Elden Ring - Before You Buy - YouTube

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- [Jake] Hey, and we're back with another episode

of "Before You Buy,"

that show where we give you some straight-up gameplay

And our first impressions of the latest games releasing.

As usual, it's me, Jake Baldino,

and today, we're talking "Elden Ring."

Now, just like to say it for these big videos.

Thank you so much for watching these "Before You Buy" videos

over the last few years.

We all really appreciate it, genuinely.

It's our job. It puts food on our table.

We love that you come here.

Thank you.

So, straight off the bat, "Elden Ring" is great.

It's challenging.

It's got the FromSoftware stuff you want.

It's got an open world that doesn't suck

and feels absolutely unique and addictive.

It's got great stuff for newcomers to get into it,

and it's got those crushing, incredible boss battles.

It's absolutely massive and challenging,

and I think it's a game changer, full stop.

Now, so you know, this footage we've all been playing here

is captured on PC and PS5 versions.

Now, big shout-out to Eric and Andrew

behind the scenes for this.

And also, this footage is spoiler-free.

We're really sticking roughly to two major areas

'cause I know Souls fans consider

almost everything a spoiler, because the real fun

is in the magic of the discovery,

so we can't completely avoid that,

but just know that we're gonna try our best here.

And some additional context, so you know

what kind of info and opinion you're getting here.

We're a mixed group here at Gameranx.

Some of us here are very into these games,

where myself, I'm a bit more casual.

I've played them.

I've taken a long time to understand FromSoftware games

and appreciate them.

And "Elden Ring" definitely seems to check the boxes

for both types of fans,

and even newcomers, which I'll get to.

So in it, you are a Tarnished,

thrust into a land torn apart by conflict.

The "Elden Ring" has been shattered,

and a select few hold the shards,

and it's up to you to journey,

defeat them, and become the Elden Lord.

Now, I'm totally glossing over it and butchering it a bit,

but hey, you know how these FromSoftware games can be:

story-light, intentionally vague, and wordy,

seemingly on the surface, but actually really interesting.

"Elden Ring" does show it a bit more on the surface.

It's a bit more easy to immediately grasp

exactly what's going on

and get a sense of this sad, lonely, brutal world.

There's a nice little bit of characters

to talk to here and there

and get some interesting story contact,

and it's actually pretty cool.

Now, "Game of Thrones" author, George Railroad Martin,

did work on the early phases of this

in some world-building, overarching stuff.

It's hard to say what exactly his influence is here

compared to Miyazaki and the rest of the team,

but hey, the game overall does feel a little different.

But don't get it twisted.

It is still typical FromSoftware the way it goes,

and of course, the real meat is the gameplay,

and it is extremely fun to play

for a boat load of reasons.

So, you know, on the basic end, you build out your character

with a starting class as kind of like a stat baseline,

but then you go from there,

dumping points into whatever as you level up, you know?

Strength and endurance, maybe a strong, sturdy knight,

or maybe a magic user, or a quick and dextrous assassin.

The choice is yours, as usual,

and the variety, once again, is really damn good.

Everything has their own clear strengths and weaknesses

but way more nuances to discover

the more you play into them.

And it always plays differently.

One of us here has a completely different character type

than the other, and it's like a totally different thing.

From character build to equipment type to weapon type,

it's totally different.

These games beg rolling multiple characters

and replayability.

Combat itself is challenging and deliberate.

I think if you already decided

you don't like Souls-style combat,

this won't change your mind,

but there is some fun new stuff.

Now, for the layman,

think "Dark Souls" combat but with a jump button

and a really solid guard counter attack

that is satisfying to pull off.

You can still parry if you have the tools,

but a guard counter timed just right,

and the sound effect triggers, and you get an extra hit,

that's where you can really feel

a little "Sekiro" influence here and there,

and it works out nicely.

Ashes of War here are like built-up versions of weapon arts.

They're special skills you can find and improve

and add to your armaments.

Some are just kind of like a cool new sword-spin move

or something more magical and powerful.

There's a lot of them to discover here,

and it just adds to your repertoire sometimes,

more than just a new axe or a cool piece of armor.

Spirit ashes also are very important.

They're like cool summons

that most characters can pull off on a base level,

and they let you have some help in battles,

like summon some killer ghost wolves, undead soldiers,

or even more weird, surprising things we won't spoil.

And if you play your cards right

and you pay attention to how the game plays out,

you can upgrade these as well.

And when you're out there,

you're also finding crafting recipes to craft more items,

like little throwable bombs or knives or buff items

and consistently strengthening your weapons,

and of course, finding bonfires and farming souls,

which, this time around,

are Sites of Grace and runes, respectively.

There are a lot of stats and numbers overall,

but what it boils down to

is good old-fashioned RPG gameplay,

where stats and gameplay mechanics go hand in hand

like spaghetti and meatballs or lamb and tuna fish.

But the magic is really in the world and the exploration.

This is where I think it might finally click for newcomers

and where veterans can just have some good, new, fresh fun.

So you have a mount, interestingly enough, named Torrent,

that you can summon and cruise around in,

go off wherever you want, and have fun discovering stuff,

hidden bosses, dungeons, items, even NPCs.

There's just so much stuff begging to be discovered,

and the game encourages you to do so

by keeping the restrictions light

and generously placing Sites of Grace for checkpoints.

And a lot of stuff is truly hidden here.

You gotta really look for it because it's tucked away

or there's some really obscure way

to unveil or unlock something.

People are gonna hit the occasional, like,

okay-what-the-hell-do-I-do-now roadblock,

but that's kind of the nature of these games,

and there's a lot here.

Still, the overall freedom really helps.

See something scary?

Just sprint away and come back later, stronger.

There's a bit of forgiveness here

in the open environments because the game wants you to learn

and get better and grow stronger.

It almost kind of baits you in as a newcomer.

This world is completely organic,

and it's not a map filled with question marks

or filler content.

All of it in there is just waiting to be organically found

or stumbled upon,

and all of it is meaningful and beneficial.

Optional dungeons that you can find

are usually good surprises,

even if sometimes they have similar or kind of bland looks.

But not the legacy dungeons.

The legacy dungeons are like the more legit ones.

All of them, though, they're great,

and they have at least one surprise.

Now, you can explore and not do any of the main stuff

for a shockingly long time.

I'm talking hours,

especially as you're still getting your feet wet.

There's a lot of fun in getting lost

and stumbling upon something,

way more so than in any other recent,

more standard open-world games.

It's a completely different feel here,

and it totally makes sense

why FromSoftware decided to make an open-world game.

They didn't do it just 'cause that's the thing,

that's the trend.

They gave it a real, unique value.

A lot of that value comes from the open world

mashed with the traditional "Dark Souls" stuff,

large keeps, castles, and more main quest areas.

It's got that traditional flow and feel

and big sub-bosses and nasty main bosses,

some really fricking tight, compelling adventure stuff.

But if you hit a wall with a really difficult spot,

you can just go screw off in the open world

for hours and hours.

I swear, you could spend hours messing around

before finally getting around to the first main boss,

just grinding and exploring

and legit just having challenging fun.

That freedom, again, is awesome.

I cannot express how much of an addictive game changer it is

to just have the traditional Soul elements

mixed with an open world that is not only massive

but is actually interesting and worthwhile

in a more old-school way

that is just revolved around discovery

and not tracking a million quests on a pause screen.

And again, like I had said, for some newcomers,

this might be the first Souls game that clicks with you

'cause at first, it's more approachable.

It kind of gives you just enough conveniences

to make you feel like you're being challenged somewhat

but still having fun and progressing, moving forward.

Bonfires can be fairly close together.

There aren't any other penalties, really, for dying,

other than the rune loss and stuff like that.

Okay. Not bad.

Then you get to a boss and it's like,

okay, now it's time to really play.

But both the new open-world aspects

and the traditional dungeony RPG aspects are great.

Just when the open world might feel a little bit sparse,

you come upon a perfectly spooky,

dense, atmospheric haunted graveyard

with an enemy you've never seen before.

Just when you're thinking you're getting good at the game,

a new boss beats your ass

or you get lost and you fall off a cliff, I don't know.

It retains the nuance

that people come to these games for, though,

and I expect that me and many other review-type people

are really only scratching the surface here.

Once millions of people hop in at once and start exploring,

maybe even together with the multiplayer features,

then I expect a lot more cool stuff to come out.

I think we might be keeping it simple here,

but I hope we're getting across how fun this game can be.

It's hard to do this video without spoiling things,

to be honest, because some map discoveries

or some gameplay elements

are a complete surprise worth experiencing.

And on the visual front, the game can look great

from an art direction standpoint: cool lighting,

weird fantastical elements,

sights you've never quite seen before in anything else,

wild architecture, and gross, weird, screen-filling bosses.

Sometimes it can feel like the detailed areas

aren't quite as detailed as they would be

if it were the more linear game,

but that's a teeny, tiny nitpick,

and most people I don't think will even notice or care.

The further you get in,

the cooler the environments really look.

And performance-wise, on console,

everything seemed to be fine

other than some pretty rough pop-in in spots,

like specifically with textures and landscapes.

Environments will just pop in in front of you,

like grass textures,

but they would harshly pop in and change colors.

A little messy, a little off-putting,

but nothing game-breaking.

And thankfully, speaking of game-breaking,

we haven't found any real substantial bugs

or glitches or anything like that.

It's still a game of this style,

so there are some things you can do

or some decisions you can make

that'll really screw you over,

but no actual glitches or bugs that we've really seen

that hurt anything.

PC version seems okay-ish,

but the graphics options are pretty limited,

and we did have some weird slowdown bits here and there,

despite having a powerful PC,

so it's something to keep an eye on.

But to conclude, if you can't tell, this is a lot of game.

Many of the reviews coming out on websites

are reviews in progress for a reason.

The game is dense

and just an unprecedented level of large,

and people who got early access to the game

only had so much time.

But I don't think I can really express

how big this freaking thing is.

"Elden Ring" really feels like the next step

for FromSoftware's Souls-style games.

It keeps what makes them so special,

and it adds more in a non-cynical way.

It moves forward, and not because it needed to,

but because they had a cool way of doing it.

The exploration is that addictive,

and the world and atmosphere that enjoyable,

coupled with that tried-and-true gameplay.

This is one of our first absolutely massive wins for 2022,

and it feels good to say that.

For us here, at the very least,

it seems like the hype has been real.

We're satisfied.

But of course, that's a "Before You Buy."

You probably know how this goes by now.

We give you a bunch of gameplay.

We give you some pros, some cons,

and some personal information,

so now we're looking forward to hearing yours.

Maybe you played the technical test.

Maybe you have a lot of experience with these games already.

We're putting out this video before release,

so we wanna know what you're thinking

in the days leading up to it.

If you're watching this later after the game releases,

definitely let us know

what you think about your character build,

your weapon types.

Anything you've discovered along the way

that you've found strange, we'd love to hear your stories.

And again, thank you for watching these videos.

We very much appreciate it.

Hopefully, the information is useful to you.

Clicking the Like button's all you gotta do.

It really, genuinely, helps us out.

Thank you.

I'm Jake Baldino.

Thank you guys for watching.

Subscribe if you haven't already.

We're almost at seven million subscribers.

That's insane.

Anyway, thank you for being here.

See you guys next time.

(dramatic music)

(dragon roars)