Oh Elden Ring, the culmination of every FromSoftware title that has ever graced our computer monitors and TVs. To be quite blunt, this game is my favorite FromSoft title, and quite honestly is now in my top 5 favorite games ever. To say that it is a masterpiece is almost an understatement.

But what makes Elden Ring so fantastic? Let's start with the best thing about the game: the exploration. If Breath Of The Wild gave you a sense of adventure and awe with its "you see it, go there!" mentality, then Elden Ring will give you similar vibes. There are so many little secrets to find here. From mines, dungeons, overworld bosses, and entire levels both mandatory and optional for you to tackle. And tackle them you will, because it is so damn fun to do so. Every moment I spent exploring this world that Miyazaki and GRRM created gave me a sense of adventure and discovery that I rarely get from games anymore.

Let's talk about difficulty. Yes, this is yet another "git gud" entry in FromSoft's catalogue. And yet, it's also one of their most accessible. There are plenty of tutorials on how things work, there are NPC summons and the newly implemented enemy summons that give you an extra leg up in boss battles (I even argue many bosses are built around the idea of co-op or the enemy summons), and theres so many tools to help you beat that next challenge. That's not to say that this game is easy, though. I've played all of FromSoft's work, and I still got my ass kicked a good amount in Elden Ring. But with getting demolished also comes great reward, and it is totally highlighted here in Elden Ring.

Combat here is a blend of pretty much everything that has lead up to this game. It is very reminiscent of all the Dark Souls games (Dark Souls III in particular), but also rewards the player for being more aggressive with enemies being stagger-able if you do enough damage quickly, ala Bloodborne, and even has jumping and stealth ala Sekiro. All builds feel viable (tho magic still is a bit broken) and are fun as hell to play around with.

This is not to say Elden Ring is perfect, though. While this is basically a 6/5 game for me, there are still things I found annoying. For starters, yes, the PC version stutters a lot and can sometimes cost you good runs because of it. There has been some improvements, but not enough to make it the definitive way to play the game. Elden Ring also suffers from one of my most hated open world tropes: the good ole copy-and-paste. There are a ton of bosses in this game, but a good amount of them are reskins or the same boss with one-or-two added mechanics. It can sometimes feel a bit anticlimactic when tackling this challenging side dungeon only to be met with a normal enemy as a boss.

These setbacks do not sour the experience for me though. Elden Ring is a masterclass of open world design. It combines the best of all FromSoft's work up to now. Which begs the question: where the hell do they go from here? I'm not sure how FromSoft is going to top this game going forward, but I will sure as hell be one of the first to play when they try.

A lonely journey through ruins punctuated by dense trials in honeycombed dungeons. What (obviously) distinguishes this for me from previous Souls entries is the ability to stray from the Light of Grace and just wander through the vast overworld and navigate the winding geography in an almost frictionless manner, then return to the dungeons when I have recovered my courage (usually with the added warmth of a friend guiding or being guided through the labyrinths).

It isn’t really the bosses or combat that draws me to this series, but the perpetual sense of a larger world, of meaning and history, just beyond your grasp - a sense of mystery evocative of Gene Wolfe’s New Sun or Harrison’s Viriconium. This isn’t a living world in a Skyrim sense - there are few areas that evoke a bustling town or real city, and like Souls games before, this feels like playing through a myth, with unusual characters guiding you, withholding information from you, tricking you.

If you are fatigued by From's work, this may not be the one to bring you back. Occasional repetition of bosses can at times reveal a game outreaching its ambition, of assets stretched too far, but so many encounters constantly wake you up and undermine your sense of how the world works. The map grows, above and below ground, and never offers a complete image of the world and its secrets.

Playing Disco Elysium is like reading a great book, is probably what most of you will hear before playing it. I'm not the biggest bookworm, especially when it comes to fiction books. So the expectation to be reading a lot, was definitely not the selling point for me. But I just coulnd't ignore all the praise for this game and HAD to go for it. From the first moments on, you will see what I mean, when I say, you probably have never read anything like it in a game.
Disco Elysium is unique in many many different ways. It's a point and click detective thriller, mixed with classic tabletop-rpgs, developing in a world that is painted with so much attention to detail, that has an incredible amount of characters that are distinct and with so much depth and backstory, it's hard not to be fully transported to this strange place that evoked a multitude of emotions from me. As usual, I will not deal with the story itself in my review, because the beauty of this game (as in many other games) is, to explore all of it on your own.
I want to praise the way it's played instead, because for the most part you have complete freedom of how you want to look at the world, how you want to process the things you see and how it influences the way you want to interact with everything. Instead of spending XP on strength, dexterity or vitality, you will be spending points on drama, volition, empathy, visual calculus, inland empire etc. etc. Whatever you choose upon character creation and also while playing the game, will affect the text and dialogue you will be exposed to. A lot of dialogue in this game will be internal dialogue, as you debate with many different sections of your own brain and emotions. This results in the fact, that there is no right or wrong dictated by the game, just a variety of emotions and thoughts you could be giving into or not. And I mean that. I have played many games where you could decide certain things and sometimes it was as basic as black and white decisions about good and evil, sometimes mixed with a lot more shades of grey. Disco Elysium miraculously manages to continously confront you with decisions that will leave you in the dark in terms of outcome. Your decisions could have far-reaching effects or not matter at all. What you think about will range from nuanced things to highy complex, from slap-stick stupidity to exhausting political discourse. The game gives you the world, the characters and the storyline but leaves all responsibility with you. You can be a plastic-bottle-collecting drug-abusing detective that irresponsibly runs the investigation into a brick wall, you can be a fascist imbecile inciting violence and chaos or you can be a mentally unstable, yet tender detective that cares about the fate of the people he interacts with. It's all there, delivered in the endless dialogue trees. This game forced me to get rid of the habit of exhausting all dialogue trees, because there are things you can say that could abruptly end the conversation, the quest or even the entire game. You have to be constantly aware of the fact, that this game doesn't warn you, it wants YOU to think. And it made me do just that. I sometimes ended a game session with a laugh, sometimes with a tear in my eye and sometimes with a lot of dilemma to chew on and think about. This game made me question myself and how I look at the world IRL. This is an impressive feat and something I usually hear from all the bookworms in my life. Maybe it's time I'd become one myself.

God, I genuinely don't even know where to start. This is a monster of a game that is entirely in its own lane in what it sets out to do, say, and make you feel. Comparing it to anything else feels impossible, but describing what it is feels even harder. I'll try to write something up at a later date. Just, please play this game. Especially if you're a leftist. The messages will most likely resonate with you a lot stronger, and I don't mean you'll agree with them more.

Hope is the keystone element in the fight against cynicism. Keep your chin up. Keep fighting. We love you.