Elden ring is very good.
I feel pompous saying this, but anyway: I’m ahem a “Souls Vet” in that I actually bought Demon’s Souls the day it came out back in 2009 when i was only 15 years old. I almost imported it from Korea because they had English sub option I believe, but then Atlus announced a US publishing and I just decided to wait it out. Since then I’ve beaten every Souls game, some of them multiple times (recently replayed Sekiro. first replay since it came out. i liked it even more the second time). Along with Zelda, Metroid and Monster Hunter, it’s probably my favorite video game series.
Anyway. Elden Ring is exactly what I expected: Open world Dark Souls. Nothing more or less. I’m continually surprised by the amount of stuff there is, and just the general curiosity of “What’s that thing?” and then you go and check it out and get rewarded fairly handsomely–whether that be a new weapon, a scroll for learning new spells, an ash of war, an upgrade for your flasks, etc. I’m about 15 hours in maybe, still haven’t beaten the first “real” area (stormveil castle. i’m probably like halfway through it, and keep running off to do other things) and I went back and explored the starting area of Limgrave some more only to find a whole bunch of entirely new locations I literally could have gone to right out of the gate but just didn’t, like the peninsula. Or the lake area with the dragon that i was actually able to fight now. I literally just…went everywhere but the lake for some reason lol. Instead, I ended up going to some hellish area called Caelic I was definitely not ready for, as evidenced by enemies one-shotting me and me not doing any damage. Still, I decided to persist and just run through on horseback, grabbing sites of lost grace and map fragments and assorted items like golden runes. That feeling of “uhm, i really shouldn’t be here, but I still want to look around” is really cool.
I hear some reviewers/commentators saying that the openness of the game is overwhelming, but I think it’s very well done. You have to meet this game on its own terms and follow its hints. The first NPC you meet very clearly tells you your goal, and it’s up to you what you do. So I headed in the direction of the castle and along the way allowed myself to get very distracted. After maybe five or six hours I decided to actually see what was up with the castle, couldn’t beat the boss and then left and explored some more until I got stronger and came back to beat him more easily.
The game is only “easier” than other souls games in that if you’re stuck on a boss, there are one thousand other things you can do instead and so there’s no reason to bang your head against a wall. You also have a ton of options at your disposal with bosses, like the spirit summons and variety in your builds. Truth be told, openness has actually always been a core design philosophy of the Souls games, people just never seemed to notice. Demon’s Souls should be obvious (all four areas available right at the start), but even in Dark Souls, there were often times two or three paths you could go down, and if you’re stuck on one just go back to the other. Halfway through that game you literally have four separate areas to go to at will. The games have always been fairly open with their designs, only being linear when you get into an actual “dungeon” of sorts, and even then a lot of times it’s very metroidvania-esque where you open up a shortcut back to the beginning. Given the open nature, it makes sense that them finally doing an open world game would work out really well.
I would have a lot more play time but I had to work yesterday and today. When I get home I hope to play for hours and hours…Maybe actually beat Stormveil castle and make my first bit of “real” progress.
I’m only at 15 or something having started at 1.