If you have played Dark Soul 1, you would have had this experience.
When you started the game, you could enter three or four dangerous places except for one "normal" route,
and after being beaten hard in these places, you would think, "How do I break through these reviving skeletons and pass through the graveyard?" or "Do I really have to go through that ghost-ridden path?" something like that.
Then, you'll play on a route along the path of weaker enemies, and as you proceed with the level,
player character's stat will grow, and at the same time, you will also acquire "knowledge" and "tools" that can handle skeletons and ghosts.
And later, it can be used to break through dangerous areas. This is the part I liked in Dark Soul 1.
Even though it seems kinda irresponsible to let players go to the dangerous places, but there was a sense of trust from the developers that players would avoid them, learn the game, and return on their own later,
And based on the bits of knowledge, it is possible for experienced players to create crazy builds or weird game progressions on their own.
This "opened" structure can create a form in which players can actively draw variables. Personally, I thought such an element was a unique value from FROM.
But after Dark Souls 1, this design method was hard to see again because the later games were somewhat linearized. And I'm really glad to say that Elden Ring reintroduced the design method. On a huge scale.
Elden Ring is full of roadblocks that motivate more explorations. The element stretches from Limgrave to the hidden levels that will come out at the end.
The most representative example is Margit, who is comparable to DLC bosses in the early souls-game in terms of difficulty. And for most normal players, he is the first proper main boss, since the grace checkpoints are leading to him.
It might be insane to think that FROM introduced Artorias on crack as a first main boss when most people don't even know how to use combat options properly early on, but if you search through other areas of Limgrave, not only your character's stats will grow up, but you can also find an item that is borderline-cheating for the boss fight, and a spirit summoning system that can be helpful for AI distractions.
You can even find a route that can bypass a whole Stormveil castle early on so that you can go to the later area early on. (Although it is recommendable to beat Stormveil castle early for the leveling and the great rune)
Exploration will always give multiple answers for the roadblocks, and that's why I can clearly say that it has a structure that is closer to traditional non-linear RPG compared to all souls-borne games.
The challenges you'll find during your explorations are greatly varied. In most recent action-focused titles such as Bloodborne, Dark souls 3, and Sekiro, while there were different types of enemies, most of the special encounters were grounded-combat-focused and didn't bring other game elements to spice up the adventure aspects, such as level hazards or puzzles.
(Except Forbidden Woods & Mensis Nightmare in Bloodborne, or the Archive in Dark souls 3. Those were memorable levels.)
Elden Ring introduces puzzles, platforming challenges, several types of traps that can bamboozle the players to change the phase of the game significantly.
Some might be easier to solve compared to the others, but you have to admit that your experience of Elden Ring can't be boiled down to combat after combat.
Even the special combat encounters are extremely varied in the open world.
Some groups of enemies are engaging in war with each other, so you can find an opportunity to deal with some sneaky attacks on the distracted AI.
Giant enemies can deal damages to their allies, so by utilizing positioning and baiting, you can make the grouped giants kill themselves.
Most field bosses are located on uneven terrain, so not only do you have to watch their movesets, but you also have to care about the levels surrounding you.
Do you see what I mean? This game is full of encounters that can break the mold of traditional action parts for your creative or perceptive gameplay, which is awesome.
Even though the early part provides only a handful of small mediocre dungeons, once you go to the other areas, the types of challenges will be varied significantly. So if you love risky adventures, I bet you'll lose nothing by playing this.
And there are main dungeons or so-called Legacy Dungeons. These are working like Dark souls 2 DLC levels where there's one clear path to a boss room,
but finding the path requires some perceptive skills and there are a large number of different paths that lead you to hidden items or special challenges.
Even though I prefer the loop-maze structure where you have to navigate through a maze-like level with one checkpoint, the legacy dungeons are still the best part of the game, thanks to the vertical structure, sadistic enemy placements, and traps.
They also made some areas impossible to run through without thinking, thanks to the narrow corridors, enemy placements, and level hazards.
Because of that, Stormveil Castle and Royal Capital have almost flawless level designs in terms of dungeon design perspective.
The only thing I can criticize about Legacy Dungeon is that, while the player's progression inside the dungeon can be non-linear, it's still contained in one dungeon, unlike Dark Souls 1 where the dungeons and other places are interconnected like webs.
Which is a lost opportunity, because I think there were enough rooms for that, thanks to the massive size of the dungeons.
However, if you look at this game with pure combat perspective, things can be messy.
Let's look at the good part first. Not only does this game bring back Power-Stance from Dark Souls 2, but Weapon Arts are also customizable in normal weapons.
This element alone can create depth that no other FROM games could have provided, and if FROM is actually caring about content updates about multiplay, it will have the best PVP scene in all souls-borne history.
But my gripes are coming from the enemy design. Especially the elite ones and the late-game bosses.
Souls game is on the passive, or reactive side if you compare them to other well-made action games, but this series always gave positive feedback about proactive positioning.
Some enemies could use tracking attacks or delayed attacks, but they didn't go full-magnet so you had opportunities to position yourself without heavily relying on timed-dodge movement, especially if you lock-off.
Dark souls 3 might have been criticized by some gamers for being a "dodge-roll festival", but there were bosses like Demon Prince, Sister Friede, and Midir where you can try out different positioning approaches for your own benefit thanks to their clear pattern chains, consistent damage area, and windows for clear weakness.
This series might incentivize passive actions, but as you learn the patterns, you could find more options to engage in the fight even as a monotonous melee build.
(Like back-stabing Sister Friede or charge-attacking Orphan of Kos)
If you are gonna try out pure-true-to-heart melee build -the "traditional" way- to deal with Elden Ring's enemies then be sure that you won't find a lot of windows to be proactive this time around.
(Of course, some people will find the exploits, but for most gamers, they won't likely find that, myself included.)
Most of Elden Ring's elite enemies and bosses have an off-beat combo that can rapidly change their chains depending on the player's position and 99% of their melee moves track horizontally like a magnet.
And as if those weren't enough, the jump attacks and even some simple melee attacks can shorten the distance between them and players with no fixed movement speed.
The worst-case was the final boss's first phase where he can position himself in front of you with simple melee attacks no matter how far you try to distance from him.
Not only does this look awful because it feels like the boss is riding skates rather than actually using his footsteps, but it also reduces the options for players to be safe from him.
There are only timed dodge and very passive poking left in this fight if you are playing this as a melee build. The only thing different from Sekiro's ultra-passive combat loop is that dodge direction matters, but that's all. (And I have to say, I would have prefered Sekiro's approach if they were gonna boil everything down to timing-game anyway. At least there were "fun" to have while obliterating bosses by chaining the consecutive deflections and using the prosthetic tools)
Another worst-case scenario is an infamous duo gargoyle battle. These bastards can use 360' degree windmill slash and poison AOE whenever they want no matter the position of players, and every normal attacks track you.
Because of this, only a frustrating waiting game remains in that battle.
And here's a thing. I wouldn't mind this kind of enemy behavior if this was Nioh2 or any stylish combo-based action game where you have much more proactive and reactive moves as a baseline.
But the thing is, the player character is -even with the inclusion of jump attack and swappable quick step - working like Dark Souls 3. It's a blatant unbalance when it comes to basic options on the player's part.
Though, This is a part where the character-build variety shines. Since the pure melee builds are designed to be rather frustrating, the bleed/frozen status effects are significantly more useful than before, and magic, ashes of war, and summonable spirits that you can acquire during the exploration are almost mandatory when you can't build specific melee build that can shred enemies to pieces.
And these additional options have their own gameplay depth too. Aside from the edge cases, many enemies have limited attack distances so the positioning matters when you are casting.
Some enemies can evade your spells so you can't always spam that. so there is a need for a timing check for using spells, unlike previous games.
Ashes of War aren't definitly monotonous or filler-ish like weapon arts in DS3. They can be a useful ranged option, but also be a great positioning tool, like Hound Step. With Hound Step, I could have a better time with this melee combat system thanks to it's large movement range and larger i-frames. I would have a better time with this game IF the main dodge system was as lenient as this skill, but it's a viable option at the end, and I'm glad with this inclusion.
Summonable spirits have clear pros and cons depending on the type, and this alone can incentivize using different spirits, thanks to the different types of enemy encounters I mentioned.
The best and the most interesting one is a mimic tear, where you can summon a direct copy of yourself.
If you have made a mage-knight build like me, you can summon them and let them use the spell casting from far while you are dealing with enemies with melee.
This alone shows that there are many possibilities in strategy perspective when you know how to utilize summoning.
However, considering that this is still an action game, you might feel less satisfied with using this method, since once they are summoned, they choose a random target, then choose a random position, and then choose a random attack string.
They are completely out of control, and even if the end was victorious, it wouldn't be as satisfying as soloing.
But you have to know that some later bosses are literally designed to be borderline impossible to solo with certain builds. (Like Malenia. I can't imagine consistently beating her solo unless you have a god-send parry skill, +10 great shield, or a min-maxed bleed weapon)
I would have much preferred if every boss in this game incentivized using players' base options for a proactive approach so that every build is "theoretically possible" to solo the bosses without being too defensive.
And spirit summoning could have stayed as a diegetic difficulty option instead of being a mandatory helper.
Now let's talk about some positive stuff. Even though combat can be messy, the legend bosses in this game are mostly highlights, even more so than late-FROM games. (Still, none of them are comparable to Ludwig, but that's my preference.)
This one includes most main bosses, so please skip this paragraph if you haven't played it till the end.
Margit and Godrick were great early bosses. Sure, they have some tracking attacks and long combos, but thanks to their slow movement, you can find good positioning options to deal more damages even as a pure melee.
I really loved Godrick fight, where the jump counter was actually viable for the quake attack patterns. They were both challenging but fair as 1v1.
Moon Queen is one of those "weird" boss fights in FROM's boss library, but the first phase's stage structure is much more interesting than the one from Deacons of The Deep, and the second phase really tested players' movement options (like running). I liked that fight.
Radahn is also a "weird" boss fight but in a different manner. He can be dealt with 1v1, but because of his massive size, health pool, and absolutely broken AOE patterns, only specific builds that can use fast-long-reach weapons can have a good time with this fight as 1v1.
For the others, they can utilize the gimmick of the boss field, -the ever-regenerating summonable NPCs conceptualized as a festival-. With that, you can find an opportunity to attack him behind the back.
In a sense, he is like Yhorm, but with more nuance in the combat options. It would have been a tedious boss without these options, but thanks to the level gimmick, and the theme surrounding Radahn's backstory, this fight still remains as one of the most memorable boss fights in Elden Ring.
Rykard is a classic FROM's "storm ruler" boss, but the power-fantasy value of this boss fight was extreme beyond measure. Come on, you are literally swinging a 70-meter giant spear in a god damn Souls game. Also, this fight isn't a joke like other "storm ruler" bosses.
You have to read the distance and the boss's animation to actually obliterate him. And the second phase, dear god. FROM's creature design really shined in this phase. And the chaotic bullet-hell pattern made me really panic about the situation, combined with the hellish OST and the visual.
The Ancestor Spirit was on the easier side, but this is supposed to be a "feel" boss like Sif. So I really liked that as a pure experience. I wish they didn't include this boss in the trailer so that it could have been more surprising.
There were two hidden legend bosses I wanted to call "masterful works"
One was Dragonlord. Unlike the other fast ever-tracking bullshit bosses, This boss is built upon clear AOE patterns and players' positioning options. The lightning attack has a clear sound and dodge window, so you can handle the off-camera attacks even while attacking.
The fire AOE is large, but once again, thanks to his consistent actions, you can either run away with a fixed amount of distance or find the right place to hide and punish him.
And there were some weird patterns where you have to utilize camera movement. He can teleport away and dive bomb you from the off-screen, so you have to track him by rotating the camera manually.
I would be mad if this boss was a rampaging-beast type of boss, but since his off-screen attacks are fairly telegraphed with slow movement, I didn't mind that at all. It was a fun fight.
Another one was Mohg. This one is working similar to Margit -A rather slow giant humanoid boss with off-beat combos in his sleeves-.
The nice thing about this boss is that his attacks leave traces in the boss arena, so not only do you have to read the attack chains, you have to care about the field hazard so it's not just another roll-dodge game.
And here's a thing. His melee attacks are visually readable thanks to his wide and slow animation. And the field hazard is working as glass shards rather than a giant hammer that one-shots you, so there are interesting choices about damage-trading or safe-play.
Although the health drain gimmick in the phase transition seems a little bit bullshit, the rest part was fun so I didn't mind this fight as 1v1. Probably the best humanoid boss fight in this game.
Though, aside from the bosses I mentioned as positive, there were some bosses that went too far and came off as overkill rather than a fair game.
One is Malenia. Whoever designed the triple anime-slash combo attack in this boss fight should not join as an action-designer part in FROM's design department ever again. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea?
Another one is the final boss, or should I say, final BOSSES.
I mentioned the final boss as a worst-case about pure melee for a reason. If I could use a summon for the first phase, I wouldn't be that mad since that can be seen as a viable option to distract him.
But the fact that the second phase is an entirely different, conceptually disconnected boss fight that NOBODY would disagree to separate it as a different boss fight, and if you have used the summon in the first phase, your summons will die instantly thanks to their ABSOLUTELY nonsensical bullet patterns made me angry. Like, really angry.
Like, I didn't understand that design decision in Sekiro, but WHY DO THEY COMBINE THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BOSSES FOR ONE BATTLE?
This isn't like Ludwig or Sister Friede because, in those fights, they were conceptualized as the same entity from the beginning till the end.
This final boss feels like they connected them together because THEY FUCKING WANTED THE FIGHT TO HAVE "AcTHuallY-FOUR-PHASES".
FROM should remember that even a mono-phase boss fight can be interesting and challenging. You know, like fucking Artorias.
Oh yeah, the final-final boss is a trash fire.
The first final boss is an overkill that devalues the positioning options, but when you roll at the right time, you can negate the area damage(which is still stupid because even though they are CLEARLY ground-pound, you should roll through them because some AOE can catch your jump for some fucking reason), and it is possible to use fewer health potions than the other fast bosses thanks to his rather "readable" animations.
However, the second final boss is a camera-eating monstrosity, an unreadable-bullet-hell, and a run-away-boss at the same time.
Like, I actually liked the character design of them, but I don't know who thought it is okay to put ever-following missile and un-jumpable wave attack simultaneously while the boss is actively distancing from you.
Yeah, I'm back to the negative vibe. So let's talk about the negative aspects of the "lessor" bosses.
I bet there weren't many QA checks for these little bosses, since the mini-dungeon-bosses are either too easy or an-ever-tracking monstrosity that is somehow confined in a small room.
Even if there are some good bosses like Deathbird, Godskin, and Commander, the bosses get repeated in the other dungeons and lose their value as a unique entity.
And the multi-enemy bosses in this game are the worst in the whole series of souls-borne. It would be an insult to compare them to FROM's previous well-designed multi bosses such as O&S, Ruin Sentinels, Demon Prince, and Shadows of Yharnam.
Not only they don't have a clear role distribution or attack timing as a part of multi-bosses(maybe except Godskin duo), because of the melee combat issue I mentioned earlier, you either have to play it really defensively or use summons and DPS build to shred them to pieces.
These might work as solid roadblocks that can test your builds, but as an action game, they only left a sour taste in my mouth.
So yeah, I wrote really long review/critique about this game. It was a tiring journey, but it would be a blatant lie if I ONLY had a bad time with this game. If I didn't like it, I would have dropped the game during the playthrough and didn't even put a star on this (I only rate the games I finished)
The potential for the player-oriented story in this game is infinite, and the exploration, adventure aspects alone can make other souls-like games cry in shame. This game deserves to be loved by many, from casual players to hardcore souls veterans. 80 hours on this game aren't wasted to void.
But I have to say. For me, as an action game, It didn't jump over the Bloodborne's hurdle again.
When you started the game, you could enter three or four dangerous places except for one "normal" route,
and after being beaten hard in these places, you would think, "How do I break through these reviving skeletons and pass through the graveyard?" or "Do I really have to go through that ghost-ridden path?" something like that.
Then, you'll play on a route along the path of weaker enemies, and as you proceed with the level,
player character's stat will grow, and at the same time, you will also acquire "knowledge" and "tools" that can handle skeletons and ghosts.
And later, it can be used to break through dangerous areas. This is the part I liked in Dark Soul 1.
Even though it seems kinda irresponsible to let players go to the dangerous places, but there was a sense of trust from the developers that players would avoid them, learn the game, and return on their own later,
And based on the bits of knowledge, it is possible for experienced players to create crazy builds or weird game progressions on their own.
This "opened" structure can create a form in which players can actively draw variables. Personally, I thought such an element was a unique value from FROM.
But after Dark Souls 1, this design method was hard to see again because the later games were somewhat linearized. And I'm really glad to say that Elden Ring reintroduced the design method. On a huge scale.
Elden Ring is full of roadblocks that motivate more explorations. The element stretches from Limgrave to the hidden levels that will come out at the end.
The most representative example is Margit, who is comparable to DLC bosses in the early souls-game in terms of difficulty. And for most normal players, he is the first proper main boss, since the grace checkpoints are leading to him.
It might be insane to think that FROM introduced Artorias on crack as a first main boss when most people don't even know how to use combat options properly early on, but if you search through other areas of Limgrave, not only your character's stats will grow up, but you can also find an item that is borderline-cheating for the boss fight, and a spirit summoning system that can be helpful for AI distractions.
You can even find a route that can bypass a whole Stormveil castle early on so that you can go to the later area early on. (Although it is recommendable to beat Stormveil castle early for the leveling and the great rune)
Exploration will always give multiple answers for the roadblocks, and that's why I can clearly say that it has a structure that is closer to traditional non-linear RPG compared to all souls-borne games.
The challenges you'll find during your explorations are greatly varied. In most recent action-focused titles such as Bloodborne, Dark souls 3, and Sekiro, while there were different types of enemies, most of the special encounters were grounded-combat-focused and didn't bring other game elements to spice up the adventure aspects, such as level hazards or puzzles.
(Except Forbidden Woods & Mensis Nightmare in Bloodborne, or the Archive in Dark souls 3. Those were memorable levels.)
Elden Ring introduces puzzles, platforming challenges, several types of traps that can bamboozle the players to change the phase of the game significantly.
Some might be easier to solve compared to the others, but you have to admit that your experience of Elden Ring can't be boiled down to combat after combat.
Even the special combat encounters are extremely varied in the open world.
Some groups of enemies are engaging in war with each other, so you can find an opportunity to deal with some sneaky attacks on the distracted AI.
Giant enemies can deal damages to their allies, so by utilizing positioning and baiting, you can make the grouped giants kill themselves.
Most field bosses are located on uneven terrain, so not only do you have to watch their movesets, but you also have to care about the levels surrounding you.
Do you see what I mean? This game is full of encounters that can break the mold of traditional action parts for your creative or perceptive gameplay, which is awesome.
Even though the early part provides only a handful of small mediocre dungeons, once you go to the other areas, the types of challenges will be varied significantly. So if you love risky adventures, I bet you'll lose nothing by playing this.
And there are main dungeons or so-called Legacy Dungeons. These are working like Dark souls 2 DLC levels where there's one clear path to a boss room,
but finding the path requires some perceptive skills and there are a large number of different paths that lead you to hidden items or special challenges.
Even though I prefer the loop-maze structure where you have to navigate through a maze-like level with one checkpoint, the legacy dungeons are still the best part of the game, thanks to the vertical structure, sadistic enemy placements, and traps.
They also made some areas impossible to run through without thinking, thanks to the narrow corridors, enemy placements, and level hazards.
Because of that, Stormveil Castle and Royal Capital have almost flawless level designs in terms of dungeon design perspective.
The only thing I can criticize about Legacy Dungeon is that, while the player's progression inside the dungeon can be non-linear, it's still contained in one dungeon, unlike Dark Souls 1 where the dungeons and other places are interconnected like webs.
Which is a lost opportunity, because I think there were enough rooms for that, thanks to the massive size of the dungeons.
However, if you look at this game with pure combat perspective, things can be messy.
Let's look at the good part first. Not only does this game bring back Power-Stance from Dark Souls 2, but Weapon Arts are also customizable in normal weapons.
This element alone can create depth that no other FROM games could have provided, and if FROM is actually caring about content updates about multiplay, it will have the best PVP scene in all souls-borne history.
But my gripes are coming from the enemy design. Especially the elite ones and the late-game bosses.
Souls game is on the passive, or reactive side if you compare them to other well-made action games, but this series always gave positive feedback about proactive positioning.
Some enemies could use tracking attacks or delayed attacks, but they didn't go full-magnet so you had opportunities to position yourself without heavily relying on timed-dodge movement, especially if you lock-off.
Dark souls 3 might have been criticized by some gamers for being a "dodge-roll festival", but there were bosses like Demon Prince, Sister Friede, and Midir where you can try out different positioning approaches for your own benefit thanks to their clear pattern chains, consistent damage area, and windows for clear weakness.
This series might incentivize passive actions, but as you learn the patterns, you could find more options to engage in the fight even as a monotonous melee build.
(Like back-stabing Sister Friede or charge-attacking Orphan of Kos)
If you are gonna try out pure-true-to-heart melee build -the "traditional" way- to deal with Elden Ring's enemies then be sure that you won't find a lot of windows to be proactive this time around.
(Of course, some people will find the exploits, but for most gamers, they won't likely find that, myself included.)
Most of Elden Ring's elite enemies and bosses have an off-beat combo that can rapidly change their chains depending on the player's position and 99% of their melee moves track horizontally like a magnet.
And as if those weren't enough, the jump attacks and even some simple melee attacks can shorten the distance between them and players with no fixed movement speed.
The worst-case was the final boss's first phase where he can position himself in front of you with simple melee attacks no matter how far you try to distance from him.
Not only does this look awful because it feels like the boss is riding skates rather than actually using his footsteps, but it also reduces the options for players to be safe from him.
There are only timed dodge and very passive poking left in this fight if you are playing this as a melee build. The only thing different from Sekiro's ultra-passive combat loop is that dodge direction matters, but that's all. (And I have to say, I would have prefered Sekiro's approach if they were gonna boil everything down to timing-game anyway. At least there were "fun" to have while obliterating bosses by chaining the consecutive deflections and using the prosthetic tools)
Another worst-case scenario is an infamous duo gargoyle battle. These bastards can use 360' degree windmill slash and poison AOE whenever they want no matter the position of players, and every normal attacks track you.
Because of this, only a frustrating waiting game remains in that battle.
And here's a thing. I wouldn't mind this kind of enemy behavior if this was Nioh2 or any stylish combo-based action game where you have much more proactive and reactive moves as a baseline.
But the thing is, the player character is -even with the inclusion of jump attack and swappable quick step - working like Dark Souls 3. It's a blatant unbalance when it comes to basic options on the player's part.
Though, This is a part where the character-build variety shines. Since the pure melee builds are designed to be rather frustrating, the bleed/frozen status effects are significantly more useful than before, and magic, ashes of war, and summonable spirits that you can acquire during the exploration are almost mandatory when you can't build specific melee build that can shred enemies to pieces.
And these additional options have their own gameplay depth too. Aside from the edge cases, many enemies have limited attack distances so the positioning matters when you are casting.
Some enemies can evade your spells so you can't always spam that. so there is a need for a timing check for using spells, unlike previous games.
Ashes of War aren't definitly monotonous or filler-ish like weapon arts in DS3. They can be a useful ranged option, but also be a great positioning tool, like Hound Step. With Hound Step, I could have a better time with this melee combat system thanks to it's large movement range and larger i-frames. I would have a better time with this game IF the main dodge system was as lenient as this skill, but it's a viable option at the end, and I'm glad with this inclusion.
Summonable spirits have clear pros and cons depending on the type, and this alone can incentivize using different spirits, thanks to the different types of enemy encounters I mentioned.
The best and the most interesting one is a mimic tear, where you can summon a direct copy of yourself.
If you have made a mage-knight build like me, you can summon them and let them use the spell casting from far while you are dealing with enemies with melee.
This alone shows that there are many possibilities in strategy perspective when you know how to utilize summoning.
However, considering that this is still an action game, you might feel less satisfied with using this method, since once they are summoned, they choose a random target, then choose a random position, and then choose a random attack string.
They are completely out of control, and even if the end was victorious, it wouldn't be as satisfying as soloing.
But you have to know that some later bosses are literally designed to be borderline impossible to solo with certain builds. (Like Malenia. I can't imagine consistently beating her solo unless you have a god-send parry skill, +10 great shield, or a min-maxed bleed weapon)
I would have much preferred if every boss in this game incentivized using players' base options for a proactive approach so that every build is "theoretically possible" to solo the bosses without being too defensive.
And spirit summoning could have stayed as a diegetic difficulty option instead of being a mandatory helper.
Now let's talk about some positive stuff. Even though combat can be messy, the legend bosses in this game are mostly highlights, even more so than late-FROM games. (Still, none of them are comparable to Ludwig, but that's my preference.)
This one includes most main bosses, so please skip this paragraph if you haven't played it till the end.
Margit and Godrick were great early bosses. Sure, they have some tracking attacks and long combos, but thanks to their slow movement, you can find good positioning options to deal more damages even as a pure melee.
I really loved Godrick fight, where the jump counter was actually viable for the quake attack patterns. They were both challenging but fair as 1v1.
Moon Queen is one of those "weird" boss fights in FROM's boss library, but the first phase's stage structure is much more interesting than the one from Deacons of The Deep, and the second phase really tested players' movement options (like running). I liked that fight.
Radahn is also a "weird" boss fight but in a different manner. He can be dealt with 1v1, but because of his massive size, health pool, and absolutely broken AOE patterns, only specific builds that can use fast-long-reach weapons can have a good time with this fight as 1v1.
For the others, they can utilize the gimmick of the boss field, -the ever-regenerating summonable NPCs conceptualized as a festival-. With that, you can find an opportunity to attack him behind the back.
In a sense, he is like Yhorm, but with more nuance in the combat options. It would have been a tedious boss without these options, but thanks to the level gimmick, and the theme surrounding Radahn's backstory, this fight still remains as one of the most memorable boss fights in Elden Ring.
Rykard is a classic FROM's "storm ruler" boss, but the power-fantasy value of this boss fight was extreme beyond measure. Come on, you are literally swinging a 70-meter giant spear in a god damn Souls game. Also, this fight isn't a joke like other "storm ruler" bosses.
You have to read the distance and the boss's animation to actually obliterate him. And the second phase, dear god. FROM's creature design really shined in this phase. And the chaotic bullet-hell pattern made me really panic about the situation, combined with the hellish OST and the visual.
The Ancestor Spirit was on the easier side, but this is supposed to be a "feel" boss like Sif. So I really liked that as a pure experience. I wish they didn't include this boss in the trailer so that it could have been more surprising.
There were two hidden legend bosses I wanted to call "masterful works"
One was Dragonlord. Unlike the other fast ever-tracking bullshit bosses, This boss is built upon clear AOE patterns and players' positioning options. The lightning attack has a clear sound and dodge window, so you can handle the off-camera attacks even while attacking.
The fire AOE is large, but once again, thanks to his consistent actions, you can either run away with a fixed amount of distance or find the right place to hide and punish him.
And there were some weird patterns where you have to utilize camera movement. He can teleport away and dive bomb you from the off-screen, so you have to track him by rotating the camera manually.
I would be mad if this boss was a rampaging-beast type of boss, but since his off-screen attacks are fairly telegraphed with slow movement, I didn't mind that at all. It was a fun fight.
Another one was Mohg. This one is working similar to Margit -A rather slow giant humanoid boss with off-beat combos in his sleeves-.
The nice thing about this boss is that his attacks leave traces in the boss arena, so not only do you have to read the attack chains, you have to care about the field hazard so it's not just another roll-dodge game.
And here's a thing. His melee attacks are visually readable thanks to his wide and slow animation. And the field hazard is working as glass shards rather than a giant hammer that one-shots you, so there are interesting choices about damage-trading or safe-play.
Although the health drain gimmick in the phase transition seems a little bit bullshit, the rest part was fun so I didn't mind this fight as 1v1. Probably the best humanoid boss fight in this game.
Though, aside from the bosses I mentioned as positive, there were some bosses that went too far and came off as overkill rather than a fair game.
One is Malenia. Whoever designed the triple anime-slash combo attack in this boss fight should not join as an action-designer part in FROM's design department ever again. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea?
Another one is the final boss, or should I say, final BOSSES.
I mentioned the final boss as a worst-case about pure melee for a reason. If I could use a summon for the first phase, I wouldn't be that mad since that can be seen as a viable option to distract him.
But the fact that the second phase is an entirely different, conceptually disconnected boss fight that NOBODY would disagree to separate it as a different boss fight, and if you have used the summon in the first phase, your summons will die instantly thanks to their ABSOLUTELY nonsensical bullet patterns made me angry. Like, really angry.
Like, I didn't understand that design decision in Sekiro, but WHY DO THEY COMBINE THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BOSSES FOR ONE BATTLE?
This isn't like Ludwig or Sister Friede because, in those fights, they were conceptualized as the same entity from the beginning till the end.
This final boss feels like they connected them together because THEY FUCKING WANTED THE FIGHT TO HAVE "AcTHuallY-FOUR-PHASES".
FROM should remember that even a mono-phase boss fight can be interesting and challenging. You know, like fucking Artorias.
Oh yeah, the final-final boss is a trash fire.
The first final boss is an overkill that devalues the positioning options, but when you roll at the right time, you can negate the area damage(which is still stupid because even though they are CLEARLY ground-pound, you should roll through them because some AOE can catch your jump for some fucking reason), and it is possible to use fewer health potions than the other fast bosses thanks to his rather "readable" animations.
However, the second final boss is a camera-eating monstrosity, an unreadable-bullet-hell, and a run-away-boss at the same time.
Like, I actually liked the character design of them, but I don't know who thought it is okay to put ever-following missile and un-jumpable wave attack simultaneously while the boss is actively distancing from you.
Yeah, I'm back to the negative vibe. So let's talk about the negative aspects of the "lessor" bosses.
I bet there weren't many QA checks for these little bosses, since the mini-dungeon-bosses are either too easy or an-ever-tracking monstrosity that is somehow confined in a small room.
Even if there are some good bosses like Deathbird, Godskin, and Commander, the bosses get repeated in the other dungeons and lose their value as a unique entity.
And the multi-enemy bosses in this game are the worst in the whole series of souls-borne. It would be an insult to compare them to FROM's previous well-designed multi bosses such as O&S, Ruin Sentinels, Demon Prince, and Shadows of Yharnam.
Not only they don't have a clear role distribution or attack timing as a part of multi-bosses(maybe except Godskin duo), because of the melee combat issue I mentioned earlier, you either have to play it really defensively or use summons and DPS build to shred them to pieces.
These might work as solid roadblocks that can test your builds, but as an action game, they only left a sour taste in my mouth.
So yeah, I wrote really long review/critique about this game. It was a tiring journey, but it would be a blatant lie if I ONLY had a bad time with this game. If I didn't like it, I would have dropped the game during the playthrough and didn't even put a star on this (I only rate the games I finished)
The potential for the player-oriented story in this game is infinite, and the exploration, adventure aspects alone can make other souls-like games cry in shame. This game deserves to be loved by many, from casual players to hardcore souls veterans. 80 hours on this game aren't wasted to void.
But I have to say. For me, as an action game, It didn't jump over the Bloodborne's hurdle again.
NOWITSREYNTIME17
2 years ago