So, let's begin with the very short and brief of it.

Elden Ring is a game that gives me mixed feelings, with much positive and much negative. So you may ask why is this review is negative. I will also say this review will contain some spoilers as well as mostly covering my gripes with the game.

Put simply, it's because of some overarching problems that have honestly made me dislike certain traits of the game to an increasing degree as I've played it more and repeated playthroughs.

I will state I did love this game on release, but the spectacle of much of it has worn off and I will say the game has some severe issues in design.
Let's begin with some bosses you may encounter, the meme that a boss will wind up for 5 years isn't exactly wrong per say. This is most prevalent in Margit in the early game, and to couple with this it feels like melee builds are straight up punished for being in the same area as some bosses due to particular moves/combos. Again referring to Margit you could refer to a three hit chain where if you are within melee range it is near impossible to dodge the entirety of it. In the early game this can readily whittle away your resources if the AI decides to utilise that move frequently for example. This is far from the only offender of course as well. The final issue that the bosses tend to have is that in many cases quite a few don't have a response to longer ranged builds, which can trivialise a boss that would be otherwise a considerable challenge.

Now, to touch upon another issue. That is the scaling and 'quality' of the game. While the early game does have some issues with particular bosses or enemies, it isn't enough to make me straight up consider it bad. However once you get into the later game, particularly the Mountaintops of the Giants for example, the damage of enemies grows to an absurd degree, making the late game PVE feel quite poor as a whole due to scaling feeling completely off. This is coming from someone that tends to rush 60 vigour(hp stat) as well as medium or heavy armour, I do not make fragile builds.

Of course, there are some things that can still be done but it isn't necessarily something that is going to feel good for most players and furthermore the fact it can feel necessary at times doesn't feel great either. Furthermore some other aspects of the late-game or optional aspects can feel like afterthoughts with no proper play testing. The most prolific of these would be an optional boss that is two regular boss enemies thrown into an arena with little thought, as well as a required boss fight that places two enemies that have no business being together in a gank fight.

I will give the game some upsides however, there is a great variety of things that can be done over a playthrough and there is indeed a vast amount of places to explore. However the large map actually plays against it on repeat playthroughs where it instead becomes tedious to get the items you need. Meaning in new playthroughs you simply end up rushing around to grab what you need much of the time. This becomes quickly tedious and boring, and coupled with some other issues being persistent making new builds can feel like quite a chore.

Now, as for why you'd make new builds and playthroughs? Limited respecs and upgrade materials as well as no way to refight bosses you've beaten. The exception is if you back up your save and thus return to a previous state. Of course that's a work around for the issue but I don't think that fully excuses this detail. Based off what many longer-term players state in both this game and previous ones this should not have been the case here. Even selling the final upgrade materials and the respec material at the end of the game would have been rather acceptable in comparison.

That also goes into the PVP aspect, which while improving has some severe issues with balance still. I will give it credit that it has improved since release and is no longer AS unbalanced. However there are still significant issues with balance between weapons, ashes of war, status effects and so forth. Enough so that any dedicated PVP community has a seemingly highly restrictive rule set just to ensure that PVP isn't dominated by that which is completely busted. This however will not be the case for all random duels.

To build upon that, player damage itself is still rather high compared to player survivability which also severely impacts duels and leads to a one-shot meta in invasions of sorts.

If the game were to alleviate certain issues in regards to enemy and boss design, as well as improve player survivability it'd likely dramatically improve the overall experience. Couple that with the ability to buy larval tears for respecing stats and the final level of smithing stones and it'd dramatically improve the late game experience. As for boss design, some moves need some alterations so there's actual dodge windows. I'd also suggest giving SOME bosses improved ability to close the gap so that ranged builds are not incredibly safe compared to melee builds.

The reason I do not mention decreasing enemy damage is because if the player were to become more durable to the point that duels and invasions are not quite as one-shotty is likely because that'd also considerably improve how end-game feels too. Two damage problems solved by one improvement.

Certain other issues such as the tedious nature of new runs after your first one are not so easily solved in comparison.

So, beyond that I will state the game does a few things well. Certain bosses hit a spectacle that is hard to find in other settings, coupled with good atmosphere in some locations and it very much hits some rather high notes at times. There are also further good traits in game but I feel that if you do get the game or already have it, you'll probably know or find those respectively. Of course these high notes in my own opinion are not enough to make up for the shortcomings ultimately as the game currently is. There is fun to be found but I certainly feel a lot of irritation playing the game at times, both in regards to PVE and PVP.

At the time of writing the games version is 1.06.

So, let's begin with the very short and brief of it. Elden Ring is a game that gives me mixed feelings, with much positive and much negative. So you may ask why is this review is negative. I will also say this review will contain some spoilers as well as mostly covering my gripes with the game. Put simply, it's because of some overarching problems that have honestly made me dislike certain traits of the game to an increasing degree as I've played it more and repeated playthroughs. I will state I did love this game on release, but the spectacle of much of it has worn off and I will say the game has some severe issues in design. Let's begin with some bosses you may encounter, the meme that a boss will wind up for 5 years isn't exactly wrong per say. This is most prevalent in Margit in the early game, and to couple with this it feels like melee builds are straight up punished for being in the same area as some bosses due to particular moves/combos. Again referring to Margit you could refer to a three hit chain where if you are within melee range it is near impossible to dodge the entirety of it. In the early game this can readily whittle away your resources if the AI decides to utilise that move frequently for example. This is far from the only offender of course as well. The final issue that the bosses tend to have is that in many cases quite a few don't have a response to longer ranged builds, which can trivialise a boss that would be otherwise a considerable challenge. Now, to touch upon another issue. That is the scaling and 'quality' of the game. While the early game does have some issues with particular bosses or enemies, it isn't enough to make me straight up consider it bad. However once you get into the later game, particularly the Mountaintops of the Giants for example, the damage of enemies grows to an absurd degree, making the late game PVE feel quite poor as a whole due to scaling feeling completely off. This is coming from someone that tends to rush 60 vigour(hp stat) as well as medium or heavy armour, I do not make fragile builds. Of course, there are some things that can still be done but it isn't necessarily something that is going to feel good for most players and furthermore the fact it can feel necessary at times doesn't feel great either. Furthermore some other aspects of the late-game or optional aspects can feel like afterthoughts with no proper play testing. The most prolific of these would be an optional boss that is two regular boss enemies thrown into an arena with little thought, as well as a required boss fight that places two enemies that have no business being together in a gank fight. I will give the game some upsides however, there is a great variety of things that can be done over a playthrough and there is indeed a vast amount of places to explore. However the large map actually plays against it on repeat playthroughs where it instead becomes tedious to get the items you need. Meaning in new playthroughs you simply end up rushing around to grab what you need much of the time. This becomes quickly tedious and boring, and coupled with some other issues being persistent making new builds can feel like quite a chore. Now, as for why you'd make new builds and playthroughs? Limited respecs and upgrade materials as well as no way to refight bosses you've beaten. The exception is if you back up your save and thus return to a previous state. Of course that's a work around for the issue but I don't think that fully excuses this detail. Based off what many longer-term players state in both this game and previous ones this should not have been the case here. Even selling the final upgrade materials and the respec material at the end of the game would have been rather acceptable in comparison. That also goes into the PVP aspect, which while improving has some severe issues with balance still. I will give it credit that it has improved since release and is no longer AS unbalanced. However there are still significant issues with balance between weapons, ashes of war, status effects and so forth. Enough so that any dedicated PVP community has a seemingly highly restrictive rule set just to ensure that PVP isn't dominated by that which is completely busted. This however will not be the case for all random duels. To build upon that, player damage itself is still rather high compared to player survivability which also severely impacts duels and leads to a one-shot meta in invasions of sorts. If the game were to alleviate certain issues in regards to enemy and boss design, as well as improve player survivability it'd likely dramatically improve the overall experience. Couple that with the ability to buy larval tears for respecing stats and the final level of smithing stones and it'd dramatically improve the late game experience. As for boss design, some moves need some alterations so there's actual dodge windows. I'd also suggest giving SOME bosses improved ability to close the gap so that ranged builds are not incredibly safe compared to melee builds. The reason I do not mention decreasing enemy damage is because if the player were to become more durable to the point that duels and invasions are not quite as one-shotty is likely because that'd also considerably improve how end-game feels too. Two damage problems solved by one improvement. Certain other issues such as the tedious nature of new runs after your first one are not so easily solved in comparison. So, beyond that I will state the game does a few things well. Certain bosses hit a spectacle that is hard to find in other settings, coupled with good atmosphere in some locations and it very much hits some rather high notes at times. There are also further good traits in game but I feel that if you do get the game or already have it, you'll probably know or find those respectively. Of course these high notes in my own opinion are not enough to make up for the shortcomings ultimately as the game currently is. There is fun to be found but I certainly feel a lot of irritation playing the game at times, both in regards to PVE and PVP. At the time of writing the games version is 1.06.