A highly anticipated dark fantasy game that had aspirations of claiming the very crown of the RPG genre.
Queen Marika the Eternal, Elden Ring's chief "goddess".
It was about a month before Elden Ring's release in February of 2022 when I first heard about the video game. I wasn't all that interested in it; I had seen many a fantasy role-playing game come and go fairly regularly over the years. Next to battle-royale and competitive multiplayer, fantasy rpgs are something video game studios can't seem to make enough of. I myself had grown quite tired of this exhausted genre, and Elden Ring appeared to be just another one of those rpgs that was supposed to be cool in the eyes of gamers and the media, only to fall absolutely flat.
But it didn't take me long to realize that even for a fantasy rpg, Elden Ring had, to me, an unprecedented amount of support and marketing force behind it. Everywhere I looked, people were showering this game with incredible hype with virtually no reservations or doubts. Everybody couldn't wait for this game to come out so they could play it, from casuals to professional streamers to gaming journalists. This didn't change how I perceived Elden Ring, in fact if anything, it made me more reserved. I had heard this story before, just not this kind of scale.
With me on the sidelines focusing on other things, Elden Ring finally released. And its reception was... incredibly positive. Was I surprised? Not necessarily, but I was when after a few months, the game was just as favorable as before. There was no buyer's remorse, no fatigue among the gaming community. On top of it all, Horizon Forbidden West, another popular series in the rpg genre, had released only a week before Elden Ring, but it was the latter game that completely captured the public eye. It was not long after release that there was talk of Elden Ring winning the fabled Game of the Year award.
Dark fantasy, especially when in video games made by the West, don't interest me that much. But over time, the idea of playing Elden Ring very much grew on me, considering so many people seemed to enjoy it tremendously. And when I received the game as a surprise birthday gift, I couldn't wait to play it. I have yet to complete the game's ending, but with plenty of hours spent playing it, I have seen enough to be able to write a solid summary of the game as a whole.
So how did my experience with it actually go? Was it as good as the masses claimed, or was it lackluster just like most rpgs? You'll find out below.
The demigods Malenia, Blade of Miquella and Starscourge Rhadan
Part 1 - Story and Lore
The similar gameplay style of all role-playing games is what makes it a genre, but it's the stories that make the individual games different from one another. Elden Ring is no exception when it comes to being very focused on the style of its world. The backlore of the game is deep and thorough, and it makes sense once you discover it's a sibling to the popular Game of Thrones universe, since both it and Elden Ring share the same writer: George R. R. Martin. There is another writer besides Martin who helped create Elden Ring's story, but Martin is responsible for much of the behind-the-scenes lore and story points that take place in the past and provide context for the current events that you the player experience.
One might think that based on that, Elden Ring would have a massive story all around, but from what I've actually encountered, it doesn't., compared to similar games like Destiny. There is in fact not a whole lot of story taking place in the present to go along with all the backlore of past events. As a result, the game doesn't spend much time showing all of its lore as you play through it. It's there, its just not very visible. It requires you to pay a lot of attention and piece certain things together from what the game does provide to you.
At its core, Elden Ring is about Queen Marika, the head of the "Golden Order". She possesses a powerful artifact, the Elden Ring. But after her firstborn is killed, she becomes disillusioned and shatters the Elden Ring into pieces, triggering an apocalyptic event the game calls "The Shattering", which essentially turned much of the world upside-down, corrupting almost every person and creature. From there, the rest of Marika's children and other characters related to her, all demigods, warred against each other, vying for the six pieces of the Elden Ring, each piece dubbed a "Great Rune." However, despite the occurrence of the Shattering, there is hope of restoring the Golden Order via warriors called Tarnished (players are in fact the Tarnished). This all is the context for what seems to be the only current event: taking out the 6 demigods who possess the shards of the Elden Ring and... reforge it? I don't know. Much of the story is fuzzy and there's zero handholding. In my explanation I've probably missed a few things, but that's not because I haven't played enough of the game, it's just hard to wrap your head around or remember. Don't worry so much about why you're fighting a certain boss, just kill it because if you don't, it'll kill you first. If anything, it's an old-school game because of it, but is it as good? That's purely subjective. But the more you immerse yourself and really, really think about the lore and pay sharp attention to everything you see, the more enjoyment you can probably get out of it. 5 minutes on the game's wiki has been more informative for me personally than 50 minutes of actually playing the game, like it or not.
But I must admit, the story is still good, and entertaining. It feels unique enough for sure, but that's helped by the equally unique visuals adding a different kind of life to the game. It's not mindblowing, but it does enough to rise above most other games of its class and break my natural assumptions about the fantasy rpg genre of video games. Don't judge a video game by its disk case.
Ranni the Witch, Lunar Princess
Part 2 - Characters
Though many of the game's significant events occur because of the characters, there is amazingly little interaction with them. That is, the ones that aren't hellbent on killing you and can actually speak. The most I've ever heard characters speak was at the very beginning of the game, mostly in the opening cutscenes. Other than that, running into a quest related character/npc (non playable character) feels somewhat rare. If you were expecting a game full of vibrant, talkative fellows, booming-voiced villains and heroes shouting battlecries as they ride into glorious battle, you are sorely mistaken. There aren't many interactions where characters "lore-dump", meaning they won't spend five minutes straight explaining the context of a story arc, because Elden Ring's creators clearly deemed it unnecessary. All talking is as short and minimal as possible. I don't know if this is because the developers wanted Elden Ring to have a certain, colder feel, or if its simply because they didn't want to pay voice actors that much and instead spent their money elsewhere. Maybe its both, because the game certainly has a distinct vibe because of it. In a way, I dislike less character interaction, it seems counter-intuitive to any writer to have less of the most important aspect of storytelling. On the other hand, less is more, and I suspect that's the philosophy of Elden Ring. There's no emotion to be pulled out of the relatively few characters*, but because of it, the game has the intended effect of being spookier, more dreary, and lifeless (in a positive sense). And many of the characters themselves have bizarre quirks about their appearance or being, adding to the signature Elden Ring feel.
*The only exception so far to this is Ms. Ranni the Witch, who for some reason has been designed to be extremely pretty and has the most perfect voice you've ever heard <3. No wonder she is so popular amongst Elden Ring fans.
The one and only Elden Beast
Part 3 - Gameplay and Design
This is it: the main appealing factor for Elden Ring, source of its fame and high status in the gaming world. Countless guides and videos have been made to help players find their way through the absolute maze that is the gameplay of Elden Ring. If the developers did indeed cut back on character interactions because of money, this is where they spent it instead. This game clearly knew what it intended to be all about, where it would live or die. There's so much to unpack, it's hard to find where to begin.
But we'll start with the combat and leveling system. Combat in Elden Ring is what players will spend 99.99% doing, as it feels like every living being in the universe (as well the dead, undead, and animated objects) are out to absolutely destroy you upon sight. And the game doesn't counter that by giving you any form of equalizing power; to defeat enemies, particularly big ones, you have to earn every last bit of it. in my dozens of hours, everything is an uphill climb, you are forced to grind and be very sharp at the controls if you want to find success and level up along the way. There's no easy way out, Elden Ring makes sure of that. Combat itself is slow-paced but demands a lot of quick thinking, skill, and memorizing the attack patterns of your opponents, which is difficult when they often attack erratically or the opponent types are completely different. There's hundreds of different kinds of monsters and creatures, you never get used to one easily. The leveling system is fairly complex and allows you to create someone with unique strengths, but at the core its still the same kind of system as most anything else.
Elden Ring never allows cockiness. If you try to wing anything, it will chew you up and spit you out, and will do so repeatedly. It's a remorseless sort of game in that sense, the kind that will leave you wincing or wide eyed when fighting bosses, or if you're the easily angered kind of person, you'll rage and quit the game only to come back later and receive regular poundings until you finally win, and what a glorious victory it is. It's full of surprises too. I've faced some enemies that I've gotten the hang of only for them to unleash a brand-new attack that kills me in one hit.
Bosses are the bread and butter of the combat and gameplay. Nearly all of us are familiar with the term "boss" in video games, but in recent years, bosses in general have softened significantly to match a broader crowd of players, many of whom are not as expertly skilled. Elden Ring, however, has bosses that live up to the infamous name and does not apologize for it. If anything, it spits on you. Spits on you by the numerous, meticulously designed bosses wiping the floor with you on a regular basis. This is boss battles in their truest form, and I've been reminded to never take easy bosses in video games for granted. But yet, they are still extremely fun (sometimes) and are rewarding when you finally beat them on, say, the 1 millionth attempt. The boss battles are infuriating, but you keep coming back, because this is gaming at the core and you won't stop until you finally beat the boss, the good old fashioned way.
Unlike so many other games which reuse or modify the same enemy code to multiply the amount of fights in a shorter amount of time and effort, Elden Ring has countless bosses that are all unique, no two are the same. It's clear this is where most of the effort was put in, the boss battles are more well-crafted than any other aspect of the game. One must at least admire the fact that the bosses of Elden Ring also look very different from one another. This alone testifies to the fact about time and effort. It certainly holds nothing back, especially money from the artists and design crew who were hired specifically for the purpose of coming up with several hundreds of different kinds of bosses, monsters, and everything in between. Yet despite it all, Elden Ring stays pretty well on the ground in this area. The various enemy types and the way they fight are impressive in ways and there's respect to give the developers for it, but at the end of the day, it's still just boss fights and normal video game combat. It's solid, but not quite ground-breaking or revolutionary as some reviewers and people might suggest. There is a point when it starts feeling old; the bosses are unique, but in terms of how you beat them, the formula is in essence the same.
Elden Ring is also very old-school in how objective and quest markers work: there are virtually none. A lot of manual work is required on the player's part, rarely does the game mark out the specific location where you need to travel to continue a quest. The same mindset applies to the hundreds of different items you can pick up as you play. Sometimes, figuring out how to use an item is half the battle itself. I've had to look up guides on YouTube and the internet to find answers, because while I don't mind playing the game the way its meant to be played, I really don't feel like spending an hour trying to find a blasted location I probably won't ever find on my own, and I don't pick up on Elden Ring's more subtle hints very well. It's not terrible by any means, but make sure you appreciate when other games make it easier for you by visually labeling where you need to travel to all the time.
Godrick the Grafted
I'd be doing Elden Ring a huge disservice if I didn't spend some time talking about the game's signature graphical/art design. Without this important aspect, the raw gameplay wouldn't feel the way it does. It just wouldn't be Elden Ring. Being a writer, you might think the story or the characters are the things I study the most, but for this game, the one thing that captured my attention the most was the visual design. It does not remind me of any kind of epic or general fantasy, but it does feel like the video game version of an adult-specific fantasy novel.
If I had to sum up what Elden Ring looks like in a single word, it would be: weird. Outside of grass, stones, and trees, nothing looks normal. Weird, spooky, dark, grim, bizarre, unnatural, all of this is the overarching appearance and feel that dominates the entire game, no matter where you go. It's pure dark fantasy in a nutshell, but even then, Elden Ring is distinct. I get Persian vibes from a lot of what I see more than anything else, especially when you're dealing with witchcraft or astrology. I can't liken it to any other game that I've played, not even Skyrim. Skyrim has a much more Epic world, with colorful visuals designed to wow and be eye candy for the viewer. Elden Ring might be fantasy, but its dramatically different, exchanging brave heroes fighting dragons on snow-covered mountains for dreary, lifeless nights where oversized horse riders prowl and ugly monstrosities combine limbs of the dead into their own bodies.
To give you a better example, I'll share my favorite scene in the entire game thus far. It's nightfall, clouds fill the sky, you arrive at a broken-down old church to visit a merchant only to find the lights out, a scary fog surrounding the area, and the merchant slumped over, unmoving. Before you know what's happening, you turn and see a four-armed witch dressed in white sitting on one of the broken walls of the church, the moonlight shining down upon her as the screams and howls of creatures can be head faintly in the distance. The witch greets you, gives you a magical bell that can summon spirits, then vanishes without a trace. You turn again, and the merchant has suddenly reawakened, not realizing anything that has happened.
Elden Ring is as spooky as all get out. I'd certainly keep it away from kids unless you want them sleeping in your bed for the next week straight. There's an unprecedented amount of sheer nightmare fuel, so much so that I'm surprised I can tolerate as much as I have, considering I don't typically enjoy dark fantasy for these kinds of reasons. The average 30 year old gamer-for-life might be able to handle this stuff, but for anyone else, It gets very overwhelming and overbearing after a certain point. Peaceful? No. Cool? Maybe. Morbid? Absolutely. It goes as far as it can go without being outright gory, and when it comes to making things disgusting, ugly, gross, and straight up mind-bendingly bizarre, Elden Ring doesn't hold back. I've seen everything from rotting flesh diseases to legless maidens to spirits possessing human-doll bodies. It's like the philosophy of the writers was to take something, anything, and weird-ify in the weirdest way they could think of. While it is admittedly a bit too much for me, I like this approach in a general sense. If you're a writer and you struggle with descriptions, visualizing and designing the way your world looks, take a page out of Elden Ring's playbook. Learn to think along the same lines these developers did, no matter if you're working in dark fantasy or in any other genre. Even in books with no illustrations, writers must achieve the same effect of images and pictures, just in words, in order to make their world captivating and memorable. Elden Ring reminded me of the importance of this.
As a final note about the game design, I've noticed a significant difference concerning the music in Elden Ring compared to other similar games. While I raise the volume of music in other games and lower other sounds pretty regularly, I haven't changed Elden Ring's defaults at all. That would be because the music is basically secondary, it's not memorable. With the exception of the main theme, almost all music is pretty quiet and just similar, short sequences of notes over and over again serving more as moody sound effects rather than a musical score. Some boss fights have more dramatic music, but again, it's nothing memorable. One could say this is done on purpose to add to the overall dry silent-ness of the game, but either way, I won't be listening to the soundtrack on my free time anytime soon, if ever. Perhaps it's just an acquired taste.
"I'd heard tell of a Tarnished hurtling about atop a spectral steed, and upon looking into the matter, the talk, I surmise, is of thee."
Conclusion
Even after researching much about Elden Ring, the game was completely different than what I was expecting when I finally played it. While it does have pretty good strengths and does enough to break through the mold of fantasy rpgs, it doesn't go far beyond that. It's better than most things out there, but I honestly can't say it blew me away in any way. Considering the strength of the opposition, Elden Ring will most likely win Game of the Year, but personally, it's basically on the same level as other enjoyable singleplayer games like Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima. If you prefer dark fantasy over anything else, you'll find Elden Ring to be incredible, but beyond that, it's really just a good video game. I am overall pleased with it, and I hope more singleplayer games like it are made. All things considered, 7.6 of out 10 is fair to me.
Comments