THE GOOD
Relatable Perspectives
IGN created a great review on the uniqueness of Elden Ring from a down-to-Earth perspective. It can be seen from its various section titles composed of personal quotes, such as "I never once felt the open-world fatigue that usually sets in when my brain gets overloaded by a map." and "Elden Ring's difficulty surprised me, even as a veteran of the Soulslike genre." It is quite clear that IGN made an attempt to jump out of its usual bland formula, and it worked beautifully.
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THE OK
Comprehensive yet Shallow Arguments
IGN covers all the elements that set Elden Ring apart from other games on a surface level. An example can be found in IGN's difficulty argument. IGN reviewers claim that Elden Ring is one of the most challenging titles within the Soullike genre. While it is a valid and accurate statement, it failed to explore other difficulty-related elements such as the adjustable difficulty with the introduction of summons, the nonlinear scaling of hostile mobs' health, and many more.
THE BAD
The Advertisement-Like Visual
In this review, IGN seems to make no attempt in its visual presentation aspect. For each section of the review, IGN displays various completely unrelated Elden Ring videos produced by them. They not only serve no purpose within the review but also disrupt the flow of the argument. There are console performance review videos within the open-world section. There is a "11 things to do first in Elden Ring" video in the middle of a difficulty-related paragraph. What is more ridiculous is that a video about Sekiro, a completely different game, was present within the review for absolutely no reason.
EXAMPLE 1
"11 Things to Do" in Difficulty Section
EXAMPLE 2
"PS5 vs Xbox Performance" in Exploration Section