About two years ago, I was looking for a new game to play and decided to give Elden Ring a try. I enjoy playing video games and I really like playing Role Playing Games (RPG). I’ve been playing video games now for several years. Elden Ring has a reputation as one of the hardest video games, but I decided to give it a try anyway, so I bought a copy.
It turns out the game is hard. Really hard. And the truth is, you’re never powered up enough to do well. It’s constant defeat and death. This is made worse by the fact that the game is designed to eliminate your progress (by taking your runes when you die) and leave you with nothing. The game makes it hard to level up, which allows you to make progress. I started it several times, but I gave up in frustration.
About six months ago, I decided to give it yet another try after learning there are strategies I was not aware of when I first tried. Elden Ring doesn’t play like a typical RPG. If you lose to a boss a few times and die, you can come back when you are at a higher level. Once I learned this was okay, I started to enjoy Elden Ring and made my way through the game.
Understanding the play dynamics made a big difference. I’m at level 230 right now, which isn’t bad. I’ve been able to make it through all the bosses except the final boss, the Elden Beast. I’ve beaten Radagon at least 10 times but can’t get past the final battle.
This leads me to my opinion of the game. After playing Elden Ring, I can say it is a mediocre game at best. It’s an average game that is fun in some ways and pointless in others. The game is designed to be difficult, and it is.
Dying over and over again may seem profound to some, but not to me. Some see it as a learning experience, or as a mystical thing that only those who “understand” see as meaningful, but this seems a little sadistic or maybe presents as a self-image problem. I’m not sure. I don’t see profound mystery here at all. No thank you. This isn’t why I play video games.
It’s a decent game, maybe worth the money, but I won’t be buying the expensive download, and I certainly don’t think it’s a masterpiece. The game requires endless grinding to succeed, and this gets boring after a while. Leveling up, which is the path to completion, requires lots of repetitive grunt work and it just isn’t fun.
Elden Ring has a crazy number of bosses and quest bosses. The bosses are eventually beatable. Cool. I’m down with that. But the minor enemies are very hard to beat. Maybe impossible. Most gamers don’t even try. To me this indicates a problem with the game itself. The sense of proportion and the weight given to opponent’s strength is not consistent.
Most players simply run by the smaller bosses because they are too hard and can’t be beaten. This leads to the experience of beating a major boss, only to die by one strike from a dog, city guard or any number of enemies in the game.
Dying is part of the game, I get it, it’s a Dark Souls game, but it seems peculiar that you can’t beat common enemies. In most games this is how you learn to fight in the game against the bigger enemies, but not so much for Elden Ring.
It’s makes for maximum frustration and minimum satisfaction. I haven’t beaten the final boss. I know I can, I just need to level up some more. I built my character on qualities that don’t make for defeating this enemy, but of course, I couldn’t have known that information until it was too late. So I need to level up several times first. But the truth is I’m so tired of grinding I just don’t care.
After nearly 500 hours of game play, I say the game is okay, but not great and it’s not a classic, no matter the hype. It could have been better, but it’s average and nothing more. If you are playing it right now, stay with it and you may reach another conclusion, who knows? But don’t look to Elden Ring to provide gaming satisfaction. It just isn’t there and won’t happen. There’s a lot more I could say here, but I’ll close for now.
Have a great week,
Ernie