Gosh, I love wondering around aimlessly on the slowest horse imaginable in a somewhat barren wasteland only for me to find a copy and paste cave/catacomb to then fight a copy and paste boss fight to then get a stupid ashen remain, which is useless to me because I did not want to enable easy mode.
In short, I do not like open world games for the most part. Almost every open world game, including this one, can be made better by decreasing the amount of wasteland you have to traverse by 60%.
That being said, Elden Ring's positives triumphs its own major negative. The combat in this game, while not the best in all of video games, is extremely fun and fluid, and Fromsoft's best in the Souls series (Technically, I like Sekiro's combat more, but that game only had one weapon and one general moveset, so its much less impressive). The hyper-aggressiveness in the combat is nicely balanced by its challenging hyper-aggressive bosses, such as Margit, Malenia and Maliketh.
Although I trashed on the open world, the sense of discovery is amazing. Finding a basic cave/catacomb is cool and all, but turning a corner to reveal a massive valley with so much content. New unique items, a fort, and even a never-before seen Great Enemy, it makes me believe I've missed so much more in my 70+ hour playthrough, which I have.
I did a little bit of NG+ because I didn't realize I missed an armament for one of my achievements. During my run specifically from point A to point B (AKA no exploration), I found three new pieces of content: Two new caves and a new questline. Nothing special, but from this information alone, I believe I missed much more significant content.
Like I said, I didn't love the open world. However, whenever the game slows down and gives you a giant castle to explore with many deviating paths, the game becomes much more special. In addition, there are underground segments where it does exactly what I wish for: A significantly reduced wasteland but with a denser amount of content. It helps that those underground are borderline beautiful due to the impressive skyboxes that are prevalent throughout the game.
I have a couple of gripes. As a part of the "git gud" crowd, I don't like the ashen remains. They invalidate the difficulty of the game and therefore doesn't create a genuine conversation about how well bosses are designed. You could say that about any Souls game technically, like back-stab chainning in DS1 or whatever meta stuff that exist in the other games (I don't pay much attention to them). However, in this case, it is much easier to call out because there is little to no risk implementing it into any build. That being said, I may be wrong, and eventually I will start a fresh playthrough using ashen remains to judge for myself.
Overall though, fantastic game. Maybe a 10/10 is a bit generous for the problems I have with this game, but I know that the upcoming DLC will put it up there regardless.
In short, I do not like open world games for the most part. Almost every open world game, including this one, can be made better by decreasing the amount of wasteland you have to traverse by 60%.
That being said, Elden Ring's positives triumphs its own major negative. The combat in this game, while not the best in all of video games, is extremely fun and fluid, and Fromsoft's best in the Souls series (Technically, I like Sekiro's combat more, but that game only had one weapon and one general moveset, so its much less impressive). The hyper-aggressiveness in the combat is nicely balanced by its challenging hyper-aggressive bosses, such as Margit, Malenia and Maliketh.
Although I trashed on the open world, the sense of discovery is amazing. Finding a basic cave/catacomb is cool and all, but turning a corner to reveal a massive valley with so much content. New unique items, a fort, and even a never-before seen Great Enemy, it makes me believe I've missed so much more in my 70+ hour playthrough, which I have.
I did a little bit of NG+ because I didn't realize I missed an armament for one of my achievements. During my run specifically from point A to point B (AKA no exploration), I found three new pieces of content: Two new caves and a new questline. Nothing special, but from this information alone, I believe I missed much more significant content.
Like I said, I didn't love the open world. However, whenever the game slows down and gives you a giant castle to explore with many deviating paths, the game becomes much more special. In addition, there are underground segments where it does exactly what I wish for: A significantly reduced wasteland but with a denser amount of content. It helps that those underground are borderline beautiful due to the impressive skyboxes that are prevalent throughout the game.
I have a couple of gripes. As a part of the "git gud" crowd, I don't like the ashen remains. They invalidate the difficulty of the game and therefore doesn't create a genuine conversation about how well bosses are designed. You could say that about any Souls game technically, like back-stab chainning in DS1 or whatever meta stuff that exist in the other games (I don't pay much attention to them). However, in this case, it is much easier to call out because there is little to no risk implementing it into any build. That being said, I may be wrong, and eventually I will start a fresh playthrough using ashen remains to judge for myself.
Overall though, fantastic game. Maybe a 10/10 is a bit generous for the problems I have with this game, but I know that the upcoming DLC will put it up there regardless.