5/5 ★ – PaisanSensei's review of Elden Ring.

Immense - the first word that immediately comes to mind when I think of Elden Ring. After well over 100 hours and a character level of 150+, I conquered what is Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoft's most ambitious game to date. I'm sure there will be many that regard it as their Magnus Opus, and with virtually universal acclaim across all media outlets and journalists, its hard to argue against that claim. While I think that title from FromSoft is yet to come (or has come already), this is still a remarkable achievement for FromSoft and deserves to be recognized as such. This game is built upon a foundation that has been continued to be refined over the past decade; enemies are defeated in order to gain a means of currency that it is used to level up stats and purchase different objects and some weapons. As you hit a certain point in your level, the amount of statistical increase the player gets spending the currency (in this case "runes") goes down, as they become more expensive. It's a really constructive way of making it so players just become too powerful too quickly and pushing players to get creative with their character builds. FromSoft have this down to a science; sure, with some patches (and future patches) how things scale are bound to change but the fundamentals of the game are there and still excellent. So what has changed? The greatest and most obvious one is the scale; this is an open-world at its core with far more freedom of movement and exploration to be had from the very beginning. If you can get there on whatever power level and with whatever gear you have (barring some exceptions) then it is available to you. Of course, as with every "Souls-like" game, you run the risk of losing progress in the form of runes you've gained and haven't spent or being sent back to the last safe spot you rested at. The addition of horseback really provides a great way of traversing the terrain more quickly (and perhaps, even some areas you wouldn't have been able to without it), while also providing a new means of combating enemies. While there are certainly nods and ideas borrowed directly from LoZ: Breath of the Wild, I wouldn't exactly say its the "Souls-like equivalent" as many others would suggest. That degree of freedom with regard to movement would almost certainly destroy some of the core elements of what makes Soulsborne games what they are. And that's perfectly okay, I wasn't looking to play a Breath of the Wild clone, I wanted to play a FromSoft RPG. Not to mention that I think they took the best ideas from BotW in the way that they designed The Lands Between itself. In perhaps what was the most unanticipated, yet totally sensical collaboration in the past several years of games, it was announced that George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame would be joining Miyazaki to create this game. Martin was given the creative freedom to create the backstory and overarching narrative of the game itself, essentially making Miyazaki a “dungeon master” type figure, taking this foundational piece and apply it to his vision. Martin’s creative contributions certainly make this game FromSoft’s most political, albeit it being generally more subdued than most games with socio-political context and story beats. Met with Miyazaki’s more obscure (and horrifying) vision, this makes for FromSoft’s most eclectic and fully realized world they have made yet. And the world building lore coupled with a more fleshed out narrative provided by Martin also makes for FromSoft’s most comprehendible story yet. (I highly recommend using VaatiVidya’s lore videos to gain more insight [heh] as well if one wishes to explore deeper below what they may find in the over-world). While it is easy to focus on what this game gets right (which is definitely most of it), it also has its share of shortfalls (as does everything). Some of the boss fights were more so annoying and cheap rather than challenging (I’m looking at you final boss guy *no spoilers*). Also, for being “The Lands Between,” this game was massive in scope almost just for the sake of being massive. Even with the addition of a horse, certain areas of the map just felt like they never ended to the degree in which I almost got bored with it. I really don’t believe FromSoft has ever struggled with making the world’s they create feel massive and lived in (even if barely). I give them credit for shooting for the moon here, but I actually prefer the self-contained, yet still massive feeling world of Yharnam to the Lands Between, even if this world seems to have more “variety.” Sure, variety is good but when it is lacking in substance, it makes it feel much more like a chore than anything else. All things considered, I close here by reiterating that this is a tremendous achievement for FromSoft. While not everything lands as I think it was intended, for those that games of this niche sub-genre, this is the one that they have been clamoring for since Demon Souls first got its release over a decade ago. It’s not my favorite of the FromSoft games, but it’s certainly up there and deserves to be so. A fascinating lore, some really incredible environments and sometimes frustrating, yet ultimately proven foundation of game play make this one of the strongest titles early on in this decade and I imagine it will remain a player in gaming discourse for the next several years to come.