Elden Ring

Type: Game

Score: 5/10

Prior to me writing this this was a 2000 word long insane rambling about Elden Ring but I've cooled my head since and given the game another shot and decided I don't really hate it as much as I had thought. I still don't really think it's good but it's certainly not bad either. Let me get out of the way first that the game looks great, every fight looks great and most look better than previous FromSoftware games so when I'm talking about anything assume that on top of whatever I say it looks really good. The UI, also really good.

During my first playthrough I think my big mistake was playing this like Dark Souls when it really isn't, though I would have liked it more if it shared a little more DNA with Dark Souls. Obviously I was aware that the game was open world but I still kind of treated it like I shouldn't explore too much which I do recognise was a mistake but at the same time not wanting to explore much of the open world doesn't really bode well for the open world. It kind of felt like they had the content for maybe three regions max and yet they felt the need to add nine which led to a lot of dungeons and moments being straight up identical with a different item I couldn't use at the end. It was messed up how many times I had a cool moment like finding a Tibia Mariner floating around a bunch of broken down buildings only to have that experience like five more times to the point that it didn't even feel special. I'd also had liked if they put a little more work into the minibosses you find around the world because I would've have minded fighting so many Tibia Mariners if it wasn't the most boring boss of all time every time, Erdtree Avatar's were always fun at least. This goes double for dragons because finding the first dragon about thirty minutes into my first playthrough after being warned don't go into that lake you'll fuckin die was such an awesome thing and to be honest it still does make me a little giddy thinking about it but somehow by the end of the game FromSoftware managed to make me feel annoyed to find another dragon. How they do that? It's not just the overworld though, to be honest I don't remember how much boss reuse their actually was but I vividly remember after Ranni's long ass quest that I had to read a guide for finding Astel was pretty cool (even if I didn't much enjoy the fight), so it was a little odd when I found a second one, just kind of wandering about... It just feels like they really overshot how big they could make their world and then ran out of money to fill it up with actual meaningful stuff.

Next up is the story, I don't know why they needed fuckin George R.R. Martin for this because this is just Dark Souls again and honestly I'd have liked something a little more involved this time round. I replayed this game right after Silksong and I know that game doesn't have a perfect story, to be honest I'm not even sure I'd say it had a good story but I still enjoyed watching it and how I could interact with the world through Hornet. I feel like just a quest log would've been nice because half the time I don't even know if I'm doing a quest or what because it's so convoluted and esoteric and when I voice this complaint I get told to shut up and just use a guide?? A guide should not be so essential to experiencing all a game has to offer. Not to mention after finishing my first playthrough, listening to all the dialogue and never skipping a cutscene I still didn't feel like I quite understood the story. Like I got a general idea but I'd love if Miyazaki threw a bone to a layperson like myself.

Last thing I gotta complain about is that the bosses are just worse... Like DS3 and Sekiro straight blow this game out of the water with their bosses both it highs and consistency. There are so many bosses in this game that I just thought what the fuck after beating them. So many of the attacks in this game are almost comically delayed and then there are some attacks like the little knife swing after the main attack by Margit (and Margott I guess) that I'm yet to intuitively figure out how to dodge them. I'm 100% sure there is a way to dodge them but I've never had this experience with a game where I just can't seem to figure out what I'm meant to do (other than just not attack in certain windows which is a bit boring) and it's a bit frustrating. Most boss fights are also plagued with the bosses sometimes just walking about instead of fighting you properly which really slows down the pace and I kind of felt like they fixed that problem in Sekiro so I have to assume it's intended but like why? The boss music (and music in general) of this game isn't all that great too I can't lie. Like it's passable I guess but it's no DS3 to be sure. Sekiro had a similar issue but in that game I was so focused on the bosses that I didn't really notice it as much. I feel like this problem is talked about too little too, maybe I just have bad ears or something but still. I don't want to completely disregard the bosses however because Elden Ring certainly has some bangers, I quite liked Godrick even if he was way kind of poorly balanced, being way easier than Margit for some reason.Commander Niall, Maliketh, Messmer, Romina and Bayle were all pretty great too however bosses like these were pretty few and far between.

Elden Ring isn't a bad game but I feel like it's far too unfocused to be a good game. The world is too big and I don't think FromSoftware was really ready to create a game at such a large scale yet. If there was a third of the bosses, areas and items I feel like the remaining stuff could've gotten much more focus and I think a better game would've come out. I know I'm basically just asking for Dark Souls 4 but how can I not when the third entry remains the best game FromSoftware has made? I also heard Elden Ring consumed a Sekiro DLC and that breaks my heart but kind of makes sense as there's no shot Malenia wasn't meant to be a Sekiro boss at some point with that moveset. I did enjoy the game a lot more on playthroughs after my first because I didn't feel like I needed to fight bosses in the "proper" way so instead I could just opt for throwing random bullshit and that was more fun.