The biggest problem with Elden Ring is that it is the most creatively bankrupt possible version of "Dark Souls: Open World Edition" that Miyazaki could have made. There are no towns, villages, human encampments or otherwise any sentient things worth ruling in this game where the main objective is ruling the world. I know the instinctual cry of Soulslurpers here is 'muh Skyrim' as if Skyrim invented towns in RPGs, but it really does shatter immersion when the game is claiming to give us access to every corner of The Lands Between. If Fromsoft was less pozzed, they could have made a story about rescuing a princess, but we'll never get that from the A/B bodytype company now because EVERYTHING has to be some fucking will to power narrative even when there is nothing to wield power over.None of the bosses interact with the open world in any interesting ways whatsoever. There are no bosses who roam, no bosses who stalk you, no bosses you have to hunt, no bosses who flee, no bosses who attempt to ensnare you by feigning being NPCs, or anything. In this game where the only thing meaningful distinguishing it from any other Souls game is the vast open world, somehow, every fight is just a completely standard brawl in a fog wall arena. The fact that they have no good ideas for difficulty left so all of them need to have cartoonishly delayed attack animations just to fuck with the player is icing on the slop cake.
There are no traversal mechanics of any kind that did not already exist in previous Souls titles, which themselves were remarkably limited in how the player was able to interact with the environment. The horse offers only speed, but the player has no means to swim (which means that the vast lake vista in Liurnia loses incredible amounts of majesty once you realize the whole thing is really just a giant puddle), no means to climb, no mechanics relating to heat, cold, or anything at all to affect gameplay. It is an open world game with fewer traversal mechanics than Ocarina of Time. I understand that Souls' whole appeal used to be its minimalistic mechanics, but why even try to make a game of this scope if the devs had no plans at all to do anything different with it whatsoever? Just to make it bigger because that's what Skyrim and Breath of the Wild did?What was once creative and new and immersive is now reduced to a set of cheap mechanics slapped on top of any backdrop without any concern for how it conjoins or coheres.
Yeah I agree it's way more bland than dark souls in almost every way. Even the combat is stretching itself to the point of being a parody of what people liked about the earlier souls games. Cut and pasted giant bosses that sperg out on you for 30 hit combos. or have weirdly timed wind ups which no opponent would ever do in real life. Elden ring is way more "video gamey" whereas the earlier souls games are more of a complete experience where the gameplay doesn't get in the way until it makes sense. They quadrupled down on the most time wasting elements of open world blandness and everything else suffered as a result. I only remember a handful of the non-mandatory bosses off the top of my head, and of the ones I remember it's probably because they were copy pasted 3 times.
