4/5 ★ – dum_dum_demish's review of Elden Ring.

90 hours later and I've finally finished Elden Ring. Let's talk about those 90 hours first. I dont like long games typically, however there has been the odd exception here or there where a 50 plus hour game has held my attention the whole way through. Elden Ring is one of those, which alone is huge praise coming from me. This is the biggest feeling game I've ever played. I dont actually know if it truly is the biggest game according to its size that I've played, probably not. It feels that way though because of how much of its space is worth paying attention too and worth exploring, atleast in a first playthrough. The worlds environment is expertly crafted to keep you wondering what's around every corner, under every cliff, and between every valley. No map markers are in this game which forces you to make discoveries on your own, which is largely what kept me invested for my 90 hours of play. Very few games create the feeling of genuine discovery like elden ring does, and I would argue the discoveries that are made are more exciting and rewarding than any other game out there. The coolest discoveries in the game fall into mainly two categories. Boss fights and new areas. The secret areas you can find in this game are so well designed, it could be thrown in as main content into any other game and be the best content in that game. Some of the secret areas and bosses are the best content, and since there are no map markers or quest markers, anytime you find non optional areas and bosses, it's an epic discovery. Since like 90 percent of this game is optional, these discoveries are made constantly. You can also discover new items, weapons and characters, which is great not that every weapon and item you find will be useful to you, but it provides huge variety in play style. There is a large variety of enemies and bosses that are very creatively designed, from their move sets to their aesthetic. However the variety of enemies does not meet the ambition of the open world. Many bosses you end up finding in elden ring will be repeatedly found else where in the game many many times. Alot of games get away with this, but because alot of the enjoyment of the game's open world comes from its discovery of bosses, discovering the same boss over and over again does not feel rewarding or worthwhile. It gives you a major feeling of blue balls. I've always been critical of this in fromsoftware's games, and elden ring is by far the worst offender. It does have the largest variety of bosses amongst all the games by a large margin, which is great, sort of, I dont think it always meets the same level of quality in its lesser bosses ( enemy vs great enemy ) but the amount of bosses doesnt make running into the same bosses over and over again any more fun and it happens extremely often. Most lesser bosses, which is the term I'll use for the bosses that aren't great enemies, repeat themselves atleast two more times, and in some cases a dozen times! Many of these bosses end up becoming normal enemies at some point in the game and other bosses are normal enemies you've fought already! There isnt an easy way to fix this, but it is a case of fromsoft biting off more than they can chew. If it wasn't for the some specific rewards you may desire from some of these fights, I dont think partaking in fighting repeat bosses is worth doing at all. Which is a big chunk of content in this game. On a first playthrough you dont know whether your walking into something new or a boss you have fought already, so I ended up doing it just in case, and whenever it was a repeat boss, I couldn't help to feel that I wish I was doing something else in the game instead. At the end of the day this is a minor criticism, because the gameplay challenge that all these fights offer, repeat or not is generally very engaging. Fromsoft is the king of boss design, and many of the bosses are absoulutley incredible and will sit in my memory for years. This wont bother some people for this reason, however it defintley affected my experience and would have prefered if the game was significantly smaller just so I would not have to run into the constant dissapointment of reused boss fights. Gameplay is great, it's essentially dark souls 3 with some really great quality of life changes and unique additions. When I say it's dark souls 3, I mostly mean that positively, but there is some negatives with that as well. Aside from the open world design and a couple of gameplay additions, Elden Ring is essentially darksouls 4. Like it's hard to really argue that. Alot of combat animations are eerily similar if not exactly the same as many darksouls 3 combat animations. The combat in general and game mechanics are very much the same as they are in darksouls 3 and just darksouls in general. This isnt bad, darksouls is great, but let's call it what it is. This is the 5th game they have made in a western fantasy setting with medieval shields, swords, armour, magic spells and plays almost the same way as all those other games. I dont think it differentiates itself to be something like bloodborne, which holds alot of similar game philosophy, but drastically changes the pace of combat, how weapons work, and its setting. Elden Ring just doesnt do enough to make it feel like something other than darksouls and defintley is not something wholly original like sekiro. There are changes though which are really cool! The guard counter is a great skill especially for shield users, not useful if that's not the build your going for, but the way poise is implemented is a nice change and can make an aggressive playstyle tempting but not neccesary. Ash's of war is actually a great mechanic, which is a reworked version of Dark souls 3's weapon arts, which sucked. We got a horse with simplistic yet really intuitive combat controls. It's honestly the best horse riding I've played in a game. And then the spirit summoning, which helps give alot of help in challenging fights. The open world choice and spirit summons help make this probably the most accessible game from fromsoft. Those are really the only notable changes to the gameplay though, and all that really differs it from darksouls, which feel like additions more so than a different game. I can live with that though, this gameplay model has been copied tons because of how good it is, and fromsoft are still the best at it here in Elden Ring. Satisfying high risk high reward combat based on timing and stamina management against some of the craziest looking and amazingly animated monsters in all of gaming makes for an absolutely epic time. It fully meets the expectations that fromsoftware has set for themselves, which are incredibly high. The rewarding feeling that you get from overcoming the grueling challenges the game puts in front of you, and the sense of awe you get from admiring the creativity and artistry of the whole games design is incomparable to anything other than another fromsoft game. The RPG systems are much like youd expect from darksouls, but I feel that the balance here is much less tight. Balancing enemy health and damage parallel to your damage output and health stats is difficult to design in an open world game, but I really feel like it could have been tightened up. First of all, a large amount of neccessary upgrade material you need to progress in your stats and ultimately succeed in the game can be very easily missed and that's not cool. Lack of direction towards these things can make the game so much more frustrating than it needs to be. You can always go and do other things if need be if you happen to be struggling against a certain boss or area, but the difficulty of some of these situations or lack there of dont seem to reflect where your character stats are likely to be at when you encounter some of these situations. This isnt the case for most of the game, but it happens often enough where it seems like more time was needed to balance things better. However you also have the option to realocate stats and use absolutely game breaking builds to get through some of these situations, which overall trivializes alot of the challenges in this game. I think this is ok, because unless you really want to break the game, you probably wont by accident. you gotta put some work into it, and I think having that option is just another level of accessibility for this game. Most of the Critism I have for this game is pretty minor and overall I think it is a grand epic that everyone should play. However, I think the one place that I think is a clear regression in from softs work is the story. I just dont think it meets the same standard of previous fromsoft games. It's cool, and the world has incredible lore, but I dont think it is as poignant and meaningful as any of their other titles personally. I might change my mind on this as I reflect on it more in the future. I also wasn't a fan of the ending or many of the optional endings either. It was a great journey, and overall I think it was a cool story, but I didnt find it as impactful as maybe I would have liked in comparison to the other games. Which is why I'm not saying its bad, instead I think it's a regression of fromsoftware. There is plenty I dont know about the story though and with these games it often takes alot of contemplation to come to a solid understanding of the stories events, so I'm hoping I see more in it than I currently do, which is great world building but an underwhelming plot. And it's not just the story, but I just don't find this game as impactful as fromsofts other works. Part of it is because of just how similar it is to darksouls. Sekiro was so refreshing, because of how unique of a game it was. This game is great and I think it's open world design makes it stand out in comparison to darksouls, but alot of it is just too familiar, and I enjoyed alot of the moments, areas, story and boss encounters more from darksouls. It could be my nastolgia for those games that makes me feel that way, but it is a personal preference thing anyhow. EDIT: I also wanna add, after some more reflection, I just didnt find the bosses to be as enjoyable to fight here than in any of the other titles. It's a combination of health and damage balancing and just how boss fights are designed to favor certain builds and drastically punish others, plus it seems in many fight, they were designed more so with spirit summoning in mind more than solo play and I didn't enjoy that. This complaint makes me want to bring the score down to 4 stars. I still think the grand overall adventure of the game is so awesome and this complaint may be more about preference, but I do think it's a problem. I also just dont see myself replaying this game because I genuinely did not love the boss fights enough and it's so large that I just dont want to spend so much time in this world again. I think the hype overtook me a bit and made me want to forgive this but I think now that I've spent some more time away from the game, I can admit to some more of its short comings. The boss fights are still very good despite the massive amount of repeats. The game play is awesome and has some welcome new additions to a tried and true formula. The open world is incredible and massive with so many secrets to discover which will cause your jaw to drop countless times. Elden ring has set an extremely high bar for this generation of games that will be very hard to surpass or even reach. It's an instant classic adventure that will never be forgotten. I dont personally feel it is fromsoftware's best work, but I do think it is by far their most ambitious and will go down as one of the best games of the generation, and for some people an absolute GOAT.