Elden Ring did blow my mind in many ways, but dont think its the masterpiece its claimed to be. When 9/10 quests are impossible to complete unless you watch 40 minute youtube tutorials then you've pushed the 'difficulty' angle too far. Definitely have those kinds of things for the hardcore players but the majority of the quests should be a range, including difficult, but still possible, figuring out with skill, logic, clues etc.
I also found it too repetitive/time-consuming for the rewards given. I might slug my way through a dungeon for 5 hours and then be rewarded some sword that I dont need/will never use, or some ash of war thats also irrelevant. Basically just collecting endless things that will never be touched, all felt a bit pointless to me if I'm gonna commit 100+ hours to game (which I pretty much did).
The story was also non-existant, again having you scrape fractions of clarity from paying attention to single lines told by side characters your may or may not interact with. I never really fully understood what was going on or cared. I'm not sure with all the information it would have been that special a story either way.
The world, character design, atmosphere and graphics were 10/10. I was in literal awe. When you spy a castle 10000 miles away and know you can go to it and spend hours inside. Never seen anything like it. Everything just looked and felt so cool. Uniquely Japanese too.
It did unfortunately loose its difficulty (apart from bosses), as it went on. The first caslte really had me challenged, as I learned the mechanics and pushed my limits. At around 70 hours I am just swinging like a maniac and killing everything with ease. Or I am dying with a couple of swipes. No in between, got boring for me.
Rating - 7.9/10