Try Finger But Hole.
FromSoftware is no stranger to fame, especially with crafting the likes of Dark Souls, Sekiro, and Bloodborne, among others. Their games are constantly the inspiration for potential new franchises or established ones looking for a new popular direction and while they try to adapt certain fundamentals, they often miss the point of what truly makes those games tick. Still, regardless of the popularity of their prior catalog, nothing could prepare them, or the world for what is likely to be their biggest game of all time; Elden Ring.
I’m going to stress that this is not a review for FromSoftware elites, as I honestly don’t feel I can speak to that group given my brief history with their games. I’ve played through a good portion of Bloodborne, and while I played Sekiro, I struggled to get past Madam Butterfly and haven’t returned back to it; and I likely will not. While my time has been well spent with Elden Ring, it is what the game does differently than what they have done before that prevents any desire for me to backtrack to Dark Souls, well, any more than the brief hour or so I’ve spent across the entire trilogy. While Elden Ring has a similar challenge to Dark Souls in most cases, the freedom to mold that difficulty is what sets this game apart and a large reason of why the game is likely resonating with more people than they have ever reached before. Is this because Elden Ring finally has an easy mode? Well, that'll depend on a few things, but more on that later.
While I won’t dive into some aspects of the game, its deeper story, and some of its mystery, be cautious for minor spoilers as this type of game can see even the slightest thing as telling too much. Still, if you are excited and are already on the bandwagon for Elden Ring, you are already likely 100+ hours in and have seen a good portion of what the game offers already. Still, I do want to put this warning that yes, I will be talking about early moments in the game, some of its intrigue, some boss mechanics, but I won’t be discussing much of the story that isn’t already given to you at the start of your journey.
If I had to one line it, it would be this: Elden Ring is an absolute masterpiece. I wasn’t expecting to get that far in it, given my history with their prior games, let alone beat it and nearly all its bosses. There are some encounters that I’ve missed out on either to story moments blocking my access to them or how I handled some NPC’s and their questlines, subsequently shutting me out. Will I enter into newgame+? Likely not, but that’s because I rarely replay games as I tend to not either have the time or I like to let those memories set and stay as they are and were, but mostly the first reason. Still, despite my 100+ hours with my level 222 character, I still have solid portions of the game I likely haven’t discovered, some bosses to still track down, and a pesky dragon that has more fire than I likely have patience. Still, I’ll keep at it, since I feel it’s achievable, or at least, that is what I am telling myself. (Update: he dead)
This is going to be a bit of a different review for me, since again, being a FromSoftware newb in most cases, there are still elements of the game that I am lost at, and yes, this includes much of its story. While I’ve watched a few lore videos and story recaps, I still am not sure I loved its narrative, but its rollout and mystery did certainly keep my interest. While the backbone of the story was written by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin; Hidetaka Miyazaki is still very much behind the wheel and adapted Martin’s work to fit within the confines of his well-known and often bizarre design, and it shows. I’ll speak to some core systems, the methods at which I was able to push through it, and hopefully, even if it ends up being just one person, that I've convinced you that yes, you too can beat Elden Ring and experience it in your own way.
The design for FromSoftware's games has largely been about overcoming challenge. This ranges from the enemies that populate its world to the massive health bars that make up their infamous bosses. While this has been the apparent selling point for their games, it's rarely the full story when it comes to why people adore these games and consider them to be some of the best ever made. These games are popular to their fans for different reasons, sometimes it's the fact that everything is a mystery, including many of its items, to the complete lack of any hand-holding, causing you to explore and figure things out on your own. Sometimes it's the fact that every item or boss has a deep and engaging history, some lore that makes you take pause and learn about them. Then it's the strange NPC's that make up its world, each offering up enough story to keep them just outside of explaining everything, making you take those clues and words and attempt to make out just exactly what is going on.
Elden Ring is very much this in a nutshell. It gives you often just enough information to gather what it's trying to convey, and while some aspects of the story are told a bit more clearer than what we’ve seen in Dark Souls or Bloodborne, likely due to the work of GRRM, it still veils its narrative in secrecy, causing you to read the descriptions of items and converse with NPC's multiple times to get the full picture. I've watched many streams and videos of people playing, and seeing their faces light up when they have pieced things together is a damn work of art as you can see the gears turning in their heads as the solution to its story connections presents itself.
Elden Ring takes place in The Lands Between, a mysterious place centered around a massive tree called the Erdtree. This land was once prosperous, and the Erdtree itself would relinquish some of its leaves to bestow blessings of grace all over the land. The Erdtree also granted its people the power of magic, and much like all forms of power, there are those who would want to take it for themselves. As a war for the Elden Ring ravaged the land, many lost their way and became what would be known as the Tarnished, banished from The Lands Between, cast out to fend for themselves. Eventually, the Elden Ring was shattered, its power source within the Erdtree suffocated, and its power lessened across The Lands Between. Eventually, this caused the Tarnished to return, eager to take back the Elden Ring and sit atop its throne as the Elden Lord.
You’ll begin your journey as such a Tarnished, set forth to claim the Elden Ring as one of several classes; Wretch, Samurai, Vagabond, Astrologer, Confessor, Prisoner, Warrior, Bandit, Hero, and Prophet. Each class will have variable stat defaults that range across Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. The Vagabond, for example. which is the class I started with, heads out with the most health of any class, but is rather low in stats that make it good for any sort of magic, and the opposite can be said for the Astrologer, which starts with a very low amount of Vigor but can wield incredibly powerful spells with ease. There are those that live in between, and while you can respec a finite amount of times, it’s a considerable ways in to where that option is even presented to you.
Each stat is going to affect how certain things work from a movement point of view to the very weapons you’ll be able to wield. Having more Endurance boosts your carry weight capacity, so if you keep it to medium weight or lower, you’ll roll faster, a feat that can also be assisted with a few Talismans that can lower that weight for you even more. Some weapons will have stat requirements, or scale based on those stats, making you work towards increasing your level or finding the ability to respec if you really want to shake things up. Each class has set stats that will benefit it, but as these classes are largely based solely on the default stats you begin with, you are free to play around and create a wide assortment of different builds. Every time my game is invaded by other players, I keep seeing unique and interesting builds that are consistently impressive.
When it comes to playstyle, you have a few options. You'll have melee, ranged, or something that lives in the middle. There have been tons of videos online about how magic is overpowered, and honestly, they are correct, to a point. There are spells that can devastate bosses in seconds, melting them as you cast a blue beam that shatters their health bar before they can even react, you just have to ensure you don't get hit as you likely won't have much survivability. Melee can also have that effect to a point, but to fully take on most foes, you'll need to learn how to parry and deflect attacks, or time your rolls to keep them at a distance. You can also use the newly included jump to leap over ground attacks or use it to swing your blade overhead for a hard crunching strike. While I eventually added points to intelligence and faith, allowing me to use a sword equipped with a spell, I don't know if I would consider myself that much of a spell sword as I only have enough FP to pull off the attack twice at most without a refill. You do have access to bows and crossbows but unless you really commit, they are not going to be as viable as a straight melee or magic build, and even then the damage is simply not as impressive, at least in my experience. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see a bow only build that one shots the final boss as this game is just that varied in what players are able to do, and newly discovered methods are found almost every day.
How you play Elden Ring is going to vary for what you want from it. Sure, there are builds to follow, routines to get overpowered quickly, but you'll find that once you get your footing, you may find your way through the game to change based on what catches your eye, whether that is a new sword, equipment piece, or path. I started my adventure following a “Get OP Early” video, granting me early access to a +4 weapon, +3 summon, and 5 potions, boosted with a potency item called a Sacred Tear, which made my potions far more effective. After that, I explored around the starting area before eventually taking on the first boss once I felt comfortable, defeating him after about four attempts. I've seen people simply go straight for Margit and take a ride on the struggle bus, or reach them after some 45 hours or more, and the beautiful part of Elden Ring is that you can do that and it never feels like you are playing it wrong. There are people who will tell you that you need to play this game a certain way, but honestly, they are delusional and want you to play how they did for some sense of misplaced validation.
Elden Ring does a lot with almost doing nothing at times, and it’s somewhat hard to explain. As you enter into its large open world, you’ll see a horse-mounted soldier called the Tree Sentinal. This is the first enemy you’ll see outside of the tutorial, a spot of training that is somewhat hard to notice for new players. This enemy is not meant for you to fight right away, but rather to show you that you are free to run away should you encounter something that is clearly a higher level than you. It’s a smart design as it illustrates just what to expect across its massive open world. Previous FromSoftware games have largely been linear, meaning that you often had no choice but to struggle through a challenge as you didn’t have many options other than turning around and grinding the same patch of enemies. Here, Elden Ring gives you so much freedom that again, you can choose to avoid the first official boss for dozens of hours and simply find something else to do, often having you so over-leveled by that point that you slap him down in just a few hits. I’ve seen many seasoned players have issues with some later bosses that I beat with no fuss, often because I was far higher in level to what the game expected from me at the time. That boss where you’re given a special sword to fight him with? Well, he fell in less than two minutes.
What Elden Ring does so right is that it’s made an open world that is begging to be discovered, not just explored. Sure, the sites of grace will trail off where you’re intended to go, but you can ignore those instructions and simply go explore. Nothing is pre-discovered for you, and while the map can hint at places to go with some colored sections on the map or what looks to be a cave or some sort of structure, there are no icons or anything showing you that something is or could be there. Each connected region requires a map piece, and once you find it, the map will zoom out a bit, increasing the size of the overall map. Every time I would add to it I would be shocked at how it would zoom out to show that the map was bigger than it was letting on; this happened about 2 or 3 times. The map will also not fully detail how you reach certain areas, as there will be some discovery needed towards procuring special keys or tracking down methods to traverse to the next area. You’ll get lost a lot, but you’ll be often thankful for it as it causes unintended discoveries that illustrate just how big this world truly is.
Despite all my exploring, I still have a ton of secrets left to find, often hearing other players talk about something I’ve yet to see, even in my 100+ hours. In fact, while writing this review, I happened upon a giant jar atop a hill, with a challenge presented to me that I didn't know existed. And, as I was doing my final edit, I found an abandoned shaft with a jumping puzzle that tested my patience to no ends. As I approached the final area, after following a boss order list that saw me defeating every major boss, whether they were optional or not, I discovered that I still had a whole new area to explore, and then yet another, which just kept blowing my mind as to the sheer size of its world and how it just continued to keep on giving. This world is so densely packed with large open areas and its beautifully crafted Dark Souls style environments with connected paths and some superb level design. We have had similar open worlds that are begging you to discover its land on your own, such as Breath of the Wild, but I never found that world to be interesting to the point of obsession, even though I know many do. Here, I personally felt an obsessive pull to jump back in and just explore areas that I figured I had mined to the last pebble, and more often than not, I continued to find things I hadn’t seen before. Opening the map and not seeing a thousand icons was intimidating in the right way because I had an adventure to take on, not a checklist.
As you explore, you’ll discover Sites of Grace, and these are essentially the typical Bon Fires from Dark Souls. They have additional purposes other than healing or refreshing the enemies around you as you can mix specialized potions, use them to fast travel, or adjust certain skills, as well as leveling up via your hard-earned ruins, the game’s comparable resource currency for souls. Eventually, after using them a set number of times, you’ll meet Melina, who will explain a few things, though vaguely, but she will then transport you to the Roundtable Hold, a safe harbor for the Tarnished, and a hub location for you to upgrade your items and summons, as well as speak with a select number of NPC's. There are secrets even here, often through the use of special items, including a fight that I had only discovered after being well above its leveled challenge.
Elden Ring doesn’t have a quest list or a journal of any sort. If you are told information pertaining to where you need to go, and more importantly, what you need to do to get there, you are going to have to remember it or write it down. This is largely the same with any personal NPC’s quests even if they can often be far more cryptic. Thankfully, in a new patch, FromSoftware placed character location markers on the map since it can be rather challenging to recall just exactly where everyone is at any given time. Still, some events will kick start certain questlines and it won’t always be clear on what you need to do. Thankfully though, there are millions of players who have done so, and while you won’t always get help from messages on the floor such as those that simply say “Try finger but hole”, “Liar ahead” or simply “Pickle”, you can check one of the thousands of Youtube tutorial videos in case you are stuck on a particular step. Considering the views on some of those videos, know that you won't be alone.
And speaking of not being alone, Elden Ring has a few options for adventuring alongside someone or something else. While I’ll dive into co-op shortly, you’ll have access to AI-controlled assistance in the form of Ashes, or summons if that term makes a lot more sense. As you kill smaller bosses to simply finding them in chests, you’ll uncover a vast array of summonable creatures, soldiers, to even a pair of little pot guys or a lizard with a sword. These range in their usefulness for sure, with some being far more effective than others, but they serve a purpose to fight alongside you nonetheless. While it has recently seen a nerf, the most prized of these helpers is that of the Mimic Tear, a blob of a creature that takes your form, equipment, and all. It also can utilize healing items as well, and if you place a healing consumable at the end of your quick bar, such as a Raw Dumpling, it will use it, but not consume it, allowing it to remain healed during combat. It didn’t always use the item at the best times, but that tactic I learned did allow them to remain at full health several difficult boss encounters.
The summons, like yourself, can be upgraded, and you’ll do this in the same fashion as your weapons, by using a series of items and ruins to increase their effectiveness. Summons use a variety of different flowers, some easily found, some more rare, but never impossible to find. And, such as is the case with Smithing Stones for your weapons, you can find them easily but also in an NPC’s shop at the Roundtable Hub, provided you find the special bell item that triggers a shop upgrade. I will say that the summoning can be inconsistent as to where you can use it as while it is always available during the bigger boss encounters, it won’t work for some specialized battles or in some environments that are just out in the middle of nowhere, yet move five feet over and it might. As to a visible sign of when you can summon, you’ll see a blue glowing icon on the bottom left, but as to what triggers that icon, other than what I’ve mentioned so far, that I do not know.
Summons do a good job at not just dealing damage, especially in the case of the Mimic Tear as it took down a story boss all on their own, as I tested them at a distance, but they can also serve as a solid distraction to allow you to sneak up or get in a solid crushing blow. Some Ashes work better than others for that purpose, and there are a lot of them to choose from, even if some feel like fun throw-away types like the little pot guy’s I mentioned before. This makes it so you feel like you have a chance in certain scenarios, that the boss isn’t just focused on you. It’s not quite the same as playing with another real-life player, but it certainly can get the job done, especially when you unlock the Mimic Tear, who is such a help that I am not sure if I could have beaten the game without them, or at the very least, as easily.
Similiar in how you’ll procure them as the Summoning Ashes, you will gain special abilities for your weapons called Ashes of War. These are slot in and slot out abilities that range from casting your sword in flame or blood, powerful slashes, to enhancing your shields. They will obviously be somewhat situational, but they can only be equipped to certain weapons as a large portion of your arsenal cannot use them. These can be equipped or changed out at any Site of Grace or the blacksmith back at the Roundtable Hold.
Progressing throughout the game, you’ll gather resources such as flowers, flesh, crab eggs, bone shards, and more. While on their own, they do nothing, but as you unlock crafting, they will serve to grant you items to consume that can heal, fortify, or be transformed into pots that can be thrown to cause fire damage, holy damage, frost damage, and more. While there is a playthrough video on Youtube of someone who beat the game solely with crafted items, that is a rare case as while effective, their use is only going to be as effective as the situation calls for it. I found fire pots to be pretty helpful against some of the grotesque tree creatures, but honestly, to take one down, it took nearly 20 of them, so while helpful, they are only so reliable, and the same holds true for most things. The crafting system is fairly straightforward as it will show an item, what you need for it, and it can be crafted anywhere you are, provided you are not in combat. To learn more recipes, you merely need to find a cookbook to acquire new things to craft.
Other items that will benefit you range sort of all over the place. You’ll find varying types of grease that you can apply to your swords for a short duration such as magic, lightning, or sleep-inducing spores. As you find an item called a Golden Seed, or a Sacred Tear, you can use them to increase the amount of healing or magic flasks you have, which heal your health or FP reserves for your magic. You can split them into how many of each you want, or as a melee fighter, place all your flasks, except for one, towards only offering you health. As you vanquish bosses, and I mean that towards the more challenging ones, you’ll earn two items from them; a Remembrance, and a Great Rune. Remembrances can be consumed for their Ruins, but you can also earn impressive gear or spells that can be used, but you’ll be given the choice between two, but can only pick one; however, there is a special way to get around that that I won’t spoil. Great Runes; however, need to be restored at Towers devoted to whom they are from, and can grant additional power such as raising all attributes, restoring HP upon defeating enemies, or increasing your main core stats such as health, magic, and stamina. These Great Runes are activated by Rune Arcs, a special item that allows those buffs to last until you die.
Rune Arcs are found as you explore but are also rewards you’ll earn via co-op and this is honestly the only part of the game where I had any sort of issue with its design and is something that does hold it back from being a 10 out of 10, at least for me. Co-op is implemented here in a way where it is certainly better than previous FromSoftware games but does leave a lot to be desired, even in how simple they have made some aspects of it and how amazing it can be when it actually works. In Elden Ring, you have two items that are the basis for how co-op works, at least generally. You have the Furlcalling Finger Remedy and The Tarnished’s Furled Finger. If you use the finger, you’ll carve a marking into the ground, and the Remedy, used by the player that is inviting you, will detect your scrawling and be able to invite you. There are ways to make your invitation private, or part of some community, but while this method is simple and fairly elegant for what FromSoftware has done before, it has pretty weird limitations.
Co-op can see three players join forces to conquer the game, but only parts of it. There are some fights or instances where co-op will not work, and even to just level up, or use sites of grace, you’ll have to quit co-op and perform those actions in your own game. You’ll find summoning pools that you can activate and honestly, these were the only consistent locations I could find where co-op was practically flawless. It would work away from these objects sometimes near sites of grace, but often we were met with so many errors that It would take us a half-hour to forty minutes to make some sessions work. Now, when I say that co-op only works in some places, there are weird moments where you will be met with progression blocks when playing with your friends. For example, while walking across a bridge south, we encountered a few enemies. Under one of the arches, there was a white mist wall. I couldn’t pass through it with my co-op partner. I left their game, we both crossed through and rejoined on the other side. It made no sense. These sorts of walls were everywhere. In a four-hour session, I had to be summoned into their game a total of 19 times. Sure, once you defeat a boss with them you are sent back, but just passing under a bridge? or into a cave? come on.
Co-op will also see the game scale to include the additional player and this can make some encounters far harder than playing solo. It also prevents you from summoning your Ashes, which is understandable. However; one thing that just doesn’t make sense is that you cannot summon your Spectral Steed, Torrent. This means that while you can sojourn around on your horse to cross great distances in a heartbeat in your own game, you cannot do so in co-op. While this was likely a streaming issue for multiple players in the same world to control how fast you were moving around, it weakens and breaks some encounters and makes them drastically harder in co-op, such as fighting dragons, which feel built for fighting on a horse. I am perfectly fine with Ashes not being with you in co-op, but it’s just a bizarre choice to not allow players to use their horses to at least get around faster.
Regardless of using your summoned Ashes, outfitting yourself with the best gear, or bringing in a friend, you’ll have to contend with the dangers that lurk around the Lands Between, and some encounters are incredibly tough. These range from shielded foes that can be your undoing, a dragon that swoops down from above, or a massive boss set atop a lake of lava. How you prep for that fight, the help you bring with you, or learning the fight, is what is going to push you through. Personally, I grinded a few spots that gave a massive excess amount of ruins, preparing myself several levels above what I needed to be. Combine that with using my mimic tear, and it made me damn well unstoppable, apart from three fights that still proved tricky, one atop a tiny horse, a boss that healed upon hitting me, or the final boss themselves, a fight that had me respec to use that sword with the spell I mentioned earlier. They wouldn't be the only fights I would struggle with, but they were battles where I didn't defeat them until I had invested well over two dozens deaths. Leveling and using appropriate assistance does allow you to brute force through most fights, but there is still a level of learning the fight, knowing what the boss is going to do, but most of the time, I just ran in swinging and not letting up.
While Elden Ring was largely designed for previous-gen consoles, that doesn't stop the art direction from being absolutely stunning. Elden Ring, like most Japanese developed games, are not often on the high bar of visual clarity, especially when compared to the likes of say, Horizon Forbidden West, but I still can't deny how good this game looks when it’s focused on its moody and massive vistas. Again, this isn't a game built on visual clarity but rather on its art direction, and for my money, I am far more impressed with its bizarre open world and stunning locations than a single environment in Horizon Forbidden West despite the latter being a technical marvel around every corner. Bosses are equally creative and often a mess of limbs and various details that truly make them stand out. The number of times I gasped at new locations or was just wowed in what I was seeing is unprecedented in any game I've ever played before because, for the most part, games can often telegraph the types of environments you are likely to see. Elden Ring; however, kept surprisingly me constantly.
As I mentioned throughout this review, how you play Elden Ring is going to determine how “easy” it is for you, and that's what I meant by proposing if Elden Ring had an easy mode or not. Elden Ring’s sense of freedom and flexibility, and going off the beaten path to bide your time until you need to press on, gives the game a sense of patience with you that allows you to come at most encounters and problems in your own way. Elden Ring still has that challenge if you wish not to interact with certain assisted elements, and that's perfectly fine. How you engage with its systems will determine how challenging this game is, but know that there was no way around this without sacrificing its open world. This returning back when you are more powerful is unavoidable with the structure here, and honestly, Elden Ring is better for it. More people are going to beat this, engage with it, or give it a go in some sense. I bought Elden Ring to simply try it, to see if I would be able to even manage its difficulty. Not only did I beat it, but it is without question, the best game I've ever played.
Developer - FromSoftware Inc. Publisher - Bandai Namco. Released - February 25th, 2022. Available On - Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PS4, PS5, Windows. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - Elden Ring was purchased by the reviewer.