Elden Ring has gone on to become my favorite video game of all time. I know that sounds drastic to some when considering the long list of video games available to play and to date myself, I’ve been playing video games since 1985.
So, how on earth after playing more video games than I could possibly count did Elden Ring manage to take the top spot for me? Well, that’s a long answer, so I’m going to put it down into sections. None If the reasons listed are in any particular order, so I wouldn’t read too deeply into the placement.
For starters, the games lore is top notch. Call it a story if you’d like, but the story is the lore. Playing through Elden Ring is rather realistic in the sense of how the story unfolds. I imagine that if I were in a primitive land on a mission to kill the lands lords and become a lord myself, it would unfold much like the game. Not a lot of clues, not a lot of friendlies and a whole lot of exploring. You never know what you’re going to get yourself into. That is unless of course you beat the game and start a new one. For the most part, you know what’s happening down the line. If it were real life, I could become a tour guide and talk about my adventures. Of course, if I’m an Elden Lord, I’d probably just have one of my subjects tell my story, but that’s just semantics.
Well balanced. FromSoftware is known for challenging players. The Souls series is a great example of that, but I will say Elden Ring isn’t quite as tough as the Souls games. It’s still quite a challenging game, especially for newcomers that have no real prior experience with Fromsoftware games. The balance is pretty near perfect. It offers a good amount of challenge, but it also offers many ways to get relief if you just can’t get beyond an area.
An enormous map. Man, this map is huge and it has so many hidden locations and items, it makes my head spin. During my first playthrough, I could have never grasped just how large it is. During my second playthrough, I wound up uncovering areas underground that I hadn’t discovered in my first run. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I discover a new map. Wow.
Now, I have beaten all the games in the Souls series and I’d like to include BloodBorne and Sekiro for good measure, but completing Elden Ring the first tike around gave me more satisfaction than any of those titles. Probably because I sunk around 160 hours into my first playthrough and was just blown away by the vast amount of freedom to explore. I just can’t get over it. I’m sad for the ones writing articles about how they have Elden Ring fatigue before completing the game.
All in all, Elden Ring has almost everything I could want from an RPG. Large world, plenty of options for character loadouts/builds and to mention all of the upgrading between weapons and character stats. The ability to ride a horse, fast traveling between discovered locations (which is a real godsend thansk to the size of the world) and so much more. And if this game needs anymore to make it complete, I love being able to call in other players to help when in need, or when players invade my world. I don’t invade others unless I need to do it for a questline, but I’m sure tormenting other tarnished players is great fun.
I won’t be one of those gamers that finds everything. I’m not going to get a platinum trophy and sadly, I probably won’t play through enough times to see every possible ending, but by the time I finish up for good, I’ll have probably beaten the game 4 times. While my goal isn’t to platinum the game as I said above, my end game goal is to max out every stat I can and then play one last time as juiced up as possible. It might not happen. That’s a lot of extra work, but I’ll give it a go.
If you haven’t read our previous review, I rated Edlen Ring a 10 out 10. This is the complete package and I can only hope developers take note on this one. This game sets a new standard and we should all be thanking FromSoftware for putting in so much effort. This company clearly cares about the products they develop and it shows. If you haven’t played Elden Ring, I highly recommend it. And keep your eyes out for our upcoming walkthrough as well as tips and tricks to help guide you through.