Tarnished

After persevering through Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro I was finally ready to experience a FromSoft game with the community and the hype for Elden Ring was REAL that first week of this games release combined with all of my friends talking about it and playing it was fkn awesome.

I am just gonna get my negatives out. I must admit I was slightly disappointed with the choice to use Souls' combat style rather than Sekiro's or perhaps something new. I know there were new playstyles introduced but the overall feel was very similar. I don't have a problem with it hell I went for a dual wield fuck off sword build and it was awesome it's just this felt like a Dark Souls 4 rather than a brand new IP. Also the performance across every release is just not good under 60 FPS on every console besides PS4 version played in backwards compatibility on PS5 and terrible stuttering on any PC configuration. FromSoft are notorious for terrible optimisation and I wish they ironed it out. Lastly the quests are just fucked like I refuse to believe anyone is completing these without a tutorial.

Now the world, it's probably the best gaming has seen to date right, the best way that I can describe it is that it is just full of layers so many different levels, areas, heights, depth, secrets and it's seriously on a scale and quality that no other game has achieved yet. The exploration is similar to BOTW and some inspiration can be seen from it but it is seriously turned up to 1000.

The art direction is on another level too, beautifully realised environments with amazing vistas. The character designs across the world are elite and it all comes together across the different areas you encounter in the game.

FromSoft games are obviously known for their difficulty and I have seen many critiquing the balancing and I agree it can be terrible at times but due to the nature of the game you can always visit other areas to explore and get stronger before returning to previous fights that I wasn't able to beat. There are also methods of grinding runes to level up earlier which result in an easier time if that is your style.

Soundtrack is elite too and you feel like a badass during boss fights.

I wasn't a fan of Zero Dawn when I originally played it, the gameplay and story was awesome and built an amazing foundation but the interaction in cutscenes was so jarring that I ultimately wasn't impressed.

Forbidden West improves on almost everything the first game laid down. The character acting and cutscene presentation have been improved dramatically. The art design and lighting shines in this game resulting in a bewildering atmosphere and the amount of detail in the visuals makes this one of the prettiest games on PS5 to date. There are a variety of graphics settings and I highly recommend the 40 FPS fidelity mode if you have the tech. The gameplay is improved with a larger variety of weapons, movement tech and Aloy's arsenal was full of useful equipment that is all made use of during the battles with many different robot dinosaurs.

The game still suffers abit from Ubisoft syndrome, there are bunch of side quests and camps to take down but I wasn't too bothered from it during my playthrough it as Aloy's tools allow you to experiment in different ways to have a unique experience at every combat encounter.

Crafting and levelling your items through the use of robot parts is a huge part of this game and I find it very tedious as shooting parts of different enemies can become a grind as you wait for them to respawn after each farm but accessibility settings allow you to adjust every part of the difficulty which is a huge welcome so I was able to change a setting to drop all items from a specific enemy while also being able to adjust damage input and output from the enemies.

The story built on the awesome lore that the first game introduced and I thought the story was strong overall, the new characters are awesome as are the returning ones and every voice actor gave a great performance.

You get an extremely polished game here and if you missed it due to Elden Ring, I would highly recommend it!

The audio and visual experience here is PERFECTION a lot of storytelling through colours, music and things of that nature. GRIS does a lot of showing but not a lot of telling when it comes to it's story and I appreciate that A LOT it is refreshing and beautiful. The animation and art overall is literally flawless. In contrast the gameplay is so much worse, it is a 2D sidescroller with very limited platforming, nothing to write home about.

The overall experience is spectacular and it is not very long so the gameplay suffices, it is also not very expensive so definitely worth checking out if you've got some spare money during a sale.