Elden Ring, the game that got me to love the Souls Borne series. A very maidenless review.

 This is my third review of a Souls Borne game. I have already reviewed Sekiro and Bloodborne before this game, and I plan to one day review the entire franchise. But here's a funny story you might not know. None of these games were my first Souls Borne game. That "honor" goes to Dark Souls II. And in hindsight, starting with II was probably a mistake, since that game is needlessly oppressive and counterintuitive. As such, I never finished it, but I might replay it again for the purpose of reviewing the whole franchise. But anyway, I bounced off the series for years after trying and failing to complete Dark Souls II. Then I picked up Elden Ring, and that game was so good that not only did I replay the game again as soon as the credits rolled, but it won me over and converted me into a "real" Souls Borne fan. I started tracking down the other games because I liked Elden Ring so much and wanted more games in that style. So here's a heavily biased review of a game that I will openly admit is one of my favorite pieces of media ever. Quick content warning. Elden Ring is rated M for Mature by the ESRB and thus is intended for audiences 17 years old or older. Mostly because of violence. And freaky monster designs. And a subplot where the protagonist gets married to a weird witch lady.

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So what exactly is Elden Ring? It's a medieval fantasy action roleplaying game inspired by Norse and Celtic Mythology that was developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco, with the story and lore being co-written by Hidetaka Miyazaki (the creator of the Souls Borne series) and George R.R. Martin, of Game of Thrones fame. The game would release on February 24th, 2022 and became an overnight success. Not only was it the best selling Bandai Namco-published game ever made, it was the second best selling game of that year, being second only to Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare. Which is impressive, since From Software have spent much of their history being a fairly niche developer. It also has a DLC expansion pack planned for release this coming June (at the time of writing), titled The Shadow of the Erdtree. 

And now I have to tell you about the story in this game. Something you need to understand about From Software is that they don't tell their stories with traditional cinematics. Sure, cinematics exist, but mostly to hype up certain bosses and show how much of a threat they are. Most of the story is told through details in the environment, optional conversations with the few friendly faces you'll meet on your adventure, and reading the descriptions of collectible items. This vagueness was deliberate by design. One of Miyazaki's quirks as a writer is that he loves seeing people come up with theories and pool their knowledge together into a cohesive narrative, and his stories are meant to be vague and mysterious for this exact reason. And even though Martin's involvement was a big part of the prerelease marketing, the game feels less like a 50/50 split between his style and Miyazaki's style, and more like a 70/30 split in Miyazaki's favor. Granted, Elden Ring is somewhat more straightforward in its narrative than previous Souls Borne games. I didn't do any additional research on the lore during my first playthrough and felt like I had a good enough understanding of what was going on.

So here's a basic summary of the lore. In the world of Elden Ring, there is an island nation called the Lands Between. The Lands Between were ruled by a Goddess named Marika the Eternal, who was given divine power by an artefact called the Elden Ring. The Elden Ring was a gift from an even more powerful god called the Greater Will, in exchange for Marika's loyalty and servitude. Marika birthed several children who, while not gods in and of themselves, are still incredibly powerful and have the potential to ascend to godhood in certain circumstances. These kids are called the Demigods. Eventually Marika got tired of being the Greater Will's poster girl so she smashed the Elden Ring and faked her death. And then her kids started a civil war to fill the power vacuum. Fast forward five thousand years later, and the Lands Between are a post-apocalyptic shell of their former glory. Monstrous dragons burn down villages, undead zombies and skeletons attack roaming travelers and a supernatural disease called the Scarlet Rot is spreading through the land like a plague.

You play as a Foul Tarnished, an undead super soldier brought back to life by Marika's Grace and given a task. Track down the scattered remains of the Elden Ring, repair it and claim the throne of the Next Elden Lord. You are not the only Tarnished on this quest, however. In fact there are potentially hundreds of Tarnished running around. But only one of them can be Elden Lord. So any alliance between Tarnished is temporary at best. And in typical From Software fashion, not even ten minutes after waking up your Tarnished gets thrown into a boss fight that you are supposed to lose. Though you do get a cool sword if you beat it on your first try. After that scripted loss, you wake up in a cave and can go through an optional tutorial that teaches you the controls and basic game mechanics. Said tutorial ends with a boss fight against the Soldier of Godrick, which is a much more reasonable "first boss" than the actual first boss. Granted, the Soldier of Godrick is just a slightly buffed version of the basic undead wretches you've been fighting in the tutorial, so he isn't meant to be too hard.

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Elden Ring has a pretty robust character creator, and I am a sucker for a good character creator. You can customize the hair, facial features, body type, gender and more. But more importantly, the game has a bunch of Classes. One thing I love about this game is that there are a ton of different ways to customize your fighting style. Do you want to swing the biggest and heaviest swords imaginable? You can do that. Do you want to run in and unleash a flurry of lightning fast stabs and slices with a pair of daggers? You can do that. Do you want to cast magic spells and shoot laser beams? You can do that. But keep in mind that nothing in this game is class-locked. As long as you meet the minimal stat requirements to use a weapon or cast a spell, you can use it. Even if you start the game as a Hero (a bulky juggernaut who excels with Strength focused weapons but struggles with spellcasting), you can learn magic spells if you put a few upgrades into Intelligence. 

The stats all do more or less what you expect them to. Strength makes the big heavy weapons better, Dexterity makes the fast smaller weapons better. Vigor gives you more health and defense, Endurance gives you more stamina (letting you jump and dodge more frequently) and carry heavier items on you. Intelligence and Faith are both your "magical" stats, with the former making star-themed sorcery better and the latter improving holy incantations. Mind gives you a bigger Focus meter, thus letting you cast more spells before needing to recharge. And finally, Arcane is a weird stat. It makes enemies drop items upon defeating them more frequently, and boosts the power of status effects like Poison, Frostbite and Bleeding. Practically speaking, Arcane is a stat that can be safely ignored if you don't plan on using status effects, since it offers no other benefits to combat. But status effect builds are comically strong. During my second run of the game, I played a Faith/Arcane hybrid character that tore through the game far faster than my original sorcery character did.

The classes mostly exist as a foundation to build off of instead of a railroad you must follow for the whole game. That being said, they do determine what kind of weapons and armor you start the game with, if anything. And it's generally better to specialize than to generalize. A pure Strength build will generally outperform a Strength/Dexterity hybrid. There are exceptions of course. The aforementioned Faith/Arcane build I made was almost comically strong. And the only reason I made that build was because I wanted to make a "dragon" themed character and all the "dragon" themed spells are designed to work with both Faith and Arcane equally. And also in typical From Software tradition, one of the classes, simply called the Wretch, starts with literally nothing more than a wooden stick and a loincloth. The Wretch's only redeeming quality is that it starts with a 10 in every stat, meaning if you can't make up your mind on what to play, the Wretch offers a perfect blank slate that can be easily molded into any play style you want once you find some real weapons and armor. Miyazaki himself has gone on record saying that playing as the Wretch is the closest thing the game has to a hard mode, so maybe don't play Wretch during your first playthrough unless you are very confident in your skills or you don't mind a rougher start.

Elden Ring controls more or less how you expect a Souls Borne to play. I played the game on PS4 and will be using that console's controller as a frame of reference. But anyway, you use the right and left bumper/trigger buttons to attack with whatever weapon is held in your character's left hand and right hand, respectively. The circle button is your dodge, the square button lets you use consumable items like potions or throwing knives. If you have a shield in hand, you can use it to block and parry enemy attacks. You collect a universal currency called Runes that can be used to purchase upgrades for your character, such as increased stats or better quality weapons and armor. All unspent Runes are dropped if you die and must be manually recollected on your next life. All of this is standard stuff. What's new to this game is the ability to JUMP. No, really, this is the first Souls Borne game with an actual jump button. While there was technically a jump in the previous games, it was clumsy, awkward and only worked if you had enough room for a running start. Now, the jump action is tied to a single button and feels actually good to use. You can also attack while jumping. And jump attacks are surprisingly strong. In fact, speed runners who are better at this game than I am discovered that the fastest way for Strength builds to defeat enemies is by doing jump attacks repeatedly. But back on the subject of new mechanics, there's a new technique called a Guard Counter. Basically, if you hit the heavy attack button right after blocking, it charges the normally slow heavy attack instantly.  You can also ride around on a magical steed called Torrent, who is not only much faster than the Tarnished but can also double jump. Torrent cannot be brought indoors, sadly, but he does make navigating the outdoors much easier. And the final new thing are Spirit Ashes. Spirit Ashes are magic spells can be cast once per boss battle that summons a ghostly version of certain monsters and warriors, who will assist you in battle automatically. Spirit Ashes are a nice option to have if you've been struggling against a boss and need just that extra bit of Jolly Cooperation to finish it off. Of course, regular multiplayer co-op is still a thing.

After the tutorial ends you are dumped into the Lands Between properly. You are free to explore wherever and however you want. The amount of freedom and exploration in Elden Ring is simply staggering. A lot of people say that Elden Ring is the most "beginner friendly" Souls Borne game. That is technically true. Not because From Software added an "easy mode" or toned down the enemies and bosses. In fact even the basic enemies can obliterate you if you're not careful. But because there's so much freedom in the open world, if you ever get stuck on a boss, all you have to do is go somewhere else and come back later once you get some upgrades under your belt. The previous games were a lot more linear in their level design, meaning if you got stuck on a boss, you had no real choice besides trying to brute force your way to victory. And if you know where to look, you can find some really powerful weapons long before the first "real" boss.

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Speaking of bosses, this game has a lot of bosses. In fact, at 168 named boss monsters, it has the most number of bosses of any Souls Borne game ever. Funnily enough, out of those bosses, only 12 of them are required to actually finish the game. The rest are optional, but usually reward you with a powerful weapon or spell upon defeat. The only thing I can say negatively about is that most of the non-plot-relevant bosses are recycled at multiple points in the game (meaning you fight them more than once). Some more than others. But considering that Elden Ring is supposed to be From Software's "biggest" game, the world being so huge and packed with details means that the only real way to fill out the game world would be to recycle content. But the good news is that all of the Demigods (sans Godrick) are unique and only fought once. And honestly, the Demigods feel like they have the most amount of polish and effort put into them. They all get an intro cinematic hyping them up. They all are fully voiced and surprisingly chatty, with some of them taunting the Tarnished mid-battle. And of course, they are (generally speaking) the most challenging bosses in the game. 

On the subject of challenge, Elden Ring's difficulty is a little bit all over the place. Back when the game first came out, no one could agree if it was the easiest Souls Borne, or if it was the hardest. The answer is yes. Yes, it is the hardest. But also yes, it is the easiest. That sounds like an obtuse non answer and well, it is, but hear me out. You remember when I said that the game offers tons of different options for developing a unique fighting style? Not all builds are created equally. Elden Ring has 308 different weapons to collect and 171 different magic spells to learn. And generally speaking, 10% of those weapons and spells are so weak that using them is for all intents and purposes, handicapping yourself. 50% are just good enough to get you through the game, though you might struggle against certain enemies. And the rest are so comically powerful that they turn even the toughest battles into a cakewalk. And those comically powerful weapons can potentially be accessed as soon as you leave the tutorial area. The only thing consistent about the game's difficulty is that there is a huge spike in enemy damage in the final two regions of the game, the Mountaintop of the Giants and Crumbling Farum Azula. The enemies and bosses here do so much damage that you need at least 40 points into Vigor just to survive more than one attack. To put that into perspective, the previous games in the series could be beaten with 25 Vigor or less, and any more than that was the defensive equivalent of overkill. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The most offensive example of Elden Ring's weird difficulty balancing is a boss called Malenia, the Blade of Miquella. She is by far the hardest boss in the game, putting up more of a fight than even the final boss. Her attack patterns and movement are so fast they push Elden Ring's combat to the absolute limit. She honestly feels like she belongs in a different, much faster game than Elden Ring. This is on top of being able to "steal" health from you with every successful slash from her katana. This is a boss that essentially forces you to go the whole fight without getting hit once, because that's the only way to stop her from healing. Even blocked attacks will still heal her. And that's not even mentioning how she has two full health bars AND she adds a poisonous Scarlet Rot effect to her attacks once her first health bar is emptied. Before you jump to conclusions and assume I'm singling her out because I have a "skill issue" or need to "git gud" let me just say this. Malenia took me 13 tries to beat. Every other boss took 2 or 3 tries each. This was with a sorcery build I had planned ahead of time specifically to counter her. My criticisms of Malenia aren't because she's a hard fight. It's that she runs counter to the rest of the game's design, punishing defensive melee builds that rely on blocks and parries for defense and demanding that the player plays this one specific duel to absolute perfection, because anything less than perfect will result in failure. Thankfully, Malenia is an optional boss and the only rewards for beating her are the bragging rights and a replica of her katana. I think my opinion of Elden Ring would sour if she was mandatory.

Ironically, the hardest challenge in the whole game doesn't even come from its bosses or from its exploration. It comes from the side quests. All throughout the Lands Between you can meet various characters that are also traveling on their own adventures. You can choose to help them with their problems, but a lot of the side quests are so cryptic and obscure that you need a walkthrough on hand just to do them properly. And not helping matters is that if you defeat certain bosses before starting the side quests, the characters associated with might just peace out and move to a different location or even leave the game world entirely, thus preventing you from finishing that character's quest. To add insult to injury, there is no way to check which side quests you've found or finished within the game itself. You just have to hope your memory is good enough to revisit past areas. And even if you find the right characters in the right spot, the solution to their problem can be borderline esoteric. Take Boc the Seamster for example. Towards the end of his side quest, he expresses concern for his unsightly appearance and asks the Tarnished if they know of any way to "make him beautiful." There are two ways to end this quest. The simplest solution is to tell him to go visit a sorceress named Rennala of the Full Moon, who possesses the power of rebirth. Only problem is that Rennala still hasn't perfected her rebirth spell yet, so Boc's "beautiful" new body dies just a few minutes afterword. You would think that simply telling Boc that he's beautiful enough as is would persuade him to stay where he is, but no. You need to travel to a completely different region, grab an item called a Prattling Pate, come back to Boc and use that item to tell him that he's beautiful. There is no indication that such an item even exists, much less where to find it. The other side quests work similarly to Boc's. The simple solution will nine times out of ten get the character killed off (or worse) and the only way to save them is to try something weird and out of the box. There is only one side quest that breaks this rule.

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Oh boy, it's time to talk about Ranni the Witch. This character is quite the fan favorite, thanks to a memorable design, distinct Welsh accent and being the only "friendly" demigod. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a Ranni fan, myself. She also has the only quest where doing things out of the "intended" order won't ruin it. In fact, the only real way to fail Ranni's quest is to attack her deliberately. The best thing about Ranni is that she straight up tells you where you need to go and what you need to do to complete the quest. Ranni wants to find a special dagger in an underground city and tells you where to go to find said dagger. Ranni wants the demigod Radahn destroyed as part of her plans, and she tells you to go find Radahn and kill him. Her quest is the only one that is this straightforward. Of course, the beautiful simplicity of her quest isn't the only reason why I like Ranni. The other reason is that her lore is fascinating. She was one of the demigods responsible for turning the Lands Between into a nightmare hellscape. Despite being responsible for many of the horrors that the Tarnished encounters, she has a genuine desire to overthrow the gods and give humanity true, absolute freedom. The third reason I like Ranni is the simple fact that her quest ends with her and the Tarnished getting married. And there's a whole alternate ending, heavily implied to be the best ending, that is rewarded for going through with said marriage. Ranni even gives you the Moonlight Greatsword, which is literally From Software's mascot that they put in every game they work on, as a wedding gift. Out of all the games I have played in my life, Elden Ring is the only one to have an actual marriage in it. Granted, it's a political marriage and Ranni makes it clear her main reason for marrying the Tarnished is because she needs a loyal spouse in order to ascend to godhood. Because marriages in this setting aren't just a romantic ceremony. They are a ritual meant to unlock the true power of the divine. But without context, the idea that Elden Ring's best ending requires you to get married is oddly amusing.

In terms of presentation, Elden Ring is by far the most colorful Souls Borne game. This isn't to say that it's all sunshine and rainbows. Just that it leans more into the "fantasy" side of the phrase "dark fantasy." The monster designs are about what you expect from From Software. Lots of horrifying monstrosities with limbs coming out of places they do not belong. In fact, there's a general motif of hands and arms in the character designs. A lot of characters either have more arms than a normal human, or they have something weird going on with the arms they do have. Just to give a few examples, Ranni has four arms tucked into her robe, Godrick the Golden has two dozen arms erupting out of his back, and Rykard fights with a sword made of bloodied arms. And of course, the main mascot boss of this game, Malenia the Blade of Miquella, has only one natural arm. Her right arm has been replaced with a golden prosthetic that has a retractable sword attached to the wrist. The only bad thing about Elden Ring's aesthetic is that it can at times look a bit too similar to the Dark Souls trilogy. I kind of wish it leaned harder into the Nordic Viking/Celtic Mythology vibes, which are present in things like the Erdtree being modeled after Yggdrasil the World Tree and Malenia's helmet resembling those worn by Valkyries, but the Nordic/Celtic influence is nowhere near as obvious as say, Bloodborne's Victorian vibe or Sekiro's Feudal Japanese aesthetic.

But on a more positive note, we got Legacy Dungeons. Legacy Dungeons are special locations scattered around the open world. These areas are designed to resemble the level design from older Souls Borne games. Not only are they gorgeous to look at, the Legacy Dungeons are by far the most complex areas to navigate, with lots of winding paths that loop back in on themselves, hidden shortcuts and traps. The Legacy Dungeons are a true highlight of Elden Ring's art style, with a personal favorite of mine being Raya Lucaria Academy. It's a giant school for witchcraft and wizardry magic users that rests underneath the pale blue light of an magically conjured night sky, complete with a full moon looming overhead. You work your way up the schoolrooms and past a debate parlor, fighting and/or running past scholarly sorcerers and living puppet soldiers. You eventually reach the tallest point in the school, the Grand Library, where Rennala resides. 

Another Legacy Dungeon I love is Leyndell the Golden Capital. It is exactly what it sounds like; The capital city of the Lands Between. It is far fancier and more upkept than the rest of the world, looking almost serene compared to the hellscape outside its fortified walls. The roofs of the buildings are golden, the streets are lined with golden bricks, even the enemies here fight with golden weaponry. Also, there's a petrified corpse of a dragon so large that it functions as a platform/bridge you can walk on. And some people who are much smarter than me did some measurements and found this corpse dragon (named in the lore as Gransax) is more then 4 times the size of the Dragon God, a boss from the very first Souls Borne game, Demon's Souls. Keep in mind that the Dragon God was the biggest monster From Software ever created and they have yet to make a living  monster that large ever again. One shudders to think what kind of boss battle a dragon of that size could be like. Maybe that's one of the DLC bosses; a dragon as large as Gransax, but actually alive.

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In terms of sound design, music and voice acting, it's all good. The monstrous roars of the various beasts in the Lands Between are disturbing, and the sound of clashing blades is crisp. The music is about what you expect from From Software. Lots of intimidating orchestra with vaguely Latin sounding lyrics. The music only really kicks in when you discover a boss, though there is some ambience in safe zones like the Roundtable Hold or the Volcano Manor. My personal favorite in the whole soundtrack is the Godskin Nobles' theme. It can best be described as "evil Catholic choir music." Which, considering that the Godskin Nobles are a cult that collects the skin of demigods and fashions clothes out of said skin, is weirdly fitting in a morbid way. And since the Godskin Nobles are fought multiple times, you get to hear their theme music more than once. The Ancestor Spirit is another boss with a good theme. It has really pretty and tranquil music, which sounds almost out of place for a battle with an otherworldly animal spirit.

The voice acting is some of the best in the series. One detail I like about the game is that all of the demigods are ancient (being 5,000 years old or older), and as such they all speak in old-timey Shakespearean English (with a lot of "thee" and "thou" and "thy") to show just how old they are compared to the regular mortals, who speak in modern English. Elden Ring is probably the most quotable game in From Software's catalogue. There's a lot of good quotes in this game. You have funny quotes like the White Masked Varre saying "Unfortunately, it appears you are maidenless" at the start of the game. But then you have incredible one-liners like Godfrey saying "I have given thee courtesy enough!" or Malenia saying "You will witness true horror..." I think my favorite piece of voice acting is when you confront Morgott, the Last of all Kings. The scene starts with him walking down a flight of stairs while listing off each and every demigod responsible for the millennia of warfare and violence that has plagued the Lands Between. With each name, the anger in his tired old voice grows and grows. Eventually he explodes with this line; "Willful traitors, all! Thy kind art all of a piece! War lords, emboldened by the flames of ambition! So have it writ upon thy meagre grave... Felled, by King Morgott! The Last of All Kings!" It's a beautifully written and voice-acted speech that conveys all the pent up rage and frustration Morgott feels about his fellow demigods, and how he believes that the Tarnished will become just as bad as Marika if they become Elden Lord. Morgott isn't an antagonist because he's evil. He's an antagonist because he's scared that the Tarnished will repeat his mother's mistakes and has taken great effort to prevent such a scenario from occurring. Morgott's my favorite boss in this whole game, both because he is fun to fight and because I enjoy the lore and narrative surrounding him.

My only complaint on the voice acting has less to do with acting itself and more to do with the translation. You see, From Software is a Japanese company. That means that Japanese is their native language. Obviously. But there's a bit of translation error. And normally, translation errors do happen in From Software games, but they are usually minor and inconsequential details that don't affect the experience. This game's translation error completely changes Ranni's speech at the end of the game, should you go through with her marriage and allow her to become the Goddess of the Full Moon. In English she says that she plans to "bring forth a chill night, of fear and loneliness, without the need to feel ever again." In Japanese she says that plans to "take the chill night far away from here, as I walk the path of fear and loneliness." The former sounds like she is causing another doomsday. The latter sounds like she is sacrificing herself for the betterment of humanity. This is not the fault of Ranni's voice actress, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, but is a little "whoopsies" in the translation. Side note, I really love the sound of Ranni's voice. She could read a phone book out loud and make it sound interesting.

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Overall, Elden Ring is a great jumping on point for anyone new to the Souls Borne series. Is it perfect? No. I still wish that side quests were easier to keep track of, and the game is a bit too similar to Dark Souls aesthetically for my liking. But it's by far the most beginner friendly game in the franchise. And I'm thankful that this game showed me how fun Souls Borne games could be. If you have heard of From Software's work but were scared off by their infamous difficulty, this game, while not being easy per se, is far more accessible than its predecessors. It's definitely one of the better "open world" games out there. I give Elden Ring five stars out of five.

Elden Ring is the property of Bandai Namco and From Software. None of the screenshots featured here were created by me. Please support the original creators.