Dude! I just stumbled across a little cabin and there were people dancing around this fire. I was like oh cool, they are friendly. Went up to the fire and noticed two bodies burning. Then all of the sudden they all had red eyes and started biting themselves and chased me!! Freaked me out man!! Hahaha
@@fuqis I'm on my second playthrough and even though I felt I was really thorough first time around.. I keep discovering new stuff along the way. It's an amazing open world.
Elden Ring is so good that I am almost scared that it's as good as it gets. All your criticisms are valid, though. I would have loved a journal to keep track of conversations with npcs, because there were a lot more npcs and side quests than previous titles.
This is my first souls-like game and it’s really changed my view on gaming. Never been interested in the Souls games because of the difficulty, but I underestimated the feeling of beating a super tough boss. It’s an incredible feeling. I’ve been addicted and in love with it. The open world is amazing, the exploration is amazing, and the amount of detail and uniqueness with each different boss is amazing. Having so much fun
All the Soulsborne games are worth it... yes, even Dark Souls 2. (the black-sheep of the family but still worth it) You'll prolly be occupied with Elden Ring for a while (I know i will be) but I recommend Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3 (in that order), Demon Souls and Bloodborne and even Sekiro... if you change your muscle-memory a bit and remember its more of a rhythm game. (or maybe play Sekiro first?)
It's exactly what I wanted open world dark souls with a ton of bosses, and killer multiplayer. It's definitely a hardcore RPG with no survival elements which is fun
I totally agree, except I feel the multiplayer could've been done better. Every night my two friends and I play together, and it is nothing but hassle. It's a great feeling beating a boss together, but the constant summoning and using furlcalling fingers, the not being able to progress together until we've grabbed every grace on all three worlds, not being able to rest without resummoning, the constant disconnections, the hassle whenever anyone dies, the very limited flasks for summons, the inability to use mounts, etc. Don't get me wrong, I have over 100 hours in my solo playthrough, but the multiplayer feels really limiting. I would've preferred true drop in drop out co-op with at least some shared progression like being able to activate bonfires.
@@thefolkbloke6656 I think they wanted to deter people from playing through as a full co op experience. Just really encouraging people to only summon when they're stuck on a boss. It could be cool to offer a better co op experience though so more people can enjoy it that way
@@reed1645 for sure, I get what they were going for, but it just feels like wasted potential. We have so many great open world RPGs (skyrim, witcher 3, BOTW, etc.), but one thing that they all lack is co-op. Elden Ring already beats those other titles out of the park on a lot of fronts, but it could've been even more amazing if it was also that nearly seamless co-op experience that I know it could be. The foundation is all there. Exploring through the masterfully crafted world of Elden Ring with friends sounds incredible. And it is, but with a lot of headache.
@@thefolkbloke6656 yea I get that. My housemate has been playing it. We haven't done co op but talking about our builds, the bosses, different strategies, lore and other cool stuff we've seen has been a ton of fun. The game is great when shared with other people so I could definitely see how coop would add a lot for people.
great fighing in all aspects big world and bosses and all related things but no story man its not skyrim 2022 no factions no romance no side quests or big awesone plot with choises, like witcher 3 etc it get boring to a lot of people
@@bloodwindpvp4364 The same thing could be said about all the games you mentioned. Once you finish the quest there’s nothing left. Replaying games in different ways is where the fun comes from and Skyrim is one of the most boring games I’ve ever played why are you even comparing them?
Also Some fights are really hard for melee players, not in the sense of difficulty but some enemies are just so big that the lock on or camera angles completely screw you over, when I fought Astel Naturalborn of the void the fight was pretty hectic, not because he was difficult but because my attacks would miss 60-70% of the time due to the angle and his size.
That is a tough for a weapons with short range. To fight this boss, you should not lock on to the boss and attack it’s legs. From time to time it’s face gets close to you and you can jump and attack it.
Yeah I get that, I’m saying even when not locked on it’s pretty hard unless his head is down, other parts of his body either clip through or you have to be precise on the legs. Not a big issue just pointing out that it’s a little tricky?
A thing that happened to me a lot is finding early game dungeons with bosses in 'em that I've already been fighting out in the open world (and the harder versions too) and is completely underwhelming seeing a new boss and going "oh I beat this guy like 20 times already". Also happened that I was really underleveled in some parts and really overleveled in other ones. It was a wonkier difficulty curve, for sure.
boring game great figthing but thats about it no other interest no story side quests plot twist romance or other interests just figthing and figthing no economy and living world
I agree Elden Ring’s minimalism gets annoying for quests especially when I’m trying to remember the dialogue one character said that was a hint for the quest. Maybe some kind of “notes” so you can review dialogue for characters to keep the mysterious aura of the game intact.
If i wanna follow a quest line that I absolutely do not know how to continue I follow the wiki and it's pretty simple and spoiler free. Just gives some pointers and helps you not miss anything
I think the late game boss design really suffers, especially with bosses like Godskin duo where they don’t compliment each other or even make sense to be there, they just are and it’s a horrible experience
The game definately reminds me of Skyrim, but in my opinion it actually has way more in common with the oldschool Gothic games. Those games are strikingly similar to Dark Souls and might even have inspired them. Gothic 1-3 is well worth testing out. They are clunky, but awesome games!
man this is the first time I see someone mentioning Gothic series, and this game reminds me a lot of it, from software games always had that touch to them.
Totally agree that many of the late game bosses seemed built around summons and that is kinda a shame, and it is probably my biggest critique of the game. I ended up using mimic tear for many of the fights that Matty showed (Godfrey was a good solo fight though) because after 120+hours I didn't feeling like grinding a boss solo for hours at a time anymore.
Radahn in particular is like that for lore reasons, to be fair. But honestly, I don't think it's a bad thing for games to encourage using every mechanic while not punishing not doing so.
@@FelisImpurrator Agreed, Radahn makes it very clear that summons are meant to be used for that fight. It is literally built into the story which pretty much never happens with a souls like game unless it is intentional. I think it is a fine line between encouraging a mechanic and making it necessary for a fight to be enjoyable though and personally I think a couple didn't balance it properly.
@@Epiousios18 I just beat radahn without summons and I can see what your saying, he is still a great fight and summons arent necessary but a few attacks seem poorly balanced and the camera can be a bit wonky at times. Is radahn the worst offender when it comes for necessary summons in the game? I haven't explored the capital yet.
i beat the game at around 105 hours and i agree with pretty much everything you said. At first i had the rose tinted shades on and didnt wanna see no wrong about the game but elden ring deff had its issues at times, but overall this is one of my favorite games ever and same as you i dont think ive ever pumped in 100 hours so fast into a game, deff was playing an unhealthy amount.
It’s crazy to me to hear that you spent 105 hours doing almost all the side content, and realizing that it has taken me 60 hours to do all the content in limgrave and maybe like 1 dungeon in liurnia
I think it's the best single player game i've ever played. the last time i was this immersed in a single player game, it was GTA Sana andreas and i was a kid. Since then ive been obsessed with multiplayer games...until elden ring. now im obsessed with this game
I get it when people want longer games, but at the same time it's about quality not quantity. If a game is a quality 100 hours, I'm pretty happy. I wish I had 100 hours to spend on a game.
I've never seen so many of my friends online playing the same game at the exact same time. Yesterday I had nearly 2 dozen people on PlayStation playing Elden Ring. These people are not just friends I've played with from prior Soulsborne games.. Most of them are usually playing FPS. -- It was pretty cool when I noticed this yesterday. It's something I've never seen before.. I can see people are getting hooked on Elden Ring. I know that i am. Some friends I rarely see at certain times of the night.. These guys are up all night playing Elden Ring. Haha..
My letdown of this game is the poor armor progression. It did not evolve into something better. Every From game has the same poor armor progression. NO player-power set bonus, NO mod/gem slots. The only thing (almost) every armor does is give x defense. Even the LEGENDARY sets provide NO player-power set bonus. I want to see set bonus (power) effects to make armor feel more unique, rather than I need to wear something to not get ass blasted. I really enjoyed the perks/ set bonus effects from Nioh 2, God of War PC, AC: Odyssey, the Witcher 3, and Outriders. Same with FP, it did not evolve from any other From game. We have no auto FP regains. I wanted them to add auto FP regains and evolve the FP system into something new. Not the same FP system we have seen forever.
Two words: Fashion-Souls. Infact, I love the fact that FromSoft games don't go into the usual tropes of armor-sets with mod/gem slots. You might enjoy that sorta change immensely... but I think there are plenty in the Soulsborne community that recoil at that thought.
Armor in souls games is about fashion for the most part. But there’s armors that do give stat bonuses. Lot of mage masks boost int and the crucible knight armors boost certain incantations.
I see your point but then I started seeing their point more. I’ve been wearing what looks cool and shunning stats for 70 out of 100 hours, and I’ve been subconsciously denying it too..
I've been playing a faith/dexterity hybrid build for around 45 hours now. I REALLY wanted to have a primarily faith build, but I'm simply not good enough at the game to run around without a shield. Lol. It doesn't help that the majority of incantations are passive, however, I am aware that there are some later game spells that are offensive, so maybe I'll be able to work that in a lot more when I get there. For now, it's mostly using dex weapons with hemorrhage effects (which are amazing) and rolling around to dodge attacks (usually failing). I've only ever played Dark Souls (1) and I sucked at it, so I gave up years ago. I'm not sure if I was just enthralled by the hype of Elden Ring, but I caved and bought it a week after launch and I absolutely love it. Like I mentioned, I'm not very good, but there's definitely something about this game for me that Dark Souls did not have that makes me love it and want more and more. Finally, I've read/heard lots of mentions about how there should've been an in-game player journal and I thought that only around three hours into my playthrough. I have a terrible memory, which not only makes things like memorizing boss battle movements/attacks difficult, but just basic things like who the hell I've talked to and what it was exactly that they wanted me to do. I think that is a great idea; something subtle to help the folks like me who can hardly remember anything. Lol.
That progression is real and works both ways! Found the mimic bear, struggled for hours = reached mistwood, I’m beating them no hit Struggled with Ulcerated tree spirit boss for hours in fringe folk hero’s = found one deep in Stormveil Castle, beat it first try. Struggled (and failed) at crucible Knight for hours = found one in stormveil, learned the moves and killed it, went back and killed crucible knight boss easily.
The one thing I really didn’t like was that the game kinda forces you to”cheese-grind” or play in a very safe, boring fashion if you want to level up towards the end.
Thank you matty for making this video and talking about it. I agreed with you 100%. I know the game is new an not a lot of player have been able to get to those later part, but the amount of negativity you get just for mentioning those point you bring in this video is incredible. You get shame for not using summon lol, that's a first for me. I never have shame anyone for using them in any a FS game.
Theres some hardcore nerds out there that say its the only way. Seen a ton of comments about people boasting about. Like its a game mechanic to help players learn or setup their build not just a cheese method although it can be but, either way its an intended mechanic of the game the developers put in to make the game a lot more accessible.
I agree with the critiques and it's still a 10/10 for me. That being said I've had no performance issues or frame drops personally with two hard crashes over 100 hours so that's probably kept my complaints very low.
The only thing keeping me from playing Elden Ring is the fact I’m not in the phase of my life anymore where I want to play challenging RPGs. I’ve played Souls, Bloodborne, Oblivion etc and I just wanna relax and kick back to enjoy some fantasy RPG elements. A shame. Props to those enjoying it tho!
@@nyxknight7555 it’s not, but from what I’ve played, it’s one of those games that requires absolute focus like Souls does for boss fights. I’m past that age where I’m huge into figuring out i-frames and perfect parries etc and am more drawn to exploration > grinding and hard boss fights. Every once in a while, sure… but overall, I like a more lax experience nowadays.
@@DMsubble I’m an D1 alpha vet babyyyyyy (just meme-ing). But fr; I’ve burned myself out on games like Souls; I used to grind them till my fingers got blisters and completed them all… now I just wanna relax yo 😭
14:17 Hey, as someone's whose favourite From game is still DS2 (and yes, I love all the Soulsborne games very much), I took that personally. 😆 But yeah, great video, Matty. Nice to see a balanced review, even if the game is otherwise stellar.
You are a little more generous than me. I think the endgame is where things fall apart. It's downhill after the fire giant. The enemy spam gets ridiculous and the bosses just do way too much damage. I didn't grind for health boosting runes and spend 100 hours sinking 50 points into vigor just to be killed in 1-2 hits. And just so you know yes I did beat the game. But I doubt I'll do another play through unless they patch the end game, and I doubt they will.
I can't disagree more that Elden Ring has anything in common with Skyrim, other than in how much its being talked about and played right now. Skyrim was a continuation of Bethesda's dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls series. If anything, Elden Ring reminds me of Morrowind. Skyrim was so hand-holdy, whereas Elden Ring doesn't do that at all. Because you need both hands. To hold a bigass sword to fight all the things that are trying to kick your face in. Fuck it's refreshing.
This game took inspiration from Sekiro. Sekiro said 'You will parry on this boss or not win' and Elden Ring did that a little as well. Some bosses were completely immune to bleed and my starting build was bleed daggers and I got stomped on by many bosses. My second play through I was a mage and those bosses I had issues with were cake walk but some of the other bosses I wrecked with bleed were hard with magic. So I think the ideal situation is to have a verity of tools to use depending on the boss...so instead of smashing my dagger build against Malenia for 4 hours I should have just switched it up to magic for that boss. Game was fantastic though
For my first play through I’ve got kinda good at everything excluding faith and this has definitely been my experience. Some bosses are too quick for spells but weak to being parried, others are slow but their attacks cover massive areas making them weak to spells. Sometimes crafting items of a certain damage type is all I need to beat a boss second try.
I do hope this is true. Although I'm not seeing the masterpiece here that all reviewers claim, it's definitely not bad or anything. Im over 20 hours in, got a few op weapons and it's just diminished my motivation. But I'll keep going and seeing if there is something there
This was the kind of review I needed, with a healthy dose of criticism in the end. It's ok to be biased while reviewing because we all have our preferences, but just fanboy praise is not a review. This was a review. Thank you
ehh...its not. Personally, i dont agree with all of the gushing reviews. Its a good game, but unless you like memorizing boss patterns over and over and don't care about finding cool loot, it gets kind of stale. Its definitely no Skyrim for me, the world is dead. Its just a bunch of minibosses and dungeons. and everything respawns on death.
@@Dmc841 really? ive been playing for 25+ hrs and my starting gear is still the best things I have minus a few summons and talisman. Im not expecting Diablo, but I rarely come across something that actually makes me want to seriously use it. Doesnt feel like there is much flexibility.
@@sirQB how have you managed to play 25+ hours without finding a single better weapon? That's on you not the game clearly. If you explore limgrave it has minimum 5 weapons for both strength and dex builds, tonnes of ashes of war faith and intelligence spells what else do you want?
It is, It has Exploration-check, Jump-check, RPG-check, Epic Boss battles-check, Horses to ride-check, Hidden dungeons-check and unlocking hidden artifacts know as Ashes etc-check. Yep Sounds a lot like Skyrim but better. Edit: PvP and Co op-check.
No quest markers or quest books gives “open world” it’s real meaning and the fact that the souls borne genre touched this is just exiting, I’m already exited for dlc, would be cool if you talked a lil about that too…
dont compare it this game is boss battles dangerous world great figthing and crafting and all figthing related , morrowind and skyrim are rpgs with factions stories companions main story and tons of other living world of many interests this game is pretty monotonous its just figthing and figthing great bosses with awesome skills i agree andgreat all combat and boss related and danger feeling or more but its open world mix with dungeon crawler not really a rpg that you can do a tons of things
I don't think Elden Ring feels even remotely anything like an Elder Scrolls game. I mean it's a fantasy game, action RPG but other than that it has really nothing to do with how ES games work.
I'm on PC (1440) and it drops to around 53 frames once every 20-30 minutes. And the stuttering stopped once I went to boarderless window mode. Same with all dozen of my PC playing friends.
Different experiences for different people it shouldn't be that way but on PC depending on Hardware it runs differently and even on consoles some get no and very little stuttering other get so much that you feel you are cheated out what could be a great game. Modern games in a nutshell, only made worse in Elden Ring because of its moment to moment boss fighting that requires sometimes precise dodging or hiting.
Game of the Year isn’t even a question in my mind, the conversation should be is where does this rank in the Too 10 games of all time. And personally I think it’s definitely in my Top 3, and with only 125 hours into it, it could possibly be my #1, time will tell. The worst thing about Elden Ring is it’s probably destroyed any other open world game for me. I barely got into HFW before Elden came out and to be honest my desire to play HFW fell off a cliff. I might just put a thousand or two hours of Elden Ring in instead. As I said I’m 125 hours in and I’m still heavily drive to play it. I’d hate to be a dev right now working on a open world game, because Elden Ring just changed the game. We now expect more, much … than we have been getting.
Never really had an issue with this. Maybe its because I'm just so used to it with older souls games, and PlayStation 1 Resident Evil. When it happens I always just know what to do 🤷♂️
bleeding is far from op, since it's flat damage added when you proc the effect, plus a lot of tought fight have boss that are simply immune to it. plus don't forget to remember that you can easily over level the content of the game then often it lead to some encounter becoming easy. some fight can become pure joke with the right tool... earlier with a character 87 i did destro radahn by using the rot breath of the named dragon... right tool in the right situation can turn any fight really easy. in a sense every build are op, but well it what make it charm
It's not until later in the game but if you can get a summon called 'mimic tear' and get it to level 10 it'll make most bosses far far easier. To the point where it's almost broken.
I finished it last night with 78 hours and immediately started my second playthrough. Absolutely loving my time with it. Easily one of the best games in years. Couldn't recommend it enough!
I agree, the game is amazing but not flawless. Balance definitely seems off and some bosses just don't feel as well designed as others imo. I also have some gripes with map size but that's a bit more of a personal nitpick. Been a Souls fan since Demon's and I do think Elden is the best iteration so far, but I think DkS3 was a bit more consistent. Elden has some glaring issues, some which can thankfully be fixed (like instakill exploits), but also some other design flaws that bother me and I doubt will ever change
The Sewers made me question my life and sanity lmfao, took soo long to get out of there lol And when I finally did, I was the lord of chaos and now have to beat Optional Malenia to get rid of the frenzied flame inside my character. This game is awesome
Lol right the same thing happened to me. I make it through there all the way to this burnt door. Messages on the ground say “think carefully” and stuff like that lol, I had to see what was beyond the door so I went in. I thought there would be some dialogue or something with the fingers but instead I just got one fiery hug that I couldn’t escape haha. So then I was like fuck now I have to beat Malenia.. Optional boss becomes mandatory if I don’t want the frenzied flame ending. After 30-40 attempts I beat her. Amazing game
One of the best things about soulsborne series is that each game allows you to utilize deeper ingame knowledge to build absolute godlike character who can litetally 1-shot bosses. Or you can play as lvl 1 naked dude with a club and completely dominate bosses anyway. Me personally, I like to find new ways to make totally batshit crazy ridicilous builds and setups in these games, it so much fun
I will counter with saying Tree Sentinel variants were awesome to see before getting into the Capital, and approaching Maliketh. “Okay mfkr your again.” Also with the bodies of the Finger Readers and the multiple similar but not same bosses were getting Prestiged in the lore.
for my first playthrough i was went astrologer, and did a pure mage build i was pretty much a glass canon. one minor criticism i wish the game had was a npc dialog log, i can't remeber the npc name but when i went to speak to him and he told me the quest but after an hour a f-ing around i couldn't remember what he said and i went back to him and he said he wouldn't speak to me until i completed his quest, and that was a little annoying but overall game of the year.
omg ikr I had to go on google to see what the mf said but I couldn't remember his name so I was basically fcked then I randomly found a vid on youtube of a guy doing the quest I was trying to complete. I clicked on the vid to see what the npc said so I could do the quest, after that I started writing every npc's name and what they say on a piece of paper so I don't forget there names and what they say in the future
This is a weird one because I’ve been torn between genuinely believing this game deserves the praise it’s been getting and thinking people are out of their minds. To be clear I adore this game and in so many ways it feels like a collection of all From Soft’s creative successes in one game. I also think this may be their best game yet, or in the very least my favourite. That being said, there is definitely issues, especially when it comes to performance. Yes, I know these issues will likely all be fixed, and many already have been, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that Steam has been hitting almost 1 million players at peak while the PC version has had plenty of infuriating issues and optimization problems. To be fair, these issues are quite minor compared to what we are used to in modern gaming, but they are issues nonetheless. I also feel a tad bit too much of DS2 seeping into this game. Times where there is unfair enemy spam, gank bosses with tons of summons, very odd lingering hitboxes, arenas far too small for the boss within it, or just bosses too big for the camera overall. Again, in modern gaming I am grateful this is all I have to complain about and like I said I believe most of the time the praise is 100% deserved. I just can’t shake the feeling far too often while playing that the game should be more like a 88%-92% rather than a 97%-100%. The score itself doesn’t bother me, it’s more that people are dismissing these issues as if they don’t exist and call the game perfect. It’s definitely not perfect, and that’s okay, because it’s damn close and everyone should give this game a go.
I think this is a clear example of the hunger people had for a game that breaks the mold. If we had been getting good games that pushed the envelope instead of the oversaturated triple a market thar we got you'd see a bit less hype for elden ring. The market gap was just waiting to be exploited and Elden Ring was the one to do it
I've honestly only felt that the game's level of bullshit was completely unreasonable a few times. Kindred of Rot spamming the prawn silly string of doom. Putrid crystalians in a tiny room aping you with rot. That one sniper staircase in Raya Lucaria. The goddamn blood birds on Mohgwyn's death island. Heavy knights that can block all your spell damage if you're a caster and reach halfway across the room. Some of the dumber ambushes. But other than maybe bosses having too little window between attacks, or enemies reaching too far or turning too quickly, or rooms just being a bit too goddamn tiny for the enemies, most of it has been fair. And often when it isn't, it's at least very funny. Honestly, I don't know why myself. I haven't given it my usual level of critical thought, but I do know I usually have a lot less patience for games being cheap than this.
Thing is the game has it's fair share of bullshit but they all do and this game has far more game to balance. 10/10 doesn't indicate a perfect game just one that is incredibly good.
Finally a decent review. I think the last fourth of the game is trash. Scaling is insane and you get instakilled or spammed in a glimps with level 150+. Moghwyn Palace and Haligtree are just terrible balanced. The ash summons are nessecary, but cheap and feel like an afterthought, because otherwise a lot of people couldn't beat the game. But on reddit everyone says get better, as everyone needs to be like them to play the game. Gosh. First I thought it was a 10/10, but due to the endgame I would say 6-7/10. Its just terrible balanced.
The only point I think you should have given more emphasis on is the quest log, or journal log, call it however you want. It's a huge shame that this masterpiece of a game, that I'm sure has incredible questlines, will probably be finished by most people without them touching 90% of the quests. It's damn near impossible to know what a "quest giver" wants you to do, unless you look it up online, which in my opinion kinda ruins immersion. What I think would be awesome for them to do is, simply have a log with npc names that gave you the quest, and if you track it, have arrows on the map like the ones of sites of grace, pointing you in a direction. It's the absolute least they could do, but even if it was a full on quest log, I'd prefer that to what we have now, which is basically nothing.
Yeah I love the game but definetely would help, especially now it's open world. It's frustrating having to google it every time you want to continue a quest line.
@@roe2479 Yea.. people like the guy above saying "we didn't have that" are borderline cultists that compare a completely open world game that is 5x the size of previous fromsoft games to demon souls, like...
@@NoneNameAvailable yeah I dont know why, all it would do was make the game better xD. I feel like even previous souls games could have done with one, it was so difficult to track quests.
@MrMattyPlays, What are the rest of your specs for your PC? I've seen plenty of footage of people suffering complete frame freezes while playing but I haven't encountered that issue so far after around 80 hours of gameplay. Please don't misunderstand, I believe you and anyone else that is having these issues. However the most performance issues I've had have been momentary frame dips when loading a new region. My current setup is: 12700K i7, 32gb DDR4, Samsung NVME in PCI 4.0 slot, Nvidia 2080 FTW3, and win11 Pro. All stock clocks except for the ram, using driver 511.23 for the GPU, win11 up to date. If anyone else including MrMatty can post specs below the comment I would be interested to see if there is a correlation with certain hardware setups running worse than others.
When he started comparing it to skyrim i felt so much nostalgia, and yeah both games got me sinking about 100hrs in the launch week without feeling burnt out from the game
That's literally the Morrowind solution and it was, while clunky to navigate, thoroughly excellent for immersion and guidance in one. Few games have used that obviously good answer, honestly.
@@fawkkyutuu8851 Dude, ok, but it's a vast world, and many times we even "forget" the speech or something from an NPC or place. I'm not saying to have a dense and easy guide, but something simple, with some direction, or NPC name, place, etc. I don't like games that give us all the information either, but I believe Elden Ring could have a shallow and simple guide, that's all.
Last time I got addicted to a game was way back with CSGO, LOL, and DOTA2. I got 6K plus on those 3. Elden Ring is as addictive AF. It is the only thing I think about at work. It has consumed me, my wife, and my son. LoL. Sounds negative but it has been a source of bonding for my family.
My only big complaint is to due with the gank boss fights, there are a lot in this game and I don't think they are very good at maintaining a good balance. You either try and beat them alone and don't have an enjoyable experience or fight them with a spirit summon and don't feel accomplished. I beat nearly every one of these fights solo, and it was pure pain for me, usually I'm super stoked after fights like that but for the gank fights in this game I was just glad to get them over with. Otherwise I am such a huge fan of this game, love the build diversity, love the world and the npc's and the bosses. From really really nailed this game. Thanks for the good content Matty! Had some good points!
Good review, all fair critiques. Personally, I think it's a masterpiece. Yes, it has some issues, but I believe with a game of this size and scope, it has to be accounted for regarding the flaws. In a normal game, these are bigger issues. Not so here, imo. All in all, I concur
Ironically, I wished there was better/more gear in ng+. Maybe some new attacks or patterns later. I know people hated/loved ds2, but that was one thing it's the best at in the entire franchise.
One thing I wasn't crazy about was Rykard. As cool as it was having a weapon that had a boss mechanic to it, I almost felt like I needed it or else it would've been a grueling fight, and I'm a mage who tries to avoid physical weapons if possible, let alone a heavy weapon. All your criticisms are completely valid and one thing I agree most is a Journal. Some quests I completely botched and got punished for as a result simply because I wasn't aware of something. Another example is... how the heck was I suppose to know to talk to a DOLL at a Grace site when I picked it up!? Then go to a place mostly unrelated to the location to get a think to unlock a thing??? How am I to know all that without being told?
@@shiroufan5401 I know, but I found it annoying since I'm trying to be magical, not physical. However I did cheese it a little by summoning my Mimic while I had the spear in hand, and then I unequipped it. That way my mimic would use it and I still get to spell sling. It actually worked really well too! Because the unique ability exclusive to the fight works on the Mimic too. So you can either be a Magical Support guy like I was, using Rock Sling to do good Poise Damage for easy hits for my Mimic, or you could be a Serpent Spear Slayer duo.
Lets be honest too. Every masterpiece game in history and every 10/10 game has had its issues. Just because you the best doesn’t mean you can’t learn and have its faults.
That's a shame as imo even after Elden Ring Sekiro has the best feeling boss fights even after playing most of Elden Ring. I think it's because of the fact that in Sekiro many of the bosses require that you parry enemy combos constantly so the end result is it really feels like a true sword battle with you knocking aside every blow. I love my dodge rolls in Dark Souls but nothing beats nonstop parries.
@@IsItFunorNot it needs to be a breath of fresh air compared to Demon Souls, DS1, DS2, DS3, BB and Sekiro, not just DS3 lol, that was my point. it's a breath of air, i dunno about fresh though.
75 hours in on PS5, well worth the $60 for me. One of the best open world games I’ve ever experienced. But man - those hero’s grave dungeons…. I hate them
Im 200 hours in doing most of the optional stuff and the bit about having spammy enemies. Im not so sure about that, at first yes it seemed overwhelming, but I just ran past them and then picked them off. Or lured them one by one while keeping myself close to cover. Ive never played Dark Souls 2... so maybe it doesnt affect me as much as others, but I havent felt anything was spammy. honestly the most annoying thing for me recently was a 3 v 1 boss ight where this guy summoned 2 ghost soldiers by his side. I beat him after some time, I just needed to get good. I'm also refraining from using summoning ashes for my first playthrough as one look at them told me they'd just distract the boss and Im not interested in winning that way. That being said, I beat Radhan without any summon help, granted I did it almost entirely on horse back, only hopping off Torrent to dodge a few attacks.
Still not a fan of Souls games but I am around the 100 hour mark on this as well. I had a guided playthrough (whenever a question popped up) and over leveled in order to enjoy the game without feeling like I have to go pro. Spending 8 hours on one boss? No thanks. Not fun for me. But as an open world fan I loved this game and even overleveled if you are too careless any boss can destroy you quickly.
My major issue is fromsoft forgot how to do difficulty. Instead of having better enemy AI it feels they just made enemies Hella tanky and one shot like crazy.
The enemy-design, the move-sets from enemies & surprise tactics and even the razor-tight hitboxes... they're definitely improved a lot from the Demon Souls/Dark Souls era. (check out the gif compilation on twitter of people doing insane last-second dodges/ducking-under/jumping-over enemy attacks. This is definitely an improvement from earlier Soulsborne games)
@@QNotAConspiracy I think you only play soulborn games mate if you think that enemy AI is great or even remotely intelligent. Alex P just brought up a good point which is what fromsoft should focus on next which is making better enemy AI, for example as soon as you get near anywhere close to half their health level or you can like 8 hit a boss the game is a piece of cake. So if your willing to grind you make the game so easy for yourself and actually see how dumb their AI is. It would be cool if they could add a thing where if your more powerful then the enemy they started fighting more defensively and when there is a group of them they start attacking more offensively. There is so much that they could add that would just make the game even better then what it is but hey if you don’t want the game AI to change and think it’s perfect then by all means keep telling people they have a lack of experience and with that all said and done have a great day mate
80 + hours and need to now start knocking off the latter bosses. But had to put it down today after feeling burnt out a bit. Started playing dying light 2 again and man is that a great game too
@@mookiestewart3776 hah same, when no one is around I'll play Elden (so my kids dont hear me cry or curse) and when I need a break I go to Dying Light.
because I was very skeptical if I would be able to finish this game, I chose the blood build and used summons on every boss. I'm glad I did, because I didn't have to deal with any boss for too long - the strong point of this game is exploration and atmosphere. combat / boss fights in my opinion are average and very similar (roll roll attack roll roll roll attack). If this game had a better combat system, I probably wouldn't stop playing it to this day.
As someone with 130 hours of ER.. I disagree with most of your criticisms. 1. Bosses are designed for summons - Absolute hard disagree, I beat the game without summons and I never felt like I needed them. I appreciate that they exist as the "easy mode" but playing on easy mode and then complaining that it's too easy.... Disagree 2. Reused boss assets - moderate agree, I do like the different types of dragons / tree bosses but yeah, at a point you basically fight the same tree / crucible knight 3 to 4 to ... 5 times.. But I get it, 165 bosses is a lot of bosses lol. 3. Sewer level - Disagree, I love the sewer level, I loved how fucking confusing and frustrating it could be, it really made me take a step back and THINK about where I was going and what I was doing, very satisfying. I could understand people getting upset about its design difficulty, but I loved the challenge and I prefer more challenge over less. 4. Camera - moderate agree, hard to get around to be honest 5. Performance - This review is a year old, I am sure everyone knows that after many patches, the game runs a lot smoother now. I played ER a year after launch so I'm glad I never had to deal with these issues. Good video overall.
I had performance issues at the start as well. However, (Maybe since the last patch?) I have only seen them with the extremely busy environments (stormy, many things floating around) I'm at 360 hours in (PC on Steam) and it certainly is not game breaking. At least for me.
100 hours on the PS5.. performance has been fine for me, I was used to playing souls games on the Xbox one which was the worst for performance.. so it’s better then what I’m used to in souls games… boss fatigue about the same ones I do really agree on this and like you it’s not enough to make me quit or anything like that.. all valid criticisms.. but I’m a huge souls fan and I can’t wait for other builds
I do wish there was a journal of cryptic clues. It gets difficult remembering all of the random clues that are given to you and where you might find that on the map.
I definitely agree with vague NPC quests needing a track list. When a game that takes dozens of hours per playthrough it really hurts if you realize you missed a hidden something and locks you out of an ending or reward.
I Think great to miss things in an open world but When you find a Quest and have no idea were to go its bad design. they could have you look for land marks.
Skyrim Is the best comparison for this game In referring to its Open world which gives you so much freedom and surprises just like Skyrim did. Not even close to being done with this game as I just started and I can already tell you that this is easily one of the best games I’ve ever played! There’s so much to do so many builds you’re getting more than your money’s worth
Imagine Elden ring was supposed to come out in 2020 got pushed back 2 years then comes out complete and above expectations on launch also no microtransactions cosmetics loot boxes
My only criticism of the game is there is no tracking for completed areas/bosses. I have a terrible memory and find myself running to/through areas I have already cleared. That's a me problem but sure others have the same issue.
i don’t really feel that too many builds in the game are too op. i mean you have your obvious contenders like moonveil, scarlet rot (in general, so much damage), dual bloody rapiers, and some others to mention, but everything is pretty balanced. in pvp, there will be certain situations where heavy poise break from strength weapons is most effective, or maybe you need fast hits with dex, or the boss is weak to bleed, holy, lightning, you name it. but you’ll also always run into bosses that counteract whatever build it is you’re running. i washed fallingstar beast on a mage build, but got clapped running bleed against it, for example. and in pvp, everyone is running something that’s broken in some sense of the word, but pvp is a different topic entirely
Dude! I just stumbled across a little cabin and there were people dancing around this fire. I was like oh cool, they are friendly. Went up to the fire and noticed two bodies burning. Then all of the sudden they all had red eyes and started biting themselves and chased me!! Freaked me out man!! Hahaha
Woah dude no way, you won the lottery
Bro you won the lottery, that’s crazy!
Woah the lottery is gonna ruin this man's whole career
Love the windmill area
There’s a whole village of them with a boss nearby ☠️
I spent over a hundred hours doing everything I can before beating the game. So yeah, I'd say it's damn worth it.
thats about it tho 100 hours exactly
@@fuqis I fail to see how that's a bad thing. I'd rather 100 hours of quality content than 1000 hours of just bloat.
@@fuqis you probably buy fifa packs
@@fuqis I'm on my second playthrough and even though I felt I was really thorough first time around.. I keep discovering new stuff along the way. It's an amazing open world.
@@fuqis I didn't do everything, in fact I skipped over half the bosses and put in over 150 hours
Elden Ring is so good that I am almost scared that it's as good as it gets.
All your criticisms are valid, though.
I would have loved a journal to keep track of conversations with npcs, because there were a lot more npcs and side quests than previous titles.
That’s how I feel about this game what if this is as good as it gets
This is my first souls-like game and it’s really changed my view on gaming. Never been interested in the Souls games because of the difficulty, but I underestimated the feeling of beating a super tough boss.
It’s an incredible feeling. I’ve been addicted and in love with it. The open world is amazing, the exploration is amazing, and the amount of detail and uniqueness with each different boss is amazing. Having so much fun
Bloodborne
Sekiro
Elden ring is the best especially if you like open world but the other games are definetely worth your while playing.
All the Soulsborne games are worth it... yes, even Dark Souls 2. (the black-sheep of the family but still worth it)
You'll prolly be occupied with Elden Ring for a while (I know i will be) but I recommend Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3 (in that order), Demon Souls and Bloodborne and even Sekiro... if you change your muscle-memory a bit and remember its more of a rhythm game. (or maybe play Sekiro first?)
Hollow night
It's exactly what I wanted open world dark souls with a ton of bosses, and killer multiplayer. It's definitely a hardcore RPG with no survival elements which is fun
I totally agree, except I feel the multiplayer could've been done better. Every night my two friends and I play together, and it is nothing but hassle. It's a great feeling beating a boss together, but the constant summoning and using furlcalling fingers, the not being able to progress together until we've grabbed every grace on all three worlds, not being able to rest without resummoning, the constant disconnections, the hassle whenever anyone dies, the very limited flasks for summons, the inability to use mounts, etc. Don't get me wrong, I have over 100 hours in my solo playthrough, but the multiplayer feels really limiting. I would've preferred true drop in drop out co-op with at least some shared progression like being able to activate bonfires.
@@thefolkbloke6656 I think they wanted to deter people from playing through as a full co op experience. Just really encouraging people to only summon when they're stuck on a boss. It could be cool to offer a better co op experience though so more people can enjoy it that way
@@reed1645 for sure, I get what they were going for, but it just feels like wasted potential. We have so many great open world RPGs (skyrim, witcher 3, BOTW, etc.), but one thing that they all lack is co-op. Elden Ring already beats those other titles out of the park on a lot of fronts, but it could've been even more amazing if it was also that nearly seamless co-op experience that I know it could be. The foundation is all there. Exploring through the masterfully crafted world of Elden Ring with friends sounds incredible. And it is, but with a lot of headache.
@@thefolkbloke6656 yea I get that. My housemate has been playing it. We haven't done co op but talking about our builds, the bosses, different strategies, lore and other cool stuff we've seen has been a ton of fun. The game is great when shared with other people so I could definitely see how coop would add a lot for people.
@@reed1645 you could try racing each other to the same bosses on separate games.
This is one of the most amazing games i've ever played.
A game some of us will play for many many years
great fighing in all aspects big world and bosses and all related things but no story man its not skyrim 2022 no factions no romance no side quests or big awesone plot with choises, like witcher 3 etc it get boring to a lot of people
I played ds3 for 4 years... so yeah
@@FinneousPJ1 doing bosses over and over and what else nothing
@@bloodwindpvp4364 The same thing could be said about all the games you mentioned. Once you finish the quest there’s nothing left. Replaying games in different ways is where the fun comes from and Skyrim is one of the most boring games I’ve ever played why are you even comparing them?
@@bloodwindpvp4364 multiplayer?
Personally the biggest thing this game could use and I agree with is a journal to track npc dialogue
And better the summons system it's still super clunky
Also Some fights are really hard for melee players, not in the sense of difficulty but some enemies are just so big that the lock on or camera angles completely screw you over, when I fought Astel Naturalborn of the void the fight was pretty hectic, not because he was difficult but because my attacks would miss 60-70% of the time due to the angle and his size.
You need too unlock the camera for certain fights.
Lol just land jump attacks on his head
That is a tough for a weapons with short range. To fight this boss, you should not lock on to the boss and attack it’s legs. From time to time it’s face gets close to you and you can jump and attack it.
Yeah I get that, I’m saying even when not locked on it’s pretty hard unless his head is down, other parts of his body either clip through or you have to be precise on the legs. Not a big issue just pointing out that it’s a little tricky?
There are also some fights that are really difficult for mage players, so it's a trade off ig
A thing that happened to me a lot is finding early game dungeons with bosses in 'em that I've already been fighting out in the open world (and the harder versions too) and is completely underwhelming seeing a new boss and going "oh I beat this guy like 20 times already".
Also happened that I was really underleveled in some parts and really overleveled in other ones.
It was a wonkier difficulty curve, for sure.
boring game great figthing but thats about it no other interest no story side quests plot twist romance or other interests just figthing and figthing no economy and living world
@@bloodwindpvp4364 found the guy that missed the side quests
@@bloodwindpvp4364
Lmao who shat in your syrup
@@conciise136 compare the side quest of this game with dragon age and witcher 3 or baldur gate 3 no comparison
@@bloodwindpvp4364 Is Baldur's Gate a soulsborne game? Witcher 3? Nope, different genre so your comparisons here don't work.
I agree Elden Ring’s minimalism gets annoying for quests especially when I’m trying to remember the dialogue one character said that was a hint for the quest. Maybe some kind of “notes” so you can review dialogue for characters to keep the mysterious aura of the game intact.
I just snapshot dialogue it’s not hard
If i wanna follow a quest line that I absolutely do not know how to continue I follow the wiki and it's pretty simple and spoiler free. Just gives some pointers and helps you not miss anything
I like at least a little story. This is a worse version of Monster Hunter.
@@thebenc1537 LOL.. someone wasn't paying attention.
@@thebenc1537 you like to complain a lot don't you? That's sad
I think the late game boss design really suffers, especially with bosses like Godskin duo where they don’t compliment each other or even make sense to be there, they just are and it’s a horrible experience
Yah I kinda agree with that but Godfrey and dragon lord and Maliketh were a bunch of badass boss fights and I liked malenia too
Yep
That’s the only bad boss because it’s only the duo bosses that re bad the rest are the best in the series
God skin duo was easy asf for me and didn’t find it annoying whatsoever use the cover around the area. That area however is the worst in the game.
late game bosses get crazy as fuck idk what you mean by this
The game definately reminds me of Skyrim, but in my opinion it actually has way more in common with the oldschool Gothic games. Those games are strikingly similar to Dark Souls and might even have inspired them.
Gothic 1-3 is well worth testing out. They are clunky, but awesome games!
I remember that Gothic 2 and Morrowind came out at around the same time and i feel the DNA of both these games in Elden Ring.
man this is the first time I see someone mentioning Gothic series, and this game reminds me a lot of it, from software games always had that touch to them.
@@fabianschuler2722 Exactly, that is the feeling of a GOAT game for sure.
Skyrim sucks
@@billpogi23 L
Totally agree that many of the late game bosses seemed built around summons and that is kinda a shame, and it is probably my biggest critique of the game. I ended up using mimic tear for many of the fights that Matty showed (Godfrey was a good solo fight though) because after 120+hours I didn't feeling like grinding a boss solo for hours at a time anymore.
Radahn in particular is like that for lore reasons, to be fair. But honestly, I don't think it's a bad thing for games to encourage using every mechanic while not punishing not doing so.
@@FelisImpurrator Agreed, Radahn makes it very clear that summons are meant to be used for that fight. It is literally built into the story which pretty much never happens with a souls like game unless it is intentional.
I think it is a fine line between encouraging a mechanic and making it necessary for a fight to be enjoyable though and personally I think a couple didn't balance it properly.
@@Epiousios18 Which ones? I've seen Malenia absolutely bullied with nothing but jump greatsword powerstancing...
@@Epiousios18 I just beat radahn without summons and I can see what your saying, he is still a great fight and summons arent necessary but a few attacks seem poorly balanced and the camera can be a bit wonky at times. Is radahn the worst offender when it comes for necessary summons in the game? I haven't explored the capital yet.
Why are people so anti-summons?
i beat the game at around 105 hours and i agree with pretty much everything you said. At first i had the rose tinted shades on and didnt wanna see no wrong about the game but elden ring deff had its issues at times, but overall this is one of my favorite games ever and same as you i dont think ive ever pumped in 100 hours so fast into a game, deff was playing an unhealthy amount.
It’s crazy to me to hear that you spent 105 hours doing almost all the side content, and realizing that it has taken me 60 hours to do all the content in limgrave and maybe like 1 dungeon in liurnia
Good god lol
Many of the suggestions are things the dev could implement in patches to come, so they are good criticisms.
I think it's the best single player game i've ever played. the last time i was this immersed in a single player game, it was GTA Sana andreas and i was a kid. Since then ive been obsessed with multiplayer games...until elden ring. now im obsessed with this game
I get it when people want longer games, but at the same time it's about quality not quantity. If a game is a quality 100 hours, I'm pretty happy. I wish I had 100 hours to spend on a game.
I've never seen so many of my friends online playing the same game at the exact same time.
Yesterday I had nearly 2 dozen people on PlayStation playing Elden Ring. These people are not just friends I've played with from prior Soulsborne games.. Most of them are usually playing FPS.
--
It was pretty cool when I noticed this yesterday. It's something I've never seen before..
I can see people are getting hooked on Elden Ring. I know that i am.
Some friends I rarely see at certain times of the night.. These guys are up all night playing Elden Ring. Haha..
My letdown of this game is the poor armor progression. It did not evolve into something better. Every From game has the same poor armor progression. NO player-power set bonus, NO mod/gem slots. The only thing (almost) every armor does is give x defense. Even the LEGENDARY sets provide NO player-power set bonus. I want to see set bonus (power) effects to make armor feel more unique, rather than I need to wear something to not get ass blasted.
I really enjoyed the perks/ set bonus effects from Nioh 2, God of War PC, AC: Odyssey, the Witcher 3, and Outriders.
Same with FP, it did not evolve from any other From game. We have no auto FP regains. I wanted them to add auto FP regains and evolve the FP system into something new. Not the same FP system we have seen forever.
Two words: Fashion-Souls.
Infact, I love the fact that FromSoft games don't go into the usual tropes of armor-sets with mod/gem slots. You might enjoy that sorta change immensely... but I think there are plenty in the Soulsborne community that recoil at that thought.
Armor in souls games is about fashion for the most part. But there’s armors that do give stat bonuses. Lot of mage masks boost int and the crucible knight armors boost certain incantations.
I see your point but then I started seeing their point more. I’ve been wearing what looks cool and shunning stats for 70 out of 100 hours, and I’ve been subconsciously denying it too..
Yeah, unique effects on armor pieces was one of the many reasons Dark Souls 2 was my favorite Fromsoft game for so long.
I've been playing a faith/dexterity hybrid build for around 45 hours now. I REALLY wanted to have a primarily faith build, but I'm simply not good enough at the game to run around without a shield. Lol. It doesn't help that the majority of incantations are passive, however, I am aware that there are some later game spells that are offensive, so maybe I'll be able to work that in a lot more when I get there. For now, it's mostly using dex weapons with hemorrhage effects (which are amazing) and rolling around to dodge attacks (usually failing).
I've only ever played Dark Souls (1) and I sucked at it, so I gave up years ago. I'm not sure if I was just enthralled by the hype of Elden Ring, but I caved and bought it a week after launch and I absolutely love it. Like I mentioned, I'm not very good, but there's definitely something about this game for me that Dark Souls did not have that makes me love it and want more and more.
Finally, I've read/heard lots of mentions about how there should've been an in-game player journal and I thought that only around three hours into my playthrough. I have a terrible memory, which not only makes things like memorizing boss battle movements/attacks difficult, but just basic things like who the hell I've talked to and what it was exactly that they wanted me to do. I think that is a great idea; something subtle to help the folks like me who can hardly remember anything. Lol.
That progression is real and works both ways!
Found the mimic bear, struggled for hours = reached mistwood, I’m beating them no hit
Struggled with Ulcerated tree spirit boss for hours in fringe folk hero’s = found one deep in Stormveil Castle, beat it first try.
Struggled (and failed) at crucible Knight for hours = found one in stormveil, learned the moves and killed it, went back and killed crucible knight boss easily.
The “10-20 enemies and only way forward” is false!! I’ve been exploring very thoroughly and there’s always 2-5 paths through any area
The one thing I really didn’t like was that the game kinda forces you to”cheese-grind” or play in a very safe, boring fashion if you want to level up towards the end.
How?
You can get levels by fighting some of the optional bosses. That's a more entertaining approach in my opinion.
I think Elden Ring is absolutely stellar. I also think Elden Ring fandom has become really obnoxious really fast.
Thank you matty for making this video and talking about it. I agreed with you 100%.
I know the game is new an not a lot of player have been able to get to those later part, but the amount of negativity you get just for mentioning those point you bring in this video is incredible.
You get shame for not using summon lol, that's a first for me. I never have shame anyone for using them in any a FS game.
Theres some hardcore nerds out there that say its the only way. Seen a ton of comments about people boasting about. Like its a game mechanic to help players learn or setup their build not just a cheese method although it can be but, either way its an intended mechanic of the game the developers put in to make the game a lot more accessible.
I've beat every souls game and sekiro multiple times. I use summons in Elden Ring. However you choose to beat the game is up to you.
I agree with the critiques and it's still a 10/10 for me. That being said I've had no performance issues or frame drops personally with two hard crashes over 100 hours so that's probably kept my complaints very low.
The only thing keeping me from playing Elden Ring is the fact I’m not in the phase of my life anymore where I want to play challenging RPGs. I’ve played Souls, Bloodborne, Oblivion etc and I just wanna relax and kick back to enjoy some fantasy RPG elements. A shame. Props to those enjoying it tho!
It’s not exactly hard per say tho 😓
Retired gamer OMEGALUL
@@nyxknight7555 it’s not, but from what I’ve played, it’s one of those games that requires absolute focus like Souls does for boss fights. I’m past that age where I’m huge into figuring out i-frames and perfect parries etc and am more drawn to exploration > grinding and hard boss fights. Every once in a while, sure… but overall, I like a more lax experience nowadays.
@@DMsubble I’m an D1 alpha vet babyyyyyy (just meme-ing). But fr; I’ve burned myself out on games like Souls; I used to grind them till my fingers got blisters and completed them all… now I just wanna relax yo 😭
It’s a better reason than being too broke to buy it, lol.
14:17 Hey, as someone's whose favourite From game is still DS2 (and yes, I love all the Soulsborne games very much), I took that personally. 😆
But yeah, great video, Matty. Nice to see a balanced review, even if the game is otherwise stellar.
Ds2 is my favorite as well. The playability is the best by far. Also bring bonfire anesthetics back!
DS2 kicks butt idc what anyone says. Also has the best customization besides MAYBE Elden Ring.
All your criticisms are valid. This game is a masterpiece but it has few very annoying things. Questing would be one of it.
You are a little more generous than me. I think the endgame is where things fall apart. It's downhill after the fire giant. The enemy spam gets ridiculous and the bosses just do way too much damage. I didn't grind for health boosting runes and spend 100 hours sinking 50 points into vigor just to be killed in 1-2 hits. And just so you know yes I did beat the game. But I doubt I'll do another play through unless they patch the end game, and I doubt they will.
I can't disagree more that Elden Ring has anything in common with Skyrim, other than in how much its being talked about and played right now. Skyrim was a continuation of Bethesda's dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls series. If anything, Elden Ring reminds me of Morrowind. Skyrim was so hand-holdy, whereas Elden Ring doesn't do that at all. Because you need both hands. To hold a bigass sword to fight all the things that are trying to kick your face in. Fuck it's refreshing.
Best game of my adult life so far. Beating stuff like Botw Halo Infinite etc etc
This game took inspiration from Sekiro. Sekiro said 'You will parry on this boss or not win' and Elden Ring did that a little as well. Some bosses were completely immune to bleed and my starting build was bleed daggers and I got stomped on by many bosses. My second play through I was a mage and those bosses I had issues with were cake walk but some of the other bosses I wrecked with bleed were hard with magic. So I think the ideal situation is to have a verity of tools to use depending on the boss...so instead of smashing my dagger build against Malenia for 4 hours I should have just switched it up to magic for that boss. Game was fantastic though
For my first play through I’ve got kinda good at everything excluding faith and this has definitely been my experience. Some bosses are too quick for spells but weak to being parried, others are slow but their attacks cover massive areas making them weak to spells. Sometimes crafting items of a certain damage type is all I need to beat a boss second try.
Having 100+ hours in the game myself all of these criticisms are 100% true. This game being a 10/10 must buy is also true lol
I do hope this is true. Although I'm not seeing the masterpiece here that all reviewers claim, it's definitely not bad or anything. Im over 20 hours in, got a few op weapons and it's just diminished my motivation. But I'll keep going and seeing if there is something there
@@skatellites6612 20 hrs is not remotely enough to even scratch the surface of this game , where are you in the game ?
@@COHOFSohamSengupta Sifora Wells and castle area
@@skatellites6612 So you still have Liurnia , Caelid , capital , Volcano manor , crumbling farum azua left & other underground eternal cities
@@COHOFSohamSengupta sounds great I'll keep playing
This was the kind of review I needed, with a healthy dose of criticism in the end. It's ok to be biased while reviewing because we all have our preferences, but just fanboy praise is not a review. This was a review. Thank you
Comparing it to Skyrim is an instant buy, still feel the exploration is unmatched in that game, so if Elden Ring is like that I am down
ehh...its not. Personally, i dont agree with all of the gushing reviews. Its a good game, but unless you like memorizing boss patterns over and over and don't care about finding cool loot, it gets kind of stale. Its definitely no Skyrim for me, the world is dead. Its just a bunch of minibosses and dungeons. and everything respawns on death.
@@sirQB there’s plenty of cool loot in Elden Ring though
@@Dmc841 really? ive been playing for 25+ hrs and my starting gear is still the best things I have minus a few summons and talisman.
Im not expecting Diablo, but I rarely come across something that actually makes me want to seriously use it. Doesnt feel like there is much flexibility.
@@sirQB how have you managed to play 25+ hours without finding a single better weapon? That's on you not the game clearly. If you explore limgrave it has minimum 5 weapons for both strength and dex builds, tonnes of ashes of war faith and intelligence spells what else do you want?
It is, It has Exploration-check, Jump-check, RPG-check, Epic Boss battles-check, Horses to ride-check, Hidden dungeons-check and unlocking hidden artifacts know as Ashes etc-check. Yep Sounds a lot like Skyrim but better.
Edit: PvP and Co op-check.
I think the last game I put 100 hours into this fast was Divinity Original Sin 2, these games don't come often boys enjoy them while they last.
No quest markers or quest books gives “open world” it’s real meaning and the fact that the souls borne genre touched this is just exiting, I’m already exited for dlc, would be cool if you talked a lil about that too…
"This game feels like Skyrim"
I'd go even further than that. It feels like Morrowind.
dont compare it this game is boss battles dangerous world great figthing and crafting and all figthing related , morrowind and skyrim are rpgs with factions stories companions main story and tons of other living world of many interests this game is pretty monotonous its just figthing and figthing great bosses with awesome skills i agree andgreat all combat and boss related and danger feeling or more but its open world mix with dungeon crawler not really a rpg that you can do a tons of things
@@bloodwindpvp4364 chill to your shitty opinion bro
i played both of those, elden ring is garbage compared to both of those.
I don't think Elden Ring feels even remotely anything like an Elder Scrolls game. I mean it's a fantasy game, action RPG but other than that it has really nothing to do with how ES games work.
@@nenirouvelliv Big open world with lots of things hidden in it to wander around and discover on your own
I feel bad for the PC players. I've put 50+ hours into the PS5 version and have had zero framerate drops and almost no pop-in. This game is amazing!
It's not that bad. I'm playing on PC and drops are occasional.
I'm on PC (1440) and it drops to around 53 frames once every 20-30 minutes. And the stuttering stopped once I went to boarderless window mode. Same with all dozen of my PC playing friends.
You have frame drops. You have pop in. Your PS5 isn’t special.
Different experiences for different people it shouldn't be that way but on PC depending on Hardware it runs differently and even on consoles some get no and very little stuttering other get so much that you feel you are cheated out what could be a great game. Modern games in a nutshell, only made worse in Elden Ring because of its moment to moment boss fighting that requires sometimes precise dodging or hiting.
@@teddyholiday8038 I have no problems either on ps5.
Game of the Year isn’t even a question in my mind, the conversation should be is where does this rank in the Too 10 games of all time. And personally I think it’s definitely in my Top 3, and with only 125 hours into it, it could possibly be my #1, time will tell.
The worst thing about Elden Ring is it’s probably destroyed any other open world game for me. I barely got into HFW before Elden came out and to be honest my desire to play HFW fell off a cliff. I might just put a thousand or two hours of Elden Ring in instead. As I said I’m 125 hours in and I’m still heavily drive to play it.
I’d hate to be a dev right now working on a open world game, because Elden Ring just changed the game. We now expect more, much … than we have been getting.
Lmfao you need to play more games
My favorite of all time. It exceeded the hype.
I struggled more with the camera and locking on enemies than the enemies themselves haha
Sounds like a souls game lol
Never really had an issue with this. Maybe its because I'm just so used to it with older souls games, and PlayStation 1 Resident Evil. When it happens I always just know what to do 🤷♂️
bleeding is far from op, since it's flat damage added when you proc the effect, plus a lot of tought fight have boss that are simply immune to it. plus don't forget to remember that you can easily over level the content of the game then often it lead to some encounter becoming easy.
some fight can become pure joke with the right tool... earlier with a character 87 i did destro radahn by using the rot breath of the named dragon... right tool in the right situation can turn any fight really easy. in a sense every build are op, but well it what make it charm
Dark Souls 4: The Elden Ring
I’m playing a bleed build and it’s still a really hard game. Boss movement is incredibly difficult some times
Frostbite is also really good. Very similar to bleed but scales more with int
@@deon_strydom_00 you can stack frost and bleed together as well
@@mookiestewart3776 that sounds like something I have to try lmfao
It's not until later in the game but if you can get a summon called 'mimic tear' and get it to level 10 it'll make most bosses far far easier. To the point where it's almost broken.
stop it, no pause button, no difficulty settings, it is pure trash
I play for a 100+ hours, and I love it. I still haven't finished, because I'm exploring every nook and cranny of the map.
I finished it last night with 78 hours and immediately started my second playthrough. Absolutely loving my time with it. Easily one of the best games in years. Couldn't recommend it enough!
Sheesh I'm 121 hours in and still have 3 major bosses to go and just unlocked the whole map.
Finishing it in 78 hours mean you have to have skipped a huge amount of the game
Yeah I’m playing through as a mage now and am already looking forward to playing through again as melee, maybe something tanky.
I agree, the game is amazing but not flawless. Balance definitely seems off and some bosses just don't feel as well designed as others imo. I also have some gripes with map size but that's a bit more of a personal nitpick. Been a Souls fan since Demon's and I do think Elden is the best iteration so far, but I think DkS3 was a bit more consistent. Elden has some glaring issues, some which can thankfully be fixed (like instakill exploits), but also some other design flaws that bother me and I doubt will ever change
The Sewers made me question my life and sanity lmfao, took soo long to get out of there lol And when I finally did, I was the lord of chaos and now have to beat Optional Malenia to get rid of the frenzied flame inside my character. This game is awesome
Lol right the same thing happened to me. I make it through there all the way to this burnt door. Messages on the ground say “think carefully” and stuff like that lol, I had to see what was beyond the door so I went in. I thought there would be some dialogue or something with the fingers but instead I just got one fiery hug that I couldn’t escape haha. So then I was like fuck now I have to beat Malenia.. Optional boss becomes mandatory if I don’t want the frenzied flame ending. After 30-40 attempts I beat her. Amazing game
A simpler version of the Morrowind Journal would have been nice, like everything a NPC says to you written down.
One of the best things about soulsborne series is that each game allows you to utilize deeper ingame knowledge to build absolute godlike character who can litetally 1-shot bosses. Or you can play as lvl 1 naked dude with a club and completely dominate bosses anyway.
Me personally, I like to find new ways to make totally batshit crazy ridicilous builds and setups in these games, it so much fun
I’ve spent 42 hours just scouring Limgrave, stormveil, siofra and Mistwood for everything I can find.
I'm actually happy that there are still blemishes to an otherwise incredible experience because that's how you get better future games.
The faults with Elden Ring are the same faults in all their other "Souls" games going back 15 years, Fromsoft will never make a better game.
I will counter with saying Tree Sentinel variants were awesome to see before getting into the Capital, and approaching Maliketh. “Okay mfkr your again.” Also with the bodies of the Finger Readers and the multiple similar but not same bosses were getting Prestiged in the lore.
for my first playthrough i was went astrologer, and did a pure mage build i was pretty much a glass canon. one minor criticism i wish the game had was a npc dialog log, i can't remeber the npc name but when i went to speak to him and he told me the quest but after an hour a f-ing around i couldn't remember what he said and i went back to him and he said he wouldn't speak to me until i completed his quest, and that was a little annoying but overall game of the year.
omg ikr I had to go on google to see what the mf said but I couldn't remember his name so I was basically fcked then I randomly found a vid on youtube of a guy doing the quest I was trying to complete. I clicked on the vid to see what the npc said so I could do the quest, after that I started writing every npc's name and what they say on a piece of paper so I don't forget there names and what they say in the future
Matty I think this was a totally fair review. Game of the Year for me as well and I share your criticisms.
agree
This is a weird one because I’ve been torn between genuinely believing this game deserves the praise it’s been getting and thinking people are out of their minds. To be clear I adore this game and in so many ways it feels like a collection of all From Soft’s creative successes in one game. I also think this may be their best game yet, or in the very least my favourite. That being said, there is definitely issues, especially when it comes to performance. Yes, I know these issues will likely all be fixed, and many already have been, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that Steam has been hitting almost 1 million players at peak while the PC version has had plenty of infuriating issues and optimization problems. To be fair, these issues are quite minor compared to what we are used to in modern gaming, but they are issues nonetheless. I also feel a tad bit too much of DS2 seeping into this game. Times where there is unfair enemy spam, gank bosses with tons of summons, very odd lingering hitboxes, arenas far too small for the boss within it, or just bosses too big for the camera overall. Again, in modern gaming I am grateful this is all I have to complain about and like I said I believe most of the time the praise is 100% deserved. I just can’t shake the feeling far too often while playing that the game should be more like a 88%-92% rather than a 97%-100%. The score itself doesn’t bother me, it’s more that people are dismissing these issues as if they don’t exist and call the game perfect. It’s definitely not perfect, and that’s okay, because it’s damn close and everyone should give this game a go.
I think this is a clear example of the hunger people had for a game that breaks the mold. If we had been getting good games that pushed the envelope instead of the oversaturated triple a market thar we got you'd see a bit less hype for elden ring. The market gap was just waiting to be exploited and Elden Ring was the one to do it
I've honestly only felt that the game's level of bullshit was completely unreasonable a few times. Kindred of Rot spamming the prawn silly string of doom. Putrid crystalians in a tiny room aping you with rot. That one sniper staircase in Raya Lucaria. The goddamn blood birds on Mohgwyn's death island. Heavy knights that can block all your spell damage if you're a caster and reach halfway across the room. Some of the dumber ambushes.
But other than maybe bosses having too little window between attacks, or enemies reaching too far or turning too quickly, or rooms just being a bit too goddamn tiny for the enemies, most of it has been fair. And often when it isn't, it's at least very funny.
Honestly, I don't know why myself. I haven't given it my usual level of critical thought, but I do know I usually have a lot less patience for games being cheap than this.
Thing is the game has it's fair share of bullshit but they all do and this game has far more game to balance. 10/10 doesn't indicate a perfect game just one that is incredibly good.
“you again…”
me when godskin apostle/noble, ulcerated tree spirit, magma wyrm, crucible knight
Don't forget about the catacomb watchdogs!
For me Elden Ring is a hard meh (7/10 maybe) and I feel alone af lol
This is the only from software game I've ever cared about and the only one that ever held my attention.
Finally a decent review. I think the last fourth of the game is trash. Scaling is insane and you get instakilled or spammed in a glimps with level 150+. Moghwyn Palace and Haligtree are just terrible balanced. The ash summons are nessecary, but cheap and feel like an afterthought, because otherwise a lot of people couldn't beat the game. But on reddit everyone says get better, as everyone needs to be like them to play the game. Gosh. First I thought it was a 10/10, but due to the endgame I would say 6-7/10. Its just terrible balanced.
I just finished it, with 160hrs 😅
No magic,other then from Moonveil Katana. Level 154
The only point I think you should have given more emphasis on is the quest log, or journal log, call it however you want. It's a huge shame that this masterpiece of a game, that I'm sure has incredible questlines, will probably be finished by most people without them touching 90% of the quests. It's damn near impossible to know what a "quest giver" wants you to do, unless you look it up online, which in my opinion kinda ruins immersion.
What I think would be awesome for them to do is, simply have a log with npc names that gave you the quest, and if you track it, have arrows on the map like the ones of sites of grace, pointing you in a direction. It's the absolute least they could do, but even if it was a full on quest log, I'd prefer that to what we have now, which is basically nothing.
No we don't need that we didn't have that in any of the other ones and they turned out fine
@@moderatingmoderation1699 Whatever you say
Yeah I love the game but definetely would help, especially now it's open world. It's frustrating having to google it every time you want to continue a quest line.
@@roe2479 Yea.. people like the guy above saying "we didn't have that" are borderline cultists that compare a completely open world game that is 5x the size of previous fromsoft games to demon souls, like...
@@NoneNameAvailable yeah I dont know why, all it would do was make the game better xD. I feel like even previous souls games could have done with one, it was so difficult to track quests.
Already bought but loved to hear your thoughts. First souls game for me and am all in!
My favorite game in years. Possibly my favorite of all time.
@MrMattyPlays, What are the rest of your specs for your PC? I've seen plenty of footage of people suffering complete frame freezes while playing but I haven't encountered that issue so far after around 80 hours of gameplay.
Please don't misunderstand, I believe you and anyone else that is having these issues. However the most performance issues I've had have been momentary frame dips when loading a new region.
My current setup is: 12700K i7, 32gb DDR4, Samsung NVME in PCI 4.0 slot, Nvidia 2080 FTW3, and win11 Pro. All stock clocks except for the ram, using driver 511.23 for the GPU, win11 up to date.
If anyone else including MrMatty can post specs below the comment I would be interested to see if there is a correlation with certain hardware setups running worse than others.
When he started comparing it to skyrim i felt so much nostalgia, and yeah both games got me sinking about 100hrs in the launch week without feeling burnt out from the game
😂😂😂
I totally agree with having an in-game journey guide. Sometimes I felt lost, I didn't know where to find an NPC, etc.
That's literally the Morrowind solution and it was, while clunky to navigate, thoroughly excellent for immersion and guidance in one.
Few games have used that obviously good answer, honestly.
@@fawkkyutuu8851 Dude, ok, but it's a vast world, and many times we even "forget" the speech or something from an NPC or place. I'm not saying to have a dense and easy guide, but something simple, with some direction, or NPC name, place, etc. I don't like games that give us all the information either, but I believe Elden Ring could have a shallow and simple guide, that's all.
@@fabiogoulart1987 Kingdom come does this well the Directions are saved in your Quest log.
Last time I got addicted to a game was way back with CSGO, LOL, and DOTA2. I got 6K plus on those 3. Elden Ring is as addictive AF. It is the only thing I think about at work. It has consumed me, my wife, and my son. LoL. Sounds negative but it has been a source of bonding for my family.
The fact that the while family is involved makes it easily a positive no doubt
Bro. Same! This game is incredible
My only big complaint is to due with the gank boss fights, there are a lot in this game and I don't think they are very good at maintaining a good balance. You either try and beat them alone and don't have an enjoyable experience or fight them with a spirit summon and don't feel accomplished.
I beat nearly every one of these fights solo, and it was pure pain for me, usually I'm super stoked after fights like that but for the gank fights in this game I was just glad to get them over with.
Otherwise I am such a huge fan of this game, love the build diversity, love the world and the npc's and the bosses. From really really nailed this game.
Thanks for the good content Matty! Had some good points!
Good review, all fair critiques. Personally, I think it's a masterpiece. Yes, it has some issues, but I believe with a game of this size and scope, it has to be accounted for regarding the flaws. In a normal game, these are bigger issues. Not so here, imo. All in all, I concur
It's one of the best games I've ever played. I've never enjoyed another souls like game either. I'm still playing it 100 hours in.
Ironically, I wished there was better/more gear in ng+. Maybe some new attacks or patterns later. I know people hated/loved ds2, but that was one thing it's the best at in the entire franchise.
One thing I wasn't crazy about was Rykard. As cool as it was having a weapon that had a boss mechanic to it, I almost felt like I needed it or else it would've been a grueling fight, and I'm a mage who tries to avoid physical weapons if possible, let alone a heavy weapon.
All your criticisms are completely valid and one thing I agree most is a Journal. Some quests I completely botched and got punished for as a result simply because I wasn't aware of something. Another example is... how the heck was I suppose to know to talk to a DOLL at a Grace site when I picked it up!? Then go to a place mostly unrelated to the location to get a think to unlock a thing??? How am I to know all that without being told?
That’s the point of the boss you’re supposed to use the weapon.
@@shiroufan5401 I know, but I found it annoying since I'm trying to be magical, not physical.
However I did cheese it a little by summoning my Mimic while I had the spear in hand, and then I unequipped it. That way my mimic would use it and I still get to spell sling.
It actually worked really well too! Because the unique ability exclusive to the fight works on the Mimic too. So you can either be a Magical Support guy like I was, using Rock Sling to do good Poise Damage for easy hits for my Mimic, or you could be a Serpent Spear Slayer duo.
Lets be honest too. Every masterpiece game in history and every 10/10 game has had its issues. Just because you the best doesn’t mean you can’t learn and have its faults.
I rekon its more that 10/10 are for games that do something new and do it well. A game that perfects someone else's formula isn't as impressive.
I think I retired off Souls games with DS3. I can only do the same formula so much.
Its a breath of fresh air compared to DS3 in my opinion, this game can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be.
@@IsItFunorNot that’s one of my favorite parts of it. It also shows ppl who want an easy mode just don’t want to make the game easy themselves
I played Bloodbourne then Sekrio loved both but Elden ring feels like a worse version. It also feels like been there done that.
That's a shame as imo even after Elden Ring Sekiro has the best feeling boss fights even after playing most of Elden Ring. I think it's because of the fact that in Sekiro many of the bosses require that you parry enemy combos constantly so the end result is it really feels like a true sword battle with you knocking aside every blow. I love my dodge rolls in Dark Souls but nothing beats nonstop parries.
@@IsItFunorNot it needs to be a breath of fresh air compared to Demon Souls, DS1, DS2, DS3, BB and Sekiro, not just DS3 lol, that was my point. it's a breath of air, i dunno about fresh though.
75 hours in on PS5, well worth the $60 for me. One of the best open world games I’ve ever experienced.
But man - those hero’s grave dungeons…. I hate them
103 hours on ps5 and still want more
Im 200 hours in doing most of the optional stuff and the bit about having spammy enemies. Im not so sure about that, at first yes it seemed overwhelming, but I just ran past them and then picked them off. Or lured them one by one while keeping myself close to cover. Ive never played Dark Souls 2... so maybe it doesnt affect me as much as others, but I havent felt anything was spammy. honestly the most annoying thing for me recently was a 3 v 1 boss ight where this guy summoned 2 ghost soldiers by his side. I beat him after some time, I just needed to get good. I'm also refraining from using summoning ashes for my first playthrough as one look at them told me they'd just distract the boss and Im not interested in winning that way. That being said, I beat Radhan without any summon help, granted I did it almost entirely on horse back, only hopping off Torrent to dodge a few attacks.
Nothing wrong with using summons. Going without them is just an extra challenge for us Sweat Lords out there.
Still not a fan of Souls games but I am around the 100 hour mark on this as well. I had a guided playthrough (whenever a question popped up) and over leveled in order to enjoy the game without feeling like I have to go pro. Spending 8 hours on one boss? No thanks. Not fun for me. But as an open world fan I loved this game and even overleveled if you are too careless any boss can destroy you quickly.
I've always seen the summons in all Souls games as any other tool. Use it, or not, if you want.
My major issue is fromsoft forgot how to do difficulty. Instead of having better enemy AI it feels they just made enemies Hella tanky and one shot like crazy.
Disagree I think that’s lack of experience.
Git gud it’s a game from FromSoftware
You mean AOE attacks ? A lot of endgame bosses have massive AOE attacks personally not a fan of that
The enemy-design, the move-sets from enemies & surprise tactics and even the razor-tight hitboxes... they're definitely improved a lot from the Demon Souls/Dark Souls era.
(check out the gif compilation on twitter of people doing insane last-second dodges/ducking-under/jumping-over enemy attacks. This is definitely an improvement from earlier Soulsborne games)
@@QNotAConspiracy I think you only play soulborn games mate if you think that enemy AI is great or even remotely intelligent. Alex P just brought up a good point which is what fromsoft should focus on next which is making better enemy AI, for example as soon as you get near anywhere close to half their health level or you can like 8 hit a boss the game is a piece of cake. So if your willing to grind you make the game so easy for yourself and actually see how dumb their AI is.
It would be cool if they could add a thing where if your more powerful then the enemy they started fighting more defensively and when there is a group of them they start attacking more offensively. There is so much that they could add that would just make the game even better then what it is but hey if you don’t want the game AI to change and think it’s perfect then by all means keep telling people they have a lack of experience and with that all said and done have a great day mate
80 + hours and need to now start knocking off the latter bosses. But had to put it down today after feeling burnt out a bit.
Started playing dying light 2 again and man is that a great game too
im back burning nier automata while playing elden ring lol going back and forth between the two
Didn't dying light 2 just get an update .
@@kevinlist3330 yup! Not sure what the update was but had to convert my old save for the update.
@@mookiestewart3776 hah same, when no one is around I'll play Elden (so my kids dont hear me cry or curse) and when I need a break I go to Dying Light.
Elden Ring was way too easy compared to other souls games.
Actually good criticism that makes sense. Only thing i really disagreed with but completely understand was the summons complaint.
Did you beat them without summons ? if thats the case then its good to hear.
because I was very skeptical if I would be able to finish this game, I chose the blood build and used summons on every boss. I'm glad I did, because I didn't have to deal with any boss for too long - the strong point of this game is exploration and atmosphere. combat / boss fights in my opinion are average and very similar (roll roll attack roll roll roll attack). If this game had a better combat system, I probably wouldn't stop playing it to this day.
As someone with 130 hours of ER.. I disagree with most of your criticisms.
1. Bosses are designed for summons - Absolute hard disagree, I beat the game without summons and I never felt like I needed them. I appreciate that they exist as the "easy mode" but playing on easy mode and then complaining that it's too easy.... Disagree
2. Reused boss assets - moderate agree, I do like the different types of dragons / tree bosses but yeah, at a point you basically fight the same tree / crucible knight 3 to 4 to ... 5 times.. But I get it, 165 bosses is a lot of bosses lol.
3. Sewer level - Disagree, I love the sewer level, I loved how fucking confusing and frustrating it could be, it really made me take a step back and THINK about where I was going and what I was doing, very satisfying. I could understand people getting upset about its design difficulty, but I loved the challenge and I prefer more challenge over less.
4. Camera - moderate agree, hard to get around to be honest
5. Performance - This review is a year old, I am sure everyone knows that after many patches, the game runs a lot smoother now. I played ER a year after launch so I'm glad I never had to deal with these issues.
Good video overall.
Some bosses are objectively designed for use of summons.
I had performance issues at the start as well. However, (Maybe since the last patch?) I have only seen them with the extremely busy environments (stormy, many things floating around) I'm at 360 hours in (PC on Steam) and it certainly is not game breaking. At least for me.
100 hours on the PS5.. performance has been fine for me, I was used to playing souls games on the Xbox one which was the worst for performance.. so it’s better then what I’m used to in souls games… boss fatigue about the same ones I do really agree on this and like you it’s not enough to make me quit or anything like that.. all valid criticisms.. but I’m a huge souls fan and I can’t wait for other builds
The most challenging thing with this game is it's brokenness and the lack of capability or will on Froms side to fix all the issues on PC.
I do wish there was a journal of cryptic clues. It gets difficult remembering all of the random clues that are given to you and where you might find that on the map.
I definitely agree with vague NPC quests needing a track list. When a game that takes dozens of hours per playthrough it really hurts if you realize you missed a hidden something and locks you out of an ending or reward.
I Think great to miss things in an open world but When you find a Quest and have no idea were to go its bad design. they could have you look for land marks.
Skyrim Is the best comparison for this game In referring to its Open world which gives you so much freedom and surprises just like Skyrim did.
Not even close to being done with this game as I just started and I can already tell you that this is easily one of the best games I’ve ever played!
There’s so much to do so many builds you’re getting more than your money’s worth
Imagine Elden ring was supposed to come out in 2020 got pushed back 2 years then comes out complete and above expectations on launch also no microtransactions cosmetics loot boxes
I thought I was crazy about hating the heros’ graves
I hated them. I hate dungeons but I got through them for the open world offerings of the game
My only criticism of the game is there is no tracking for completed areas/bosses.
I have a terrible memory and find myself running to/through areas I have already cleared.
That's a me problem but sure others have the same issue.
i don’t really feel that too many builds in the game are too op. i mean you have your obvious contenders like moonveil, scarlet rot (in general, so much damage), dual bloody rapiers, and some others to mention, but everything is pretty balanced. in pvp, there will be certain situations where heavy poise break from strength weapons is most effective, or maybe you need fast hits with dex, or the boss is weak to bleed, holy, lightning, you name it. but you’ll also always run into bosses that counteract whatever build it is you’re running. i washed fallingstar beast on a mage build, but got clapped running bleed against it, for example. and in pvp, everyone is running something that’s broken in some sense of the word, but pvp is a different topic entirely