I'm not even going to NG+, just clearing out the map. All over Fextralife now and I can't believe how many things have I missed, I thought I was super thorough exploring and here I am in the 5th or 6th cave I haven't found earlier.
The game is absolutely GIGANTIC. All of Dark Souls combined would be so much smaller and that's just places of interest and "legacy dungeons" let alone large swaths of open terrain.
Can't believe Miyazaki said it's about "40 hrs long" in that one interview. Like how man.
Some of the bosses are truly FROM finest work. Mainly the big and agile ones are just amazing fights. The 2nd encounter with Margit aka Margott IMO takes the cake. Absolutely incredible.
Also, I'm now 100% convinced respec fan and proponent. Yes the tension of committing to a build from BB is lost but it's simply worth losing for how much you gain gameplay-wise.
I played 1/3 of the game as Faith/STR, then went full INT magic after Raya Lucaria onwards and switched again to a 85 DEX monster for the final 2 areas. Totally different playstyles, different strats, different loadout.
Different FRESH feeling gameplay all the way.
Spirit Ashes are sick and yes bosses are designed to make use of them and that's a GOOD thing. My favorites: Kaiden (loved him in CNT) or Warhawk for most of Limgrave and Lurnia, later on - Rollo (very tanky poise breaker kinda like Kaiden but heavier) but my no. 1 is my girls Nightmaiden and Swordstress.
+10 Mimic is super OP, I don't like it but getting through the final few bosses without him would be insane hard as pure DEX.
I ended up really under-utilizing Ashes of War, can't say much about their balance other than some feel really weak while others OP like crazy, I plan to explore more in NG+.
Some things I didn't like:
I think the introduction of roundtable hold was rather anticlimactic, I was really hoping for it to be a place you actually find in the game world.
Some of the teleport traps felt like a kick in the nuts and certain death...
Also, as much as it breaks my heart to say the final boss 2nd stage was just poor after the mind-blowing first with Radagon. WTF was that?
After all those incredible bosses earlier and FROM's history of games grand finales, I just couldn't believe it.
It's all forgiven tho, looking at the whole package this is simply one of the greatest games ever made. Easy GOTY 10/10, deserving all praise it got.
Life after Elden Ring begins now and I hope we'll know more about the Armored Core project real soon.