This review contains spoilers
Elden Ring
So, I beat this three days ago and I've been trying to wrap my head around how I feel about it. First off, I don't know if I have ever seen such beautiful art direction in a game. Ethereal and serene or foul and horrible, every vista was evocative and one-of-a-kind. The Eternal City, Lyndell the Capital, Crumbling Farum Azula and the Siofra Well were standouts. The new mechanics like the Ashes of War, the Spirit summons, the crafting, and the counterattack were great additions.The sheer variety of weapons and creatures is fantastic. So much effort went into these elements and I don't know of another game that even comes close to this on those aspects. But before I get too praise-heavy, the modern amenities that everybody has been praising has me irritated. It still feels woefully outdated in terms of having a user-friendly interface. Like, seriously, y'all are losing it over it having a map and a dedicated jump button? It's absurd that it has just been implemented. I've played a lot of open-worlds and what I wouldn't do for a lore tab in the menu. This should be a non-issue! How does it negatively impact the experience of the game to actually record the exposition as you get it or the last place you saw an NPC and relevant dialogue? There are seriously different characters named Godwyn, Godrick, Godfrey, Renalla, Ranni, Radagon, Radahn, Rykard, Mohg, Morgott, Miquella, Melania, Melina, and Marika. Jesus, man. I feel like I'm watching fuckin' House of the Dragon. I don't have any doubt whose contribution this is. You have a fathomlessly deep and fascinating story and you hired George RR Martin to help you pen it. So why does it feel like you're trying to obscure it so thoroughly? Why are major plot points of the histories buried in item descriptions STILL. That's a great place for esoteric facts and secrets, but for the love of God, help me enjoy what you spent so much time forming. The lineages are so interesting and the histories of the lands and wars could fill books, but it's ridiculously hard to follow because it's a jigsaw puzzle of 20 different storylines. Sure, when assembled you have a beautiful and complete understanding (not really, still ambiguous af actually), but it being a jumbled, random mystery dampens my enthusiasm a bit. The previous games were smaller in scale, so they could get away with it, but this particular fixture of the game needs to evolve too. There's a reason why Vaatividya is SO popular. It's because no one knows what's happening and everyone wants to know. Every open-world game has a "Journal" tab or something similar. It's so aggravating. It's a big ask to have me remember what a random NPC said in the middle of nowhere and then actually manage to follow the story thread. This game is MASSIVE and over a hundred hours long. As soon as you round the corner after that NPC, you're reminded there's a million other things going on and you'll be lucky if you EVER spot 'em again. Makes no sense to me.
The combat and the progession and the paths to different builds are good too. But I think Dunkey said it best. I'm paraphrasing but he said that "the game is so hard that it funnels everyone into the same builds" and it's true. The game is so fuckin' hard. I got severely tired of getting one-shot killed at every point of the game. No matter what level I was at or how good the armor was. It's brutal. And then I hear the purists denigrating others for actually using the mechanics used to mitigate this. I'm willing to spend an unreasonable amount of time gitting gud if that's what the obstacle in front of me requires. But, it's also an unreasonable ask to ask me to spend my limited free time in a frustrating loop because I'm "not supposed" to use every tool in the toolbelt. Not a fault of the game, more the community, but still grinds me.
All-in-all, this game is a magnificent achievement. It really is special and it really does deserve it's accolades, but I also spent an inordinate amount of time with this NOT having fun because of what I felt like was balancing issues and unfair scenarios. I had to take three separate breaks from it to try other stuff just from getting fed up. And I never do that. I don't want to give the impression that I didn't still like it or I didn't have ANY fun. I absolutely did and I will play it again, but there's no part of me that wants that to be soon.
So, I beat this three days ago and I've been trying to wrap my head around how I feel about it. First off, I don't know if I have ever seen such beautiful art direction in a game. Ethereal and serene or foul and horrible, every vista was evocative and one-of-a-kind. The Eternal City, Lyndell the Capital, Crumbling Farum Azula and the Siofra Well were standouts. The new mechanics like the Ashes of War, the Spirit summons, the crafting, and the counterattack were great additions.The sheer variety of weapons and creatures is fantastic. So much effort went into these elements and I don't know of another game that even comes close to this on those aspects. But before I get too praise-heavy, the modern amenities that everybody has been praising has me irritated. It still feels woefully outdated in terms of having a user-friendly interface. Like, seriously, y'all are losing it over it having a map and a dedicated jump button? It's absurd that it has just been implemented. I've played a lot of open-worlds and what I wouldn't do for a lore tab in the menu. This should be a non-issue! How does it negatively impact the experience of the game to actually record the exposition as you get it or the last place you saw an NPC and relevant dialogue? There are seriously different characters named Godwyn, Godrick, Godfrey, Renalla, Ranni, Radagon, Radahn, Rykard, Mohg, Morgott, Miquella, Melania, Melina, and Marika. Jesus, man. I feel like I'm watching fuckin' House of the Dragon. I don't have any doubt whose contribution this is. You have a fathomlessly deep and fascinating story and you hired George RR Martin to help you pen it. So why does it feel like you're trying to obscure it so thoroughly? Why are major plot points of the histories buried in item descriptions STILL. That's a great place for esoteric facts and secrets, but for the love of God, help me enjoy what you spent so much time forming. The lineages are so interesting and the histories of the lands and wars could fill books, but it's ridiculously hard to follow because it's a jigsaw puzzle of 20 different storylines. Sure, when assembled you have a beautiful and complete understanding (not really, still ambiguous af actually), but it being a jumbled, random mystery dampens my enthusiasm a bit. The previous games were smaller in scale, so they could get away with it, but this particular fixture of the game needs to evolve too. There's a reason why Vaatividya is SO popular. It's because no one knows what's happening and everyone wants to know. Every open-world game has a "Journal" tab or something similar. It's so aggravating. It's a big ask to have me remember what a random NPC said in the middle of nowhere and then actually manage to follow the story thread. This game is MASSIVE and over a hundred hours long. As soon as you round the corner after that NPC, you're reminded there's a million other things going on and you'll be lucky if you EVER spot 'em again. Makes no sense to me.
The combat and the progession and the paths to different builds are good too. But I think Dunkey said it best. I'm paraphrasing but he said that "the game is so hard that it funnels everyone into the same builds" and it's true. The game is so fuckin' hard. I got severely tired of getting one-shot killed at every point of the game. No matter what level I was at or how good the armor was. It's brutal. And then I hear the purists denigrating others for actually using the mechanics used to mitigate this. I'm willing to spend an unreasonable amount of time gitting gud if that's what the obstacle in front of me requires. But, it's also an unreasonable ask to ask me to spend my limited free time in a frustrating loop because I'm "not supposed" to use every tool in the toolbelt. Not a fault of the game, more the community, but still grinds me.
All-in-all, this game is a magnificent achievement. It really is special and it really does deserve it's accolades, but I also spent an inordinate amount of time with this NOT having fun because of what I felt like was balancing issues and unfair scenarios. I had to take three separate breaks from it to try other stuff just from getting fed up. And I never do that. I don't want to give the impression that I didn't still like it or I didn't have ANY fun. I absolutely did and I will play it again, but there's no part of me that wants that to be soon.