Elden Ring Review | The Good The Bad and the Ugly | Non-Dark Souls Player | 170+ hours played

In this video, I do a review of Elden Ring. The popular High Fantasy role-playing game. I cover what I consider to be the good, the bad, and the ugly of this extremely grindy, and difficult, yet satisfying game.
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[@Squiddles_]

Hello there! A perspective and explanation from a Dark Souls player. 100% Achievements in Elden Ring, 400 hours played, level 411 primary character. As I watch, I'm going to type comments or reasoning for your gripes or confusions. Anywho, for starters, you have to have a vastly different look on dying than in most games. In any DS (Dark Souls) game, dying isn't the end of a run, rather just a normal part of it. It's a learning experience. On the topic of runes, the hardest thing to realize is that losing them is not a big deal, even from the beginning. Most starting enemies drop between 30-50 runes, while just after the first boss, one enemy can net around 50-60. Rune farms are also a great way to gain lots of runes, such as bleeding the mother dragon in Caelid to death. Once you realize runes aren't hard to come by, it becomes a largely non-problem. I do somewhat agree that it would've been nice to have a separate currency for purchases or upgrades, but at the same time, the convenience of it all being one resource far outweighs the downsides, especially with the point stated above. As you stated, for some bosses and areas you do have to defeat certain bosses, but other than the first boss at the beginning of stormveil castle, almost all main bosses have a way around them, par the last 5. Another note on runes. Sadly (or conveniently, depending on perspective) most DS games have a lot of the same systems, and expect players to know this. None, par a very early few game tell you where to go or where stuff is, both with items, bosses, or sidequests. In the previous games, it didn't matter as much since the games were mush more linear, but the same system is present in ER. The same goes with dropping runes, in the past games, when you die, they drop and you can go find them again, but if you die, they disappear for good. I understand the wish that ER would tell players about this, but it's just how Fromsoft likes to do it, expecting the players to have played previous games. Notably so I think personally, as ER has been the first Fromsoft game to explode out of its market since DS1. Next, a small note on falling off cliffs, DS games have always been strange with fall dmg, as there's a very fine threshold on being perfectly fine, and dying instantly. As such, an item was added in ER called a rainbow stone. When thrown off a ledge, if it lands and glows, you're safe to jump off, but if it shatters, you will die. An easier way to find out is to get close to the ledge and power attack. If you slide off the ledge, you'll survive, if you stop by an invisible wall, you will die if you jump off. Next, I do agree that having to spam the talk button on npcs is pretty jank and annoying, most players agree with that as well. It's how its been for most DS games, but ER has the most npcs of all of them, so it's very noticeable. Also with the whole open world aspect, as compared with the very linear DS1-3. The resting to advance story missions makes a lot of sense actually. The game doesn't want to move npcs while you're nearby, in case you want to go back to them for dialogue or shopping, so they get moved when you rest at a grace. The save/reload is just a convenient byproduct of this, as all resting at a grace does is respawn enemies and save the game. aka the same as reloading, that's why the screen goes black for a few seconds. I can't really comment on the amount of cutscenes, as that is personal preference, however I will say that most all bosses have them, all 100+ something of them, along with notable parts in the story dotting inbetween. When it comes to npc quests, the curse of Fromsofts previous games comes to mind again. most all npc quests do give some direction on where to go, but not often enough to say it outright. As with previous titles, ER(and Fromsoft) expects the player to just go through the story to find the next steps. Most sidequest npcs are in easy to find and see areas for the reason, par a few that are purposely hard to find or straight up intentional gimmicks or secrets. You can't really compare ER or any DS game for that matter to the likes of the witcher or skyrim, as they're vastly different games with vastly different audiences. It has always been a conscious decision to not include quest markers, other than ones you place yourself. Sure for personal opinion it does matter, but it wasn't an oversight, rather a intentional part of the game. Another comment of saving and save slots, again thats a conscious decision from Fromsoft, all DS games save as you go, there has never been an option to save at a certain point and go back to it, other than backing up the save files, which is risky with the anticheat. Part of me wishes we could save at turning points in the story, but at the same time, only a few quests out of the whole bunch can be missed if you don't see them, all others can be started as far ahead as right before you burn the city. After that, a good portion do get stopped if you haven't started them yet, as most quests have portions of them in the non-destroyed city. It's kindof a laughable point to call out DS or ER for being hard with hard or difficult enemies and bosses, as that is quite literally the whole point of the game. But, on that note, showing Grafted Scion (The "boss" right as you spawn in for the first time), is a bit disingenuous to the point, as the game intends for you do die to him. You just spawn in the cave as normal, just as you would jumping off the cliff after you go in the arena. He can be beaten at that stage for a few decent items to speed experienced players along, but it's not required. You can also go back to that area later on and kill him then for the same items. I also can't really comment on how many times it takes to beat various bosses, as it's player skill more than anything. It did take me about 6 or 7 tries to beat the final boss, but I was also around 200 hours in the game at that point (was waiting for a friend to catch up to me) and had leveled up and explored far more than the average player, having killed all bosses up to that point while i waited, including the secret bosses. The hardest boss for my even now is the fire giant, even still I often need assistance to kill him. The tree sentinel has kinda the same system as the grafted scion, being you can kill him as the start, but its more meant as quick gear for experienced players, as (same with the scion) he becomes a normal enemy later in the game, although variants of him continue to be bosses till the second to last area. The last note I have for you're tips for new players, every single point you made was fantastic, all great points.

[@MattTaylorVariety]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I get your point about a lot of things, but the whole reason for my video was a comparison to Skyrim and The Witcher, because like I mentioned in the video, that is what I had to go on, since I have never played any DS games before. Yes as you level up more the runes don't matter as much since you can easily get more, but it still sucks early on to miss out on runes. I did plenty of farming haha I got the dragon in Caelid early on as well as the giant bird farm in the Moghwyn area. And I could have shown so much more of the game, but I didn't want to show any spoilers. And yes I totally went back and easily defeated the scion from the beginning. Nothing disingenuous about it, it is part of the game. But again it all comes down to being a DS player or not, if you have the experience from those other games, things will feel the same about ER, if not, I have talked to tons of other people who have had pretty much the same reaction as me, haha. The second play through as I mentioned in the game is going way more smoothly, I am already level like 25 after just a few hours, and have died maybe 3 times total. That is super funny you mention fall damage, because there were times in the game where you fall forever and land and nothing happens and then other times you don't fall as far and die, haha. But I think the other falls were story elements that are unavoidable like when things collapse under you. I still think it is a great game, just comes with lots of frustrations for someone who isn't familiar with FromSoftware and the DS games. If I didn't like it wouldn't have put over 170 hours into it and started a 2nd walkthrough haha. And I will probably go and play DS3.