Thread 717514765

>be bloated mess
>vast empty world which is beautiful but a chore to get through
>every time you level up you have to farm xp to level up again before you can continue the game at a decent pace
>campaign is constant grind fest with fun fights peppered between
>sell millions of copies despite all these flaws and get fantastic reviews from critics
>be Elden Ring (2022)
Pic unrelated

>grinding in elden ring
holy skill issue

>>717514765 (OP)
who the fuck grinds in a souls game?

>>717514765 (OP)
Picked this AC game up on sale for 10 eurobucks many years ago, and despite three different installs (and continuing from where I left off each time) I still haven't finished it.
This is despite me (Norwegian) being a prime candidate for enjoying a viking slop game. It's just too fucking bloated and long
Elden Ring is great though.

>>717516025
Post tummy

>>717514765 (OP)
pic very much related, except without the fun fights

>>717514765 (OP)
>>sell millions of copies despite all these flaws and get fantastic reviews from critics
I can explain this point: It was a PS5 launch game and came out just before COVID lockdowns, so it was int he best possible position to get players, like me, which was a massive fucking mistake spurred on by boredom

I remember the exact moment I gave up on the game: I did a lot of side-content before rescuing Sigurd, to the point where I didn't need to level up any more because I had all of the "major" nodes in the skill tree, and the only things left were dumb shit like "+0.005% increase to heavy attacks when using a specific weapon class" which I really didn't give a single fuck grinding for.
I did the mission to rescue him, thinking I was getting close ot the endgame, then the game told me I had another 3 or 4 regions left to do, which didn't excite me because every previous region had followed the same story and gameplay formula every single time, but I reasoned that maybe those previous regions were meant to be "tutorials" before the game opened up in the second act.
Then I went to one of the new regions and saw the start of it play out NEARLY EXACTLY like 2 of the previous regions I did before rescuing Sigurd and I just completely gave up on the game, because it really wanted me to waste my fucking time helping out these dumb regional characters in their own stories which I knew would have ZERO real impact on the main plot at all

>>717516025
Same I'm American but half Norwegian ethnically and get told I look the guys in skyrim, Ragnar, etc... I got through maybe almost half the game but it starts turning into a slog fest at least the world is fun to traverse.