Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition review for Nintendo Switch 2

The Lands Between beckon again, and Nintendo finally gets a release of one of 2022s best games and this time, it includes the DLC Shadow of the Erdtree. Is it worth venturing into the world created by George R.R. Martin, or is it as disappointing as the final season of Game of Thrones?
Elden Ring was a game I picked up on PC originally a little after it came out.  I promptly played it for a handful of hours and quit. Partly because I was frustrated at the difficulty spikes, partly because something else neat and shiny came out right after I purchased it (Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, etc. take your pick.) This newly released Nintendo Switch 2 version gave me the chance to dive back in and see The Lands Between again.

The opening cinematic is nothing new for Elden Ring players and features the same scenes, script, etc.  Tarnished Edition’s character creation has 2 new classes, the Idus Knight and the Heavy Knight. The Idus Knight starts with pretty good dexterity and strength scores and comes equipped with armor and weaponry that doesn’t slow you down. While the Heavy Knight, as the name suggests, is more of a beefy tank with very high strength stats right away with heavy armor and weaponry making dodges a little harder.

After the opening cinematic, and character creation, players are dropped into a small opening area that can’t be explored much. After about five to ten minutes of wandering around, your first enemy appears, and it’s a boss right away. Don’t worry about defeating it, I never came close to doing so. After the intro into how insane the difficulty is going to be later, players are dropped into a cave with two directions, go deeper into the cave, or leave. If you go deeper into the cave, it serves as the games tutorial and rewards you with a little bit of extra runes (the game’s money and experience).

Elden Ring’s combat is designed to be very precise. This requires players to stay on their toes and learn enemy patterns. Some enemies you can just walk right up to and hit, even in the middle of their animation. While you’re fighting in Elden Ring take care not to attract too much attention. Fighting one or two low level enemies is easy, but when you start getting a few more, (or an enemy that doesn’t flinch when you hit them along with a few wimps) it’s very easy to die. And die you will……. A lot.

Death, just like in other souls likes, makes you drop all your runes where you died. There is a compass at the top of the screen that helps guide you back to where you died to get your runes back. Be careful, if you die along the way your original drop disappears and is replaced by where you died…. Again.

“Sites of grace” are save points in the game that if you die, you will return to. Eventually, when you rest at a specific site of grace you meet an NPC named Melina, who offers you an accord. This allows you to spend runes to level up your character. When leveling up, pick a single stat and raise it by a point, each point you put into a stat costs an increasing amount of runes. Putting points into vitality increases your hit points while strength increases damage from melee weapons and increases your carry capacity.

Elden Ring is a game that wants you to explore. Don’t just go straight to a boss. That was my mistake the first time playing through. As you explore you gain runes, enemies drop better equipment. There are enemies called Teardrop Scarabs in the opening area that can drop more rare and valuable items, some will even upgrade your rechargeable healing flask.

The Nintendo Switch 2 version graphically isn’t as powerful as the PS5 or Xbox Series X. Is it worth revisiting Elden Ring again if you own this game on other platforms? In short, not really. After just an hour into this version I could already see that the Switch 2 wasn’t fully up to the task. While the game still looks good, there was plenty of slowdown in the open areas. In a game where survival depends so much on very well-timed attacks, and defense, seeing the game skip a few frames at inopportune times will kill the experience. It’s painfully obvious that the Switch 2 struggles to keep up. When compared to the PC version, even on an older gaming rig, I’d much rather play it on PC.

Don’t misunderstand, Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition is still a great game, warts and all. It is frustratingly hard, especially if you end up accidentally bypassing some opening areas and save points (like I did both times I played the opening area). If the Switch 2 is what you have, or want to play Elden Ring on the go, pick it up on Switch 2. But if you have something more powerful to play it on, I would recommend PC personally, but PS5 or Xbox Series X would work just as well.

Note: Bandai Namco provided us with a Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition Switch 2 code for review purposes.

Click Here to buy/pre-order Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on Amazon