Elden Ring

there are hugs in this one :D

edit: comes with a debuff :'(

Elden Ring is staggering in breadth and detail, and like anything so big, gradually numbing. You want to slow it down, to see these new areas with the same sense of awe that accompanied every turn at the beginning, to press forward in fear of what may lie ahead. But a sense of forward momentum overtakes until it's irrepressible, and then the game is over. Increasingly difficult demigods appear in sequence to halt the flow, as a substitute for the rich environmental mysteries that had us forgetting there was an overall story in the first place. I'm thinking of how I never wanted to get through Stormveil, because that would mean I was done with Limgrave, and there was still so much to be learned in its fields and ravines and dead beaches. And then it was the same with Liurna. Altus Plateau was the last place I couldn't bear to leave, but even then Leyndell sits on the perimeter as a nagging reminder that things must end, and others must keep moving.

There are internal and external contributors to the persistent lapping of the call of progress here. As the player becomes more familiar with the game, they move more quickly through conflicts, and with the greater investment of player time comes the expectation of proportional narrative payoff. The detail of the here and now becomes a blur on the way to motivators on the horizon, and so Elden Ring like other games of its scale eventually becomes a virtual checklist. These factors are reflected internally, in the production of architecturally streamlined and graphically featureless maps that encourage forward momentum rather than the opportunity for getting lost. The player at a certain point either submits to the flow of the game and finishes it, or turns back and looks to rekindle their sense of wonder in the world behind them. The former is rewarded with quick and empty victory. The latter is also doomed, because by this point everything and everyone you ever cared about is devastated in progress’ wake. If the player follows this path they turn to complete the game with a heavy heart, having found the world robbed of meaning before it even closes.

Elden Ring knows that it is doing this, because the interplay of internal (terrestrial, world) and external (noumenal, Outer Gods) forces is the defining fixation of FromSoftware titles. Here it gives the progress narrative the form of the ‘Greater Will’, and stages a conflict between its adherents, and factions that wish to end the world as we know it. The Greater Will is that the player finishes Elden Ring, their character ascending to the Elden Throne, so that Elden Ring can begin again, forever. New Forsaken will continue to be summoned to the Lands Between to keep the cycle turning. That is why the delivery of the Greater Will is so empty. The paradox of narrative progress for the ending-oriented player is that any ending involving a throne is not an ending but a moment lost to the vastness of procedural eternal recurrence. Encountering the devoted Brother Corhyn and Goldmask across the Lands Between transforms the two into a chorus, commenting on the progression of the Greater Will. Corhyn initially holds Goldmask to be a prophet, but soon thinks him mad, complaining that his rituals “betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order.” In truth, Goldmask realises the way of the Greater Will is to mend the ring and initiate its eternal cycle. This suspicion of Order is baked into its very belief system, leading adherents to hope the next cycle is exactly the same as this one.

Goldmask’s order is bound to the notion of apocalypse as revelation. (Apokalypsis means ‘unveiling’ or ‘revelation’, hence the Book of Revelation is the book of apocalypse). For the apocalypse to operate as revelation, it is not to arrive from forces elsewhere, but to have been set in place by entities that are already here. The revelation is both future-oriented and ancestral, and its event means the elimination of future and ancestry alike. There is perhaps no system more apocalyptic than the game system — every ending is already present in the game text but hidden within the code, and all that needs to happen is for the apocalyptic event to be revealed in play. In Elden Ring’s late-game revelation, Goldmask discovers what was already there, Goldmask recognises the corruption of the Order, Goldmask waits for the flames, Goldmask mends the ring so it can happen all over again. The apocalypticism of the Golden Order is, paradoxically, eternal stasis. Everything returns to the beginning so that the Forsaken can arise once more and fulfil the Greater Will. For all the flames and tears and wreckage it is an Order without change or difference.

On the other hand, many in the Lands Between hold a contempt for predestination and dedicate their lives to overthrowing the eternal recurrence of dysfunctional Order. There is a lateral (rather than linear) progression to many of the minor quests, in particular those given by Ranni. The theme and shape of these quests is the fate of stars and gravity, as opposed to the main narrative’s rigid iconography of thrones, crowns, and bloodlines. Ranni actively sends you against the current, mapping out a constellation atop familiar places that now appear strange, and exposing undead cities beneath your feet. This is not done in the service of ‘uncovering’ a living, breathing world, but its opposite: the true undeath of the Lands Between. There’s a madness to Ranni’s story, and that’s because it wants to tell you that you have already been here, many times before, under different names and at different times. Everybody has already died and come back. The fates of everyone you care about have accompanied and in fact defined them since before you even knew them, and so all of your action in the Lands Between has been for the deliverance of their microscopic tragedy. Thops will always arrive too late, Irina will always have to wait too long, Millicent will always live diseased, Latenna will always curl up beside her sister in the snow.

The revelation of Ranni’s story is not the arrival of all of the pieces that were already there from the last reset, but that the world was already lost and empty. Travelling across the Lands Between on her apocalyptic mission severs rather than traces the golden contours of the world shaped like a furled finger. She wants to find the man who stole the stars so the moon comes back and the tides with it. Rejecting the dysfunctional order of the past, we now seek things born of nothingness, to realise the possibility of eliminating the eternal ‘now’ that was never present any way. And so we turn our backs to the stars and march ahead, to end things once again. There is an ending with believing in, and it’s the one that never eventuates. It’s the one born in the coldest night imaginable. Are you ready to commit a cardinal sin?

Phenomenal - barring the fire giant fight, perfect in nearly every way. Absolutely LOVE the variety of enemies, there's always something new and interesting to battle. Don't know what can be said about this game that hasn't been said - had a blast and got sucked in every time I sat down to play it.

Elden Ring is the Fromsoft game at this point in time that I have the most wildly mixed feelings on despite also thinking that it's an absolutely stunning experience through and through. It simultaneously feels like a leap forward but also multiple steps back in a variety of ways that I can't say I was quite expecting to see, with every new idea being both genius and something that actively contributes to a weaker experience in other ways. It's a careful balancing act that often stands strong to craft a powerful, evocative experience, but there are definitely those moments where the scales tip, and while sometimes that leads to some of the greatest moments in gaming, it sometimes is just a pain. While the company often has their games slapped with the term "flawed masterpiece", I truly believe that there has been a game by them that's been so flawed, yet also so awe inspiring.

The most notable shake up of the formula here is the obvious increase in scope and the way that the game features a massive open world, and for the most part I love what they did. While there's definitely a sense of some reused and repetitive dungeons with bits and pieces all over the place that feels underwhelming, when taking in this world as a whole, it manages to both be perpetually a third bigger than you expected, but also feel impossibly dense in the process, feeling carefully curated to always give you something to do without feeling haphazard. It's not just giving the player a variety of items to find, dungeons to explore or NPCs to chat with either, it's also how rich with interesting setpieces it all is, the way that each province has an entirely different, yet cohesive aesthetic, how the sheer act of exploring the world is enough of a reward in its own right as you slowly experience so much beauty and ugliness around every corner.

This is the big component that differentiates Elden Ring from the rest of the Fromsoft catalogue to me, the way that the sheer wonder of discovery lends itself to an almost ambient experience at points, with riding on horseback across these expansive environments at your own pace being genuinely comfy. It's for this reason that I find the way a lot of the dungeons being pretty repetitive or easy is more excusable, as these just feel like another part of this more laid back, yet adventurous experience, you'll be going along, finding somewhere new to explore, and not have to fully get into a more hardcore mindset to take things down in a lot of cases, simply adding more to a bit of a fun dungeon crawl, while keeping you on your toes just enough due to the way that there are still likely to be some curveballs thrown your way. That's not to say that the game is devoid of its more intense, classic Soulsesque moments either however, as there are many areas built specifically to be tackled in a more traditional manner, replacing a lot of the expansiveness with densely layered, labyrinthine sections to explore, while still being staggeringly larger than similar areas would be previously.

The game really seems to just want the player to get entirely lost in this massive world that's been crafted, always feeling as if there's more that needs to be done, which is pretty insane to be able to keep up so strongly for a solid 70 hours at least. This does have its drawbacks of course, as it serves to exacerbate any fatigue one might get from playing one game for that long, especially during the weaker sections, but even so, far preferable compared to making the player feel that they've seen everything within the first 20 or so. One other issue that does rear its head from making everything as massive as it is is that it definitely feels as if actually finding everything is a huge chore due to how much the player is expected to comb through some of these locations, especially since there's a very clear lack of guidance towards finding quite a few, which unfortunately ends up encouraging the player to pointlessly turn over every minute detail looking for loot. While in a smaller game this was fine and even a cool thing, in a game that's this large, it really loses a lot of its appeal. A similar thing also happens to a lot of the questlines in the game, how it ended up becoming harder to truly care about a lot of these characters as it was likely that I was having to look up a guide for each step of the way due to how large the world is making it almost impossible to find some of them by chance.

Some serious quality of life elements are needed for the quest design here, because keeping the same degree of blunt obscurity but putting it in an open world just reveals the problems that were already there, just to a far larger and more egregious extent. In general though this is just something that happens in the game, as while the world itself feels carefully curated and considered in how to make it feel as atmospheric and evocative as possible, the player's actual progression through it feels pretty stilted, the biggest issue being the way it feels at odds with whether it wants to funnel the player in a certain direction or allow them to explore wherever they wish. Due to Elden Ring having the idea to make the combat in an open world game actually good, it makes it easier for players to explore a wider area, not bound by as rigid stat requirements and the like, and being able to put their skills to the test to do things that weren't necessarily expected.

This ends up being a double edged sword however, as while tackling a later area will give you disproportionately more currency for the time than you'd get if you progressed normally, you end up missing out on the lower level upgrade materials that are needed to make the best use of this. Going to late game areas early feels bad as a result, as while you might be getting these higher level drops, you can't use them anyway, there's not a proper sense of character and build progression, it just goes from 0 to 100 the moment you go back to those earlier sections, ultimately making you think "why didn't I just go here first to make it easier on myself?" I feel like ensuring that there were still some lower level items that could be found even in these more difficult areas could've alleviated this, as while it would occasionally lead to late game players picking up a functionally pointless item, it at least would provide more of an incentive for the adventurous players to set out early.

As briefly mentioned, the combat in the game is also really good, building upon a lot of the base ideas from Dark Souls 3 but then actually fleshing them out in ways that mattered while simplifying other elements. Things feel very streamlined yet remain rather deep for those who want to really get into the finer details of crafting their desired build, with additions like the ashes of war and spirit ashes giving an extra layer of customisation to it all. The way magic has been treated is also nice, feeling more as if it was considered as a practically equal option to melee in this rather than either being unbelievably powerful or terrible, giving some more incentive to actually use the variety of cool, flashy spells you can get your hands on. From the player's side of things, the combat really is fantastic all around, which makes it even more of a shame that the enemy design is so hit or miss, especially in the late game. Boss fights tend to feel far trickier and more complex than before, and while this initially seems like a good thing (and in some cases it really), it leads to some scenarios that feel stacked against the player in ways that are a bit too unforgiving, especially when factoring in the absurd damage output that you have to suffer through after a certain point. The seemingly endless combo chains on their own would be something far more engaging if it usually wasn’t the case that late game will just kill you in one or two hits, since having both intense skill checks at the same time as endurance tests can feel a bit daunting when every encounter ends up feeling like one.

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff about this game that I think is amazing and annoying but that’s the sort of stuff that’s more interesting to engage with in something more conversational than this sort of review. Bottom line is, Elden Ring surpassed my expectations in some ways, failed to meet them in other ways, and that’s fine for the most part, as this feels like a wholly unique experience that had moments that made me reach this state of pure comfort at times, while then slapping me awake and be forced to rise to insane challenges at others. If the middle to late portion of the game didn’t feel like such a step down and a few other things were improved I think this would have the makings of one of my all-time favourite games, but as it stands, this is simply almost one of my all-time favourite games.

Prior to the game’s release people would ask me of I was “hyped” for it. I could only describe what I felt as a dull excitement. I knew that I would probably enjoy it, but I also felt like I knew exactly what to expect, and that the game would be nothing more than that, and nothing less at best. I didn’t ignore pre-release coverage of the game, but I didn’t really absorb it either. Pre-release coverage of most games is kind of useless to me, I don’t know what parts of marketing and previews I can really trust until I have the game in my hands. I saw the game, I watched others play the network test, but I didn’t have any real frame of reference for what exactly was going on or how it fit together.

My first run felt like I was going through the game at a breakneck pace. While I struggled early on, once I got some momentum I was killing many of the bosses on my first try. While I spent a good portion of my playthrough exploring the game naturally, at a certain point in the game I stopped doing optional content, and tried to rush to the end. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone: ignoring optional areas meant that I would have something new to do on subsequent playthroughs, and in reaching the end I would finally know the limits of the game’s scope and could play more leisurely, without such fervent thirst for whatever grand surprise could be next.

Even playing the game this way, it took 10 days of treating the game like a second job to beat it.

I remember when I was a kid I watched my dad reach Ganon’s Castle in Ocarina of Time. An area of the dungeon presents the player with about half a dozen paths laid out in a large circular room (or at least as circular as a room could be on the N64). Each of these doors lead to a short gauntlet, but I could help but imagine: what would it be like if this style of action-adventure game had a Super Mario 64-style hub area. Demon’s Souls is perhaps the closest thing we ever got to the idea in my head, but it also made me realize that the hub world was never really the important part.

What I really wanted was an action-adventure game with environments that were varied, striking, unique, and imaginative. An action-adventure game that was willing to trade a realistic environment for an absolutely incomparable one. Early 3D games often made unusual choices in how to portray their settings, and while this more primitive aesthetic was born out of limitation, its abstract qualities allow us in retrospect to assign it certain romantic characteristics completely absent from even the most contemporary and sophisticated attempts at naturalism. Elden Ring may be the only modern game I have ever seen that so consistently offers up such numerous and diverse visuals of this same character, but with cutting intentionality.

The entirety of the Lands Between feels like an old secret, everything feels as impossible and forbidden as Ash Lake. Ash Lake, buried beneath a difficult downward platforming section, tucked away behind multiple trick walls in an out of the way corner of one of Dark Souls’ more sprawling areas, was something that From Software did not expect every player to see. In Elden Ring, virtually everything beyond the introduction and before one of the later dungeons is optional, and not just in the sense that it can be bypassed or circumvented. On my third playthrough I used a guide and tried to see as much of the game as I possibly could, and to try and play through each area in some semblance of an “appropriate order”, and I’m now confident that From Software did not really want people to play the game this way. There is so much content in this game that feels like it doesn’t want to be found, and having spoken to other players both online and in-person I know that many people miss even the more major areas in the game. While Ash Lake was a single hidden area, Elden Ring is an entire game that does not expect the vast majority of its players to see its whole, a game so vast and so truly free that even a person who has seen it all would have trouble feeling absolutely certain of it.

Of all the modern niceties that Elden Ring forgoes, its lack of progression trackers is one of the most appreciated absences. From annualized franchises to series reinventions, nearly every game of this type is constantly presenting the player with fractions: you have done X amount of objectives, and there are Y amount in the game. Breath of the Wild’s shrines, Forza Horizon’s races, all kinds of statistics shown during loading screens and in menus. Elden Ring lets you mark graces and place pins on your map screen, and you could use this, for example, to keep track of which dungeons you have or have not completed, but you can’t be sure for yourself that you’ve found all of them, or that you’ve found everything within. The first time that the player finds a dungeon behind an illusory wall, the first time they find a dungeon with multiple bosses, the first time they find a dungeon within a dungeon within a dungeon, how can they ever be sure?

In this sense, Elden Ring might be a game that, as far as the design of typical modern open world game is concerned, does a lot of things “wrong”. Whether its the complaints that some people have made about the minute details of its user interface and experience, or simple basic facts like From Software’s decision to not make this a direct continuation any of their more recognizable intellectual properties, people are having some trouble processing the idea that Elden Ring is not a sleek, edgeless product. This is almost without a doubt simply a result of Elden Ring’s massive popularity, having doubled the sales of From’s previous bestselling title; however, it is frankly embarrassing that we’re having the same tired conversations about this game that we were having about Dark Souls over a decade ago.

The game’s great triumph lies primarily in its structure. The reality of open world games is that the open world is almost always something necessarily separate from the rest of the game, and Elden Ring is no different. This is not a bad thing, the key to making a good open world game simply lies in making both the open world and the rest of the game equally interesting. From the loose platforming and exploration of the open world, to the careful crawl of dungeoneering, to the tight and tense combat and boss fights, Elden Ring’s core loop funnels the player into a more perfect rhythm than almost any other game of its kind.

I was a bit worried initially that background music would be more prominently featured throughout the game compared to previous From titles, but I have to admit they’ve knocked it out of the park. Every track so effectively created its mood, from the mystery of Liurnia, the oppressive noise of the Caelid wilds, the somber aura of Altus. I love how much of the game’s music is diegetic, the horns of the capital, the singing in the underground river city, the stringed instruments carried by the merchants. Where previous From games merely created feelings of tension in boss fights and relief in the hub areas, Elden Ring’s music gives the world its own sense of culture.

The only significant problem I have with the game is a handful of late-game bosses. It’s a particular shame both because the end of the game is basically just four back-to-back boss fights and its kind of a sour note to end on, and because if most of these bosses' individual phases were separate fights they would be some of my favorites that From has ever done. As they are though, they are at best brutal gauntlets requiring such a degree of consistent execution that it becomes difficult to really appreciate the encounter, and at their worst, they are Malenia, blade of Miquella.

I said once, and I’m not the only one, that “Elden Ring is someone’s dream game, but I’m not sure if it’s mine.” I now think that Elden Ring is a game I could not personally have dreamt in the first place. It’s a game that delivers on promises unkept by so many other games, that so thoroughly fleshes out ideas that other games only hint at. Often when a new game comes out I find myself wanting to replay games in the same series or genre to see how my perspective on them has shifted; no other game has forced me to reevaluate so many of its predecessors. No other game has so insistently made me grapple with the possibility that the best game I will ever play is one that has yet to be made.

youve seen all of the video essays and youve seen all of the speedruns and youve seen all of the optimal builds and youve seen all of the strats and secrets and lore
i guess the real question is what did you ever like about this series to begin with?
somehow making it an open adventure ends up being a detriment to the overall appeal of the original formula. mindlessly riding around on horseback creates some lulling feeling. it's like you are simply staring into a void of content. i've had more clarity on xanax. this game is an impressive mess. it's an awful conclusion to something. a flex that forgot the mastery beforehand. it makes me interested as much as it makes me tired. the experience is too big and the content is too small. i can't put my finger on it, but if this is the fromsoft game that is truly the one then i guess i never liked them at all. im waiting on yui tanimura to give us a new game becaue miyazaki is simply a hollow name at this point. so many good ideas and in such a bloated mess. https://www.youtube.com/wa...channel=BlowFan