Recent reviews by Blaidd The Black Swordsman

This Game has a lot of Great things, the Puzzles ain't one of them.
As many others already said, this Game has great Visuals and a very interesting Concept.
Sadly the latest is not utilised to it's fullest at all.
At the Beginning the puzzles where Engaging and Interesting. I was expecting them to turn into complex Puzzles where you have to put everything you learned together. Sadly this didn't happen. The Puzzles do take a lot more time after a While, but not because they got Harder. I mean they do in a sense. I'm currently at a Point where I have to traverse a lot of already done levels and am Just walking to find enough cubes to "solve" a Puzzle i already solved in my Head.

The Idea to take something from an older Level so you can Proceed is good and if well done really cool. In my Opinions the game fails this harshly.

Want something to devote your life to ?
Over a Thousand Hours in and I still don't understand every mechanic. And that's probably gonna be the case for the next 1000 Hours too.

so yeah kinda good i think

This Game is incredibly good and challenging. Completely worth 5 bucks, even more if you ask me.
For an Early Access Game it's already really thought out and Complex.
And in Contrast to many Games of the same Genre it's also pretty challenging.
If you love the Graphic style of Diablo 2 you will like this game even more.
Even the Character Roster and their Abilities are pretty Diverse. Enough to be a Full Game in my Opinion.
The thing that Blows me away is that I haven't even reached come close to it's full potential yet (sure it's only been 12 Hours but for that I have advanced pretty far.

Honestly Can't wait to see how far they take this game !

I don't know. It's Okay

First off, this is a Great Game

The Best open World Game I have ever played and actually kinda like (I Hate Open World games)

So yes I can recommend everyone to at least give it a Try. If you want to get a start into the Souls-Like Genre, then this Is IMO the best start.

TLDR :
Bosses are too Spamy with too much AOE etc.
Fake Weapon Variety. (A Few Weapons MUCH stronger than the most)
Story/Map/Difficulty Progression is Dissatisfying when played Blind
Mods are Awesome and Easy to install
Use Seemles Coop when you want to play with Friends

So now why a Negative review?
Because for everything that Elden Ring does better than it's Predecessor, there is something it does worse.

*Slight Gameplay Spoilers*

Lets start with Bosses.

They Spam A LOT. The Later you are in the Game, The less you are allowed to attack. Which quiet frankly, easily leads to Frustration.
Random Delays that range between 0.5 to 2 Seconds that also can be Instant attacks if not delayed is also easily Frustrating.
And if you decide to test out Ashes or play with friends, prepare for even more RNG in terms of Focus. (Looking at you Radagon)
And the supposedly Hardest Boss is the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing that I have seen in My entire Life. And no I'm not mad that I couldn't beat her, I'm mad that it felt more like winning the lottery than actually using what I learned.
But I have to give Credit, where Credit is due.
The Boss moves Look Amazing, and There are some of the Best Bosses in Fromsoftware History in this Game. Even Though non of them make feel like I'm dancing with them.
Sadly of the 150 Bosses, where only around 112 are "Unique", there is only a Handful that I'm always happy to fight.

Weapons

Something I want to Love about this Game, Is the sheer Variety of Weapons and Spells in this Game.
I can easily Upgrade like 8 Somberstone Weapons to +9 but struggle to upgrade even 3 of the Normal Weapons to +24. I feel like this should either be the other way Around or just lower the cost of the Upgrades.
This Leads to me not being able to just switch between the normal Armaments without the Use of Bell Bearings. Which is Fine when you already played the Game, But on my first Blind Playthrough this lead me to only use Somberstone Weapons.
Overall Every Weapon might seem to be Strong enough to get you through the Game, but so many weapons fall of Hard the more you near the End. Which Creates Meta Weapons. There are A few completely Busted Weapons in this Game, that make using any Other Weapon just feel like you are are purposefully nerfing yourself to make it Harder for yourself.
And I'm not mad that those Weapons are so Strong (I mean there are like 2 I would personally nerf), I'm Mad that every other cool weapon is just so freaking Weak.

Progression

Trainwreck. This is where the Whole game fell apart for me. If the Progression in this Game would be better, my Other two Points would probably not even upset me.
Lets start with Quests. Yes Quests and Fromsoftware where always vague and sometimes feel Random, but never have Quest been so full of Backtracking, Random Locations and Objectives as in this Game. And there is maybe a Handful of Whole Characters I might care about. And While we are talking about Care, Nothing in this Game make me Care About it's Story. Maybe that's a Me Problem. Somehow this Large Game, in it's Incredibly long Run Time, came not even close to make me Interested in it's Worlds and Characters Stories.
But okay let's give it the benefit of a Doubt, that this is a me Problem.
But the Overall Level and Area Progression is the most Random thing I have every seen.
I was either Overleveled or Underleveled for the Entirety of the Game.
I mean Caelid is split into like 3 Difficulties that are all Far away from each other.
The Only Consistency I had was everything after Mountain Tops, because from there on Out its very Clear where to go. But even there I have to say that I felt underleveled, because Everything has way too much Damage while also having way to Overinflated Health.
Going Blind at this was just really Frustrating, Bosses others were struggling with, I one shotted the ♥♥♥♥ out of and vise Versa.


But those are the Only real Negative Aspects I found. Most of the Game is really enjoyable and once You know where everything is and where to go it is a Blast. Especially the Mods.
If You want to play with friends I would advise you to Play with the Seemless Coop mod. The Inbuild Summoning is just stupid honestly.

One of the Best DQ Games.

~ Difficulty ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
☑️ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
☑️ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
☑️ Beautiful
🔲 Eargasm

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
☑️ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

☑️ You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
🔲 High end
🔲 NASA computer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 3 hours)
🔲 Short (3 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-50 hours)
☑️ Long (50-90 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (90-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
☑️ Actually pretty amusing
🔲 Ride of your life

~ STORY ~

🔲 Did it have one?
🔲 Very bad
☑️ Simple and Good
🔲 Perfect
🔲 Blows your mind

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
☑️ Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
☑️ Yes

If you like Rogue likes, this is worthy of your Time, believe me when I say that I would Play this Game Night and Day.
The only think keeping me from doing it, is that it really isn't that much Fun alone.

Update (164 Hours and finally 100%)

This Games is an Absolute 9.5/10. The only thing I would change is More ways and better ways to acquire Lunar Coins. It's better then before game release but still very tedious to get them (some ways to better this down below).

Otherwise this Game is perfect. And the Mods for this Game are also really really good. Definitely Worth it's Money and one of the Best Rogue likes I've ever played.






!*Spoiler*!


One way I could think of would be acquiring like 5-10 for Obliterating depending on level or sth. and 20 or 25 through killing the twisted Scavengers or sth. along those Lines.


!*SpoIler End*!