- Jan 13, 2020
- 6,777
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OK, there's a LOT to say about this game. I want to write a Steam review, but it ain't gonna fit in that format, so I'll do it here. Currently, I'm maybe two thirds through the main game and have not got the DLC.
First, I need to talk about something this game does incredibly well, because it colored my whole experience with the game: exploration. It's so good! I would love to say that it's like the old days of exploration, but the old days didn't do it nearly this well, either. Any cliff could have a ledge below it with a bit of treasure, or a series of giant horizontal tombstones that let you jump down to an area that's otherwise locked off. Some of the dungeons will have a statue pointing toward them, some will have glowing doors, mines show up on the map, and a whole bunch of the smaller dungeons have no tell at all. You either see the door, or you don't. If it's dark or raining and you aren't looking because a bunch of wolves are nipping at your heels, you probably don't.
I loved this exploration so much that had explored just about everything in Limgrave (the first area) and even a hunk of Liurnia (the second area) before setting foot in Stormvale Castle. The much noted difficulty of the 'gatekeeper' boss for that castle was a pushover for me because I had insisted on checking every river, castle, and beach before going in, so I was higher level than what the boss was designed to fight.
FromSoft's reputation as a tough-but-mostly-fair game master is well deserved. In the very first dungeon I went into, imps would jump out from behind corners or drop from the ceiling to ambush me. However, if I took the time to LOOK in the corners, I could see them waiting there and get the jump on them! Got a chest just sitting in a room that you haven't really fought for? Yeah - that's a problem. Look everywhere. Be ready to jump away in case the floor crumbles or the chest is full of gas instead of treasure. Just remember that you are in enemy territory and you'll be fine. Mostly. There are a few invisible enemies that can pop out of nowhere.
Except there's a thing: player messages. This game has an online component that lets people write messages (using a limited set of words) for other players to read. Also, when you die, there's a chance other players will see a bloodstain show up in their game that, when clicked, will show a little recording of your final seconds. So that easy-to-miss door is going to be plastered with messages. The sneaky ambush room is going to have a bunch of bloodstains in it AND a bunch of messages! Thankfully, there's an option to play off-line that shuts all of that off, which I used before I left the tutorial cave. It shuts off players raiding your game and players helping you fight, too. Unlike Death Stranding, Elden Ring offers few fine-tuning options when it comes to online mode.
The biggest surprise to me was that, despite all the hype and awards, this does not seem like a AAA game. While the art direction is wonderful, looking at water or grass from a distance reverts to repeating textures. NPCs' voice acting is pretty blah and the characters' jaws just flap at random while they're talking. Rivers are either as flat as a lake or situated underground, where the fact that the water has no movement or rapids at all is covered by darkness.
There are also things that seem to point at FromSoft clinging to bad design of the past. Remember how, in old JRPGs, you would have to keep talking to NPCs until they repeated what they say because the game gives you no indication of when they are done talking? Elden Ring is still doing it! How about helping PC players by supporting mouse/keyboard? Well, technically it does, but in practice? I think you're going to need a controller.
While the difficulty got undermined by my insistence on checking under just about every rock to make sure there wasn't a dungeon hidden underneath, I got a full dose of the lack of 'hand holding.' Quite a few games these days (and even more a few years back) will flat out give you a golden line to follow, or at least a marker telling you where you need to go. You'll get none of that here. In fact, you won't even get an indication that you HAVE a quest to do. There's no journal! All you'll have is an icon indicating where your contact is - until they move, anyway, which some of them do really often. If you forgot what they want you to do and they've moved, too bad.
The tutorial is nicely done (and easy to find now). It teaches you all the basics. The less-basic stuff is shown in quick little windows that remain in your inventory (!) for later viewing, but there is no in-depth manual. And boy could this game use one! There are a few RPG conventions that this game breaks.
They also don't 'hold your hand' by telling you what you're getting into or buying much of the time. That big boss at the end will drop something, but will it be something useful to you or not? This spell lets you throw fire - but how far and how damaging is the fire? You only get one save, so if you find you don't like what you bought, tough luck.
So yeah - the game doesn't hold your hand. Instead, you'll likely need to go online and find somebody there to hold your hand. It's not hard to do, but not all of them are terribly concerned about spoilers.
First, I need to talk about something this game does incredibly well, because it colored my whole experience with the game: exploration. It's so good! I would love to say that it's like the old days of exploration, but the old days didn't do it nearly this well, either. Any cliff could have a ledge below it with a bit of treasure, or a series of giant horizontal tombstones that let you jump down to an area that's otherwise locked off. Some of the dungeons will have a statue pointing toward them, some will have glowing doors, mines show up on the map, and a whole bunch of the smaller dungeons have no tell at all. You either see the door, or you don't. If it's dark or raining and you aren't looking because a bunch of wolves are nipping at your heels, you probably don't.
I loved this exploration so much that had explored just about everything in Limgrave (the first area) and even a hunk of Liurnia (the second area) before setting foot in Stormvale Castle. The much noted difficulty of the 'gatekeeper' boss for that castle was a pushover for me because I had insisted on checking every river, castle, and beach before going in, so I was higher level than what the boss was designed to fight.
FromSoft's reputation as a tough-but-mostly-fair game master is well deserved. In the very first dungeon I went into, imps would jump out from behind corners or drop from the ceiling to ambush me. However, if I took the time to LOOK in the corners, I could see them waiting there and get the jump on them! Got a chest just sitting in a room that you haven't really fought for? Yeah - that's a problem. Look everywhere. Be ready to jump away in case the floor crumbles or the chest is full of gas instead of treasure. Just remember that you are in enemy territory and you'll be fine. Mostly. There are a few invisible enemies that can pop out of nowhere.
Except there's a thing: player messages. This game has an online component that lets people write messages (using a limited set of words) for other players to read. Also, when you die, there's a chance other players will see a bloodstain show up in their game that, when clicked, will show a little recording of your final seconds. So that easy-to-miss door is going to be plastered with messages. The sneaky ambush room is going to have a bunch of bloodstains in it AND a bunch of messages! Thankfully, there's an option to play off-line that shuts all of that off, which I used before I left the tutorial cave. It shuts off players raiding your game and players helping you fight, too. Unlike Death Stranding, Elden Ring offers few fine-tuning options when it comes to online mode.
Double-A
The biggest surprise to me was that, despite all the hype and awards, this does not seem like a AAA game. While the art direction is wonderful, looking at water or grass from a distance reverts to repeating textures. NPCs' voice acting is pretty blah and the characters' jaws just flap at random while they're talking. Rivers are either as flat as a lake or situated underground, where the fact that the water has no movement or rapids at all is covered by darkness.
There are also things that seem to point at FromSoft clinging to bad design of the past. Remember how, in old JRPGs, you would have to keep talking to NPCs until they repeated what they say because the game gives you no indication of when they are done talking? Elden Ring is still doing it! How about helping PC players by supporting mouse/keyboard? Well, technically it does, but in practice? I think you're going to need a controller.
No Hand Holding
While the difficulty got undermined by my insistence on checking under just about every rock to make sure there wasn't a dungeon hidden underneath, I got a full dose of the lack of 'hand holding.' Quite a few games these days (and even more a few years back) will flat out give you a golden line to follow, or at least a marker telling you where you need to go. You'll get none of that here. In fact, you won't even get an indication that you HAVE a quest to do. There's no journal! All you'll have is an icon indicating where your contact is - until they move, anyway, which some of them do really often. If you forgot what they want you to do and they've moved, too bad.
The tutorial is nicely done (and easy to find now). It teaches you all the basics. The less-basic stuff is shown in quick little windows that remain in your inventory (!) for later viewing, but there is no in-depth manual. And boy could this game use one! There are a few RPG conventions that this game breaks.
They also don't 'hold your hand' by telling you what you're getting into or buying much of the time. That big boss at the end will drop something, but will it be something useful to you or not? This spell lets you throw fire - but how far and how damaging is the fire? You only get one save, so if you find you don't like what you bought, tough luck.
So yeah - the game doesn't hold your hand. Instead, you'll likely need to go online and find somebody there to hold your hand. It's not hard to do, but not all of them are terribly concerned about spoilers.
Odds & Ends
- The enemy variety is excellent!
- Levelling up is frequent (once you trigger the meeting that lets you do it, which I had to look up in a guide after 3 nights of play) but small. Every level lets you add one point to one statistic.
- Starting weapons are quite good. Most of the weapons you'll find in the early parts of the game aren't really better than the weapon you start out with, they're just different. Perhaps they are faster, or hit multiple enemies, or let you attack while still hiding behind your shield.
- Sometimes the game just flat-out doesn't start for me. I presume it's the anti-cheat software. If it doesn't start, just try again and it should work. (And yes, the anti-cheat is running even though I'm playing off line.)
- When I started playing, there were many complaints about hackers in the multiplayer mangling other players' saves. You only get one save so, if they can teleport you off somewhere that you can't escape from, you can't go back to an older save unless you've been backing them up manually. I haven't seen any complaints since a patch about a month back.
- I tried using mouse/keyboard, but it really didn't work well for this game. Controller is the way to go, IMHO. (The game lets you switch between the two on the fly and you can remap as well.)
- The game does let you respec your character, but only after many hours and fighting your way through at least one castle. If you mangle your build, you'll be starting over. Respec can be used to tweak your build or try out a new one once you prove your initial attempt was at least survivable.
- As long as you aren't in the middle of a fight, you can quit at any time. When you re-load, you'll be right where you quit and no enemies will have respawned. You can't just hit ESC to pause the game, though, so this isn't a good one to play when you're likely to need to quickly stop playing to deal with real life.
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