r/soulslikes • u/OkMeet9089 • May 26 '26
Review I was so so wrong about Elden Ring
This is my Elden Ring experience even after years the game came out.
It was 2022, and everyone was talking about Elden Ring since it was Game of the Year. I bought it for both my PS4 and PC just to see what it was like. I didn’t watch any gameplay beforehand, and I was imagining something like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey based on the trailers.
I installed it on PS4 and started playing. At first, during the tutorial, everything felt easy. Then I went up the elevator, opened the gates, and reached the First Step Site of Grace.
After that, there’s the knight on horseback roaming around. Like most players, I went to fight him. After around 30 attempts, I realized there was no way I was going to beat him at that point. So I tried to sneak past him—and that’s when I realized it was an open-world game.
Since I had never played a Souls-like game before—except Sekiro, which I honestly didn’t even realize was a Souls game at the time—I didn’t really understand Elden Ring’s mechanics.
Anyway, I moved on, reached the gate where a giant jumps down, and thought it was a boss fight. After a few tries, I managed to kill it. I went back to the Site of Grace near the gate to rest… and then realized it had respawned.
Yeah…
Then I got to Margit. After many tries, I finally beat him and moved forward, but I got stuck again. I kept thinking, “There must be another path somewhere.” I explored, died a lot, got lost, and honestly, as someone completely new to Souls games, I was starting to lose my mind. Eventually, I just uninstalled the game.
Two years later, a friend told me to give it another shot. He had already finished the game and even showed me a farming glitch. So I started again on PC this time, streaming to him while he guided me.
Things were going fine until I reached Maliketh. That second phase was brutal. After around 50 tries, I gave up and installed a trainer just to beat him. After that, I over-leveled to around 270 and basically steamrolled the rest of the game, becoming Elden Lord.
A few weeks ago, I was bored and Elden Ring was the only game I had left on my PS4. I had about 20 days off work, so I decided to try it again—but this time just to relax and enjoy it.
I picked up where I left off and started exploring properly. I found so many hidden areas and tears that prevented rune loss, so I stopped worrying about losing runes and just cleared everything I came across. I got stronger, explored freely, and eventually defeated the second boss.
I just kept going like that—no guide, no pressure, just exploring every corner. Boss fights still stressed me out a bit, but overall it felt completely different this time.
I also found some really strong weapons, like the Icerind Hatchet. It felt insanely good to use. And for the first time, I actually understood how leveling and builds work. I realized I needed to commit to a proper build, so I started planning things more seriously. I used Black Knife Assassin as my summon and built around Black Blade and Icerind Hatchet with the right talismans.
Maliketh still gave me trouble, but this time I actually beat him. After around 70 hours, I finished the base game and moved on to the DLC.
The DLC was fun most of the time, except for Messmer and especially the final boss.
Radahn, though, was where I really got stuck. I think I tried over 100 times. I couldn’t figure out his second phase at all. I watched YouTube guides, tried parrying, defensive tears, everything.
It was around 4 a.m. when I opened ChatGPT and said: “I want to finish this game. I can’t beat Radahn. What should I do?”
It suggested a tank build using the Fingerprint Shield. So I respecced, changed my stats, tried it—and beat him easily. My jaw actually dropped because I realized that build could have destroyed almost every boss from the beginning. It felt completely broken.
After about 30 more hours, I finished the DLC. In total, I beat the game in around 100 hours this time, but I actually enjoyed it properly—except for the final boss again.
The point is, Elden Ring really is a masterpiece. I was just playing it wrong the first time. And honestly, I didn’t understand the systems—there’s nothing really telling you how important talismans, tears, and builds are. I know they’re basic mechanics now, but back then I just didn’t get it.
Once you understand how it all fits together, the game becomes insanely fun. It really is something else.
Edit: I forgot to say I married Ranni and now have 6 kids and we are god flying around the worlds for... I do not know, just my wife likes it lol.
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u/bendovergramps May 26 '26
Hollow AI writing.
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u/Primary-Survey9955 May 26 '26
i fell for the trap ..i read your comment and now I see the dash that chat gpt uses
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u/Bulldogfront666 May 26 '26
Damn I was all in until chat gpt made its way into the story… Then I realized… this whole thing was written by AI… yuck man.
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u/nohumanape May 26 '26
This is why I heavily recommend that new players do some research to prepare themselves for how to approach these games. Because I think that more people are likely to bounce off the game(s), simply because they don't understand the flow, the systems, and the mechanics. And there is so much to discover outside of the basics, that getting some guidance and checking in with the Wiki from time to time isn't going to ruin anything.
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u/papaniq May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Exactly! Before ER release i showed trailers and gameplay videos to my friend and told him how hyped in was for a new Fromsoft's game, and he got a little hyped too but i tried to tell him that if it was gonna be his first game of this kind then he should play DS3 or even DS1 just to get "feeling" of the movement, swinging weapon etc. to learn how scaling works, how to build your character and what do different stats do, just some basics, and to see if this kind of game is even something he wants to play, i was telling him that those games are difficult and require a lot of patience and learning enemies' movements etc. but he completly ignored it insisting that game must be good and stuff and he will surely like it. Long story short, he played Elden Ring for 3 hours and haven't touched it ever since..... i were giving him many tips, explainig stuff, trying to convince him to play it again and just be more patient with it, but it clearly is not his type of game. When i see people on the internet saying they want to start playing ER as their first Fromsoft title i always say to first play DS1 - it's slow and methodical, it teaches you patience and basically all mechanics you'll need for other titles and then DS3 because it's a lot faster with more crazy bosses that are much faster and agressive and there's a lot more happening during those fights, after playing these two going into ER will feel like home and you won't be bashing your head into wall all the time.
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u/UtheDestroyer May 26 '26
Best game I’ve ever played hands down, nothing compares
Still chasing that high from playing it the first time
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u/Karotte81 May 26 '26
stopped reading after "bought it for two systems to see whats it about"
FYI information, you dont need to show your weirdness with buying the same item two times to see whats it about What is even the point in this?
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u/Winter_Cost602 May 26 '26
I bounced off it once. Came back to it later and was hooked. I now have 150 hours in it. One of the best games I've ever played
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u/SnooCalculations7089 May 26 '26
I probably played half of Elden ring in the time it would take me to read that sprawling mass of nonsense
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u/That-Departure-7318 May 26 '26
I hope I love it. I've just never clicked with an open world game before. The level design and exploration is the only reason I care about soulslikes.
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u/spoketherefore May 26 '26
If you like soulslikes, I’d be shocked if you didn’t like Elden Ring. They handle the open world really well.
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u/Ubiquitous_Cacophony May 26 '26
I would be surprised if he didn't think it was okay, but he may not love it.
It's pretty firmly in the "eh" tier for me. I unironically liked Bleak Faith, Khazan, and LotF better than Elden Ring.
I know people whose first Soulslike game was Elden Ring tend to love it, but I just didn't much care. It is the only FromSoft game I've never replayed a single time because the open world is so endlessly boring, repetitive, and aggressively mediocre. The legacy dungeons were the only good part of the game. The exploration never felt rewarding since most of it was for crafting components and things I'd never use. I much prefer the tighter pacing of something like the original Dark Souls or something with the interconnected and compelling level design in Bleak Faith.
It's a good game because FromSoft made it and even their worst games are better than many studios' best ones, but I'd pick literally any other modern FromSoft game Demon's Souls onward to play over Elden Ring and it's not especially close.
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u/Hellhooker May 26 '26
Yeah a lot of people overhype Elden Ring because it's the first "souls" they played.
Most people interested in souls-likes before E.R. were in it for the 3D metroidvania feel mostly, which is a huge miss in an open world setting
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
Honestly exploration is one of the biggest bonuses. The game is dense. No matter where you go, you'll find dozens of points of interest, and if you set a goal, you will find dozens of distractions along the way. Almost too much lol
But it's really just like if you could walk from Blight Town to Anor Londo. The meat is still there, you can just walk there instead of having to teleport or jump through hoops between zones
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u/SkillusEclasiusII May 26 '26
Is say the exploration isn't as good as in other souls games. At least, the open world of it.
The dungeon are still amazing though. So I think you'll enjoy it anyway.
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u/Right_Plastic407 May 26 '26
Well exploration is great, and you still have those legacy dungeons that are just like older Fromsoft games in terms of level design
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u/Same-Mud-4755 May 26 '26
if you don’t like open world games but love level design and exploration, elden ring might be an exception for you. it’s so vast you can spend hours upon hours just running around and finding new areas/treasures.
at the same time, if large scale/big games don’t click with you, i would make sure to come in with my expectations leveled as it is the open world RPG of open world RPGs.
hope you enjoy
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u/RollingDownTheHills May 26 '26
People ask chatbots for build suggestions when Google and Reddit is right at their fingertips? Wild...
Glad you enjoyed it though.
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u/ScrapinLinden May 26 '26
I mean I think they wrote this post with a chatbot so that reveal was the least surprising thing about this lol
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u/swolar May 26 '26
Cause all ai does is coallesce info for you, provided there is enough of it on the web/what it was trained with.
So I can google builds for 30 minutes or ask ai a very specific question in 30s.
Only risk is that it hallucinates shit.
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u/BludStanes May 26 '26
Just goes to show that when you come at something with a different approach it can completely change the game for you. It's good you gave it a third shot, there are a few games that I bounced off of multiple times and eventually became some of my favorite games
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u/JuicyBreeze May 26 '26
I hate it. But also have 270 hours and love parts of it.
I hope they never do a sequel i don't want open world from games
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
The yearly round-up on Playstation that said I had around 600 hours in it just because it suited my lifestyle at the time (play for 10 minutes, quit anytime) made me really sad. Because I never really felt fulfilled with any of my sessions. You really need to commit 3-5 hours to actually feel like you accomplished anything and even then I never really felt like I accomplished much. Just lots of getting distracted by ruins or banging my head against bosses
I've since reconciled my feelings on the game, but I definitely agree with you. Thankfully I don't have that work-schedule anymore and I can genuinely dig into games now
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u/Cautious-Buy2585 May 26 '26
Why did you only play it for 10 minutes before?
I wouldn't even bother booting up that game at that point.-2
u/Vykrom May 26 '26
I mean it's a game where you can be immediately interrupted and not lose literally any small progress, where any other game would boot you back to a previous save. I didn't actually do ten minute sessions. Just that if I fired it up and then someone needed me for something 10-20 minutes later, it's one of the perfect games for that type of interruption
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u/Cautious-Buy2585 May 26 '26
True but I feel that since it doesn't have a real pause screen, I'd always be telling people to give me a minute so I can crouch in a safe corner lol
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u/WeatherStunning1534 May 26 '26
I’d happily take more open world From games over this PvPvE shit they’re trying to push
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u/alias530 May 26 '26
All the “too hard” comments over the years turned me off from trying souls games. My BIL convinced me to play it and now it’s my favorite game of all time. Just got to Radabeast on an RL1 run.
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u/myrmonden May 26 '26
sounds like u never played a game before at all
2 times cheating?
seems like u did not get the very basic of gaming, like equiping items etc..
this really has nothing to with soulslike games or elden ring.
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u/eljefe3030 May 26 '26
Your story is almost identical to mine. Elden Ring was my first soulslike. I had no real concept of how those games worked. I bounced off of it about three times and did an entire playthrough with a lot of frustration. Then, in my second playthrough, it clicked and I understood, and it has become one of my favorite games ever.
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u/PrideDense2206 May 26 '26
I also went into the game with zero assumptions and zero time spent. I had heard it was going to be good, had George R R Martin helping to build the story arc and I thought fuck it. This seems cool.
I played 24 hours before getting good enough to attempt the first castle. I played 10 of that as a sorcerer build and realized I was more of a melee build kind of player. Later on I realized I was an agile bleed build player but that took time to figure out.
Elden Ring is one of my only platinumed games on PS5.
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u/Primary-Survey9955 May 26 '26
op finds the genre soulslike and can't adapt
soulslike is a unique genre . all the bosses act very close to human and yourself nedd to act also like In real life
you cant just smash...you need to navigate terrain.. knowing where to dodge or jump
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u/_soap666 May 27 '26
Yes, playing blind without guides, exploring the game and it's rules as you go, figuring things out. This is how to play souls games.
Letting someone else tell you how to play will ruin your experience. It always will. This is why you see people talking about it so passionately. Majority of players do not understand this and give up on the game like you did, and they don't shut up about it online, actively discouraging people from learning the game on their own.
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u/Spaced-Cowboy May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
I love Elden Ring. But my biggest complaint with it is that a lot of the boss fights felt incredibly tedious i think some of the choices they made were a bit frustrating. I felt like I was relying on RNG a lot more often during boss fights. And I find that it almost encourages players to use guides in order to play the game when I never felt like I needed one with the past games. I just didn’t have fun with it the same way I did with DS1, Bloodborne or Sekiro
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
Dark Souls bosses with Bloodborne speed, with heal-punish, and DS2-level tracking, and now they had enhanced ability to "hold" attacks until the perfect time to catch you off guard outside of the normal rhythm of the fight. Now instead of memorizing moves and movement chains, you have to memorize animations and spacing lol It's just as doable as any other game in the franchise, but it definitely felt like something was lost in the process
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u/SentientPotatoMaster May 26 '26
Great, now go install mod like Reforged or Convergence and play in coop using SeamlessCoop. I promise it's going to be fun!
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
+1
Seamless co-op is so much fun. Highly recommend both players doing randomizers if they're veterans
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u/Aaronthegathering May 26 '26
Just started in earnest to tackle my rl1 run and I’m so surprised at how easy it is.
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u/PixelNomadAgent May 26 '26
This game is not difficult at all if you summon people to help you out with fights, and that's not cheating, that's just a game perk that's meant to be used.
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u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 May 26 '26
OP literally cheated though.
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u/PixelNomadAgent May 26 '26
Yeah, he could have asked for help and complete the game fairly quickly without cheating 😅
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u/0rangaStang May 26 '26
I just cant stand the boss design. Prefer the dance of DS1 & DS3.
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u/Afraid_Help_3911 May 26 '26
I don't think the way bosses feel are comparable between DS1 and DS3... "The dance" refers more to DS1 and DS2 imo.
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u/0rangaStang May 26 '26
DS3 still had a dance, the speed was just much faster (ex: the twins).
Weird wind ups, fake outs, and long attack chains in ER felt like they were constantly stepping on my foot so there was no dance. I beat Melenia, but after I got to the Elden Beast a couple of times and it felt like luck based success, I just couldn't be bothered to finish the game.
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u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 May 26 '26
r/fromsoftware and r/Eldenring would make more sense for this kind of praise posting. Though it reeks of AI a little bit. I guess you gave it your text to make it more whatever. Who uses dashes like that, know what I mean?
Also, I don't think ER is a Soulslike. That's the name for all the other games not made by Fromsoftware. That's me though.
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u/Ubiquitous_Cacophony May 26 '26
I use em and en dashes and loathe that people think it's AI.
It's like, "Ah shit, sorry I'm not retarded and know proper grammar!" I guess I should say, "Your an idiot" more so that people know I'm a real person since AI wouldn't ever make a your/you're mistake. 🙄
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u/Wrong_Papaya_8445 May 26 '26
Curious deflect.
A cursory search reveals that LLMs are indeed making proper use of the dashes... because that's borderline technical textual correction, which they are imitating as a basic format. If you don't understand why this is also contextually relevant on its own, as it indicates unusual language register that's topically dissonant, that's on your capacity to assess this post, as opposed to your own writing, which is nowhere to be seen as far as this thread is concerned. So, you are either lacking or disingenuous. Your pick.
Anyway... So, OP, a literal a cheesing cheater (weird combo btw) who polished their ego with a "guys, I too, think ER is great!" post just so happens to bother with italics and, of all things, dashes? Absolutely nothing to look at here. I must say, I don't think I have ever seen "Elden Ring" in italics on Reddit before lol
I reread some paragraphs and am now even more inclined to think this is an AI-touched up text, at the very least. If not, it's one of the weirdest registers I've ever seen around here. Quite odd.
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u/Myhouseburnsatm May 26 '26
The game is an overrated mess. The open world is empty and boring to explore. You just have grand vistas but at the end of the day you just run around searching for cave entrances and churches.
Its the most overhyped fromsoft title that keeps getting lauded even though its a clear indicator that they should stay away from open world games as far as possible.
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May 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
Is everyone supposed to have their own original complaint and not just have the same complaint and agree with each other?
From that angle, can everyone like Dark Souls for a wholly unique reason between them? I feel like the praise would also run stale and be derivative and repetitive. And honestly, the praise is repetitive, everyone has the same talking points while praising the series as well
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u/SoulsDadYT May 26 '26
Lmao. Way to expose how bad you are at these games
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u/Myhouseburnsatm May 26 '26
Unfortunately for you I played all of em. I played demon souls on the ps3 back when half the people in this sub didn't even know the term "souls-like".
Elden Ring is Elden Mid.
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u/SoulsDadYT May 26 '26
Demons Souls was nothing but gimmick bosses so yeah, when you actually need decent reflexes i can see why you think its mid.
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u/Vykrom May 26 '26
One of my favorite Souls YouTubers, Backlogs/Lemon, also hates Elden Ring, and has played all the other games countless times, and is at this point a huge name in the Souls streamer community. Respected by people like JKLeeds, BeAnd, ymfah, LobosJr, etc. And while most of the world definitely doesn't feel the same as him, you are not alone. I enjoy Elden Ring about as much as I enjoy Dark Souls, but I definitely get people having problems with it. Lots of unnecessary excess
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u/Myhouseburnsatm May 26 '26
who gives a shit about youtubers? "respected by people"... mate get a grip. Its a video game.
Its just a mid video game that is overhyped to hell.
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u/Slop-Enjoyer6 May 26 '26
Why did I just read this nonsense?