A solid title but reels on the fatigue more than it should
It's already been said that Elden Ring is the culmination of From Software's action role-playing efforts throughout the decade. The developer's collaboration with George R.R Martin brings what I think one of their best games yet with some caveats. I feel like this game is taking 2 steps forward but 1 step back in terms of how the levels and gameplay are presented. If you just want the short version, Elden Ring is a great game with some of the luster being lost quickly when you realize some things about the locations.
There is a lot to praise about Elden Ring: The gameplay, the world, the music and even the lore was something I found myself actually interested in. The gameplay plays like how your typical Dark Souls would play with some important flourishes here and there and taking a lot from their previous titles as well. Posture breaking and jumping with Sekiro is what I'm mostly seeing but I'm sure there are some Bloodborne influences but I haven't played it yet so can't comment on that. You can probably get away with doing what you did before which I did until a certain point but the more fun aspects is mixing and matching to an extent since they managed to make spells really fun (and broken) in this game not to mention the addition of horseback combat which is actually pretty decent too when fighting the larger than life bosses and enemies. I can't comment much on the multiplayer aspect as I actually rarely got invaded nor got any summons since I figured the servers are overloaded to the point it'd take too long to get something going and at that point, I rather just play the game on my own. I will go by saying that the world is probably one of the best things about this game but it does have some repetition issues that I'll address in the next section. For now, I'll give the praise in that there is a huge amount of places and areas to explore here that even in the 70 hours I've put into this game that I felt like I barely touched the surface at certain points and the open world is extremely realized to an extent. This is not to mention that they managed to seamlessly add these huge expansive open ended dungeons in the world with no loading times which I think is extremely amazing in that you can spend hours in a tiny speck of the map and it's just as dense. I've never cared too much about soundtracks for games like these since it all sounds like generic epic western fantasy with choirs to me but I think this soundtrack is pretty good. Less of the former I've mentioned which is still here but there are some more quieter tracks like Rennala's theme and I'll admit some of those epic tracks actually hit for me here like the final boss theme actually combining both the choirs and eerie calmness surrounding the fight. From what I can tell, one of the few things George R.R Martin worked on for this title was the lore for the world of the game and I honestly think this has been the most interested I've actually been in the lore of the game and this includes their past efforts here, I'll give them that despite this game not feeling aesthetically different at times that there is enough here that I wouldn't call it the same at all in what I think is their coolest world and and attempt at world building yet.
As much as I loved exploring the open world of Elden Ring, there was a certain moment that it sort of lost the feeling of exploration and lack of expectation. Most of the locations in Elden Ring composes of several location archetypes such as catacombs, caves, hero graves, ruins and etcetera. Now despite each location is technically different in layout, the overall visual level design and enemy placement in these locations border on random procedural at times. What doesn't help is also knowing which rewards are generally gonna be in each of these archetypes with some exceptions such as catacombs always giving you spirit ashes and caves mostly giving talismans. After a while though, I think when I realized this is when I sort of didn't want to explore the world anymore. I already knew what was I gonna get myself into when I explored a certain area and then fight the same miniboss again which is something I'll mention too. The game reuses a lot of enemies in this game but I almost can't blame them due to the scope of the game and the design and gameplay mechanic's team nightmare of having to design a unique fight for every area of this game being way too much of a herculean task.
Now I don't really mind the traditional gameplay flow of From Soft's recent catalog of games after Demon's Souls but I think I'm also starting to feel the series fatigue after this game in particular, I will still think the gameplay is always fun in a sense but I was hoping Elden Ring would be a more radical departure for them as a developer that has mostly been making the same game for almost over a decade now. There is only so much you can do with the gameplay that revolutionized the gaming space before even that becomes bordering on the stale. Anyway with that said, I've felt like I've been too negative. Elden Ring represents a triumph in the open world rpg genre despite my criticisms and for their first foray into it, it's a home run. An unrelenting odyssey through The Lands Between that manages to have the scale of an ocean with almost the depth to actually match it.
You have fought long and hard. I have no doubt you will become Elden Lord. May you take the throne.
It's already been said that Elden Ring is the culmination of From Software's action role-playing efforts throughout the decade. The developer's collaboration with George R.R Martin brings what I think one of their best games yet with some caveats. I feel like this game is taking 2 steps forward but 1 step back in terms of how the levels and gameplay are presented. If you just want the short version, Elden Ring is a great game with some of the luster being lost quickly when you realize some things about the locations.
There is a lot to praise about Elden Ring: The gameplay, the world, the music and even the lore was something I found myself actually interested in. The gameplay plays like how your typical Dark Souls would play with some important flourishes here and there and taking a lot from their previous titles as well. Posture breaking and jumping with Sekiro is what I'm mostly seeing but I'm sure there are some Bloodborne influences but I haven't played it yet so can't comment on that. You can probably get away with doing what you did before which I did until a certain point but the more fun aspects is mixing and matching to an extent since they managed to make spells really fun (and broken) in this game not to mention the addition of horseback combat which is actually pretty decent too when fighting the larger than life bosses and enemies. I can't comment much on the multiplayer aspect as I actually rarely got invaded nor got any summons since I figured the servers are overloaded to the point it'd take too long to get something going and at that point, I rather just play the game on my own. I will go by saying that the world is probably one of the best things about this game but it does have some repetition issues that I'll address in the next section. For now, I'll give the praise in that there is a huge amount of places and areas to explore here that even in the 70 hours I've put into this game that I felt like I barely touched the surface at certain points and the open world is extremely realized to an extent. This is not to mention that they managed to seamlessly add these huge expansive open ended dungeons in the world with no loading times which I think is extremely amazing in that you can spend hours in a tiny speck of the map and it's just as dense. I've never cared too much about soundtracks for games like these since it all sounds like generic epic western fantasy with choirs to me but I think this soundtrack is pretty good. Less of the former I've mentioned which is still here but there are some more quieter tracks like Rennala's theme and I'll admit some of those epic tracks actually hit for me here like the final boss theme actually combining both the choirs and eerie calmness surrounding the fight. From what I can tell, one of the few things George R.R Martin worked on for this title was the lore for the world of the game and I honestly think this has been the most interested I've actually been in the lore of the game and this includes their past efforts here, I'll give them that despite this game not feeling aesthetically different at times that there is enough here that I wouldn't call it the same at all in what I think is their coolest world and and attempt at world building yet.
As much as I loved exploring the open world of Elden Ring, there was a certain moment that it sort of lost the feeling of exploration and lack of expectation. Most of the locations in Elden Ring composes of several location archetypes such as catacombs, caves, hero graves, ruins and etcetera. Now despite each location is technically different in layout, the overall visual level design and enemy placement in these locations border on random procedural at times. What doesn't help is also knowing which rewards are generally gonna be in each of these archetypes with some exceptions such as catacombs always giving you spirit ashes and caves mostly giving talismans. After a while though, I think when I realized this is when I sort of didn't want to explore the world anymore. I already knew what was I gonna get myself into when I explored a certain area and then fight the same miniboss again which is something I'll mention too. The game reuses a lot of enemies in this game but I almost can't blame them due to the scope of the game and the design and gameplay mechanic's team nightmare of having to design a unique fight for every area of this game being way too much of a herculean task.
Now I don't really mind the traditional gameplay flow of From Soft's recent catalog of games after Demon's Souls but I think I'm also starting to feel the series fatigue after this game in particular, I will still think the gameplay is always fun in a sense but I was hoping Elden Ring would be a more radical departure for them as a developer that has mostly been making the same game for almost over a decade now. There is only so much you can do with the gameplay that revolutionized the gaming space before even that becomes bordering on the stale. Anyway with that said, I've felt like I've been too negative. Elden Ring represents a triumph in the open world rpg genre despite my criticisms and for their first foray into it, it's a home run. An unrelenting odyssey through The Lands Between that manages to have the scale of an ocean with almost the depth to actually match it.
You have fought long and hard. I have no doubt you will become Elden Lord. May you take the throne.