7.5/10
Hm... Although I wasn't as amazed as most people were by Elden Ring it's still a fine game, just one one I maybe won't replay.
The open world is nice, there's quite a ton of interesting areas but there's also tons of areas that aren't that interesting and feel like they're there just to extend even more your gameplay time. The map is also MASSIVE, the surface is already huge and there's tons of dungeons and caves too, I quickly got burnt out of trying to explore everything, some places didn't interest me, others had annoying enemies (I'll get into that in a bit).
The gameplay is good although I was expecting more differences from DS3, sure, the horse riding and air attacks are cool but not a HUGE difference. I like open world games, I love FC3, RDR2, Sleeping Dogs, etc but here I wasn't that interested in exploring every nook and cranny, maybe due to the game's story being partially (big partially) through lore. I think ER could have had a more "standard" story like Sekiro, or at least a speaking protagonist.
I also don't like how "hard" it is to keep track of side quests or what to do to progress in some of them (this also applies to the main story), sometimes you'll probably be quite lost. I think there wouldn't be a problem if the game had a menu where you could keep track of the side content and the main objective. The main objective could even be vague! But in a way you could realize what you need to do. The side quests could have more specific objectives but whatever, this was also in the souls games so I don't think that'll change soon.
In terms of combat/enemies, it's either good or very annoying. Some enemies have difficult moves to react to but they're fun fighting against! Others have bs range or deal ridiculous amounts of damage (this is terrible in the last part of the game). There's 2 bosses that I thought were very unfun, not hard, just not fun to play against.
Visually the game looks good for the most part! If you're really nitpicky you may notice some textures aren't that high res but it gets the job done nicely so that wasn't a problem for me. The art direction here is insane, there's some genuinely jaw dropping scenery. There's some very cool enemy and boss designs and the weapons and armors also look good!
There's very good weapon and magic variety so you can make tons of builds to see what better fits your playstyle.
The soundtrack was (as always) really food! It makes the boss battles even more epic and tense than what they already are.
Overall, it's a nice game although imo the open world hurts it more than it helps. If the game had very big areas, but it wasn't open world, I'd probably have loved it. It got stale for me after a while. But if you're really into dark souls and wanted a longer game with tons of stuff to do here's your dream game!
My ranking of the FS games I've played so far (I didn't finish DS3, I was at the last boss. I started the dlc's but eventually I sold my ps4 so I never did totally finish it) is: Sekiro > Bloodborne > DS3, Elden Ring.
I'm interested in the dlc! The trailer looked pretty good.
Hm... Although I wasn't as amazed as most people were by Elden Ring it's still a fine game, just one one I maybe won't replay.
The open world is nice, there's quite a ton of interesting areas but there's also tons of areas that aren't that interesting and feel like they're there just to extend even more your gameplay time. The map is also MASSIVE, the surface is already huge and there's tons of dungeons and caves too, I quickly got burnt out of trying to explore everything, some places didn't interest me, others had annoying enemies (I'll get into that in a bit).
The gameplay is good although I was expecting more differences from DS3, sure, the horse riding and air attacks are cool but not a HUGE difference. I like open world games, I love FC3, RDR2, Sleeping Dogs, etc but here I wasn't that interested in exploring every nook and cranny, maybe due to the game's story being partially (big partially) through lore. I think ER could have had a more "standard" story like Sekiro, or at least a speaking protagonist.
I also don't like how "hard" it is to keep track of side quests or what to do to progress in some of them (this also applies to the main story), sometimes you'll probably be quite lost. I think there wouldn't be a problem if the game had a menu where you could keep track of the side content and the main objective. The main objective could even be vague! But in a way you could realize what you need to do. The side quests could have more specific objectives but whatever, this was also in the souls games so I don't think that'll change soon.
In terms of combat/enemies, it's either good or very annoying. Some enemies have difficult moves to react to but they're fun fighting against! Others have bs range or deal ridiculous amounts of damage (this is terrible in the last part of the game). There's 2 bosses that I thought were very unfun, not hard, just not fun to play against.
Visually the game looks good for the most part! If you're really nitpicky you may notice some textures aren't that high res but it gets the job done nicely so that wasn't a problem for me. The art direction here is insane, there's some genuinely jaw dropping scenery. There's some very cool enemy and boss designs and the weapons and armors also look good!
There's very good weapon and magic variety so you can make tons of builds to see what better fits your playstyle.
The soundtrack was (as always) really food! It makes the boss battles even more epic and tense than what they already are.
Overall, it's a nice game although imo the open world hurts it more than it helps. If the game had very big areas, but it wasn't open world, I'd probably have loved it. It got stale for me after a while. But if you're really into dark souls and wanted a longer game with tons of stuff to do here's your dream game!
My ranking of the FS games I've played so far (I didn't finish DS3, I was at the last boss. I started the dlc's but eventually I sold my ps4 so I never did totally finish it) is: Sekiro > Bloodborne > DS3, Elden Ring.
I'm interested in the dlc! The trailer looked pretty good.