Elden Ring: Playthrough #3 – 400 Hours
Super Mario Bros. 3. That was my answer for the best game ever for the better part of three decades. There was never a doubt, hardly even a competitor. Imagine my surprise when Bloodborne, a title that shares virtually no DNA with SMB3 usurped the throne. My appreciation truly grew through repeated ventures into its world and my fascination only increased from there. Its lore revealed via YouTube deep-dives, secrets through Wikis and strategies from Reddit threads. Gaming nowadays is different than in ages past. And while Elden Ring was immediately a top-20 game, a second playthrough and its vast DLC helped the title rise the ranks ALSO leapfrogging the aforementioned greatest game ever. One developer with the two most-exceptional titles in history?
Another year hence, I opted to dive back into The Lands Between. As a high-school teacher, summers allow much more free time than normal. The hours melted away; I was hooked. Best talisman combinations. Repeatedly searching the Wiki for locations, weaknesses and shortcuts. My memory is quite good, and a lot of this is familiar, but this game is massive. The sense of exploration is diminished through repeated runs but I’m never not impressed. Even still – several hundred hours down – I continued finding things I hadn’t seen. I completed questlines I didn’t witness in my prior 300 hours.
My sole summertime gaming goal was to beat the DLC and on the eve of returning with students, Promised Consort Radahn was bested. Malenia downed. Bayle felled. I didn’t complete everything – such is a daunting task. But even without those breadcrumbs, this remains the most-beautiful and expansive world I’ve ever enjoyed adventuring through.
It’s hard to know if this now trumps Bloodborne. One has potency through its first-impression weight and rich, decaying world. The other in its sprawling vastness and infinite possibilities. I’ll ponder this contest as the days and weeks pass. Months may be required. Whatever the outcome – the one-two punch by FromSoftware resides in the annals of gaming excellence and undisputed as the most-outstanding games ever released.
