I randomly found this game while scrolling through steam about a month back and finally decided to pick it up for the 2021 Winter sale

I thought it looked good at the time but man, was I wrong... It was absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing!

The combat is like the best parts of DOOM and Dark Souls and it feels great, it has to be some of the best first-person melee combat I have ever felt, the dodge is perfectly responsive and gave a good amount of I-Frames without being overpowered, Blocking and Parrying were easy to understand and actually felt useful unlike some other games with those mechanics where you're better off not even bothering with them half the time, The weapon selection is feels a little lackluster as some of the weapons don't feel all that useful but the good ones are very, VERY good and super fun to use, like the hammer for example but I might just be a sucker for massive badass weapons, and the enemies attacks are well telegraphed and mostly reasonable when it comes to not feeling like they're getting cheap hits off on you from miles away

my only big complaint about the enemies is the Berserkers, which straight up teleport inside you and deal damage which is nearly unavoidable but thankfully there aren't too many of those enemies around and the Spear makes them manageable enough

The bosses were super fun to fight, They're a good challenge without feeling too tanky or dealing to much damage even on hard (There are harder difficulties mind you but I'm not one for keyboard smashing difficulty in games) I just really wish there were more than 2 bosses in the game

The levels looks amazing in terms of environment and style but can be a little confusing sometimes, I didn't have too much trouble finding my way around and progressing since I tried to be pretty thorough as I went through them, You don't get a map so you'll have to keep track of what goes where and what place keys are supposed to go to, there aren't really any puzzles besides just trying to find where said key goes to if you hadn't already come across the door beforehand

Another complaint I have is the ending felt a little underwhelming, I won't spoil it but the last level was pretty short and isn't very hard at all, maybe a little frustrating though and in terms of story there isn't really much I have to say about it, I did enjoy it but if you asked but what the game was about story-wise, I wouldn't be able to tell you without some thinking and going back over the game in my head first

Also, the soundtrack is by far one of the best I've heard in a LONG time, similar to DOOM's music but less 'Remixing lawnmowers' and more of what you would expect from a metal soundtrack

All-in-all, Elderborn is quite a fun, brutal, metal AF, First-Person Hack and Slasher that made me want to bathe in the blood of my enemies that would be well worth full price and is a steal if it's on sale

8.8/10