Solid 6/10 game that brings nothing truly new to the Action-RPG genre.

This is a hard do not recommend, especially with the game being a solid 6/10 and that I really enjoy it.

If steam had a neutral option I would be using that instead.

I love exploring, I love the combat from Bloodborne/Dark Souls 3, this has good aspects from both of those games for combat, and the open world is pretty good, albeit tedious to explore and die in a boring loop.

Sound design is pretty damn great, graphics are middling at best, optimization is ♥♥♥♥ (which is to be expected, Japanese devs seemingly don't use PC hardware for stability testing when developing games- somehow).

I might change this to recommend later once the rough edges are ironed out, but for now you can sleep on this game, you're not going to miss out on anything unless you really really need more Soulsborne-like combat in your life currently.

Update:
Steam says I should review my review since I've played another 75 hours.

Basically still a solid 6/10 that I wouldn't recommend to most people who don't absolutely love action games.

I am enjoying my experience overall, but I can tell that people new to this style of combat would probably get bored or result to using guides/meta builds for their first playthrough.

Update 2:
Up to 150-160ish some hours first playthrough still.

Basically all dungeons and bosses, that I have access to, cleared so far. Now that I've got more time to dedicate to completing the game- I've been having an okay time of it.

In typical fashion I have kneecapped myself for most of my playthrough using as many talisman slots as possible to make things difficult for me. (Take more damage, only going for counterhits or crits, using max equipment load for best poise at medium load, requiring max buffs without greater runes to barely beat bosses, online disabled.)

Having fun though.

Getting 1 and 2 shot by most enemies is good times.
Let alone bosses which will 1 shot me every time.

I still can't recommend this game to newcomers. It's a 20 dollar product, as is- currently with no DLC, selling way over the mark. Bloodborne and Souls 3 are arguably more difficult games with more fleshed out experiences. The one thing Elden Ring has over those games is variety of combat approaches, that's it, many of which are not effective, nothing else really to be said about this game, it's slightly above average for an action RPG by Fromsoft.

Solid 8/10 game. Possibly my game of the year for 2022.

Soundtrack is kinda out of place, it's not bad, but doesn't at all fit the mood of the game in a lot of places.

Story is convoluted, not terrible though, decent in fact. Very high above average storytelling. Not a tearjerker but definitely a well done sad story.

The gameplay (delivering ♥♥♥♥) isn't very substantial, no matter the difficulty you play on, you can always breeze through those parts of the game. The exploration and travel are a good 60-70% of the game though and it is very fun. Figuring out how to get from point A to B and so on with the tools you have available is the real game and it's excellently done.