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.
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.
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.
