I'm only about 30 hours into Elden Ring but there are some other games coming up that I'd like to put time into and I'm ready to take a break, so I'm going to log it now. By all means a quality FromSoft title that definitely grabbed me but one I feel has a few issues holding it back.
I'll start with the positives: I've had a ton of fun talking about bosses and secret areas with friends and the whole rollout has been a blast. Overall, I think that's actually the strongest suit of this game and what I'll end up looking back fondly on the most. The NPCs are colorful and funny and lend a ton of character to the world. Ranni, Blaidd, Roderika, Rogier, all very cool. I wish From had taken a step out of their comfort zone and made the narrative more character driven, but oh well. Combat is as good as ever, which is to say, very very good. Adding jumping was a great idea by itself, but the game just gives you so many options at all times. Even if I play boring ass melee builds and have no interest in doing more than one run of a From title, I can appreciate how deep the pool of options is. The "legacy dungeons" are extremely cool, Raya Lucaria and Stormveil are excellent locations that are a ton of fun to explore. I know there are more to come and I'm interested in seeing what they are. The QoL improvements are very nice, like Stakes of Marika and overall tuning to the menus and out of combat movement. Gone are the days of running and jumping jank, now we've got immediate boss respawns and teleports to anywhere on the map. The exploration isn't my favorite thing (more on that next) but it's still impossible to not be grabbed by it a little bit, running from point of interest to point of interest. It doesn't touch, say, Breath of the Wild or Ghost of Tsushima for me, but it's solid. It definitely helps give the whole game that "ah I'll just play another 15-20 minutes" feeling.
Okay, the negatives: I can't help but think the game would've been improved by decreasing the size of the map. I don't necessarily think the open world should be cut entirely, but if the whole thing was scaled to… 75% of its current size I think it would help the pacing and overall quality. Running around in the open world just isn't as engaging as it could be and repetitive use of enemy types and the mini-dungeons wears after a while. The map itself, while obviously aesthetically cool (and more than we ever got in other Soulsborne titles), can be a little obtuse at times. Like, there's a spot in the east of Liurnia that just doesn't show a giant-ass rock wall separating two areas. It's weird how the game handles some things, like fall damage. They made such a point of showing it off in previews and building these huge places that tower over stuff but still have fall damage? Why? On a more personal note, I feel like the return to dark medieval as the core theme was a step back from the imaginative worlds of Bloodborne and Sekiro (the latter I admittedly have not played), resulting in what is certainly more Dark Souls than it isn't.
To be REALLY negative for a second, it's absolutely absurd that From shipped this game in its current state on PS5 / XSX. Texture pop-in is rampant (some of the worst I've ever seen on PS4 or 5) and the game struggles to maintain ~50 fps with little on the screen. I'm by no means a total obsessive when it comes to performance and it's more than playable but the hardware is not being utilized well at all and it's pretty sad to see. ER has a cool aesthetic in places but on a technical level it's really not pushing the bar - honestly the PS5 not hitting constant 60 by sheer beef of CPU / GPU baffles me.
Despite it maybe being the draw of the game, I'm not really going to touch on bosses, because A) I've only seen but so many of them, and B) they all tilt me anyway so talking about balance or variety is out of my arena. I've enjoyed who I've fought so far, though. Rennala is probably my favorite. Questlines and endings, too, are not something I overly care about in my FromSoft games so I'll pass on judging those too. I will say when that guy had me clear his fort of monsters for him and gave me a shitty dagger as payment that I drove my sword through him like he was microwaved butter.
So, yeah. I guess this came off pretty negative, and I admit that taking a break from it was partially caused by the criticisms I kept thinking of, but overall I have enjoyed my time with Elden Ring more than a little bit. At its core, this is another mechanically tight FromSoft joint with a shitload to do and kill. There's things I would change if I were Miyazaki, but I can't disagree with anyone loving it a whole lot. I'm sure I'll be coming back to it in time.
I'll start with the positives: I've had a ton of fun talking about bosses and secret areas with friends and the whole rollout has been a blast. Overall, I think that's actually the strongest suit of this game and what I'll end up looking back fondly on the most. The NPCs are colorful and funny and lend a ton of character to the world. Ranni, Blaidd, Roderika, Rogier, all very cool. I wish From had taken a step out of their comfort zone and made the narrative more character driven, but oh well. Combat is as good as ever, which is to say, very very good. Adding jumping was a great idea by itself, but the game just gives you so many options at all times. Even if I play boring ass melee builds and have no interest in doing more than one run of a From title, I can appreciate how deep the pool of options is. The "legacy dungeons" are extremely cool, Raya Lucaria and Stormveil are excellent locations that are a ton of fun to explore. I know there are more to come and I'm interested in seeing what they are. The QoL improvements are very nice, like Stakes of Marika and overall tuning to the menus and out of combat movement. Gone are the days of running and jumping jank, now we've got immediate boss respawns and teleports to anywhere on the map. The exploration isn't my favorite thing (more on that next) but it's still impossible to not be grabbed by it a little bit, running from point of interest to point of interest. It doesn't touch, say, Breath of the Wild or Ghost of Tsushima for me, but it's solid. It definitely helps give the whole game that "ah I'll just play another 15-20 minutes" feeling.
Okay, the negatives: I can't help but think the game would've been improved by decreasing the size of the map. I don't necessarily think the open world should be cut entirely, but if the whole thing was scaled to… 75% of its current size I think it would help the pacing and overall quality. Running around in the open world just isn't as engaging as it could be and repetitive use of enemy types and the mini-dungeons wears after a while. The map itself, while obviously aesthetically cool (and more than we ever got in other Soulsborne titles), can be a little obtuse at times. Like, there's a spot in the east of Liurnia that just doesn't show a giant-ass rock wall separating two areas. It's weird how the game handles some things, like fall damage. They made such a point of showing it off in previews and building these huge places that tower over stuff but still have fall damage? Why? On a more personal note, I feel like the return to dark medieval as the core theme was a step back from the imaginative worlds of Bloodborne and Sekiro (the latter I admittedly have not played), resulting in what is certainly more Dark Souls than it isn't.
To be REALLY negative for a second, it's absolutely absurd that From shipped this game in its current state on PS5 / XSX. Texture pop-in is rampant (some of the worst I've ever seen on PS4 or 5) and the game struggles to maintain ~50 fps with little on the screen. I'm by no means a total obsessive when it comes to performance and it's more than playable but the hardware is not being utilized well at all and it's pretty sad to see. ER has a cool aesthetic in places but on a technical level it's really not pushing the bar - honestly the PS5 not hitting constant 60 by sheer beef of CPU / GPU baffles me.
Despite it maybe being the draw of the game, I'm not really going to touch on bosses, because A) I've only seen but so many of them, and B) they all tilt me anyway so talking about balance or variety is out of my arena. I've enjoyed who I've fought so far, though. Rennala is probably my favorite. Questlines and endings, too, are not something I overly care about in my FromSoft games so I'll pass on judging those too. I will say when that guy had me clear his fort of monsters for him and gave me a shitty dagger as payment that I drove my sword through him like he was microwaved butter.
So, yeah. I guess this came off pretty negative, and I admit that taking a break from it was partially caused by the criticisms I kept thinking of, but overall I have enjoyed my time with Elden Ring more than a little bit. At its core, this is another mechanically tight FromSoft joint with a shitload to do and kill. There's things I would change if I were Miyazaki, but I can't disagree with anyone loving it a whole lot. I'm sure I'll be coming back to it in time.