If you put a gun to my head and asked me my opinion on Elden Ring and if I liked it or not I'd tell you to shoot, because honestly, I don't know what to make of this game.

Elden Ring was my first FromSoft game. Clearly, I liked it enough to spend upwards of 120 hours on it. The world and art direction are breathtaking, the music is excellent, the build variety is nearly endless. There's a lot to love about Elden Ring.
On the other hand, the game's balance is rather poor, the endgame sucks ass, the open world is bloated with repeated bosses for often barely any reward. There's a lot to not like about Elden Ring. The guy on the box is just farting around in some evergaol. A wise man once asked, "What's the deal with Vyke?"
Elden Ring is a game that kept be captivated throughout, yet was also endlessly frustrating.I guess the lands between is the perfect setting for this game. Beautiful, but ultimately kind of fucked.

Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live. The call of open world video gaming speaks to us.
-Elden Ring Opening Guy

When I first started Elden Ring, I was like a silly little kitten in a new place. It was just my bandit YIIKGirl (couldn't think of a good name) against the world. Everything was so exciting and interesting to poke around. So much exciting, new stuff to discover. The tension of fighting an enemy camp, discovering catacombs and caves, every enemy was something new.
Around level 18, I ran into Margitt. I got my ass beat, but found more new content to teeth on and power up. I thought I had explored most of Limgrave, but was shocked to find out how much more there was. Elden Ring is certainly big. Eventually, I returned, and I was the one beating his ass. I rode that high to Godrick, and by the end of Stormveil, I was feeling very positively about the game. The luster of the lands between had not yet worn out.

As the game progressed, I started seeing more repeated content. I started encountering bosses that, instead of feeling epic, or a struggle, just more shit for my thumbs to do. "Oh wow, it's Adam, the thief of fire!" Is anyone excited to discover a bitch named Adam?
Catacombs stopped being interesting to find, it was usually just more Imp shit. As the game kept going, less and less of my experiences were unique anymore, they were just more shit in the game.
One example I want to bring up is my experience with the Runebear in the (i think) weeping peninsula. My first encounter with it was one of the most visceral reactions I've ever had in a game. The aggressive and unwieldy attacks of the massive beast that just jumpscared me, as I panicked to escape with my life with the scary ass music in the background. My sibling heard me from upstairs and texted me asking what the hell was going on. It's a small moment, but it was one of the most memorable moments in the game for me because of the real panic it made me feel, and the huge relief I felt when I got away. In a non open world game, this experience might have remained novel.
But this is an open world game, and nothing can keep its luster in the open world. I've seen a lot of runebears now. That one experience was tarnished, because it wasn't just the one moment anymore. It was just routine that many areas would just have an annoying bear enemy with a bloated health bar in it.
Not even the legend or demigod bosses were safe from being crtl+c/crtl+z'd all over the place. Godrick the Grafted, ah what a memorable boss. Phenomenal boss theme, memorable design, great intro and phase 2 cutscenes. If I had a son I would name him Godrick the Grafted. I just wish that there was a hollow version of him that was the exact same fight in some random evergoal but his name was Godfrey instead.
Guys holy shit! Fromsoft makes dreams come true!
Remember Astel? The boss that serves as the climax to Ranni's long questline? Man what a memorable beast. Such a strange background and design, it feels alien. But I don't just remember Astel, Naturalborn of the Void. I also remember Astel, Stars of Darkness. The exact same fight but at the end of some random catacombs, just with a different name, and also he does a billion damage now because fuck you. And no, I don't care if there's a lore reason. There's a lore reason why I can't get a girlfriend but I doubt you care about that.

As the game progressed, I just started to get tired of it all. The game's shine wasn't so bright anymore. I would go through some optional content only to find some useless shit, or a spell I couldn't use. Usually a spell because this game loves int users so much. I would explore the world, only to be showered with useless crafting materials I would never use.
In the Limgrave I was excited to poke around every nook and cranny. In the Mountaintop of Giants, I was mostly just running through it because there probably wasn't anything fun to find in the first place. Every “new” thing I found was just “alright cool, more stimulation awesome I love video games' '. Because tell me you aren’t jumping out of your seat to find another cave infested with rats.
It is fitting that the Erdtree burns and loses its shine during the game’s finest hour. The main symbol of the game becomes tarnished, just like the player character. Just like my experiences.


Over 150 or more to see, to be the elden lord is my destiny!
-The pokemon rap if it was Elden Ring

Excuse that line. The opportunity was there.
What I'm referencing with that line is the fact that Elden Ring has upwards of 150 boss fights. That's one for every gen 1 pokemon besides mew. If we wanna be funny we can bump it up to 151 or more though. Hell, I've seen some claim that there are like 200+ bosses!
Allow me to get on my Dracula shit and ask, "What is a boss fight?" I suppose a better question to ask would be, what purpose does a boss fight serve? Generally speaking, to provide a challenge and serve as a climactic moment in the story of a game. Of course, there are much more to boss fights than just this. Some bosses can be more spectacle than gameplay, others can be easy on purpose (allegedly DS1 final boss is like this), etc.
What I'm getting at with this is that when there are so many boss fights, they kind of stop feeling exciting and just start getting exhausting. A large majority of the bosses in this game really just serve as shit for my thumbs to do, or are just thrown at some random point like the end of a short dungeon because they "should be". Almost none of the bosses left any real impact on me, either because they were just endlessly repeated throughout the game, or because I didn’t give a damn or know much about their character (not a knock on the story as a whole, just a me thing). But I already covered that, didn’t I? Most of them are just there to be hard boss fights, which I guess is fine on its own, but it makes them feel more like video game bosses than something more. Take for example, Loretta in the Haligtree. Let’s also ignore the fact that she had a clone in a different dungeon. What’s her story? I don’t know. She set off on a journey to find a safe haven for the Albirauric people. Cool, I guess. Can this be inferred in her fight? Not really. The end boss of a major area is not only reused, but utterly forgettable, even if the fight itself is good. Going through and making a boss tier list for the sake of remembering everyone, I had to make a whole tier labeled “who?” because I just did not remember some of those fools.


Bad game design
-The average game reviewer

Let’s expand on that previous, rather unfocused segment by speaking of the general game balance, starting with the bosses. Also heads up, I am not even going to address the spirit ashes, we all know they’re stupid and broken. Anyways…. The bosses of this game are the main source of difficulty. In fact, some might argue that they’re the only source of difficulty, as the dungeons have generous checkpoints and for most of the game, enemies aren’t too threatening. Put a pin in that. For now, the bosses. What of them? In short, they’re iffy. In long, well, keep reading.
One of my main gripes with the bosses is the blatant input reading and the constant unnatural timing on many of their attacks. To elaborate on the “input reading” point, it’s technically not “input reading” in the traditional sense, but it might as well be. Bosses look for specific animations (usually healing with a flask) and will react before you can even process what went down (for flasks, some bosses will react before your character has even pulled out the flask in their animation). I also suspect that some attempts to punish their attacks make them react with a combo extension, but that’s speculation.
I will say, this on its own isn’t a huge deal. After all, I’m told that other fromsoft games have done this, even if to a lesser extent. My issue really comes in that it feels excessive and unfair. How can I not get frustrated when everything I do feels out of my hands because oh some input reading fucker? The boss AI is generally smarter, but that’s not my issue really. This video Elden Ring - It's complicated demonstrates how it works. I’m not saying that I should be able to just heal for free, but it just feels a bit annoying when bosses will act extremely passive until I hit a button and then they’re suddenly the most aggressive mother fuckers to walk the Lands Between.
The bosses in general are just a bit overturned if you ask me. At times, the damage output to attack speed ratio (statistic I invented now) is ludicrous. Bosses will flail their arms around without letting up and the flurry of attacks feels like it does the same damage as their large, singular hits. I recall being able to tank Houra Loux’ WWE takedowns just fine, but would fold immediately to the attack where he swats at you like a fly. Melania would be a very awesome fight, but sadly in the interest of making it hard, the end result just ends in a frustrating boss fight. I get that she has “never known defeat” (she is also, allegedly, the blade of Miquella), but does that mean that she needs to have lifesteal on all of her attacks, as well as somewhat cryptic staggering (she staggers when walking but not when she raises her sword. Ok then), on top of the most insane attack in the game? Yes, I know you can avoid waterfowl dance. I’ve done it myself. Doesn’t mean it isn’t bullshit.
The bosses also like to fuck with your flow by delaying their attacks for insane amounts of time, sometimes upwards of 3 seconds. I know when I go to kill someone I like to delay my attacks by 3 seconds, just to fuck with them. Again, this on its own isn’t a problem, maybe a cool gimmick for a handful of bosses (I think Mohg, Lord of Blood does this well, as pretty much all of his attacks are sluggish so it’s expected). The issue is that the majority of the bosses in the game attack very quickly, so when they randomly delay their attack, it totally kills your flow. Of course, avoiding this can become apart of the flow state, but it really just feels like a cheap trick, a beginner's trap, if you will. It’s also just annoying. Like dude, fuck off.
Combined with sometimes overly aggressive and fast bosses, as well as these delayed attacks plus input reading PLUS cryptic combo extensions, I find myself getting frustrated with most bosses. I’ve seen plenty of people play aggressively and shoot for stance breaks, but I find it’s really difficult to do this on the first playthrough (maybe I’m just really bad). Torrent is also a bastard.
Even the regular enemies aren’t immune to being overtuned. Starting at the mountaintop of the giants, enemies suddenly become way more spongy and hit way harder. Consecrated Snowlands and Crumbling Farum Azula get the worst of it. I want to give a quick shout out to the runebear who greets you in the Consecrated Snowlands, who has 18k HP. That is more than Radagon. You know. The final boss. I would also like to shout out the Farum Azula dragon you have to fight, with an insufferable camera and a ludicrous amount of HP. I would also like to shout out the crucible knight, the only enemy in the game I straight up gave up on. I beat Melania but not this asshole. You get the picture. The endgame is already much lighter on exploration, with the last few areas having very little in the way of discovery, and it’s made worse by these overpowered, endlessly frustrating enemies, and then a boss rush of (mostly) overpowered or frustrating boss fights. Also giant boss fights, where you can’t fucking see. Fire Giant, Elden Beast, Maliketh. Were those dudes even playtested (obviously yes, my question was did the dev team think that the Fire Giant and Elden Beast fights were good lol)?
I’ll stop now. You get the point. The endgame balance probably plays a large role in my (relatively) lower score, as it just exhausted me. I wasn’t hyped to see the ending, I was just hoping for the game to finally end.


Play it again on super hard mode!
-Sonic heroes having some fucking nerve

But why would you want it to end??? Don’t you want to play the game again? Use a different build? Explore in a different order? Maybe a challenge run?
So much of Elden Ring’s design feels like it was more for challenge runs. As a matter of fact, the open world itself feels like it only exists for challenge runs. The challenge run videos I have seen spend a lot of time sneaking around to get the necessary ashes of war/equipment/spells or whatever before actually starting the run. I will admit, it is a fun thing that you can get most of what you need for a build early. It’s just disappointing that this aspect is to the detriment of the rest of the playerbase. Why does the crafting system exist when I haven’t seen anyone use it ever? Because I’m a liar, and I have seen someone use it. Challenge runners. Why do some weapons seemingly exist just to be shit? Maybe it’s for the “CAN YOU BEAT ELDEN RING WITH ONLY THE BALLISTA” video (it exists, I watched it).
This is not to disparage challenge runners, they keep my youtube feed lively. I love watching them. I just want to ask, to an average skill gamer such as myself, what purpose does this open world serve? How does it benefit the game? There’s very clearly an “intended” order to go about things in, considering how the enemies stats scale in a linear order like they would if this wasn’t an open world game. Fuck around in Limgrave and then the order of operations is Godrick, Renalla, Radhan, Rykard, Morgott, and then you’re on rails from there. While the route to these bosses are a little bit varied, I wonder why I need to fumble around the epic Open World™ instead of this just being a more tightly designed, linear game. The “legacy dungeons'' were my favorite part of the game because it felt like I was given a real, intentionally designed challenge, and not just wandering around aimlessly until some level 90 dickhead decided to kill me because I went the “wrong way”.
As it stands, it really feels like the open world is only open to facilitate challenge runs and replays, even though the game is so fucking long that I don’t even want to replay it. I spent 120 hours on my NG file, I’m good thanks. And again, all of the initial “wow factor” is gone on my second playthrough, as I’ve already explored most of the game.
I suppose I could replay the game with a different build. New game+ does scale with your endgame, so it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. I could play it again on super hard mode, but my response to that is the same as I gave to Sonic Heroes asking me that very same question: “why would I want to do that”.


“It has a little something for everyone 9/10”
-IGN on “New Super Mario Bros U”

I realize that I have made Elden Ring sound like some joyless slog I only finished because there was a gun to my head. Not so. I did enjoy my time with Elden Ring, and if I really did hate it that much, I wouldn’t have spent so long finishing it. I think that initial high carried me through a lot of the game. I do want to say that my first 30-40 hours were really exciting. It was before everything was being reused, when everything was still new to me. When the mythos of how much of a masterpiece this game is, was just that, a legend, that I myself now got to experience. Lucky me! The music was gorgeous the whole way through, touting some pretty striking landscapes and overall excellent art direction. Although I haven’t played them (well, since starting to write this, I dabbled a bit in Bloodborne) I can tell that good art direction is kind of expected from Fromsoft. The music is also excellent, the boss themes being a particular standout. I’m not a music expert but it sounds good. I don’t think I need to justify myself, as saying “the music in Elden Ring is good” is, as I was told once, “a take so cold you have to thaw it out before reading it”. And again, I did really like some of the bosses, and I did like experimenting with different variations on my build and getting my mind to race thinking about different ways of going about things. I started wanting to just be a pure dexterity beast, but ended with some bizarre amalgamation of an arcane/dex build with a decent amount of faith on the side. Dragon communion seal my beloved.
I want to go back to that comment I made before, about Elden Ring being some untouchable masterpiece that you just have to play to understand how epic and good it is. It’s a type of mythos that is generally given to games much, much older than this one. Stuff like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Chrono Trigger, etc. I, a grizzled 19 year old veteran gamer, remember when games like Bioshock were in that conversation as well. It feels weird thinking that Elden Ring has kind of “made it” with that crowd of definitive “masterpieces”. Fucking hell I’m using a lot of quotation marks.
What I’m getting at here is that the reputation that these games carry doesn’t really do them many favors. New players will often go in, expecting their minds to be blown and pants to be shit, only to come out thinking “I don’t get it”. I certainly had that with Chrono Trigger, which I love to bits now, but when I first played it I was wondering what all of the hype was about.
I guess a similar fate befell me with Elden Ring. I went in expecting to play a 10/10 masterpiece, but found a game that, while good, was not entirely to my liking. It also doesn’t help that the legendary difficulty of Fromsoft games makes it difficult to have real discussions about potential balancing issues. I swear I see so many people get their criticisms shut down by the infamous “git gud”. It reminds me of back when games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time felt like they were above criticism, in a way. Of course, this isn’t as much the case now as it used to be, and there are plenty of critiques about Elden Ring that have been received warmly (even if someone definitely did make a video calling everyone who complained about the balancing a scrub).


“For whom are you fighting this relentless, dreadful battle?”

What am I getting at with all of that? Not sure. Just felt like pointing it out. I do believe that Elden Ring is a good game, and I did enjoy myself. It just burned me out in the end, it’s open world feeling more like a burden to my enjoyment than an asset. At journey’s end, the game’s issues weighed on me more than ever before. After 120 hours, I slayed the Elden Beast and got the Age of Stars ending. With the Golden Order destroyed after a truly frustrating battle, what did I feel? Catharsis? Relief? Satisfaction that I saved a world I feel no attachment to? In all honesty, I couldn’t really describe how I felt, other than the fact that it felt like nothing.
The age of the stars is here, bitches. It’s your problem now. I certainly don’t give a shit anymore.