I put Elden Ring in my game of the year list, but I didn't give it game of the year. After my initial sixty or so hours with the game, I burned out on it right around when I got to Mountaintops of the Giants. My build was pretty much settled by then; Faith/Dex/Arc with the Bloodhound's Fang or Uchigatana serving as my main weapon (although Rivers of Blood replaced the dependable Uchi) with a few lightning and flame incantations to help me out. Despite breezing through most of the game to that point due to my heavy reliance on my Mimic Tear, Mountaintops the of Giants represented the first real jump in difficulty since Caelid. All of the sudden, yetis and giant crows were taking huge chucks out of my health, and the Fire Giant had a health bar the size of Texas, and there was nowhere left to go. That is, until I checked IGN's guide and found out that I'd skipped the Deeproot Depths and Subterranean Shunning Grounds, as well as a couple bosses. Playing a From Soft game is a community experience, in that I actively enjoy looking up secret areas and ideal weapons. These games are too obscure in their references; most open world games would have a quest book and a marker for, say, Ranni's quest, but not Elden Ring. You gotta be paying attention, and if you haven't been, at least somebody else was. And so my love of the game was rekindled after leveling up and finally putting down the old Fire Giant. On to Crumbling Farum Azula, Consecrated Snowfields and the rest of the end game. But goddamn, is this shit getting hard. Not hard like a challenging boss; hard like you don't have room to breath due to the constant horde of challenging enemies thrown at you. Miquella's Haligtree is full of Leonine Misbegottens and giant mages that'll summon a glowing blue hammer to smash your face in. And now, so close to the end, I'm starting to get burned out. To Elden Ring's credit, I've put nearly one-hundred hours in, and I think I'll see it to the end, which will probably take another four or six. Only a select number of titles have breached the one-hundred hour mark: Skyrim; the Witcher 2 and 3; Dark Souls; and Civilization 5. Elden Ring is a great game, a fantastic experience that's more open and accessible than any souls game before it. However, that Nintendo Hard shit wears on you after a while. In Dark Souls, the first Capra Demon boss fight was difficult because you get jumped in a tiny room by a giant monster wielding two greatswords and two dogs to stunlock you. The fight is hard because the player is unfairly disadvantaged. I don't think Elden Ring's endgame is Nintendo Hard, but it borders on the verge of being so. A thirty-seven year old gamer with limited free-time like myself is hard pressed to persevere. Let's hope there are plenty of summons to vanquish the Elden Beast, eh?
Some random screens because this is a beautiful game:
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