Light challenge run: Fist weapons only, no shield, no parry, no spirit or human summons. Fia's ending.

I never found Malenia on my first playthrough, and even with a modest challenge run like this it was rough fighting her for the first time like this. Extremely rewarding though, glad I did this. I thought the giant open world might make replays of this less breezy and fun than other souls games, but you can bounce around speedily enough and skip enough side stuff that you can practically make it as long or short as you want. I fully intend to come back and do more difficult challenge runs in the future.

As mind-meltingly beautiful as ever.

After Dark Souls 3, the way I categorized the series was something like this: Dark Souls was the incredibly tight masterpiece that sticks with you forever, Dark Souls 2 was the somewhat successful experiment which was worse but still great, and Dark Souls 3 is the one you hop into and play again and again to just have more Dark Souls to play. It was a satisfying ending partially because much like the cyclical ages of that world, there was no true ending.

I didn't pay Elden Ring much mind in the time before its launch. I knew I would play anything Miyazaki touches on launch, but I have little respect for George R. R. Martin and honestly didn't realize it would amount to Dark Souls 4 (Demon's Souls 5?). Of course, that changed as the day approached. Now that it's here and I've finished it, I think I've figured out where it fits in. Elden Ring is Souls popcorn. That's not to say it's dumb or simplistic...it's brilliantly designed popcorn. But the point is, when I play Elden Ring I do so because I get to shove massive amounts of Souls gameplay soaked in open world butter into my mouth and loudly crunch it because I can.

There's still enough of a spin to give it its own identity. You're massively acrobatic, weapon effects are much more important, there's new systems piled on new systems piled on new systems, with the most interesting of which being the two kinds of ashes. Speaking of those, there's even more of a co-op focus in this one. Bosses often seem to be designed around having two targets, be that you and your ash friend or you and another player. Personally I still felt like summoning players would make things too easy, but accepted ash summons as a standard tool. There's just so much to experiment with...years later I'm still not out of new playstyles to try in the other games, but Elden Ring makes it so I will absolutely never ever run out. This game is far from being an "immersive sim" / shocklike, but there are so many different ways to approach a situation that it naturally comes around to that kind of appeal. The barrier to trying new upgrade paths and kinds of equipment has been almost entirely broken down, so you can just go absolutely wild.

I have a big dumb smile on my face when I'm playing this. People hate fighting the same boss with a new form or when they bring a friend along? I don't get it, I'm always so excited to find more stuff to fight, since even just throwing another boss or some minions in the mix drastically changes how you have to approach the fight. Even if it didn't, I wouldn't really mind it. It only happens in clear "minor boss" locations, and there's nothing magical about a boss which makes it something you're not allowed to repeat, but a standard enemy is.

This is another game I'll have to put down in the "I'll have intelligent things to say about this another time, it's too much right now" pile. For now, I'll leave it at how utterly in love with this game I am. I adore Elden Ring more than I ever expected to. I'm so happy, guys. There's double the Souls out there to enjoy than there was only a month ago :)
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Played on Fedora Linux with GE-Proton