I'm really torn.
On one hand, I feel like Elden Ring is the smoothest I've ever managed to get into these types of games. Aside from still having to put up with a lot of crap in Elden Ring that made me only passively engaged with the series on the whole (the aggravating input buffers, the way stamina works in these games, how bosses are designed etc.) even though I admired the design tenets of the series, previous Souls games were at times unnecessarily daunting in ways only they knew how to be. To some extent the ease of accessing powerful tools in Elden Ring made increasing avatar strength to put up with the higher ridiculousness of some of these encounters much more of a smooth process. The design of the game has permitted it to become the quickest I'll have come to beating one of the games. If the game is carrying my engagement a little more consistently despite all of my hangups, then it's certainly got something going for it, even if it's possible that the game is only really tricking me into believing it's a steadier ride than it actually is. For the most of the part, all of that can be attributed to the game being made open world, and being a little more liberal about what regions you can access from the jump that conceal powerful resources.
That being said, everything about the open world itself eventually devolves into mostly filler over killer. I honestly do not think this is a very well designed world beyond its visual flair, because the way the world is laid out disincentivizes true exploration. With the way that the terrain is shaped and various visual details obscure the horizons, it's hard to get a proper understanding of where any spot of import outside of Legacy Dungeons exist; doubly so whether what you uncover is of any actual use to you. This compounded with the traversal mechanics being sterile makes everything in between going to a known destination into a chore. The novelty of the open world quickly falls to the wayside once you've experienced most of its gimmicks and are now more set in what you want to work with. In some ways the open world also exacerbates the sunk fallacy mentality of having to recover your Souls on death. The amount of menial busywork I've had to commit to in my route in order to be at an optimal level to tackle some of its important objectives makes me never want to bother with a replay of the game, and I feel the main reason I'm still getting something out of it is because I've got a wiki on my side to see where I can go to obtain the things I need. There's just too much of itself, and if I'm not exhausted with it now, I'd expect I fully will be whenever ER2 inevitably gets made and if it keeps a similar approach to its world.
And when I really think about it, there's multiple things that the more Metroidvania-type Souls games could take away from Elden Ring that could make for a smoother experience even without needing an open world. Just off the top of my head, the way Elden Ring is a little better about checkpoints is one of them. It's telling that Raya Lucaria was one of the more frustrating levels for me in the game, because it arbitrarily decided to circumvent Stormhill and Stormveil Castle setting a precedent of having well placed checkpoints prior to major boss encounters. Even when Elden Ring mostly upholds that throughout the game, the way it circumvented it twice in the same legacy dungeon in favor of something more traditional made for a more frustrating experience that had shades of some of the more annoying parts of older Souls games.
On one hand, I feel like Elden Ring is the smoothest I've ever managed to get into these types of games. Aside from still having to put up with a lot of crap in Elden Ring that made me only passively engaged with the series on the whole (the aggravating input buffers, the way stamina works in these games, how bosses are designed etc.) even though I admired the design tenets of the series, previous Souls games were at times unnecessarily daunting in ways only they knew how to be. To some extent the ease of accessing powerful tools in Elden Ring made increasing avatar strength to put up with the higher ridiculousness of some of these encounters much more of a smooth process. The design of the game has permitted it to become the quickest I'll have come to beating one of the games. If the game is carrying my engagement a little more consistently despite all of my hangups, then it's certainly got something going for it, even if it's possible that the game is only really tricking me into believing it's a steadier ride than it actually is. For the most of the part, all of that can be attributed to the game being made open world, and being a little more liberal about what regions you can access from the jump that conceal powerful resources.
That being said, everything about the open world itself eventually devolves into mostly filler over killer. I honestly do not think this is a very well designed world beyond its visual flair, because the way the world is laid out disincentivizes true exploration. With the way that the terrain is shaped and various visual details obscure the horizons, it's hard to get a proper understanding of where any spot of import outside of Legacy Dungeons exist; doubly so whether what you uncover is of any actual use to you. This compounded with the traversal mechanics being sterile makes everything in between going to a known destination into a chore. The novelty of the open world quickly falls to the wayside once you've experienced most of its gimmicks and are now more set in what you want to work with. In some ways the open world also exacerbates the sunk fallacy mentality of having to recover your Souls on death. The amount of menial busywork I've had to commit to in my route in order to be at an optimal level to tackle some of its important objectives makes me never want to bother with a replay of the game, and I feel the main reason I'm still getting something out of it is because I've got a wiki on my side to see where I can go to obtain the things I need. There's just too much of itself, and if I'm not exhausted with it now, I'd expect I fully will be whenever ER2 inevitably gets made and if it keeps a similar approach to its world.
And when I really think about it, there's multiple things that the more Metroidvania-type Souls games could take away from Elden Ring that could make for a smoother experience even without needing an open world. Just off the top of my head, the way Elden Ring is a little better about checkpoints is one of them. It's telling that Raya Lucaria was one of the more frustrating levels for me in the game, because it arbitrarily decided to circumvent Stormhill and Stormveil Castle setting a precedent of having well placed checkpoints prior to major boss encounters. Even when Elden Ring mostly upholds that throughout the game, the way it circumvented it twice in the same legacy dungeon in favor of something more traditional made for a more frustrating experience that had shades of some of the more annoying parts of older Souls games.
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