Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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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.

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Mario Golf: Super Rush (Switch)

Gameplay:

• Standard Golf - The first of the main modes is this traditional take on the game. Play on any of the games 11 courses (up from the 6 the game launched with) with up to 4 players (human or CPU) with various other optional adjustments (intensity of wind speed, use of special shots, number of holes played, etc.). Easily the best part of the game IMO, as there's something chill about a generally normal round of golf with just enough arcade zaniness added in.
  
• Speed Golf - The highly advertised new mode for the game. Same course selection & adjustable rules as the former mode, however in this variant everyone tees off at the same time & you have to run to your ball after each shot, adding just a smidge of that trademark Mario platforming to the proceedings, with total shot count & time spent both contributing to your final score. Really didn't play it much (beyond what you have to in the story mode) as I think the idea kind of runs counter to the vibe of golf.
• Battle Golf - Another new mode (and one I haven't tried) which is essentially Speed Golf on steroids. Playable on two different arena themed courses (which aren't playable elsewhere), it seems to have the same general rules as Speed Golf, however you can go after any hole on the course at any time, with a hole being removed from play once someone completes it, so the name of the game is to complete more holes than your competitors.
• Target Golf - A game play mode where you have to aim for the highest score by aiming for one of three different targets (you change teeing position after each round, and there are sometimes things to mix things up, like special balls or a 4th bonus target). It has Regular, Forest, & Volcano layouts (each being more difficult than the last). It seems to have been added in an update sometime after launch.
  
• Golf Adventure - Probably the most substantial mode in the game, where you take your Mii on a journey from Rookie to Pro. Your adventure takes you through the six courses included at launch (each one has a cozy little hub world), where you can level up your Mii RPG style by completing rounds of golf (usually some variant of the "Speed" variety. Even the "Cross Country" golf that appears in one area never to be seen again which reviewers were confused by is clearly just training for "Battle Golf"), or by taking on optional target challenges in each area's training grounds (which could be quite brutal, IMO). There are even a few boss battles on display, which I actually quite enjoyed when they popped up. Kinda mixed on this one though, as I wasn't a huge fan of Speed Golf, which is what is mostly featured (I thought I was going to get a break in Wildweather Woods when one of the Toads said they don't play Speed Golf there due to it being so wet, but after the 3 hole practice round it was all Speed Golf anyway...).
  
  
  
  
• Otherwise there are a handful of Medals (achievements) to unlock (one for completing Golf Adventure, one for obtaining Birdie on every hole at least once, etc.), "Star" & "Super Star" club sets to unlock for each character by playing as them repeatedly (obtaining these is another Medal achievement), and of course most everything (aside from the story mode for obvious reasons) can be played online if you have NSO.

Audio/Visual:

• It's definitely a bit more of a B-grade game in this department (this ain't no Odyssey or MK8D), but still, it's clean cartoon styled graphics look generally nice. There is some texture pop in, but this is really only noticeable during wide panning overhead shots & I didn't really find it all that distracting.
• As I mentioned before there are 11 courses, two of which have "Amateur" & "Pro" variants, so arguably a total of 13 (plus the 2 Battle Golf arena courses, I guess), and these range from the relatively mundane (Beginner Course, Bonny Greens, Ridgerock Lake) to the Mario-rific (Bowser Highlands, New Donk City, All-Star Summit). My favorite has to be New Donk City as it's clear they just lifted it wholesale from Odyssey and puked a few greens all over the place (it clearly wasn't designed for golf, but that makes it all the more fun as it gets pretty creative with how you have to get the ball to it's destination, especially on it's "Pro" variant).
  
  
  
  
• Also, there are over 20 playable characters & while the generic baddies (Boo, Koopa Troopa, Chargin' Chuck, Ninji, etc.) don't get much of a glow up the series mains are dudded out in their finest golf attire, including Pauline (from the original Donkey Kong arcade game) after her reintroduction in Odyssey, which is pretty cute.
  
  

Conclusion:

• Again, it's a bit more of a B-grade offering, but I'm actually quite glad to have given it a shot. I wasn't a huge fan of Speed Golf, but the classic variant is still here & accounted for, and I enjoy that quite a bit.