Try fingers but hole!
I just want to start off by saying that Elden Ring is a genuinely gorgeous game. This was the first time ever in a video game where I actually had to stop myself and take a screenshot since it actually looked like a work of art.
The game is obviously challenging and was my first souls-like. Half the time it felt like I was banging my head against the wall. That being said, when you do defeat a boss you've been stuck on for a long time, the difficulty does make you feel like you accomplished something. The combat is fun, skillful, and engaging.
I really like the notes that other players left, it made me feel like I wasn't the only one going on this adventure, and I don't know if I would've even been able to complete the game without the hints past players had left for me.
I do think there are numerous negatives with he game though. First of all, I don't see the point of Elden Ring being open world, to me it simply makes the game more confusing. Where should I be going? I need to find very specific and strong items that are very important in random locations across an absolutely massive map. I honestly feel like I would've enjoyed the game more if it was more linear. At least that way I would've known I'm in the right place doing the right thing. In Elden Ring I could be fighting a boss and have no idea if I'm just bad at the game, or simply under leveled.
Let's say I am underleved, okay, now where do I go? Who knows! Some people might say "anywhere, that's the beauty of Elden Ring", but I don't want to backtrack across a region I've already explored (albeit not thoroughly) to go grind mobs or random bosses. Just my 2 cents.
I don't usually like looking up what to do in games, but in Elden Ring the Fextralife wiki was basically essential.
The longed I played the game the more the issue of the open world stuck out to me. When I was in Leyndell and knowing clearly where to go, the game was easily a 9 or 10/10. However killing trash mobs in the open world to grind runes doesn't speak to me as a player. Close to the Fire Giant fight I would see packs of mobs all over the place and be like why would I even bother to stop and fight these guys? I'm interested in the story and want to progress not waste my time pointlessly fighting trash.
Another massive issue for me was the controls. Why can't I remove buttons in the keybinds menu? When I was fighting Margit (my first souls like boss) I would keep accidentally crouching by clicking in the left stick and getting hit by attacks because of this. I went into the settings to remove crouching but I was unable. Why???
The lore, while really cool (was the primary reason I bought the game in the first place), does not shine through in Elden Ring's story. I don't want to sit looking through menus and reading item descriptions to understand what is even going on. Throughout virtually, if not my entire time in the Lands Between I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing other than some vague notion that I need to become the Elden Lord for some reason. Was I the baddie? I was going around slaughtering everyone in sight, so maybe? The game doesn't explain.
The Fire Giant was the first boss in the game that actually made me want to uninstall. His health is way too high, he is insanely mobile rolling around the map, and my fully upgraded weapon does basically 0 damage in phase 2. Just a generally frustrating fight.
Sometimes boss fights in this game felt like RNG. In some instances the boss would spam unfair abilities over and over doing an infinite combo one shotting you, and other times I would be able to smack them in the face taking half their hp before they can do anything to me. Really gave me the feel for some fights that it was actually just RNG if I had a chance to win the fight or not.
Last thing about bosses, why do I have to run to the boss room from the mark of grace and skip cutscenes EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. This wastes so much time when you're as trash at the game as me. Just let me respawn in the boss room instead of having to deal with all the bullshit. For example in the Radagon/Elden Beast fight why do I have to run up the stairs, go through the magic portal, wait 10 seconds for my screen to fade to white, skip the cut scene, and THEN FINALLY be able to try the fight again. If it's so that I can go somewhere else instead of being locked into fighting the boss over and over, just give the option like how it works with the statue of Marika.
Overall, I think Elden Ring for me is sort of like how if you've ever gone through a horrible or traumatic experience, 10 years later you look back on it fondly even though in the moment it was horrible. I think that when I was smashing my head against the wall fighting the same boss for hours upon hours, it was like I was in a torture chamber, but I think after a period of time I will look back and be like hey, that was awesome, and probably give some other Souls-Like games a go.
I just want to start off by saying that Elden Ring is a genuinely gorgeous game. This was the first time ever in a video game where I actually had to stop myself and take a screenshot since it actually looked like a work of art.
The game is obviously challenging and was my first souls-like. Half the time it felt like I was banging my head against the wall. That being said, when you do defeat a boss you've been stuck on for a long time, the difficulty does make you feel like you accomplished something. The combat is fun, skillful, and engaging.
I really like the notes that other players left, it made me feel like I wasn't the only one going on this adventure, and I don't know if I would've even been able to complete the game without the hints past players had left for me.
I do think there are numerous negatives with he game though. First of all, I don't see the point of Elden Ring being open world, to me it simply makes the game more confusing. Where should I be going? I need to find very specific and strong items that are very important in random locations across an absolutely massive map. I honestly feel like I would've enjoyed the game more if it was more linear. At least that way I would've known I'm in the right place doing the right thing. In Elden Ring I could be fighting a boss and have no idea if I'm just bad at the game, or simply under leveled.
Let's say I am underleved, okay, now where do I go? Who knows! Some people might say "anywhere, that's the beauty of Elden Ring", but I don't want to backtrack across a region I've already explored (albeit not thoroughly) to go grind mobs or random bosses. Just my 2 cents.
I don't usually like looking up what to do in games, but in Elden Ring the Fextralife wiki was basically essential.
The longed I played the game the more the issue of the open world stuck out to me. When I was in Leyndell and knowing clearly where to go, the game was easily a 9 or 10/10. However killing trash mobs in the open world to grind runes doesn't speak to me as a player. Close to the Fire Giant fight I would see packs of mobs all over the place and be like why would I even bother to stop and fight these guys? I'm interested in the story and want to progress not waste my time pointlessly fighting trash.
Another massive issue for me was the controls. Why can't I remove buttons in the keybinds menu? When I was fighting Margit (my first souls like boss) I would keep accidentally crouching by clicking in the left stick and getting hit by attacks because of this. I went into the settings to remove crouching but I was unable. Why???
The lore, while really cool (was the primary reason I bought the game in the first place), does not shine through in Elden Ring's story. I don't want to sit looking through menus and reading item descriptions to understand what is even going on. Throughout virtually, if not my entire time in the Lands Between I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing other than some vague notion that I need to become the Elden Lord for some reason. Was I the baddie? I was going around slaughtering everyone in sight, so maybe? The game doesn't explain.
The Fire Giant was the first boss in the game that actually made me want to uninstall. His health is way too high, he is insanely mobile rolling around the map, and my fully upgraded weapon does basically 0 damage in phase 2. Just a generally frustrating fight.
Sometimes boss fights in this game felt like RNG. In some instances the boss would spam unfair abilities over and over doing an infinite combo one shotting you, and other times I would be able to smack them in the face taking half their hp before they can do anything to me. Really gave me the feel for some fights that it was actually just RNG if I had a chance to win the fight or not.
Last thing about bosses, why do I have to run to the boss room from the mark of grace and skip cutscenes EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. This wastes so much time when you're as trash at the game as me. Just let me respawn in the boss room instead of having to deal with all the bullshit. For example in the Radagon/Elden Beast fight why do I have to run up the stairs, go through the magic portal, wait 10 seconds for my screen to fade to white, skip the cut scene, and THEN FINALLY be able to try the fight again. If it's so that I can go somewhere else instead of being locked into fighting the boss over and over, just give the option like how it works with the statue of Marika.
Overall, I think Elden Ring for me is sort of like how if you've ever gone through a horrible or traumatic experience, 10 years later you look back on it fondly even though in the moment it was horrible. I think that when I was smashing my head against the wall fighting the same boss for hours upon hours, it was like I was in a torture chamber, but I think after a period of time I will look back and be like hey, that was awesome, and probably give some other Souls-Like games a go.