Elden Ring - Review Roundup

Originally Posted by DArtTooEarly
10/10 = bullshit.

But it does look like an improved Souls-like - and it's something I'm definitely going to check out once they fix the stuttering, add DLSS and exit the classic era when it comes to above 60 FPS gameplay.

It reeks of console-centric, much like the past Souls games - but is a decent frame rate really too much to ask for?

You know, one review with a 10/10 you might call bullshit. But 10 reviews with 10/10 it might just be time to, you know, pre-load the game?

I count 38 reviews and they're all above 9.

I wouldn't call it console-centric but it is a multi-platform game and they want to have the same experience on all platforms. It might be that they're aiming for the best graphics that will run at a steady 60 FPS on all consoles, but in some previous games the frame rate was directly tied to gameplay. I can't really give a good example of this because I don't fully understand it but Dark Souls 1 was a 30FPS game and the PC fix which allowed 60FPS mentioned that you might see issues with 60FPS like sliding down ladders might make you fall through the world. It might be a similar situation here, I don't know.

For people who do get performance issues, stuttering, FPS drops, etc. They suggested to reviewers to try running with -dx11 argument. I'm hoping this will still be an option for the proper launch. Something to keep in mind.

I can see plenty of appeal, but then I see the "other players can invade your game" and I go look at something else.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Uh huh.

"Fanboy praise" - praise for games I don't like.
"deserved praise" - praise for games I do like.

Yep guilty as charged. We all are on this forum.

See I dislike the Souls-like formula. I understand why they're popular and I think FromSoft do an astounding job at what do. I just hate every facet of it unfortunately.

So yeah don't take it personal as usual as that's just my opinion.

Originally Posted by Zloth
I can see plenty of appeal, but then I see the "other players can invade your game" and I go look at something else.

You can opt out of invasions in this one. But you could always play in offline mode in the others.

BUT, the third option would be to join one of the covenants that protect other players from invasions. When someone invades it will also summon another player to help you then you can go 2v1.

I also read somewhere that Elden Ring invasions will search for co-op players first which makes invading pretty difficult now. I wouldn't worry about it.

In my own experience I've found most invaders are very polite and usually take the time to do a bow emote or wave hello and wait until you're ready, let you strike first, that kinda thing. It's a very good community. Not being able to chat goes a long way to reduce player toxicity!

Originally Posted by Zloth
I can see plenty of appeal, but then I see the "other players can invade your game" and I go look at something else.

I haven't played a single one of their games online. Thus, I have never been invaded.

Originally Posted by Zloth
I can see plenty of appeal, but then I see the "other players can invade your game" and I go look at something else.

From what I've read you can only be invaded if you're playing co-op. I'm guessing there will still be Ai invasions. Hope so anyway.

Stolen from Reddit.

Although I am looking forward to Elex II more, I am playing Elden on launch and giving Elex time for a patch or 2.

I've always thought 10/10 or 0/10 were pointless. No game is perfect and no game has no redeeming quality.

I Don't typically give the score any merit. it's the content of the review that counts.If we must have score though everyone should use a decimal system because there are a few near perfect 9.5's out there and I'm hoping this is one of them.

I really like the look of the game - the art direction is superb. Normally a game like this would be a day one purchase for me.

Unfortunately it's a Souls game. I don't have the time or patience for the challenge they present.

This game is not for me, I have said it several times before. At least there are others here who are not on the hype train, so I'm not the only one with this take. I generally will be quiet on big hyped games like this just to avoid starting an argument, but I saw Moorkh's post on this, and very much agreed.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
This game is not for me, I have said it several times before. At least there are others here who are not on the hype train, so I'm not the only one with this take. I generally will be quiet on big hyped games like this just to avoid starting an argument, but I saw Moorkh's post on this, and very much agreed.

People like to tout these games in particular, because their reputation for being "difficult" makes many people feel superior as they (loudly) announce that they like and play them. I don't think that's such a huge problem around here as it is some other places, but personally, I figured that phenomenon is what Moorkh was getting at with his four words, "Pretentious difficulty. Fanboy praise."

The game even got a mention today on NPR:

Review: How I learned to stop worrying and love the deathly delights of 'Elden Ring'

What surprised me most about Elden Ring, though, is how much I genuinely laughed out loud while playing. It's astonishingly hard, but rather than mutter and groan, I was reassured to know that other players will experience the exact same trials and tribulations. At a time where lots of people, including myself, are anxious, I wasn't sure I'd want to play something so punishing. It's easy to pick up my staple games for Nintendo Switch and shut off my brain. But after realizing how exciting it was to conquer my fears, explore the Lands Between, and die over and over, Elden Ring became a joy, especially as my roommate watched on and laughed at my inevitable destruction.

Originally Posted by rjshae
The game even got a mention today on NPR:

Review: How I learned to stop worrying and love the deathly delights of 'Elden Ring'

Heh. "Conquer my fears." That reviewer must be very anxious indeed, if playing a game is "conquering fear".

More on topic: Pretty common here in Sweden for newspapers to publish reviews on large game launches. And Elden ring is huge news for hardcore gamers.

Originally Posted by xenocide


Stolen from Reddit.

Although I am looking forward to Elex II more, I am playing Elden on launch and giving Elex time for a patch or 2.

rofl! That is great!

Originally Posted by Stingray
"Pretentious difficulty. Fanboy praise."

I guess one mans trash is another mans treasure.

You could call it pretentious, I'll call it rewarding. You could call it fanboy praise, I'll call it well deserved praise.

Obviously it just comes down to your personality. If you're bad at games and have that sort of personality where you get frustrated easily I can understand how you'd quickly be filtered by games that provide a challenge. There's nothing objectively wrong with that. Just play what you enjoy.

I'm sold. Pre-loaded. Struggled and never completed the previous Dark Souls games. Hoping this will be the first.

Dears, some of you are confused about a couple of things:

First, this is (also) a news site. Exclusive or not, a game regarded high by many should be mentioned. It's not about whether *you* like it or not. If you see that small text under "What's Going On" in the forums, you'll notice that at the moment of writing, there were 321 active users, only 5 of them members. What are those people (and bots ) doing here? I don't think they are here to read whether *you* like something or not. They are here for news about RPGs is my bet.

Second, most established game review sites have certain criteria for their scores. 10/10 does not mean "perfect". It means something like an industry defining pinnacle of a game. We can discuss whether scoring games in 5, 6 or 10 scales makes sense, but 10/10 does not make the review untrustworthy per se. Looking at single review score may not make much sense but looking at all of the available ones through Metacritic or Opencritic does tell something. That the Metacritic score is 97 at the moment of writing tells about a few things as I see it: most scores are on 10 or 5 scales and they bloat the overall score; established game site reviews are still lacking, these tend to drop the overall score a little bit; and finally, the score is remarkably high, this has to be a remarkable game.

Whether the game is for you or not is a whole another matter. I do not mean to dismiss your opinions. This site is also about sharing opinions about games and news-bits. Just that mixing opinions to review scores given by someone else is not very analytical approach. Remember that reviews are opinions by definition, yet they are supposed to be analytical opinions and in case of established gaming sites given by professionals. According to the initial review rounds, professional game journalists seem to regard this game as industry defining. There aren't a whole lot such games coming out. Except that we got two such games within a week, and no, the other one is not Elex II. The review scores for that one are not out yet.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Simple this site primarily covers PC RPGs, and Horizon Zero Dawn was a console exclusive game. The game was ported many years after it's release though.

The second game Horizon Forbidden West is also a console game for now at least. Also both have been covered on this site with a few news-bits. So yeah not intentional.

Perhaps in your news. The launch was not posted in the main news and if you search, you'll notice that the game was mentioned once in a video compilation 2022-01-06 and had an own news-bit 2021-05-28 the last time.

10/10 scores are fine.

There is no such thing as perfect unless it's perfect because of it's flaws.

I mean, as a From Software fan, I've been on the hype train since the game was first announced. From ALWAYS delivers. But, even to me, these scores are better than expected. 97% from 45 reviews?! It really be something else.

Even if you haven't enjoyed previous souls games I'd think twice before missing out on this one.

Originally Posted by SirJames
I mean, as a From Software fan, I've been on the hype train since the game was first announced. From ALWAYS delivers. But, even to me, these scores are better than expected. 97% from 45 reviews?! It really be something else.

Opencritic has aggregated 111 reviews to date and the average has fallen all the way to…96.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Opencritic has aggregated 111 reviews to date and the average has fallen all the way to…96.

From ALWAYS delivers!!

Originally Posted by SirJames
You know, one review with a 10/10 you might call bullshit. But 10 reviews with 10/10 it might just be time to, you know, pre-load the game?

I count 38 reviews and they're all above 9.

I wouldn't call it console-centric but it is a multi-platform game and they want to have the same experience on all platforms. It might be that they're aiming for the best graphics that will run at a steady 60 FPS on all consoles, but in some previous games the frame rate was directly tied to gameplay. I can't really give a good example of this because I don't fully understand it but Dark Souls 1 was a 30FPS game and the PC fix which allowed 60FPS mentioned that you might see issues with 60FPS like sliding down ladders might make you fall through the world. It might be a similar situation here, I don't know.

For people who do get performance issues, stuttering, FPS drops, etc. They suggested to reviewers to try running with -dx11 argument. I'm hoping this will still be an option for the proper launch. Something to keep in mind.

Well, I've been a gamer long enough to notice certain patterns. This includes how the critics respond to certain titles with a certain level of hype surrounding them - and with a certain desire for something to be greater than it can reasonably be.

For instance, if I take a look at the "top 10" games of all time according to aggregate sites like Metacritic - I don't see a single game I consider worthy of being there.

Now, if you really think games like GTAIV, BotW or RDR2 truly represent the pinnacle of game design and the gaming experience - then obviously they DO belong there.

I consider all of those SEVERELY flawed - but they're definitely good games. Great games I might even concede - in the spirit of objectivity.

To me, 10/10 doesn't mean "perfect" - because nothing is perfect.

It means something like "about as good as it realistically could be given the state of the art and technology" - and I think there are a few games out there which could potentially live up to that, though I can't think of a single one.

We must remember that aggregate scores are as objectively valid as votes in a democracy.

You're not looking at what is objectively "the best" - because that could never be established even if we tried.

You're looking at what "most people like the most" - which, to me, does NOT represent anything even remotely useful as an objective opinion proxy.

Now, as for past Souls games - they were very heavily curtailed on PC by console concessions. They didn't even bother changing input tutorials from controllers to keyboard - not even for DS3

They were FPS locked to 30 on consoles - and yet modders managed to unlock that and have them function perfectly on PC.

These days, having a 60 FPS lock in your game means you have no idea what you're doing on PC - or you just don't care.

I really can't see it any other way.

Now, that doesn't mean anything for the actual game itself. It COULD be a 10/10 - I just don't see anything that would justify it.

Of course, I've played enough Souls games to understand that they're not really for me, so obviously I wouldn't see that anyway.

I'm not a fan of "haha, you didn't see that coming (because we've deliberately designed it that way) - so now you're dead and you have to waste your time again".

It sort of reminds me of GTA/RDR2 mission design - which, while usually pretty easy, have the same sort of heavily designed challenges that you're supposed to trial-and-error your way through.

That's cool - we all like different things.

I also despise the opaque non-story story stuff in Souls games - but, again, that's subjective.

With all that said, I'm actually very happy for Souls fans - and I truly wish them a great time with this.

For my own part, I'm hoping for a similar experience with Starfield - which is my kind of "Souls-like"

Here's hoping it's a good Beth game.