At this point I fully get why some people got so over the top in their praise of this game. I've got nearly 100 waypoints on my map and still can't see 25% of it. I've stumbled into some really interesting scenarios and had a lot of laughs and a lot of sighs dying over, and over, and over.

But I'm also not entirely convinced that the open world is this game at its best. It's almost every ten hours I hit a day where I can't seem to get anything done, whether that's just finding new areas to explore, beating old bosses or even remembering where the bosses I have and have not beaten ARE. People love to point to this game's design as a salve compared to, just because it's recent, Horizon: FW but I just don't see it. At least in that game when I was looking for something to do I always knew where to go to do it. And maybe I knew this was a main quest mission starter here or a hideout there, but I still didn't know what was going to HAPPEN in those missions or what datalogs I might find along the way. For me the action is the juice and it really doesn't bother me to know where the action is.

It's also not charming when core game mechanics are piled on top of you but can take hours to discover. I'd have NEVER gained the ability to summon if I hadn't been listening to a podcast discuss how obtuse that item's location is at the exact moment I was in that area; I JUST paused after receiving the Physick flask and I've got damn near ten items I can mix in it already. Yes, I had the note, but I could never make sense of it. I'm not sure if that flask is as game changing (or in my case, saving) as the summons are but I wouldn't be surprised and I've found that sort of stuff charming in Bloodborne previously, but in that game you always feel like you're on a track. With Elden Ring, you can just get really confused and turned around trying to do some really basic stuff.

I'm really having a good time and I could easily see myself making this the second From game I've seen all the way through, I just don't think it's the revolutionary new road for open world games some would have you believe. I'm still setting and following waypoints on the map to go to points of interest, all that's changed is not knowing what the activity is until you get there (or, perhaps more detrimentally, whether you've already done the activity once you've arrived). At that point, you're usually just playing more Elden Ring, which is not nearly as fun on a purely mechanical level as a lot of other open worlds with more transparent map design. Just my two cents on that.

It's been a bummer seeing just how disinterested Elden Ring's been in my core Bloodborne build of all the HP, STR and DEX I can afford and ignore all the arcane stuff. Turns out, damn near everything interesting in this game needs a shitload of INT or faith and I'm still in single digits on those stats. And unlike Bloodborne, it doesn't feel like there are any fun spots to do a quick level grind, either things are just challenging enough that it takes more time than its worth, so challenging that everything can one shot you or so ludicrously easy that the rune drops are pitiful. That's discouraging, especially when I hit those points where I just can't figure out what to do next.

So far I've mostly avoided guides outside of some small catacombs and ruins, but I feel like I'll be digging into one soon enough here. I've only taken Margit and Godrick down on the critical path so far (I also know where a boss whose become pretty infamous is located though I haven't triggered him yet) while plenty of people are talking endgame and NG+ already so clearly I'm missing something...I've been looking for this glintstone key for damn near 30 hours alone! And I'm having a lot of fun with this game, promise!



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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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