REVIEW: Elden Ring
(Featuring several screenshots from Fextralife’s Wiki)
Not since Skyrim, Minecraft, or Starbound have Vel and I passionately devoted entire weekends to a video game.
It’s an oxymoron, but accurate to state that Elden Ring is a “cozy” FromSoft game. It has all the gritty unforgiving tropes you’d expect from the studio’s catalog (for better or worse, depending on your history with Soulsbornes). But by adding an open world layout, Elden Ring immensely enhances FromSoft’s game design, and at least for me, open world games as a whole. Just one change creates that large an impact.
Currently, the original Dark Souls and a little bit of King’s Field are my only exposure to Soulsbornes, so it may help to keep that in mind as I describe how much my mind was blown.
Defining that Pretentious Statement from Earlier
I’m well aware that critics and fans of Elden Ring have placed it on a pedestal so high, that a Citizen Kane joke is mandatory. After a whopping 205 hours for my first playthrough, I have to admit that I’m in the same pretentious boat.
My relationship with open world games is a bit complicated. I’ve tried to play Horizon: Zero Dawn twice, but quickly got bored and quit both times. It took me two attempts to complete Death Stranding’s story, because straying too far from the main quests put me to sleep. My Steam account has 208 hours clocked for Skyrim, so at one point I adored it… but it too will never show me its ending cutscenes.
I want to say the issue is “dynamic” difficulty, but I’m not an authority on the full extent these games take the concept. After all, I haven’t seen Alduin with my own eyes. All I remember is Horizon conveniently giving me weapons to fight stronger enemies just when I needed them, and in Skyrim most if not all bandits suddenly wore Glass armor (what’s left for them to steal when they have such bougie equipment?!)
Conversely, Elden Ring feels more like a traditional RPG, where the challenges have static thresholds. The Royal Academy always expects me to visit after Limgrave, and Caelid later than that. However, that doesn’t mean the game is a narrow hallway.
Options!
The best aspect of Elden Ring over other FromSoft games is the sheer flexibility to tackle it with your own strategies. Sites of Grace will vaguely nudge you towards the main content, but each “field” can be completed in any order. For me, I was drawn to the festering and brutal zone that is Caelid early on. I was vastly underleveled and undergeared, but I enjoyed the high-risk, high-reward environment. Sure, it generated mile-high piles of salt, but apparently that’s a playstyle I enjoy.
The trusty steed named Torrent helps ease the long journey ahead. It’s even possible to have entire battles on horseback (which was a mechanic I skipped. A bit hard to clothesline enemies with dinky little daggers).
There are tons of Sites of Graces to discover. An immeasurable amount (unless you check a guide, of course). I sought out to grab every single Grace possible. Admittedly, it sometimes felt like homework, but it was so worth it. Loot is plentiful if you take the time to traverse the land.
I think a personal bugbear with game design is MMO-tier loot in games that aren’t purebred MMOs. I’ve dropped all 3 Borderlands because I got sick of rolling for the desired stats and secondary skills for guns I wanted for every hour of gameplay. I just want to shoot. Please let me shoot the enemies without them being bullet sponges. It’s annoying enough to breed the perfect creature in monster collectors. At least I get cool dragons or hilarious food-based characters out of the latter.
This isn’t an issue in Elden Ring (or other FromSoft games for that matter, but I need to stay focused for this review). Talismans, armor, weapons, Ashes of War, Spirit Ashes, Wondrous Physick (a customizable potion), every player can expect the same results as their stats are leveled up. There’s better control with this approach. I love finding a new talisman and seeing how it reacts to my build. I don’t have to think to myself, “Maybe this item will work for me if it had 100 more points to its damage output. Time to go gambling again!”
Speaking of Spirit Ashes, they’re a welcomed addition to FromSoft games. Parts of the playerbase may say it’s faux pas to use them, but they’re not all bad. Spirit Ashes are essentially broken into tiers, from the lowly Wandering Nobles to the absurdly busted Mimic Tear.
My favorite was Stormhawk Deenh. I’ve heard that “she” (I interpreted it as female) is one of the worst ranking Legendary Ashes you can collect. But at +10, she was perfect for me. Deenh is fragile, but highly nimble. She gave me a slight edge in battle, grabbing the attention of bosses but never holding my hand. Spirit Ashes, much like co-op with a friend, allow you to modulate your challenge for your experience in Elden Ring.
Plus, I appreciate the fact that future players have a pseudo co-op option after the multiplayer servers inevitably shut down.
There’s a crafting system, but it isn’t essential for beating the game. I mostly ignored it, but it adds another layer of options for different players.
Smaller Details I Love
Having health- and FP-replenishing flasks that you allocate charges between are a godsend. Large groups of enemies can partially refill your charges, encouraging uninterrupted exploration before resetting everything at a Grace.
I like that I don’t have to recharge a set number of uses for individual spells. Instead, they’re drawn from your FP pool, which again can be replenished with flasks.
A tiny grace (heh) is infinite sprinting if there are no aggressive threats nearby. I believe this is present in other FromSoft games, but I can’t overstate how grateful I am here. You may or may not know how agonizing foot traversal is in Genshin Impact… and mounts still aren’t in the game at the time of this review.
Conclusion
For anyone considering marriage to Elden Ring (and maybe Ranni), here’s my advice: spend the first 20 to 40 hours with little to no guidance. That first chunk of my adventure is close to my heart. I had a sense of wonder every step of the way.
Afterwards, go wild with a guide. As usual, FromSoft loves to make these games cryptic, with a winding story and NPC quests that you have to piece together in fragments like an obnoxious simulation of Sherlock Holmes. “Grace%” makes a community-built map mandatory.
It may be cliché to say it’s Game of the Year material, but I believe the hype is justified. Elden Ring is my new standard for open world games. I doubt I’ll have the tolerance for anything the Ubisofts or EAs of the AAA industry shuttle off their conveyor belts.