Going into Elden Ring, I have never played a FromSoft game before. As much of a seasoned, experienced, "if you start every new game on easy mode you're a lil' puss-puss" gamer as I am, the Souls series has admittedly intimidated me with their infamous difficulty and barrier to entry. Yeah, anyone CAN play Dark Souls. Anyone with working legs can also run, but that doesn't mean you're going to the Olympics. To get some insight on FromSoft games, I played up to the first boss in Bloodborne and found myself attracted to the combat. I know every Soulslike series from FromSoft has its own unique combat feel, but I could certainly see why fans of the series enjoy the combat so much.
Playing Elden Ring is like playing Breath of the Wild for the first time, right down to them straight up copying the opening of BotW beat for beat, sans getting atomized by a giant multi-limbed crab mutant. Except in Elden Ring, it's like if your first playthrough of BotW was on Master Mode. Make no mistake: Elden Ring is a hard game... some of the time. The difficulty curve of this game is all over the place, helped in part by some areas and bosses allowing you to summon not just co-op players like previous Souls games, but also summons of monsters found in the game, including most infamously, a mirror image of your own self. Any boss that you summon against cuts their difficulty down to baby mode, as split aggro is the kryptonite of every enemy in the game. While your Mimic Tear with a boatload of health soaks up damage, you can swing away carefree behind bosses' asses, be they human or giant sized. Not wanting to bend the game over a bed and spank it relentlessly, I opted not to use summons during bosses. ...Or at least I tried to.
The difficulty curve of this game is made fucked not just by your ability to break it almost whenever you desire, but also because FromSoft straight up did not balance this game in parts. And I'm not referring to difficulty wall moments where the game places a super strong enemy in a place essentially saying "hey, you're not man enough to get into the Salty Spittoon, so go exploring in Weenie Hut Jr.'s until you can get in here." I'm talking about the last third of the game, where despite me being in the level 120-140 range, I was getting one-shot by bosses and even enemies occasionally, because they either did a move/inescapable combo that one shot or chunked 75% of my 2000 HP, or they straight up cheated me out of a win by forcing me to do wonky platforming or pinning me against a wall and glitching me into a corner. You will die a hundred times in Elden Ring, and you will get mad. A few of those times you'll get mad at yourself for choking or greeding on a boss, but a good number of those times you will be mad at the game for having a boss perform an inescapable combo that somehow took your entire health bar, or clawing at your controller wondering when the fuck will the boss stop spazzing out like a frenzied murderous seizure and let you get one attack in without getting hit. It eventually got so bad, I decided I would beat FromSoft at their own game. Any time a boss got too cute with an undodgable attack or FromSoft randomly decided to make the runback to the boss a mile-long jog instead of just putting the checkpoint right outside the boss door like a normal person, I rang the ding-a-ling of death and spitroasted the boss(es) with Mimic Tear. You can say that I cheated, and I would 100% agree with you. But I only ever cheated when Elden Ring cheated first.
Whoever came up with those stone chariots in the mini dungeons deserves to be fired from the company and then fired out of a cannon. There is nothing fun about getting chased by a fast, disjointed hitbox that one shots you and forces you to play hide and seek in little cubbies like its preschool, not to mention sometimes you have to platform around them or while they're chasing you where one slip-up means instant death. Oh yeah, mini dungeons. Another BotW-ism. However, unlike the Shrines, I don't feel compelled to track down all of the mini dungeons. The rewards they hand out are meager when you're rocking endgame weapons and items, and going back to early game mini dungeons when you have endgame stats is just boring. The items themselves are hit or miss. There are SO MANY to choose from and each weapon class changes up combat significantly, but by the time you've amounted a Gates of Babylon-sized arsenal, you've likely already stuck with one weapon you really like and upgraded it a lot, so why gimp yourself with a weapon you don't have the materials to upgrade it with yet? I used the Bloodhound Fang and thus spec-ed into a Dexterity build, later dumping points into Vigor to try and keep up with the game's endgame difficulty spike. The game is also sometimes not great at explaining all of its mechanics to you. After the optional tutorial there's zero handholding or waypoints, but I wonder how many of my homies got tricked by that WHORE Fia I thought I could trust and confide my problems to and tell me that everything would be okay... and then she put a debuff on you that lowers your max HP until you consume her item.
The open world exploration is the biggest draw of Elden Ring. Just like BotW, the urge to just run in the direction of a landmark you think looks cool is strong. And this game is maaaaaaaaassive. There's like five continents, several underground regions, and a literal Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky. My only complaint with the open world is the lack of accessible vertical traversal. A lot of my progress was slowed because I either had to find my way up a cliff or down one without killing myself. If we're already borrowing so much from BotW, a climbing mechanic wouldn't have gone amiss. We already have a stamina bar that can be upgraded, so it's not a stretch.
Of all the things I criticize about the game, I think this one's gonna get my crucified the most severely: I do not care for the story of Elden Ring. Once again, we have another Hollow Knight situation where lore has overtaken story and direct storytelling is thrown out the window for passive puzzle pieces you choose to put together or not. To its credit, this method of storytelling works better here than in Hollow Knight, because it's an open world vs a metroidvania, so I'd imagine a linear story wouldn't exactly be the most properly paced thing in the world. But I hate it when a game thinks it can skimp out on telling a good story by giving me a novel's worth of lore and then has me watch hours of Elden Ring lore videos on YouTube. I don't need to know everything about everything, FromSoft. Let me use my imagination. I don't NEED to know why there's a floating Castle in the Sky in the same way I don't need to know why guys like Godrick grafted additional limbs to themselves because no explanation you give will be satisfying compared to just basking in awe of what I'm looking at. The plot of Elden Ring is you are a guy who used to be a follower of God or something and you are immortal and you are journeying to repair the shattered
Elden Ring so you can become God and save the world. The side quests offer more direct storylines, but some of them become unobtainable if you complete other's questlines. You're better off picking your favorite character and doing their quest. I chose Ranni because she is a literal sex doll I would gladly serve as my new moon goddess.
I think most of my experience playing Elden Ring can be summed up with one of the best bosses in the game: motherfucking Margit the Fell Omen. This son of a bitch killed me probably 25 times. I was summoning co-op partners and allowing myself to be summoned by other players, and even then I never beat him. But every time, I felt it a little more doable. I figured out his patterns a little more each time. And then finally I got his health bar down to... half. To which point he pulled out the holy hammer of God and smote me with the power of Jesus and anime. So I learned all his new patterns and whatnot yet still could not beat him. Finally, while summoning other players, I got lucky and summoned a guy likely near the endgame who had lightning magic and then stun-locked Margit into oblivion. Finally, I could progress through the game... except I felt hollow. Like I didn't earn the victory. It bothered me up until I got to Godrick, who I thought was gonna be Margit 2.0. Yet here I was, on my own after only a handful of tries, killing him without much issue. I felt like I was hardened by Margit and properly tutorialized on the game and what to expect form bosses going forward. So I paid my proper respects at our rematch in Leyndell, fighting him one-on-one with no help, and nutted him after two tries. Then I beat the game, started NG+, ran straight to Stormveil Castle after five minutes, and mollywhopped him. WARRIOR BLOOD RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS, BITCH. WHO'S FOOLISH AMBITIONS ARE LAID TO REST NOW HUH?
While I ain't on the masterpiece bus like most others are, I will admit that Elden Ring got its hooks in me for a month. Had the story been more bold and the balancing better, this would've been a surefire ten. I know it's a bullyable offense to compare this game to BotW so much, but it's just so similar, dude. While I think both games are of equal quality, I'd give the sliiiiightest edge to BotW for more dynamic gameplay that allows me to experiment, whereas Elden Ring's upgrade system and difficulty spike almost forces you to choose one build while charging you time and money to experiment with other play styles. I put over 100 hours into this game and have definitely not said all there is to be said about the game but there's just not enough time in the day. It's a little too early to call this GOTY, but it's definitely got me interested in checking out the rest of the Souls series. Not for a while though. Playing Elden Ring for the first time is mentally exhausting. One day, I shall return to difficulty deathtraps made by Miyazaki and his evil henchmen. But until that they day comes...
Try finger, but hole. Fort, night.
Playing Elden Ring is like playing Breath of the Wild for the first time, right down to them straight up copying the opening of BotW beat for beat, sans getting atomized by a giant multi-limbed crab mutant. Except in Elden Ring, it's like if your first playthrough of BotW was on Master Mode. Make no mistake: Elden Ring is a hard game... some of the time. The difficulty curve of this game is all over the place, helped in part by some areas and bosses allowing you to summon not just co-op players like previous Souls games, but also summons of monsters found in the game, including most infamously, a mirror image of your own self. Any boss that you summon against cuts their difficulty down to baby mode, as split aggro is the kryptonite of every enemy in the game. While your Mimic Tear with a boatload of health soaks up damage, you can swing away carefree behind bosses' asses, be they human or giant sized. Not wanting to bend the game over a bed and spank it relentlessly, I opted not to use summons during bosses. ...Or at least I tried to.
The difficulty curve of this game is made fucked not just by your ability to break it almost whenever you desire, but also because FromSoft straight up did not balance this game in parts. And I'm not referring to difficulty wall moments where the game places a super strong enemy in a place essentially saying "hey, you're not man enough to get into the Salty Spittoon, so go exploring in Weenie Hut Jr.'s until you can get in here." I'm talking about the last third of the game, where despite me being in the level 120-140 range, I was getting one-shot by bosses and even enemies occasionally, because they either did a move/inescapable combo that one shot or chunked 75% of my 2000 HP, or they straight up cheated me out of a win by forcing me to do wonky platforming or pinning me against a wall and glitching me into a corner. You will die a hundred times in Elden Ring, and you will get mad. A few of those times you'll get mad at yourself for choking or greeding on a boss, but a good number of those times you will be mad at the game for having a boss perform an inescapable combo that somehow took your entire health bar, or clawing at your controller wondering when the fuck will the boss stop spazzing out like a frenzied murderous seizure and let you get one attack in without getting hit. It eventually got so bad, I decided I would beat FromSoft at their own game. Any time a boss got too cute with an undodgable attack or FromSoft randomly decided to make the runback to the boss a mile-long jog instead of just putting the checkpoint right outside the boss door like a normal person, I rang the ding-a-ling of death and spitroasted the boss(es) with Mimic Tear. You can say that I cheated, and I would 100% agree with you. But I only ever cheated when Elden Ring cheated first.
Whoever came up with those stone chariots in the mini dungeons deserves to be fired from the company and then fired out of a cannon. There is nothing fun about getting chased by a fast, disjointed hitbox that one shots you and forces you to play hide and seek in little cubbies like its preschool, not to mention sometimes you have to platform around them or while they're chasing you where one slip-up means instant death. Oh yeah, mini dungeons. Another BotW-ism. However, unlike the Shrines, I don't feel compelled to track down all of the mini dungeons. The rewards they hand out are meager when you're rocking endgame weapons and items, and going back to early game mini dungeons when you have endgame stats is just boring. The items themselves are hit or miss. There are SO MANY to choose from and each weapon class changes up combat significantly, but by the time you've amounted a Gates of Babylon-sized arsenal, you've likely already stuck with one weapon you really like and upgraded it a lot, so why gimp yourself with a weapon you don't have the materials to upgrade it with yet? I used the Bloodhound Fang and thus spec-ed into a Dexterity build, later dumping points into Vigor to try and keep up with the game's endgame difficulty spike. The game is also sometimes not great at explaining all of its mechanics to you. After the optional tutorial there's zero handholding or waypoints, but I wonder how many of my homies got tricked by that WHORE Fia I thought I could trust and confide my problems to and tell me that everything would be okay... and then she put a debuff on you that lowers your max HP until you consume her item.
The open world exploration is the biggest draw of Elden Ring. Just like BotW, the urge to just run in the direction of a landmark you think looks cool is strong. And this game is maaaaaaaaassive. There's like five continents, several underground regions, and a literal Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky. My only complaint with the open world is the lack of accessible vertical traversal. A lot of my progress was slowed because I either had to find my way up a cliff or down one without killing myself. If we're already borrowing so much from BotW, a climbing mechanic wouldn't have gone amiss. We already have a stamina bar that can be upgraded, so it's not a stretch.
Of all the things I criticize about the game, I think this one's gonna get my crucified the most severely: I do not care for the story of Elden Ring. Once again, we have another Hollow Knight situation where lore has overtaken story and direct storytelling is thrown out the window for passive puzzle pieces you choose to put together or not. To its credit, this method of storytelling works better here than in Hollow Knight, because it's an open world vs a metroidvania, so I'd imagine a linear story wouldn't exactly be the most properly paced thing in the world. But I hate it when a game thinks it can skimp out on telling a good story by giving me a novel's worth of lore and then has me watch hours of Elden Ring lore videos on YouTube. I don't need to know everything about everything, FromSoft. Let me use my imagination. I don't NEED to know why there's a floating Castle in the Sky in the same way I don't need to know why guys like Godrick grafted additional limbs to themselves because no explanation you give will be satisfying compared to just basking in awe of what I'm looking at. The plot of Elden Ring is you are a guy who used to be a follower of God or something and you are immortal and you are journeying to repair the shattered
Elden Ring so you can become God and save the world. The side quests offer more direct storylines, but some of them become unobtainable if you complete other's questlines. You're better off picking your favorite character and doing their quest. I chose Ranni because she is a literal sex doll I would gladly serve as my new moon goddess.
I think most of my experience playing Elden Ring can be summed up with one of the best bosses in the game: motherfucking Margit the Fell Omen. This son of a bitch killed me probably 25 times. I was summoning co-op partners and allowing myself to be summoned by other players, and even then I never beat him. But every time, I felt it a little more doable. I figured out his patterns a little more each time. And then finally I got his health bar down to... half. To which point he pulled out the holy hammer of God and smote me with the power of Jesus and anime. So I learned all his new patterns and whatnot yet still could not beat him. Finally, while summoning other players, I got lucky and summoned a guy likely near the endgame who had lightning magic and then stun-locked Margit into oblivion. Finally, I could progress through the game... except I felt hollow. Like I didn't earn the victory. It bothered me up until I got to Godrick, who I thought was gonna be Margit 2.0. Yet here I was, on my own after only a handful of tries, killing him without much issue. I felt like I was hardened by Margit and properly tutorialized on the game and what to expect form bosses going forward. So I paid my proper respects at our rematch in Leyndell, fighting him one-on-one with no help, and nutted him after two tries. Then I beat the game, started NG+, ran straight to Stormveil Castle after five minutes, and mollywhopped him. WARRIOR BLOOD RUNS THROUGH MY VEINS, BITCH. WHO'S FOOLISH AMBITIONS ARE LAID TO REST NOW HUH?
While I ain't on the masterpiece bus like most others are, I will admit that Elden Ring got its hooks in me for a month. Had the story been more bold and the balancing better, this would've been a surefire ten. I know it's a bullyable offense to compare this game to BotW so much, but it's just so similar, dude. While I think both games are of equal quality, I'd give the sliiiiightest edge to BotW for more dynamic gameplay that allows me to experiment, whereas Elden Ring's upgrade system and difficulty spike almost forces you to choose one build while charging you time and money to experiment with other play styles. I put over 100 hours into this game and have definitely not said all there is to be said about the game but there's just not enough time in the day. It's a little too early to call this GOTY, but it's definitely got me interested in checking out the rest of the Souls series. Not for a while though. Playing Elden Ring for the first time is mentally exhausting. One day, I shall return to difficulty deathtraps made by Miyazaki and his evil henchmen. But until that they day comes...
Try finger, but hole. Fort, night.