Hot take, Elden ring is a really good souls like, but that doesn't mean its actually a good game.
within the subgenre, souls-likes have always had really huge issues with accessibility, and i don't mean for disability alone. Elden ring especially had extremely horrible performance issues at launch, which they did eventually fix. Even then you still have to get a 400 dollar PC. Aside from that there are some strange decisions made with teaching the player, like the tutorial is just a hole that players had to point out to each other, and On my barely stable first 20 minutes, i couldn't even find (my b i guess). Obviously alot of extremely experienced gamers would be able to handle themselves super well in Elden ring even without a tutorial. But there's another issue there with accessibility.
2 last things on accessibility. The game's audio is mixed like a movie, (so barely audible or ripping out your eardrums ;-;) witch is another accessibility issue, that you have to put a lot of work in to fix. And the graphics range from maxing out the brightness, to being completely black on bad screens. obviously an issue.
I'm not going to go into the issues with explanations and the general tell don't show nature of alot of souls likes, because people have already complained about the text tunnels enough
I do really appreciate the artistry and just beautiful atmosphere Elden ring has, my only issue with the graphics is the performance requirements for them. Also if you never turned the graphics all the way down, it used to cause bit lag spikes just because it wanted to i guess :")
So, my argument is that a game can be a good version of the predecessors it bases itself off of, but if it doesn't actually deliver on playability and accessibility, I really don't think its deserving of the praise it gets.
here are examples of games I think are flawless
Unraveled/Unraveled 2
Hades
Minecraft (Java edition only [cuz bedrock is completely broken somehow???)
Never alone (a cool 2 player co op platformer that me and my brother played through when we were 6 and 8 or smthn, it was incredible, and i still think its worth playing as an adult)
Spelunky 2
***Monster Hunter (except for the extremely slow RPG elements) [takes 3 months to get 1 armor set built fully :)]
So i actually have some great news for the difficulty purists, You can actually do a hardcore game well, So long as you make failure quick and readable, Make trying immediate, and Make learning a part of the design. Spelunky is not my cup of tea, i have a bad time with reaction time, but spelunky is really great, in that your goal every attempt is simply to get as far as possible. In elden ring, you have the opposite problem, where instead of completing the objective being extraordinarily hard, getting from point a to point b is tediouse, saving the game takes time, occasionally you can be attacked without knowing why, and you dont get a clear read on what went wrong, ETC. If Elden ring was only the boss fights, I would say its almost a great game. Which is why I included Monster hunter on that list, despite its insufferable grind.
Also BTW spelunky 2 has four fun minigames. a requirement for any game to be truly perfect is for there to be appeal for casual gamers, and i don't think adding casual elements makes a game worse, like, ever.
Anyways, last little thing, I really dislike it when People praise games for not catering to the needs of some players. Like everyone has heard dudebros or their friends be like "It doesn't have any difficulty settings! that's so sick!" But, like, Have you ever met someone with a motor function disability, or like, just someone who doesn't play games for 30000 hours every year? Difficulty settings and the ability to control your experience are important. and this isn't about Elden ring, But if you care about being an ally you should want your games to have accessibility features, they only benefit people. and if you're so worked up about about an extra tab being in the settings window, maybe you should like, go to therapy or something.
Also Elden ring's UI is so ass it gave my design teacher a heart attack and they hired a Pe*o as our sub.
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i’ve seen a lot of art summaries and wanted to do one c:
i started drawing digitally only about two or three years ago :,) so my summary doesn’t look extravagant or anything 😭 but maybe one day i’ll get there
i mostly chose pieces with backgrounds even though i feel like some without them are better😭😭 i didnt want to have too many characters floating in the void™️
neways i think i did pretty good this year considering ^^
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I, the Resident Representative of Anemone Island, have acquired a new hat!
Handcrafted by yours truly, I bring you:
Hooty! You had him in house form, you had him in backpack form, and now you get him in hat form! *sheds tear* Is there anything this majestic creature can’t do?
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now that online services are gone for 3ds animal crossing new horizons NEEDS a big update that brings back the tortimer islands along with all the minigames. playing with other people in new horizons just feels so lackluster compared to new leaf. this is a great opportunity to bring it back.
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