The best way I can describe the experience of playing a Souls game such as Elden Ring is to compare it to the cost of renting or purchasing a used role-playing game in the days of cartridges. In the past, before the game's progress was saved on memory cards, consoles or even on cloud storage, playing a previously owned game was a chance to be in contact with the history of someone else's. This usually resulted in a few tedious minutes of wiping the cartridge's internal memory, sometimes it provided you with the perfect opportunity to experience the ending of the game before taking your first steps. After paying a ridiculous amount to get a boxed copy of Super Mario RPG as a child playing through a saved game and observing how characters reacted to the final boss' defeat was like going to a museum in an alternate dimension Elden Ring Runes. In reality, the Mushroom Kingdom had moved on and I was merely an uninvolved tourist in the digital body of somebody they once knew.
This goes beyond story or setting to gameplay as well. Where a fresh save file in many games can bombard you with tutorial pop-up after tutorial, to slowly ease you to its challenges, Elden Ring's lived-in world generally treats you as if you've been there before. Sure, there's a easily skipped tutorial that teaches the essentials, but for most of the time, it's down for you to master Elden Ring's unique language of visuals.
Gold flecks that float in the air sparkles suggest the presence semi-hidden checkpoints. Statues depicting old men in hunches signal the entrance to catacomb-like underground dungeons. The magically animated rock piles suggest an alternative dimension prison cell that has a mini-boss near. Elden Ring does this so effortlessly and at tiny scale that you'll be able to recognize the telegraphed body language of even the least dangerous enemies and formulating counters without knowing exactly when you learned that information.
Others have written about Elden Ring as slapstick, an Arthurian story meets Looney Tunes situation that births increasingly hilarious moments despite the game's serious trappings. Much like taking your mind off for some time to relax while laughing over Johnny Knoxville getting kicked in the nuts, giving yourself the freedom to develop the correct mindset is the initial step in truly embracing what Elden Ring offers.
Accept that the game doesn't always be equally. Accept the fact that the massive input buffer could often force you to drink a sip of a potent healing drink when you wanted to avoid. Accept that you'll likely be getting your ego kicked when you step outside the starting area because you were wearing an untidy robe and only a small weapon, tried to face the mounted knight, in the stunningly gleaming armor. You must accept Elden Ring for what it is, and the goals that FromSoftware wanted to accomplish but don't get caught up on what it's not. I can assure you that 90 percent people will be having a more fun playing the game if you do. The remaining 10 percent, well you're welcome to leave it at that.
I'm saying this with sincerity and without an ounce of elitism in my heart The art of creating isn't necessarily suited to everyone.
Elden Ring is an love letter that might as well have been written using a dying language , for those unable or unwilling to bend themselves to its will. Although not as difficult or as cryptic King's Field, unforgiving as Dark Souls, or mechanically complex as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice The most recent FromSoftware project does ask players to put up with plenty of frustration. However, if they do then what they'll discover in Elden Ring is a fitting conclusion to director Hidetaka Mishazaki's decades of world-building expertise. My time during my time in The Lands Between revealed to me the game that was just equally enthralled with offering something new and awe-inspiring to explore all corners of it's vast wide-open world as it is with the sound of its own voice. Seriously, sentient iron balls? Hand monsters that are gigantic? A necrophiliac named Dung Eater? FromSoftware needs to chill.
Like most great works, Elden Ring is magnificently flawed, equally beautiful and ostentatious. In this age of cookie-cutter painting-by-numbers and triple-A developments is there anything more you can want than something that is completely sure of its nonsense? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm barely one-third of the time through the game with cheap Elden Ring Items, and would love to see at least one of its many closings in the coming year.
|
