Elden Ring

2022-04-01
Wow. Just wow. I haven't been this addicted to a game since... I'm not sure honestly. Oblivion? Dragon's Dogma? Persona 5? It is without a doubt one of the best games I've ever played.
Let's start with the biggest reason. The fun. It honestly reminds me as the only thing I've found that matches and then in fact surpasses Dragon's Dogma. A big ass world full of places to explore that you can do in any order you want. Rife with challenges and also with rewards. I was continually astounded by how large the game was. I'd spend hours combing over an area with a fine tooth comb only to find that 1) I in fact missed lots of things in that area and 2) that there were like 10 other giant areas that were as big if not bigger than the current one I was exploring. Ah the glory of just slowly revealing the map. It's genius how the fog of war utterly shields your eyes from the magnitude of the game on offer.

But what's a world if all it is is big. This is no Ubisoft game. No, every area is beautiful and unique. This isn't a new thing for Souls games, they have always had really detailed beautiful environments. What's unparalleled here is the sheer scale and majesty of the environments. As well as the variety. Countless sweeping vistas with mountains and hills and lakes and swamps and volcanos and frosty peaks and caves and forests galore. And dotted across them are castles and cathedrals and labrynths of every variety: majestic and beautiful to dismal and terrifying. Hell if all you had to do was just walk around the world it would still be a staggering feat for a video game.

But of course you have countless enemies of so many different varieties, most of them terrifying and sinister. I counted no less than 100 bosses that I fought and I know I must have skipped at least 30 if not 50. The number of unnamed bosses and different types of mobs alone are substantial. Most of them are classic Souls fare: your soldiers, big and small, your petrifying lizards, your zombies-- but there's a lot of new ones as well.

Combat was advanced as well. Not only are there approximately one million spells and incantations but there are also new Ashes of War, abilities that can be equipped on weapons and swapped out. While for the majority of the game I only used the Unsheathe move that comes standard with the Uchigatana which I of course had to start with and felt like a beautiful move that Virgil might unleash in a Devil May Cry game, when I started to dabble as I struggled with certain bosses I found them to be a blast to use. Blood slashes, frost stomps, and poison clouds galore. Add to that you can now have summons which act as a way to have some basic coop without actually engaging in coop and you have a lot of options at your disposal. I made full use of the summons once I discovered how to use them a good 30 hours into the game and having an off-tank for every boss fight was an absolute god send (though it for sure made the game like 50% easier).

Like every souls game there are a million weapons, items, armor pieces and spells. What's nice about the open world design is how these rewards are sprinkled all over so there's always something waiting for you after exploring a new area or defeating a boss. Again, this was where a lot of my joy in Dragon's Dogma came from: you go exploring in a high level zone and you're rewarded with high level things. I got teleported to Caelid very early in the game (even after reading the warning messages lol) and then decided to just stay in this relatively high level zone. I continually got my ass kicked but I ended up with huge amounts of souls and powerful items. I got 80k souls for killing an ancient dragon thanks to the bleed on my Uchigatana. And I got Radagon's Soreseal an item that adds 5 points to all the melee stats in exchange for increased damage. It provided a nice increase to difficulty but allowed me to punch above my weight in damage. It was a wonderful tradeoff and made for a challenging early game.

So with all the praise I'm heaping on the game where then did it fall short? While I adored most of the mainline bosses (my favorites would be Melania, Dragonlord Placidusax, and Radahn) the fact that there were like 100 bosses outside of that meant a lot of them were basically copy-pasted all over the place. I must have fought the Crystallians, the Misbegotten Beast, and the Dog Knight guy 5 times each. The catacombs were the worst offenders where 1/3 of them were the same wraith enemy that was a joke to kill. Finding a new boss in other Souls games is a reward in and of itself ("Ooo I wonder what this one does"), so here you're often felt let down when you fight your way through a tough dungeon just to be greeted by the same guy you've killed 3 times before. Add to that oftentimes the rewards are yet another spell or weapon you'll never use and that again dulls the experience.

On the topic of bosses my other main complaint with the game is the fact that a lot of fights seem to be tailored around the use of Summons. While I did use Summons for every fight you did get a lot of 2v1 or 3v1 fights that were mostly just tedious. A lot of kiting and luck to make sure you don't get wailed on by two at once. Misbegotten Beast with Perfumer Tricia was probably my least favorite fight in the entire game.

But these are minor complaints in a game that consistently left me eagerly waiting for work to end so I could play some more. I must have been 60+ hours in before that sheer addiction faded away. A testament to how consistently challenging and fun to explore the game was. At the end of the day nothing beats the rush of spending 50 tries to kill the Dragonkin Soldier in Siofra River well before you're supposed to do so. Or spending hours fighting Melania trying to find a build that works and finally figuring out a valid strategy and winning. Absolutely glorious. Best souls game and one of the best games I've ever played. Maybe the only game to take the torch away from Dragon's Dogma for making a giant world I want to explore.