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Elden Ring

I played it a while ago, but for some reason, I felt like writing about it now. In short, I'm grateful to this game for opening my eyes to certain things, but let's go through it all in order.

Although, okay, I can state the conclusion right away: all Souls games are nonsense (in my subjective opinion, but I'm still right). And now – in order.

I tried playing DS2 once, played it for a bit, and then dropped it, although I couldn't understand why. Many consider that game to be the best in the series, and in any case, it definitely had the best character editor among DS1-DS3, which has always been an important aspect for me... The most important, actually. Nevertheless, something made me not want to continue. I determined for myself that the reasons were that increasing stats gives some unappealing micro-effects (and it costs a decent amount of souls), and also in the form of a green penalty for death (if death is part of the mechanics, why turn the character into a monster because of it? I didn't understand). Well, okay, I gave up on it.

Dark settings and high difficulty^TM still appealed to me, the feeling of overcoming something incredible was desirable, and so, after some time, I installed Elden. I won't hide the fact that the amount of memes about it on the internet also played a role... I'll try to approach the issue scientifically: I open guides, choose a not-too-boring but still quite strong intelligence-dexterity build, and as a new character, I go down into a beautiful green valley, filled with classical music, peacefully grazing animals, stupid zombie-like dummies, and useless resources, so that the player has something to press E on.

The first thing I realized, to my great displeasure, was that I was bad. Absolutely. I made a bunch of fatal mistakes simply because I attack with a sword, hoping to knock the enemy off balance or finish them off, but I hit a millimeter to the left or right, after which some average legionnaire or knight quickly finishes me off, without having any problems with hitting me or my armor. He just doesn't care. Through trial and error, I realize that swords are a noob trap, and I need to take a chain, because the chain has an attack angle close to 180 degrees (the entire right half of the space from the character, if you hold it in your right hand). In short, the chain doesn't miss, and you need to calibrate microradians with a piercing weapon so as not to miss. Fortunately, chains scale with dexterity, so it's fine for me.

Despite a more successful choice of weapon, and with the help of magic in killing stronger enemies (the basic attacking spell (c) was actually useful), I still couldn't call the game comfortable... And after playing to a certain point, when you are given a horse, I understood reason number 1: the sluggishness of your character. All this time, I thought the zombies were dummies, but in reality, I was the dummy... All the enemies around are faster, more agile, more accurate, and only by getting on a horse did I realize how it should be. The extra speed from the horse finally allowed me to avoid most attacks, or even not let them attack me, and relatively comfortably run up to all the pedestrians, while giants and other riders remain a certain threat that requires some consideration, so you could say that the game becomes fair. There's probably no need to talk about the problems of this approach: in dungeons, against bosses, and phantoms, you are most shamelessly deprived of the horse, turning the character back into a Tortilla. True, considering that you don't have much stamina anyway, it's more like... Tortilla-invalid?

This may seem like a casual complaint at first glance, but I now seriously believe that Souls games are not even about difficulty. These games are just trying to annoy you, and I don't feel any interest in overcoming them as a challenge, because I don't have the feeling that I'm fighting against enemies, whether they are evil monsters, named dangerous entities, etc. I feel like I'm fighting against the game itself, against slow animations and clunky controls. Against the need to run far from the bonfire every time, although functionally this is the same as saving. The same, except for one small detail: you weren't annoyed enough by the battles, so they decided to annoy you with running around.

The phantoms mentioned a little above also helped me understand the essence of things: even after getting a horse, I still continued to doubt, maybe something is wrong with me? Everyone is playing, no one is complaining, right? Maybe I just have bad reflexes and that's it? And then a red phantom controlled by AI ran at me, and after dying a couple of times, as usual, I studied his movements and suddenly got scared. I was scared by how pathetic this opponent was, all his animations, his movement speed, even the rolls he actively used (and I couldn't use them because of heavy armor, I had a speed penalty on them), it was all... I saw in him a reflection of my clumsiness, my lack of skill, and everything that prevents me from playing properly. When he attacked me with his incredibly ultimate powerful skill^TM, spraying lava everywhere dramatically, I just had to jump 😅, and that was it, he couldn't do anything to me... After watching him for a bit, I quickly figured him out, much easier than many ordinary enemies, and I was forever convinced that the game's character doll is intentionally defective.

In the end, I can't perceive this as a complex, exciting game, unfortunately. In terms of difficulty, it's enough to say that I encountered only one really difficult, but rewarding episode in all the hours I played: it was the teleporting treasure chest trap. When I was transported to a high-level location, the exit from which is carefully guarded by some magical Cthulhus that easily kill you in 1-2 seconds, and when you die, you are resurrected in the same trap house in the middle of mines teeming with enemies, this really made me feel like I was overcoming something. True, it was impossible to pass it by legitimate means, I had to hide in some structures from the mages, shoot at them once, briefly run out, then hide again, wait for the illithids to calm down, and repeat until I succeeded... But in the end, I cleared the guard and successfully escaped, and even farmed some rare ore, it was great, but unfortunately, this is a small part of the game, and the way I passed it was interesting with 95% probability precisely because this method of passing was not actually intended. It is assumed, I think, that you need to learn the enemy patterns to the millisecond and dodge them like a programmed robot, while perfectly understanding that any maneuvers must be started a few minutes before the attack on you, otherwise, while your sluggish character reacts............

Looking back, it's clear why I didn't really want to play DS2 at the time. Undoubtedly, it was the same thing, only there wasn't a horse to smooth out the problems of these games.

In general, I am sincerely grateful to Elden Ring for showing me very clearly why this genre is meaningless, and despite the beautiful screenshots and the general hype, it's not worth getting involved in it. Thank you, and goodbye... Instead, I decided to replay the really difficult, but well-designed, Enderal.