on some of the structures on that plateau. Nope, despite the structures appearing the same level on the map. In reality, there are varying levels. Some are below the Plateau, and some are above the others, standing on the plateau. The map failed to communicate any of this, which caused insane confusion when trying to figure out how to get on the plateau and what structures were actually on it, and not on it.
I have a problem with how the Graces work in this game. Rather…there to be quiet and hidden from the player at times and they should’ve made them more clearer and distinct. IDK why when traveling around the map you hear those weird orbs that when killed give you an Estus, or give you a special item. It feels like the audio for those should’ve been the audio for Graces. Because holy shit is it really easy to miss a Grace in this game. There are times I’m right next to a Grace and I have 0 clue until I backtrack and I’m like “I was literally here, or very close to here already wtf. How’d I not see this?” I think it’s worse when you compare them to previous souls games. Take Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3s bonfires are A, much bigger visually, B, have a louder audio que, and C, are in a fairly linear game. There’s little to no reason for you to miss a Bonfire in that game. In comparison it feels like Elden Ring downgraded from Souls 3. When, considering it’s an open world game, should’ve upgraded. Very weird.
Posture Bar. This is by far the most egregious issue in this game. IDK why the devs decided to add more nuance to the combat in the context of jumping attacks and Ashes of War to break stagger, but not add a posture bar. When the literal last game they made had a posture bar. It’s very confusing. If you had a posture bar in Elden Ring, it would radically change the way a lot of these fights are broken down. There could be a lot of scenarios where I’m close to breaking a boss posture, but I was backing away playing safe, when, if I had known, I would’ve rushed in and broken it. I can’t fathom why they would remove this system from the game, when again, their literal last game had one.
Another big one is the Dectus Medallions. Now for the Left one, I don’t really have a problem there. It’s in a Fort in Limgrave. Pretty standard exploration would lead you to it, and, most importantly, it scales to your level. The Right one's location. Is fucking absurd. The Right Medallion is located in Dragonbarrow. This place can only be accessed through a teleporter in Limgrave. Or doing Sellia. No matter which route you take, and how far you are in the game. You are nowhere near the level of Dragonbarrow. I was level 60, with a Somber 6 weapon, and I didn’t remotely stand a chance. What this would normally communicate to the player is, oh, this place is kind of out of my league. I’ll go explore other things, get stronger, and eventually come back. Nope. Apparently the Right Dectus Medallion is located here. Despite the fact that this place is literally harder than Altus, the key to Altus is here. This is literally the equivalent of putting the key behind the locked door. How the fuck was the player supposed to know that the Dectus Medallion is here? Especially when the game goes out of its way to communicate things like this to the player all the time, like with you going and getting your ass kicked against Margit, telling you to explore more of Limgrave and come back. Very weird.
Another example would be Moghs Shackle. You get this item very early in the game called Moghs Shackle. It says you imprison and bind Mogh down to the Earth. You obviously have no clue what that means, because Moghs still a ways away. You progress through the game, until 30 hours later, you arrive at Mogh. You fight through his first phase, ya know, pretty standard phase of a fight. Then his 2nd phase comes in, and he takes your health while adding to his. Alright. That’s a pretty weird mechanic that I haven’t encountered before. Is there a way to address that? Oh wait yeah. I have that shackle I got 30 hours earlier. Lemme try that. Get through the standard first phase, then you get to the 2nd phase, where you find out it does absolutely nothing. You, confused, use google senpai to figure out that Moghs Shackle doesn’t actually do shit against the 2nd phase. It’s meant for the 1st phase. The way to counter the 2nd phase is through a crystal tear that you add to your physic. What the fuck. This is such a strange way to communicate this that it boggles my mind. Why the fuck would I wanna use Moghs Shackle for his fairly standard, easy-intermediate to learn first phase? His first phase isn’t an abnormality compared to every boss in this game. Why the hell would I assume the Shackle would need to be used here? His 2nd phase, an actual abnormality compared to most if not every boss in this game, isn’t where this specific item for this boss is used? What????? Why did you have the specific item at all then? Most players would see the special abnormal 2nd phase trait, and the special item specifically for this boss, and would make the connection that the item must be for that 2nd phase trait. Why in the fuck is the item used for the very normal, not out of the ordinary, 1st phase?????
Mechanical balancing
Bosses: Bosses are kind of a whole category in and of themselves. Judging them individually isn’t really important, it’s vastly more important to judge the sum rather than the parts. To list off a few stinkers that I didn’t vibe with, I’d say Magma Wyrm, Flying Dragon Agheel,Falling Star Beast, Ancestral Spirit, Twin Valiant Gargoyals, and Astel, Stars of Darkness are fairly bad. While fights such as Crucible Knight, Leonine Misbegotten, Elemar of the Briar, Crstalin Spear and Ringblade duo, Crucible Knight duo, and Erdtree Avatar are fairly well constructed. I’d say overall, the bosses in this game are mostly just to standard to be badly made. The ones that have the most depth are obviously the mainline bosses. And for those, I’d say Radahn and Elden Beast are kinda bad. Godskin Duo, Godrick, Radagon and Fire Giant are just okay. Wolf of Radagon, Renalla, Rykard, Sir Gideon, Dragonic Tree Sentinel and Margit are fairly good. While Godfrey (both of them), Maliketh, and Morgott are excellent. Overall, the bosses in this game aren’t bad. The one’s placed in catacombs are again, mostly too standard to be badly made (with some exceptions). And the one’s placed in the Overworld, while as a design decision I don’t like, aren’t necessarily bad……………….though fuck Dragon bosses. Every single one of them is bad. Ha. 6-7/10 for the game's bosses overall.
AI summons: I don’t like AI summons. These things are cheeeeesy. These bosses are designed and balanced with 1 v 1s in mind. The way the enemy AI works is, if you hit them once, all of their attention is catered towards whoever hit them. Meaning, it can take attention away from the player, and give them a chance to heal. Or, straight up initiate a free attack on the boss. Just for the AI ally to hit them, and the attention to then be shifted back to the AI. I don’t like these things. I think they completely break a lot of the balance and great design these bosses strive for. “Oh well just don’t use it” not only is this a reductionist standpoint. Meaning you’re telling me for the game to work, I have to limit a valuable asset the game is granting me. Which makes little to no sense. Why the fuck do I have to fuck myself cus the games fucking up. But also it downplays a lot of the great designs of souls bosses. Artorias is a boss specifically made for you searching for very very VERY tight heal windows. If an AI Ally hit Artorias. You’ve destroyed the entire point of the boss. A lot of Elden Ring bosses operate on the same thing.
Level Design
I have surprisingly little to say in regards to negatives on this front. One of the more frustrating things is because of how multi-layered the levels are thanks to jumping. Things can get fairly complicated in navigation. DS1-3 worked really well in this regard because it was always easy to tell what was a place you could go to, and what wasn’t. Anor Londo, looks big, but when exploring it, is easily digestible. Lyendel is not easily digestible. It’s insanely multi-faceted and complex. I looked for literal hours where the underground sewers of Lyendel were, just to find out it’s in this obscure well in this area that I already explored a lot of, and thought it wasn’t in. Shit that obscure and lowkey, shouldn’t be the sole entrance to a whole other area, when the area the entrance is in is this bloated. A lot of level design can be chalked up to unnecessary areas you go to and get nothing out of. Making the area bigger in size, but less in substance. Which only adds confusion. But, with all of that said, I think most areas are fairly well made. There’s a lot of rewards for exploration, there’s shortcuts with helpful backtracking, there’s good grace and Stake of Marika placements, there’s honestly not a whole lot to say about negatives in regards to Level Design in it’s totality. It’s again, fairly standard, despite some fundamental flaws with navigation due to the added depth of the movement.