Alex_The_Hedgehog said:
I will probably never understand why Elden Ring (and a lot of games like it) get that much praise from critics and players. It feels like the perfect video game, but for me it's just a flawed experience with slow controls and high difficulty. Now that DLCs are allowed, yeah, it will get the GOTY again this year. I doubt it won't. I want to be wrong, though. |
Games with freedom and vast amounts of content are usually very well received, because they provide a lot to the player.
Assassin's Creed and Bethesda games even when starting being more of the same formula, dated and filled with bugs were still being heavily praised by both critics and players for a long time.
If that game is multiplatform it's also less prone to get absurd baseless hate because, well, mostly everyone can access it and there is little reason to make up reasons to pretend to hate it.
That being said, From Software reputation is pretty much pristine, ever since Demon's Souls they are on a roll of excellent games based on it's formula, the soulslike. I have not played Elden Ring yet but their reputation is very well deserved, IMO, their games do deserve it.
Actually, had they get proper controls sorted earlier that trend could have started way before the PS3, as they have been doing it since the PS1 days.
King's Field and Shadow Tower have being doing it since the 90s.
King's Field 4 being redone in their current engine could be massive, such a great game for it's time (very early PS2 days) but sadly trapped into such a bad gameplay state.
Elden Ring actually doesn't look very hard, as most From Software games are not really that hard, you just need to break the first game of its kind barrier and you start having a way easier time on them. Bloodborne is hard and Sekiro looks like is a "you'll need to click with it" which can be very hard, but the Souls games really are not. Defeated most bosses in Souls games in the first try, just need patience and observe the moveset. Some bosses are hard, yeah, but not most of them.
I find their games fun, creative and masterpieces in atmosphere and making the player discover the story/lore instead of presenting it for them, they always feel somewhat misterious, interesing and worthy of exploring.
Combat really is not top class in gaming, far from it, you can actually even cheese most games with magic and avoid the parry/block/roll combat cycle.
