I have played and beaten Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and most of these games are some of my favorite games of all time. Fromsoftware has become one of my favorite developers in the process, and all of their titles since DS1 have been all that I've played for a few years now. And now after completing Elden Ring 3 times on PS4, I'm very sad to say that this game in my opinion has completely missed the mark. Fromsoft really didn't understand why so many people played their previous titles and why they were so adored by many. While the bosses look cool and are super cinematic, that doesn't take away from the fact that their attcks and combos have some of the most annoying telegraphs and windups in the entire series. It feels like all the enemies and bosses' speed were turned up way too high, while they made the PC slower in the process. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a boss fight and have perfectly dodged a 17 hit combo, and as I'm going in to attack (because these games reward you when you properly dodge a bosses attacks by letting you get in a few hits) I get punished and almost die in 1 hit. It feels like they looked at all their previous games and said "oh we can definitely make this harder" without understanding why the difficulty was enjoyable in the first place. When I'm fighting a good boss like Gael, it's one of the best fights in video game history because I feel like well yes on the one hand he can absolutely destroy my ass pretty easily, his attacks are well telegraphed and he doesn't have an instant recovery window, meaning I can get attacks in. Elden Ring's bosses are hard for the sake of the company that makes these games being known for having hard boss fights. They aren't executed well and just seem like an afterthought to the open world itself. Speaking on the open world, you know why it doesn't work? New game+. NG+ makes the game exactly what it was trying not to be, a boss rush. While the world itself feels expansive and fantastical, it seriously loses its charm after subsequential playthroughs. Making your game open world when all the previous titles weren't seems like an attempt to profit off of the open world craze that has been rapant throughout the gaming space for years now. It feels like Fromsoft only made it open world is because it'd make them even more money than just making a regular linear game like usual, they wanted to make the game widely consumed while also cranking the damage scaling and enemy speed way the ♥♥♥♥ up. It scares me to think about the direction this company that I have loved for a long time is going in, because of Elden Ring's success. Also don't even get me started on all the duo fights, ulcerated tree spirits, revenants, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Malenia. This game can suck my ass 5/10 (also I can't even open the game anymore cause it crashes every time I try to enter Stormveil, and on my new character I can't teleport anywhere out of dragonbarrow without it crashing again, ♥♥♥♥ you Elden Ring)