Elden Ring: But is it me or is it… 'he'? – editorial
– Reviews News
“The fact that Elden Ring has 97 on Metacritic is proof that reviewers don't care about the GUI. My life is a lie. Thus we read in a post published on Twitter on March 3; Ahmed Salama, the former Battlefield 2042 developer and now Ubisoft's current UX director, wrote it. And believe it or not, this comment has crossed my mind at least once for every session of my Hidetaka Miyazaki game.
On February 18, Horizon Forbidden West was released, and only a week later Elden Ring: the transition between the two open worlds could not be more brutal and dramatic for those, like me, who have spent (and are spending) dozens of hours on both titles.
The first, as written several times during my review, is part of this trend of Ubisoft's open world which takes the player by the hand and guides them from the beginning to the end of the experience, so that the achievement (and therefore the fruition) of any content is only a matter of perseverance.
The second, on the other hand, collects Miyazaki's legacy and makes the lack of information its strong point. There aren't many other blockbusters with this setting on the market and the only vaguely accessible one I think is Destiny, where the plot is literally plucked from a game universe that only says the essentials , and which offers a lot of secret content (which then translates into exotic weapons or catalysts for them).
As proof, I add the excellent Lorenzo Domenis and Michele Poggi, alias Lorenzo Divus and Sabaku no Maiku, creators who have become famous for explaining to their audiences what the games themselves do not say. In other words, the cryptic lore that, without their valuable contribution, would be appreciated (and understood) in a minimal part. A phenomenon that does not occur in the “friendly” open worlds mentioned above.
However, this op-ed, written nearly 100 hours on Elden Ring, was born out of a doubt: Does a game so difficult make sense that most people can't even make it to the second boss? And be careful, I'm not talking about the difficulty but about the stubborn lack of information.
To find the key with which to open Raya Lucaria's academy, I had to consult our complete guide to Elden Ring, which the heroic Lorenzo has been updating and developing for weeks, with commendable commitment. This is not a detail, because finding this object or not is vital in the rest of the game.
The speech does not change, on the contrary it worsens, with the secondary missions: in the current state where I write I do not understand well where to find Nepheli who has just left the Table of Grace; I don't know where to find the eater to complete his quest; I don't know what stage I'm in on the Millicent quest and I can't remember if I've started the Fia mission yet. I know the quest only exists because I see it linked in our guide, but I may also have completely missed it.
I had to consult our guide to understand not how to beat but how to enter the location of this boss.
It's a very dated way of understanding the video games, which brings me back to the days of the Commodore 64 and the Amiga, when not finishing games was a common thing because often we didn't know what to do or where to go (and my English, as a child, was definitely lacking) . That it is a question of making a minimum of concession to modernity, it must also have been understood dear Miyazaki, since in a patch after the launch he added (his grace) at least the position of the NPCs on the map.
However, that's very little compared to what could be done (and if you wanted to make status icons more readable, no one would care). And the fact that an app like Shattered Ring has been released on iOS, to track users' progress through missions, is another wake-up call that a few more "quality of life" concessions could be made.
But the reverse is also true, as Lorenzo, now an accredited theoretician of the Elden Ring, once wrote: it is thanks to his cryptic being, to the rare information that the game gives, that an oral tradition and written was created. which, over the past six weeks, has caused a dramatic growth in buzz around Bandai Namco's bestseller. I myself hadn't called anyone since Returnal to discuss how to solve this mission, and that didn't happen with Assassin's Creed Valhalla or Horizon Forbidden West: that will mean something, right?
“The idea of riding towards the horizon without the help of any indicator, without being confronted with a golden and already tiled path to reach a predetermined destination, without the slightest idea of what hides at the bottom of a castle or beyond a simple lift, it has given back to the FromSoftware experience a flavor that very few works have been able to transmit over the years”.
Try to complete this lady's quest here without searching online how to do it and where to go...
Thus writes Lorenzo in the article Elden Ring has rekindled the flame of adventure, to add: the player of Elden Ring is like "an explorer who first sets foot in the confines of an ancient lost city, revealing the mysteries of ancient civilizations”. , […] like an archaeologist who for the first time crosses the threshold of an Egyptian pyramid”.
Elden Ring is a global success that has already sold 12 million copies, it will be said. Not only that: with 384 million active hours in tracked profiles and up to 952 concurrent players, on Stream it is the fifth video game in the history of the platform, as well as the first limited to analysis only solo titles.
Ergo the formula is a winner and as Lorenzo always remembers in another article entitled Why Elden Ring is so successful: a game design analysis, "Elden Ring does not end when you turn off the console but continues when you chat with friends, watch videos and follow each other live.
However, despite having subscribed to the analyzes of Lorenzo and other illustrious colleagues of mine, despite having played almost 100 hours of play and having turned on the console as soon as I have two minutes free to continue the adventure, I don't feel like genuflecting in front of Myazaki's last effort. Which is a nice game, probably this year's GOTY (still eight months to go), but could have been done better in some situations.
Elden Ring has revived the "oral tradition" of video games in a way that hadn't happened in some time. Is it a merit or an involuntary reflection of his faults?
In the good old days of print media, when there was no internet and you were stuck in a video game, you had to send a letter to the editor and hope to be selected and then read the response at the earliest on next month, the game would certainly have already abandoned it. Today, my perseverance through guides, YouTube videos, and phone calls to friends is rewarded with one of the most thrilling gaming experiences in years. But is it acceptable to have to crash so hard to enjoy a video game?
On the other hand: Would Elden Ring still be itself if it had a quest log? Would it keep its charm intact if we had a marker on the map to show us where to find Millicent? The answer is obviously no. No, it wouldn't be a Soluls, at least not in our sense of this type of game. enemies, not the game”.
Here I want to flip it to describe the feeling I often get with Elden Ring: that of having to fight a lot against the imaginative enemies of the Interregnum but against the game itself, which seems reluctant to be fully appreciated. And in the face of an audience and critics who have been peeling their hands for weeks from applause, I almost doubt that the problem is not the game but myself.
Or not? Is there anyone else who thinks like me? If so, let me know below in the comments: I'll definitely feel less alone.
SOURCE: Reviews News
Do not hesitate to share our article on social networks to give us a solid boost. 🧐