Introduction

Elden Ring is an ambitious new Soulslike from the company that started it all, From Software. Overall, I think it's definitely a great game and the game feel is absolutely at the top of From Software's lineup, except maybe Sekiro (in my opinion, though different kind of game). I've finished this game 12 times as of writing this review, so I have a lot of positives and negatives to say on the game. I'll be going by categories: Visual and Sound, Gameplay, and Story and Presentation.

Visual and Sound

Visually it's their best game so far, with a large variety of areas to visit and an actually engaging open world. All the visual effects for skills and abilities feel absolutely amazing, though one complaint I have on the spells end is sometimes spells get too visually cluttering even when you're the one using it, so it's actually quite hard to see what you're doing (Giant Fireball I'm looking at you!). The sound design is as top notch as it has always been, with a lot of memorable soundtracks. Not much to say otherwise, definitely top tier here.

Gameplay
Spoilers on boss names and skills ahead! Please skip the Gameplay section if you don't want any boss spoilers

Gameplay wise, I think that player character feel is the absolute best it's ever been. The absolute variety of weapons, Ash of Wars and Spells/Incantations that you have access to is top notch, and almost every single one feels amazing. The introduction of Spirit Ashes has also given a much more accessible jumping in point for newer players as well, to learn the bosses/encounters in a lower stress way. I think this was a great introduction, though I have some complaints to voice later on Spirit Ashes.

My first complaint (and most minor) is that with the reintroduction of dual wielding (or powerstancing if you prefer), two handing weapons feel like they've become quite redundant. This isn't a big issue since you'd realistically use something in the off hand, but it's one I definitely noticed after a number of runs in the game.

My second main complaint is the design of a lot of the boss encounters in the game especially towards the end. There's actually sub-points I have on boss design, please bear with me.

Overall the bosses are extremely aggressive in comparison to the previous games. I think that partially it's been done so on purpose as the introduction of Spirit Ash summons have allowed for solo players to have split aggro to give themselves breathing room. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do feel like playing with no Spirit Ash summons can feel absolutely oppressive on some builds.

I'd like to bring up is there are a lot of bosses that feel like they're meant to catch people who rely on previous games' muscle memory off guard. This isn't actually a very egregious issue, but it does feel really awkward and a bit unnatural in terms of feel when some bosses lift their weapons and hold their swing for the duration of like three rolls before actually swinging.

Another issue of note is that many of the late game bosses have moves that are near instant kill (or very annoying to the flow of the fight) unless you know how to counter it. Malenia's Waterfowl Dance, and Malekith's Destined Death are the main culprits, though other annoying moves include Radagon's teleport spam or Godfrey's stomp spam. In my opinion, a Souls game feels best when every death (barring glitches/bugs) feels like it's the player's fault. With how tight the execution for surviving Waterfowl Dance or Destined Death can be, a lot of the time by the time I see them winding up the attack I know I'm about to be dead.

My last issue is that dual bosses in this game are actually very poorly designed. In previous Souls games, most of the dual bosses were designed to actually be fought together, so they function well with a rhythm. Examples of this are Ornstein and Smough from DS1, dual Dragonriders in DS2, Lorian and Lothric, Demon Princes, Sister Elfreide and Father Ariendel in DS3. In Elden Ring, the dual bosses are literally just bosses you fight elsewhere solo and pasted into one room. This leads to a lot of flow issues where you spend half the fight running from the two bosses rather than the usual dance you do with a boss. I do want to say, that most of these bosses are actually great bosses separately, but throwing them into the same room just feels lazy to me. This could be attributed to the introduction of Spirit Ash summons changing the design philosophy and pushing towards a more coop (or with AI companion) to split the bosses. I'm not necessarily a fan of the design decision, and I hope that they focus more on single bosses who are stronger or dual bosses who are actually designed for it.

Story and Presentation

Story wise, the game is far more accessible now than in previous Souls games, which I do appreciate. I do feel like the number of bosses that feel iconic and memorable isn't as high as previous games, especially since you end up repeating a large number of boss fights as side (or main) bosses again and again. That's not to say it's completely forgettable however, and I genuinely think that the enemy lineup is overall quite good. There are some obtuse parts in the story, and with the absolute mega sized world, it can be very easy to miss NPC quest steps. Personally that has never been an issue for me, as I'm not a completionist, though I've heard the complaint voiced by several friends.

Conclusion

To conclude, despite all of my complaints, I think this is a genuinely great game. If you're on the fence, I would say definitely try it out! It's the most accessible Soulslike game so far, and absolutely feels great to play. If you're new to the Souls style of game, I have one piece of advice:

Don't listen to people who say "Don't use X or Y", use whatever tools you want to adjust the difficulty to how you want to play. If you want to play with all the meta stuff and steamroll the bosses, do it. If you want to just play around with everything and take your time, do it. If you want to challenge yourself to soloing everything/not using specific tools, do it. Enjoy the game your way, don't let others try to force you to play a certain way. What's most important in a game is that you're having fun, and I think a lot of people forget that.

Regardless, thank you for taking the time to read this giantass review I wrote at 2AM. I certainly wasn't planning on going this long, but it ended up being this long so I guess I hope this helps someone. Above all, enjoy!