Well, a game that delivers mood and atmosphere, and a great story and narrative, is certainly my thing. But when it comes to the combat in action games, I guess I'm not coordinated enough to where I can actually hit my targets worth a damn. I just end up mashing the mouse button, and even if I "win" it is at the cost of serious damage to my character.
Ok, but that's the playstyle I use and I have beaten Elden Ring 7 times. Elden Ring isn't hard if you take a moment and pay attention. There are no difficulty sliders in the options. You make the game as easy or difficulty as you want based on your playstyle.
Here is what people find most difficult in this game: 1. There is no hand holding, in regards to story or direction. You can engage with as little or as much of the story as you want. People have built youtube careers out of explaining Elden Ring's complex lore, art and backstory. 2. There is no quest log, but there are quests. Some of which vastly affect the outcome of the endgame.
Dunky does a great job of summing up why this game is so fun:
[video:youtube][/video]
Originally Posted by Warlocke
Dark Souls games and their successors are very demanding on your attention. The fundamental gameplay involves memorizing enemy telegraphs and then practicing your responses until they’re set in your muscle memory. Until you do, the game punishes you quite thoroughly. Elden Ring less so than the others, but if this ain’t your particular bag of tea then it likely going to be unpleasantly scalding.
I also wouldn’t call the game’s story great. Or even good. As a long time Armored Core player, I’m well acquainted with FromSoftware’s style of developing a lot of background lore and then never directly sharing any of it with the player, leaving it up to them to investigate and infer what is going on. But at least in AC, I knew who I was and what I was doing. I’m a mercenary giant robot combat pilot working for warring corporations in a post apocalyptic hellscape. Easy to grasp.
Elden Ring just tells you that you are Tarnished and want to become an Elden Lord? To which I reply: I’m a what? I want to do what now? Why? If the gameplay is something you enjoy, the mystery of it all and the truly fantastic art direction are probably enough to drive you forward, but I personally need a more digestible premise to get emotionally involved in such an opaque narrative.
Look, thats fair. But I would counter that narrative in games has been ruined by too much 'exposition-style' storytelling which is lazy and disrespectful to the audience. Elden Ring does zero exposition. The experience and the world tell their own story and the depth and level of detail, homages and so forth is on a level with Elden Ring that far supasses anything I have ever seen.
Just a small slice as an example would be the Congregants of the Village of Dominula which - if you pay attention, and read the descriptions of clothing, weapons and so forth - is like a slowly unfolding horror story. It's pretty clearly an homage to the movie Midsommar - which is an incredibly well-done Swedish Occult horror film. Here is a video on just THAT lore.
