Elden Ring Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by FromSoftware Inc.
Released 25th February 2022
Elden Ring has to be the most anticipated game in recent years. Starting development back in early 2017, after the Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3, FromSoftware adapted this "co-director" structure in which each director would develop the foundations for their games before letting the legendary Miyazaki build upon the design. Elden Ring was one of the two games that were developed like this (the other being Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), and with about 4-5 years of development and possibly half the workforce, it's crazy that a game of this scale was achieved.
Story
The story of Elden Ring is great. It follows the Tarnished as they're summoned back to not only reconstruct the Elden Ring but also become Elden Lord. Throughout the grand world of this game, you'll encounter demigods corrupted with power, ancient dragons and so many other cool fantasy elements. George R.R. Martin (the author of the books that would later be adapted into Game of Thrones), laid the building blocks and provided the worldbuilding, before FromSoftware expanded upon these ideas, resulting in a more accessible narrative that was still in the cryptic format of previous FromSoftware titles. Because of this, I don't think the game is as successful narratively as the previous Soulsbornes, but it's still better than 90% of the games out there.
I always thought that FromSoftware games succeed best in being enigmatic and up to the player to interpret the story, but with this formula, it feels like Elden Ring delivers half, if not more, of the story to the player, disengaging the idea to further explore the open world or to make sense of the story in their own time. While this is more of a nitpick rather than a constructed critique, I couldn't help but feel that way since this game has some brilliant mythos and lore surrounding many parts of the world, especially the bosses, who in my eyes, were the best lore fountains of the whole game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fantastic, though not without small, yet detrimental faults. Elden Ring has innovated and propelled the classic FromSoftware combat into something magnificent. Like always there's the traditional light and heavy attack and maybe some additional spells or throwables if you feel crafty. However, now there's more to use at your disposal: stealth, jump attacks, crafting, a vast amount of weapons each paired with a weapon skill, horseriding, powerstancing is back, Spirit Summons and more. Previously, powerstancing was only present in Dark Souls 2 up until now, in which you could dual-wield weapons of the same class to achieve new combos and damage.
The reason this is so great isn't because of how simple yet effective this mechanic is, but instead, it's because of the weapon abilities, or as they're called, Ashes of War. Every weapon you come across has a specific ability embedded that's designated to the press of a button. While most weapons don't allow this, some allow you to mix and match these Ashes however you like. Tired of the boring Katana unsheathing? How about you use the Carian Grandeur and swing the blade as a magical greatsword instead? Or you might want to replace your Mantis Blade's Spinning Slash with a Hoarfrost Stomp to inflict frost damage. Unfortunately, not every weapon allows for this customisation as they are locked with a specific Ash of War. You can still apply that Ash of War to another weapon, but you can't do vice versa which mostly sucks as there are so many cool weapons that could be made better if this was allowed. Not only this but some Ashes of War are locked to specific weapon classes, which makes sense, but imagine how fun it'd be to use the Waterfowl Dance with the Royal Greatsword.
The new crafting system is also great and convenient for any item you desire, however, items weren't that heavily used in other Soulsborne titles and Elden Ring is no exception. Another cool feature was the inclusion of Spirit Summons. These will allow you to summon the spirit of a previously fought enemy and, depending on how much you upgrade them, can become as good if not better than a co-op summon. This feature does show how much more accessible FromSoftware is trying to make Elden Ring as this allows for offline players to experience some form of co-op or for players struggling to progress seeing as this is their gateway drug to the Soulslike genre.
To reiterate, they now have added so much more to not only make the combat more thrilling but also the exploration, given how this game is an open world. I haven't been this immersed in a great open world since Witcher 3. The world of The Lands Between is brimming with the same amount of endless exploration that I saw in The Witcher 3, and it's just amazing. Being able to ride your double-jumping horse Torrent through this expansive world was not only breathtaking but probably the best part of the whole game (even though Torrent is locked from use for about the second half of the game). Every 30 seconds or so I stumbled across a landmark, a dungeon, an NPC, an in-world event, a boss or maybe all of the above - Elden Ring's open world can only be described as lively and as the next standard games will have to live up to. However, there is a small problem I had with the exploration and that's how there's no indication as to where or when to find and interact with a specific NPC to progress their quest. This fact is made worse by how some quests have strict timing windows as to when to do them, which could be missed by accident, ruining the possibility of a certain ending.
The enemies you'll encounter on your way to finding the Elden Ring are awesome. Having the enemies be a mixture of newly created and previously scrapped foes is creative and great as there seems to be an unending amount of variety. However, the challenge that they and the whole game bring is questionable. Elden Ring has to be no doubt, the most poorly balanced game FromSoftware has made. The inconsistent difficulty spikes that occur are egregious; one moment I could've been steamrolling through enemies and bosses before being one-shot, overloaded with status effects, or combo'd into oblivion. This problem appears the most in the late game, and keep in mind that I fought every boss there is, so there was no way I could've been underlevelled. This whole difficulty problem genuinely put a sour taste in my mouth for the remainder of my playtime. The only redeeming quality of this flaw is the newly introduced Stakes of Marika. Goodbye, tedious runbacks, goodbye, losing your souls to a bullshit enemy attack, goodbye to the willpower-crushing moments. These Stakes act as mini checkpoints throughout the world and are commonly placed outside of boss arenas. Mwah, Magnifique.
Bossfights
The bossfights were a love-hate relationship. The first half of the game felt way too easy, with the hardest fight being the Bell Bearing Hunter. However, the second half of the game at times felt unfair as getting vigour-checked was way too common for my liking. For me, a boss fight is a duel against an enemy whose health, arena or overall fight is emphasised and exaggerated beyond the point of a regular enemy. Because of this, I'm going to split the rest of the bossfights section of this review into two: one for the main, absolute bosses ranging from the demigods to any other "unique" foe and another for the field and dungeon, "side" bosses.
(Main) Bossfights
The main bosses were awesome. They were impeccable fights throughout, and while some of the endgame bosses started to lean towards unfairness (Fire Giant's one-shotting or Malenia's absurd moveset), I'd say the challenge present in the other fights was acceptable. My favourite fight would have to be Malekith. The arena was mesmerising, the music was ferocious yet saddening, his lore of being an unstoppable force was badass and the fight overall was a great challenge that punished your ignorance and rewarded your skills. Radahn was a close second with once again a badass backstory and a cinematically impressive arsenal of cool moves. Mohg and his great brutal challenge, Godfrey and his perfectly balanced combat, Dragonlord Placidusax and its atmospheric arena, Rykard and his spectacular scale and Godrick with his memorability are a couple more of my favourite bosses in the game.
Now, for the rant against the most infamous boss in perhaps, all of gaming - Malenia, the Blade of Miquella. I'd have to say she is a great fight ruined. The reason Malenia even is a challenging boss is because of her ridiculous number of moves that annihilate the player. It almost feels like they designed a perfected boss before Miyazaki snorted a line of coke, went berserk, and told the design team to give her the best moves they haven't used yet. Because a move that rapidly swings and obliterates your health in a couple of hits, an Instakill grab with a short charge up, healing for every attack, a second phase with pure scarlet rot damage and more altogether is too much. The difficulty of dodging these moves is also quite extreme and unless your name is LetMeSoloHer, you're going to need a Spirit Summon or a co-op partner to beat her which can feel distasteful to hardcore Souls players.
(Side) Bossfights
The side bosses weren't that great. More than half of these bosses were reskins of one another, which makes the "over 100 bosses" advertisement feel like a slap across the face and a waste of time when collecting materials. They weren't awful battles, but they weren't that amazing either, feeling more like elite enemies than actual bosses as their moveset was limited heavily. This got annoying quickly as there wasn't any difference between them and their counterparts located in different areas except for the unreasonable damage increases. I would've preferred if the game limited the number of side bosses in favour of either making them feel more glorious when repeated or perhaps limiting the repetivity overall.
Characters
Miyazaki has stated that he enjoyed writing NPCs with more details, believing that Elden Ring houses the more compelling characters when compared to his earlier works. That is nothing but the truth. The best characters are more engaging and intriguing than I've encountered before. The best way to put is that this game's NPCs are similar to Dark Souls: some could classify as legends such as Blaidd, Ranni, Melina, and Iron Fist Alexander; others are enjoyable to interact with like White Mask Varre, Bloody Finger Hunter Yura and Smithing Master Hewg; some of which I probably missed out on due to the large size of the game, while the rest are forgettable.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is splendid. The game is filled with these landscapes that are beautiful to look at while horseriding. Every location has these gorgeous views and moments that imprint an unforgettable memory within you. Limgrave is this standard zone of green - forests, wildlife, hills, bushes, and small rivers. However, its beauty is found in its simplicity. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Crumbling Farum Azula, a desecrated ruin, broken apart by tornadoes and stuck in a time loop. Its sombre and desolated feel works so well, probably even more so given its limited colour palette. There are so many remarkable locations that I haven't mentioned: the ash-sunken Leyndell, Stormveil Castle and its Dark Souls DNA, Liurnia and its massive body of water that's circled by cliffs, and so much more. I haven't even gotten the chance to talk about the underground areas or dungeons, there are so many impressive environments in this game that I was jaw-dropped simply by the art design and creative direction.
The music and audio design are phenomenal. However, I don't need to tell you that if you've played a FromSoftware game. They always deliver these war hymns that either get your blood pumping, ready for a brutal battle or carry out a passionate yet gut-wrenching sadness. The sound effects are always clean and effective whether you're the one slaying or the one getting slain.
The technical performance is as great as to be expected of a next-gen title working on old-gen consoles. Slight framerate drops, slightly longer loading times and not as much polish in terms of textures, but nothing you shouldn't expect or be worried about.
Story - 8/10
Gameplay - 8.5/10
Bossfights (Main) - 9/10
Bossfights (Side) - 6/10
Characters - 8/10
Atmosphere - 9.5/10
Great
Elden Ring is not the strongest FromSoftware title, however, it definitely is the most mechanically advanced and it's one of the most creative in its bosses, lore and environments. The best way to describe it is that it's like Dark Souls but bigger and better. Both have top-tier atmospheric values and lore and both games start off strong. They both also take a dip in quality by the halfway point with DS lacking the budget to create any more intricately designed bosses or areas and ER lacking the control of making the bosses balanced or areas as interesting to traverse as the beginning locations. Finally, both games will be in the Hall of Fame in their respective decades for showing other RPG games how it's done.
