Recent reviews by Merlin

Elden Ring is a great entry for the franchise. Minor things aside, it contains many of Souls' best features and difficulty is variable based on how actively you want to metagame, powerlevel or participate in online cooperations. The community, especially in messages and forums, is, as it always is besides some elitists, fantastic. Even invasions, which are considered the 'negative' of online play, can only appear if you've summoned a cooperator in the first place, unlike other Souls games.

The few downsides are usually technical issues which FromSoft is always fairly fast in ironing out over time.

Many people will complain about the difficulty, especially in the DLC which I'll touch on in a bit, but know that this difficulty is integral to the Souls series. You play these games for the rush of adrenaline after you learn the patterns of that boss you've been fighting constantly, that you finally manage to kill. There really is nothing quite like it.

The DLC which just came out as of writing shows itself quite clearly to be aimed towards advanced players, evident by the high requirement weapons and the upscaled difficulty. Levelling is effectively out of the equation when it comes to minimizing this issue, as even at the Vigor's softcap enemies will still hit you for a third of your health. The only way to increase your defenses is by exploring and gathering Scadutree Fragments which can increase your attack and defense far beyond what your stats alone can. It is an experience meant to challenge, something a lot of people in the negative reviews seem to have forgotten. Kai Cenat was a joke to many players, and he beat the DLC. I've read about paralyzed people playing it. Anyone can do it, you just have to pick yourself up and git gud.

Don't support censorship.

My favorite FF game. Very much worth buying.

It improved on the first game, but not by a lot.

It's an okay distraction. Can't recommend it though.

♥♥♥♥ motion sickness.

I honestly can't recommend this. Very sluggish gameplay and okay visuals.

Nice visuals and gameplay. But if you want a game like this, get Trine 2 instead.

A nice experience. Could use a few more updates tho'. Let's wait.

Love this game!
Just don't play it singleplayer.
Playing with your friends makes for a great time, and you can even use mods to customize your game!