So the original Elden Ring went on sale after its DLC release, and I bought it. I almost hate to admit it, but I like it.
After the terrible mistake of buying the PS5 Demon’s Souls remake, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t buy anything FromSoftware or FromSoftware-adjacent ever again. It’s too hard, too obnoxious, and too unforgiving. Like, really hard gameplay I guess I can understand, but then add in a weapon durability element whose only effect is to hurt players already struggling even more? F*k off game.
But the praise for Elden Ring from the past few years has been so broad and so unanimous that I finally broke down and bought it, despite my promise.
It’s still too hard for me, but it’s a big improvement because at least I have a chance. There’s no longer a single line of progression, so if I get stuck, I can go and try something else, or find a good site to grind levels for a while. I have to be overleveled for every boss fight, but unlike Demon’s Souls, I make progress.
Some miscellaneous notes. I know that I’m the last person on Earth to play this game, so nothing new here.
The depth of the world building (heroes, dragons, demigods, celestial events) is legitimately jaw dropping, but even more amazing is how you won’t know about any of it without watching YouTube videos on the subject (it’s all hidden away in flavor text).
The real galaxy brain realization though is that I actually kind of prefer this. I don’t get much story depth right away, but I avoid mashing buttons for hours grinding through dialog that I really don’t care about (cough, Final Fantasy XVI).
The expansive open world with megalithic castles and ramparts in the distance — just amazing. So much latitude in where you can go, and secrets hidden everywhere. The world feels designed, rather than just being some bland, procedurally generated nothing.
The challenge is frustrating (god I hate being killed by every boss in three hits regardless of upgrades), but it’s a fairly rare novelty. I’m often struck these days by how most AAA titles are now the same game.
Squint a little and Horizon Zero Dawn is the same game as God of War which is the same game as the latest Batman Arkham which is the same game as the latest Grand Theft Auto. They all have variations in terms of mechanics and theme, but they’re all open worlds with light RPG elements. A common factor to all of them is by leveling normally as the story progress, every encounter is basically “mash buttons to win”. I don’t always love Elden Ring’s difficulty, but you have to give them one thing – it’s different.
The leveling slope is a shallow incline (many extra levels yield marginal increases in power), and it’s a good thing. In most games going to a high level area is an iron clad death sentence as you’re obliterated instantly, if you’re even allowed to go there. In Elden Ring it often is too, but it lets good players move faster to higher level areas and even bad ones to carefully explore there.
Areas have levels. The autoleveling in games like Elder Scrolls always bothered me. I didn’t even like Skyrim. If anywhere you go, anything is approachable, nothing feels sacred. The sense of exploration and feeling of discovery are compromised.
Is Elden Ring the most genuine Dungeons & Dragons game ever made? There’s no role-playing element, but it’s a vast, explorable world of medieval knights, weapons, magic, undead, and dragons, set in a world of deep lore and hidden stories.
All in all, it’s probably too hard for me to finish, but at least I got far enough that I got my money’s worth out of it.
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