Elden ring like many open world games is difficult for me to review. The reason being when I look back on my time with the game, I remember having wildly different emotions at different times of playing it.
Initially, pure bliss and rapture. I was madly in love with this game and playing it was the only thing I did for 2 months after it released. Later on, I found playing it to be a chore because it’s not like bloodborne, Sekiro or ds3 which are all very replayable. I think this is due to the lack of streamlining because of the open world format, there is far too many things to do and it gives me choice paralysis when playing and fucks up my experience. Bloodborne there are never more than like 2-3 things you can do at a time and that’s great it’s a clean experience you can begin and end easily but elden ring is just not replayable like that. It’s a game that is meant to have 1, 2 or maybe 3 plays then no more than that because the familiarity breeds contempt. In further replays of this game I found myself going on long horserides from one place to another and feeling very listless and agitated. I felt very similarly to how I did with Bethesda’s type of games where the open world format made me feel like I could mine limitless fun out of the game only for me to overplay them and realize that I had been tricked and the dungeons are all procedurally generated and the gameplay loop actually never was that interesting and the whole experience needed well constructed set pieces and writing to make it work. Elden ring has those well constructed set pieces but it also has a lot of “nothing” dungeons with bad loot and boring copy paste bosses.
This might be the most dark souls 2 like game from soft has and maybe ever will make. Dark souls 2 is something of a secret fan favourite amongst the series. This has to do with its gigantically strange amount of weapons and build variety. Elden ring also has a gargantuan amount of weapons and Armor and spells in it. There was no way from soft could have completely tested all of it and the online was absolute chaos multiple times on launch from the exploits. They patched them out but the memory still remains for those of that played on launch. I would say this is a positive for the game. I had a lot of fun figuring out the different ways you could play and use the different classes and systems that come out the box with this game.
In conclusion, is Elden ring the perfect best game ever? No but it was very fun and well crafted experience, really it was on me to not play it so much but I had a lot of fun and wanted to keep having fun. Their other games are like that but not this one, oh well
Initially, pure bliss and rapture. I was madly in love with this game and playing it was the only thing I did for 2 months after it released. Later on, I found playing it to be a chore because it’s not like bloodborne, Sekiro or ds3 which are all very replayable. I think this is due to the lack of streamlining because of the open world format, there is far too many things to do and it gives me choice paralysis when playing and fucks up my experience. Bloodborne there are never more than like 2-3 things you can do at a time and that’s great it’s a clean experience you can begin and end easily but elden ring is just not replayable like that. It’s a game that is meant to have 1, 2 or maybe 3 plays then no more than that because the familiarity breeds contempt. In further replays of this game I found myself going on long horserides from one place to another and feeling very listless and agitated. I felt very similarly to how I did with Bethesda’s type of games where the open world format made me feel like I could mine limitless fun out of the game only for me to overplay them and realize that I had been tricked and the dungeons are all procedurally generated and the gameplay loop actually never was that interesting and the whole experience needed well constructed set pieces and writing to make it work. Elden ring has those well constructed set pieces but it also has a lot of “nothing” dungeons with bad loot and boring copy paste bosses.
This might be the most dark souls 2 like game from soft has and maybe ever will make. Dark souls 2 is something of a secret fan favourite amongst the series. This has to do with its gigantically strange amount of weapons and build variety. Elden ring also has a gargantuan amount of weapons and Armor and spells in it. There was no way from soft could have completely tested all of it and the online was absolute chaos multiple times on launch from the exploits. They patched them out but the memory still remains for those of that played on launch. I would say this is a positive for the game. I had a lot of fun figuring out the different ways you could play and use the different classes and systems that come out the box with this game.
In conclusion, is Elden ring the perfect best game ever? No but it was very fun and well crafted experience, really it was on me to not play it so much but I had a lot of fun and wanted to keep having fun. Their other games are like that but not this one, oh well