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!
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!
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