Elden Ring

Elden Ring has quickly become 2022's greatest pop-cultural phenomenon; in these unpredictable times it's games like this (let alone immersive narrative experiences) that give us new appreciation for fantasy storytelling as a whole.

Elden Ring has everything: horseback travel, fast-travel, interesting characters encouraging you to keep digging into the world to know more about its history, punchy swordplay, scale and scope to remember, and boss-battles that leave you feeling extra fulfilled when you've won after God-knows-how-many-attempts. The fantasy genre has always been ripe for video games to explore thanks to their emphasis on exploration and overcoming challenges, and Elden Ring feels like it's a summation of everything JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin (obviously), Zelda, Skyrim and the Souls games (Bloodborne too) to make up an experience that's something else.

This is an example of gaming and storytelling coming hand-in-hand where the progression of the player progresses the story in turn. Elden Ring is challenging yet rewarding, expansive yet not too overwhelming in its scope, hard yet adaptable, and fun yet immersive that the world ceases to be fake in the eyes (and minds) of the player.

Elden Ring gets 5/5 stars. It's a great time to be had for gamers everywhere.

As an avid souls fan this was everything I wanted it to be. I got the pre order yesterday and have enjoyed everything I have played so far. No glitches or problems and the download time was really quick.

The game kind of blends the gameplay of Sekiro and dark souls together giving you much more freedom to experiment as well as all kinds of stealth and jumping mechanics. Luckily there is no posture or anything as I don't like that system from Sekiro personally.

Sekiro was a great game but I prefer the non linear story and more experimental gameplay (more weapons, armour, magic builds, dexterity builds, ect) of the other games in the series, as well as the excellent character customisation.

Even though I have only played around 5-6 hours it it is already one of the best open world games in my opinion with such a detailed and explorative world full of so many interesting locations and creatures. There are all kinds of new features and details that almost make the older games obsolete and made me ask why they didn't add that before.

In the previous games when you hit a difficult boss you were locked into beating them to continue. Due to elden rings open world design however you can easily come back to a boss after exploring and upgrading your character. You could do this in the older games but had to face the boss eventually, in elden ring there is so much side content and other areas to explore you can almost ignore the main story entirely and complete it at your own leasure.

The game does a great job of giving you enough freedom to explore and not give you a direct path whilst still having a set goal to get to. You have a marker and map, but they are so well utilised it doesn't affect the game at all. It also does a fantastic job at introducing the souls gameplay to new players, with an actual tutorial at the beginning. It is not in your face and is an optional part of the starting area.

There is one flaw in my opinion, the open world is so expasive that progression is more difficult than the other games in my opinion. After playing for a decent amount of time I still only have my starting weapon. There are weapons available from stores and such but none from enemies or ones you find, which is the best way to get them usually in other souls games.

This is not a big problem as it is more of a personal thing. I just love exploring the world anyway and I'm sure there are many weapons available.

In short ths game is just fantastic and does not disappoint at all. Easily recommend to any souls fan and anyone in general. Probably the best place to start the series as the game kind of encapsulates everything great about it. I already want to get back to and explore the game, just so glad it is as great as it is.

I know the massive appeal for Souls games is their complexity, and I even understand why people enjoy this. I'll be honest, for me, it's mostly the same. I love that I actually have to work at getting better at the game and learning a boss's moves instead of just spamming them to death, but there's one thing I don't love. It's what made me rate it with a 9 instead of a 10.

I don't like how there's no quest log. You basically just have to either memorize every encounter with a questgiver, or do the quest immediately and even then, you still have to pay very close attention to know what to do. This is something I could've done without. I understand the mindset of Souls fans. I know people love this, but as someone who's new to FromSoftware games, it's a bit annoying.

I think they've done a really good job at welcoming newcomers to the SoulsBorne games with Elden Ring, but what would have made it perfect is to give us an option to toggle objectives and quest logs on or off. That way, the Souls fanbase would be pleased as well as the newcomers like me, who want to complete everything. This map and game is huge and overwhelming enough without constantly having to look things up on my phone.

That's really the only problem I have with the game though. The combat, the aesthetic, the music, world/boss design and weapon/gear design are all top notch. This game is definitely going to be a GOTY contender!

This is sold as a DLC? It has more content than most $70 AAA games.

• New weapon types, loads of new weapons
• New soundtrack (which is incredible of course)
• New skills, armours, items, crafting, tons of new enemies and bosses and I could go on but I don't want to waste your time because you Must play it.

The game is very challenging but as you go through the DLC, you will get stronger and stronger.

The locations are mind blowing which shouldn't be a surprise because it's Fromsoftware we're talking about but I found myself taking screenshots after every steps almost..

One recommendation I would have for all of you. Please do yourself a favour and do not watch any videos, guides or tips on it. Go in blind, explore and experience everything yourself and you will gain something from this masterpiece that will stay with you for a lifetime.

Have fun and enjoy. I am speechless.

FROMSOFTWARE DID IT AGAIN. They gave us a dlc that is better and presents more content than 99% of the games we see out there. It is absolutely fantastic, improving upon everything the base game did right and correcting some mistakes.

This dlc contains 3 main legacy dungeons, and tons of secondary areas. The main ones are super fun and intriguing to explore, and some of the best we have seen yet. The secondary ones, although not that great, for obvious reasons, seem way more unique than the repeated dungeons of the first game with some very interesting bosses.

The bosses also shine here: there are 10 main ones and a lot of secondary bosses, and they are some of the hardest bosses Fromsoftware has ever created, and also some of the best and most fantastic boss fights I have ever seen.

I also need to say the lore and characters are very unique, expanding a lot from what we had previously learned about some characters, and it might also change the way you look at some of your favorite characters.

The weapons also feel great to use, and they definetely help to bring a lot of variety into the dlc and the base game.

Overall, I can't praise more Myazaki and his team for creating such a masterpiece, certainly one of the best dlcs of all time (if not the best), and it's a mandatory experience for Elden Ring lovers.