I am kind of reluctant to give Elden Ring a rating, because I put it down for ages and only finally picked it up again over the past week, when I was already at the tail end of the game. I'll give some scattered thoughts though.
Putting Elden Ring down for so long meant that after having played most of the game a long time ago, I picked it up and basically did a boss run which included all of the most difficult bosses that the game has to offer. In some ways doing that kind of soured it in a way that one long and focused playthrough might not have, just because the experience of actually exploring the world itself would have been much fresher on my mind.
Elden Ring is definitely not a perfect game. I'm really not that huge on some of its boss design, some of it comes across like FromSoft were just extremely eager to top themselves on the difficulty front, and were less interested in designing a boss that is actually fun to fight. Difficult bosses are all well and good, but some of these fights are just tedious, to the point that they might actually prevent me from ever wanting to pick it up again. Oh, and there are also a lot of recycled bosses in Elden Ring, which kind of serve to undermine the initial fights you had with them.
FromSoft's tendancy for designing cryptic quests that require walkthroughs is also starting to get on my nerves. I'd like to spend more time actually playing the game, over watching a walkthrough on youtube every time I want to make some progress. This wasn't as annoying in Dark Souls, just by virtue of the fact that it wasn't a huge, sprawling open world game where the problem becomes much more abundant.
After airing my grievences though, I do have to make it completely clear, Elden Ring at its best is one of the most atmospheric, beautiful and engrossing video games I have ever played.
On the flipside of the cryptic quests, FromSoft never shoves the stories or the lore of their games down your throat, making you actively seek out answers if you really want to understand their games, and Elden Ring's world is so engrossing that it's very immersive and satisfying to discover it yourself.
Putting Elden Ring down for so long meant that after having played most of the game a long time ago, I picked it up and basically did a boss run which included all of the most difficult bosses that the game has to offer. In some ways doing that kind of soured it in a way that one long and focused playthrough might not have, just because the experience of actually exploring the world itself would have been much fresher on my mind.
Elden Ring is definitely not a perfect game. I'm really not that huge on some of its boss design, some of it comes across like FromSoft were just extremely eager to top themselves on the difficulty front, and were less interested in designing a boss that is actually fun to fight. Difficult bosses are all well and good, but some of these fights are just tedious, to the point that they might actually prevent me from ever wanting to pick it up again. Oh, and there are also a lot of recycled bosses in Elden Ring, which kind of serve to undermine the initial fights you had with them.
FromSoft's tendancy for designing cryptic quests that require walkthroughs is also starting to get on my nerves. I'd like to spend more time actually playing the game, over watching a walkthrough on youtube every time I want to make some progress. This wasn't as annoying in Dark Souls, just by virtue of the fact that it wasn't a huge, sprawling open world game where the problem becomes much more abundant.
After airing my grievences though, I do have to make it completely clear, Elden Ring at its best is one of the most atmospheric, beautiful and engrossing video games I have ever played.
On the flipside of the cryptic quests, FromSoft never shoves the stories or the lore of their games down your throat, making you actively seek out answers if you really want to understand their games, and Elden Ring's world is so engrossing that it's very immersive and satisfying to discover it yourself.