elden ring is derivative mid. sure, go ahead, take the dodgerollemup armored core-meets-king's field/shadow tower, a style that works best as a focused set of dungeon drudges (be it interconnected a-la king's field 2/4 & dark souls or a set of discrete areas a-la shadow tower and demon's souls [and the Goth Version of demon's souls]), and turn it into a big elder-scrolls-esque map with plenty of copy-paste dungeons and pallete swap enemies to Hit The I-Frame Button to. it was disheartening to see that they pretty much hadn't done anything but an i-frame timing dungeon drudge with Epic Video Game Boss Battles™ for close to a decade at that point. when they were putting out an armored core game just about every year from 1997-2008 they were releasing all sorts of other games, some relatively conventional, many far more experimental than anything they've done since after demon's souls.
if the first 6th gen armored core game had not ended up still feeling like an armored core game (even though it unfortunately has a small amount of soulsbrain, couldve used half the amount of Video Game Boss Battles™ and 3x the amount of enemy ACs, hope it gets rectified with AC 6.5), i would've been convinced that from software completely lost their way, getting way too lost in that dodgeroll sauce. well, at least they're getting blank checks from the Mobile Suit PacMan company, would love to see a return to the creative spirit they had during the 6th console gen.
if you want a better example of derivative mid by from software that starts with the letter E and ends in "Ring", they've had you covered since the launch of the playstation 2, regardless of what region you're in.
the unhelpful Get Good brained garbage has been a permanent scar with long-lasting consequences, and its effects are far more widespread beyond video games by from software with a release date later than the fifth of feburary, two thousand and nine. but it must be said that from software is not a new company and has been developing games with a remarkably unwavering design philosophy since the early 90's. i can never not recommend evergrace or metal wolf chaos, the latter of which got ported to recent consoles and windows with the text translated. the king's field (especially 2 and 4) and shadow tower series contain some of the best usage of the first person perspective in all of interactive media, they're still uncompromising with vague exposition (it took me around 6 hours to find a save point in king's field 2 at firs), but they play closer to system shock than 3d zelda. the king's field and shadow tower games in comparison to their spiritual successors are a more relaxing experience after the first few hours, but always tense through the atmosphere alone.
as far as their recent games go, all but demon's souls didn't really click with me at first until i laid the contextual groundwork of the games on a mechanical/structural level (armored core build variance+king's field/shadow tower world design+3d zelda combat), while trying to erase as much of the past 10 years of "haha git gud mad cause bad" from the subconscious.
the pc port should've just been released as "Dark Souls: With Artorias Of The Abyss Edition" worldwide imo