After a couple of years of generally writing only critically negative things about Elden Ring — see here and here — the time has come, I guess, to highlight some of its virtues.
Nice round up! I remember a bunch of these. The tower was easily my favorite. Likewise I was kind of cold on the whole game (too much sprawl) but some of the level design highs make me wonder about what a 10-20 hour fromsoft experience would be like.
The level moment that sticks out for me was the wizard town in caelid near the swamp. For some reason hopping around the roofs there with the absurd number of wizards below was kinda funny.
I frequently return to the fact that little of elden ring sits in my memory especially compared to other fromsouls titles. with the usual cadence of their level design abandoned, I found most moments of the game too-spontaneous and lacking build-up to affect me to the extent that they could have. that said, this created a sort of deadpan effect I appreciated, but perhaps could have been wielded to greater effect–the most obvious example is the fanfareless descent into siofra river valley.
I can't help but reflect on this in the lineage of how fromsouls has always refrained to some degree from telling the player how to think and feel about what they experience, such as how the games are mostly without bgm and without overt plot and dialogue explanations. in that sense, maybe it is a victory of design.
I could see a possibility that this is one of the sentiments behind what people really love about elden ring's open world, as we still live in a time of an overabundance of games that leave little room for the player's own subjectivity. the same, of course, as when dark souls came along. maybe you could say it's a miyazaki-esque metanarrative that the industry keeps idolizing a series whose lessons it repeatedly misunderstands, propping it up for things it never accomplished
I loved watching my husband play through Farum Azula. It was one of the most memorable places in the game for me, but the whole game’s design is breathtaking
Nice round up! I remember a bunch of these. The tower was easily my favorite. Likewise I was kind of cold on the whole game (too much sprawl) but some of the level design highs make me wonder about what a 10-20 hour fromsoft experience would be like.
The level moment that sticks out for me was the wizard town in caelid near the swamp. For some reason hopping around the roofs there with the absurd number of wizards below was kinda funny.
I frequently return to the fact that little of elden ring sits in my memory especially compared to other fromsouls titles. with the usual cadence of their level design abandoned, I found most moments of the game too-spontaneous and lacking build-up to affect me to the extent that they could have. that said, this created a sort of deadpan effect I appreciated, but perhaps could have been wielded to greater effect–the most obvious example is the fanfareless descent into siofra river valley.
I can't help but reflect on this in the lineage of how fromsouls has always refrained to some degree from telling the player how to think and feel about what they experience, such as how the games are mostly without bgm and without overt plot and dialogue explanations. in that sense, maybe it is a victory of design.
I could see a possibility that this is one of the sentiments behind what people really love about elden ring's open world, as we still live in a time of an overabundance of games that leave little room for the player's own subjectivity. the same, of course, as when dark souls came along. maybe you could say it's a miyazaki-esque metanarrative that the industry keeps idolizing a series whose lessons it repeatedly misunderstands, propping it up for things it never accomplished
I loved watching my husband play through Farum Azula. It was one of the most memorable places in the game for me, but the whole game’s design is breathtaking