I tried really hard to make myself like this game but the constant reuse of enemies and bosses is just tiresome. The open world is vast and beautiful, but also rather empty. Playing this game made me understand the beauty of the design of the other souls games. I played the DS trilogy and Sekiro, and after all that I have to say this game is a combination of all of that but reminds me the most of DS2 mostly because of the mediocre bosses and reusing of the bosses for the most part. The game just felt tedious to me, I kinda liked exploring but it was pretty annoying because I had to stay a certain level and levelling up in this game was far harder and tedious than the other games. I love open world games like Fallout and stuff but this one just ain't it, at least for me. I'm someone who likes something refined to perfection, even if it has a small scope, for example Sekiro or Doom Eternal. However Dark Souls 3 is my fav in this series, simply because of the amount of fun I had, the bosses were amazing of course, but the enemies were to fun to fight as well. Less so than Sekiro but still fun nonetheless, everyone just focuses on DS3 but it just strikes an amazing balance for me and is just fun basically.
I like to stick with STR stats and huge weapons, but I tried DEX and the samurai class with some magic weapons in Elden Ring, hated it so I went to try a bit of a greatsword and liked it a lot but the game itself was just frustrating. I played this game for like 50-ish hours, this game is far too long for far too little actual original stuff. My friend finished the game and hearing about the bosses I didn't fight against genuinely makes me have some fear of missing out but I stand by my decision to not play it in the near future. This game drained me and I didn't play any games for a few months until I replayed Doom Eternal and had a blast. Even if I let the reusing of the bosses slide, I just had a worse time playing the game, the fighting animation was smooth and lovely but the gameplay of the game was just meh or even bad to me. That's because the timing of the bosses was just so off to me, it felt pretty delayed. It never felt like a fight that was flowing. The animations after they started were fast but it always felt like the bosses and enemies were winding up for far too long, I felt a disconnect, I was not immersed. Comparing this to the lovely fast paced, no delay fighting I experienced in DS3 just made me wonder if it were possible to get that into Elden Ring, if the combat was like DS3, like even if it were completely the same, I'd have played this game for 150 hours because it'd have been fun. As it stands it is not fun for me. Except for Radahn, I might have been slightly underlevelled or maybe just the right level for him but I had fun with him, was fast enough and the delays felt less bad compared to Margit and Morgott, they were challenging and I felt accomplished after defeating them but it wasn't necessarily fun.
I wish there were a way to improve the combat speed and decrease the redundancies of the game and condense the game to 60-80 hours. Then this game would've been truly GOTY worthy. I'm not one of those people to say that this game is ugly or anything, I just think this game has quite a few bugs and subpar performance for how it looks but the Souls series has always had bugs and this is an open world so ig it makes sense. Feel free to try this game, it's struck a chord with millions and could certainly be the best game ever for you, but it wasn't for me and I've said above why.
I like to stick with STR stats and huge weapons, but I tried DEX and the samurai class with some magic weapons in Elden Ring, hated it so I went to try a bit of a greatsword and liked it a lot but the game itself was just frustrating. I played this game for like 50-ish hours, this game is far too long for far too little actual original stuff. My friend finished the game and hearing about the bosses I didn't fight against genuinely makes me have some fear of missing out but I stand by my decision to not play it in the near future. This game drained me and I didn't play any games for a few months until I replayed Doom Eternal and had a blast. Even if I let the reusing of the bosses slide, I just had a worse time playing the game, the fighting animation was smooth and lovely but the gameplay of the game was just meh or even bad to me. That's because the timing of the bosses was just so off to me, it felt pretty delayed. It never felt like a fight that was flowing. The animations after they started were fast but it always felt like the bosses and enemies were winding up for far too long, I felt a disconnect, I was not immersed. Comparing this to the lovely fast paced, no delay fighting I experienced in DS3 just made me wonder if it were possible to get that into Elden Ring, if the combat was like DS3, like even if it were completely the same, I'd have played this game for 150 hours because it'd have been fun. As it stands it is not fun for me. Except for Radahn, I might have been slightly underlevelled or maybe just the right level for him but I had fun with him, was fast enough and the delays felt less bad compared to Margit and Morgott, they were challenging and I felt accomplished after defeating them but it wasn't necessarily fun.
I wish there were a way to improve the combat speed and decrease the redundancies of the game and condense the game to 60-80 hours. Then this game would've been truly GOTY worthy. I'm not one of those people to say that this game is ugly or anything, I just think this game has quite a few bugs and subpar performance for how it looks but the Souls series has always had bugs and this is an open world so ig it makes sense. Feel free to try this game, it's struck a chord with millions and could certainly be the best game ever for you, but it wasn't for me and I've said above why.