This is my first ever Souls-like game. Before playing it, I 100% expected to outright hate this game. I thought Souls-like games were just games where being difficult was their entire personality, that's all they had going for them, but man. Man oh man. Man oh man oh man. Man alive. I was wrong.

Really my only significant problem I have with this game is that it sometimes crashes out of nowhere with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but tbh this isn't that big of a deal to me. Only other things I can think of that I don't really like is that Elden Ring doesn't have plunging attacks (besides flame chariots, but like... that barely counts lmao), there are no mimic chests (and no, the mist chests don't count. I'm talking about the chests that attack you. The mist chests are more annoying then fun lol, but still not really a big deal at all), and the multiplayer for this game, while abundant, is lacking mechanically. While I don't really mind this since I can just play the Seamless Coop mod, it's still a fault of this game that had to be fixed by a mod. The default multiplayer should have been Seamless Coop

This game is LOADED to the BRIM with content. I almost have 700 hours in the game and I'm still finding things/areas that I've never seen before, I still have builds that I want to try, and there are still some bosses that I haven't properly fought (I say properly because I've fought every boss, but that's only thanks to the Randomizer mod, which I don't really count since Randomizer scales up/down bosses based on the location they're randomized to and the area you fight them isn't the intended area). This game is potentially limitless with content, where one of the only possible limits is your imagination

99.99% of the bosses are fun and well balanced (really only boss I can think of off the top of my head that isn't fun or balanced is the double Valiant Gargoyles), and if anyone tells you otherwise, they probably just haven't gotten good at the game. I say this as someone that would always complain about a bunch of bosses... until I got good at them. This might even be the case for the double Valiant Gargoyles, but idk yet because while I'm pretty good at the fight when it's just the first one, when the second one comes in... it's all downhill from there. Bosses that people complain about most are Godskin Duo, Maliketh, and Malenia... but they're all good, fun fights

I used to complain about how finding important key items such as the Dectus Medallions was "poorly made" because they're almost impossible to find, but that's the game encouraging you to explore, they WANT you to explore. Something a lot of games don't want you to do. And trust me, you're gonna wanna explore this game. I don't even know what I was on, it's not hard at all to find at least one piece of the medallion, and then that piece literally tells you where the second one is. I was simply coping and seething

When you first play you might want to go into an easy build that can defeat bosses quickly, but once you get to the point where you play a difficult build, the game becomes so much better. Dying a million times to a boss, but what keeps you going back is that you're learning their moveset. It's like you're progressing the game in a way, and it's such a satisfying feeling when you're accurately dodging and attacking the boss and then you FINALLY get the oh so sweet kill on them. Watching them fall to the ground as they fade away after hours of learning their moves is an extremely good feeling

The character creation is one of the best ones I've ever seen. While still not the best out there, it's still extremely exceptional. Really the only thing lacking in it would be more unique hairstyles. All the current styles are either plain or look pretty darn similar to another one. While this is definitely a nitpick, hairstyles are still one of the most important parts of creating a character. Tbh I'm surprised this game hasn't gotten a giant hair pack mod like Skyrim has. This being said, you can still make practically unlimited unique characters, and the customization is very in depth. Especially considering someone made a literal chimpanzee in the character creator and it looks very good lmao Here's a picture [i.gyazo.com]

All in all, this game is a masterpiece. It quickly became my most played game and I see myself playing it years and years down the line as well. It's easily my favorite game of all-time, and probably will be for the foreseeable future

I'd give the base game a 10/10, but Elden Ring using the Seamless Coop mod with the homies is priceless