This isn’t a post with like, hot takes or deep marxist analysis of class society in the Lands Between. It’s just some thoughts I wanted to express on a smaller scale rather than throwing myself into the 4.5 million members of the Elden Ring subreddit or something.

Anyway, to preface a few things

1.Elden Ring good [shocking I know]. I won’t go into too much detail since I’m three years late at this point. Just, if you like exploring in skyrim and fighting in ghost of tsushima, then you’ll probably like this game

2. This is my first and only soulsborne game so far. There’s going to be things I’ve complained about in a previous post here and that I’ll talk about in this post that would’ve been different had I more knowledge about fromsoftware games.

3. I tried to look up as little as possible about this game. I would occasionally look at a guide for puzzles or an item location, but besides that i didnt look up build tips (beyond soft caps and scaling)

Without further ado

A. The combat and movement

The closest thing I’ve played before that is at all similar to Elden Ring is Ghost of Tsushima. They’re very different games Obviously, but it did help me ease in a little.

To start, I rebinded the controls to be closer to ghost of tsushima, because I just could not get attacks being on the triggers.

But anyway I also had a hard time adjusting to just how…slow you are? You’re not a lumbering giant, but every animation feels like it needs to get back to neutral before you move on to something else. I.e, a dodge has to be a full roll (save for backsteps). So instead of dodge-attack like in ghost of tsushima, it’s dodge-wait-attack. Obviously the game shouldn’t just be ghost of tsushima, but it did throw me off for a minute.

I got it after a while though, and it has its own rhythm to it I like. I think the early enemies teach you very well not to constantly panic roll, and for the most part where in the attack you’re supposed to dodge (although simultaneously there are a few that are really hard to tell, especially later in the game, but for the most part the rule remains consistent)

I think I still prefer Ghost of Tsushima style controls but soulsborne definitely isn’t bad, even with faster bosses and enemies.

But while fighting Malenia it did make me feel like having her “jump and spin back” retreat would’ve been a nice thing. I saw a suggestion by Joseph Anderson (who I generally disagree with) that a metroidvania style unlock system where you gain movement abilities as you progress could be good. There are some weapon arts like bloodhound step that have this type of feature so i wish there was more dodges than just rolling and jumping

2. Exploration

I love exploring in this game. For the most part it has a really good mix of obvious things that give you an insensitive to explore while also giving you little hidden things that aren’t usually game changing but are still extremely helpful, especially for certain builds. There was maybe only a couple times where I felt really annoyed by the exploration, either relating to inexperience or npc quests.

A. Inexperience

There are certain things I don’t mind not knowing until later or learning as a result of being in tune with the game. For example, one boss (Radahn) has a crypt on his in his massive boss arena, which is a dungeon with some rewards in it. I didn’t mind missing this because it didn’t impact me massively. Even if I could use the stuff in the dungeon, it wasnt groundbreaking and it was a reward for exploring.

Alternatively, there’s stuff like hitting a trap to get on it and use it to get to a second floor of a dungeon.

Why should i know that’s a thing? What logic is that? Maybe that’s similar to things in other souls games but it’s not common sense. Common sense would be a lever, which I assumed I just kept missing. That was one of the things I looked up. Afterwards i learned to hit stuff more, but a simple indication that I should hit that stuff would be better than me just learning by being told.

Similarly, illusion walls can be annoying. The first time I learned about them was when doing another dungeon (the one with the black knife assasin) because I couldn’t find what I was supposed to in it. Again, afterwards I hit every wall I could find and felt genuine joy at finding secrets, but learning about it wasn’t fun.

B. Npc quests

Now, I want to point out, I like these quests 200x more than skyrim or a ubisoft game. I dont want to be hand held through the quests and given a big red arrow guiding me like a zombie to the next location. But it was annoying having to constantly backtrack if I missed something. For example I did Millicent’s questline around the same time as I got to Leyndelle’s walls. I found her, cured her, sent her on her way, and then gave her the prosthetic. Later, luckily I looked up a guide when I couldn’t find her in the moutaintops or consecrated snowfield and realized I missed a random village in Leyndelle that I needed to clear and do a boss in before she would continue.

Similarly, I found the second half of the haligtree medallion first because I had missed the village of the Albinaurics Un Lineria dozens of hours ago. Consequently I also missed out on Nephali Loux’s questline. It wasn’t tedious, but it felt annoying to clear out a low level area because I had simply missed one area earlier in the game. This didn’t happen often, but because the npcs just wander off without telling you where they’re going, it becomes infuriating trying to find some of these people. I’ve heard Shadow of the Erdtree actually does use markers and notes and that sounds like a great change.

However, I don’t get the criticism that exploration is unrewarding because not everywhere has stuff that is good for your build. Firstly, most overworld exploration is fast. Defeating some enemies in a camp takes maybe a few minutes, so if you don’t get an item that’s good for you, alright. As for dungeons, 9/10 times there’s some boss that’ll give you a good rune reward. This is good, it means that no matter whatever else you find down there, you at least have a universal good. It lowers the risk of going into a dungeon and coming out with nothing. It incetivises exploration still with a fun boss and runes while also giving something extra for some people in some dungeons. So I don’t think there needs to be a change here.

3. Bosses

Obviously the main point of the game is something important, and honestly it’s about 80% good 15% meh and 5% bad, at most. I know some people don’t like the repeat bosses, but honestly I didn’t mind…most of them. Magma wyrms bugged me because they don’t have a large movement, so they constantly do their annoying charge attack which I don’t like. And i hate how Astel is repeated for basically no reason beyond “well we needed something :p.” Especially because Astel is already not a great boss, for me at least. I found trying to hit him hard since it focuses on the center of his body only, which means trying to hit his head (which is both the easiest thing to hit and his weakspot) is difficult while staying locked on. This is repeated on ancient dragons too.

For some reason people really don’t like dragons, but I dont get it. You fight 13 across the campaign, 2 of which are ancient dragons, 2 are bosses that aren’t generic, and 3 are magma wyrms. That leaves 6 normal dragons, including Greyoll and her kin. That means there’s about, in a 140 hour campaign, that’s about 20 is hours between those dragons, and about 10 hours between every type of dragon. For me at least, that’s okay. And the dragons themselves are okay. Use torrent, either all the time or to close the distance and get off of him, and it’s okay. Otherwise everything is very well telegraphed and the camera isn’t too bad as long as you focus on anything but the head.

If I had to rank my favorite boss fights it’d be

1.Malenia

2.Godfrey and Radagon

3.Morgott

Godfrey and Radagon are so hard to choose which one is better, so I just tied them at second place. I like all of these because they are so precise. There weren’t times, for the most part at least, where I couldn’t see things or couldn’t understand timings, or when I’d just really get annoyed with a move*

Malenia really is my favorite. She’s simultaneously mostly fair** while also needing you at your A game.

*I did get annoyed at Waterfowl at first

** Malenia’s main unfairness comes from her waterfowl, which is really hard to learn how to dodge because of the stagger. The move has a stagger hitbox the same size as the radius of the sphere made by her sword. That means that if you get caught in it you’ll stagger, and then get hit by the rest. The third, fourth and fifth flurries are really well timed so you can dodge them. But the first two happen in such quick succession that if you don’t get the timing right you’re dead. And it’s hard to get the timing right considering the large hitbox and how fast you die when you inevitably fail. She also can’t stance break during some attacks, while her stance meter resets anyway, which made it a little annoying when she wouldn’t go down for essentially no reason.

I really like how she wasn’t only staggerable, but you could knock her over completely with some attacks. When you’re fighting a dragon the size of the moon or whatever, the only thing you can really do is stance break them. Heck, even Godfrey and Radagon weren’t staggerable and they were about your size (well, at least closer than like Placidusax). There was one spell called Burn O’Flame which you get pretty late into the game, but it essentially meant I could duck under some of her attacked and hit her for massive damage, knock her down and hit her more. And I like waterfowl as an incentive to stay away, basically. When she got back up and I was far enough away, she would just slowly walk towards me, and it felt like facing against a rabid dog. Just knowing she was going to bite but now knowing when. This type of fight is a lot like Ghost of Tsushima, which is probably why I liked it so much. Punishing, draining, high damage and precise.

Radagon and Godfrey are probably just the fairest fights in the game. Their attacks are telegraphed well and I wouldn’t really call any of their attacks bullshit. Radagon has some AOE spam, but besides that they both flowed really well.

Morgott is probably my favorite mid game boss ever. It brings back a lot of what you learned earlier with some twists. He varies between fast and slow while also not being too ridiculous for his size. I don’t have much more to say really, he’s just really good at everything a boss should be. He was a little underleveled by the time you get through Lyndelle though, so I would’ve liked him a little harder (at least with more hp) just so I could’ve fought him more.

Least favorites are hard to rank. But id say it’s probably (in decreasing quality)

5.Rotten tree spirit

4.Ulcerated tree spirit

3.Astel 1

2. Astel 2

3. Rykard

I did play after the patch that added torrent to the Elden Beast fight, so if I had to guess Elden Beast probably would’ve been 2 or 3 on the list without Torrent

The tree spirits are repetitive, but not horrible. The cotton ones though always got the worst arena, especially since their rotten aoe clears out a big area and forces you to back away, which can get annoying on a thin walkway like on the haligtree.

Same with Ulcerated spirits, but they get even worse arenas and don’t even get a good moveset.

Like I said, Astel has camera and hit issues, I also don’t like his constant teleworking and running away halfway across the arena

Astel 2 is the same but with an extra grab attack and is annoying since I’ve already fought him

Rykard is probably my hottest take. I cannot understand why people like this boss. It’s a gimmick boss, he’s constantly staggered by the gimmick weapon, has way to much health, and, on account of the staggering, barely does anything. It wasn’t a snoozefest like, say, Tibia Mariner (which I didn’t even consider for the ranking, although I should’ve) but it didn’t feel like i was getting better at anything besides just pressing buttons a little faster. The one thing I did like was that he moves so slowly you barely notice he’s on top of you until it’s too late. One of my deaths was because I got stuck between him and the wall, which is really cool considering the entire serpent theme, which I would’ve liked more if they did something with it.

I was shocked to learn that people hated godskin duo so much. I didn’t love it, it was wierd, but I didn’t find it impossible either. Granted I did beat malenia before fighting them so I just spammed scarlet anonia to rot them, so that probably made it easier.

3.Builds

I’ve only played one playthrough so far, so ill try out different builds later, but for my first game I played a vagabond dual wielder, with minor faith and arcane for incantations focusing on fire, rot, and dragon incantations.

For the most part this build was good. I went through the game underleveled and with between 18-30 vigor.

That is a lot lower than reccomended. I did die a lot, but something I learned that mattered more than vigor in the mid to late game is damage reduction. Between armor and Talismans and spells,you can get a ton of damage reduction which essentially increases your hp by hundreds of points. If you have high vigor but you’re still getting one shot, try equipping damage reduction talismans or using damage reduction spells. I feel like this is a lot more important later than vigor is, and the community focuses on it too much. I’m not saying there aren’t hard enemies or that the late game doesn’t have enemies that do a ton of damage, just that getting one/two shot is not the norm, even for a low vigor character.

One of the things is I wish soulsborne games didn’t treat greatswords and such like they’re made of tungsten. Obviously they swing slower than Katanas or rapiers, but you can find videos of people swinging these massive swords elligently. I think it would feel better than every greatsword being treated like a final fantasy buster sword.

One thing I want to say is that my build was good in some areas and struggled in others. And that’s a good thing. It shouldn’t be that every build excels in every fight. Otherwise you get skyrim stealth archers which are just the path of least resistance. Yeah, maybe shield users struggle with malenia, but I struggled with commander niall. Sure maybe I struggled with elden Beast and Placidusax but a mage probably did way better because of their ranged attacks. A mage struggled with Renalla while I sweeper her. It not only makes making a build more enjoyable, but it also increases replayability.

Story: I won’t post spoilers, but overall the story was surprisingly compelling. I know the story through item descriptions is a meme, but it’s genuinely cool reading all the little descriptions and learning about the world. I like that way more than charecter goes up to wall and explains the history halfway through the main quest or whatever. Personally I chose Ranni’s ending, but I get why you’d choose the other ones too (well, except a certain loathsome character’s one). Not much more to say really.

Nitpicks and little things:

These aren’t massive but I did want to say something before closing out the post.

The game can be inconsistent with run backs at times. Most bosses will have a checkpoint right before a boss, and that’s fine. But a couple times they won’t for basically no reason. The two that stuck out to me are the Red wolf of Radagon and Renalla. They have run backs, but they’re not endurance tests since you barely have to fight anyone. Renalla’s literally has no enemies at all, so I don’t get why I had to run back everytime, since theres a perfect spot for a grace right in front of the boss anyway.

I’m kinda getting sick of Katanas being the best weapons in games. Katanas aren’t the definitive best weapon in Elden ring, but they are some of the best. So much so two of them (moonveil and rivers of blood) had to be nerfed in updates. I get it, they’re cool and were useful irl but they don’t have to always be a thing and don’t always have to be top tier.

The game is beautiful of course, so I didn’t feel a need to point it out in extreme detail. However the music was suprisingly lacking. There’s only a few tracks (godskin apostles, the Radagon/main theme, Malenia’s second phase to name a few) that really got my attention. Everything else kinda was just there, which is odd imo.

Lastly, I just wanted to share this one bit. I had kept my charecter under a veil or mask the whole game basically, just for the stats. After beating the final boss, I took it off and kinda had a “despite everything, it’s still you” moment (besides the glowing dragon eyes) which I really liked. This isn’t anything big, but I just wanted to share it.

Overall id say it’s a really good game. I wouldn’t reccomend it to everyone, but if you know someone who wants to play a game where they fight enemies in a dying world where they can kill dragons and take their power while dual wielding katanas, then probably reccomend them Elden Ring over Skyrim.