Here's Why Elden Ring is 6/10 at Best. Before You Buy Tips

Is Elden Ring worth buying? Think twice before believing the hype, if you are a gamer, you already know this by now. There are so many games these past 2 years that did not meet player expectations. Work from home arrangements due to pandemic is the primary reason but it seems Elden Ring has beaten them all to earn the highest praises, scoring a perfect 10/10 according to the critics. But at least half of the current players of Elden Ring are pissed and unhappy, so are we. Here's why.

What is Elden Ring?

Elden Ring is a hardcore dark fantasy action RPG game from FromSoftware, famous for the games Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Bloodborne and Dark Souls. The latter help redefine the roguelite genre and added souls-like or souls-borne subgenre. Elden Ring became the most hyped game since Cyberpunk 2077 because of its developer's reputation and George R.R. Martin's involvement, the author of Game of Thrones series.

Elden Ring Review

According to Videogame Journalists and Critics

Score: 10/10 95/100

Reasons: Praises every aspect of every OTHER open world games before it

According to Elden Ring Players

Score: It’s fine

Reasons: it's just Dark Souls but open world, combat, interfaces and mechanics are too purist, it felt like I played it a billion times

Before-You-Buy Self FAQs

Are you going to buy it? Yes

Why? The overwhelming hype

Are you going to finish it? No

How long are you going to play it? 1 year at least

Are you sure? maybe 1 week?

Seriously? A few days.

Why? You don't have the patience to dodge, die, rinse, repeat or sneak, range attack, run, potion, rinse, repeat

Before You Buy Tips

Did you play any Dark Souls game? And finish it?

if yes: Elden Ring is going to be very familiar, it is basically Dark Souls with mount

if no: Get the game, ride the hype, but maybe watch other people play it first and see

Is Elden Ring friendly to newcomers to Souls-Like genre?

Not at all, despite early reviewers saying it is easier than Dark Souls, for casual gamers it is can be quite frustrating.

Is it better than GTAV, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2 or Cyberpunk 2077?

If you are not a member of the FromSoftware fanboys club, NO, here are more reasons.

There are game breaking bugs.

Cyberpunk 2077 on PC was perfectly playable on first day, crashed once after 6 hours playing straight but Elden Ring on PC has problems launching at the very first day. The online anti cheat has errors, framerates look unstable, screen tearing, and recording the gameplay is frustrating due to unstable framerates. DirectX 12 made things worse, just read the reviews on Steam, they will tell you all in details and consoles also have similar problems. Anti-cheat issues maybe due to the underlying server exploit problems of FromSoftware reported few weeks ago from Dark Soul 3 according to the report by Kotaku.

Interface designs a.k.a the HUD never changed since Dark Souls 1!

Elden Ring interface design looks so dated only hardcore fans can appreciate its familiar look and feel. It makes Destiny 2 HUD look like Gucci.

The combat mechanics are the same!

Dodge, strike, dodge, potion, repeat, sure you can do range attacks or summon allies now but it's the same Dark Souls tropes. Failing to dodge an attack takes a large chunk of health right away, it is very REPETITIVE and simplistic. It makes Assassin's Creed 1 combat looks like an end game area. Games like Genshin Impact also have simple combat style but not like this. Elden Ring have bosses that possess 10 hit combos against you, seriously! To summarize the Dark Souls combat, it makes melee in For Honor look like rocket science.

in Dark Souls, you'll be the Fourth Lord, in Elden Ring you'll be the Elder Lord.

If you are into story driven games, you will spend invest hours exploring to unlock the game's story and lore. There are great looking cinematics and cutscenes in Elden Ring but you will be reading a lot and talking to NPCs to truly unlock its story. In Dark Souls, it took years to actually unlock the full story with the help of other players, it is expected in Elden Ring as well. The narrative of Elden Ring despite having George RR Martin involved does not have the GRRM trademark you will find in Game of Thrones or his novellas, instead it is very much like again, Dark Souls. TLDR story in Dark Souls, the player is set to be the Fourth Lord in Elden Ring you will be the Elden Lord, seriously.

The open world of Elden Ring feels empty at times

The open world of Elden Ring looks really dark and ominous, but the world structure if you look closely enough is full of prefab game assets combined to make areas look different. Game journalists who reviewed the game sugar-coats this by saying "putting players in the centre of exploration.." which means you need to spend more time than needed to explore and discover, which eventually traps you into another boss fight.

The player choices is again is too Dark Souls.

This is already given for RPG games, but it's nothing spectacular if you played more than 2 play through of any Dark Souls game. The player choices may have its appeal to replayability to some but the ambiguity of its tone and language gets tiring.

Bosses and dragons look great, that is expected.

Only fans are going to love it, because dragons of course are already been in video games since forever. Goodluck defeating your first dragon, you will need it.

The marketing of this game is genius.

They could have name it Dark Souls 4, instead they created a "new IP" and tied George RR Martin to its name despite not actually directly contributing to its story. The game story so far feels like a full-on Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Videogame journalists and critics cannot be trusted.

As video game content creators, this game made us realize that game journalists and video game critics who gave this 10/10 or 5/5 cannot be trusted. It's like they have this barrier that cannot allow them to say negative things about FromSoftware. It is basically like Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, the hype of that game is crazy but that delivery simulator was no better than any earlier Kojima games.

TLDR: Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4