This review will be overly negative, so I will just state in the beginning that I think that Elden Ring is an excellent video game, and I would much rather play it again, than the majority of games released in the past few years.
Despite the open world structure, Elden Ring is very familiar with the Dark Souls series. The mechanics are the same, the enemies behave the same, the character progression is the same, the quests progress in the same way, the story is told in the same way. It stands on the foundation of the 6 previous from software games. The biggest difference is obviously the open world, and the addition of horse riding in the open areas.
Due to the open nature of the world, for it to be interesting, it must be filled with a lot of stuff to keep the player engaged in the exploration. Unfortunately, it falls in the same traps as a lot of other open world games: there is a lot of repetition. Locations such as catacombs, mines and ruins, although different from each other, repeat a lot without much variation, and are not that interesting. There is a massive variety of enemies and bosses, however it's still not enough due to the absurdly gigantic scope of the game. You end up fighting some of the same bosses 6 times. The highlights are the traditional dungeons, but they are all too familiar to what we got in previous games.
Enemy behavior/AI is the same as previous games. In an open world environment, the encounters are trivialized, since it is easy to avoid everything.
The addition of Spirit Ashes trivializes every boss. To counterbalance the help of the Spirit Ashes, there are a lot of bosses that feature multiple enemies at the same time. The problem is that boss fights that feature a single enemy become extremely easy. In contrast, bosses seem to be balanced with Spirit Ashes in mind and if you don't use it, it becomes frustrating.
There was no fundamental change in the gameplay compared to Froms previous titles to encompass its new open world structure. The world is simply there. There are no new environmental hazards, there is no weather system, there are no interactions with the world. The only dangers you face are caused by the enemies.
In summary, the highest points of the game happen during the "traditional dungeons", and the lowest happen because of the open world. The change to an open world structure was detrimental to the quality of the game. If the legacy dungeons were connected to each other, and the repetitive and low quality content such as catacombs, mines, ruins, repetitive boss encounters, etc. was simply cut off, the game would be better. Unfortunately, I felt that I was playing the same game for the seventh time. It is far from being a bad game. On the contrary, it's very good, but the fatigue is real.
Despite the open world structure, Elden Ring is very familiar with the Dark Souls series. The mechanics are the same, the enemies behave the same, the character progression is the same, the quests progress in the same way, the story is told in the same way. It stands on the foundation of the 6 previous from software games. The biggest difference is obviously the open world, and the addition of horse riding in the open areas.
Due to the open nature of the world, for it to be interesting, it must be filled with a lot of stuff to keep the player engaged in the exploration. Unfortunately, it falls in the same traps as a lot of other open world games: there is a lot of repetition. Locations such as catacombs, mines and ruins, although different from each other, repeat a lot without much variation, and are not that interesting. There is a massive variety of enemies and bosses, however it's still not enough due to the absurdly gigantic scope of the game. You end up fighting some of the same bosses 6 times. The highlights are the traditional dungeons, but they are all too familiar to what we got in previous games.
Enemy behavior/AI is the same as previous games. In an open world environment, the encounters are trivialized, since it is easy to avoid everything.
The addition of Spirit Ashes trivializes every boss. To counterbalance the help of the Spirit Ashes, there are a lot of bosses that feature multiple enemies at the same time. The problem is that boss fights that feature a single enemy become extremely easy. In contrast, bosses seem to be balanced with Spirit Ashes in mind and if you don't use it, it becomes frustrating.
There was no fundamental change in the gameplay compared to Froms previous titles to encompass its new open world structure. The world is simply there. There are no new environmental hazards, there is no weather system, there are no interactions with the world. The only dangers you face are caused by the enemies.
In summary, the highest points of the game happen during the "traditional dungeons", and the lowest happen because of the open world. The change to an open world structure was detrimental to the quality of the game. If the legacy dungeons were connected to each other, and the repetitive and low quality content such as catacombs, mines, ruins, repetitive boss encounters, etc. was simply cut off, the game would be better. Unfortunately, I felt that I was playing the same game for the seventh time. It is far from being a bad game. On the contrary, it's very good, but the fatigue is real.
LobbyDob
2 years ago
This is so true and it seems like most people aren't noticing it yet just because of the sheer size/occasional beauty of the open world distracting them from its otherwise obvious issues. Even Genshin fucking Impact has way more environmental interaction than Elden Ring.