GRUNION
ILLUSTRATION BY NINA WALKER
SERIOUS
ELDEN RING REVIEW BY JOEY MARTINEZ
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ince its announcement in 2019, “Elden Ring’s” hype has only snowballed more and more as information was released about it. The announcement of an open world similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, director Hidetaki Miyazaki stating it’s his “perfect” video game, and the idea of Souls-like with a larger scope than ever contributed to this game attracting all sorts of fans. So does it live up to the hype? Well, if you like bad combat, bad level design, bad stories, bad game mechanics, bad characters, bad graphics, bad controls, and love throwing sixty dollars at a brick wall, you’re gonna love this game. From what I have seen, many people have been completing this game within eighty to around one-hundred hours. I have two hours and thirty-five minutes logged into this game so I am very confident in my judgment of it so far. First off, this whole time I thought I was going to be on a journey to find a sweet ring but the ring is actually destroyed? How could you call it “Elden Ring” with no Elden Ring? To add salt to the wound, right after learning that the ring isn’t even in the game during the intro, you immediately get thrown into a boss fight that kills you immediately.
But oh wait, you were supposed to “Urgh— that’s the sound I make die. The game does not shy away from when I’m mad— this game makes telling you that you’re not good enough me so mad” and you should give up on yourself and your aspirations. Right after you die to the stupid dumb idiot boss, you get sent through a and took half my health away. It occured to me “tutorial” that basically just tells you, “You can that I forgot how to roll because the button for it move forward. You can attack like this. Oh and wasn’t on screen, bad UI, so my character was we gave you a roll? We’re so generous!” Didn’t immediately tortured and killed by the Tree learn a thing. There’s also a big pit that I already Sentinel. know is some trap made by the ghost that’s tellHow anyone thinks making a mandatory ing me to go down there and I’m insulted that boss the first thing you do in an “open world” they would try to pull a fast one on me so early game is beyond me because I spent thirty on. They don’t know I’ve played four “Assassin’s minutes accomplishing nothing trying to beat Creed” games so my gamer instincts are sharp. the Tree Sentinel. After realizing that maybe how After trudging through the tutorial cave, fast I was dying was a glitch, I looked up a guide you move outside to get a view of the game’s and found out that using the Wretch class made Playstation 2 graphics. Seriously, if you put this me considerably weaker than everything else in side by side with the original Dark Souls, you the game. Why would they make the funny half wouldn’t be able to see a difference and if you naked man with a club so bad? say you can then you are wrong and you are lying Urgh— that’s the sound I make when I’m to me and most importantly, yourself. You are mad— this game makes me so mad. There’s also met with a strange looking man who tells no quest line either. You’re just meant to walk you that you are “maidenless” and you need to around and find things. Why would I want to do go get some. This game should know that I am that? I’d like to have fun, not explore a big map severely afraid of talking to and interacting with just to get hit once and watch my character let women. Thank goodness I didn’t have to inter- out horrific screams of anguish constantly. act with one during my time playing otherwise I Overall, Elden Ring shows just how out would have been seriously scared. of touch From Software and their games have I thought I was going to explore the become with this bumbling excuse for a video “This game should know that I am open world but as I was walking around, game. Go play a real game like “Assassin’s severely afraid of talking to and getting a migraine from the low-texture Creed.” That is unless you’re too scared to. 1/10. interacting with women” rock and tree models, a giant knight on a horse ran towards me with a huge spear
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