Recent reviews by Seattle

Playing this on Arch Linux using Proton Experimental works flawlessly. I can even access the settings without crashing, which is a common problem otherwise.

The game itself is the peak of stealth, and it holds up extremely well for being almost 20 years old.

My friend got the plague three times during the same nuclear winter.

Pawn crashlanded on my base, started rampaging across my animal pens
I captured him, took out his eyes and forced him to work in my mine.

This game is a justice machine.

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everything hurts

down bad

Go blind or not at all.

It does blend.

After putting over 200 hours into this game and getting 100% on it on steam, I'm convinced with my whole being that this will be the RPG of the decade.

That being said, there are some things that are worth pointing out.

The game doesn't explain anything to you, you're meant to explore, experiment, fail & try again. This is a large part of these games, but also what makes them so fun.

The combat is incredible, and whilst simple at first glance, there are many small mechanics that have huge outcomes on how battle will turn out:

- Playing defensively and only trying to get in a few light strikes here and there is, I often find in my experience, not particularly effective anymore.

- Jump attacks! Yes, for the first time in a SoulsBorne game we get a dedicated jump button, and with it, more to add to our attack repertoire. Jump attacks typically deal a lot of poise/stagger damage, as well as actual damage. But they can lead you to be vulnerable should you miss.

- Crouch attacks! With stealth being added to the game, you can quickly crouch in battle and hit either light or heavy attack to have a different move come out, typically one your enemy won't be expecting: especially in pvp.

Elden Ring also comes with the Ashes of War system, meaning that on regular weapons (meaning: weapons that aren't Unique; that take Somber stones to upgrade.) can have their Skill, as well as their stat scaling changed around and experimented with.
You can make almost any weapon work with almost any build, really opening up the amount of variety and replayability.

That being said, as much as I could gawk at the fantastic gameplay, I haven't yet mentioned the world or bosses. That's simply down to the fact that I don't want to spoil any of that, I will however mention that the game does have some of the most surprising difficult spikes I've ever had to bear witness too.

That's not to say I feel at any point that any of the bosses are unfair, but they do demand practice and mastery, which doesn't exactly come free considering that means that it takes time, and lots of it.

If you're easily disheartened by suddenly getting killed in just a hit or two then this might not be the game for you.

It's still great though, you should definitely play it, but you have your warning. :stress:

I hate myself enough to play through this in 2 sittings.

Now your players can build 3d ♥♥♥♥♥ on your battlemaps.