Don’t Put this Game To Rest
My February was a busy month, thanks to a slew of new releases coming out of the woodwork, not to mention the massive backlog from the previous year. With games such as SIFU, Dying Light 2: Stay Human, and Horizon: Forbidden West all coming out at roughly the same time, the choice seemed endless. Being the massive FromSoftware fan that I am, it would only seem fair to start with Elden Ring.
Elden Ring is a 2022 video game developed by the sadistic lot from FromSoftware, best known for the challenging Dark Souls and Bloodborne franchises. Elden Ring was also directed by the legendary game pioneer and feet enthusiast Hidetaka Miyazaki, who worked on every major release except for Dark Souls 2. Speaking about big names, Elden Rings lore was written by Game of Throne’s author, George R.R Martin but under some heavy restrictions.
Setting and Plot
Long story short, the Elden Ring is an artefact of immense power that provided some stability to the region. However, after an event called the shattering, the ring’s shards were divided among the ruling lords of the continent. You play the role of a Tarnished, an exiled warrior brought back to life after the shattering of Ring to return to the Lands Between to become the Elden Lord.
As with most FromSoftware games, Elden Ring’s narrative is a bit murky outside of the game’s grandiose introductory cutscene. Most of the game’s lore is revealed through item descriptions and NPC conversations, which leaves much of the context missing. In an interview with Miyazaki, he mentions that he wants players to put together the missing pieces themselves to create their version of the plot.
There is a lot of storytelling with the game’s environments and item enemy locations. The best example I think of was when I walked into this semi-hostile village. There was some kind of festival there, and most of the villagers seemed too preoccupied with their little party to give me the time of day. Since everyone only displayed minor cases of rural village craziness, I decided to trot onwards into their village. Then I run into a very out of place boss called the Godskin Apostle, who could be summed up as evil cult leader Mr Fantastic.
After multiple ass whoopings, I finally defeated the creepy Stretch Armstrong and decided to leave the village. While leaving the demented shire, I ran into the ghost of a victim who was flayed alive as part of their festival. I then did a one hundred and eighty-degree turn and decided to return back to the village to liven up the party with some death and destruction.
As for the world itself, it is vast. There are endless open plains to explore, with small dungeons and caves scattered around the map to bring out the adventurer in you. Inside these massive labyrinths, you will find powerful bosses and deadly traps, making it reminiscent of the classic Soulsborne experience.
The game world is so large that Fromsoftware had to introduce horse riding and the ability to jump so that the player can traverse the map with much more ease. While formally introduced in Sekiro, jumping makes its way to Elden Ring and adds a whole new dimension of gameplay to the overall experience. However, the platforming areas don’t leave much to be desired.
Characters and Side Quests
Let me make it clear from now, in Elden Ring, you are the main character. So, most of these NPCs do little to hog your spotlight and serve mainly as quest makers or as exposition. You fall under the lone wanderer character type as you travel across the mystical world of the Lands Between. You can help out these NPCs, and they will reward you for it, but only if you want to.
The characters are colourful, from the enigmatic nomadic merchants that you find everywhere along your travels to the talking jar warrior, who desires to test himself by entering a fighting festival against one of the most powerful entities in the world.
Some characters like Ranni the Witch have multiple part adventure narratives which can lead you to various hidden areas across the continent. For example, her questline leads me through several subterranean networks that span underneath most of the continent with her best boy, Blaidd.
Compared to previous entries in FromSoftware’s library, Elden Ring has far less doom and gloom by comparison. While you are still wandering a post-apocalyptic world swarming with undead, rot and golden trees, several sidequests come out as quite endearing. One of my favourites was helping Roderica find a purpose in life, which ends in a way that benefits all parties involved. Are you actually going soft on us, Miyazaki?
Gameplay and Performance
The Souls Experience reborne?
Elden Ring shares many similarities to other entries in Fromsoftware’s catalogue, most notably Dark Souls 3. The game retains the Souls-like formula that Fromsoftware has perfected over the years, but introduces it on a grander scale.
Just as a quick reminder, a Souls RPG has an experience point currency system that can be used to upgrade your character or their equipment at checkpoints. If your character dies before reaching a checkpoint, they will drop all of their experience points and will have to retrace their steps to retrieve them. In this case, the currency for this game are runes, while the checkpoints are called sites of grace.
It could be me, but I found the levelling progression to be a bit slow for my taste. There were occasions when it felt like an uphill battle to survive a boss fight, smashing my face against a brick wall without an end in sight. Then there were boss fights that felt like pushovers, but the problem was the stronger I got, the less effective fighting these weaker bosses were.
Thankfully, Elden Ring has many methods to go around this problem. You can simply do something else other than getting judged by Margit over your ambitions. The world is massive, filled with many things to do and many other weaker bosses to fight. You have to go out and explore.
Customization Mechanics – Hitting smarter!
If there is one thing this game has, it is options. Your character is highly customizable as you can change your appearance and build to match your playstyle. Would you rather play whack-a-mole with an oversized club or blast your problems away with mighty spells.
A boss is too tough? Elden Ring is also exceptionally accessible for casual players. You can either summon NPC allies to help you bring in another player to tag along. The Lone Wolves, or as I like to call them my Hounds of Doom have become my trademark allies when fighting multiple opponents.
Players can also use status effects and magic to give them an edge in battle. Bleed and scarlet rot techniques are especially dangerous to go up against, as they leave your health bar in the dust. You can apply these effects with spells, items and weapon enhancements to craft your way to success.
Saying this, I did find it tedious to play with my regular strength build. Maybe Elden Ring is trying to tell me I am old or something for going for that simple but classic build. Towards the final fifth of the game, my struggle became a bit too noticeable for my liking, as not only bosses but regular mobs began to feel overwhelming.
To counter this issue, I made use of Elden Ring’s crafting mechanic, which relies on the player collecting materials to create items that can aid them on their journey. Since magic was not my character’s strongest suit, I relied on these items to make up for that deficiency. I mostly created consumables to make up for my character’s lack of reach or if I wanted to apply a status effect on someone.
My greatest asset would have to be the ashes of war. Ashes of war can enhance your weapon’s combat capabilities by giving them magical properties. I kept using the basic longsword for almost half the game due to its storm blade ashes of war, allowing me my distance against tough opponents.
Online Combat – To Invade or not to Invade?
You can also get invaded by other players who wish to bounty hunt your tarnished cheeks. However, if you manage to defeat these rogue players, you will be rewarded for your efforts. On the other end of the spectrum, you can also ask for assistance from others to help tag team Elden Ring’s many bosses. If you are feeling confident with your abilities, you can also lend your aid to others or invade their worlds and cause havoc.
Elden Ring’s online battles get crazy at times. I was once tasked to slay an invading player but accidentally triggered a four-way bout between me, the invader, the host and a dragon. The fight went as expected, with the invader pulling off an Anikan Skywalker by getting torched with the dragon’s breath attack.
Combat Mechanics – Your Approach is Key!
As mentioned previously, there are many ways of surviving a skirmish. You can either quietly stalk and pop off your enemies one by one like Wolf from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, or you can run in kicking and screaming. With the latter, your options are also vast. You can outpace your enemies and strike down your enemies while on horseback with your reliable and noble steed Torrent. Or, you can tank it and counterattack your foes, like the Giga-Chad you are.
Not a fan of close-quarters combat? Then spells come in various shapes and sizes to suit the caster’s needs. There are two different methods of spellcasting, sorceries and incantations. With sorceries, you wield the power of the stars at your fingertips and can blast through your enemies with potent blue kamahamehas. Incantations, on the other hand, give the wielder the capability to heal serious injuries or set their foes ablaze! Do you think magic is over-rated for some reason? Then why not try out the various bows to pop your enemy from afar.
Game Performance
While Elden Ring is a fantastic game, it does suffer from performance issues. The framerate does drop when playing on older consoles, especially when fighting multiple opponents or when the player is traversing along Consecrated Snowfield.
There are a few glitches where some items like graces become unusable. However, these problems were rare, and FromSoftware’s support team were fairly competent at locating and fixing these issues. There was also the semi-invincible Melania boss fight due to the 1.04 update. Thankfully, that was also fixed.
Conclusion
The developers from FromSoftware are masters of their craft, and Elden Ring is no exception to their dedication. Elden Ring feels like the result of a decade’s worth of work, as you can see the influence of several other titles compiled into this one. While I don’t consider this to be the best FromSoftware title, it is definitely the most accessible one with the most options. However, that does not sway my opinion that this game is a masterpiece in its own right.
If you are a fan of Elden Ring or would like to try something similar but don’t have the hardware or money, try out the Dark Souls series and even Bloodborne to support the developers. You can also check out Bluepoint’s PS5 remake of Demon Souls if you want a tighter experience with better graphics or Team Ninja’s Japanese Souls-like Nioh series for something totally unique.
