Elden Ring Effort Post

Hello Heathens,
Recently I’ve been playing Elden Ring, and I think I’ve hit a point where I am going to take a break from the game because I’ve done all the things. The game was released in March to a flurry of perfect or near-perfect scores. After ~100 hours, 38/42 achievements I think I’m ready to talk about the game. Overall the game is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Continue reading if you want more than a tl;dr.

Rennala

Rennala wasn’t the hardest fight, but one of the coolest.

Moon

We love the moon, don’t we folks?

Stars

Really love these star scenes in the game

Open World Exploration

The game really opens up after you get Torrent, and exploring the world feels like a lot less of a chore then goes back to being a chore. The biggest complaint I have about exploring is that Torrent does not have a “hold to sprint” button. Instead you’ll be spamming a button to race between points of interest. There is no glider like in Breath of the Wild. Instead of being able to dive off a cliff and glide to a cool looking spot you’ll have to find a path hidden behind a phantom wall. Sure this might work when you are 10 hours into a game or when you still have a lot left to do, but after you’ve beaten the game it feels like a pointless test of patience.

Ladders are one of the main ways you’ll travel the Z axis and it’s insanely slow to climb up and down them. Elevators are a great (and often used) way to travel up and down the map and the game should really just remove all the ladders for stairs or for elevators. You wanted a jump button in a Souls game? Well we got a jump button in a Souls game. Now we get all the jump puzzles, roof jumping, and annoying ass archers with perfect aim that you can handle.

Combat

Nothing really to say here, the combat felt great overall. Some of the hitboxes were a little wonky and the final boss can get stuck in an annoying loop of just running away from you when you are trying to fight. Really though, the combat of the game is good, and weapon balance is the largest overall issue. Some weapons are just insanely good (Rivers of Blood cuts through most bosses like paper) while others that require a lot of work are kind of shit (Dark Moon Greatsword). FromSoftware has been balancing weapons so hopefully this gets fixed. I’d rather see the rare/high end weapons get a buff versus overpowered weapons being nerfed. The game has a massive selection of really cool weapons, but if you aren’t running bleed weapons end game you are going to have a bad time.

Staggering for me, not for thee. You will get staggered by rats, flowers, dogs, goblins, and of course every boss in the game. The amount of damage midgame and early game trash enemies do to you when you are decked out in legendary armor is hilariously high. You simply need to invest in health in this game, or else you are going to have a bad time. Armor really needs a rework in the FromSoftware games so that it actually does something.

The next weird wonky part of FromSoftware combat that needs to go is getting stun/animation locked. I understand this being something harder to figure out in older games, but the speed that enemies can attack and your iframes after being knocked down are laughable. You can easily get animation locked and be killed by an enemy. Doesn’t matter what level you are, you will get locked and cocked.

Over reliance on AoE abilities on bosses. Boss fights are hard to design and often bosses are given AoE abilities to force the player to reset positioning so the player can’t hide at a certain angle on the boss and wail on them, but some of the fights the boss would get stuck in a logic loop and spam abilities so you’d just be playing tag with them for 10 minutes.

I just think that the combat needs an update and when I compare it to Monster Hunter the Souls combat feels insanely slow and very rote compared to MH. Even standing up after a knock down feels sluggish.

Story

I really like the minimal storytelling efforts of FromSoftware games and enjoy the non-linear story. I also enjoy that I’m encouraged to read ingame items and books for snippets of lore. The story as I understand it so far is just what you’d expect from a Souls-game. I do not enjoy there being cryptic destinations for quests. If you want me to fetch a sword for you, at least give me a general location so I don’t have to wander around Caelid to find a dungeon then find the hidden part of a dungeon for this dumb ass sword. Yes, I can look it up, but it feels less like a game when I’m just reading a guide and more like a shitty novel.

George R R Martin helped write parts of the story and it really comes through with how many dogshit and confusing names there are in the story. We have Margot, Margit, and Melania, Malenia as the two most annoying examples of the names all sounding the same. Then you realize all the bosses and story characters have a name that starts with G, R, M. It’s cool to see that old windbag not-so-subtly write his initials into this game. Outside of the awful and confusing names the story is great.

Music

There was a time where the first thing I did when playing a game was turn in the ingame music off, but the music for this game was fantastic. At no point during the game did I want to turn the music off, and even bought the soundtrack so I could have a copy of the music. I’d seriously recommend checking out the music

Graphics

Honestly, who cares the game looks great, and graphics are one of the least important parts of a game.

Not really sure what else is left to cover, hope you enjoyed this effort post and the screenshots. I really do love Elden Ring and it’s easily a 10/10 game. Pictures of my adventures to come after I figure out how to best display these

Keep heavy the Sabbath Day
04.05.22
03.22.22

RIP Miura