Look Ma, I'm the Elden Lord!

The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is already out, which made me realise that the review I said I was going to write for Elden Ring still isn't done, despite being out for two years now. So, in celebration of my next journey in the world of Elden Ring, here's a heavily biased opinion of why it's one of my all-time favourite games, next to Skyrim because that too is also one of my all-time favourites. P.S. I have a lot of all-time favourites, and you can't stop me from religiously telling you about all of em :).

Elden Ring is a dark fantasy, action RPG from the developers Fromsoftware, the very same studio responsible for the critically acclaimed Demon Souls and Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. In Elden Ring, you play as a Tarnished, an exile who has returned to The Lands Between to fight for the title of Elden Lord and restore the shattered Elden Ring.

I can only describe The Lands Between as a land trapped in the Autumn of its life, having collapsed under countless wars fought over the shards of the titular Elden Ring and the status of Elden Lord. But what is the Elden Ring, and why was it shattered? Much like previous Fromsoftware games, Elden Ring's narrative is told through spoken dialogue from NPCs, item descriptions, and environmental storytelling, all of which are deciphered by the player granting much credibility to mere speculation because in the end, anyone's take could make sense. Its not a bad form of storytelling, and I feel that these plot mechanisms are a perfect way of keeping players invested in Elden Ring's world and lore and lends credence to the fact that Elden Ring isn't just about proving ones might in the face of adversity, but trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the downfall of what was supposedly a flawless world, which brings me back to my earlier questions about what is the Elden Ring and why it was shattered. At the center of The Lands Between stands the Erdtree, an enormous tree bathed in gold that towers over the lands ruled over by the Goddess Marika and her demigod children. Through the Erdtree and the Elden Ring, denizens are bestowed upon a blessing called Grace, the effects of which are a mystery to me though I assume it functions as a form of acknowledgement granted to those who revere the Golden Order, a religion and way of life that is heavily enforced, and those who are not worthy of it or questioned the Golden Order were stripped of it and banished from The Lands Between. However, this age inadvertently comes to an end after the death of one of the demigods, Marika's firstborn, Godwyn the Golden who was assassinated, and in a state of grief she shattered the Elden Ring, severing the Golden Order and The Lands Between's connection to the Greater Will. What ensues is The Shattering, a war fought by the demigods over the shards of the Elden Ring though this event only wrought chaos and ruin. In a last-ditch effort to restore The Lands Between and its ties to the Greater Will, the Tarnished are granted the guidance of Grace and beckoned to The Lands Between to assist in finding and restoring the Elden Ring. This is my take on the overall narrative of Elden Ring, and my attempt to keep it devoid of info integral to providing you a deeper understanding of the story.

Elden Ring's narrative explores a world gone by, a world teetering on the edge of uncertainty. Cities and towns lay crumbling and desolate, untold monstrosities roam the wilds, and the unfortunate wander, lost and mad. And at the center of it all is you, the catalyst that will determine the fate of The Lands Between.

Character Creation

I did biology in high school, but my five-year tenure did not teach me what a glabella was. Elden Ring doesn't discriminate and graces us all with the opportunity to learn the aspects that go into making what you would consider the ideal playable character however, and I never thought I'd write this, but the character creation has a steep learning curve which, as a beginner, will leave you scratching your head wondering why the facial proportions are all off. Relax, we've all been there. All Souls games share an in-depth character creation system with a plethora of options to design your character, but Elden Ring's is by the far the most elaborate, offering its audience a wide variety of facial cosmetics, hair styles, facial hair, and so much more compared to its predecessors. And the best part is that hair styles are fully animated, meaning that your character's luscious locks won't be a static 3D model but will instead sway or move, or change appearance against simulated weather phenomena or environmental hazards, also if you get the daylights knocked out of you. It's a small yet fascinating detail.

The character classes and races are something to admire, with some class names having gone against the norm of traditional RPG classes like Knight, Paladin, etc., all of which allow you to craft a unique origin story to go with the class you choose. For the first time in Fromsoftware's history, the developer has introduced races as a customization option, and whilst they do lack noticeable variations other than skin pigmentation, they are lore-friendly and are present in the mythos of The Lands Between, so this feature presents the player with many role-playing options to heighten their experience.

Class selection has also been revamped, and instead of giving you a list that when cycled through drapes your character in the class's armor and weaponry, Elden Ring presents you with a list of thumbnails arranged horizontally featuring artworks of the available classes, and they're beautifully rendered. Once you pick your desired class, the game equips the chosen race with the gear and equipment of the class you picked and from there you're free to craft and model your character as you see fit. I played as a Confessor on my first playthrough, a class described as "A church spy adept at covert operations. Equally adept with a sword as they are with incantations". Now if this were a Dark Souls game, once you chose a class you'd pretty much have to invest a lot of time and effort improving attributes tied to that class, and deciding to invest in attributes not tied to the chosen class halfway through the game because you wanted to try a spell that had a different attribute requirement results in diminishing effects. However, the neat part about the game is that you aren't locked into your character class. Starting off as a Confessor, I had a sword and a few incantations at my disposable, and I pretty much stuck to my guns and played through most of the game using only incantations and a few melee weapons that I had invested skill points in, until I encountered a few bosses and encounters that my incantations and combat prowess could not best but found that I had a few sorceries that could work better, but I didn't have enough points invested in the necessary attributes, but after a bit of grinding and upgrading I could finally use these sorceries. That's the beauty of there being no class restrictions, you can develop your character however you wish and find whatever works for you, and this makes Elden Ring far more accessible than previous Fromsoftware games.

Gameplay and Combat

Elden Ring's combat is mostly comprised of melee and ranged combat which has been consistent throughout most of Fromsoftware's titles. You have an arsenal of weapons and spells at your disposal, all of which have a stat requirement for you to meet in order to use them. For example, take the Godslayer's Greatsword, this weapon requires you to have at least 20 skill points invested in Strength, 22 in Dexterity, and 20 in Faith in order to use it effectively. The game also features a mechanic called Ashes of War, a more overhauled version of Weapon Arts from Dark Souls 3. Ashes of War are skills that are tied to each weapon that present you with additional means to dispatch enemies. It's a clever change of pace that mixes up your move sets and attack patterns, so that pesky sheep that has challenged you won't know what's coming when you decide to show it the true power of The Sword of Night and Flame.

But how can I forget magic. Oh boy…magic, one of the finer things Elden Ring has to offer. Giant fireballs, red lightning, a black flame steeped in mystery, these are just a few of the spells and incantations you can learn, and I was very impressed by how easily you can mix in spells with melee combat, I mean most spells don't force your carry to stop moving just to cast unlike the soul sorceries of the Dark Souls era, which I am grateful for because I no longer have to watch in horror as an enemy launches itself at me while I stand still to cast something, I can now move and do that. Thank you Fromsoftware. They're also visually impressive, with striking particle effects during casting and after. One set of spells I was most grateful for were the Dragon Communion incantations, spells that let you exercise the powers and abilities of various dragons found throughout the game. Sounds cool doesn't it. For starters, you cannot purchase these, you have to hunt down dragons and offer their hearts up at these altars just to get them, and already this blew my mind because I had a little side quest to embark upon to slay as many dragons as possible and learn their magic, and let me tell you, Dragon communion spells are extremely powerful and had saved me in many boss fights that my combat prowess alone could not best.

Combat is more fluid, and smoother compared to Dark Souls which in my opinion felt very stiff in terms of attack animations and speed. Every strike, every dodge, every parry and riposte felt satisfying, and introducing a new jump mechanic and better movement only enhanced the flow of the classic souls combat style which presented me with additional ways to avoid enemy attacks and gain the upper hand. It's a level of mobility and style that I can only liken to Sekiro Shadows Die Twice, a game where constant movement was key to overcoming the most difficult of opponents.

Outside of combat, you'll be traversing the map doing whatever you decide to do, using whatever means at your disposal. One of the new, never-before-seen features from past titles is the crafting system, allowing you to craft a plethora of items, such as consumables, ammunition, etc., but I haven't used it much mainly because with all the exploration I do, I end up farming most, if not all of the items available on the crafting menu. That does not make it pointless though, and if you're the kind of person that really likes to prepare then you'll love it. It does help in a pinch though, because I was travelling through this underground area and happened upon an entire red lake that inflicts this new status effect called "Scarlet rot" and this stuff is way more dangerous than the regular poison effect, in fact I'd rather be inflicted with poison that scarlet rot because scarlet rot drains your health way faster, imagine what a whole area filled with the stuff would do. Luckily there's a consumable to make the whole traversal a bit easier, unfortunately I was all out, but then I remembered the crafting system and got to crafting a large amount of the item, I ended up clearing the entire area in one go too.

The Lands Between

There are a lot of open world games out there, big and small, and you might have heard that big isn't always better, and something small has greater depth and personality, or you might have heard that big really matters and small is just too tiny and not worth the time, or price. Well, what if you could get the best of both worlds? I am a huge fan of open world games, and there are very few I hold in high regard, and I am proud to say that Elden Ring meets that standard. I remember exiting the tutorial area and being greeted by the sight of the game's first zone Limgrave, spying the walls of Stormveil Castle atop a distant mountain, a lone tower connected by broken bridges, and the magnificent Erdtree in all its splendour towering above, bathed in rays of gold. There are very few moments that filled me with immense joy, but that morning on the 25th of Feb, 2022 was nothing but pleasant. Nothing prepares you for the sheer scale of Elden Ring, and I found that the more I progressed through the map, the more I wanted to know if it there was more to it. That in my opinion is fantastic game design.

The Lands Between is filled to the brim with content, spread out across the many zones that make up the map, most of which are accessible from the get-go. Previous Souls game, whilst open-ended in nature, were fairly linear in their design. They weren't sprawling maps, Sekiro being an exception, but Elden Ring shakes up that Souls formula of having you traverse the dark and gritty hallways of ruined castles and abandoned structures by swapping those out with a fairly large overworld containing locations and activities reminiscent of a typical RPG experience. Legacy dungeons, a new name for main dungeons, are locations tied to the game's main story and endings, where'll you might spend most of your time when searching for the rune shards, and aside from regular dungeons like mines and catacombs littered throughout the map, legacy dungeons vary in size and appearance. My biggest gripe with the minor dungeons is that they lack visual differences and enemy variety, not to mention there are only four types, those being catacombs, mines, caves, and a few hero graves. Early on in my playthrough, delving into the minor dungeons was fun, I found some good items, farmed a lot of runes, fought bosses, but halfway through the game, these dungeons become tedious in their design and difficulty, and besides some rare or unique loot, I started to get bored of fighting the same bosses for a meagre amount of runes and cleaned these locations out just for the sake of completion.

My favourite location by far is Liurnia of the Lakes, a swamp-like region flanked by towering cliffs on either side, its center covered in ankle-deep water and in the middle, rising above a half-submerged ruin stands the Academy of Raya Lucaria, one of the game's legacy dungeons. I'm a sucker for games that let you wade through ankle or knee-deep water, and it might sound silly but its one of favourite things to experience in a game, other than walking through tall moving grass (I'm talking about you Oblivion). One of the grander things to see in Liurnia is Raya Lucaria, the school of Glintstone sorcery, an enormous castle-like structure at the centre of a town half-submerged in the watery Earth, and it's a fully explorable location, not on the same level of Hogwarts but pretty impressive in its own right. I think the best part is walking up to the Academy for the first time is finding that all the entrances are sealed shut with magic, and the only way to pass through is with a special key. Thing is, where are you going to find one? What followed was a small quest wherein I had to locate an NPC named Thops who had a map that contained the rumoured location of where the key could be found. And indeed, I found it…on the corpse of an academy scholar guarded by a vicious dragon that was none too happy about me being near its nest.

What makes the world so appealing is how alive it feels and sounds. Almost everything is animated and not just some static 2-D or 3-D model. Trees will sway along with their branches and foliage, grass and bushes as well, not to mention bodies of water which will ripple or react to weather mechanics such as rain. Animals meander about, not a wide variety but enough to give The Lands Between its own natural kingdom amidst the realms of gods and men. They're small details but they make such a colossal impact by creating a compelling world that doesn't try to lure you in by force but more so reveals to you how much love and dedication went into its creation by merely just laying there, and even years later after its release, I'm still compelled to dive back in and see and feel its spectacular sights once more.

Performance

I generally don't get into the whole performance talk because I just don't care for it. I generally play games that are artistically appealing and are overall fun to play, provided they have good, if not overtly complicated narratives. Gameplay…well I've played some really special stuff out there, so I know what it's like playing something that's not very optimised, not to mention janky (Talking about you Arcania, I love you though). But I'll relent just this once because I am grateful that Elden Ring was ported to last-generation consoles because my peasant ass cannot afford a PS5 just yet. I played Elden Ring on a Ps4 slim, and for a last-gen machine, its runs the game fairly well with a mostly consistent 30fps and at 1080p which is perfect in my opinion. There are some performance dips here and there, albeit rarely but nothing that would make me lob my controller at the nearest wall.

Verdict

With a myriad of structures to explore and activities littered throughout the world, Elden Ring boasts a gritty dark fantasy world of rich, moody colours that culminates into a product not only visually appealing, but fun and engaging enough to leave you on the edge of your seat, in awe of the wonders and terrors The Lands Between will throw at you. To call it a success would be a mere understatement because not only has it taken the world by storm but has taken first place in the dark fantasy hall of fame. Once upon a time, videogames were dreams and ambitions produced by individuals and studios whose passion was to create stories and worlds for people to fall in love with, but with time and an increase in popularity, what was once an enjoyable hobby has now turned into a soulless cash grab carrying hefty price tags rather than actual quality, with very few studios producing titles that are worthy of those prices. It's a welcoming thought knowing that there are still plenty of minds out there willing to create art, not just a product.