Soul-like aficionados for many years, my masochistic side has necessarily been brought to Elden Ring. After very (too?) many hours of play, I have a fairly clear idea about the title that I was able to test on PC. Is it the perfect game that we could read everywhere? here is my opinion...
History
You are a Shatterless trying to find the Elden ring, broken since the fall of Marika, the goddess. You are guided by grace (and the individuals around you) to accomplish your noble quest. However, in this stale world where nothing is what it seems and every creature out to get you...who can you trust?
My opinion: as usual in games from From Software, we have the right to a fairly scattered story everywhere. It will be necessary to read the dialogues of each character, even secondary, to find each clue which will sometimes end up where you least expect it. It will be easy for the uninformed player to miss out and miss a whole part of the story.
Graphics & atmosphere
Here we have a visually pleasing game that has good visual assets and a very pleasant own identity. Whether in terms of effects or bestiary, we find what we liked in the souls, or even more. It would be really wonderful if, on PC, we didn't have to deal with very annoying problems: crashes, drop in FPS, etc...
Level sound environment, we have here heavy: the music is epic, the sounds of fights and various effects are well done and always push us further. There are also many sound effects from its predecessors, as during one of your very many deaths.
Gameplay
The game system is relatively well put together... if you have an Xbox or similar controller. Because the game was clearly designed for consoles, which will shock us in the tutorials. Because laziness was required when it was necessary to transpose the controls indicated. Results? even without a controller, we will only be shown the latter, which is a shame when we know that many PC players will play without, especially those playing archery.
Past this point, we launch our character with many starting choices that will give us quite different starting stats, gear, and paths to customize your build. I started with a confessor, specialized in faith who will have very useful weapons in PVP (a scythe which prevents healing and inflicts bleeding) as well as various flame, healing and lightning spells, to finally leave on a mage who has a fairly powerful strike force to the detriment of a physique equivalent to a wet rusk. To help you, you will have to learn how to manage your vials that give you CP and HP, the number and effectiveness of which will depend on the objects (golden seeds and tears of life) that you will have found during the adventure.
Level progression, we find ourselves with an increasing and difficult difficulty. The levels do not follow easily without having to master the farming sessions to increase what we lack in stats. But where the first purge happens is against Margit the Fallen; for good reason, its erratic pattern, its disproportionate power and its fairly narrow combat arena will give you cold sweats and will make the less relentless give up. Then will come Godric... who after crossing his castle with pain, will chain us with predictable, but terribly powerful and wide blows.
This is where the multiplayer will come in, which will be used to summon friends to help you where you cannot go alone. You can decide to play with strangers or play with your friends by adding passwords for multiplayer or groups. But the multi also allows you to face other players by invading their world, or by helping the invaded players... it is according to your conscience.
The little extras
This game is open world and allows you to explore this world at your leisure and access almost all areas without much hassle. You will be able to visit advanced areas that will cause death in chains on the slightest arrow, a dragon at the corner of a bend (hello the region of Caelid, I hate you from the bottom of my heart), or even an atrocious condition which will hurt you extremely unlike your nag who is insensitive to it.
But it will also allow you to explore dungeons to have pieces of equipment, weapons, armor, talismans or spells that will help you in your epic. You will also find materials that will give you something to do with crafting, as long as you have purchased the kit from the first merchant in the game, and that you have the recipes that will be scattered throughout the world.
What if you want to play alone? No worries, it is possible to summon creatures by finding them here and there on corpses, bosses and which will help you at times provided that you summon them during a fight. For example, you can use imps, wolves, soldiers, skeletons, etc.
As for the weapons and their affinities, you can improve them with strength, but also customize them with the ashes of wars which will give a skill to the weapon in addition to being able to "modify" its dominant statistics as you wish, if we exclude some unique weapons. The rune system that can be activated for a lifetime which will give you a good boost is also something to rely on during your most painful fights, or even the vial of miraculous salvation which will allow you to have a combination of two effects depending on the pearls you have obtained.
Summary
Elden Ring is a demanding game that is very interesting to me, but clearly not the messiah portrayed when it was released. Between the various bugs, the interesting but sometimes slow and repetitive gameplay due to dying, or even the hidden characters or the obscure and cryptic quests... this can make many players disillusioned and risk giving up. Personally, as a fan of this kind of game, I'm absolutely thrilled, but objectively, I still expected something more fabulous when I could see the avalanche of 10/10 that have been attributed to him all over the place... the patches will surely fix the first part, but the second... I don't think we can do anything about it.
