ELDERBORN

I really, really didn't like this game. I didn't like anything about it. But apparently a good number of people had great fun because it has "very positive reviews" on the store page. First of all, I thought it was a nice little "hack and slash" RPG that you can play between 2 serious games, but Elderborn is actually a melee FPS action game, it's like Quake or Doom but with only melee weapons and in a fantasy setting. It's my fault I didn't see the "souls-like" and "difficult" tags in the steam store. The story is something mashed up just in order to say there is a story, but it's nothing of note. It's basically a dungeon crawler, you just have to smash hordes of monsters. There are no quests nor objectives. It's very monotonous and repetitive. The enemies respawn when you die, which is a design choice I abhor in games. You have infinite lives but still it's very frustrating to have to go through all those enemies again. Also when that happens it brings you backwards in the level ( to the nearest fountain of life you activated ). The fountains of life are like checkpoints for respawning, but also in theory are used for healing yourself. Too bad the developers implemented the rule that when you heal yourself at fountains, all enemies respawn. So I never used them! It is absurd! Luckily you also have 3 vials of life for healing that re-charge up as you kill enemies. There is no mini-map ( nor any kind of maps ) in the game, and it's easy sometimes to get lost in the maze-like levels. This game is all about the combat, which supposedly is it's strong feature. But I didn't resonate with it. It's all about memorizing the attack patterns of each enemy ( each enemy has a unique pattern of course ), and responding accordingly with parry, block, strafing, light and heavy attack. But I found the attack patterns really convoluted, and it is frustrating that sometimes the enemy's attack cannot be blocked, so blocking is useless in that case. So you really have to memorize each enemy. But it is worse then that, because often you are attacked by many enemies at once, each with their own pattern! So it was really frustrating. The game is very difficult on the normal setting. I barely managed to beat it on normal. After a while I realized it's not worth it to try to parry or block, you can use the big 2-handed sword and just spam the light attack while strafing around as quickly as you can. That speaks volumes of the combat mechanics! There are many weapons but I didn't find reasons to use most of them. There were many stupid deaths because I didn't see a trap that 1 - hit me. The leveling up system is incredibly minimalistic with only a few attributes to increase and only a few skills, and I found those skills to be of little use in the chaotic combat. The game is actually very short ( 3 levels ), but I just couldn't wait for it to finish, so I didn't mind it.

to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women, or something

this game is indeed Metal AF, tbh i wasnt expecting much, but this is F*ing awsome, combat is great, level design is surprisingly good, blast of a game, highly recomended!

A good, simple game that is fine for a single playthrough, provided you buy it on sale. There is nothing new or groundbreaking here, and the experience is quite short. Featuring a pseudo-Bronze Age Hyperborean setting, the entire game is a homage to sword-and-sorcery à la Howard or C. A. Smith, combined with a blue-collar power metal aesthetic. It is simple and doesn't take itself too seriously. Elderborn is to Dark Souls what Howard's "The Tower of the Elephant" is to "The Lord of the Rings" in literature, or Manilla Road to Blind Guardian in music. It's not about intricacies or a face-melting challenge; it's all about the atmosphere.

One of the better "Living Through a Heavy Metal Album Cover" sims out there.

If you like sword and sorcery, then I highly recommend this game. I personally like the Middle East-Bronze Age aesthetic (you don't see much of those, especially in sword and sorcery). The soundtrack reminds me of the newer DOOM games too. While not a long game, I still had fun with it.

I finished this game twice in two or three sittings. That's how much fun this game is. Just buy and play it. Especially when it's on sale there is no reason not to.

Mi ha ricordato il combat di Dark messiah of might and magic, solo molto più arcade e dinamico. Dura solo 5 ore circa, certo, senza considerare che completato al 100% può togliere si e no 6-7 ore, però la rigiocabilità c'è grazie anche a un NG+ sbloccabile a fine gioco e alle varie difficoltà. Lo consiglio perchè è interessante, il combat lo fa da padrone, la direzione artistica non sarà da tripla a ma è tutto sommato buona con un comparto tecnico che vede alcune texture buone altre un pò smarmellate ma vabbè. Il level design è molto buono anche se a volte può risultare leggermente confusionario e la trama beh, molto standard ma buona per accompagnare il tutto

Weapons are either boring or useless, enemies are improved in the second chapter but design is confusing and ugly. Only first boss fight is fun when games forces you to use parry and timing your attacks. You can also tell the developers got jaded midway through designing the third chapter! There are some fun moment.

Its an amazing but short video game, great design, flawless controls, amazing gameplay its just too short, sound is good, music is even better. I wish it was optimized a bit better, its ok, but on 4k its not performing that well.