I've at this point played Elden Ring to completion a few times, as I have with all the Fromsoft games of this ilk however much I enjoy them the first time around, because I'm left wondering in the end if I would have felt differently had I tried this weapon or this build or used magic, etc. By now my impression has settled about where it was in the beginning and I don't expect that it will change across additional playthroughs.

For all the options many of Miyazaki's games offer in theory, if we're to view games as puzzles to be solved then there are, in truth, a very narrow set of good solutions and many bad ones, with the right answers only obscured by the opaqueness of the mechanics. As an example, Dark Souls 1 PvE greatly rewards having the highest physical damage possible due to that game's enemy defense values and the absurd damage formula all these games use but don't explain, and the highest physical damage you can get will be on weapons that only scale with Strength like the Great Club. You can also get effectively 1.5 points per level in Strength thanks to the unique 1.5x Strength bonus from two-handing, leaving you a lot of points to invest in Vitality and Endurance since you have no reason to invest in Dexterity/Intelligence/Faith (if you even want to use spells, Pyromancy requires no stat investment and it's more useful than Sorcery/Miracles anyway). Now you can do enormous damage, wear high poise armor so you don't get stunned, and take a lot of hits without dying. The game is pretty easy. Alternatively you can use Astora's Straight Sword or something and be totally fucked due to its low split damage, but you wouldn't know why you're totally fucked without a lot of external knowledge.

Anyway, some things have changed by the time Elden Ring rolled around and some things haven't. I believe the same damage formula from Dark Souls 1 remains present here, but with defense values low across the board so light weapons can at least be more viable than before (and were certainly the most viable in Dark Souls 3 when this change was first implemented). Spells now draw their cost from an MP meter that every weapon's built-in overpowered skill also draws from, so building around spellcasting feels more worthless than ever, which is especially unfortunate given the large array of flashy spells introduced here. Strength still gets its 1.5x two-handing bonus and you can just make Dexterity weapons scale with Strength after Dark Souls 3. The Bleed status effect is ludicrously damaging and easy to inflict, and few bosses are immune to it. The stance damage mechanic is sort of carried over from Sekiro, and you can now jump attack, which if done with heavy weapons will break any enemy's stance very fast. There are many busted weapon skills and such too, so this game certainly has more good solutions than Dark Souls even if there are still far too many bad ones (most non-heavy weapons without a powerful weapon skill or high Bleed infliction, and magic in general is of questionable value as previously mentioned). This isn't even to mention the Spirit Ashes that can often play the game for you.

It must be said here that these games are not and have never been great for their mechanical design, barring perhaps Sekiro if we're counting it. Among the Fromsoft RPGs the most mechanically sound game is frankly Dark Souls 2, even with its Agility stat everyone rightfully lambasts. I wouldn't consider myself a big fan of Dark Souls 2, but everything is worth investing in and it does have relatively few bad solutions as a result. And even disregarding all the numbers (which many do and really should not, because those numbers and what you do with them influence the difficulty as much or more than the player's skill in combat itself, however damaging it is to some people's pride to acknowledge that) and looking at combat on its own, I think most agree by now that this is not the most complex combat in the world. Generally speaking you use your roll that makes you temporarily invincible for some reason to avoid damage and then you hit when you can. Maybe you also use a shield. And worst of all in this game is the very large amount of time spent between combat encounters due to the massive map with few points of interest, particularly once you've learned where the Real content is.

Nonetheless I play and replay these games and I have to ask myself why. Of modern high-profile game releases I only really play these and the occasional Nintendo or Capcom title. We can look at them not as puzzles but as interactive narrative fiction, and from this angle their moody opaqueness and grim, well-realized worlds that tell the story more than any dialogue does do scratch a certain itch. This is really where Dark Souls and Bloodborne prevail, but Elden Ring feels like such a retread of Dark Souls that I could hardly say that of this game. A large part of my continued interest I'm sure is a lingering nostalgia for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Playing those on release at a time when I was pretty disillusioned with the state of video games, they were a breath of fresh air; maybe the last breath of fresh air I've gotten outside of indie games, to be honest. Part of it is knowing many others who also play all the Fromsoft releases and talk about it, making for some fun conversation for a few weeks or so. And all the games have some high highs even now. This game is often beautiful and some areas like the underground are stunning to explore. But I dunno, I could watch the game and get that part of the experience.

I can hardly say this game is bad and I'll probably play the DLC unless it's a gigantic time sink, since I've sunk enough time into this as it is. But I do feel like this may be a good time to move on if Fromsoft continues in this direction, and given their continuing growth I imagine it will be.