Emboldened By The Flame of Ambition! (Non-Spoiler Review)

I know! The Elden Ring release hype has died down, so making a review for this game is a bit late, but I go at my own pace. Elden Ring is the latest Soulsborne game by FromSoftware to grace (see what I did there?) consoles and PCs everywhere, and it has become quite popular since its release in late February! I'll be honest with you, knowing that Elden Ring was a souls-type game made me not want to get it at all because I have never liked that subgenre. But I decided to give the game a chance after seeing a bunch of TikToks and Youtube videos of people showing off some really interesting gameplay. I mean seriously, people were having their character do sick dodges, crazy backflip moves, and other things that really caught my attention.

Okay, so when I say I'm a noob when it comes to Soulsborne games I mean it. I tried playing Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne and for both games I gave up after fighting (and not beating) the third boss of the game! What did I know about builds, weapon scaling, buffs/debuffs? Diddly-squat. But for whatever reason I got Elden Ring, played it, and suprisingly enjoyed it! In fact, I enjoyed it so much I platinumed the game (got all the achievements) and have even decided to go back and start playing Bloodborne too! My newfound enjoyment of Soulsborne games, which I never in a million years thought would ever occur, is why I'm writing this review and think it is the perfect introduction into Fromsoftware's Souls titles! So let's hop into the article so we can talk about the things I enjoyed about Elden Ring and why I think people that are interested in playing Souls-type games should start here.

Gameplay

Okay so like almost every other FromSoftware game I've played, ER gives the player very little in terms of tutorial and direction. The game tells you how to move, how to hit, and that's really about it. Then it sends you out into the world to go and explore, not telling you where to go. In addition to that, within 15 minutes of starting the game you run into two-to-three bosses! See, for people unfamiliar with the Souls-type games you'd think that's totally unfair! But really, this is quite on-par for FromSoftware games. Prior to ER I played Bloodborne, DS1, 2, and 3, but I never got past 2 bosses because I found it hard. Here's what I like about the gameplay in Elden Ring compared to other Soulsborne games. In games like Bloodborne or Dark Souls, which I am currently playing through, when you get stuck on the boss of an area, you can't really do much except stay in the area to farm for more souls and echoes until you get stronger. In Elden Ring, while you do need to level up, improve your weapons and all that there's still much more for you to do. Stuck on one boss of an area? Well good thing there's like 100 more bosses and way more areas for you to explore? Maybe help an NPC with a sidequest? ER does a really good job at making it easy to not as though there's nothing to do if you can't get past a boss.

Aside from that, the whole open world map is massive! I mean its huge! Look at that (see above)! The word is filled with weapons to find, spells and incantations to learn, and much more.

The incredible amount of gear you can find makes customization very easy in this game. People that are familiar with FromSoftware games know that you need to make builds to efficiently use certain kinds of weapons and spells/incantations. Well ER makes it easy to switch up builds with re-specs. Basically, you can change the different attributes you chose for your build at any time. You just need to get past a certain boss to be able to do this!

In terms of combat, I found that while the game is not easy it is relatively easy to get a hang of. There are tons of enemy types of once you learn how they move it becomes super easy to take them out. That, or you could make a magic build and go blast-blast-boom-boom towards enemies from afar. Both options are there for you! Of course, regular enemies are very different from bosses. Man, some of the bosses will just wipe the floor with you, and then keep doing it. This is where you're left with a few options: 1) you could try, try, try again, 2) you could summon a player to come help you, 3) leave, get stronger and try again, 4) rearrange your stats to make yours more in line with what will affect the boss more, or 5) get a staff and get the rock sling spell and spam the ever-living shit out of it. That being said, aside from a few bosses that are incredibly tough, most are very easy to memorize the movesets of. Because of the sheer amount of hours you'll spend exploring and fighting bosses and non-bosses alike, you will be way better equipped to handle other souls games. While not all skills you develop during your ER playthrough are transferrable to games like bloodborne, I feel like a bunch are. For example, one thing I learned while playing ER is that you shouldnt always just rush the boss and try to kill him as fast as possible. Sometimes you gotta hang back, be patient and wait for the right moment to strike (or spam rock sling from a distance either works).

Story

I loved the story of Elden Ring! I thought it was incredibly fascinating and well thought out. The only issue? I learned about much of the story from outside of gameplay. You see, the game begins by giving you a brief summary of the current state of the Lands Between (the setting of the game), and tells you you pretty much need to become Elden Lord. But its not like there's some kind of destination marker that points to where to go. You learn this slowly by talking to different NPCs, exploring the world, and reading item descriptions just like other FromSoftware games. If you don't wanna do that then do what I did and watch YouTube videos about Elden Ring Lore! Either way, I found that even with what little knowledge I had I was still engaged in the story. Especially when it came to fighting mandatory story bosses. I would walk into their area and be in awe by how awesome they were. Bosses like Radahn and Godfrey, with what little I gathered about them in the story gave me chills when I saw them for the first time, and got my blood rushing when I heard one of em speak.

So all-in-all I found that Elden Ring is a really great game by FromSoftware that I think everyone should try and give a shot! Its one of the easier FromSoftware games especially now that I've played other ones! In fact, at the time I'm writing this I have already gotten all Bloodborne endings and am working on getting the platinum for the game! I found that Elden Ring was easier than Bloodborne and had I not played it first I definitely would have been less-equipped to play BB! So all-in-all, ER is a great game for people who are interested in getting into FromSoftware games!