I have played many Dark Souls games before so I knew the kind of hard task that I was in store for (to a degree). I've never felt compelled to really keep the fight going. Bloodborne was the most I spent on a game like this, until Elden Ring.
Elden Ring has been complimented to death, and it deserves all of it and more (for the most part). Its scale, it's satisfying combat (even when you are getting absolutely smashed for hours on end), it's world building, the scale (the scale deserves multiple compliments), the secrets. The game never feels like you're near the end of exploring.
Even when you get the crumb of the end game starting, the amount of content between that and the real end game is unbelievable. I thought I was done multiple times, defeating a near-impossible boss that took 100s of runs before finally getting a little luck, only to discover, "there's more, and it's gonna get worse."
The satisfaction of beating those unbeatables, the areas the open up when you're near that end, the effects you choices have on other parts of the already explored world, it's all so interesting even when nearing the end. I put over 170 hours into this game and there's still more for me to do, more for me to kill. These enemies no longer scare me, for I am a God, I fear no man, woman, child, or creature.
Anyway, the combat is very satisfying. When you edge out a roll dodge or a jump at the last second and spring a massive wave of damage at your opponent, it feels damn good. Get surrounded by a plethora of annoying low level bad guys that manage to get you near death, only for you to figure out a way to roll out the way of danger, sneak in a heal, and finish them all off, is so damn satisfying. Getting crushed, still, by wolves because a group of them came out of nowhere and killed your horse, and killed you when you were stunned, while having enough runes to level up once more, is not satisfying and sucks but it's worth it for the highs.
This game makes you paranoid about everything, on purpose. No empty looking room is safe. No empty looking corner with a glowing treasure to pick up is safe. Everything wants to kill you and the game purposely makes it come at you from every unexplored corner. You eventually get used to this hellscape, you don't trust anyone.
Which is interesting for this whole game. There are "bad" guys that will not attack you but because you have been trained to murder anything that doesn't resemble yourself (even that is shaky trust wise) or an NPC usually attacks. But eventually you will discover things that won't and those creatures are the best......unless you accidentally hit one of them, and then they do attack you. It's a risk I sometimes took, unless I wanted more blood. Sometimes you just need more blood.
There are some negatives, definitely. The camera is your enemy way more often than it should. Auto targeting is sometimes awful, and in tandem these two combined can straight up ruin a great run against tough bosses. Especially if those enemy encounters are big. The camera just cannot scale up in a way that doesn't leave you feeling super venerable to things, and since many attacks can one hit kill you, this can be real awful.
The game is also very hands off. It really lines nothing up for you when it comes to many of the items and how the menus and prompts do. It is very "try and see what happens" with a lot. Obviously your play style will dictate what items you give chances to more often than not. There are many items I straight up never touched because they never seemed to go with my build type. I don't want a full on hand holding but it would be nice to get some explanation as to how to setup some of your stuff without so much trial and error and just being left in the dark until you look something up or something else.
Despite these flaws, there are a ton of jaw dropping design choices with areas you explore, there are a ton of jaw dropping bosses that just........do things to make themselves more powerful halfway through a fight or just when you think you've finally beaten them. It never feels severely cheap (every once and a while in the heat of it it def can). It's all wild and brutal and insane. Early on you will face something that rips off a dragon's whole head and use it as a weapon after you've reached a certain level of health. It completely changes strategy on the fly but god, these things are so cool.
The game wants to fuck with you and destroy you. It wants to mentally destroy you. It may have accomplished that with me. I'm still not sure. But God, beating this game was a very satisfying and crazy experience (mostly). I don't know if I will ever touch this game again and beat some of the other, non-main bosses. But I will have this written on my tomb, in blood. Not really though. I am a God now, I will never die.
You will either want to play this already or you don't. This review will probably not change your mind. These games are not for everyone. But for someone who never feels like it's worth sticking through in order to beat these, I beat this one, and I think that's really cool.
Elden Ring has been complimented to death, and it deserves all of it and more (for the most part). Its scale, it's satisfying combat (even when you are getting absolutely smashed for hours on end), it's world building, the scale (the scale deserves multiple compliments), the secrets. The game never feels like you're near the end of exploring.
Even when you get the crumb of the end game starting, the amount of content between that and the real end game is unbelievable. I thought I was done multiple times, defeating a near-impossible boss that took 100s of runs before finally getting a little luck, only to discover, "there's more, and it's gonna get worse."
The satisfaction of beating those unbeatables, the areas the open up when you're near that end, the effects you choices have on other parts of the already explored world, it's all so interesting even when nearing the end. I put over 170 hours into this game and there's still more for me to do, more for me to kill. These enemies no longer scare me, for I am a God, I fear no man, woman, child, or creature.
Anyway, the combat is very satisfying. When you edge out a roll dodge or a jump at the last second and spring a massive wave of damage at your opponent, it feels damn good. Get surrounded by a plethora of annoying low level bad guys that manage to get you near death, only for you to figure out a way to roll out the way of danger, sneak in a heal, and finish them all off, is so damn satisfying. Getting crushed, still, by wolves because a group of them came out of nowhere and killed your horse, and killed you when you were stunned, while having enough runes to level up once more, is not satisfying and sucks but it's worth it for the highs.
This game makes you paranoid about everything, on purpose. No empty looking room is safe. No empty looking corner with a glowing treasure to pick up is safe. Everything wants to kill you and the game purposely makes it come at you from every unexplored corner. You eventually get used to this hellscape, you don't trust anyone.
Which is interesting for this whole game. There are "bad" guys that will not attack you but because you have been trained to murder anything that doesn't resemble yourself (even that is shaky trust wise) or an NPC usually attacks. But eventually you will discover things that won't and those creatures are the best......unless you accidentally hit one of them, and then they do attack you. It's a risk I sometimes took, unless I wanted more blood. Sometimes you just need more blood.
There are some negatives, definitely. The camera is your enemy way more often than it should. Auto targeting is sometimes awful, and in tandem these two combined can straight up ruin a great run against tough bosses. Especially if those enemy encounters are big. The camera just cannot scale up in a way that doesn't leave you feeling super venerable to things, and since many attacks can one hit kill you, this can be real awful.
The game is also very hands off. It really lines nothing up for you when it comes to many of the items and how the menus and prompts do. It is very "try and see what happens" with a lot. Obviously your play style will dictate what items you give chances to more often than not. There are many items I straight up never touched because they never seemed to go with my build type. I don't want a full on hand holding but it would be nice to get some explanation as to how to setup some of your stuff without so much trial and error and just being left in the dark until you look something up or something else.
Despite these flaws, there are a ton of jaw dropping design choices with areas you explore, there are a ton of jaw dropping bosses that just........do things to make themselves more powerful halfway through a fight or just when you think you've finally beaten them. It never feels severely cheap (every once and a while in the heat of it it def can). It's all wild and brutal and insane. Early on you will face something that rips off a dragon's whole head and use it as a weapon after you've reached a certain level of health. It completely changes strategy on the fly but god, these things are so cool.
The game wants to fuck with you and destroy you. It wants to mentally destroy you. It may have accomplished that with me. I'm still not sure. But God, beating this game was a very satisfying and crazy experience (mostly). I don't know if I will ever touch this game again and beat some of the other, non-main bosses. But I will have this written on my tomb, in blood. Not really though. I am a God now, I will never die.
You will either want to play this already or you don't. This review will probably not change your mind. These games are not for everyone. But for someone who never feels like it's worth sticking through in order to beat these, I beat this one, and I think that's really cool.