Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story Review Revisited

 

 

 

 

Well, its time for another review of sorts and this one will be yet another revisit of a post I had done and is of the biopic film, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, telling the life story of the legendary martial arts star, Bruce Lee and his rise to superstardom. 

So, after nearly 30 years, let's take a look at this biopic and see how it fairs.

And the usual warning is coming up...

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

So the film begins in Hong Kong, where Bruce Lee's father, Lee Hoi-Chen (Ric Young) has a nightmare about his son being killed by a phantom in black samurai armour that haunts Bruce Lee as a child. The film in its opening sequence shows Bruce being taught martial arts as a child and follows his progression into being a teenager.

Years later as a young man, Bruce (played Jason Scott Lee) gets involved in a fight during a ballroom dance with some British sailors, and as he faces serious trouble with the police (as one of the sailors he attacked in the son of a police officer high up in the Kowloon police force) Bruce's father insists he leave Hong Kong.  Bruce's father also tells him that he had a brother who died in childbirth, and he fears for his son's life that he is being pursued by a demon, that preys on inner fear and if Bruce doesn't conquer those fears he may one day die.  Bruce's father then decides that he should go to America as his son was born in San Francisco and as he has a US birth certificate he should be accepted as a citizen, and he asks that Bruce make name for himself over there.

As Bruce arrives in America, he gets a job as a dishwasher at a local Chinese restaurant where he gets involved in a fight with some of the staff (as he slept with one of waitresses who was one of the staff's girlfriends).  As a result of the fight, the owner (Nancy Kwan) fires Bruce and gives him severance pay and some extra money as an all purpose loan, and she suggests that he invest in an education rather than throw it away.

At a university he encounters some racism from the students there and gets involved in a fight, but some of the onlooking students are impressed by Bruce's skill and ask if he will teach them, which he does.  As Bruce starts giving classes on campus he meets Linda Emery (Lauren Holly) and they begin dating, and they soon marry, despite Linda's disapproving mother, Vivian (Michael Learned).

Bruce decides to open a kung-fu school, open to everyone and not just Chinese students, which causes annoyance among the other Chinese martial art schools, who insist that Bruce stop teaching to non-Chinese students (or the "gwailo" as the Chinese call them) as they see it as forbidden.  As Bruce refuses to do so they insist he must settle this dispute in combat, where Bruce has to fight Johnny Sun (John Cheung) who Bruce manages to defeat, but San attacks Bruce from behind by kicking him in the back, which leaves Bruce seriously injured and immobile.

In hospital while Bruce is immobilised and placed in traction, he angrily tells Linda to go away and leave him alone, but she insists that he fight back with his mind and use his recovery time to think how to fix the weaknesses of his combat technique.  During this time Linda takes notes from Bruce which is later compiled into his book, based on his philosophy called Jeet Kune Do.  As Bruce recovers, Linda has their first baby, Brandon, and she soon reconciles her differences with her mother, Vivian when she meets them again and meets their baby.

Burce some time later after his recovery makes an impressive demonstration of his Jeet Kune Do at a martial arts tournament, as he defeats Johnny Sun once again.  After the match Bruce meets American producer, Bill Krieger (Robert Vaughan) who hires him to appear in the American TV show, The Green Hornet.  However the TV series is soon cancelled and while Bruce and Bill come up with the idea for a show named Kung Fu, Bruce is ultimately passed over in the role and David Carradine is cast instead.

After Bruce's father dies and he attends the funeral on his way home from Hong Kong he is approached by a film producer Philip Tan (Kay Tong Lim) who tells that The Green Hornet has a following in China and that it is known as the "Kato show".  Tan then offers Bruce the lead part in a film, which soon turns out to be The Big Boss, although during filming, Bruce is confronted by the brother of Johnny Sun, Luke (Ong Soo Han) who wants revenge and the two engage in an intense with Bruce finally winning it.

On its premiere night, "The Big Boss" turns out to be a big success in China and Bruce soon makes more films where he works as an actor, director and writer.  However this causes tensions between Bruce and Linda as she wants to return home to America, where Bruce feels angry at how he was treated in America and doesn't want to go back to that.

Soon after Bruce is approached by Bill Krieger again who tells him that he has another project for him called Enter the Dragon, which would be set to make him a big star, which Bruce agrees to do.  However as filming progresses Bruce soon has to face his inner demons, which could cost him dearly in the future if he doesn't confront them.

THOUGHTS 

As a biopic film, Dragon remains very entertaining and somewhat cheesy as well it has to be said, but overall it does a fine job in telling the life story of one of China's most iconic figures.  And while the film is of course guilty of take cinematic license with the real life facts of Lee's life, it balances out the events of his life pretty well and you get the gist of what he had to encounter in his time in the US, such as the racism and disapproval of his teaching methods to non-Chinese students.

It also shows Bruce's determination in trying to make a name for himself in the US as well as gaining the respect of the Chinese back in his home soil and the struggles in his family life.  And early on in production the star role was initially offered to Brandon Lee, who turned it down, and he himself sadly later was killed during the filming of The Crow, as he was fatally wounded in an accidental shooting, and the film was dedicated to his memory.

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

Getting onto the performances, the cast are all excellent here.

Starting with Jason Scott Lee does an excellent job as Bruce Lee, and he plays the part with alot of warmth, charisma, compassion as well as some indignant anger at how he was treated in the US.  Lee himself trained under the tuition of a former student of Bruce Lee's, Jerry Poteet, who studied Lee's Jeet Kune Do method and he does incredibly well in the physically demanding and impressively staged fight scenes.  Admittedly there are moments in Lee's performance where he is a bit cheesy and he almost goes from being like an over enthusiastic puppy dog but by large Lee does a fine job with his character role.

Lee naturally of course has his share of good scenes in the film, such as his first one where Bruce back when he lived in Hong Kong walks into a ballroom dance where there are some unruly British sailors muscling in on the women.  So, Bruce walks up to one of them, who is forcefully dancing with one of the Chinese girls and Bruce taps him on the shoulder and the sailor says "What do you want?!" and Bruce says "I want to dance with her".  The sailor however, rudely says "This one's mine, get one of your own!" but the camera pulls back to reveal Bruce for the first time and says to the sailor "She IS one of my own!" and the two of them get into a fight.

Another good scene is where Bruce having moved to San Francisco and gone to university, he works out in the gym there but is then hassled by some of the football team, who want him off the weight machine.

So, one of the team, Joe Henderson says to Bruce as he works out "So, come on, man! Time up" and Bruce while he lifts the weights says "I'm not finished yet". However Joe insists "Yeah, you are. We work out at 3:00. See that clock? It's 3:00, come on" but Bruce says "Where does it say that in the rule book?" which prompts some reactions of surprise from the team.  So, Joe says "See, you've been reading the wrong rule books. Read the ones in English".  This prompts Bruce suddenly stop using the machine and ask Joe "What's that mean?" and Joe says "You see, that's what I mean. You're kind don't understand English!" and Bruce asks "MY kind?!". So, Joe responds "Yeah. Gooks, Chinks. You guys killed my dad in korea. you think I'm happy to see you in my gym?!". Bruce suddenly jumps and says "Don't touch me!" and Joe asks "Or what?" and Bruce smiles slyly and says "Or I'll touch you back!". So, Joe attempts to goad Bruce and angrily says "Come on, touch me, dink!  Come on, touch me, Chink!" however Bruce just walks away from him.  However a moment later, Bruce shouts "Are you coming?!  I have to finish my workout.  I might aswell finish on you!" and he beckons Joe to come over to him.

So, Bruce takes off his shoes and socks to prepare to fight Joe, who soon finds out he doesn't have the speed or prowess to take him on.  So, Joe becomes angry and says "I'll kill you, you bastard!!" but Bruce says to him "I'm no bastard, I'm Bruce Lee!".  So then Joe team mates join but Bruce outmaneuvers them all with a series of kicks and moves, leaving the team on the floor in pain and Bruce says to Joe "Sorry about your father.  That was Koreans. I'm an American" and quickly walks out.

Another good scene from Lee is when Bruce takes on Johnny San in an effort to fight for his right to teach non-Chinese students on American soil.  And in the scene, one of Bruce's closest students, an African American, Jerome warns Bruce that San is a killer and that two men once tried to jump him which ended with one in hospital and the other in a funeral home to which Bruce replies "You're a real confidence builder, Jerome!".  And after Bruce defeats San and beats him into submission, he grabs San's head and shouts "Do you give up?! Do you give up?! DO YOU GIVE UP???!!" and San says "I give up!".  So, Bruce stands up and says to the other teachers "I teach who I want.  The decision is mine" which prompts an angry outburst from one of them and then San runs up behind Bruce and kicks him in the back, which immobilizes him.

Which brings me onto one of Lee's best scenes in the film where Bruce after San's treachery, lands him in hospital, immobilized and in traction, so Linda shows up to speak to him and Bruce is in a state of self-pity and anger.

So, Linda in the scene is angry that Bruce didn't tell her he was going to the fight and she says to him "You should have told me you were going" and Bruce asks "Why?" and Linda shouts back "Because I'm your wife!  I have a right to know!".  Bruce however says to her "You might wanna think about that.  The wife part, I mean" and Linda asks "What are you saying?" and Bruce full of self pity tells her "Take a good look at me, Linda!". So, as Linda says that they have some trouble with the situation, Bruce shouts back "This is more than a little trouble!!" and she shouts that Americans love big trouble.  So, Bruce yells at her "That's what you say now!!! But in six months, you'll be looking for the back door!!!".

And as Holly tries to convince Bruce that it will never be over between them, Bruce shouts at her "Go back to your mother, Linda! I'm finished! tell her I made a mistake. DO IT!! You hear me?!! Tell her you made a mistake!".  And as Holly tries to comfort Bruce, he yells loudly at her "DON'T TOUCH ME!!! I don't want you here! I don't want you! GET OUT!!! GO!!  LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" and Linda looks shocked at Bruce's behaviour, which angers him more and he yells "DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!!" prompting Linda to run out the room, nearly in tears.

Then there is the scene where Bruce having recovered from his injury and written his book on Jeet Kun Do, gives a demonstration of it at a convention where he meets alot of cynicism from the audience.  Bruce however insists as he speaks to the audience "I'll beat any man in this room in 60 seconds!!" and then out of nowhere we hear a voice shout "I'll fight him!!" and we then see Johnny Sun appear and say "I beat him before!  I beat him again!!".  So, Bruce get's ready for the fight as he takes off his shirt but Linda pleads with Bruce not to go through with it as the doctors recommended he doesn't fight again. So, Linda says to Bruce "The doctors said no more fighting!" but Bruce tells her "They said I'd never walked again, too!" but Linda tells Bruce "If you get hurt again, you're on your own!".  And as Linda walks off, as she can't watch, Bruce calls out to her "Don't go too far, hon!  It'll be over in 60 seconds!".

Another good scene comes when Johnny Sun's brother, Luke, shows up on the set of Bruce's first film feature, "The Big Boss" where Luke wants revenge for his brother, who has been left badly injured after his fight with Bruce.  So, Luke says to Bruce "My brother can't walk right, he can't talk right.  You have dishonoured my family!  I have sworn to kill you!" and Bruce says to him "Swearing is easy!".  Luke then says to Bruce "I read your book.  I know all your tricks!" so Bruce says to Luke "Let's see how well you've learned your lesson!" and they begin they're intense fight. 

Then there is the scene where Bruce expresses his frustration and resentment of American people as he becomes more absorbed in making his films in China where he has become well respected but Linda wants to go back to the US.  So, Bruce angrily tells Linda "Oh, man. they got such a good line of bullshit! "Come and get it!" "America, the mountain of gold!" "It's for everybody!!" Yeah, it's for everybody white! but they don't tell you that! You gotta read the small print! IF you can read".  Then Bruce continues his rant "I'm somebody here! I'm special! Back there, I'm just another gook! Just another wetback, Charlie Chan, slopehead, coolie dishwasher...in a stinking chinkie restaurant!!!" and he furiously knocks some stuff off a dresser.  Bruce then does an exaggerated Chinese accent "Wash your shirt, mister white man?! Please?! No tickee, no shirtee! - order one from column "a" and one from column "b!".  Bruce then breaks a closet door in anger and he goes up to Linda and yells "IS THAT WHO I AM?!  IS IT???!!!  TELL ME THAT'S WHO I AM??!!" and Linda shouts back "I don't know who the hell you are anymore!!!  Do you?!!!".

And last of all there is Lee's final scene where Bruce and Linda are on set of "Enter the dragon" where Bruce is about to film the last scene. So, Bruce says to Linda "Last shot" and Linda, full of pride says to him "Make it great" and they kiss and as he is about to go up the stairs he says to Linda "Linda, I forgot to tell you, I love you".  Linda smiles and says "I don't think you've ever said that to me before" and Bruce tells her "Yeah, but I meant it, every day" before he goes up to do his final scene.

Which brings me onto Lauren Holly who delivers a fine performance as Linda, and Bruce's wife, as she plays the all American girl, who falls in love with Lee, and defies the racism around them as well as her mother's own disapproval to marry him and have a family.

And Holly has her own share of good scenes, such as the one where just after Bruce is injured by Johnny Sun kicking him in the back, he ends up in traction at the hospital.  So, Linda goes too see him and is shocked to find Bruce in traction and she jokes nervously to him "You know, this thing's kinda sexy. maybe we can keep it after you're better...".  Bruce however is not amused and Linda says "I'm sorry. It was a bad joke. I know you're mad. don't be mad. It'll only make things worse" and Bruce tells her "Worse?!  It couldn't take a hell of alot to make things worse!".

So, Bruce tells Linda to think twice about their marriage now that he is essentially an invalid and she tells him "OK, so we've got a little trouble" but Bruce shouts at her "This is more than a little trouble!" and Linda shouts back "OK, so we've got big trouble!".  Linda then angrily tells Bruce "You're always going on about the beauties of your Chinese culture! Let me tell you about the beauties of my culture! WE LOVE BIG TROUBLE!!".  Bruce however shouts at her that she says that now but in six months she'll want to get out but Linda shouts back "Oh, no!! Its never going to be over between you and me, you get it?!".  However Bruce continues to shout and rant at Linda to go and leave him alone, which upsets Linda, who runs out.

Then in the next scene, with Bruce still in traction, he hears a noise and he fearfully asks "Who's there?!" and then we see a notebook hit the ground and then Linda slides into view on the floor to look up at Bruce's traction machine faces down toward her.  So, Linda teases him "Hi. I thought I'd improve the view. Oh, look at the big kung fu man. First sign of trouble and all he does is quit!" but Bruce annoyed shouts " Shut up! Shut up!". Linda then shows Bruce her notebook "See this notebook? Looks like the ones we had in school, right? Wrong. This is your future" but Bruce quietly says "I don't have any future" but Linda tells him "Sure you do".
 
Linda then continues and tells Bruce "You know, all I keep hearing is the fight took too long. too much tradition, too much classical mess...too many fixed positions in wing chun. you know everything that's wrong, so fix it! Stop whining and start fighting! Fight back with your mind". Bruce feeling defeated says "I can't write!  I can't move!" but Linda says "You talk, quitter.  I'll write" and she opens the notepad and takes her pen and she says "I'm waiting".  Bruce takes a moment and says "It would take forever" and Linda says "You going anywhere?  I'm not.  Oh, yeah and just one more thing...I'm pregnant". 

Another good scene for Lauren is when Bruce takes on Johnny Sun again in a re-match of their fight that hospitalised Bruce with his back injury, so Linda begs Bruce not to go through with it or he might risk being injured again.  So, Linda says to Bruce angrily "What are you crazy?! The doctor said no more fighting!" but Bruce tells her "They said I'd never walk again, too!" and Linda asks him "When will you be happy?! When they are right?!". Linda then pleads with Bruce "Bruce, I'm begging you...if you love me..." and Bruce says "This isn't about you and me!" but Linda then warns him "Fine! but I'm not going through this again, do you understand me? You get hurt, you're on your own!". 

And last of all is the scene where Linda and Bruce argue over his staying in Hong Kong to work on his movies, as she is anxious to get back to America. So, as Bruce expresses his contempt for America and its bigoted attitude towards Chinese people, Linda pleads with Bruce "I am not America. Your kids are not America. Don't push us away!" We're going. I want you to come with us. I want the kids to have a father again".  However Bruce angrily tells Linda "Don't lay guilt trips on me!" but Linda tells him "This place is eating us up, can't you see that Bruce?!" but Bruce is not interested and rants on about how Hong Kong is special and that back in America he's a nobody. So, Bruce continues his rants and yells at Linda "Is that who I am?!  TELL ME THAT'S WHO I AM?!!" and Linda shouts back "I don't know who the hell you are anymore!!!  Do you?!" and she walks out.

Robert Wagner is also pretty good in his relatively brief role as Bill Krieger, who Bruce works with on The Green Hornet and later on with Enter the Dragon. 

Wagner has some good scenes also but I will for time only mention the one where he walks in on Bruce, while is in Honh Kong, who is doing some weird training with a typewriter with electrodes attached to his chest.  And Bruce says to Bill "Its like doing 200 push ups.  Do you wan't to try?" and Bill says "Nah you would just turn it up and try to electrocute me!" and Bruce says "The thought had crossed my mind" and Bill says to him "Justifiable homicide, some might say". Bruce then says to Bill "What you want, Bill?  You didn't come here to discuss old times" and Bill says "No, I came here to discuss new times.  Bill then says "There's somebody I want you to meet. His name is Freddie Weintraub. We've got a project for you. Fred's got a script. It's called Enter the Dragon. We're gonna shoot it here, but it's your ticket back to America". So, this get's Bruce's attention as Bill tantalises him some more "It's a feature. A Hollywood feature. With all the trimmings".

Nancy Kwan also does really well with her role as the restaurant owner, Gussie Yang, who temporarily hires Bruce as a dishwasher.  And she shares a good scene with Lee when she pays off Bruce and gives him money for a loan and offers him two options. 

First off, Gussie says Bruce could blow the money on April "Tell you what to do. Take April on the town, buy her nice clothes,  check into big hotel, have lots of sex! Have food brought up to you in bed. Drink champagne and whiskey. Now money all gone, April be gone, too, like money. You come back to me. I put you in kitchen, wash dishes to pay back loan by that time you're no longer young,
you're no longer handsome, you're nothing but a... dishwasher! That one choice. There are others".  And Bruce asks "Like what?" and Gussie says "They say education is good. hmm. I've heard that. me, personally... I hope you go with April. I can always use a good...dishwasher!".

Michael Learned is also pretty good as Linda's disapproving mother, Vivian, who does not care for Linda's relationship with Bruce.

And Michael (a weird name for a woman!) has some good moments too such as the scene where Vivian pays Linda a visit not long after Bruce and Linda have had their first baby, Brandon. So, as Linda answers the door she sees Vivian and there is an awkward silence and Vivian says "Hi, may I come in?" and Linda defensively asks "Why?" and Vivian tries to change the subject as she notices Linda's shorter hairdo and she says "I like your hair".  However, Linda is not interested and says "I don't wanna chit-chat with you.  What are you doing here?" and Vivian awkwardly says "I came to see you..." and Linda angrily asks her "Did you come to see me, or did you come to see the yellow baby?!". Vivian then says "I think I made a mistake..." and she is about to leave but then we hear Bruce loudly says "Brandon, its grandma!!  Grandma's come to see you!" and he wheels up to her and smiles warmly and says "Come on".  So, Vivian goes in and sees the young baby Brandon and she is suddenly touched and overwhelmed and she says "He looks like...both of you" and Bruce and Linda allow Vivian to pick him up and she smiles and says "He gorgeous" and tearfully says to Linda "You did good, sweetheart.  You did good".  And at long last, Linda and Vivian put aside their differences and Bruce looks on happily and says to himself "Brandon, you're a strong one.  Only you could do this".

Sterling Macer is also very good as Jerome Sprout, Bruce's first student at his Kung-Fu institute, an African American, who was turned down by other Chinese schools but Bruce accepts him straight away.

So, I will quickly mention two of Sterling's scenes, the first being where Jerome first meets Bruce at the institute.  So, Jerome says to Bruce "Caught the flyer. Thought I'd check it out. See? Seen some of them chop-socky flicks, man. Some cool shit. Name's jerome. Jerome Sprout".  So, as Bruce introduces himself and Linda, Jerome says "I'd like to take some lessons" and Bruce smiles and says "I like to give them".  Jerome then tells Bruce "I've noticed that. Some of them other Chinese teachers, man, they turn me down flat. Some of 'em wouldn't even let me in the door!" but Bruce warmly tells him "You got yourself a teacher" and Jerome grins and says "I can dig it, man. You got yourself a student!". 

And lastly there is the scene where Jerome and Bruce go to the temple where Bruce will take on Johnny Sun. So, Bruce asks Jerome what he found out about his opponent and Jerome tells him "The bookies are laying 20 to 1 against you" and Bruce asks "Who is this guy?" and Jerome says "Johnny Sun. He's got a school on Thompson, he's a killer man!".  Bruce asks "Are you his press agent?" but Jerome, seriously tells Bruce "He's a real killer! A couple of brothers tried to rob him last year. One went to a hospital and one with a gun, went to a funeral home!".

So, then we see Johnny Sun enter with his brother, both men are big in build and look very intimidating.  Jerome, suddenly fearful says to Bruce "Man, they eat their wheaties in that family. Tiny there's his younger brother Luke. Bruce, forget about this stuff! Forget about all us gwailo and let's get the hell outta here right now!".  Bruce however refuses to listen and instead he shakes hands with Jerome as he starts to warm up for his fight. 

Ric Young also does very well in his brief role as Bruce's father (who's name is not given in the film) and he warns Bruce of the "demon" that has troubled his family over the years and that Bruce must leave Hong Kong and travel to America. 

So, as Ric only really has one main scene in the film I will try and cut it down a little in terms of the dialogue mentioned and its where he tells Bruce he must leave America and that is in serious trouble after his fight with the sailors at the ballroom dance. 

So, Bruce's father hits Bruce angrily and says to him "The police were here looking for you!  The sailor's in hospital with a punctured lung. He might die!" but Bruce says "He started it. He was looking for trouble".  Bruce's father however warns Bruce "He's the nephew of the assistant police inspector in Kowloon!" but Bruce says "I can hide out with my friends" but his father says "You don't have any friends NOW!" and he pulls him out of the room by his ear. 

Then after the two men sit down and have tea and his father gravely tells Bruce "You'll have to leave Hong Kong" and Bruce asks "For how long?" and his father says "Forever".  Bruce laughs and says "This is a joke!  You're joking!" but his father tells him "Listen to me, Sai-Fong, you'll die in Hong Kong.  I've seen it!".  So, Bruce's father tells him the truth about his deceased brother "You have a right to know everything. You had an older brother. he died in childbirth. the demon took him away from us. The firstborn man-child is very valuable. So when you were born, I name you Sai-Fong, a girl's name. We dress you in dresses so the demon wouldn't know I had another son. I made you speak english, all so we could fool him!  But now he knows, and he's coming for you". 

Bruce then asks "Where can I go?" and his father tells him "Well you like American movies, you like American cars.  You can go to America" and he produces Bruce's birth certificate showing that he was born in America.  Bruce says "You need money to go to America" and then his father rips open a container holding a large wad of American dollars and his father tells him "I saved it for you. For a day like today!".  Bruce, totally surprised by all this, says "I don't know what to say" and his father tells him "Say you'll do better!  Tell me you'll make a big noise in America, so I can hear over here!".

Next up is John Cheung as Johnny Sun, Bruce's arch-nemesis in the film, who takes him on twice and Cheung actually doesn't really have that much dialogue in the film due to his limited English but he certainly makes a strong impression in the role.  Cheung was also the fight co-ordinator on the film, so he took on a double role for the film's production.

And naturally Cheung's fight scenes as Sun as two of the film's highlights although he barely has any dialogue in the film he still does get a memorable line, when Sun takes on Bruce during his presentation of Jeet Kune Do at a convention.  So, when Bruce challenges someone to fight him to prove that his fighting style works so well, Sun calls out "I'll fight him!  I beat him before!  I beat him again!!".

And last of all is Ong Soo Han as Luke Sun, Johnny's younger brother, who is a big muscly fella, who later on takes on Bruce in a fight after Johnny ended up badly injured as a result of their second fight.

So, in the scene Luke arrives on the set of "The Big Boss" while Bruce is filming and tells Bruce his intent to get revenge over him, however the production crew look on as if this is some sort of pre-rehearsed fight scene between Bruce and Luke that they didn't know about!  So, in the scene, Luke comes out of a van and he says to Bruce "My brother can't talk right. He can't walk right. You have dishonored my family. I have sworn to kill you!".  Bruce with disdain says to Luke "Swearing is easy" and Luke then says "I read your book.  I know all your tricks!" and Bruce then says "Let's see how well you've learned your lesson!" and they begin their big fight together. 

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
 
As for the director, Rob Cohen (who directed the first Fast and Furious film) does a fine job here and he directs and stages the film's fight sequences really well and he also manages to keep the story and the relationship of Bruce and Linda believable and charming for an audience.  Cohen also makes a brief cameo appearance in the film as the director of "Enter the Dragon" who was in reality Robert Clouse.  This for me is Cohen's best film and despite one or two other credible films, such as Daylight and The Fast and the Furious, his career as a director took a downturn ever since, which is a pity since a film like Dragon showed his talent.   

As for the film's score it was composed by Randy Edelman and it features some pleasant and dramatic tracks, although it does sound a bit dated to its period of the early 90s.  However its love theme for Bruce and Linda is regularly used in film trailers to this day so in that regard it is very memorable and its a nice theme.  Overall this is certainly a very solid score from Randy Edelman.  

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

So, flaws...does Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story have any??? Yeah, its not quite perfect.
 
And for start off, I would have to say that the film is undeniably quite corny in places, and while it is very entertaining, some scenes do make you cringe a bit.  An example is where Bruce fights the sailors and he does an amazing somersault and lands on a table full of food, and he picks up a bit of cheese cake and nibbles on it!  Also during the fight scenes there is heavy use of ridiculously exaggerated sound effects, such as when Bruce prepares for his fight with Johnny Sun, he cracks his knuckles and cricks his neck!  Not to mention also the sound of bowling skittles being knocked over when Bruce sends one of the troublesome sailors across the dance floor at the start of the film!

The film also takes a fair bit of cinematic license with the facts of Lee's life of which there are quite a few examples throughout the film.  For starters, while Lee did fight for his right to teach kung fu to non-Chinese students in reality, the character of Johnny Sun was fictional and Lee actually fought Wong Jack Man, another teacher who later claimed it had more to do with Lee's personality rather than teaching non-Chinese students. And while it was true that Bruce won the fight, Wong Jack Man, did not injure Bruce after the fight and Bruce's real back injury came from him lifting weights incorrectly.  So, this also of course means that the whole fight with Johnny Sun at the convention was also fabricated as was the fight with Sun's younger brother on the set of the "Big Boss" although quite a few film extras did try and take on Bruce in a fight during the production, that much is true.

Another big inaccuracy was that Bruce Lee's book "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" was not published until after his death, but it is depicted in the film as being published shortly after Bruce has been released from hospital.  And in reality Bruce took his first American student in 1959 (named Jesse Glover) before he had even met Linda, as depicted in the film he meets Jerome Sprout (played in the film by Sterling Macer Jr, and a fictional composite character) after he and Linda have become a couple and opened their first school together. 

The whole concept of Bruce's inner demons is also a bit melodramatic in the film and it seems pretty daft that Bruce's death was the result of his failure to conquer his own spiritual demons.  The film at the end with Linda's narration says that "Bruce fell into a mysterious coma and died" suggesting the cause of his death was unknown.  However it was well documented that Bruce was diagnosed with cerebral edema (which is the excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain) two months before his death, which later occurred on the day of his death. 
 
So again the film strays from the facts of Bruce's death just for the sake of the whole inner demon concept, which obviously the writers went with for dramatic effect.  And in reality Bruce never took up kung fu to ward off inner demons, he took up kung fu for self defence after losing a fight to bullies.  Although in the film's commentary by Rob Cohen, Cohen stated that Linda Caldwell Lee told him that after Lee survived his first coma, Lee later told Linda that it felt like he was fighting a demon in the dark.

And lastly in the film's final scene, Linda narrates that Bruce died three weeks before the film "Enter the Dragon" was released but in actual fact he died only six days before the film's release, which remains one of the film's most glaring errors!  And I find it somewhat surprising that Cohen didn't do his homework better to actually fix that error as its a pretty rudimentary one to make!  Although Cohen may have been taking that figure from the time of the film's release in the United States on 19 August 1973 because the film was released first in China on 26 July 1973.  But having said that, Bruce Lee died on 20 July 1973 and the film was released in the United States on 19 August 1973, which was nearly a month later, so Cohen is still a week out on this one!

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, nearly 30 years on is a very engaging and enjoyable biopic film, which features two strong performances by its lead actors in Jason Scott-Lee and Lauren Holly, as they are both great together as Bruce and Linda Lee.  And even though Jason Scott-Lee doesn't really physically resemble, Bruce Lee that much, once he steps on camera, he really does capture Lee's charisma and presence and despite having never trained in martial arts prior to the film, Scott-Lee does a great job with the film's fight scenes.  The film also features plenty of great fight scenes, a charming score by Randy Edelman as well as solid direction by Rob Cohen.

And yes OK it does have its problems and takes quite a few liberties with the facts of Bruce Lee's life but you always have to expect some sort of dramatic licence in a Hollywood film.  But if you can overlook all this, then there is still much to enjoy and admire in the film and 29 years on, its still well worth taking a look at and it remains one of the most enjoyable biopic films out there.

So, I will rate it:

8.5 out of 10 

So, that's it for now and I will return at some point with another post.

Till then its ciao for now! 

Elden Ring Review Update

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey guys, so for this post I've decided to update my review of the open world RPG game, Elden Ring as I have played it four times now and my opinion of it has changed a bit since then, so figured I would update my thoughts for it. 

So, it will mostly be the same review with some bits added and others edited a little and with that said let's take another look at this game! 

And I will mention just a little bit about the story below so the usual warning is coming...

SPOILERS AHEAD (NOT TOO MANY THOUGH!).

STORY

So, I've quoted the premise of the story taken from Wikipedia's website.

"Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, sometime after the destruction of the titular Elden Ring and the scattering of its shards, the Great Runes. Once graced by the Ring and the Erdtree which symbolizes its presence, the realm is now ruled over by the demigod offspring of Queen Marika the Eternal, each possessing a shard of the Ring that corrupts and taints them with power. As Tarnished — exiles from the Lands Between who lost the Ring's grace and are summoned back after the Shattering — players must traverse the realm to ultimately find all the Great Runes, restore the Elden Ring, and become the Elden Lord...".

THOUGHTS 

Well Elden Ring so far as I already mentioned has received universal acclaim for reviewers giving it perfect 10 out of 10 scores, calling it a masterpiece of gaming but what do I think? Is it a masterpiece? Well after four playthroughs, I think I can still say that it is not a masterpiece but I still really like the game all the same but it doesn't quite reach the heights of Fromsoft games such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

And four playthroughs in has allowed me to explore a lot of the open world, try out different side quests with NPCs and above all else try various different bosses (or re-skin bosses if you like!). So, I still think it is an excellent game and the open world exploration can provide some enjoyment and the horse riding adds a welcome new mechanic to the Souls formula to cover terrain quickly. The game also offers some other nice improvements which I will mention in a bit. 

But for the, the game still isn't quite a masterpiece for reasons I will get more into in the flaws section. Elden Ring however does get a lot of things right even if it still gets quite a few wrong.

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay there is a lot to cover in terms of the gameplay given the new mechanics here in play and the open world style, so I will split this section into sub-sections as usual below.

HORSE RIDING 

And I will start with look at the game's most notable and newest mechanic, which is the horse riding as your playable character, the Tarnished, can ride a horse throughout what is known as the lands between and there is a vast world to explore here, so being on horseback is an excellent way to see it. There are however times where you have disembark your horse because you may enter enclosed areas such as caves or castle entrances or in other cases when you are about to face an in-game invader. 

As for the horse itself, it is called Torrent and they can be summoned by the use of a whistle and when the Tarnished gets off the horse, it will disappear and can be brought back again via the whistle. Torrent however can taken damage from enemies, so you have to be careful and pay attention to their health bar because once it reaches zero, you will be knocked off the horse. You can however replenish Torrent's health via the use of seeds that you can feed to her and its best to keep an eye on that during combat and if her health drops to zero then you need to use one of your healing flasks to revive her.

COMBAT 

In terms of the combat, Elden Ring adopts much the same combat style as the previous Dark Souls games although more specifically its very similar to the combat of Dark Souls III. So, here again you can perform regular and strong attacks, which vary weapon to weapon, parry enemies by knocking their shield aside with your own shield to follow it up with a powerful counterattack as well as backstab enemies. Another new feature of the combat here is the inclusion of a guard counter, where if you block an enemy attack with your shield you will launch a counterattack that can deal a lot of damage also, which can lead to a further critical attack if it staggers them. 

WEAPONS

As for the weapons, the game has a vast array of weapons available that range from melee weapons to magical weapons such as staffs or seals (previously talismans in the Souls games) that can cast sorcery spells and miracles respectively. As for melee weapons there is everything you can imagine here such as straight swords, katanas, axes, clubs, hammers, maces, daggers, halberds and of course large swords and what are now known as colossal swords (formerly known as ultra great swords in Souls games). These weapons generally can be upgraded via materials that you find throughout game to increase their power and attack.

UPGRADES FOR WEAPONS AND ARMOUR

Moving onto upgrading weapons as before in the previous games, a blacksmith can upgrade your weapons at the game's central hub, which is known as Roundtable Hold, which I will say more about in the next paragraph section. As for the materials you need they are generally called smithing stones but they come in different variations and unlike previous games, you can now upgrade your weapon up to +25, which is quite a jump from +10! However getting the higher end materials is not so easy as you cannot get them until much later into the game. You can also however get sombre smithing stones, similar to the idea of twinkling titanite that upgrade specific weapons up to +10 instead of +25 but their damage with comparable maxed out. 

As for your armour, well like in Dark Souls III and Bloodborne, you cannot upgrade your armour sets but what you can do is make cosmetic adjustments to them to improve their appearance, which is a neat feature in itself. It doesn't really add anything specials but its nice option to have if it want to change the look of the outfit you have on.

MAP

And now we get to another new feature of the game, which is the map as the player can now look at the open world via a map to allow them to plan out their routes and were to travel to. However in order to see new areas appear on the map, you need to collect individual maps of these areas and then they will be updated on your display. You can also set markers for points of interest on the map to places you want to find or return to as well as set beacons to try and locate a specific area. Given the incredibly large area of the game itself, the map is definitely a useful feature that is a good help in navigation.

BOSSES AND ENEMIES

Just like the previous Souls games, you will face a large number of standard enemies as well as bosses but this time round there are even more bosses than ever before! In fact I think there are at the latest count on Fextralife about 170 bosses to be found in total in the game which is quite a number! Standard enemies will vary in challenge from the early game areas where they are weaker and do less damage to the later areas where they are very powerful and can in some instances even one-shot you! 

Further to the bosses, there are different types than in previous games that range from mini bosses to bosses that are known as great enemies and lastly the highest type of boss, which is a demi-god and they provide the highest challenge in the game from a boss perspective although only the final boss eclipses that as they are classed as a God. One thing is for sure here is that you will never be short of a challenge in this game from its enemies!

STATS 

Just as before in the Souls games in Elden Ring you have a number of stats that you can level up as you progress through the game and each starting class of character will different stats than others. So, e.g. a warrior may have higher strength but lower intelligence whereas a sorcerer will have higher intelligence but lower strength. 

So, the stats are very similar to before as you have Vigor (for your health), Endurance (equipment load), a new stat called Mind, which affects your ability to store spells and perform specific weapon arts, Intelligence, which will determine the power of sorceries and dexterity, which determines the skill level you have for handling specific weapons such as katanas or spears. Another new stat here is Arcane, which determines your item discoverability which was also used in Bloodborne for the same reason (well that and magic power) and increase the defense of certain weapons such as holy ones.

NPCS & QUESTLINES

Another key feature of the game are its NPCs (non-playable characters) who can interact with you throughout the game and to a certain extent most of them will have questlines that you can follow that will lead to you getting special items. Some NPCs can also help you during boss fights although you tend find their effectiveness in these fights can be a mixed bag. 

MERCHANTS 

And then we have the merchants and there are plenty to be found in this game and throughout the lands between (as they call it in the game) and they all sell different items. As for the items they sell, you usually get at least one melee weapon and a set of armour as well as arrows or bolts. In addition to this they often will sell what are known as cookbooks that let you craft specific items and I will mention more about that below. You can also sell things to the merchants as well in order to earn a few extra runes although you tend not to get much for them however. 

ITEM CRAFTING

Another new feature of the game is item crafting in which you can craft specific items such as arrows or bolts as well as weapon buffs such as fire, magic, poison and lightning. The item crafting can usually be obtained by picking up various herbs throughout the game or killing specific creatures such as birds, beasts or large flies. You can also pick items known as cracked pots that can be used to create bombs of different types such fire, magic, holy damage. 

There are even items that can restore you horse, Torrent's health (Rowa seeds I think) that come in different varieties of effectiveness with ones that can restore more of Torrent's HP. Other items you can craft also include boluses, which are healing items that cure different ailments and status effects such as poison, scarlet, rot, madness (similar to frenzy in Bloodborne), bleed and death blight (similar to curse in Dark Souls). 

So, there is no shortage of stuff to craft in this game for sure! 

SPIRIT ASHES

Another new feature of the game relating to combat are the spirit ashes as your character can summon the help of spirits into boss fights also as well to help clear out hostile areas. The spirit ashes can be found throughout the game and there are various ones to pick up but you have to travel quite far to try and find some of them and they can range from being pretty useless in combat to being pretty good. 

The ashes can also be upgraded in terms of their strength and health via the use of what is known as spirit tuning, which is carried out by the NPC, Roderika at the Roundtable hold. Roderika however needs specific items known as ghost or grave glovewort to upgrade your ashes with the former upgrading ashes such as the wolves to +5 and the latter being able to upgrade stronger ashes such as the Mimic Tear to +10.

ASHES OF WAR

And this brings me onto the ashes of war, which are specific weapon arts that you can pick up throughout the world and can be added to your weapons to enhance their attacks. The ashes of war provide boosts for physical attacks or even for magical attacks although not all weapons can use the same ashes and can vary.

There are many different ashes of war to be found throughout and quite a few of them are discovered through defeating enemies or killing teardrop scarabs in certain places. As mentioned, the ashes have different effects and can boost the stats of your weapon in different ways by giving e.g. magic or faith abilities or even be able to have scaling effects on your weapon's strength and dexterity. The ashes can also provide other types of damage too such as bleed, poison, occult or frost and you can select from a variety of these types in the game's menu.    

HEALTH AND HEALING FLASKS

As for your health it can be restored via the use of healing flasks that are known as the Flask of Crimson Tears which is used for restoring your health whereas the Flask of Cerulean Tears is used to restore your focus power for magic or weapon arts. You can also charges to the flask to boost their healing effects that are known as sacred tears whereas golden seeds can be collected to increase the amount of usages of your flask however as it goes on you need more than several seeds to increase your flask usage by one level to another, e.g. as it starts with just one seed by the time you max out your crimson tears flask, you need five golden seeds to do it.  

GRACE SITES

Next are the grace sites, which are what was previously known as bonfires in the Souls games and are basically your resting spots where you can replenish your health and reset the enemies in that specific area to respawn after being killed. You can also perform other tasks at the grace sites such as leveling up your character's stats, upgrading your healing flask as well allocate how many flasks you will use for health and magic power.          

RUNE ARCS AND GREAT RUNES 

And last of all I will mention rune arcs and great runes, as they both have similar functions but they work together essentially to boost your stats in different ways.

Rune arcs are basically items that when used on their own will give you a slight HP boost to your health which is useful in itself but its not the best to use them. The best way is to acquire great runes, which can only be acquired after defeating the demi-god bosses of the game and they also need to be activated at specific locations, which are usually divine towers found in different areas of the game. 

So, if you have a great rune equipped e.g. the boss, Godrick the grafted's one, then you it will give your stats a 5 point boost across the board, which is very useful and will also allow you to use specific weapons or spells that you couldn't probably before thanks to the boost it provides. The other great runes have different abilities also, which can prove more useful than others but I'd definitely say its worth equipping one of them just to boost your stats.

GRAPHICS 

Moving onto the game's graphics there is little doubt that Elden Ring is Formsoftware's most visually stunning game to date as the visuals are superb and the game's environments are rich and detailed from the verdant grass and open vistas to the darkened catacombs. The game also makes great use of starry backdrops in certain areas that look jaw dropping visually and specifically one area of the game that is called Siofra River  is one of the best looking areas of the game for me personally. 

The character models are also a big improvement over previous Souls games as the character's faces are more detailed than before although some enemies still look a bit weird and off by comparison but for the most they are good. I also noticed that the dialogue still doesn't lip-sync very well as they must have been using Japanese mouthing for them (if that makes any sense!). 

So, overall Elden Ring is a visual treat for the eyes. 

MUSIC

As for the game's music score it was composed by not one but five composers this time round, which is not so surprising given the size and scope of the game and the composers feature regular Souls composer, Yuka Kitamura and also Tsukasa Saito who has also previously worked on these games too with Saito providing the excellent title theme for the game itself.

And the score itself is generally excellent with some pretty good boss themes to be found throughout with some of the standout themes for me being Dragonlord Placidusax, Radagon, Godrick the Grafted and Starscourge Radahn, And unlike previous Souls games there is generally not an area in the game to be found where music is not used and there are a few tracks used in the game for certain areas that among my favs in the soundtrack too such as Liurnia of the Lakes, Volcano Manor and my favourite, the Altus Plateau.

Overall it is a very strong collaborative effort from the composers involved and its a fine score for the game that does not disappoint. 

FLAWS 

(Warning: this section may contain spoilers and these are just my personal opinions) 

So, after four playthroughs has Elden Ring changed any for me and is now perfect or does it have any flaws??? Well, yeah it still does have some flaws worth mentioning.

And to start off I think one of the main problems I had with this game is that they created too many bosses that are extremely overpowered and can destroy you in two hits or even in a one shot. Now, we have seen this sort of thing before in previous Souls games but here, the concept of one-shots is abused to the nth degree! And towards the end of the game there are nothing but insanely OP bosses that can one-shot you before you can even get a hit in and just makes the game feel really one-sided and unfair even for a Fromsoft game! 

UPDATE: Now to be fair, this has been something that has been updated since and I think the damage output of certain bosses has been adjusted someone since in patch updates for the game, so while some bosses remain pretty OP, on subsequent runs, they mostly aren't too bad as I initially thought. 

And this problem doesn't just stop with the bosses, it also is the case with standard enemies as I was regularly one-shot by a few enemies such as bleed dogs that appeared in the area of the game called Caelid (a fairly late game area) and one of them did a pounce attack on me and insta killed me with it! It was also the same with another enemy, a large bat that had a nasty attack that could one shot you and there was another enemy that nearly one-shotted me who did a grab and bite attack but I barely survived it with just enough HP at the time!  And I just think its not right to have standard enemies, particularly small dogs that can obliterate your health bar and highlights some real issues with the game's difficulty. This however might also have been patched in terms of damage output since then.

Another problem I have is to do with the repetitive boss design in this game as there are a handful of unique and well designed bosses such as Margit the Fell Omen, Godrick, the Grafted, Rennala, Queen of the New Moon, Starscourge Radahn and Melania, Blade of Miquella. 

However, I have to say that I felt the boss design this time around has gotten a bit lazy at times were they just recycled the same bosses over and over in different areas of the game such as the Godskin duo, who are one of the most annoying bosses in the game and based on previous versions of the Godskin bosses! So, there really was a cut and paste feel to the bosses here and with a total of 170 or so in the entire game, you can imagine it would hard to craft a classic for each one.

There are also one or two bosses that really annoyed me that they were made as mandatory bosses you HAD to fight to progress the game, well if I'm being there is just one specific boss that really angered me in this regard (well yeah OK two if you include the Godskin Duo!). And the boss in question is the Fire Giant, who is a mandatory boss you need to kill to progress the game and of course he can destroy you in one or two hits with his attacks but he designed is just so incredibly dull and boring! The guy lumbers around and moves about the pace of 2 miles per hour at best for most of the fight, which makes it exceedingly dull to deal with. 

And this leads to another problem with the difficulty level of the first main boss of the game, Margit, who for a first big boss is very tough indeed and if you are under leveled then you are going to be in for a rough time as he has a lot of powerful attacks. So, I'd personally recommend exploring the world and leveling up your character's stats and weapon as much as you can before fighting him but I just think that the first boss of the game shouldn't be this hard and again this highlights my issues with this game's difficulty. 

You could argue that Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne was a pretty tough first boss but Margit is definitely on another level in comparison and the game is forcing you in a way to explore the world first before taking him on. In subsequent runs, I did explore the world first and leveled up more before fighting Margit and that made a big difference and was able to beat him first go since then!   

I also felt that this game in some ways was trying outdo Dark Souls II for trolling players with excessive amounts of enemies in different areas and of course most of them are very powerful and destroy you in a couple of hits! Even though I do admit Dark Souls II was guilty of throwing an excessive amount of enemies at players at times, Elden Ring is just as if not even more so guilty of this as well! 

And there were quite a few areas in the late game where I really started to feel like I wasn't enjoying the game as much anymore because the areas were so infested with tough enemies it made it feel pointless to play although that was more on the first run than on my later ones. However there is one area in the game I will try and avoid like the plague for future runs, which the Haligtree, which IS the most annoying, trolly place in the entire game filled with unprecedented levels of BS that even Dark Souls II would struggle to contend with! 

Another thing is of course to do with the whole open world structure, which can be fun to explore at times the different areas of the game and you are free to go from one area to another if you want to see somewhere else. However, this structure does have its own problems and particularly as you are trying to find specific items or areas, you can spend ALOT of time riding around trying to find them! You can of course use Youtube videos to help you find these spots and I quite often did that myself because if you didn't you would be totally lost in this game for sure! So, the exploration really is a bit of a mixed bag here. 

And this brings me onto one of the biggest issues I have with the game, which is its map system where if you are riding nearby enemies, the game will NOT let you open up the map to have a look at it, you have to wait until you out of their line of sight or further afield. However, you could actually STILL not be within aggro range of enemies and still not be able to open you map and I often found myself frantically hitting the map button to open it up to no avail. So, the map issues are definitely quite frustrating for sure and I just wish they would let you open it up regardless of your proximity to enemies. In fact this is something they should have patched long before now imho! 

I also felt the game was guilty on various occasions of punishing the player by denying them the use of the ash summons in certain areas of the game where you could really benefit their help. As an example, I summoned one of the ashes, Oleg (a pretty good summon too!) to help clear out an area in the game, Raya Lucaria Academy out in a courtyard but at a certain point he just vanished just as I wanted him to help me! So, I was left to try and take out the enemies myself, which ate into my healing flasks supply rather than get an extra bit of help! Dark Souls II did have a similar mechanic with summons helping you and only staying for a certain time but at least it let you know that when they disappear but Elden Ring doesn't!

Some of the late game areas can be very frustrating also particularly as I mentioned the Haligtree (f*** that place lol!) and another example was Castle Sol. And this area of the game is filled with for me, the most annoying enemy in the game, the banished knights that use dual great swords and can teleport in front or behind you and can destroy you almost immediately in the process! And I barely had any time to react and in the end, its the constant cheap deaths to these guys is one of the things that is really tiresome in this game. 

This brings me onto another annoying issue with the game, which is how you are force to dismount your horse when an NPC invader is about to spawn in making it more difficult for you to flee the scene if you want to leave on horseback. So, you are forced to either run far away enough from them to return to their world or just face off them and of course the more the game goes on the tougher they are!

Another problem is to do with the whole spirit ash summon system is that the game at times relies heavily on the use of the tactics to help you fight really hard bosses and when they work well, they can trivialize these fights but by doing that, it sucks the challenge out of the game. And I think that Fromsoft really should have tried harder with Elden Ring to balance out the boss difficulty levels rather than make them super tough and force you to resort to skills or summons to defeat them and for me I just think they've kind of lost their way with this game in that respect. To be fair though, on subsequent runs of the game, these bosses do get a bit easier with time and you just have to learn the moveset or look up their weaknesses.

And last of all, a really big problem with the game is purely to do with its own endgame as it frankly just isn't much towards the end as the frustration levels grow as you reach it. And I would say from the Mountaintop of the giants area onward to the end of the game, its not that enjoyable as an experience and instead we get some annoyingly OP enemies and infuriating bosses like the Fire Giant (who I detest!) the Godskin Duo and Maliketh both of which are in the one of the most boring areas that is Crumbling Farum Azula. 

As for the dynamic duo finale boss, well don't get me started! Radagon and the Elden Beast are one of the most frustrating and deeply annoying boss finales I have ever seen in any game never a mind a Fromsoft one. Radagon is a real pain in the ass as he gives you no time to breath with his constant hammer attacks, AoE's and holy lightning spears and he serves nothing more than to drain your healing flasks before you get to the shit show that is the final boss, the Elden Beast. The Elden Beast however on his own wouldn't be so bad although the most annoying thing is how he keeps swimming away from you as you fight him while dialing in some powerful holy attacks and clobbering you with his sacred relic greatsword. So, it really does make for a very unenjoyable finale that does threaten to break the game you have been going 80-85% of up to this point, which is a great pity.   

And that's it for the flaws!

SUM UP

So, to sum up Elden Ring remains an excellent open world RPG and its open world design is very impressive and it is easily From's best looking game to date with some stunning visuals and much improved character models for your playable characters. The game also has its share of varied combat with a plethora of weapons and spells available at players disposals and it naturally has its share of challenging enemies and bosses. The game also features an excellent soundtrack headlined by Yuka Kitamura, who worked on the previous Souls games and overall this is almost as strong as the previous scores before it. 

Of course the game is not perfect and has its issues with its mixed levels of difficulty and its boss design despite some very well done main game bosses, is very repetitive as it often recycles the same bosses over and over in different areas of the game. The map system for most part works OK but there are annoying moments where you can't always open it in fairly close proximity of enemies. The game itself also drags on a bit too long and would have benefited from being a good bit shorter with some areas that could easily have been dropped to trim its runtime especially the Mountaintop of the giants and Crumling Farum Azula being both pretty tedious to work through (although MOTG is the less boring of the two to be fair).

So, for me, my opinion on Elden ring has certainly improved a bit more on later playthroughs but its still not quite a 10 out of 10. But if you liked the previous Souls games there is still a lot to enjoy here, however just be prepared to put in the hours and suffer if you want to complete it! 

So, I will rate Elden Ring:

9 out of 10 

Right, that's it for now and I will be back soon with another review of sorts. 

Until then its bye for now!

Top 10 Annoying Elden Ring Enemies - Part 2 - No's 5-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, its time for part two of my look at the most annoying enemies in Elden Ring, which I am currently on my 3rd playthrough of the game already! And there are plenty of annoying enemies to look at, so let's look at the ones that made it into the top 5.

5. Abductor Virgins

So, at No.5 is this rather weirdly named enemy, the Abductor virgins, who you might not put a name to the face but when you see them (if you have played the game) you KNOW who they are! 

Yep, the abductors, who are basically big mechanical devices, can be a huge pain in the ass simply because their size and mobility makes them dangerous and difficult to dodge as they have large bladed wheels that do a lot of damage as they speed towards you. There are other variants of the abductors too that have swinging sickles, which they throw out and have quite a lot of range that can hit from quite a far distance. 

And not only that but the abductors have another trick up their sleeve where if you get too close to them the central part of their iron frame opens out a several hands jump out and grab you, pulling you in to do some real damage to your hp before throwing you out again. And if you are really unlucky the hands can grab you again and again until you are dead. However there is one instance where this is handy as one abductor will take you to Volcano manor after you've been "abducted" by the hands. 

However that aside, the abductor virgins are very annoying especially given their range of attacks and their annoying creepy hand grabs and that is more than enough to put them in the top 5. 

4. Ancestral Followers (archers)

So, at No.4 are the ancestral followers and particularly its the archers, who are the real culprits here that can be found in the area of Siofra river.

And what is so annoying about them is of course how they can hit you with ease when you are riding on horseback, which means they can knock you off Torrent (i.e. the horse) leaving you to either revive Torrent with a flask to summon her again. And its also really annoying to see your character also get knocked down and have a huge arrow sticking out their back as it just looks daft (sometimes you can even get three arrows in you!). 

There are also spirit versions of the followers as well as regular ones but they are both really annoying regardless. They can also be found in certain parts of Liurnia of the lakes where they are in normal body form but not sure how their damage compares to the other ones.

Other than that not too much to say about these guys, only that their arrow knockdowns are very annoying to deal with and that is more than enough reason to go on the list here.

3. Revenants 

And in the 3rd place are these deeply annoying enemies, the revenants, who are basically a monstrous amalgamated mix of limbs kind of like Godrick the Grafted except a bit smaller but far more irritating to deal with as they can be found in quite a few areas.

As to why they are so annoying, well its simply as they are so aggressive and they can teleport all over the place. Not only that but the revenants have very annoying flailing attacks they have the potential to wipe out your hp if they fully connect (unless you have 99 vigor or something near it!). Also give their speed and aggression, it also makes it difficult to take them on in proper hand to (multiple) hand combat. 

Thankfully however, the revenants are very weak to holy damage, so if you have any healing miracles then you can blast them with one and it will damage their hp quite heftily and if you do it twice it should be enough to kill them off. 

So, for me the revenants are without a single doubt worth putting on the list as their combo of high aggression and quick attacks make them one of the most infuriating enemies in Elden Ring.

2. Lesser Kindred of Rot 

So, in the runner-up spot are the Lesser Kindred of Rot, who are unquestionably a big pain in the ass to deal with throughout the game. These insectoid creatures have many arms and typically carry a glaive that can deal some decent damage. 

However what also makes the Lesser kindred of rot so annoying is their sticky thread attacks, which can home in on enemies and also does quite a bit of damage and as they can spam it with great ease, there is every chance you will die before you know it. Combine this with their fast speed and you have the perfect recipe for a truly annoying enemy you could do without. 

The lesser kindred of rot are usually found in various tunnels throughout the game but can also be found in some main parts of the game such as the Caelid regions and the Lake of Rot. I will also never forgot my first encounter with one of them as I entered Sellia crystal tunnel via a trap treasure chest and was almost immediately obliterated by their sticky threads attack. 

So. there is little doubt that the Lesser Kindred of Rot deserve their place on here and rightfully deserve the runner-up spot.

And the most annoying enemy in Elden Ring is...

1. Banished Knights 

Yep at No.1, the winner are the banished knights, which can be found in Sol Castle and also I believe in some Catacomb areas of the game (at least I think so!). 

Yep these guys must easily rank as one of the MOST annoying enemies to have ever featured in a Souls game and you can read on to find out just why I think that is!

So, why are they so annoying??? Well, for me its because they have the ability to just teleport around you with great ease and they also have some very powerful sword combos that just wipe you out completely. There are a couple of variants of these enemies also as some carry a single great sword whereas there are others that wield dual greatswords, who are infinitely more annoying to deal with given they can do twice the damage and wombo combo you into non existence without any time to deal with their bulls*** at al! 

I also found it incredibly hard how to even stay in a combat situation with them without dying even once but one way I think is best to deal with them is to counter their attacks with a great shield that will allow to perform a strong counter-attack that will damage them and just rinse and repeat. However, this is easier said than done given that the Sol Castle variants have frostbite inducing whirlwind combos that just turn out your lights quick as a flash, so I'd probably recommend a beefy shield and also getting your endurance up pretty to stand a chance of surviving these deeply annoying a-hole knights.

And of course not only that as I said the ones in Sol Castle can even teleport around you, so one minute you think they are in front of you, they suddenly appear from behind! In fact I tried to luring one toward me with throwing daggers from up a ladder but they just again teleported up above me and did their usual destruction of my health bar! 

However if there is one good thing I can at least say about them it is that you can get one as a good ash summons to help you out in combat known as Banished Knight Oleg and its good to have one of them on your side for once!

So, for me the banished knights with their absurdly damaging combos and their ability to teleport around you, make them easily for me the most annoying enemy in Elden Ring.

So, that's it for now and I will be back hopefully a bit sooner next time with another post.

Until then its bye for now! 

Top 10 Annoying Elden Ring Enemies - Part 1 - No's 10-6

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, its been quite a long time since my last post on here mainly because I have been obsessed with playing Elden Ring, which is an all consuming game time wise!

However since I have been playing the game so much, I figured why not do another top 10 list based on the most annoying enemies in Elden Ring and believe there are plenty of them to be found, so its been tough to try and narrow it down. So, I will split the list into two parts as I usually do with these top 10 lists to avoid the post being too long. 

So, with that out the way, let's take a look at these annoying enemies from Elden Ring...

10. Misbegotten 

So, at No.10 are the Misbegotten, who are somewhat creepy looking humanoid enemies with wings on their back although some of them can fly whereas others don't but either way they are a real pain to deal with, especially earlier on in the game if you are not leveled up.

And one of the main reasons these guys are annoying is that they can gank you pretty easily if you get overwhelmed by them and there are a ton of them to be found in Morne castle. You also get different variants some of which carry cleavers whereas the stronger variety carry large axes that deal quite a bit of damage. Not to mention there are the ones that fly who will shoot you full of crossbow bolts, which is an infuriating pain in the ass to deal with when you want to escape them. 

So, for me the Misbegotten are annoying in their different forms and they are plentiful to be found and that is reason enough for me to put them on the list.

9. Warhawks 

Next are the warhawks (pictured above!) who are basically birds that for some unknown reason have swords attached to their claws and with the swords, they can do a lot of damage to you for sure!

And the Warhawks come again in different variants such as the Stormhawks in Stormveil castle, who have the attached swords and they can also pick up explosive barrels to throw at you too! Then there are the other warhawks that can fire pyro spells at you, which is pretty dangerous if you get caught in it.. The warhawks can also be found later in the game in areas such as the Crumbling Farum Azula where they will deal greater damage than earlier on.

So, basically these birds are pretty annoying in how they can quickly attack you and if you are caught by them in numbers, then are in big trouble basically as its hard to fight them off. So, with that said, I think the Warhawks definitely deserve to be on the list. 

8. Bleed dogs

So, next we have the bleed dogs, which can be found in places such as Caelid and Altus Plateau and boy these guys really hurt! 

So, basically the bleed dogs look pretty much like very average rabid dog with the bloody wounds over them, however unlike their other counterparts, the bleed dogs have one almighty advantage in that they can pull off a devastating bleed damage attack that can literally one-shot, depending on what size your HP bar is (although you might be survive it better with a larger HP). 

And I find it quite ridiculous how a small enemy such as a dog has the ability to one-shot players in a game and frankly it just isn't right either that it should be the case! I mean there are bigger enemies in the game that don't even on-shot but these guys certainly do that's for sure again depending on the size of your health. 

So, for the one-shot reason alone, I think the bleed dogs definitely deserve to be on the list because there is no way one doggo should do THAT much damage!

7. Fanged imps

So, next up are the fanged imps, who are often found in the catacombs throughout the game and by God they are so annoying to deal with as they hide in the shadows and can ambush you from above or behind.

And what is so annoying about them is they are basically just a reskinned version of one of the most irritating enemies in Dark Souls III, the Thrals, who wore hoods and had the exact same move set and attacks as these guys have! And it is so easy to roam through a catacomb and get ambushed by these little buggers time and time again and there are even areas in the game where you cannot attack them unless they appear in the light! 

They also happen to deal some hefty bleed damage with what I am guessing are daggers of some sort although I think some of them have what is called a forked greatsword, which again just so happens to deal bleed damage. Yeah, I think Fromsoft went a bit over the top this time with the bleed damage aspect of the game! 

And for me fanged imps definitely belong on here simply because they are re-skinned version of the thrals in DS3 and another enemy we could do without. 

6. Albinaurics

So, to close off part 1 of the list are these deeply annoying guys, the Albinaurics, which I had to look up on Fextralife as I wasn't sure what they were and it appears theses are the enemies but the thing is they look quite different from your usual Alby (who typically look more like Slitheen from Doctor Who!). No, these guys instead look like their heads have been turned inside out!  

So, if you have played the game then you will likely find this variant of the albinaurics in a few locations, first off in the Volcano Manor area, then Leyndell Capital and later on in Castle Sol. And basically they quickly scamper around on their hands and knees and try to grab and bite you but in doing so they can take a massive chunk off your health bar! The albinaurics however in Volcano Manor don't quite damage you as much as the ones in Sol Castle do because the ones there nearly wipe out your entire HP depending on how much of it you have! Thankfully however there aren't so many of them!

Thankfully these albinauric variants can only be found in the mentioned areas (although they could be elsewhere too!) and the fact they don't even have an official name (that I know of!) makes them all the more annoying also! 

So, with that these bitey crawling Albinuarics definitely deserve their spot on the list here at No.6. 

Right, so that's it for Part 1 and I will be back soon with Part 2.

Until then, bye for now! 

 

     

Elden Ring Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right so its time for a new review and this one is of a new video game that has recently come out that I was keen to try out as it Elden Ring, which is by Fromsoftware i.e. the team who developed Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro. 

And this game takes a more open world approach to things as it is basically a progression of the Souls series itself with very similar combat only this time you can ride a horse to explore its vast open envrionment. And so far this game has also been getting some incredible reviews as just about every game reviewer has awarded it a 10 out of 10. 

So, with that all said is Elden Ring worthy of the praise and its perfect score? Well, let's find out!

And I will mention just a little bit about the story below so the usual warning is coming...

SPOILERS AHEAD (NOT TOO MANY THOUGH!).

STORY

So, I've quoted the premise of the story taken from Wikipedia's website.

"Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, sometime after the destruction of the titular Elden Ring and the scattering of its shards, the Great Runes. Once graced by the Ring and the Erdtree which symbolizes its presence, the realm is now ruled over by the demigod offspring of Queen Marika the Eternal, each possessing a shard of the Ring that corrupts and taints them with power. As Tarnished — exiles from the Lands Between who lost the Ring's grace and are summoned back after the Shattering — players must traverse the realm to ultimately find all the Great Runes, restore the Elden Ring, and become the Elden Lord...".

THOUGHTS 

Well Elden Ring so far as I already mentioned has received univeral acclaim for reviewers giving it perfect 10 out of 10 scores, calling it a masterpiece of gaming but what do I think? Is it a masterpiece? Well at the risk of sounding very unpopular in short no. In fact I would say for me personally, dare I say it, this is perhaps Fromsoft's weakest Souls games to date (but that's just me, if you disagree that's fine!). 

However before anyone reading this gets mad, its far from a bad game, in fact I think it is an excellent game for the most part and the open world exploration can provide some enjoyment and the horse riding adds a welcome new mechanic to the Souls formula to cover terrain quickly. The game also offers some other nice improvements which I will mention in a bit. 

But, I also have to say that the game suffers from Fromsoft's insistence in trying to consistently top the difficulty of what they've done before in the past and its the game's difficulty level that ramps up drastically as it goes on that makes it suffer and prevent it from being a potential masterpiece. It does get a lot of things right but it also gets quite a few things wrong in the process and that's where it falls down for me (but more on that later!).

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay there is a lot to cover in terms of the gameplay given the new mechanics here in play and the open world style, so I will split this section into sub-sections as usual below.

HORSE RIDING 

And I will start with look at the game's most notable and newest mechanic, which is the horse riding as your playable character, the Tarnished, can ride a horse throughout what is known as the lands between and there is a vast world to explore here, so being on horseback is an excellent way to see it. There are however times where you have disembark your horse because you may enter enclosed areas such as caves or castle entrances or in other cases when you are about to face an in-game invader. 

As for the horse itself, it is called Torrent and they can be summoned by the use of a whistle and when the Tarnished gets off the horse, it will disappear and can be brought back again via the whistle. Torrent however can taken damage from enemies, so you have to be careful and pay attention to their health bar because once it reaches zero, you will be knocked off the horse. You can however replenish Torrent's health via the use of seeds that you can feed to her and its best to keep an eye on that during combat and if her health drops to zero then you need to use one of your healing flasks to revive her.

COMBAT 

In terms of the combat, Elden Ring adopts much the same combat style as the previous Dark Souls games although more specifically its very similar to the combat of Dark Souls III. So, here again you can perform regular and strong attacks, which vary weapon to weapon, parry enemies by knocking their shield aside with your own shield to follow it up with a powerful counterattack as well as backstab enemies. Another new feature of the combat here is the inclusion of a guard counter, where if you block an enemy attack with your shield you will launch a counterattack that can deal alot of damage also. 

WEAPONS

As for the weapons, the game has a vast array of weapons available that range from melee weapons to magical weapons such as staffs or seals (previously talismans in the Souls games) that can cast sorcery spells and miracles respectively. As for melee weapons there is everything you can imagine here such as straight swords, katanas, axes, clubs, hammers, maces, daggers, halberds and of course large swords and what are now known as colossal swords (formerly known as ultra great swords in Souls games). These weapons generally can be upgraded via materials that you find throughout game to increase their power and attack.

UPGRADES FOR WEAPONS AND ARMOUR

Moving onto upgrading weapons as before in the previous games, a blacksmith can upgrade your weapons at the game's central hub, which is known as Roundtable Hold, which I will say more about in the next paragraph section. As for the materials you need they are generally called Smithing stones but they come in different variations and unlike previous games, you can now upgrade your weapon up to +25, which is quite a jump from +10! However getting the higher end materials is not so easy as you cannot get them until much later into the game.

As for your armour, well like in Dark Souls III and Bloodborne, you cannot upgrade your armour sets but what you can do is make cosmetic adjustments to them to improve their appearance, which is a neat feature in itself. It doesn't really add anything specials but its nice option to have if it want to change the look of the outfit you have on.

MAP

And now we get to another new feature of the game, which is the map as the player can now look at the open world via a map to allow them to plan out their routes and were to travel to. However in order to see new areas appear on the map, you need to collect individual maps of these areas and then they will be updated on your display. You can also set markers for points of interest on the map to places you want to find or return to as well as set beacons to try and locate a specific area. Given the incredibly large area of the game itself, the map is definitely a useful feature that is a good help in navigation.

BOSSES AND ENEMIES

Just like the previous Souls games, you will face a large number of standard enemies as well as bosses but this time round there are even more bosses than ever before! In fact I think there are 83 bosses to be found in total in the game which is quite a number! Standard enemies will vary in challenge from the early game areas where they are weaker and do less damage to the later areas where they are very powerful and can in some instances even one-shot you! 

Further to the bosses, there are different types than in previous games that range from mini bosses to bosses that are known as great enemies and lastly the highest type of boss, which is a demi-god and they provide the highest challenge in the game from a boss perspective. One thing is for sure here is that you will never be short of a challenge in this game from its enemies!

STATS 

Just as before in the Souls games in Elden Ring you have a number of stats that you can level up as you progress through the game and each starting class of character will different stats than others. So, e.g. a warrior may have higher strength but lower intelligence whereas a sorcerer will have higher intelligence but lower strength. 

So, the stats are very similar to before as you have Vigor (for your health), Endurance (equipment load), a new stat called Mind, which affects your ability to store spells and perform specific weapon arts, Intelligence, which will determine the power of sorceries and dexterity, which determines the skill level you have for handling specific weapons such as katanas or spears. Another new stat here is Arcane, which determines your item discoverability which was also used in Bloodborne for the same reason (well that and magic power).

NPCS & QUESTLINES

Another key feature of the game are its NPCs (non-playable characters) who can interact with you throughout the game and to a certain extent most of them will have questlines that you can follow that will lead to you getting special items. Some NPCs can also help you during boss fights although you tend find their effectiveness in these fights can be a mixed bag. 

MERCHANTS 

And then we have the merchants and there are plenty to be found in this game and throughout the lands between (as they call it in the game) and they all sell different items. As for the items they sell, you usually get at least one melee weapon and a set of armour as well as arrows or bolts. In addition to this they often will sell what are known as cookbooks that let you craft specific items and I will mention more about that below. You can also sell things to the merchants as well in order to earn a few extra runes although you tend not to get much for them however. 

ITEM CRAFTING

Another new feature of the game is item crafting in which you can craft specific items such as arrows or bolts as well as weapon buffs such as fire, magic, poison and lightning. The item crafting can usually be obtained by picking up various herbs throughout the game or killing specific creatures such as birds, beasts or large flies. You can also pick items known as cracked pots that can be used to create firebombs or if you have right material bombs that contain a holy infused damage. Other items you can craft also include healing items that cure poison or a new effect called scarlet rot as well as madness (similar to frenzy in Bloodborne). So, there is no shortage of stuff to craft in this game for sure! 

SPIRIT ASHES

Another new feature of the game relating to combat are the spirit ashes as your character can summon the help of spirits into boss fights also as well to help clear out hostile areas. The spirit ashes can be found throughout the game and there are various ones to pick up but you have to travel quite far to try and find some of them and they can range from being pretty useless in combat to being pretty good. The ashes can also be upgraded in terms of their strength and health via the use of what is known as spirit tuning and this can be done by finding specific herbs to do so and this can also help out in combat.

ASHES OF WAR

And this brings me onto the ashes of war, which are specific weapon arts that you can pick up throughout the world and can be added to your weapons to enhance their attacks. The ashes of war provide boosts for physical attacks or even for magical attacks although not all weapons can use the same ashes and can vary.   

HEALTH AND HEALING FLASKS

As for your health it can be restored via the use of healing flasks that are known as the Flask of Crimson Tears which is used for restoring your health whereas the Flask of Cerulean Tears is used to restore your focus power for magic or weapon arts. You can also charges to the flask to boost their healing effects that are known as sacred tears whereas golden seeds can be collected to increase the amount of usages of your flask however as it goes on you need more than one seed to increase your flask usage. 

GRACE SITES

And last of all I will mention the grace sites, which are what was previously known as bonfires in the Souls games and are basically your resting spots where you can replenish your health and reset the enemies in that specific area to respawn after being killed. You can also perform other tasks at the grace sites such as leveling up your character's stats, upgrading your healing flask as well allocate how many flasks you will use for health and magic power.          

GRAPHICS 

Moving onto the game's graphics there is little doubt that Elden Ring is Formsoftware's most visually stunning game to date as the visuals are superb and the game's environments are rich and detailed from the verdant grass and open vistas to the darkened catacombs. The game also makes great use of starry backdrops in certain areas that look jaw dropping visually and specifically one area of the game that is called Siofra valley is the best looking area of the game for me personally. Character models are also a big improvement over previous Souls games as the character's faces are more detailed than before although some enemies still look a bit weird and off by comparison but for the most they are good. So, overall Elden Ring is a visual treat for the eyes. 

MUSIC

As for the game's music score it was composed by not one but five composers this time round, which is not so surprising given the size and scope of the game and the composers feature regular Souls composer, Yuka Kitamura and also Tsukasa Saito who has also previously worked on these games too. And the score itself is generally excellent with some pretty good boss themes to be found throughout and there is generally not an area in the game to be found where music is not used although some areas do share the same theme. Overall it is a very strong collaborative effort from the composers involved and its a fine score for the game. 

FLAWS 

(Warning: this section may contain spoilers and this is just my personal opinion) 

So........the big question, is Elden Ring perfect or does it have any flaws???Yep it does I'm afraid but again this is purely my subjective opinion, so if you disagree, that's absolutely fine.

And to start off I think one of the main problems I had with this game is that they created too many bosses that are extremely overpowered and can destroy you in two hits or even in a one shot. Now, we have seen this sort of thing before in previous Souls games but here, the concept of one-shots is abused to the nth degree! And towards the end of the game there are nothing but insanely OP bosses that can one-shot you before you can even get a hit in and just makes the game feel really one-sided and unfair even for a Fromsoft game! 

And this problem doesn't just stop with the bosses, it also is the case with standard enemies as I was regularly one-shotted by a few enemies such as rabid dogs that appeared in the area of the game called Caelid (a fairly late game area) and one of them did a pounce attack on me and insta-killed me with it! It was also the same with another enemy, a large bat that had a nasty attack that could one shot you and there was another enemy that nearly one-shotted me who did a grab and bite attack but I barely survived it with just enough HP at the time!  And I just think its not right to have standard enemies, particularly small dogs that can obliterate your health bar and highlights some real issues with the game's difficulty. 

Another problem I have is to do with boss design in this game as there are a handful of well designed bosses such as Margit the Fell Omen, Godrick, the Grafted and Renala, Queen of the New Moon as well as Starscourge Radahn. However, I have to say that I felt the boss design this time around was largely uninspiring and there were even cases were they just doubled up the same boss and created them as a duo over and over again! So, there really was a cut and paste feel to the bosses here and with a total of 83 in the entire game, you can imagine it would hard to craft a classic for each one. 

Of course I felt very frustrated fighting previous Souls games bosses and even Sekiro but those games had well crafted, memorable boss fights but in Elden Ring that sort of boss is sorely lacking and the really tough ones that are in the game I just don't really feel motivated or care that much to bother fight solo. A prime example of this is a late game boss, the Fire Giant, who is a mandatory boss you need to kill to progress the game and of course he can destroy you in one or two hits with his attacks but he designed is just so incredibly dull and boring! The guy lumbers around and moves about the pace of 2 miles per hour at best for most of the fight, which makes it exceedingly dull to deal with. In fact I am convinced the director, Hidetaka Miyazaki was trying outdo Dark Souls II for slower pace with this boss but even the Last Giant boss in that game moved faster than this! 

And this leads to another problem with the difficulty level of the first main boss of the game, Margit, who for a first big boss is very tough indeed and if you are under leveled then you are going to be in for a rough time as he has a lot of powerful attacks. So, I'd personally recommend exploring the world and leveling up your character's stats and weapon as much as you can before fighting him but I just think that the first boss of the game shouldn't be this hard and again this highlights my issues with this game's difficulty. You could argue that Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne was a pretty tough first boss but Margit is definitely on another level in comparison. 

I also felt that this game in some ways was trying outdo Dark Souls II for trolling players with excessive amounts of enemies in different areas and of course most of them are very powerful and destroy you in a couple of hits! Even though I do admit Dark Souls II was guilty of throwing an excessive amount of enemies at players at times, Elden Ring is just as if not even more so guilty of this as well! And there were quite a few areas in the late game where I really started to feel like I wasn't enjoying the game as much anymore because the areas were so infested with tough enemies it made it feel pointless to play. In fact for me, this could well be Fromsoft's trolliest game to date!

Another thing is of course to do with the whole open world structure, which can be fun to explore at times the different areas of the game and you are free to go from one area to another if you want to see somewhere else. However, this structure does have its own problems and particularly as you are trying to find specific items or areas, you can spend ALOT of time riding around trying to find them! You can of course use Youtube videos to help you find these spots and I quite often did that myself because if you didn't you would be totally lost in this game for sure! So, the exploration really is a bit of a mixed bag here. 

And this brings me onto an issue I have with the game's map system where if you are riding nearby enemies, the game will NOT let you open up the map to have a look at it, you have to wait until you out of their line of sight or further afield. However, you could actually STILL not be within aggro range of enemies and still not be able to open you map and I often found myself frantically hitting the map button to open it up to no avail. So, the map issues are definitely quite frustrating for sure and I just wish they would let you open it up regardless of your proximity to enemies. 

I also felt the game was guilty on various occasions of punishing the player by denying them the use of the ash summons in certain areas of the game where you could really benefit their help. As an example, I summoned one of the ashes, Oleg (a pretty good summon too!) to help clear out an area in the game, Ray Lucaria Academy out in a courtyard but at a certain point he just vanished just as I wanted him to help me! So, I was left to try and take out the enemies myself, which ate into my healing flasks supply rather than get an extra bit of help! Dark Souls II did have a similar mechanic with summons helping you and only staying for a certain time but at least it let you know that when they disappear but Elden Ring doesn't!

Another big problem I have with the game is simply to do with the very high difficulty levels of the late game areas and there were several areas that actually left me feeling really frustrated and a bit demoralised and quite frankly left me feeling like "why am I even playing this?!". I get that late areas in Souls games should be tough but here in Elden Ring, they were frankly taking the piss! 

As an example, in the area of the Mountain tops of the Giants, there is an invader named Okina, that appears that can literally destroy you with a bleed infused katana in two or three hits and there is NOTHING you can do about it! Literally nothing! I could barely dodge in time to avoid him and every time I did try and engage him in combat, he just destroyed me so quickly I couldn't react! Another example was in the Castle Sol area of the game which is filled with banished knights that use dual great swords and can teleport in front or behind you and can destroy you almost immediately in the process! Again, I barely had any time to react and in the end, its the constant death after death to these guys just get's really tiresome. 

So, this sort of thing really left me feely deeply annoyed and frustrated at just how ridiculously OP these enemies were and frankly and made me think why in the hell does your health bar even exist in this game when enemies can just wipe you out so quickly???!! You might as well go in with zero health and you would last just as long or as near as! 

This brings me onto another annoying issue with the game, which is how you are force to dismount your horse when an NPC invader is about to spawn in making it more difficult for you to flee the scene if you want to leave on horseback. So, you are forced to either run far away enough from them to use Torrent or just face off them and of course the more the game goes on the tougher they are!

I also feel that the game even though it is open world, it just goes on way TOO LONG and I am still currently playing at over 100 hours of gameplay, still trying to finish the game with no end in sight! I am getting closer to the end but the fact I am also up against some REALLY hard bosses, just protracts the game's runtime even more and at this point, rather than find it exciting or exhilarating, I'm just feeling worn out by it and would like to see the finish line. 

And last of all in regards to the game's difficulty, I feel it can be offset by the use of specific weapon skills or spells and one such spell I did find very useful (in fact too useful!) is the hoarfrost stomp skill. Now this skill is THE most overpowered and broken feature to have probably EVER featured in a video game and if Fromsoft don't nerf (i.e. weaken) the power of this skill, I'll be absolutely shocked! I was able to use this frost stomp to demolish quite a few tough bosses as well as plethora of strong enemies and at this point it feels like a cheat code for the game or Elden Ring's easy mode! However, the frost stomp skill isn't 100 percent effective all the time as you can still get killed by bosses and enemies, who can dodge it. 

UPDATE: The skill, Hoarfrost Stomp HAS since been nerfed and is no longer as effective in boss fights as it was unfortunately but hey ho, I guess it was just a bit too OP, so it was bound to happen sooner or later.

However, my problem with this and other skills like it and indeed the whole spirit ash summon system is that the game relies way too heavily on the use of the tactics to help you fight really hard bosses and when they work well, they can trivialize these fights but by doing that, it sucks the challenge out of the game. And I think that Fromsoft really should have tried harder with Elden Ring to balance out the boss difficulty levels rather than make them super tough and force you to resort to skills or summons to defeat them and for me I just think they've kind of lost their way with this game in that respect. I also personally think this game was not well tailored for melee builds given the absurd difficulty of enemies and bosses as the game progress but that's just me (or is it??).

And that's it for the flaws!

SUM UP

So, to sum up Elden Ring despite any of its faults is still a very good RPG game and its open world design is very impressive and it is easily their best looking game to date with some stunning visuals and much improved character models for your playable characters. The game also has its share of varied combat with a plethora of weapons and spells available at players disposals and it naturally has its share of challenging enemies and bosses. The game also features an excellent soundtrack headlined by Yuka Kitamura, who worked on the previous Souls games and overall this is almost as strong as the previous scores before it. 

However, it has to be said Elden Ring is NOT perfect, it has its issues with its excessively hard difficulty in the later stages of the game not to mention those boss designs this time round are very mixed with some better than others. The map system for most part works OK but there are annoying moments where you can't always open it in fairly close proximity of enemies. The game itself also goes on way too long and with so many tough boss encounters, it really drags you down after a while and the game would have benefited from being a good bit shorter but instead the game really does feel like a major slog as you go on.

So, for me Elden Ring while its a very solid game its not the 10 out of 10 all the reviewers made it out to be and I felt the whole open world experience was a bit of a mixed bag but still an interesting one all the same. But if you liked the previous Souls games there is still alot to enjoy here, however just be prepared to put in the hours and suffer if you want to complete it! 

So, I will rate Elden Ring:

8.5 out of 10 

Right, that's it for now and I will be back soon with another review of sorts. 

Until then its bye for now!

REVIEW UPDATE! (21.03.22)

I finally beat the game after 147 hours of gameplay today and the final two bosses were an absolute slog to get through particularly the first boss Radagon although the final one, the Elden Beast was no joke either. Thankfully due to using the bow and poison mist cheese against Radagon where you run up to him before he stops moving, you can pump him full of arrows or you can even spell cheese him (depends on the spell though!) but you need to be careful that you don't break his poise or he will snap out of his standstill and would need to start over again, which happened to me various times!

However with Radagon out the way, it makes dealing with the Elden Beast a hell of a lot easier as you will have a full set of flasks (or near full if you used your FP flasks). And the fight itself is a case of just trying to avoid his holy attacks with his sword and also his circles of light, which is easier said than done but I did find it more manageable after quite a few attempts, Elden Ring was beaten!

That's it for it now and if I do beat Elden Ring, I will do another update at some point!