Elden Ring review — a brilliant monument to FromSoftware’s legacy

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Elden Ring has nearly everything I ever wanted from a Souls game. It’s chock full of additions, improvements, and inclusions from other FromSoftware titles that are likely to please most players. In particular, both your character being able to jump vertically and having access to a mount that can run fast and perform a double-jump truly let you experience the three-dimensional level design FromSoftware is known for in ways that weren’t previously possible.

Elden Ring also has some things I could do without. At times I think it tries a little too hard to include new features. Over the course of your playthrough, you’ll find so many different and often disconnected systems at play, it’ll make you wonder if they actually left any features out or just included every idea the designers had.

Personal quibbles aside, Elden Ring is still the best game I’ve played in a long time, and I already know I’m going to sink hundreds of hours into it well after I see the credits.

Combat has always been central to FromSoftware games, and Elden Ring builds upon and improves the core experience previously found in Demon’s Souls and the Dark Souls trilogy. I’m sorry, Sekiro and Bloodborne fans; this is very much a Souls game, with the slower-paced, more deliberate, and defensive combat style that typically brings.

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One new feature that I love is the inclusion of guard counters. You no longer have to time a button press to parry with your shield. Now, an enemy attack bouncing off of your shield or a two-handed weapon in the guard position gives you a window to launch a heavy counterattack by pressing R2