I deeply disliked elden ring and its dlc. I think elden ring is fundamentally flawed because of its open world. Sure it feels empty snd there's reused stuff, but my problem is on a deeper level. In the souls games, the world is dead and decaying. As you pass through the world, everything is in shambles, but hints at something grander that used to exist once upon a time. By going through its pseudo-linear, corridor type levels, there is a balance struck between gameplay content and hollow world. On the other side, elden ring is also a dead decaying world, but due to its open world design, this results in wild fluctuations of large empty spaces with nothing of consequence in them followed by butt clenching hyper action gameplay where ironically your best move is just to keep running and skip it. In the final area of show of the erdtree, I pretty much ran past all the enemies to get to the final boss, bussy slayer. There was no reason for me to fight anything there because I'd probably just get punished by a elemental knight's hyper combo for no real reward. Why not just run to the bonfire instead? I've been running around empty spaces the whole game, so why would this be any different. In Dark Souls I'd probably fight them instead because the level is a corridor with no real way around the enemy most of the time. The game trained me to slaughter the corridor, so that's what I'll do. Elden ring taught me to run
Sorry if it came out rambley. I guess my gripes with the combat came out toward the end, but I think elden ring is a game with an empty world, not a decaying one.
Dark souls vs elden ring
