Recent reviews by Codious

As a fan of dragons dogma dark arisen, I must say this is a great successor. The world is beautiful the characters and creatures feel inspired with smooth animations. The world feels lived in. the way you acquire and complete quests feels natural, believable and immersive - Combined with the camping ststem and pawn interactions, it really makes you immersed as an adventurer on a journey. Combat mechanics are still very similar to the first game, but there does feel like there is much more strategy and tactics involved. Overall one of my favorite combat gameplay systems of any RPG. That said, it does feel much more challenging than the first game.

I highly recommend this game to anybody who wants an immersive single player action RPG with fun and challenging combat.

Addressing the review bombing:

Despite the many complaints, I have not experienced any performance issues aside from occasional frame drops in the main city and during some of the more busy and intense combat scenes. Other than that, it seems to run better than most AAA titles that release these days. I'm running the game in 4k on an upper mid-range PC that is 5+ years old.

As for the micro transactions - It is truly non-issue, and it's really quite laughable that people are upset about it.. It's completely optional whether or not you want to participate in micro transactions. I can only see two reasons one might opt to participate in the micro transactions - either they want to gain an advantage in a singleplayer game by hiring pawns that that far exceed your own level, or if you just want to support the developer. Other then that, there is no reason or need to buy RC as it is quickly and easy acquired through normal gameplay - so I don't understand the negative reviews arising from that, people are likely just ignorant or misinformed, or simply salty that the option simply exists.
As for the 'DLC'. It's just allowing you to purchase in game items if you want to start with them, but again it's completely optional as all of the items that can be purchased as dlc can simply be found in game by playing the game.

- GRAPHICS -
Simply Amazing. Beautiful sprawling scenes. Massive underground worlds. Smooth and unique animations. Awesomely grotesque artwork. The few, minor graphical shortcomings are easy to miss unless you really try to look for them.


- GAMEPLAY -
Thrilling and challenge. The game can be very difficult at times particularly at the beginning of the game while figuring out the mechanics and your play style, and every so often a boss may prove to be a major challenge. However finally overcoming a challenge feels so rewarding. The open world really isn't that difficult as long as you stay alert. Navigation can be a little confusing sometimes, and the game makes a point to not hold your hand. At first this seems like a bad idea, however it really lends to free exploration and discovery.

The combat is amazing overall. The variety of enemies is impressive. The amount of different potential character builds and weapons / weapon abilities is staggering.

There's not much of a grind either, unless you want there to be. However the game is huge and could take several weeks to complete.


- STORY -
The story is actually very interesting. However it can be difficult to follow simply because of the massive amounts of play time you may have between dialogues or major advancements of the main story line, or side quest lines. Although the game is about you, the tarnished seeking the Elden ring to become Elden lord. The story, is more about the world you are in, as you uncover details about the strange dark world of the Lands Between.


- AUDIO -
Deep ambiance that ranges from beautiful and inspiring to down right creepy. Great fantasy magic sound effects. No complaints on sound quality.


- BUGS -
Rare glitches where quest npcs don't spawn however just resting and passing time seems to fix quest/spawn issues.

Frame staggering is still a persistent issue, with frame drops that can last nearly 2 seconds. (Even on a RTX 3080ti, an i9-11900k, 32 gb DDR4 ram, and SSD.)


- RATING -

9 / 10

Engaging and fun gameplay, massive world, stunning artwork. Elden Ring has easily become my favorite open world RPGs to date. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10, is though I like the story, I feel like there is a lot of missed potential for more narratives to make the world feel more alive and real. Also, the persistence of the frame drop issue is frankly annoying.

LiF:YO is a very great and unique game, but it has its faults.

The Grind:
One of the biggest turn-offs to this game is the grind, although how punishing the grind is, really depends on server settings. Im especially someone who gets tired very quickly from grinding, however I just keep coming back to this game, because the grind feels rewarding. You get a lot of satisfaction after you complete each big project youve set out on.

Community based gameplay:
This is not a solo game. While you can of course play it solo, you wont get very far. You need a couple friends to really make it deep in the game. You need a few people so you can specialize in different jobs. Each type of job produces goods for another, which makes you really depend on one another to keep the flow of growth for your claim.

RP potential:
This game is an IDEAL sandbox for RP gameplay, it can be hard to find a good RP server and community, but some of the best true medieval RP experiences can be had.

Gameplay and Mechanical complaints:
Animals AI is really weak, but it makes for easy exploits in the early game for getting materials from animals, which can easily kill you when your not heavily equipped. In later game you can kill animals quickly enough that you dont notice them getting stuck as often.
Hauling Logs, and pulling carts are a real pain. I really wish you could put logs onto carts to transport more then one at a time. Pulling carts is a slow process too, and I would like to see the ability to have horse drawn carts. Because without the ability to pull a cart with a horse, they are really only good as stationary storage.

Gameplay/Mechanic praises:
Hunting animals can be frustrating but its also rewarding. I feel like the hunting/tracking system deserves some praise - It just adds a really cool element to track and animal, and see where it has wondered through the world.
Building/crafting is also praise worthy. There is so much depth to this, using basic resources to create basic components, which can be used in the final product of something, or combined to create a more advanced component. the process of creation feels realistic as well, and I think thats what plays into making everything feel so rewarding.
Quality, every item/resource/component all of it has a quality. In the early game quality doesnt matter so much, but once you get going, you have to find high quality everything, as it plays a big role in durability.
Skill tree is pretty unique, with prerequisites for more advanced skills of certain types. You can not be a master of everything, rather you must focus your profession. You want to be a smith? be a smith, learn basic smithing of tools, then weapons, and eventually armor and jewelry. But your gonna need a friend to be a farmer, and another friend to be your animal expert, maybe even another to be your master mason. (depends on skill cap of each server, but you always have to specialize to some degree)

Updates:
Even though the devs for this title are working on the MMO version, and a RTS/city builder version now. This version of the game still recieves frequent updates and fixes. The devs will also work closely with server admins in the presense of unique server-side problems.

Graphics:
For the kind of game this is, with a changable voxel-like map, the graphics are really great. Texture details are really nice(especially after the update they had a couple weeks ago). and some of the landscapes are just beautiful with great draw distances. My biggest complaint would be on the animals, They all seem so stiff, their animations are rigged and not very flavorful. I feel like each animal probably only has a set of 5 animations: Idle, sleep, run, aggro, attack.

Audio:
Nothing special, audio quality is good and even immersive at times. on the down side, their doesnt seem to be a whole lot of ambient/ world sounds variations. The lack of variation puts a damper on the ambient sounds produced by certain farm buildings. that same chicken cluck or cow complaining every 30 seconds, at first you dont notice it, then it becomes annoying, and eventually you just block it out and pay no attention to it.


Overall, this game has captured my attention for a good long while, I find the gameplay very unique and rewarding.
however, I know that this game is definitely not for everyone, and it has its fallbacks, and still feels lacking in some areas.
So I give it a 8/10.

If your into community based build/survive genre of games, I'd definitely reccomend this game. It might not be worth the $40 price tag to most people, so perhaps wait for a sale if your unsure.

I was surprised by how much I liked this game once I discovered it.
It is a brutal action packed experience, which is meant to be done cooperatively.
Difficulty ranges from: barely trying to impossible. Good, attentive and cooperative team mates make all the difference here especially because It is very easy to slaughter your comrades, through pure accident, or neglect. and equiping yourself properly before each mission is also a priority, as ammunition is limited, and certain foes require that you pull out the big guns.

Positives:
Beautiful Graphic style.
Explosive, and very fun gameplay.
Team-tactics and strategy is made very dynamic by the Stratagen system, and unique enemies which force you to fight with more then just small arms fire.
Simple, yet intuitive GUI.
Community based campaign with randomly generated maps and missions.
Expansive progression system.

Negatives:
Repetitive voice overs.
limited number of objective types
Sometimes it is hard to find a suitable multiplayer match.
The filter/public lobby join menu seems buggy at times.

Score: 8.2 / 10

I used to be an EVE player, but I always wished for a gamed that was more of a flight sim, but still having a similar size and scope to EVE.
I found it with E:D.
This game is much more fun with a flight stick.
I like it so much I even made an IR tracker and use headtracking now which made this game THAT much more immersive.

Pros:
+Space has never looked better
+Immersive Sound Effects
+Very fun gameplay
+Immersive details
+Massive scale
+Good amount of equipment customization.

Cons:
-Alot of activities quickly become repetitive.
-Inability to make permanent guild or faction.
-Occastional Bugs with missions,
-Have to pay extra $ for cosmetic features.
-No real ability to store purchased equipment or assets (can only store ships as far as I have found)