Elden Ring is the culmination of the amazing systems- and leveldesign that From Software has made their fame with. Elden Ring is not a game that I believe pays back the amount of time and frustration it asks of me.
Now before you accuse me of being a contrarian for the sake of it, let me explain. I am not saying Elden Ring is a bad game, far from it. It is an amazing experiment and truly a work of great skill and design. I just think the game wants to do too many things at once, and, as someone not entirely familiar with Souls-games, that confusion had an effect on me as the player.
Elden Ring wants to be an open-world with free-form exploration of both your environment and your favorite way to dispatch the enemies ahead of you. Elden Ring also wants to be a punishing game that demands precision and determination. On top of that, it wands to build a new universe divergent from the now-familiar setting type of the Dark Souls trilogy. In attempting to be all of these, I believe it succeeds only in the exploration pillar - and by that I mean only the exploring of the world.
Why is that? Well, to put it simply - Elden Ring makes me feel like I play the game wrong. Whenever I engage in the exploration side of the game, I let myself wander and stumble into new wondrous places that I want to see every nook and cranny of - only to be met with a boss or enemy that I either have no trouble with at all, or I am underleveled for. Whenever I engage with the pleasure-through-overcoming side of the game, I buckle down for a hard fight, but have to grapple with janky lock-on systems or cheesy boss designs with input tracking and long combos. When I want to engage with Elden Ring's story or setting, I am left wondering why I do not care for the stories behind the large ruins that litter the games' landscapes. Don't get me wrong - I am fully aware that I have only played 20 hours of this game and that this game has much more world and gameplay to offer beyond this point. I just feel like 20 hours is plenty of time for a game to prove itself, and Elden Ring didn't.
Elden Ring is a grand experiment that ends in confusion for me, personally. I am happy that everyone derived so much enjoyment from this game, and that the game's open world design will inspire many other in the future. But when a game expects you to look up in wonder at your surroundings, yet makes you feel like you want to look up a guide online, I believe that sense of wonder is lost. At least for me, anyway.
Now before you accuse me of being a contrarian for the sake of it, let me explain. I am not saying Elden Ring is a bad game, far from it. It is an amazing experiment and truly a work of great skill and design. I just think the game wants to do too many things at once, and, as someone not entirely familiar with Souls-games, that confusion had an effect on me as the player.
Elden Ring wants to be an open-world with free-form exploration of both your environment and your favorite way to dispatch the enemies ahead of you. Elden Ring also wants to be a punishing game that demands precision and determination. On top of that, it wands to build a new universe divergent from the now-familiar setting type of the Dark Souls trilogy. In attempting to be all of these, I believe it succeeds only in the exploration pillar - and by that I mean only the exploring of the world.
Why is that? Well, to put it simply - Elden Ring makes me feel like I play the game wrong. Whenever I engage in the exploration side of the game, I let myself wander and stumble into new wondrous places that I want to see every nook and cranny of - only to be met with a boss or enemy that I either have no trouble with at all, or I am underleveled for. Whenever I engage with the pleasure-through-overcoming side of the game, I buckle down for a hard fight, but have to grapple with janky lock-on systems or cheesy boss designs with input tracking and long combos. When I want to engage with Elden Ring's story or setting, I am left wondering why I do not care for the stories behind the large ruins that litter the games' landscapes. Don't get me wrong - I am fully aware that I have only played 20 hours of this game and that this game has much more world and gameplay to offer beyond this point. I just feel like 20 hours is plenty of time for a game to prove itself, and Elden Ring didn't.
Elden Ring is a grand experiment that ends in confusion for me, personally. I am happy that everyone derived so much enjoyment from this game, and that the game's open world design will inspire many other in the future. But when a game expects you to look up in wonder at your surroundings, yet makes you feel like you want to look up a guide online, I believe that sense of wonder is lost. At least for me, anyway.