I can safely say in this article that I have played every Demon’s Souls From Software title to date. I don’t consider myself a die-hard fan of the studio, nor am I the trend of Miyazaki fans. However, if there’s one thing I can safely say by this unbiased yardstick, it’s that “souls” type games have become a new genre in their own right. Elden Ring may be an action RPG, but its depth as “Souls” is far greater than as an RPG. In this sense, these titles almost manage to define themselves as unique works.
That’s why, ever since Dark Souls 2, the first one I put all my trust in, it captivated me like someone who hadn’t tasted a certain dish before. I had never been attracted, but when the time came, the flavor was so intense and unexpected that it became one of my favorites. Since that one, I have gone through other imitators, but very worthy ones, like The Surge, who have only reaffirmed it. But there was something From Software didn’t do well with me, sometimes applying almost unfair difficulty. So much so that the first step to entering a Dark Souls was very complicated.
Call it laziness or whatever you want, but with the limited time we have these days, it sometimes feels like so many deaths are to blame for wasting precious time. Although, on the other hand, it’s like scratching a bite, it gives flavor and relief, so I couldn’t stop playing until I finished it. Maybe Dark Souls 3 cost me too much to pull it off. Not because it’s hard, but because I found it excessively tedious to cross a multi-minute enemy march to face a boss that killed me in seconds
Elden Ring is the perfect, updated fusion of From Software
Maybe they can call it Dark Souls 4, maybe it recycles animations from other titles, but Elden Ring in execution is absolutely excellent. After nearly 150 games analyzed over the last 6 years, it is difficult for me to compare the level of mastery achieved in this title with any other. Sensations that at first glance seem familiar, almost exciting, become new to everyone as one discovers the game. Both the new ones, who move awkwardly as we did many years ago, that veterans, are amazed, surprised and motivated to move forward, despite the fact that what they are sure to find is…death.
The surprise is the reward
We already know Miyazaki’s taste for learning by death – well, his strange love for the swamps – but what we didn’t expect was that the first huge open world they would make would motivate us. with exactly the same thing they could discourage before. Just to improve the design.
Death is the risk, exploration is the pleasure
Because now we have details that they didn’t think to offer us before. Recover doses of health flasks when killing groups of enemies, the assiduity of grace points or statues of Marika to relive as close as possible to our last encounter, the possibility of moving immediately between areas or the mount itself to go faster than point-to-point (or dodge enemies to go straight into a showdown) these are absolutely VITAL improvements so that the feeling of frustration is practically nil
If you see that despite all these facilities they continue to destroy you, to use your invocations, to raise your level of faith and to take harmful spells, do not risk it. I could keep offering options and I’m not even an expert on this. It’s just my way of telling you that there are a lot of options to move forward, confrontations you can avoid, friends you can call on for help, or just a stranger. All of these together are the player’s weapons, our resources for the game. Resources that, thanks to the exploration of an open world immensely rich and mysterious in elements to be exploited, multiply virtually infinitely.
But you’re not really walking through a dark cave, risking certain death with just a few sips of vials to heal yourself and see “what’s the reward”, like in most games. You enter to find out if they will kill you or if you will have enough skill to defeat them
You don’t know what you can find and at the same time you don’t know what you might miss. The ability to surprise through magic items, strange enemies, adverse situations, insurmountable voids, dozens of different weapons is almost limitless in the same game. After 100 hours, you may not have fully explored the game and From Software no longer need to use gimmicks to extend matches. They just evolved. And at the same time, they managed to erase with a stroke of the pen the bad label which associated an open world with repetitive and monotonous missions.
Therefore, what was said in the title can be said: challenge and death are the main motivations to explore every corner of Elden Ring. The surprise is the reward. I ratify the qualification of Masterpiece and the 10 of the analysis of my colleague Juan Jesús, which you can read here. The best friendly advice I can give you is: Play Elden Ring. Well also a mantra that from now on we must burn ourselves: Never doubt Miyazaki.
