I thoroughly enjoy the Souls games, and Elden Ring is no exception.
The game is breathtaking, and the very first time I played through it, I was pretty much at a loss for words from how impressed I was. If you're like me, you probably have 200 games in your library and you're like "gee, I have nothing to play". Well, Elden Ring is something that completely stole my attention and I sank all of my time into playing it.

It has some really good music, some really good atmosphere, some incredible views, seriously, the sense of scale in this game is absolutely amazing. Maybe it's just me, but I love looking at places from a distance and seeing just how far I've come. Or looking at places afar and knowing that I'm eventually going to get to that area. It just fills me with this feeling I can't put into words. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this game, all the ruins, tunnels, caves, etc. There was always something to do, and it always kept my attention. Not to mention the fact that it has a lot of replayability with different classes to choose from, as well as a more challenging NG+ like the other Souls games have. With more playtime, you will discover more and more, things you didn't even find 300 hours into the game, as that's currently what's happening to me.

Some of the quest lines are very cool, albeit some needing a pretty extensive tutorial to follow correctly as with the sheer sense of scale comes plenty of ways to lock yourself out of particular quests along the way, though it's not world-ending, it can be a little frustrating as there are a lot of characters to keep up with. Some of the questlines are pretty short whereas some are a lot more game-lengthy, and will require the usage of a wiki or tutorial in order to make sure you don't miss anything crucial.

In terms of boss fights, it has some of the most memorable and impactful bosses to date. The game is absolutely packed with bosses, with the main adversaries being a showcase of FromSoftware's signature style of Soulslike. Chaotic, grotesque, challenging and of course: brutally unforgiving. It's always a fun time heading into the boss arenas, though I will say, this game in comparison to the other Souls games is REALLY hard. The enemies in this game are fast, acrobatic and there is not a lot of respite between attacks, though that does not make them unbeatable. You can make use of certain game mechanics like the use of summons (don't let anyone tell you that using summons is an incorrect way of playing the game, play how you want), on top of that, you can trivialise most bosses by using a bleed and frostbite build in tandem with summons, though, I don't recommend this as relying on cheeses to get through the game will only guarantee that you suffer later on or in future playthroughs. Another thing I love about the bosses in this game is that you can do them in no particular order. While yes it's true that doing them in a certain order is more beneficial due to the location scaling, it also encourages the player to simply play how they want without the overlurking shadow of an upcoming boss fight. FromSoftware have done the open world aspect of the game incredibly well.

Time for my personal qualms with the game.

I don't tend to dip my toes into PvP very much, simply because I enjoy playing the game without getting ganked by someone much better than me. But occasionally, I'll play with friends, and so we summon each other and eventually get invaded. Sometimes, the invader will have a weapon that's extremely difficult to avoid or is straight up broken in terms of balancing. Rivers of Blood as a prime example (before it was nerfed to hell). Or a weapon that turns your opponent into a literal beyblade and you don't have enough i-frames to roll away from it unscathed, especially when they're spamming it non-stop. I understand the risks of summoning, but it can be really frustrating to attempt to play with friends with little to zero souls experience and get 2v1'd by a character who has purposely built their character for invasions, or not even that, just has a broken weapon that destroys players.

This game's biggest flaw is the reuse of bosses throughout the game. I think it's just...lazy. I understand how ambitious it would be to create unique boss fights for every single nook and cranny of this game, but it really isn't fun walking into a new boss arena and seeing the same dude you've killed like four times already, only this time maybe it's a little bit stronger or weaker depending on where you find the enemy. Especially when they copy and paste some of the MAIN bosses. That for me is something that really bugged me. It wouldn't even be that bad if they did it once, but they do it more than once, and that for me is unforgivable. It definitely ruined the unique feeling of exploring a brand new tunnel, or a brand new cave, fighting so hard to get to the end and realising it was basically for nothing new. Kinda underwhelming.

The late game bosses are incredibly hard and honestly? Pretty unfair. There's a point in Dark Souls 1 that most players widely agree upon called the second half downfall where the game stops being fun and rather unfair and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ once you reach the halfway point. At times, this is how I feel about Elden Ring's final seven (main) bosses. One has FAR too much health and is the most trivial experience ever conceived. One is blatantly unfair due to the high damage output of your foe and the fact it's a 2v1 (against you!). One is so acrobatic it puts the Olympics to shame (seriously, getting a hit on this guy is so difficult because he doesn't stop jumping all over the place and his AoE attacks are a whole new level of unfair). One spams spells more than your average Dark Souls 2 player. One gives no space for respite and can stomp the ground and effect the entire battle arena (admittedly this guy is really fun to fight). One is just crazy hard by default. One doesn't stop running away and sometimes stacks attacks, making it impossible to figure out what's going on and dodge it all at the same time. If you've played the game before, you know exactly who each boss I'm talking about is, and I hope you agree with me to some extent. They're not bad bosses by any means but during my first playthrough, I honestly didn't know if I was gonna get through the game because they were honestly kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The difficulty spike past this certain point in the game is just crazy. The ABSURD amount of damage they do with one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hit is just not fair. If you're a melee player, prepare to get stiffed over. Levelling health is absolutely crucial in this game and unfortunately that kinda gives me the Dark Souls 2 meta of "just level ADP" which sucks. I'd like to sink points into my other stats but most of it needs to go towards health if I simply want to survive for long enough to actually get some hits in.

All in all, it's just part of the experience. To be a true souls fan, you need to be able to say "I hate this game" while still playing it. I absolutely recommend it. It's amazing fun, and hey, maybe some of my qualms won't be as big a deal to you. Playing this game was still absolutely worth it, and I wouldn't ever recommend against it.

I thoroughly enjoy the Souls games, and Elden Ring is no exception. The game is breathtaking, and the very first time I played through it, I was pretty much at a loss for words from how impressed I was. If you're like me, you probably have 200 games in your library and you're like "gee, I have nothing to play". Well, Elden Ring is something that completely stole my attention and I sank all of my time into playing it. It has some really good music, some really good atmosphere, some incredible views, seriously, the sense of scale in this game is absolutely amazing. Maybe it's just me, but I love looking at places from a distance and seeing just how far I've come. Or looking at places afar and knowing that I'm eventually going to get to that area. It just fills me with this feeling I can't put into words. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this game, all the ruins, tunnels, caves, etc. There was always something to do, and it always kept my attention. Not to mention the fact that it has a lot of replayability with different classes to choose from, as well as a more challenging NG+ like the other Souls games have. With more playtime, you will discover more and more, things you didn't even find 300 hours into the game, as that's currently what's happening to me. Some of the quest lines are very cool, albeit some needing a pretty extensive tutorial to follow correctly as with the sheer sense of scale comes plenty of ways to lock yourself out of particular quests along the way, though it's not world-ending, it can be a little frustrating as there are a lot of characters to keep up with. Some of the questlines are pretty short whereas some are a lot more game-lengthy, and will require the usage of a wiki or tutorial in order to make sure you don't miss anything crucial. In terms of boss fights, it has some of the most memorable and impactful bosses to date. The game is absolutely packed with bosses, with the main adversaries being a showcase of FromSoftware's signature style of Soulslike. Chaotic, grotesque, challenging and of course: brutally unforgiving. It's always a fun time heading into the boss arenas, though I will say, this game in comparison to the other Souls games is REALLY hard. The enemies in this game are fast, acrobatic and there is not a lot of respite between attacks, though that does not make them unbeatable. You can make use of certain game mechanics like the use of summons (don't let anyone tell you that using summons is an incorrect way of playing the game, play how you want), on top of that, you can trivialise most bosses by using a bleed and frostbite build in tandem with summons, though, I don't recommend this as relying on cheeses to get through the game will only guarantee that you suffer later on or in future playthroughs. Another thing I love about the bosses in this game is that you can do them in no particular order. While yes it's true that doing them in a certain order is more beneficial due to the location scaling, it also encourages the player to simply play how they want without the overlurking shadow of an upcoming boss fight. FromSoftware have done the open world aspect of the game incredibly well. Time for my personal qualms with the game. I don't tend to dip my toes into PvP very much, simply because I enjoy playing the game without getting ganked by someone much better than me. But occasionally, I'll play with friends, and so we summon each other and eventually get invaded. Sometimes, the invader will have a weapon that's extremely difficult to avoid or is straight up broken in terms of balancing. Rivers of Blood as a prime example (before it was nerfed to hell). Or a weapon that turns your opponent into a literal beyblade and you don't have enough i-frames to roll away from it unscathed, especially when they're spamming it non-stop. I understand the risks of summoning, but it can be really frustrating to attempt to play with friends with little to zero souls experience and get 2v1'd by a character who has purposely built their character for invasions, or not even that, just has a broken weapon that destroys players. This game's biggest flaw is the reuse of bosses throughout the game. I think it's just...lazy. I understand how ambitious it would be to create unique boss fights for every single nook and cranny of this game, but it really isn't fun walking into a new boss arena and seeing the same dude you've killed like four times already, only this time maybe it's a little bit stronger or weaker depending on where you find the enemy. Especially when they copy and paste some of the MAIN bosses. That for me is something that really bugged me. It wouldn't even be that bad if they did it once, but they do it more than once, and that for me is unforgivable. It definitely ruined the unique feeling of exploring a brand new tunnel, or a brand new cave, fighting so hard to get to the end and realising it was basically for nothing new. Kinda underwhelming. The late game bosses are incredibly hard and honestly? Pretty unfair. There's a point in Dark Souls 1 that most players widely agree upon called the second half downfall where the game stops being fun and rather unfair and bullshit once you reach the halfway point. At times, this is how I feel about Elden Ring's final seven (main) bosses. One has FAR too much health and is the most trivial experience ever conceived. One is blatantly unfair due to the high damage output of your foe and the fact it's a 2v1 (against you!). One is so acrobatic it puts the Olympics to shame (seriously, getting a hit on this guy is so difficult because he doesn't stop jumping all over the place and his AoE attacks are a whole new level of unfair). One spams spells more than your average Dark Souls 2 player. One gives no space for respite and can stomp the ground and effect the entire battle arena (admittedly this guy is really fun to fight). One is just crazy hard by default. One doesn't stop running away and sometimes stacks attacks, making it impossible to figure out what's going on and dodge it all at the same time. If you've played the game before, you know exactly who each boss I'm talking about is, and I hope you agree with me to some extent. They're not bad bosses by any means but during my first playthrough, I honestly didn't know if I was gonna get through the game because they were honestly kinda bullshit. The difficulty spike past this certain point in the game is just crazy. The ABSURD amount of damage they do with one fucking hit is just not fair. If you're a melee player, prepare to get stiffed over. Levelling health is absolutely crucial in this game and unfortunately that kinda gives me the Dark Souls 2 meta of "just level ADP" which sucks. I'd like to sink points into my other stats but most of it needs to go towards health if I simply want to survive for long enough to actually get some hits in. All in all, it's just part of the experience. To be a true souls fan, you need to be able to say "I hate this game" while still playing it. I absolutely recommend it. It's amazing fun, and hey, maybe some of my qualms won't be as big a deal to you. Playing this game was still absolutely worth it, and I wouldn't ever recommend against it.