Elden Ring is an Action RPG made by the developers of the 'souls' series, and it certainly plays and feels similarly but with up-to-date snappiness to its movement and combat, to keep up with the faster enemies and combos they dish out.

• The worldbuilding is absolutely amazing, making the world feel like it really used to be lived in, and the item descriptions are so fascinating since they piece together parts of the worlds lore bit by bit. It'll leave you wanting more answers, and pondering over certain quests/dialogues/item descriptions.
  
  
• The amount of weapons available makes for a lot of different playstyles, whether that be dex-based katanas, massive lumbering colossal swords, faith weapons and incantations, intelligence based sorceries, bow/greatbow, fist/claw weapons, sword and shield/spear, not to mention the affinity system, letting you change your weapon to deal different element damage or status effects like lightning/fire/holy/magic damage and bleed/poison/frostbite status effects.
  
  
• The amount of enemy and area variety means that each area of the game feels fresh as you'll encounter both new sights to behold and new nasties to murder you and all their attacks are unique, so encountering a new enemy means learning their moves.
  
  
• The bosses in this game are awesome to behold and feel awesome to fight, it is truly a spectacle to watch some of their moves, and feels amazing when you manage to dodge it.
  
  
• This part I might be a bit biased since I love magic, but the magic, whether that be some weapon ashes of war or sorceries or incantations, all look SO good to cast, and have their own light source, meaning if you cast one in the complete darkness it'll light up the room for a few seconds, which looks badass as hell.
  
  
• The music in Elden Ring is phenomenal, whether that be the general area atmosphere music, or the epic boss battle music, it heightens the game just that much more and helps with immersion of each area.
  
  
• New Game+ is a mode which allows you to play through the game again, but with all of your character's stats, weapons and equipment that you had from beating the game with, only losing the key items like quest items and story progression items. It is no secret that Elden Ring can be a very difficult game, so being able to come right back to the start again with your end-game character and slice through those early game enemies like butter is a very cathartic feeling, especially if you struggled with that boss or enemy when you first started. It feels like a well-earned victory lap around the game; you can even pick up items you missed the first time around if you so wish.
  
  
• A very high level cap - Level 721 to be exact, means that you can eventually get to the point where you can use every type of weapon, which is very nice for consecutive new game plus runs, it means you can change up your playstyle at any time.
  
  
• There are a LOT of secret areas in this game, from secret items, caves and bosses to a whole secret area, there is tons to explore, and exploring feels very rewarding since there is something to find at every place you turn to.

• The way the Co-Op system is implemented is very, very outdated and cumbersome, still requiring the use of summon signs and an item to summon. This system is only completely fair if used with complete strangers, as it means you can get help with most areas in the game from random people for that part of the game, and they will disappear once the boss is dead. But for attempting to play with friends, the system is not seamless at all, having to put your summon sign down all the time, not being able to co-op everywhere and there being weird boundaries in some places, meaning having to leave the world and be re summoned 1 meter away.
  Progress is also not shared in co-op, meaning having to redo each area for each friend joined if they want the items in that area, and also means having to redo the difficult story boss of the area in order for that person to be able to continue playing with their friend. The game feels like a singleplayer game, with the co-op experience tacked on right at the end so that they could say that there is technically co-op. It is do-able and can be fun, but is ruined by some elements which I hope could be removed/implemented in FromSoftware's next soulslike game.
  
  
• This will be a controversial one for some, but the fact that there is *forced* PvP in the form of invasions (which only happen if you are in co-op or have an item called Taunter's Tongue activated) means that co-op is much less fun than it could be. If you don't know what invasions are, it is a system whereby when you go into co-op, random strangers with (from my experience) end-game level gear and a PvP build get to enter your world and try to murderise you, with you getting pretty much no reward for beating them other than if you call not getting murderised a reward.
  I believe it would be for the best if this was an option you could toggle, since at least for me, this mechanic actively hurts my enjoyment of the game.
  
  
• The only other con I have with this game is that the later areas feel like they were rushed somehow, with overtuned enemies that deal wayy too much damage, and far fewer things to find in general.

TL;DR
Elden Ring is a phenomenal game and well worth the money spent, and the pros massively outweigh the cons, so go play it!!

[h1] Elden Ring - a fantastic game worthy of its praise [/h1] Elden Ring is an Action RPG made by the developers of the 'souls' series, and it certainly plays and feels similarly but with up-to-date snappiness to its movement and combat, to keep up with the faster enemies and combos they dish out. [h2] Pros and Cons of Elden Ring [/h2] [h3] Pros [/h3] [list] [*] The worldbuilding is absolutely amazing, making the world feel like it really used to be lived in, and the item descriptions are so fascinating since they piece together parts of the worlds lore bit by bit. It'll leave you wanting more answers, and pondering over certain quests/dialogues/item descriptions. [*] The amount of weapons available makes for a lot of different playstyles, whether that be dex-based katanas, massive lumbering colossal swords, faith weapons and incantations, intelligence based sorceries, bow/greatbow, fist/claw weapons, sword and shield/spear, not to mention the affinity system, letting you change your weapon to deal different element damage or status effects like lightning/fire/holy/magic damage and bleed/poison/frostbite status effects. [*] The amount of enemy and area variety means that each area of the game feels fresh as you'll encounter both new sights to behold and new nasties to murder [strike] you [/strike] and all their attacks are unique, so encountering a new enemy means learning their moves. [*] The bosses in this game are awesome to behold and feel awesome to fight, it is truly a spectacle to watch some of their moves, and feels amazing when you manage to dodge it. [*] This part I might be a bit biased since I love magic, but the magic, whether that be some weapon ashes of war or sorceries or incantations, all look SO good to cast, and have their own light source, meaning if you cast one in the complete darkness it'll light up the room for a few seconds, which looks badass as hell. [*] The music in Elden Ring is phenomenal, whether that be the general area atmosphere music, or the epic boss battle music, it heightens the game just that much more and helps with immersion of each area. [*] New Game+ is a mode which allows you to play through the game again, but with all of your character's stats, weapons and equipment that you had from beating the game with, only losing the key items like quest items and story progression items. It is no secret that Elden Ring can be a very difficult game, so being able to come right back to the start again with your end-game character and slice through those early game enemies like butter is a very cathartic feeling, especially if you struggled with that boss or enemy when you first started. It feels like a well-earned victory lap around the game; you can even pick up items you missed the first time around if you so wish. [*] A very high level cap - Level 721 to be exact, means that you can eventually get to the point where you can use every type of weapon, which is very nice for consecutive new game plus runs, it means you can change up your playstyle at any time. [*] There are a LOT of secret areas in this game, from secret items, caves and bosses to a whole secret area, there is tons to explore, and exploring feels very rewarding since there is something to find at every place you turn to. [/list] [h3] Cons [/h3] [list] [*] The way the Co-Op system is implemented is very, very outdated and cumbersome, still requiring the use of summon signs and an item to summon. This system is only completely fair if used with complete strangers, as it means you can get help with most areas in the game from random people for that part of the game, and they will disappear once the boss is dead. But for attempting to play with friends, the system is not seamless at all, having to put your summon sign down all the time, not being able to co-op everywhere and there being weird boundaries in some places, meaning having to leave the world and be re summoned 1 meter away. Progress is also not shared in co-op, meaning having to redo each area for each friend joined if they want the items in that area, and also means having to redo the difficult story boss of the area in order for that person to be able to continue playing with their friend. The game feels like a singleplayer game, with the co-op experience tacked on right at the end so that they could say that there is technically co-op. It is do-able and can be fun, but is ruined by some elements which I hope could be removed/implemented in FromSoftware's next soulslike game. [*] This will be a controversial one for some, but the fact that there is *forced* PvP in the form of invasions (which only happen if you are in co-op or have an item called Taunter's Tongue activated) means that co-op is much less fun than it could be. If you don't know what invasions are, it is a system whereby when you go into co-op, random strangers with (from my experience) end-game level gear and a PvP build get to enter your world and try to murderise you, with you getting pretty much no reward for beating them other than if you call not getting murderised a reward. I believe it would be for the best if this was an option you could toggle, since at least for me, this mechanic actively hurts my enjoyment of the game. [*] The only other con I have with this game is that the later areas feel like they were rushed somehow, with overtuned enemies that deal wayy too much damage, and far fewer things to find in general. [/list] TL;DR Elden Ring is a phenomenal game and well worth the money spent, and the pros massively outweigh the cons, so go play it!!