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The Fallen Leaves Tell a Story

I have played many games in my time, ever since I was little, but I have not played a game like Elden Ring. I have played a few of FromSoft’s titles, like Dark Souls and Sekiro, but Elden Ring was different; it hit something in me that no other game could ever do. My review alone won’t be able to describe everything this game has to offer

Pros and Cons

Pros

Fantastic world for you to explore
Extremely fun and varied gameplay, with lots of different builds for you to play
Lots of side quests to go and do
Really fun boss fights that can be challenging
Beautiful graphics that make the world real

Cons

I experienced a few crashes when starting up, and the game failed to launch a few times


World Building

Elden Ring doesn’t present itself with a story; rather, it introduces you to its world and then drops you into it. The rest is up to you to uncover, and the world is vast. Now, don’t expect Skyrim-levels of vastness, but the world of Elden Ring is huge. There is so much for the player to do, and the game wants you to explore its world. It introduces you to a path, but it tells you to go out and explore. This is a game that invites you to explore it to your heart's content and uncover its many secrets and lore.
There is a story and a set objective to this game, but FromSoft wanted to provide players with an experience they can enjoy at their own pace. When I say this, the game wants you to take your time. Don’t get me wrong, if you are a skilled player, you can beat this game fairly quickly, but that’s not something I would do on your first playthrough. There is so much content that not a single playthrough would be enough, as there are six different endings for you to get. If you want to get a certain ending, you will need to complete certain side quests to get that ending.

Gameplay

Elden Ring will start you off with a class system; the class you choose is the weapons you start with. You can get any weapon in the game, but if you want to use a certain weapon, you will need the correct stats to use it. If you played any of FromSoft's games, mainly the Dark Souls games, it will feel very similar to that. If you're new to the Souls series, you can jump into this game without any issue and start playing. Elden Ring will tell you how to play, but everything else is up to you to learn, and it’s pretty simple in that regard, but also complex.
One of the cool things that I liked is that even if you want to build melee, but have some magic-based attacks with it, you can do that with certain weapons. I ended up switching to a strength build with Blasphemous’s Blade. This sword is a strength weapon that deals fire damage with a special magical attack, which will also heal you after using the spell and will always heal you after killing an enemy. If you are looking for a more magic-based melee weapon, then The Sword of Night and Flame has two magic-based attacks. That can be useful, but the weapon sorta falls off near the late game unless you can somehow make it work.
If you feel like changing up your build completely, just go and defeat Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, and give her a Larval Tear. That way, you can then change your stats completely and try out a new build with different weapons. You can even upgrade your weapons, shields, etc, you will need Smithing Stones to upgrade them. Special weapons will require Somber Smithing stones, which are more difficult to obtain. But you can buy these and normal Smithing Stones at the Roundtable Hold, where the Twin Maidens Husks are, by finding the designated Miners Bell Bearing.
When you defeat enemies or bosses, they will drop runes, and you can use these runes to level up your stats. Each stat will have a certain benefit to them, like Vigor giving you more health, or intelligence increasing your magic damage, and resilience. There is a lot to talk about with the stats that I can’t explain in this review. The higher your level is, the more runes you will need to level up, so keep that in mind when leveling up. But be careful, if you die, you will lose all your runes, and you can recover them by visiting the spot where you died. However, if you die again without picking up your dropped runes, you will lose them for good.
There are a ton of side quests for you to go out and do, some of them will have you retrieve a certain item, others you will have to go and fight certain bosses. There is a lot of variety in the side quests, but you should be careful. Progressing through the game in certain ways will lock you out of doing certain side quests. This also applies to the DLC as well; certain summons/side quests will be locked from you just by entering certain boss rooms. The boss fights are also really good, and I love the creativity that went into them. Some of them can be very challenging to the player, but with the right tools and some nicely timed dodges, you can beat them.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3497171301
Traveling through the world is also very fun; there are just so many places for you to go to and see. One of my favorite moments in the game is finding Sites of Grace (which are the game's bonfires) in the starting area of the game. This happened to me twice, and I was overleveled for the area. I like it when I find things in starting areas that I did not find before. Elden Ring gives you the freedom to go wherever you want. Although you will also be finding out the areas you can walk into and the areas that you avoid until later.

Graphics and Performance

The graphics for Elden Ring are beautiful, the world is very nice to look at, and there is a lot of mystery to it, with each area of the game feeling different and unique. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I had no issues while playing the game. However, the game would sometimes just not start or crash when starting up. This resulted in me having to reboot the game; this did not happen all the time, but still an issue worth pointing out.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3497169913
Personally, I don’t want to say any cons about this game, as Elden Ring is just that good, I can’t find any issues with it.

Final Verdict

Elden Ring is a fantastic game that has loads of content in it, so much that I can’t cover it all in this review due to Steam's character limit. I had a lot of fun playing and exploring its world, and when I beat the game, I felt sad that it was all over. Yeah, there is New Game+, but I won’t be able to experience the game again like I did the first time. I recommend Elden Ring at full price, and this isn’t something I say very often, but Elden Ring has proven its worth. I even recommend the DLC Shadow of The Erd Tree as it adds more content to the game that is really fun to play.
Also, no matter how high a level I am, I will always hate fighting Giant Crabs/Crayfish, Monstrous Dogs/Crows, Flame Chariots, Basilisks, Revenants, and Abductor Virgins.
Everyone who came to Skyknighter's Sleepless Nights Crossed the sea for good quality reviews