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After 85 hours, Is the git gut really the best of the best?

Hinedorf

Banned
First Fromsoft game, before I bought the game I was worried that I am going to waste 70E and not be able to kill even the first boss but I liked the open world nature of it and after some gameplay videos i wanted to try it. First playstation 5 game that I pay full price (everything else was second hand). And after 85 hours and couple dozens bosses felled, I have bested the big bad elden jelly.
The best game of the generation many have claimed but I think opinions are like an asshole, everyone has one. For me it was one of the best games that I played recently with many flows.
Why the best:
From the moment you start the game there is no handholding, there is no introduction to the game that does not give you freedom of decisions for couple hours just to teach you how to jump or dodge.
It is very straightforward what you have to do and you have to find yourself how to do it. A beautiful art design and very interesting enemy designs with enough variety that you don’t have to kill the same thing over and over.
No quests that send you to save the world by killing 5 rats and gathering 3 flowers. No quest that the NPC asks you to go to speak to his neighbour or to pick up an item from the next room.
Enormous amount of loot to customize your character and make the build you are interested to use to bring the elden morons to their knees.
Very beautiful and interesting side areas that often are even better than the main regions.
An addictive gameplay loop and the ability to mold however you wish your character.
One of the best feelings after killing a boss encounter in longwhile (Margit)

The flows:
The game has many flows and in no way is the game of the generation. Whoever claim something like that either is part of the From cult, fetishize the game and its creators and cant see the flows or he is disingenuous with himself and everyone else. Elden ring has a barebones stealth and WTF Is that bow combat, whoever tested that and after trying to use the bow more than two times thought its good, really must have never played any other game in his life.

The enemies have no stamina or focus points and they spam non stop their skills and combos, big combos that don’t leave you any room to react at all and only solution is to roll. The shield is a paperweight even with 30 points. Everyone brakes it with 2 to 3 hits does not matter how many points you have invested. And for a fast attacking boss the shield is useless if you don’t have parry on it because counter attack only works to the minor enemies.

There is some enemies that are more powerful than the bosses, they frustrate you and the only solution is to go past them (Brown armor tall soldier with horns helmet and wheel javelin)

I read the best quest is Ranni’s. After killing Rahdann I started her quest line but because I had encounter Blaid before most of the questline was broken. I wasted so much time to find where is what and gave up in the end and just went to kill the big bad guy she asks you and the quest was finished…..The quest had you to go to speak to Blaid come back to Ranni then speak to iIjin then kill someone and its finished. That is what is called the best quest in the game? Or is that you have to kill Radahn to move in her questline that makes it so great? Who knows.

The game has obtuse quests, I have finished only two in the whole game. One with the first Finger guy you meet out of the cave and Ranni. I tried to do some quest but there was no log to see what they told and had to seek the Wiki every time, quest givers go to places and you cant find them or you kill someone without even knowing that he is part of a quest and the questline is getting blocked.

The game has no explanation what some skills do, how much damage they do or anything. The game is resolved around skill points to customize your character but after that good luck finding what is doing what without every 5 minutes checking the Wiki. Crafting hundred of consumables that need obnoxious components that do nothing particular or they do minimal damage that one good swing with the katanas is enough to negate their use.
The biggest disappointment I had was that in 85 hours in pure melee build I had only used 2 skills. I didn’t want to play path of exile with 800 skills and auras but I got so disappointed that you have only one skill to use if you want to be melee and not invest on Int or Faith. They could not make so we can have two three skills to use depend the situation? I had to change my Ash of War depend the boss to be able to deal with them.

I have died maybe over thousand times from hills, mistakes, bosses or the fucking dogs but never got frustrated and angry, except at the last boss fight. Even after doing clean and perfect phase 1 it was very frustrating to deal with that jelly. In the end I won with the shield magic cheese that is OP but felt no gratification. When I killed Margit I was so happy and filled excited that after struggling I overcame this difficult boss.

Where is the LORE of this game? I killed the endboss and I don’t know anything about the world of elden ring, who is who, what is what or why we or some other character do what we do. Before a boss you get a cutscene with him telling you are not worthy to become elden ring or how I dare to try and when we kill him they say something cryptic and they disappear…that is all. Do you even learn who is this Marika or who is this Greater Will? I have no idea, the gameplay was good but I don’t even know who is who.
I agree with you on the quests/lore. This game is so amazing but unusually purposefully difficult in how quests are available and how you are able to follow them.

My biggest gripe which is my own personal failure for this format of game is not knowing to toggle the info on items in order to gain more information.

Because of the massive scale of this game finding the quests is at best a lucky gamble unless you're going out of your way to check the internet for the information which in any format is just poor gameplay/UI that the game leaves you so clueless. CLEARLY they realized this too which is why they put NPC icons on the map, I mean....sure that's great after 100+ hours of gameplay and now broken quests......welp....

And the lore? There is none or at least none you can get without considerable work. My full expectation is there would be great lore provided by Martin and ultimately this games lore is beyond barebones, absolute frustration to me.

That being said it's still the best game I've played in a very long time with such a respect for the gamer despite the necessity to looking info online. No MTX, nothing unnecessary, buy the game, get the whole game..... that in itself deserves far more praise than it's getting.
 
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