I am writing yet another post about Elden Ring. Whether or not it ends up being my favorite From game of all time, it is definitely my favorite game of this year. I was worried before it came out because the one thing that FromSoft is known for is their level design. They provide a tightly-woven experience that seems to be handcrafted for you on an individual level. It isn’t, of course, but it feels that way. There are some things open world elements to the other games such as you can choose where you want to go next within a limited field. At one point in Dark Souls III, there were three different areas I could visit.
It’s different in Elden Ring, of course, in that it’s truly open world. Well, mostly. There is a certain point where you have to do a certain thing to get into a certain area, but before that point, you can go to any of the early game areas at any time. Then, at that certain point, you get into one specific area, and you have to do a thing to get into the next area. Then, if you do a certain thing, you cut off a past area and your choices are drastically narrowed. You can still visit all the other old places you’ve been, though.
I had a sense of wonder as I traversed the world. It’s so huge, but it did not feel like it was stuffed with filler. I wil lsay that I got tired of the caves/catacombs very quickly and would have been perfectly fine without them. At all. Yes, I said it. But I’m also that person who hated the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne as well. Here’s the thing. There is so much content in this game. All the content. Even without the catacombs/caves, there would be plenty of things to do. And, really. I can understand wanting to include one or two (or four or five), but by the tenth one, I was d-o-n-e. Yes, there is a different gimmick to each one, but they still ended up being very same-yy. And I didn’t care for the gimmicks in general.
One of the thing I like about From games is the atmosphere. Bear with me here. Not just the narrative and not just the spoken/written lore. I’m also talking about the feel of the areas–including the environments. You can tell where you are in a From game by your surroundings. I mentioned color in the last post because each area in Elden Ring i s associated with a different color. But even in their other games, you could tell where you were in a second. When I think of, say, New Londo in the original game–it is a MOOD. Even places that were horrible such as Lost Izalith, you know where it is immediately (mostly by the neon orange lava that covers the whole area).
The enemies in each area are unique, almost as if they were bespoke. I mean, they were bespoke for that area. But I mean bespoke for YOU. Of course each area is not made for me, but it felt that way as I went through the game. It’s one of the best parts of the From games–they feel so intimate and personal. They aren’t, of course, but that’s the way they feel.
It was my biggest worry when I started playing Elden Ring–would it have that same handcrafted feel? Would it feel as intimate? As personal? In a word, yes. And in a word, no. This is not damning with faint praise, by the way. I adored the distinctive feeling of each and every area (even if I did not love each area themselves). In the video I included above, Rosie talks about how color in the game influences how you feel at any given moment. She is right, and I’ve talked at length about that in prior posts.
In addition, though, the different areas are created thusly that you go along a certain path. You don’t have to, but there is a tug to go in a certain way. Let’s take Limgrave. When you first open the door to the world proper, you just want to stand and soak it in. It’s incredible, and the sense of scale cannot be described.
If you think about it logically, you notice that there is a Site of Grace pretty close by. Right next to it is White Mask Varre, who is a VERY interesting NPC. Not that you’ll know it right away, but remember to keep talking to NPCs at different points of the games.
Then, hey, ho. What’s that in the distance? It’s…a golden guy on a horse? He was in the Closed Network Test (CNT), but it’s hard to realize how truly intimidating he is until you actually run into him. Or rather, until you see him for yourself. He is massive, and he’s so ominous. Even though he’s just patrolling back and forth, there is a menace about him that is evident. And, of course, you’re going to try to take him on when you first get in the world–why would you not? He’s hard, though, and there’s no shame in fleeing to fight another day.
That’s the biggest lesson in Elden Ring–you can always not fight the thing that is blocking your path. You can just fuck off and go somewhere else. Which, again, is both a positive and a negative. One of the reasons I beat all the others game is beacuse I literally did the same thing over and over again until I ‘git gud’. Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again. It’s called grinding, and it’s real. It’s also called over-leveling. In essence, you can out-level any boss–or come close to it. At least until the end and the DLCs. Let’s not talk about the DLCs.
In Elden Ring, though, you don’t have to grind in just one area. You can go all over this huge map and get the Runes. FromSoft has made it even easier to get your Runes back than ever before so death is not as painful as it is in other games.
Side note: There is this one area in the game that is not easy to get to, but once you do, you can kill this enormous chicken from afar and get 11,000 Runes in one pop. Or something close to that. This is THE grinding spot because the Site of Grace is right there so you can do it over and over again. You shoot him once with an arrow and it runs off a cliff. If he doesn’t, then you reset and do it again. I did not figure that out by myself, by the way. That came courtesy of the community.
This is one of the best thing about playing a FromSoft game real time, by the way–the community. I did it for the first time with Dark Souls III, and it’s a radically diifferent experience than playing it years later than others. There’s somethnig about doing it real time that makes it really special. It’s a synergy, and it’s as if you’re finding secrets together.
It’s also completely different because there is no known consensus when you’re playing. It’s thrilling, actually, because you don’t know how things are going to go.
When I played Dark Souls, I knew a lot about it. I knew that it was hard. I knew that it was brutally hard. I knew that it was HARD. So. Damn. Hard. I knew about Ornstein & Smough, and I knew that you needed to keep the fire going. I knew about Solaire, and I knew about Artorias. I knew a lot about the game going in.
Third game? I played it on day one. So, yeah, I had no idea what was going to happen. With Elden Ring, I saw the first three hours or so because of the Closed Network Test, but that was it. And that was NOTHING. Three hours is a sneeze in this game. I normally avoid spoilers when I’m actually going to play a game, but watching the CNT was not really a spoiler. I mean, it was, but it was just the tip. Not even the tip!
Before Elden Ring came out, people were talking about was it going to live up to the hype? Was it going to be the best of all time? How was FromSoft going to marry their exquisite dungeon mapping with a vast, open world?
I admit, I was one of those who was skeptical. The guided experience is one of the reasons I play FromSoft games. Putting it in the open world was going to ruin it, wasn’t it?
No, it wasn’t. If we put aside the catacombs and caves, then we have the beauty of the breathtaking open world. We have me galloping on Torrent, going anywhere I want. Torrent is my boy, yo. Combat on Torrent–not great. But for traveling? He is unparalleled.
I am, of course, running long again. I will get back to it tomorrow.