Puts you in a trance from the beginning, where you’ll be under its spell till the end. Lingering even after that, begging you to come back and take flight once again. Electrosophere may not be as mechanically sound as the previous entry in the franchise, which is why it speaks volumes that it’s able to grip you tightly regardless, where you’ll dance to its tunes and fly through its skies. It’s more than just a pretty aesthetic, it’s more than just anti-war.

AC3’s view on war itself is that of a sick game played by sick old men and it treats it as such. What are you fighting for, really? Every mission feels like you’re nothing more than a pawn for powers greater than yourself, it's all a ploy. All of it. Every one wants a piece of the pie, a taste of power, a chance to reign supreme. Your actions are not your own, your decisions are not your own. It's all an illusion, a trick, and at the end of the day what are you fighting for, really? To maintain the status quo? The same one in which people live under corporations that only exist to suck them dry even further? What was it all for? Do you the connections you hold have any meaning?

The true ending which you unlock after having done all five routes is the ultimate showcase of this, showing why wars are really fought. Nothing noble, nothing special. Just a personal vendetta. Did it even matter? It's just a game at the end of the day.

𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗦𝗣𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘

This is my favorite videogame.
Everybody knows the story by now: Sony was working with FromSoftware to develop an RPG to compete with then-Xbox 360 console exclusive Oblivion, development was floundering so Sony wrote the project off as a failure, and Hidetaka Miyazaki - fresh off a mildly divisive run as director of the first two HD Armored Core games - was handed the reins and allowed to do whatever to salvage the project and get it out the door.
It is this specific set of circumstances that allowed Demon's Souls to be as creative as it was, laying the foundation for its spiritual successor Dark Souls to take its ideas from cult classic to mainstream success where Elden Ring was one of the most hotly anticipated games of the 2020s, Miyazaki's name is spoken about in the same circles as Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto, and multiple massive AAA series from multi-billion dollar companies would shift focus to borrow gameplay ideas from it.
It's this set of circumstances that also allowed Demon's Souls to stand as wildly unique even compared to it spiritual kin. It truly is a throw shit at the wall and see what sticks game - every boss explores a different gameplay idea or gimmick, it has a convoluted online system where actions taken in your world can affect other players and open up new side stories, it has a non-linear stage progression where you can effectively play most of the game in whatever order you choose, and so on. True, sometimes these can border on frustrating, but it all adds up to an extremely memorable experience unlike any other game. As early as the first Dark Souls game major strides were taken to make the experience more polished and less obtuse - inarguably the right move, but Demon's Souls was not concerned with such things. It's a game constantly freestyling and throwing new ideas at you faster than they have the chance to grow old.
Of course, the merits of Demon's Souls don't end at its experimental gameplay. FromSoftware's artistic talents made the leap to HD rather gracefully with Armored Core 4 and For Answer being some of the finest looking early PS360 games and Demon's Souls stands as the shining swan song to this era of FromSoft's visuals before its success let Dark Souls make major overhauls to their process. The sectioned off stage approach vs a more open world design lets every environment take a distinct approach to its design, atmosphere, and lighting and makes the world feel so much bigger than just the areas you're allowed to play in. The various monsters and damned souls feel carefully considered for their environment, carefully weaving an unspoken narrative that reflects the state of Boletaria and its surrounding areas. Shunsuke Kida's score, reflecting his lack of experience in videogames, is much different than the bombastic orchestral pieces that would define the later Souls games. The voice acting is performed by British theater and voice actors before that became more commonplace with performances that range from heightened, borderline goofy, to serious and full of gravitas. This all combines to create an amazing atmosphere that sticks with you throughout the game.
idk how to end this accidental essay so yeah Demon's Souls, the best game and my favorite game

spoilers

When this game was first announced I was excited, I had my concerns with Creative Business Unit 3 taking the lead but I had faith in them regardless. As marketing ramped up and more of the development team was revealed, my excitement rose but I kept my expectations level. With that being said, this game is the most fun disappointment I’ve ever played.

Unfortunately, this will be mostly negative so I’ll start by laying out the positives. First and foremost, the combat. The mechanics, encounters, and enemy designs are all flawless. Even with the repetitive nature of a lot of enemies, I never once found myself bored when in a combat scenario. The hunts are a lot of fun, and the main story boss fights, particularly the eikon battles, are out of this world. Some of the most brilliant spectacles I’ve seen in gaming, the sheer power you feel against Titan or the epic scale and emotion against Bahamut… it’s phenomenal.

There are some real loveable characters here too. With my favourites being Gav, Byron, Dion, Joshua, Clive and Cid.

The voice work is brilliant across the board, my only gripe is that I wish they assigned specific accents to regions rather than just having a congregation of like 30 different random UK accents.

That’s about all this game has for me in the way of positives, it does very very little else. In the cases it does something good, it will do 2 things bad to counter it. I’ll start with performance, in my first playthrough it was smooth unless I was in bustling areas but that’s not a problem. For whatever reason, on NG+ I found myself getting a lot more frame drops across the board and a few times it was actually jarring. The real issue lies with the motion blur, it’s insane that after over a week a patch hasn’t been put in place to toggle it, it’s even more absurd that in 2023 there are still game developers out there that think anybody wants motion blur. Stop it please I’m begging

Overall, I think the story is fine. Has some great moments for Clive but mostly it’s serviceable. I have no real complaints beyond the main villain being a bit pathetic, I won’t explain why I think that sorry he just stinks by the end.

As I mentioned earlier, the cast is solid, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some weaker characters in the main cast. The 2 standouts for me being Jill and Barnabas. Barnabas was the only character I had high expectations for, so I was VERY disappointed when it turned out he was nothing more than a puppet who showed his true self only in the last moments of the fight with him. Jill on the other hand was filled with potential, when we first encounter her in the Nysa Defile I was so eager to learn more about her but then she just takes a back seat until her very cool moment in the Fire and Ice main story quest. Which leads to her taking the backseat again until her and Clive’s beautiful beach scene. Not to mention the 2 times she gets kidnapped and rescued in between all this, I just wanted more from her because I still really like her.

Cutting this short because I’m bored… the sidequests. Awful, don’t waste your time. There’s about 10 out of 76(?) that give you meaningful payoff with a cutscene but the lead up to it is the most mind numbing, boring, brain dead gaming you’ll ever experience. Speak to person A, run (very slowly) to person B, to person A, to person C, to persona A, fight bandits, cutscene, end. It sucks. This was my main concern with MMO devs coming into this game, sadly it bleeds into the main story quests too. After every cool moment you’re met once again with menial, boring, fetch quests. It’s like they don’t want you to have any fun or keep any momentum going. Someone will say these are pace breakers and exist to give you a breather, go to hell. Cannot stress enough how much these ruined the experience for me.

The other worst offender alongside the quests.. the “exploration”. I swear you could cut out every open zone in between quests and the game would be no different. A complete waste of time running through empty open fields, no cool items to find (except the Masamune in Waloed but by that point you’ve already got a better weapon), no interesting side roads to explore, not a single point of interest, no memorable towns/villages. Valisthea is dead, one of the most lifeless worlds I’ve had the displeasure of playing in. I don’t wanna hear anybody rag on FFXV’s world after this. On the bright side the world looks really pretty! Or at least it does until you destroy the Mother Crystals on Storm and everything looks horrendous until you start a new game. I could go on for hours about how bad the world sucks

The “RPG Mechanics” (I don’t actually know what this means) are non existent. Not much to say. Swords, crafting materials, bracers or whatever else there is, all useless no point paying any attention to them. Every hour you’ll get a new a weapon that gives you 5 extra damage, just equip it and move on. It reeks.

A few comments on NG+, and specifically Final Fantasy mode… surprise surprise another disappointment. They boasted pre release about how different it would be when really all they do is swap a Minotaur for a Griffin every now and again, it’s boring. You will craft the exact same weapons and gear in the exact same order using the same materials you got from the same hunts. Even if you die mid fight, you will respawn with your health refilled and more or less exactly where you left off in the fight, FF Mode is a joke really. By mid game it’s just a slog, I’m only doing this for the Platinum there is nothing else to grind for since Ultima Weapon is an inevitability by end game.

The music… is ok. This is very subjective but for me it just didn’t hit. There’s a couple good songs but I really think Soken or whoever was directing him fumbled. Titan Lost is a really cool track and I wish there was more range like that, everything else felt like a grand orchestral piece which quite frankly got boring quick. Heard that same eikon fight song about 15 damn times, I already got bored of it before the game released. I don’t think the soundtrack is bad, but without playing every single other FF game I’m quite confident in putting this towards the bottom of the rankings. It’s a shame because I hear great things about FF14 music and I know Soken can do better.

Idk what else to say. I had a lot of fun also feel a little let down, a solid 7/10 definitely not game of the year for me. Please don’t let CBU3 near another mainline single player FF game again. Thank you

I really cannot think of a better thematic follow up to both Drakengard 1 and Nier than Drakengard 3, the more I think about it the more I find to love, just absolutely mesmerizing.

DoD1 criticizes the completionism mindset and inherent violence of the "video game logic" and how that equally applies to humanity both as individuals and as separate nations.
Our drive to always be one step ahead, devolves into complete nonsense and insanity, simply gaining strength for its own sake.

Nier equally so but focuses more on the reason, our beliefs, our loved ones, what is familiar to us.
Because what we do for those we love is right and prolongs what we perceive as happiness.

I feel like DoD3 adds an entire layer to this by throwing you in the most insane world from the get go and slowly leading you to the realization that our same "completionism" mindset is what drives us to bettering the world even at the cost of ourselves, it's a weirdly nihilistic yet optimistic views of what we are as humans.. deeply gruesome but equally as sympathetic.

The games having so little insensitive to make you play them plays a big role to show that everyone has it to see it through and reach their potential, something you see a little bit of in every intoners including Zero for better or for worse.
I never thought feeling like a numb killing machine could make me feel so emotional..

It feels like a real destination of the thought process that carried this whole franchise to what it is today.
NieR Automata drops this commentary on completionism but keeps the human drive aspects in its own way that I find just as lovely and respectable, it also has the benefit of being more palatable for a mainstream audience which gave it the clout it has today.
I have to respect Taro for finding new ways to continue his signature gimmicks without repeating endlessly what was already said, not creating only for the sake of creating.

Whenever you think about an open world in terms of a game, you generally have to call back to Breath of the Wild; its massive world, with its bigger focus on atmosphere than delivering a story, while still having its cake and eat it too. It's no wonder such a game paved the way to creating what would become the de facto version of open world games, having countless games take notes from it, creating their own versions of it in ways that work, and ways that don't. But Breath of the Wild is not perfect; it's an empty game, with a lot of repeating content that becomes stale when your focus is a 100% completion. Sure, it is a very open game where you can go straight to Ganon, but there's not much of an unique experience to be found. At the end of the day, it's good, but it's not what open world games can be. Elden Ring is that absolute zenith of an open world experience that Breath of the Wild couldn't, and can't be, although the reasons why are not exactly fully about the design of the open world.

Coming from MIyasaki, a man who has already made games that embrace freedom, such as Dark Souls 1 and its continuously convoluted labyrinth of a world, and George R R Martin, which while I do not have experience with his works, I have heard countless praise, and their conjoined efforts makes an amazing world, and a game to accompany that world. The lore of Elden Ring is unique as it has a lot of things that scream Miyasaki; it's a world stuck in that transition point of death and rebirth, with someone needing to create a change. It's this kind of worldbuilding that brings the "Dark Souls IIII" joke around, but regardless of the similarities, I think the actual parallels end there, because while Dark Souls is closer to the end of an era, Elden Ring is focused on what comes after this.

Elden Ring is a triumphant story that's hidden behind its layers of depressive, character-specific plotlines. You are the one heading for change. Originally, just a graceless Tarnished, that ends up being able to kill a god and leads to the creation of what comes next, all with your power. Sure, slaying these demigods can become a sad ordeal at times, but more than anything, you are fueled to become a champion of The Lands Between, becoming stronger, taking down the remnants of the previous order, and taking back the land that was ripped from you. The music of Elden Ring fits this perfectly, with strong, triumphant tracks but with some that still display danger. You CAN be strong, but the enemies you face are still threatening.

Elden Ring's gameplay also demostrates this point well. I'll expand this a bit more after the open world part, but at the core of it, it's still Soulsborne. It's a tried and true method that despite it being similar, it's still pretty damn fun. I do have to respect it much more for how open-ended the game can become with the builds, something that's a lot more limited in other Souls games, as well as just the immense variety of weapons. I think it makes specific experiences much more unique in ways I love, and the structure of the open world especially helps, and is part of why I think it's such an amazing open world.

The variety of this open world also creates a way to have a pretty big variety of NPCs. There's a lot of standouts. I love Ranni, Blaidd, Alexander, and Rogier especially. Fia, while I never finished her questline, I think she was very good, and Hewg and Roderika's somewhat of a father daughter dynamic was absolutely stellar, although how they ended up depressed me in some ways, and made me glad in other ways. Things like Varre and the Three Thingers, and the Volcano Manor are also great factions, although, honestly? I miss Covenants. It's a bit nitpicky, and I do think some covenants are kind of useless and weird to get in Dark Souls, but so much of it screams as if it were to have Covenants originally, but were removed. It's a shame, since having a bit of a longer, permanent stay with the Volcano Manor residents would have been neat, and the Three Fingers stuff for me was more or less just a way for me to get through Moghwyn without dealing with the actual level lol.

The open world of Elden Ring has so much care and specialty crafted in it in ways that is absolutely amazing and a joy to see being in an actual game. Each location feels distinct and unique, with the usual From Software magic with all the locations being visual spectacles, but also having some great music to accompany it, and unique fights fitting with the location itself. I think the only location I'm not a fan of is Liurnia of the Lakes, with it being a bit of an empty, kind of a swamp? I liked the Academy, sure, but the things surrounding it were less than interesting to me, but outside of that? Limgrave, Caelid, Mountaintop of the Giants, the Atlas Plateau, Farim Azula, and especially Leyndell are all amazing, unique locations. The areas of the open world are vast, but not a slog to go through due to the horse, and has a lot of smart placement and world design to reward you for yout exploration and keeping an eye out, while the legacy dungeons are some of the best designed areas I've arguably seen in video games at all. I LOVE Leyndell, and Stormveil Castle, and the Academy, all these locations are amazingly huge and reward your exploration, but are still dangerous. The jump button especially allows for great world exploration, allowing for some tried and true platforming that isn't very hard to do, but still creates much more interesting world layouts. Leyndell, for example, allowing you to jump through roofs? Absolute genius. The catacombs are similar to Bloodborne Chalice Dungeons, but I think they work much better than the chalice dungeons, thanks to the general scarcity of them, as well as the rewards you gain from them.

Look back on Breath of the Wild; what did you get from completing a shrine? You'd get a Spirit Orb, maybe sometimes a weapon, right? The former's always a standard, and while it helps, it's a bit of a monotonous experience thanks to it, and you can't really keep using the latter thanks to the durability system (one of the worst concepts ever created, let's be real). What do you get from a catacomb in Elden Ring? You can get a talisman, or a weapon, or a rune arc, or some extra runes to help you level up. All of these things are ALWAYS useful, despite the fact that maybe your current build isn't made for it, a talisman always stays and depending on the boss, can be a huge help, and a weapon might be strong and good for a future build, rune arcs and runes are always useful as well. Everything you get from a catacomb will always be useful, which creates actual motivation to go through these small dungeons, but it's never the same reward, which leads to the question of "what will I get this time?", in a way that WORKS and INCENTIVIZES exploration much more than its contemporaries. It helps that the world is designed for this exploration, with a good eye being able to see these things with stronger ease.

Small side note, I know some people are using Elden Ring to shit on the handholding nature of Ubisoft Open World and I wanna say that I think both are completely valid ways of making a game. Fromsoft has always been one to be inherently cryptic, and while I think that this creates the same sense of wonder older games had with their exploration, think the original The Legend of Zelda, I can't be completely against a hand-holding philosophy when the story that is extracted from such an experience can, at times, be really good.

The bosses of Elden Ring I think are generally standouts. I'd say I loved most of them, really? Malenia, Mohg, Radahn, Rykard, Morgott, and Hoarah Loux are all standouts and I love all of these; the rest of the Remembrance bosses I also really liked. The issue with the bosses do come more from the optional Catacombs, where it can be extremely infested with unbalanced 1v2 fights, or flat out bad enemies like Crucible Knights. I... don't mind that TOO much? I think that sure, the unique fights are all generally pretty amazing, and the others can be hit or miss, but I can't be too mad about these when I think they're such a minor part of the experience. I hated the Gargoyles in Nokron, and the Misbegotten/Crucible fight in Caeld, but that's as far as pure hatred goes when the rest are generally either really good, or a kind of a non-issue.

The inclusion of a respec as clean as it is in Elden Ring is one of, if not, the best addition this game has. I know that Dark Souls 3 also has one. I have not played Dark Souls 3, and I do not think the addition of a respec goes far in such a game because what I applaud Elden Ring for here is NOT the addition of it purely, but the absolute creative freedom you have on your build thanks to it. Sorcery and Faith builds have finally become interesting, for once, with a lot of tools for hybrid builds. In one run, I respecc'd four times. My first build was a curved greatsword dex build; then it was dex/int with moonveil, then dex/arc with Rivers of Blood, and then finally, for postgame, a str/faith build. All of these? Extremely fun. I loved them all. So much work was put into making such an immensely huge variety of weapons, builds, all to incentivize immense flexibility in how you want to play, and how you want to represent yourself in the game. Coming from Bloodborne, which is a very homogenous experience in multiple ways, and Dark Souls 1, which does have some variety, but its lack of respec and unappealing sorcery creates a specific route for you to follow from the start without the ability to attempt to remove yourself from your original decisions, it makes for such a breath of fresh air and something I'm sure to play around with countless more times. In some ways, sure, boss design ends up taking a hit from this thanks to such a huge variety of builds meaning a boss can't be designed for everything, but the appeal in Elden Ring is no longer the same boss rush of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1.

The appeal of Elden Ring is its world, and how you insert yourself into it. You can be absolutely anything you wish to do. With such a wide variety of endings, weapons, builds, armor, and NPC plotlines, immersing yourself in its world is easier than ever, and the amount of effort that must have been put to put yourself in the Tarnished's shoes must have been endless. This is what makes it a TRUE open world; the tools have always been in front of you, it's just a matter of how you use them to shape your own experience, and shape yourself, and I'm sure that this level of detail, love, and passion is to be enjoyed by everyone for the years to come, and whatever comes next for The Lands Between, I'm here for it.

you can also be a woman and marry Ranni lgbt rep for the win miyasaki the strongest ally very me and makcore