Recent reviews by Ruusaan

I'm not a wordsmith, but this game deserves an upvote.

A Charming game with loads of attention to details. The genre of the game changes every 10 minutes or so, everything is animated, the subtitles are physicalized and will fly around and fall onto surfaces.

The only issue is the game is fairly short. There is apparently an update coming though with peaceful mode which is something to look forward to.

Update: Sony reversed course!
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929

My review has to remain negative until all 177 territories are allowed to buy the game again.

I'm doing my part!

A DnD game made by people who actually like, and probably play, DnD 5e. This game deserves every game of the year award it's going to get.

This game is really good, one of the best cRPG's I've played since Pillars of Eternity.

- Insane replay value
- Set 120~ years after BG1 and BG2, you don't need to know anything to dive into this game
- Consistent story through the entire experience, the story doesn't fall apart after the first couple acts like Divinity: Original Sin 2
- New benchmark in what a RPG could and should be!
- Companions are so tied to the story, it would be hard to imagine playing without some of them, but you can absolutely miss over half of them

Surprisingly good.

You start with 8 cards in your hand, and as you use them, they're put into a "used" pile. Once you use all 8 cards in your hand, you have to pick one from your hand or the used pile to put into another "discarded" pile. Once you win a fight you add all your "used" cards back into your hand for the next fight. But "discarded" cards are only added back to your hand once you make it to a rest node on the Slay the Spire map.

There is a surprising amount of content in this $10 horny game.

The essence of Dark Souls has always been more than just hard combat.

it's been about being an immersive experience, walking through the ruins of an ancient world after some unknown disaster with the only sound accompanying you being wind through the trees, and the clanking of your own armor. There is rarely any music to tell you how to feel, just ruins and the shambling mindless wrecks of poor individuals ruined by immortal life.

What little music there is, is tied to bosses, adding punctuation to the most intense aspect of Dark Souls, the bosses. Each boss has carefully designed movesets, with tells, that allow you to learn their pattern and eventually fight them using the immortal life everyone is cursed with to your benefit. Players can, and have, beaten the entire game with any weapon they find thanks to this challenging but fair combat system.

Dark Souls has always been set in a breath taking world that grabs your attention and forces you to stare. From the castle ramparts, to the rocky cliff side paths, Dark Souls has always been a beautiful experience to look at. It's hard to explain this without showing it so, here is an example.[cdn.discordapp.com]

Elden Ring takes the true essence of Dark Souls, and places it in an equally detailed open world. This makes the core ingredients of what really makes Dark Souls shine more than they ever have, and proves that Dark Souls is far more than just 'that game with hard combat'.

It's good. So many new units, so many new mechanics, and it'll just keep getting better when Immortal Empire, and mod support, come out.

A little framy at times, but that's probably because of Denuvo.

$3 to become the bullet hell?
Sign me up.

I must say, I'm a fan of a Video Game show taking place... in a video game. I wouldn't mind if this catches on more.

8/10 if I had to give it a number.

It's a rough diamond. Almost every aspect of this game is flawed in some way, yet the game itself really rises above all its flaws.

I'll keep it short since I'm just doing this for the badge.

Combat
It's Dark Souls inspired. There are spells, and you get special abilities, but the core combat is the same. That being said, enemies have a nasty habit of snapping to wherever the player character is, which means you need to use your invincibility frames, instead of just displacing yourself. Swinging your sword can feel like you're hitting enemies with an acidic pool noodle. It does the damage, but they don't really react to being hit.

Art Style
The art style for this game is anime. It's got some really nice visuals and art direction when it wants to, but as with the rest of the game, there some uninspired areas as well. There is a lot of clipping issues, but I think that's just something I'm going to have to live with at this point, and the crystals you absorb aren't animated at all which looks really weird in cut scenes.

Customization
Player customization is a strong point of this game, and deserves the praise it gets. You can recreate so many waifu's in this game, and even change your hair / clothes / accessories in game at any point for free. One flaw with this system however is that you have to wear a jacket over the customization, your torso will be completely covered unless you go with the smaller pieces.

Level design
The design is superficially the same as Dark Souls. One area (White Blood Cathedral) sticks out as being extremely maze like and purposely designed to get you lost but every other area is competent. The levels however, don't loop back onto each other like Dark Souls and the game is more disconnected as a result.

Story
If you like anime, you'll like this story. It gets over dramatic at points, and really likes to dig into characters tragic back stories. A lot of the lore is reminiscent of Dark Souls as well. You're an undead who reawakes to an apocalypse, you're tasked with helping fix it and restore humanity. Every time you die you lose some of your memories and get closer to going hollow,

Music
The music is everywhere, Dark Souls liked to throw you into a bleak world with nothing but your own footsteps and the wind. This game gives you music everywhere whatever you're doing. It can get louder than the dialogue in some cut scenes, and personally I'm not a fan of the memory music.


The biggest problem with this game however, is that Dark Souls exists, to be compared to. If this game existed on its own, it would be a really solid action RPG, but because Dark Souls is here to be compared to it is a slightly flawed game compared to what does exist. All that said, I came away really enjoying this game. It's an interesting case study for me because I find so many small problems with the game, but overall it is really solid.

This game is:
10% luck
20% skill
15% concentrated power of will
5% pleasure
50% pain
and 100% charm

Really though, how can a game be so charming? Every character is likable and they still manage to get conflict going on in terms of plot. Music is pretty good . Gameplay is responsive, I never had an issue with running off edges I didn't mean to.

❤ Audience ❤
☑ Beginner
☑ Casual Gamer
☑ Normal Gamer
☑ Expert

☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic

♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☑ Fantastic

☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Easy
☐ Average
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Hard
☐ Unfair

§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs destroy the game
☐ Lots of bugs
☑ Few Bugs
☐ You can use them for speedrun
☐ Nothing encountered

☯ Story ☯*
☐ There is none
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☑ Good
☐ Fantastic

⚔ Gameplay ⚔
☐ Frustrating
☐ Sleepy
☐ Boring
☑ Fun
☑ Challenging

۞ Game time / Length ۞
☐ Really short (0 - 3 hours)
☐ Short (4 - 8 hours)
☑ Few hours (10 - 20 hours) [if you focus on the main story]
☐ Long (40-60 hours) [if you complete everything]
☐ Very Long (61-100 hours)
☐ Extremely Long (101+ hours)

$ Price / Quality $
☑ Full price
☐ Wait for Sale
☐ Don't buy
☐ Refund it if you can

Game isn't super hard, unless you go for 100% completion with the seal the deal DLC.