Methesys
2022
When Elden Ring came out, it seemed like one of those games that was made specifically for me. I'm a big fantasy buff, I'm a fan of George R.R. Martin's work, and I generally find games that are difficult really fun and rewarding, because I love throwing myself at problems until I get it right. Not to mention I enjoy immersing myself in games, and the open world aspect seemed like I could spend hundreds of hours in this game doing just that. I'm essentially the ideal customer for a game like this, but unfortunately, I ended up feeling very mixed on Elden Ring.
I'll go ahead and get this out of the way though: this game is perfectly competent. It is not a waste of your money, and you will probably have a good time with it. I played this game for about 60 hours, and I don't regret the time I spent in this game nor the money I spent on this game. If you think you'd like something like this, check it out, I recommend it. It's a game people are probably going to be talking about for a while because no other game really fills the niche it does. I just don’t think it’s the GOAT, nowhere close – but I do think it will pave the way for bigger and better open-world fantasy games. I’ll also state that I generally like the game, and I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. If you really really like this game, I can totally see why. If you’re willing to put aside some low points and just focus on the good this game does (which, fair enough, that’s just how me and you differ as critics) then yeah, I can see how you might give this game a 9 or a 10 out of 10.
So, what did I like? The game starts off really strong. This game is really fucking pretty. It’s gorgeous, as soon as you step into Limgrave it’s stunning, and frankly this is consistent through the entire game. The environments in general are really creative aesthetically and in terms of worldbuilding. The lore is to be commended in general, it draws a lot from Welsh lore (which is bonus points from me, given that’s my heritage) and doesn’t shy away from some of the darker aspects of that lore. The OST is extremely good, and always does a good job of setting the mood.
Some of the bosses are some of the most fun I’ve had in games. Here’s my top 5.
5. Astel
4. Morgott
3. Maliketh
2. Placidusax
1. Godfrey
Okay, most of you who like the game agree. So, what’s the big deal? What’s my issue with this game? It is thus: Elden Ring is a game that does not respect the time that you put into it. It wants you to spend 100 hours in this game, doing all of the side content and clearing out all the dungeons – the world is massive and littered with tons of content to do. Whenever I would normally grind in a game like this, I went and looked for some side content. And in Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula, and hell, even Liurnia, this content is done pretty well. But by the time you’ve done three catacombs, or searched a few ruins, you’ve done them all.
For the life of me, I cannot tell you the difference between most of these catacombs or ruins besides where they’re located geographically. They don’t look any different, they don’t have terribly different layouts, and most of the enemies inside are the same. So, in an open world game with all of these different environments, that wants me to explore, to find really nothing new or interesting while exploring, I have an issue with that. I didn’t end up doing most of the side content, because I got 20 hours in, and I was fighting my fourth Erdtree Burial Watchdog, and I realized: this isn’t fun to me.
I normally don’t lower games based on their side content – I mean, it’s optional, right? But the conceit of Elden Ring, is that you have this whole huge world to explore and that you’ll find something to do wherever you look. That much is true. The game wants you to explore to get more runes to level up. But between the samey dungeons and the reused enemies and bosses, I don’t think that a majority of the side content is worth your time at all. So it leads me to the question: why the hell would I do it? I couldn’t come up with an answer, so I didn’t do it.
Also, some of the bosses also really fucking suck. These are the ones, unfortunately, that get reused the most. Here’s my bottom five.
5. Crucible Knight
4. Putrid Avatar
3. Erdtree Burial Watchdog (Single)
2. Erdtree Burial Watchdog (Duo)
1. Godskin Duo
I don’t mind dying in bosses, but all of the ones above were ones that frankly did not feel rewarding to fight nor did they feel fair to fight. I’m all about difficulty, but it has to be fun. Some of these bosses just feel like they just fuck you over and over until you get lucky enough to get in the rhythm. Especially Godskin Duo, which doesn’t make any fucking sense as a fight no matter how you slice it. Some would say I should just “git gud” well why the hell would I want to if this shit just sucks? If these were just one and done, I could put it aside but these enemies, or variants of them, appear everywhere.
Some bosses were, honestly, a little underwhelming. Rennala, one of the demigods, was a first or second try boss for me. I’m playing on patch 1.05, and Radahn also was pretty underwhelming – all you have to do is let your boys attack the fuck out of it and hop in when you feel comfortable, it’s not particularly difficult which is a shame. I hear this boss was way too hard when it came out though, so, I suppose I’d prefer this. And of course, the second phase of the final boss has to be the most underwhelming finale I could imagine.
To conclude, I spent about 60 hours in Elden Ring and I thoroughly enjoyed about 20-25 hours of that, most of it in the early part of the game, which seems to have had more thought put into it than some of the later areas. There’s plenty of good moments in this game, but I still feel like I wasted about half of my time playing this game. I still like it, it has a nice world, the graphics are pretty, and the combat is solid most of the time. I wanted to like it a lot more, I spent a decent amount of my spare cash and put a lot of my free time over the last month and a half into it, and frankly I feel like they could have delivered on this better. I hope they give open-world fantasy another shot, I feel like there’s a lot to have been learned from what this game does right, and a lot to be learned from what this game does wrong. I’ll probably like that game a lot more.
EDIT: Removed my dumb elevator complaint.
I'll go ahead and get this out of the way though: this game is perfectly competent. It is not a waste of your money, and you will probably have a good time with it. I played this game for about 60 hours, and I don't regret the time I spent in this game nor the money I spent on this game. If you think you'd like something like this, check it out, I recommend it. It's a game people are probably going to be talking about for a while because no other game really fills the niche it does. I just don’t think it’s the GOAT, nowhere close – but I do think it will pave the way for bigger and better open-world fantasy games. I’ll also state that I generally like the game, and I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. If you really really like this game, I can totally see why. If you’re willing to put aside some low points and just focus on the good this game does (which, fair enough, that’s just how me and you differ as critics) then yeah, I can see how you might give this game a 9 or a 10 out of 10.
So, what did I like? The game starts off really strong. This game is really fucking pretty. It’s gorgeous, as soon as you step into Limgrave it’s stunning, and frankly this is consistent through the entire game. The environments in general are really creative aesthetically and in terms of worldbuilding. The lore is to be commended in general, it draws a lot from Welsh lore (which is bonus points from me, given that’s my heritage) and doesn’t shy away from some of the darker aspects of that lore. The OST is extremely good, and always does a good job of setting the mood.
Some of the bosses are some of the most fun I’ve had in games. Here’s my top 5.
5. Astel
4. Morgott
3. Maliketh
2. Placidusax
1. Godfrey
Okay, most of you who like the game agree. So, what’s the big deal? What’s my issue with this game? It is thus: Elden Ring is a game that does not respect the time that you put into it. It wants you to spend 100 hours in this game, doing all of the side content and clearing out all the dungeons – the world is massive and littered with tons of content to do. Whenever I would normally grind in a game like this, I went and looked for some side content. And in Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula, and hell, even Liurnia, this content is done pretty well. But by the time you’ve done three catacombs, or searched a few ruins, you’ve done them all.
For the life of me, I cannot tell you the difference between most of these catacombs or ruins besides where they’re located geographically. They don’t look any different, they don’t have terribly different layouts, and most of the enemies inside are the same. So, in an open world game with all of these different environments, that wants me to explore, to find really nothing new or interesting while exploring, I have an issue with that. I didn’t end up doing most of the side content, because I got 20 hours in, and I was fighting my fourth Erdtree Burial Watchdog, and I realized: this isn’t fun to me.
I normally don’t lower games based on their side content – I mean, it’s optional, right? But the conceit of Elden Ring, is that you have this whole huge world to explore and that you’ll find something to do wherever you look. That much is true. The game wants you to explore to get more runes to level up. But between the samey dungeons and the reused enemies and bosses, I don’t think that a majority of the side content is worth your time at all. So it leads me to the question: why the hell would I do it? I couldn’t come up with an answer, so I didn’t do it.
Also, some of the bosses also really fucking suck. These are the ones, unfortunately, that get reused the most. Here’s my bottom five.
5. Crucible Knight
4. Putrid Avatar
3. Erdtree Burial Watchdog (Single)
2. Erdtree Burial Watchdog (Duo)
1. Godskin Duo
I don’t mind dying in bosses, but all of the ones above were ones that frankly did not feel rewarding to fight nor did they feel fair to fight. I’m all about difficulty, but it has to be fun. Some of these bosses just feel like they just fuck you over and over until you get lucky enough to get in the rhythm. Especially Godskin Duo, which doesn’t make any fucking sense as a fight no matter how you slice it. Some would say I should just “git gud” well why the hell would I want to if this shit just sucks? If these were just one and done, I could put it aside but these enemies, or variants of them, appear everywhere.
Some bosses were, honestly, a little underwhelming. Rennala, one of the demigods, was a first or second try boss for me. I’m playing on patch 1.05, and Radahn also was pretty underwhelming – all you have to do is let your boys attack the fuck out of it and hop in when you feel comfortable, it’s not particularly difficult which is a shame. I hear this boss was way too hard when it came out though, so, I suppose I’d prefer this. And of course, the second phase of the final boss has to be the most underwhelming finale I could imagine.
To conclude, I spent about 60 hours in Elden Ring and I thoroughly enjoyed about 20-25 hours of that, most of it in the early part of the game, which seems to have had more thought put into it than some of the later areas. There’s plenty of good moments in this game, but I still feel like I wasted about half of my time playing this game. I still like it, it has a nice world, the graphics are pretty, and the combat is solid most of the time. I wanted to like it a lot more, I spent a decent amount of my spare cash and put a lot of my free time over the last month and a half into it, and frankly I feel like they could have delivered on this better. I hope they give open-world fantasy another shot, I feel like there’s a lot to have been learned from what this game does right, and a lot to be learned from what this game does wrong. I’ll probably like that game a lot more.
EDIT: Removed my dumb elevator complaint.
SEGA, hire this man.
1995
When people talk about bad Sonic Games, they're usually talking about perfectly mediocre games. Not this game. Fuck this game.
TWEWY is a game I've always heard about, but never played because I didn't have it and I had other RPGs to play. A friend was talking to me about it, and loaned me her copy, so obviously I had to play it, you can't just be loaned a game and not play it, right? Anyway, it took me about a year to even boot the game because I had other RPGs to play.
I knew very little about this game other than it's generally well liked, and I can see why. This is probably one of the most cohesive games in terms of artistic direction, music, mechanics, and story.
I won’t do a plot review in this review, but it’s good enough. It makes room for all the main cast to shine, which works real well because the characters are all really engaging and well written. The story is not subtle whatsoever, but it isn't trying to be. It is trying to portray a very clear message: go out and meet people and get to know them, go make friends, because they make your life better, and you make their life better. The main character, Neku, I feel is reflective of a certain type of teenager -- a teenager I once was, and frankly the story left me wondering how I might have turned out if I had played this game when I was 14. He’s definitely a bit of a loner-trope RPG protagonist, but the writers use this to establish why he’s receiving ESP powers and being forced to work with people, something he’d never do alone.
My favorite characters are definitely Shiki and Beat. I mean, everyone who's played this game loves Beat, and it isn't hard to see why. He’s a chill-as-fuck tough guy who’s just a little dumb and is just so goddamn funny. I love the bits in week three where people will make fun of him and he’ll just be like “Yeah!”, and the classic “Bwaahahaaaa!?” sound clip that plays when he’s shocked. His backstory is a real heartbreaker, too. Shiki’s story in particular resonated with me, Shiki’s envious of her best friend because she is what Shiki is not, or at least what Shiki doesn’t believe she is. I dealt with similar feelings in high school, and that’s why I really think more teenagers should play this game. This game touches on a lot of complex feelings most of us could probably draw parallels to at that age.
The combat is super cool, but I hold the stylus like a fucked-up T-rex so I was ready to be done when the final boss came around. I liked the Reaper fights in particular, where they would switch between light and dark on you and your partner’s screen, so you could spend some time fighting as Neku then some time fighting as your partner. The different partner styles is also cool, but some are a bit easier than others. In terms of ease of getting Fusions from easiest to hardest, I would rank them: Joshua > Shiki > Beat. I pretty much always let them go on auto, but occasionally I would button mash right or left to help out in a particularly tough battle. I’m not good enough at this game to focus on both screens, so I like that this game gives me the option to not focus on it.
In addition to that, this game has a lot of accessibility options. You can play any of the difficulties you want once you unlock them, you can change how long it takes for your partner to go auto again, you don’t even have to win at this game’s minigame, tin-pin slammer, and I know this because I SUCK ASS at tin-pin slammer. Like, Dyson V11 Torque Drive right on the booty cheeks kinda suck ass at tin-pin slammer. I didn’t win a single match. But the game never stopped me for being bad at it’s otherwise optional minigame. I mean, it made fun of me for being bad at it, but I expect that. Maybe next time I play through this game I’ll “git gud”.
There’s some mechanics I barely messed with, like the fashion mechanics. Fashion is your armor in this game, and I messed with that, though I find on Normal you could probably pass on armor beyond that one objective where you have to wear all Mus Rattus gear. You can also totally drip out your characters. The different fashion brands also influence the power your pins have in battle, so you have to keep up with the fashion trends. You can also influence the trends by completing a bunch of battles in the area. But again, I didn’t really mess with this much.
The soundtrack has a lot of earworms. It’s real funky, and in a similar vein to JSR and JSRF tracks, and I feel that’s a product of both games focusing so much on self-expression thematically and being from a time when skaters were the peak aesthetic. In particular, I find myself listening to Calling and Game Over a lot. But I don’t think there’s a song I dislike on the soundtrack. This game’s aesthetic is so sick. I love the punk style to this game, I want to dress like every character in this game, even Shiki, but I think I might be arrested for public indecency if I wore that short of a skirt, so I’ll have to workshop it. I like the part of the Shiki’s week where Neku, a character designed by Tetsuya Nomura, wishes he had more zippers. Did he know all the way back then we’d be clowning on him for his overzealous use of zippers and belts?
Overall, this game is great. It’s definitely worth your time if you’re looking for a game that’s not really like anything else out there in terms of combat and mechanics, or something with a really neat story with very well written characters. Also, Shiki’s save menu portrait is how I look a bacon egg and cheese hashbrown bowl from Waffle House at 3AM.
I knew very little about this game other than it's generally well liked, and I can see why. This is probably one of the most cohesive games in terms of artistic direction, music, mechanics, and story.
I won’t do a plot review in this review, but it’s good enough. It makes room for all the main cast to shine, which works real well because the characters are all really engaging and well written. The story is not subtle whatsoever, but it isn't trying to be. It is trying to portray a very clear message: go out and meet people and get to know them, go make friends, because they make your life better, and you make their life better. The main character, Neku, I feel is reflective of a certain type of teenager -- a teenager I once was, and frankly the story left me wondering how I might have turned out if I had played this game when I was 14. He’s definitely a bit of a loner-trope RPG protagonist, but the writers use this to establish why he’s receiving ESP powers and being forced to work with people, something he’d never do alone.
My favorite characters are definitely Shiki and Beat. I mean, everyone who's played this game loves Beat, and it isn't hard to see why. He’s a chill-as-fuck tough guy who’s just a little dumb and is just so goddamn funny. I love the bits in week three where people will make fun of him and he’ll just be like “Yeah!”, and the classic “Bwaahahaaaa!?” sound clip that plays when he’s shocked. His backstory is a real heartbreaker, too. Shiki’s story in particular resonated with me, Shiki’s envious of her best friend because she is what Shiki is not, or at least what Shiki doesn’t believe she is. I dealt with similar feelings in high school, and that’s why I really think more teenagers should play this game. This game touches on a lot of complex feelings most of us could probably draw parallels to at that age.
The combat is super cool, but I hold the stylus like a fucked-up T-rex so I was ready to be done when the final boss came around. I liked the Reaper fights in particular, where they would switch between light and dark on you and your partner’s screen, so you could spend some time fighting as Neku then some time fighting as your partner. The different partner styles is also cool, but some are a bit easier than others. In terms of ease of getting Fusions from easiest to hardest, I would rank them: Joshua > Shiki > Beat. I pretty much always let them go on auto, but occasionally I would button mash right or left to help out in a particularly tough battle. I’m not good enough at this game to focus on both screens, so I like that this game gives me the option to not focus on it.
In addition to that, this game has a lot of accessibility options. You can play any of the difficulties you want once you unlock them, you can change how long it takes for your partner to go auto again, you don’t even have to win at this game’s minigame, tin-pin slammer, and I know this because I SUCK ASS at tin-pin slammer. Like, Dyson V11 Torque Drive right on the booty cheeks kinda suck ass at tin-pin slammer. I didn’t win a single match. But the game never stopped me for being bad at it’s otherwise optional minigame. I mean, it made fun of me for being bad at it, but I expect that. Maybe next time I play through this game I’ll “git gud”.
There’s some mechanics I barely messed with, like the fashion mechanics. Fashion is your armor in this game, and I messed with that, though I find on Normal you could probably pass on armor beyond that one objective where you have to wear all Mus Rattus gear. You can also totally drip out your characters. The different fashion brands also influence the power your pins have in battle, so you have to keep up with the fashion trends. You can also influence the trends by completing a bunch of battles in the area. But again, I didn’t really mess with this much.
The soundtrack has a lot of earworms. It’s real funky, and in a similar vein to JSR and JSRF tracks, and I feel that’s a product of both games focusing so much on self-expression thematically and being from a time when skaters were the peak aesthetic. In particular, I find myself listening to Calling and Game Over a lot. But I don’t think there’s a song I dislike on the soundtrack. This game’s aesthetic is so sick. I love the punk style to this game, I want to dress like every character in this game, even Shiki, but I think I might be arrested for public indecency if I wore that short of a skirt, so I’ll have to workshop it. I like the part of the Shiki’s week where Neku, a character designed by Tetsuya Nomura, wishes he had more zippers. Did he know all the way back then we’d be clowning on him for his overzealous use of zippers and belts?
Overall, this game is great. It’s definitely worth your time if you’re looking for a game that’s not really like anything else out there in terms of combat and mechanics, or something with a really neat story with very well written characters. Also, Shiki’s save menu portrait is how I look a bacon egg and cheese hashbrown bowl from Waffle House at 3AM.
This is the first game I played on PS5, and I gotta say I don't regret it. It's Square Enix's take on a soulslike, and the game's combat centers around defending to power your abilities. You can also gain power by breaking and soul-bursting enemies, and on the PS5 it really feels like you're violently snapping and crushing the motherfucker.
The story is weird, but clever at points. You can definitely tell this is a Nomura game, though. I found it to be charming, in spite of it's meme-worthy moments.
I could get all in depth with this review, and I might one day, but for now check out Caballistic's review if you're looking for more of a break down of the game.
Overall, good game. Check it out if you're looking for satisfying reactive combat and a weird and smart story.
The story is weird, but clever at points. You can definitely tell this is a Nomura game, though. I found it to be charming, in spite of it's meme-worthy moments.
I could get all in depth with this review, and I might one day, but for now check out Caballistic's review if you're looking for more of a break down of the game.
Overall, good game. Check it out if you're looking for satisfying reactive combat and a weird and smart story.