Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@JohnnyShoulder Oh no, my bad — I’m out of touch with all the various forms of offensive slang! I’ve corrected it now.
My apologies to @mookysam and anyone who read my inadvertent stumble of words. Hopefully everyone knows I’m an idiot and didn’t think too much of it. 😅

@Th3solution Not sure if it is a British thing, but I immediately starting choking on my drink when I saw it! 😂 I doubt anyone on here would be offended seeing as it came from you Sol.

@RogerRoger I played this to the end a year or so ago and I'd say it is not a cluster of a game but having just replayed the original, I just got tired of the navigation around the city and that meant I didn't bother with a lot of collecticles or side activities. However, you are totally right, it really isn't a terrible but I think it was just average enough to mean we'll never get a sequel.

@RogerRoger I found your Catalyst review both entertaining and revelatory. Thank you for that!
I’m amazed at how dependent my opinions of a game are to the temporal context in which I’m playing it. A roughly similar thing happened to me on a lesser scale with Horizon Zero Dawn. Sometimes a persons mindset changes and a game is significantly better or worse, depending on the mood at the time. Other things play in too — like the current gaming zeitgeist, our prejudice (overt or subliminal) planted in our minds from reviews or hype, or a games technical state at the time. For this reason, it is useful to revisit a game later on. Wonderful advice there, my friend.

@mookysam Phew! Thank goodness! Purely laziness on my part. I’ve gotten used to being called Sol and using the shortened nickname versions of our regulars like Rog, Ral, colonel, Noisy, etc. Now that I’ve been educated I’ll be certain to at least place the ‘y’ at the end! 😅
And looking forward to your Metroid review. I’ve always enjoyed your writing.

@RogerRoger It's not uncommon for a good-to-excellent game to release and get brutalized by fans because it deviated from their expectations, only to be re-evaluated years later as either being better than expected or even ahead of its time. I don't know to what degree that's the case here, but it sounds like this new entry in the series butted heads with reactionary fan expectations.

Anyway, it's always a good thing to be able to set your preconceived notions and prejudices aside and evaluate something with a clear head, and even admit when you're wrong. It's never easy to say: "Gee, I was being a bit pig-headed about this." Even when we know it's the truth.

With that said, not being able to stop and look around without the fuzz getting up in your business sounds stressful.

I recall reading a few articles about how much developers hated being made to use the Frostbite Engine. Apparently the further a game strayed from the FPS template, the more problems it caused. Although it sounds like this might have just been caused by the lack of hardware grunt on the part of the PS4. Thankfully, I wouldn't expect that to be much of an issue going forward, since modern games are nowhere close to properly exploiting the resources of the current-gen hardware effectively.

Good review!

@mookysam I'm sure Banjo-Kazooie probably feels better when played on an actual N64 controller, if only because the weird button combinations seem more intuitive, but I don't think the sluggishness of the game itself is down to the use of a different controller. So I doubt it feels substantially better on real hardware.

I DO feel, however, that a big issue I've had playing Mario 64 on subsequent consoles (Wii, Switch), is that the analog sticks on those systems' controllers aren't really up to the task of controlling Mario in that game. Nintendo designed the N64 controller primarily around that game, and it shows: Mario's movement is intimately connected to slight inputs with the system's stiff analog stick.

In retrospect, it's why I feel that, N64 aside, I feel Mario controls best in Mario 64 DS when played on a 3DS.

@RogerRoger Obviously another good review, but I'm somewhere in the middle after playing it finally last year. I was a massive fan of the original Mirror's Edge, but while I still enjoyed Catalyst for the most part, I didn't bother going back and collecting more things after I was done with the story wasn't because of the heat you would trigger. It was because the timed package deliveries were ridiculously hard imo. I think I did a handful of them, but for the most part I wasn't able to finish them no matter how hard I tried. I just gave up, finished the story, and called it. Like I said, I still enjoyed it, but I thought the collectable/delivery stuff was easily the game's weakest part.

@RogerRoger Yeah, playing Miles Morales now, even though I’ve owned it for months, has helped me to enjoy it much more. It feels fresh to me, even though it is hugely similar to Insomniac’s first Spidey game. My mood right now fits better for this kind of game (despite wanting to throw my controller last night while attempting to 3-Star the second traversal challenge. I did finally get it but then with the third one I decided to cry ‘uncle’ after squeezing out 2-Star. It will bug me a little to have it be the only challenge not to max out, so I’ll probably go back later, even if it’s not necessary for a trophy, afaik) whereas I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it this much 6 months ago.

Back on subject regarding Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst, I played the first game’s demo long ago and just didn’t click with it. The first person viewpoint is easy to blame, but I’m not sure if that was the whole of it. Demos are often misleading and I’ve pondered buying ME:C when it was discounted steeply before, but I’m just not sure. I’m seriously considering trying Ghostrunner since I added it to my library last month through PS+ and it seems kind of similar… maybe? First person parkour / action platformer in a futuristic setting… I dunno, I could be completely wrong in making the connection. Have you played GR or considered it?

@RogerRoger I have little complaints about Miles Morales if I were to critically dissect it, but so far it’s great fun and overwhelmingly positive. I probably won’t write a full review when I’m done, but we’ll see. I’m only about 50% complete and making slow progress because I’m having so much fun just swinging around doing the side content. Which like you say, is of itself telling. I’m a little bummed that my TV doesn’t support VRR like I thought it did. Upon further review of its specs I came to find out that I had misinterpreted it’s features. Alas, I’m not sure my eyes would have been able to tell the difference with the new VRR 120 fps update, but I would have liked to have tried.

Thanks for the info on Mirror’s Edge. Good point about the other influences like Titanfall, which I did enjoy playing Titanfall 2 I feel like the first person platforming wasn’t the big reason I liked it, so I’m probably going to put Catalyst and Ghostrunner on the back burner for now.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Time to Completion: 15+ hours

Nintendo's surprise reveal of Kirby and the Forgotten Land in late 2021 was cause for celebration for many a Nintendo fan around the world. Even moreso than Game Freak, developer HAL Laboratory's popular and successful series of Kirby games have long counterbalanced their willingness to experiment with a curious lack of technical ambition. Kirby games have often been some of the first to showcase the gimmicks in new Nintendo hardware, as was the case with a multitude of Kirby games on the Nintendo DS: 2005's Kirby: Canvas Curse, for example, was a deeply weird platformer where players controlled Kirby entirely via the touch screen as they drew platforms and made flicking and stabbing motions with the stylus on various objects in order to help Kirby complete his adventure. Kirby Mass Attack in 2011 had players, in a Pikmin-like twist, control large herds of Kirbys across various levels. Even older games with more traditional controls, such as SNES classic Kirby Super Star saw the developer experiment with an unconventional structure that divided content up between a series of smaller and functionally diverse game modes.

It's always been weird, then, that they've been so simultaneously technically conservative. Major gaming icons such as Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and Sonic saw their first 3D adventures release in the mid-to-late 90s. Some of these transitions took better than others (3D Mario and Zelda titles are mainstays on modern Nintendo consoles and rank among the highest-rated games of all time, whereas Donkey Kong retreated back into the second dimension in his subsequent GameCube, Wii, and Wii U outings; the success or failure of Sonic's transition to 3D, on the other hand, is still a controversial subject to this day), but Kirby never had a major 3D outing before now. The Kirby game on the Nintendo 64 was one of the few non-3D games on the system. Subsequent console outings until now have restricted themselves to the second dimension as well. Technically there was are some 3D spinoffs (GameCube racer Kirby Air Ride and Kirby's Blowout Blast on Nintendo 3DS come to mind) , but these don't have the same weight as a full-fat, mainline platformer entry.

But we finally got a full 3D Kirby game on Nintendo's wildly popular Nintendo Switch hybrid system this March! How does it hold up?

In most respects, quite well! Kirby and the Forgotten Land is possessed of a charm and polish that one would normally associate with Nintendo's own internally developed games. HAL Laboratory has absolutely mastered the task of transitioning the eponymous pink puff into three-dimensional space quite well. There's a fluidity to the experience that's more than a little reminiscent of Nintendo's own italian plumber.

Forgotten Land begins with an almost absurdly beautiful cutscene as a vortex opens in the skies above Dream Land and sucks in Kirby along with the local population of Waddle Dees, spitting them out across the post-apocalyptic ruins of an alternate world. With the help of a mysterious creature known as Elfilin, a small group of Waddle Dees form a settlement, and Kirby is tasked with setting off to rescue the missing ones from the Beast Pack, a mysterious group of superpowered baddies who have kidnapped them. Who, or what, is Elfilin, really? What are the intentions of the Beast Pack? Why is this world so utterly destroyed in the first place?

Kirby has always been a series that de-emphasizes storytelling in favor of a focus on gameplay and its own (weirdly dark) lore, and Forgotten Land is no exception to this. While there are the rudiments of a (genuinely fascinating) story here, little time is wasted on establishing character motivations or fleshing out the nature of this world... explicitly, at least. Reading between the lines, there's a lot to unpack this title, with environmental details and the descriptions for collectible action figures you can find throughout the game. Yes, we are indeed in Dark Soulsian "The plot is in the item descriptions!" territory here. Also worth mentioning that an impressive amount of attention was put into this aspect of the game: there's actually a fictional language in this new world that adorns buildings and signs throughout the ruins of a once-thriving civilization, and fans of the series are already piecing together signs and texts they're coming across. Interestingly, the game's theme song is sung with vocals derived from this language.

When Forgotten Land was first revealed, the footage seemed to be hinting at something more open-ended. Such speculation was quickly dashed once subsequent trailers revealed the game's level-based design, however. The biggest (and only major) disappointment of mine concerning this Kirby game was when I learned how restricted in scope it really was. This is definitely technically a 3D game, but the linear level design, lack of camera control, and smaller environments make it feel very much like a continuation of the design principles of Kirby's previous 2D adventures. This is basically the Kirby equivalent of Super Mario 3D World, except with even less exploration and more tightly-designed levels.

Each level, while, again, exceedingly linear, is also stuffed with secrets and hidden Waddle Dees to find. Progression across Forgotten Land is determined by how many Waddle Dees you've saved leading up to a world's boss. Certain Waddle Dees are obtained just as part of completing a level. Others are optional, but usually hidden in plain view. Others require a significant amount of messing around to find. There will also be optional objectives in each level that award you with even more Waddle Dees. These can be anything from finding and ripping down wanted posters of Kirby posted throughout the levels to gaining access to environmental terrain that's somewhat off the beaten path. These optional objectives provide the game's levels with a significant amount of replayability, and it's not very often you'll complete every single objective in one run. Especially since the descriptions for certain objectives are hidden until the player completes a level for the first time.

Every Waddle Dee you rescue goes back to Waddle Dee Town, and Kirby will gain access to new facilities and functions as the town grows over the course of the game. Despite the linear structure of the game, Kirby is able to return to Waddle Dee town from the world map at any time with a press of the button). The town houses many options that other games would relegate to a menu. The music player, for example, is actually a Waddle Dee band that stands on stage and plays the tune you request. To access the movie viewer, you actually have to enter a movie theater. Kirby has a house you'll want to return to frequently that provides free healing like an inn in a JRPG, and you'll get a cute little cutscene of the little guy sleeping (either with elfilin or Bandana Waddle Dee, depending on whether you're playing single-player or not) in a bed. There's also eventually a gachapon machine you'll be able to pump your star coins into to fill out your collection of figurines (you'll probably be able to get double the hours out of this game if you go full completionist with it, but without trophies, I just stopped playing when I felt like I'd exhausted the substantive content available to me). as well as fun mini-games via a food stand Kirby can work at for more star coins and a gyroscopically-controlled marble minigame where you'll roll a Kirby-shaped ball around a board filled with increasingly dangerous challenges. Eating food will recover Kirby's health (which you can do at home for free), but, usefully, you'll also be able to buy a to-go order to take with you if, say, you happen to need healing in a particularly tough boss encounter. That can even be done in the arena, by the way, a staple of the game's endgame challenge suite which challenges the player with sets of increasingly challenging boss rushes. This sounds fairly optional, but the game actually hides certain bosses within these arena challenges that players will want to confront.

There is one more function in the town, though, and it's arguably one of the most one in the entire game.

Forgotten Land has retained one of the signature aspects of the gameplay that have defined Kirby games since Kirby's Adventure first released on the NES, and that's the gigantic plethora of copy abilities available to him. When Kirby inhales an enemy with a particular attack skill, he can copy that skill and re-fashion it for his own purposes. Almost all of these skills are fun to use, with some being more useful than others. Usefully, in a first for the series, Kirby can actually upgrade these abilities at a weapon shop in Waddle Dee town with blueprints he finds hidden in various levels. These upgrades go beyond increasing the damage dealt, as the outfits donned with the upgraded copy abilities and usually different and can sometimes even function differently to account for their increased usefulness. As just one example, the bomb ability, when upgraded a few times eventually gains the ability to both track the enemy down and explode in a chain, affecting everything in the area. If the player is so inclined, once the upgrade path is finished, they can power up these abilities even further if they have the extra rare stones for it.

Rare Stones are the resource the player will use for all ability upgrades (along with blueprints, which are needed to unlock these upgrades), whether it's turning them into more powerful abilities or just buffing their damage once the upgrade path is maxed out. A few secrets in town and endgame challenges will award rare stones, but, throughout the game, you'll unlock access to them whenever you upgrade your abilities, which give you access to a gigantic array of challenge levels where you'll need to make use of your new abilities to complete different timed objectives. At the end of each of these challenge levels, you'll find a rare stone. These challenge levels were a great idea, since they simultaneously function as a sort of tutorial area for the player to test our their new abilities, and are also different enough from the main levels to provide a welcome distraction when they crop up. Each challenge level can easily be completed in the time limit. They also have sub-goals which task you with completing each challenge level much more quickly, forcing the player to master them. This theoretically adds replay value to these levels as well, but the game unwisely chooses to only reward the player with a handful of star coins for achieving these optional objectives, which makes them, frankly, not worth the trouble of pursuing. Again, trophies could have helped provide some incentive here, but Nintendo doesn't believe in trophy systems, for whatever reason.

I didn't mention them until now, but surely anyone who has paid any attention this title will be aware of the rather unique class of copy abilities unique to this game. Throughout the game, in Kirby will find and inhale particularly large and/or strangely shaped objects such as cars, traffic cones, giant light bulbs, vending machines, and so on. These absurd "Mouthful Mode" transformations often give Kirby something of a ghoulish appearance (particularly Light-Bulb Mouth Kirby, which approaches nightmare fuel territory for me), but they're needed to progress the levels, usually wildly change up how Kirby plays, and often even have combat functionalities (Vending Mouth Kirby, for example, can hilariously pelt enemies with cans of soda, although these are a finite resource; Water-Balloon Mouth Kirby sees Kirby inflating himself to absurd proportions with water so that he can waddle around spraying enemies away with a stream of water he spits out; and so on). These transformations aren't as omnipresent as Mario's cap possessions in Super Mario Odyssey, but they do add more variety to how players will progress through levels.

To complement the focus on copy abilities and tight (and sometimes visually spectacular) combat, Forgotten Land features some of the best boss fights in the pink puff's long history. Most of the main game encounters can be actually beaten without too much issue, of course, but one begins to appreciate the care put into their movement patterns when. for example, fighting them without taking damage, which is an optional objective in all of the main boss stages. The downright horrifying final boss of the main story campaign is surprisingly tough, though, and the difficulty only goes up as players take on the remixed story bosses in the course of clearing this title's post-game world. I mentioned special arena battle boss rushes before, and, for the true masochists out there, Forgotten Land's final cup, "Ultimate Cup Z," culminates with the title's final and ultimate combat challenge, a hidden boss so brutal that it took me a few tries to beat it.

This combat challenge curve, by the way, is pretty standard for modern Kirby games. The majority of the game is accessible to people of all skill levels, but optional content will test the reflexes and determination of completionists and gamers looking for a greater set of obstacles to overcome.

All of this can be made easier, if you like, by having a second player join in as Bandana Waddle Dee. Aside from challenge levels, this second player can join you through virtually the entire game. The implementation of co-op is a little on the slapdash side, though, as full control of how the level progresses is given to the player controlling Kirby. Combined with the tight camera angles, this often means the second player will be dragged along wherever Kirby goes, sometimes even to their detriment (if Kirby falls off into a pit, guess where Bandana Waddle Dee is going!). Whenever Bandana Waddle Dee dies, he's able to be revived after a small buffer period, which makes him a great option if you want to play with someone who is perhaps less skilled at platformers. But the game is clearly single-player oriented, and I imagine some players could become frustrated with feeling like a less than equal partner on Kirby's adventure if playing as the co-op partner. My first run through this game was done with my nephew, and we minimized the effect of this by trading off who played as Kirby each level. It's something to keep in mind, though, especially if you're playing with someone of a similar skill level to you. Co-op is there, and it's reasonably fun, but the game was clearly oriented around following one player on-screen at a time.

Presentation-wise, Forgotten Land mostly excels. While it's a shame the game only runs at 30fps, the developers do make use of the headroom this provides to give us some of the most visually spectacular effects I've seen in a Nintendo game to date. Some of the fully upgraded copy abilities fill the screen with particles and visual effects that would cause most other games on the system to choke. Image clarity also benefits: The game tends to hang around between 900 - 1080p in docked mode, and usually hits a native 720p when undocked, making it a particularly attractive portable title.

More important is the sound, though, and Forgotten Land thankfully features a surprisingly good soundtrack. Probably the best in the entire series to date.

You, of course, get your usual chipper Kirby tracks:

But a lot of tracks in this game surprise. Take this amazing, and very 'Westerny' level theme, for example:

The game also features some stand-out boss fight themes. Really fantastic stuff:

While I don't think this track is a particular stand-out, I did want to link it just because I love the hilarious song name:

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is, in some regards, a safe sequel, but also an exquisitely executed one. The developers at HAL Laboratory really nailed the challenge of transitioning the broad movesets of the iconic pink puff into three dimensions, and even managed to improve combat to such a degree that it stands out among its other 3D platformer peers (particularly for the challenging and intricate boss fights littered throughout). While the level design is a little more linear than I'd like, it's also rich with secrets and optional objectives. Kirby is still in need of his Mario 64 moment where he's allowed to fully embrace the potential of his 3D freedom, but, all things considered, his first major 3D adventure is still a delight, and one I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys the genre.

8.5/10

@Ralizah
Time to Completition: 15+ Hours
Time to Read Review: 5+ Hours

I honestly didn't read the review because I don't have a Switch, but from the looks of it I'm sure it was actually a really good review. I guess I still couldn't resist though.

@RogerRoger Thanks!

Kirby has been on something on an uptick in the last several years. Arguably three of his five best games have released since 2014, and they all forego weird experimentation in favor of crafting really strong, traditional platformer adventures. That's balanced out by the utterly mediocre Star Allies in 2018, of course, and a return to experiments with Kirby and the Rainbow Curse in 2015 on the Wii U (a game that utilizes an exquisite HD claymation look, and then ruins it by forcing you to stare at the sub-HD GamePad screen the entire time because you have to use a stylus to control it).

The Kirby fanbase, while VERY positive about this game overall, have been a bit split on the direction of the series. Some of us, while we've loved the game, wanted it to really evolve in the same way that other Nintendo-associated properties have. Others are tired of open worlds, sandboxes, and a fixation on exploration and just sort of wanted a traditional 2D-esque Kirby adventure in 3D with modern production values, and that's essentially what they got.

If the developers want to take it slow, that's fine.

Yeah, the game is 95% unbearably adorable and 5% creepy as hell. Unfortunately, most of the creepy story stuff is spoiler territory, so I had to sate myself by dunking on the mouthful mode transformations (the car isn't too bad, but Light-Bulb Mouth Kirby looks like something out of a horror movie, which is particularly funny since you make use of that transformation in a carnival haunted house where things pop out of the dark at you!). I really dug how the sleeping animation changes depending on whether you're playing alone or not. Every aspect of the game feels polished and considered in the same way as Nintendo's first-party stuff.

No you're right, I edited it and docked it a half-point later in the day. It was something I was waffling on. Ultimately, I decided I made it a half-point higher than I should have out of a sense of personal bias. A slight 'Nintendo bump' that shouldn't be there. I actually went through the same process with SMT V as well.

Thanks for reading!

@KilloWertz This wasn't even one of my longer pieces.

No interest in Nintendo, or just haven't gotten around to buying one yet?

@Ralizah The only Nintendo system I've ever owned was the NES, so I guess it'd be no interest in Nintendo. I had considered it lately as I wouldn't mind trying some of their games like Breath of the Wild and several of the JRPGs, but at the same time I don't really have time when I already own a PS5 and a Series X. It's already hard balancing those two at times.

@KilloWertz I get it. Honestly, I have such a long backlog and list of new games I want to get to that it feels like I don't have time for the platforms I own as is.

I've tried to keep at least one toe in all of the ecosystems until now, but it increasingly feels like I need to pick my favorite one and just go all in.

It's been particularly hairy this last decade, between 3DS, Wii U, Switch, PS Vita, PS4, and a PC. There was a period of time where I was actively playing games on all of those systems, and the sense of choice was actually paralyzing.

@Ralizah I really wanted to just go with one platform this generation given how much of a mess I ended up making last generation even though I went into it PS4-only and came out with both the PS4 Pro and an Xbox One X. I ended up buying several games on both platforms because I was playing on one or the other at the time. Dumb, sure, but I thought of whichever one I was playing on as being my main platform and wanted to play said game on that.

Luckily I've managed to not be as bad this time around even though I have flip flopped on occasion already. I still try to maintain the PS5 as my main platform as planned even though Game Pass does provide a nice value and Xbox should finally start having a flood of good exclusives sooner or later after all of their acquisitions start paying off later this year and beyond.

So, again I'd love it if I would just have one system and just play everything there on my PS5, but acquisitions make it hard. If I started to get into the Nintendo ecosystem as well and starting playing Xenoblade Chronicles, Breath of the Wild, Fire Emblem, etc.... oy vey...

@RogerRoger Nah. There have been some long gaps between home console entries, but that was when the mainline entries shifted toward handhelds. Between that and the spinoffs, occasional remakes, etc. Kirby makes an appearance every couple of years.

Hard to say. It's possible the developers just have no interest in more ambitious sandbox/open world-style titles like Mario and The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon have enjoyed recently and will want to create new adventures in this sort of highly-controlled 3D environment for a while, and explore the possibilities there. I'm not too miffed either way, as Hal Laboratory continues to put out some of the very best traditional platformers on Nintendo systems (with the occasional stinker thrown in for good measure). I do want the series to go beyond its own self-imposed limits, but having to be satisfied with great games that release consistently instead of modern classics that release once a generation isn't the most bitter pill I've ever had to swallow.

The score is meaningless at the end of the day, and I'll obviously never fully erase bias from my perspective or reviews, but I do feel the need to be as honest as possible when I'm writing: both with my readers and, by extension, myself.

@KilloWertz It's probably easier to juggle Sony and Microsoft anyway, considering MS doesn't consistently release a lot of highly desirable exclusive games, so there's a lot of overlap between the two ecosystems to begin with. Nintendo kind of exists in its own bubble, and, as a result, a large chunk of a Nintendo console's library is unique to it. At least in terms of worthwhile releases. It's much less so with Switch than previous consoles, but they still put out a TON of games that can't be played anywhere else.

The Nintendo ecosystem is dense. Probably intimidatingly so for someone who hasn't dabbled in it since the NES.

@Ralizah True. Microsoft likely will starting next year finally since they bought so many studios, but still, you are right.

Yeah, I was even tempted to get a Switch last month when people were talking about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 after the release date was announced, but it would be too much of an undertaking to get into their ecosystem now.

@KilloWertz Eh, we'll see. Bethesda developers will probably be fine, but Microsoft has a long history of mismanaging studios and projects. Which is wild to me, because Microsoft was on fire during the 360 era.

I've had my ups and downs with the series as a whole, but I'm actually super excited for XC3. Game looks like it shouldn't even be running on a Switch, lol. Combine that with the enormous level design and apparent six party members on-screen with enemies during battles, and I have to wonder how hard this is gonna stress the system. XC2 didn't look nearly this good and that game sometimes couldn't even maintain 720p when docked.

I have been summoned.

How the bloody hell is everyone? And How are you @RogerRoger ?!

I remember Catalyst - I did enjoy it but actually had a bit of trouble with the billboards, some are very confusing! Thinking back on the game... I did find myself longing for faster movement, in general.

I have GhostRunner installed. Haven't loaded it up though. I have a quite a backlog to get through first.

I don’t mean to interject in anything, but I was reminded of my thoughts on Elden Ring in light of a recent article, primarily as I saw some criticizing the game but not really giving much of a reason. I too have issues with the game, but kinda feared what would happen if I brought any up at launch. Thusly, I’d like to bring up my faults with the game now and attempt to explain myself thoroughly. I wouldn’t call this an actual review, as there’s clearly a focus on the issues that I experienced and haven’t seen anyone else so much as mention, and I just really wanted to put my view out there, just in case anyone feels the same way. Apologies in advance if this has caused issues in the past or I’m retreading long walked ground, so I don’t mind if is gets taken down or something, but here I go. (Also I don’t hate this game! Just wanna make sure that’s clear)

This is gonna be a long one…

I know it’s a bit late and that no one cares, but I’m gonna toss in my gripes now that it’s been a bit since launch and the hype has died down. To preface this all, I want to say that I’m a fairly large fan of the original Dark Souls. I beat it, loved it, and was in the middle of DS 2 when Elden Ring came out. I played Blood Borne a while back and enjoyed it, though I personally found myself to be better using a shield than a gun, and it didn’t help that I chose the Arcane starting stats, since no magic is given at the start. Still haven’t beaten that first big boss on the bridge, but I’ll get there. Just recently I got Sekiro, and have been thoroughly enjoying its linear but explorative and maneuverable gameplay. Now, Elden Ring here is a bit of a different story. Before I get into my many gripes, I’d like to praise it for its aesthetic, combat variety, cool bits and bobs that you can find just about anywhere if you poke around, and it’s lovingly crafted characters, story lines, and absolutely stellar dungeons and bossfights (Radahn made my jaw drop multiple times, it was a real treat). So, if you do love this game, I can 100% see why. By most any metrics, it’s dense with content and has only expanded upon the best bits of the Souls franchise, but for me, the issues arise when it comes to everything else.

Now, the issues. Where to begin. I suppose I’ll start with its main selling point: it’s an open world souls game. Now, on paper, this seems amazing; a giant world, filled to the brim with random bosses and strong enemies that you can face off with on grand open fields and mountains and whatnot. However, I couldn’t help but feel like the translation from linearity to open expanses wasn’t as cut and dry as one might think. There’s still leveling up in ER, just like in DS, but that becomes problematic when stronger foes are presented. For example, in DS 1 (assuming you don’t have the master key that unlocks all normal doors), your first major boss outside of the tutorial is the Taurus Demon. You make your way there, and even if you don’t grind and aren’t at speed runner levels of proficiency, you can take it down after enough tries. No biggie, it’s tough but not too tough, set to a level for you to fight when you reach it. Even if you have troubles with it, you either have to grind or get good, because that’s the only way foreword. That makes it so that each subsequent boss (outside of the big branch near the end) is at a level that should be tough. ER doesn’t have that luxury. Since it’s world is so big and expansive, with so many options and routes and things to do, it lacks the sort of urgency, or rather incentive, to make you overcome great challenges. You’re rarely put in a place where you can’t just give up on whatever fight you’re having trouble with, go off and do a billion other things or grind at one of multiple scarily efficient areas, and come back to stomp whatever was giving you trouble, even if you had forgotten about it. Now sure, it’s still a choice. You can choose to keep banging your under-leveled head against the bosses and overcome them… Or you can choose to go explore that other spot you have marked on your map instead. For example, you know that dragon right near the start of the game in the swamp? Like many others, I travelled there, found the dragon, screamed “That’s so cool!” As I dashed away for safety, knowing that I stood no chance. Fast forward a hundred or so hours, and I pass back through the area and encounter the dragon again, only to absolutely destroy it. Not gonna lie, it felt kinda cool, like I had grown, but it also wasn’t that fun of a fight since it’s health bar dropped faster than a Radahn Meteor. This holds true for many if not all of the optional bosses, outside of super high level ones that you’re unlikely to completely eclipse in strength. The main bosses that hold the shards are a bit different usually, since they can have their own gimmick that makes them tough regardless (Like Radahn’s arrows at the start of his fight, or having to hunt down the singing glowy people in the magic academy). In summary for this point, my biggest issue is that there’s linear styled bosses and enemies in an open styled game. Before I move onto my issues with combat, there’s a different aspect I must address about the open world set up.

The ER world is big… Sort of. For its massive cliffs, mountains, and even underground caverns, there’s still a weird, water-shaped issue around it. In fact, it’s around everything. In DS 1, there were a few areas with water, but not many. If you fell in, you died like it was any other ledge. Fair enough, it’s a linear game with specific paths, so water travel is certainly not needed, especially when you couldn’t even do a standing jump. This was even used in its favour in the Deep Root Basin, where you can fight a hydra, but have to dodge and counter its heads since it’s in the lake, and you can’t enter. Fast foreword to ER, and a huge portion of the map is just WATER. This would be fine if there was any sort of boats or sea-faring methods to allow you to traverse the aquatic expanse; maybe you could even tussle with some sea monsters that attack your ship, how cool would that be?! But, as it is now, it’s just an empty void that takes up a bunch of map space and gives nothing in return for its presence. Sure, there are islands, but you either have to get to them via caves or portals, so they might as well just be different buildings. There’s even an island right across from the beach near the start of the game that would take all of a minute to swim across, but our poor tarnished must be made of solid stone because even without armour, they can’t take a step into the depths. I almost forgot, the water actually does add something, but it isn’t for the better…

Linearity is the moto that the the other DS games live by but love to break. Twice in DS 1, the path of progression splits, giving you options on where to go next; A 50/50 split when you decide which bell to tackle first near the start, and 25/25/25/25 split later on when you choose which of four bosses you want to hunt down and defeat first to fourth. It’s pretty cool, though a bit easy to get lost. However, outside of those two times, the game follows a linear structure as mentioned before, something that ER clearly doesn’t want to do… right? See, another issue with the vast sea is that it turns to map from a potential square into a Ç, giving you options but not complete immediate freedom. Many areas require certain events to happen (like the meteor opening the hole to the underground city) or items to be gathered, like the Dectus lift pieces. Granted, you can bypass the Dectus lift via a cave system if you chose to explore that way, but you still need to be at least yey strong to get through it. Even sprinting past all of the brutal bird dudes, you’re stopped by a boss fight with a fiery Wyrm. So until you’re strong enough to beat that, you might as well give up on reaching the mountains. And by the time you either happen to find the pieces of the lift (good luck) or get strong enough to beat the Wyrm, you might’ve just forgotten about it entirely. Since there’s no other way to get to the mountain tops, this makes part of the exploration process linear, where it’s akin to the DS 50/50, which seems branching, but doesn’t quite constitute as such in an open world game. This Ç type structure is, technically, branching; you can choose to go east, south, or north west right out of the gate. Though if you’re just counting getting all the shards and beating the final boss as beating the game, you might as well make the map a normal C, as the southern area is completely optional. Now, this isn’t a big issue for me. I love optional stuff, and having a complete extra area to the south that’s there just for fun times and exploration sounds great. Buuut, say you don’t know that there’s no mandatory bosses down their despite its large appearance on the map, you might feel like you’ve wasted time and effort. Not me, per say, as I like the idea of exploring everywhere I can find and am actually allowed to reach, but having bosses that provide incentive to explore in each of the major areas EXCEPT THE SOUTH seems a bit odd. Take BOTW again for example, which has its four major dungeons in the four corners of the map, with the final boss smack dab in the centre. That’s enough about Cs and seas for now though, onward to the battle front!

Combat in ER improves a lot upon what was established in former titles: you have a plethora of spells, incantations, and even awesome new additions in the forms of Ashes and Ashes of War, which give much more options to those who use more melee focused combat primarily, but still lots of benefits to go around. So what’s so bad about it? Not much. If this were a normal souls game, I’d considering this one of the best bunches of combat expressiveness that I’ve ever seen, but it’s not. Still on the bit about it being an open world experience, that changes how I look at combat. See, in Zelda, many items have multiple uses; A boomerang can stun enemies, flip switches, and collect items. A Hookshot can do much of same, but can’t hit multiple targets, though it can allow the player to travel to new areas at designated grapple points and terrain like vine walls or wood. I bring up Zelda because I think of DS 1 as being very similar to Zelda in a lot of aspects. I won’t list them all off, but just look at Sen’s Fortress after playing a 3D Zelda game or two, you’ll see what I mean. Anyways, when transitioning into a true, open world in BOTW, much of the items of utility from the past were dropped or altered: Hookshots, instruments, flying drone bugs, iron boots and more, all gone. Things like the boomerang, magic rods, hammers, and bows have all become throwaway items that are not mandatory for completion. However, for all that it takes away, it had a handful of new abilities that have more uses than I can list, but I’ll try: Magnesis allows you to pick up and move metal objects. This allows you to open metal doors, lift grates, make bridges, collect underwater chests, steal items, smack enemies, hold metal objects near enemies in a thunderstorm to get them smited, break open metal crates by tossing them at each other, lift key items out of bogs for puzzles, make stairs, create chains of random items to complete electrical circuits, and more. Notice the mix of both combat and non-combat related uses, or in other words, utility. Now look to ER. Everything in the entire game only revolves around combat, and nothing else. There are some things like invisibility or mimicking items that help you AVOID combat, but that’s still related. Now, I know what everyone’s thinking: “Of course it’s all about combat, that’s always been what Souls games are about!” And yes, but not this time. This time there’s a big, open world to explore and mess around in, and yet it feels noticeably stagnant and unmoving, despite things like meteors literally changing the landscape. You have two modes of transportation, on foot or Torrent, and neither of you have any way to change how you move around the world beyond some random gusts of wind for getting up specific cliffs. There’s no spells that make you run faster, jump higher, teleport, or whatnot, unless it’s fixed to an animation for a combat focused attack. You and these attacks are ONLY used for fighting opponents, nothing more. You’re not going to soar across the fields on dragon or crucible knight wings, you won’t freeze water to make it walkable with an ice blast, and you wont melt snow with a fire ball. You can’t even cut down trees, but the enemies get too?! The closest thing to utility is some spells and such casting light, and there’s already spells that do that, but don’t do anything else. Now, there’s also a crafting system… Where you can make combat items. And spirits that you can summon to assist you in so many ways, like… Combat. You can even get the ring shards that give you special boosts, like maybe making you run faster, or be able to climb walls, or… Boost your combat capabilities. Yeah, the combat is great, that’s obvious, but when it so drastically over shadows everything else that I normally like to see in an open world game, it feels less like an open WORLD and more like an open arena.

My final point for the moment is an issue with a mix of combat and the exploration that whilst kinda cool, is also a bit demoralizing at times, and I’m talking about discoverable weapons, items, and spells. Each of these things have stat requirements, and most usually, a player will commit to a certain build or focus for what they want to increase. But, if they’re completely new to souls games, they probably won’t know the benefits of any thing, or what gets lock because of their choice. Let’s say a new player knows that intelligence makes magic stronger, and they plan to be a mage. They’re playing through, all is well, until they run into a dragon. Awesome! They’ve always wanted to fight a dragon! Thusly, they fight, and through many hard fought attempts, they fell the beast and get its heart. “Woah, I can use this at the dragon church to get stuff? This is awesome!” So they manage to find the dragon church, go to the statue and see all of the awesome dragon spells that they can get with their hard fought dragon heart. Except wait, they’re not spells, they’re incantations, and this guy has absolutely zilch put into his faith stat. Well damn. That was pointless, and now he’s got no reason to fight another dragon again, because he won’t be able to use its stuff even if he does kill it. Tough luck, kid. Better luck next time. It’s this sort of hard work that leads to something that might not even help that can put a bit of a damper on the thrill of exploration. You may get something cool, sure, but who knows if it’s even going to be useable? The enemy you’re struggling with looks like it’s using something completely different from what you do, so it’s probably worthless anyways. This is at its worse when one of the main shard bearers has stuff that you can’t use, so you beat them and end up with less runes than you would have gotten if you had grinded instead for that same amount of time. Now sure, you could just remember for your next play though, but personally, I believe that a single play through should be fun enough to warrant a second, not the other way around. Compare that to BOTW, where eeeeeverying is useable, no stats required.

Now that’s all, unless I remember more later. Thanks for listening to my insane ramblings if you did, and I wish you a good day. Now, in an optimal time line, Fromsoft would be able to iron these issue of mine right out by the next game like it, but maybe I’m just delusional. I still give this around an 8/10 for everything it does right, and I know it can do even better.

@Platinum-Bucket Fantastic post. A lot of the things you talk about (the flawed design of ER's open world, the inability to use most of the weapons you find without respec'ing, the laser focus on combat and lack of environmental interactivity in general) are a big part of why I don't consider it to be a BotW-tier open world experience, despite the strong combat fundamentals and sprawling dungeon design.

But I still liked it. It's the only FS game I've really enjoyed to date. So even if I don't think it's the masterpiece a lot of FS fans think it is, I'm still glad they opted for a new approach to their action game design.

@RogerRoger I'd say Forgotten Land absolutely plays it safe, but that the developers also put a TON of effort and consideration into it. What it lacks in ambition it makes up in raw charm, polish, and fun.

I used to assume all, or almost all, licensed games were low-effort garbage, but you've definitely helped me to be less automatically dismissive of even some of the older ones. I appreciate the amount of passion with which you talk about them.