Recent reviews by chosen by god

I have an unstoppable build that I made flawless progress with for 2 hours only to fall down an invisible hole and die instantly

This game costs more than just 60$, it costs all of the time you have available after you purchase it.

Most games try to make you feel powerful and satisfied but not this game, this game ridicules you and makes sure that you question your self-worth. It took one in-game day to ruin my sense of self and make me give up on this world that I had spent no more than a couple of hours in.

9/10

Aesthetically pleasing visuals and an exciting set of characters along with in-depth combat mechanics.
Suffers from feeling somewhat monotonous and the lack of interesting collectibles makes it feel like I don't have any goal to play towards.
Oh and for the love of god please fix the tutorial menus, 60% of my time is spent looking at menus instead of actually learning, you are better of playing matches instead of doing missions.

best melee combat in any game

If you are going to crack down on hackers at least choose a better solution than EAC.
Oh and instead of locking people out of QOL mods, just patch those QOL fixes so the mods wont be necessary.

Bethesda has since fallen from grace but they managed to make the most replayable RPG I have ever played. Also mods, can't forget about the mods, this is probably the best modding experience you will ever have with any game.

Great game for smart people! My stupid ass couldn't figure out how to solve some of the most essential mysteries and puzzles which worsened my experience significantly. Despite this I know that this is a good game with a mind-bendingly good story and I know it is a game that you should definitely play.

Also, f*** Dark Bramble, all my homies hate Dark Bramble

horse drifting musket wielding homosexual knights competing in a battle royale

10/10

Edit: Turns out I was right, thankfully. From Software recognizes that the game isn't finished and has now started patching the game. Ashes of war have been balanced, (a few) quest lines have been finished and they nerfed Radahn. I expect to see a lot more tweaks in the future and then this review will be positive.

As much as I want to enjoy this game I do not like it in its current state. Keep in mind that as you read this review I could easily enjoy the game if a couple tweaks are added to make it different. Also, this review mostly mentions flaws with the game as I want to bring more attention to the flaws which people are mostly ignoring. This is meant to be constructive criticism, not a rage post, I love challenge and this game is decent: 7-8/10.

First of all, over a week since the game has been released a lot of the glitches have yet to be fixed and performance is still awful for a lot of players. I had to beat the game with a constant 45-55 fps despite having the proper specs to run the game.

The biggest flaw of the actual gameplay I would have to say is either the lack of innovation or the boss roster. I'll start with the boss roster: Never in any of the souls games have I seen so many complaints from the community of bosses being either too unfair, boring, too easy or that it has a stupid mechanic. I think a couple years from now when people make rankings containing their favorite bosses from From Software very few of the top ones will be from Elden Ring. Even the good fights like Malenia and Maliketh are ruined by this game's damage issue. The only boss in this game that I thought had decent design was Mohg, with Margit being an honorable mention. Aside from those 2 the bosses were mostly boring.

I would like to squeeze in a little extra complaint about damage here, in the game's current state you are almost required to level your vigor up to 60+ if you don't want to get one shot but even then there are bosses that can kill you in one hit. People come with the lazy argument that you can't complain about taking too much damage if you don't level vigor, but never in any of the souls games have I felt *required* to level vigor. The build I was going for initially was not meant to have much vigor but after boss fights ending instantly if I make a tiny little mistake I clearly had to change that.
To put this into perspective: In Dark Souls and Bloodborne I would usually die from running out of heals, or at least being low on healing. In Elden Ring I die with 10 flask remaining to a single hit I didn't quite dodge on time.

Now, for the lack of innovation this point is quite simple, while the game has good content, as someone who has played most souls games it is just more of the same. This point varies a lot between different people, it all depends on how you read the phrase: "Dark souls but open world". To me the game should have done something new, as dark souls 3 was meant to be the end of the DS franchise. Even Bloodborne added teeny tiny little differences that still made the game feel very refreshing but Elden Ring did not try at all. The only additions were weirdly powerful weapon abilities that you end up spamming, a jump attack that just makes normal charged attack obsolete, unnecessary counter system and lastly horseback combat that is very rough. What I wanted to see was something we haven't seen before rather than a compilation of everything From Software has done up until this point because this game failed at being that as well.

A tiny issue I have with the game is as an "avid open-world gamer" (sounds really cringe I know) this game is kind of tiny. At times it can feel huge and the amount of content in the world is definitely enough, the fact is that the game is roughly 40km². If you compare that to BOTW or RDR2 which are 75km², or The Witcher 3 which is 135km² the game could definitely have been a little bigger for my tastes.

I am a huge lore nerd when it comes to the souls series and this game was absurdly disappointing. I can summarize the issue by simply comparing two sentences below:

"Dark souls is about an age of fire that eventually fades, causing people to rise from their graves, now it is the players choice if they want to follow the orders of the royal family or seek an alternate path."

"Elden Ring is about an age of the erdtree/elden ring that eventually breaks, causing people to rise from their graves, now it is the players choice if they want to follow the orders of the Golden Order or seek an alternate path."

That is right, Elden Ring is just Dark souls but with different names pretty much. Even the way the world is built is very similar. If you watch Vatiividyas latest video he even mentions several times that parts of the lore are similar to Dark Souls. This could be a plus or minus depending on what you think but considering Bloodborne has the greatest story From Software has made, Elden Ring was definitely lost potential.

Something that dissapointed me quite a lot is that quests are kind of lacking. Don't get me wrong I loved Ranni's quest but there are a couple issues with it. In this big world completing quests is like finding a needle in a haystack so 90% of players use the internet to progress through quests, although it has always been this way now it is worse than ever. I realize that quests are meant to be obscure but I don't entirely agree with the design. Another issue with quests is the lack of dialogue this time around. The stories are often seen as inconclusive as characters have a little less than 1-3 minutes of total dialogue. For example Melina, your guide in this game, has very little dialogue throughout the entire game and when she eventually leaves you it is meant to be sad but it falls flat as she has barely been present throughout the journey.

The soundtrack this time around is also not quite enough. I ask you to name a banger from the OST that isn't tree sentinel or the title screen. Both of those themes are okay but nothing compared to what From Soft has achieved in the past. Another issue with the OST is that a lot of songs are repeated and very few original tracks stand out. I love orchestral music and I listen to From Soft music a lot but this time around the OST feels very... cheap? A little too short, feels samey and no real "bangers".

I think the game should have gotten a little more time in the oven as most of the issues I mentioned are simply things that could be tweaked (like damage) or fleshed out (like quests).