The difficulty of games varies depending on what you see as a challenge. A great point of reference is something like fighting games on expert difficulty or story modes. These games are considered hard in their own right, making it so that you have to get to a certain skill level even to beat them. But none of them were like this franchise of video games, known for the gameplay difficulty, and it punishes you heavily for being greedy. This is known as the “Soulsborne” games, but this game is unique, being the first to take the open-world concept to the same level of difficulty. Exploring the place known as the lands between and the game that won Game of the Year in 2022. The Soulsborne game, famously known as “Elden Ring.”
Background Details
Elden Ring is one of the many games that were released by the company that is famously known as “FromSoftware”. Their games are famous for games such as “Dark Souls”, “Bloodborne”, and “Sekiro”. This game was released on February 16th, 2022. The announcement trailer was released at E3 2019 on June 9, 2019, and the gameplay reveal trailer was released 2 years later at the summer Game Fest on June 10, 2021.
Story
You play as the Tarnished, an individual who lost the grace of the red tree and was banished from the lands between by Queen Marika and a descendant of Godfrey, the First Elden lord. Following the shattering of the Elden Ring and the war that came right after, the Tarnished is called back to the lands between by a lost fragment of grace to take the throne and title as the Elden lord, as well as figure out what lies in the depths of the lands between and what has happened before you came back. As well as coming back, you have the help of Melina, who is there to help and guide you on your journey
Outcomes
After venturing into the lands between and having surpassed the likes of both Radagon and the Elden Beast in the heart of the Erdtree tree, you have concluded being separated into 3 different endings. One of them is called “ The Age of Fracture,” where you restore Queen Marika and the Elden Ring and become the new Elden lord and restore the golden order. This is the only ending that has different variations, where you must find various items in the game called Mending Runes. The next ending is called the “Age of stars,” in which you fully go through Ranni the Witch’s quest line. In this ending, Ranni takes the place of Queen Marika as the moon goddess, which removes the golden order from the lands between, leaving individuals to make their own destiny without the guidance of the gods. You, now being the consort of Ranni, go with Ranni on a thousand-year voyage away from the lands between. The last ending is known as the “Lord of the Frenzied Flame.” You become the host of the frenzied flame, which overrides any ending and leads you to incinerate the world. If Melina is still with the player upon getting this ending, she vows to kill you for embracing the flame. To reverse this, you have to find and use Miquella’s needle, but that’s if you choose
Mechanics
The mechanics of this game aren’t really that hard to understand. You have your light and heavy attacks, as well as having an option to dual-wield, in which you just have to press the trigger to use. This is surprisingly the only “Soulsborne” game that gives you the ability to jump, and considering the absolute maze that is known as the map in this game and the obstacles that you are gonna need to get past, I think that it must have this one thing in the game. For any controller, you use the d-pad to scroll through the items that you have and want to equip.
Map/Sights of Grace/Torrent
The map is the most important things in this game, along with the sights of grace. The map you don’t get at the beginning of the game, and you get it while you are exploring the map and getting used to the area that you are in. A great point of reference is the place known as Caelid. That place is known to be consumed by monsters and scarlet rot after a battle between Malenia and Starscourage Radahn that resulted in Malenia nuking Caelid. To get the piece of that map, you explore the area, and eventually, you will find it in a specific area with a statue that is in every region in the game. Sights of grace are your one thing of travel in this game besides torrent. You go to these to have a safe point on your journey. They also replenish everything that you have to full, and at this point, no enemy can hurt you. They are very generous with the amount of sights of grace there are in this game, and they even have them in some of the dungeons and caves that you explore. You can use these to transport to other sites and quickly travel to where you need to be. Torrent, in all honesty, when you are in a new game plus and when you are starting your first playthrough, is your main transportation for the game. You get torrent as soon as you get to your first sight of grace, and where you meet Melina. She provides you with torrent as a loyal steed. You can summon him and travel around the map at any point in time, and even when you have most of the sites of grace, having Torrent makes getting to those spots a lot easier. He can even double jump. I think that, personally, it is a great way to provide players with multitudes of ways to get to a particular place.
Armor/Weapons
The essential things in this game, unless your user name is “Let me solo her,” armor is essential to the game as you progress. You’ll find armor in a lot of places and even get armor from bosses that you fight in regions, or it could be a random drop from an enemy for a specific effect, or rather a specific armor trait. Certain armor, I’ll be honest, you just use for fashion, but there is armor that gives you a lot of defense, or is just considered to be lightweight. One key thing, though, whether it’s armor or weapons, is that they all contribute to something called a weight load. And depending on the weapons and armor that you have on you either have light, medium, heavy, or overloaded. Depending on the load determines how fast you can roll or if you can roll at all. This is unique because it lets players think about what they need to prioritize and what armor they need in order to pass certain parts of the game. Weapons are no strangers to the soulsborne games are the things that you use to fight all of the enemies in this game. Some weapons are different from others and have different abilities or ashes of war. A great point of reference is the Sword of Night and Flame. This sword mainly uses magic. One of the abilities that it has is being able to use a wave of flame, and the other one is the ability to use a beam of moon magic. Another thing that you can put on some of these weapons is something called an Ash of War. These give you special abilities that you can use in the game. For example, Seppuku is an Ash of War that you can use, where you sacrifice a little bit of your health to get more bleed damage, but these abilities also increase the amount of damage that you can apply, like bleed and ice, which are really good for people who want to get through bosses a lot easier.
Flasks
These are just as important. Flasks like all of the other soulsborne games are things that heal you and overall restore your health. That’s only one of the flasks. The other one restores mana and since you are going to be running through mana. While you are going through and exploring the map you are going to find different churches that give you charges to your flasks in which you can allocate them back and forth between each if you want more health or more mana. Another flask that is really useful is the Wondrous Flask of Physick. This flask gives you a buff each time that you use it, but you only get one use and it replenishes after resting at a sight of grace. It’s a mixture between different crystal tears and you gather more as you explore and can be customized to the players liking. I really like that this is good for build potential and gives you more chances to do more with the game than just the original combination.
Leveling
The thing that makes these games special or unique is that before you get to the max level, you can level up and segment what areas you want to be strong or high, but you need runes to level up, which you get after killing enemies and bosses. You want to be stronger, so focus all of your runes into your strength stats. You want more health, focus your stats into vigor. This goes deeper than that and goes into what stats you have that can determine if you can even wield a weapon properly or not, let alone use its Ash of War. For example, the sword of night and flame requires you to have a high amount of intelligence, which is usually used for magic builds or Giant hammers for strength builds. This gives variety in the weapons that you want to invest runes in, which is great for certain players.
Bosses/Enemies
Now to the good part of this and the one thing that these games are famous for, the bosses and enemies, more specifically, the bosses. Enemies vary from different regions, for example, you can fight giant hands in the depths of “the land between” all the way to dragons, giant birds, knights, and even giants on the mountaintop of the giants. Each of the enemies has something that is gonna stand out in each region because of where they belong, like enemies that give you scarlet rot in Caelid due to how infested it is with scarlet rot. The bosses are the highlight of this game and are infamous amongst players. Some of them are so hard to beat that players have to try again the next day. One boss that I would like to mention is the boss known as “Promised Consort Radahn”. This boss was so hard that they had to nerf him twice. It’s usually because of the hitboxes, moves, and overall how aggressive the boss is. But that’s the fun part because through perseverance and taking your to to understand how the boss works, the ecstasy that envelops you is another level.
Opinion/Review
This game is amazing. This is the first “Soulsborne” game that I have ever played, and it didn’t disappoint whatsoever. The bosses, the armor, and the sheer dedication that you need to put in to persevere against these enemies is another level of great, and I really recommend this game to anyone who wants a real challenge. I give this game a 10/10, and I hope you play this. If you are playing this area and just starting, good luck foul foul-tarnished.
