What an absolute masterpiece of a game. Definitely deserved GOTY.

I have never played souls-like game before and I was very skeptical. In the beginning you are thrown in a massive world with little to no guidance and everything is written inside description notes found deep in your inventory. I, ofcourse, didn't knew about it and was banging my head around to find any useful information if possible.

Getting killed many times by Agheel Lake Dragon and eventually entering the trap inside ruins behind it xDD (I am pretty sure everyone suffered from it). Game felt unforgiving right from the start.

But, this is where open-word and true freedom started showing it's charm. I could just smack some dude and see if I am remotely capable of defeating them or not. Roaming around and going to depths as well as far away corners started paying off little by little. Although I was very slow at levelling up in the beginning (level 44 after 45 hours) but atleast I could explore at my own pace.

Took little bit help from "Elden Ring Discord Server" (very nice people) and kept going ahead. Beautiful locations and nicely optimized game were added bonus.

After a while, story and progression started to make sense and I could piece together progress map to move ahead and this is where the game began to look much more enjoyable. It almost took me 55 hours to fall in love with Elden Ring and realise it's GOTY awards. Completed lots of side quests and defeated almost every boss except (2 evergoals and dragon placidusax). Some bosses felt punishing even after learning so much and they gave true satisfaction upon defeating them.

My Rating - 10/10 (even without sale)
Gametime - 100 hours (if a noob like me took 130 hours, I am pretty sure average player will take a lot less)
100% completion time - 150 to 160 hours.