Elden Ring

Game of the Year? Or just the top souls game ever?

This review has been made with over 80 hours of gameplay which I find is an adequate amount of time to make ones own consensus. In short, the game is beautiful and challenging yet rewarding. There are very few things that disappoint, but even those have fixes. For a more in depth review let us go into classes.

CLASSES

There are 10 classes to choose from. All with noticeably stronger stats, but may have a low level, to a more balanced toon to begin.

New? If you are new to a souls game or even want an 'easy' mode as many call it, Astrologer may be for you. Magic is OP. That is if you put in the effort to increase you Intelligence stats (also faith and arcane). Whilst going this route may be easier it sort of balances it out by making one what I would call squishy in the beginning. The magic definitely hurts, but there is a lot of work to go into that.

Regular souls player? Basically anything. If you want to have some fun and dress in style, samurai for sure. It is a great class not hard to balance out. I would have to say that prisoner is very good also. Prophet I found as well, without spoiling, has quite a few interesting builds as well if you take your time and defeat particular bosses that might be harder to find with one sweep of an area.

Expert or Die-hard Fan? Just play wretch already!

Just for reference, here are the all the classes and either their starting A or B toon.

GAMEPLAY (Fighting, Skills, Magic, Defense)

Overall? This will be difficult for an average gamer for sure. If you do not have any experience in any form of a souls type of game it will 100% be a challenge. Do not be discouraged. If something makes you want to quit, leave, level up or explore, and come back. You will notice after the first boss what makes a souls game great: the satisfaction of defeating an enemy and seeing "ENEMY FELLED" on your screen after raging for eternity.

Fighting/Skills/Defense? This is all pretty balanced or either OP depending on what you use. If you are daring you can get some pretty unique items in the beginning to help you out even more. The fighting is smooth and defense is hard to time as usual. Catching patterns will at times take a few tries, but one can get used to it after a bit. Just make sure to not dodge for a delayed swing. Those always get me!

Magic? Oh, baby. Let me tell you. I did do this route to have a more relaxed style. You can go VERY op with leveling up intelligence and relying solely on magic and summons. Though just like myself, I want to have fun with some spells yet not be so reliant on magic. Just to make the fights more satisfying. There is regular magic like pebbles and arcs to toxic breath you can have made with dragons heart, etc. Though if you want a balanced mix, use weapon enhancing magic. It is really fun to use. Staff in the left hand with a shield, and two swords in the right. One with bleed and another. I use this with my other skill being the flash step. Mega useful.

GRAPHICS

Beautiful.....next.

CONS

Multiplayer. This game is great in so many ways. The only thing I would say is that I would love to have multiplayer to either be a bit easier to do (though it isn't that bad after the first few times). It is just a bit tedious. And it can get pricey if you do it quite often.

PC Port. As a general statement, it has been an ongoing issue so far with stuttering and lag in the game for PC users. At least more than the average, oh my PC can't handle the game. I myself even experienced this after a few days of not noticing it.

Cloud Save Data. Once again, on PC there is an issue for saves. Every now and again some people will announce that the game crashed or did not save properly as steam will state that "if you start the game progress may be lost as it has not been saved properly." They state that with a new steam update that this has been fixed, but time will of course tell. There are some good fixes online even if it does occur so do not sweat. But it is tiresome.

DO I RECCOMEND THIS GAME?

Yes I do. It is good for the price. The replay factor is off the charts and there are so many builds to run and things that one may have missed before. It is just a good experience to have overall...so long as you do not wreck your system out of rage. Have fun out there tarnished!

Want to watch gameplay? Click the Youtube or Twitch links on the page!!