Elden Ring Tarnished Edition Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Elden Ring originally released in 2022 and ushered the Souls-like genre into a new era, delivering a huge open world that was every bit as menacing as it was beautiful. After being delayed since last year, Elden Ring Tarnished Edition has finally arisen on Nintendo Switch 2, but can it flask up and entice us back into its punishing Souls-like gameplay? What’s It Like? Create your character, arise, Tarnished, and prepare to be hurt all over again as we review Elden Ring Tarnished Edition for Nintendo Switch 2.
Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, a once-prosperous realm now shattered after the destruction of the Elden Ring and the disappearance of Queen Marika. With the demigod children of Marika claiming the fragments of the Elden Ring for themselves, the Lands Between have descended into chaos, and the Tarnished are called upon to return. As one such Tarnished, it’s your job to explore this broken world, defeat its most powerful inhabitants, claim the Great Runes, and ultimately decide the fate of the Lands Between. Unlike traditional games, Elden Ring doesn’t have a linear narrative. Instead, the lore of this world reveals itself the more you explore, with seemingly insignificant discoveries often uncovering another piece of the larger story. You’ll make mistakes, trust the wrong people, kill some of the innocent, and ultimately miss content along the way. But that’s actually one of Elden Ring’s greatest strengths. Your first playthrough feels like your personal journey through the Lands Between, and the game naturally encourages multiple playthroughs to uncover what you missed. Despite playing through Elden Ring on Xbox at launch, I’ve still discovered entirely new relics, encounters, and even areas that I completely missed the first time around.
This journey will test your mettle in the most punishing ways, staying true to its Souls-like roots. Starting out, you get to choose a character, including two new classes: Heavy Knight and Idus Knight. For this playthrough, I chose the Idus Knight, which offered stats that helped me get a smoother start, especially with the default armour. I was still served a slice of humble pie, however, when running into the captain at the gates and his encampment of Godrick’s soldiers. The best part of this, however, is that vanquishing these foes gives you Runes, which are used as a currency for both purchasing items from vendors and assigning stats to your character. Assigning stats means you can build a character your way by distributing Runes wherever you see fit. Want to try your hand at spellcasting? Simply add more points to Intelligence or Faith, depending on the type of magic you want to use. Need more health? Add points to Vigor. Want to decimate enemies with heavy weapons? Add Strength. You aren’t locked into your starting choices, and despite starting out with a sword and shield, I ended up switching to a two-handed blade and playing a much more aggressive playstyle.
Combat is both fierce and refined, giving you fast and strong attacks as well as a special move that can turn the tide of battle, or leave you wide open to attack. No matter what I was fighting, from cannon-fodder footmen to massive bosses, the combat was always exhilarating in its own ways. Fighting smaller groups of enemies, I would block and dodge attacks, carefully waiting and calculating for my opponents to attack, leaving them wide open for me to land a devastating attack. For bosses, it became a battle for survival. No longer was I at the top of the food chain; I was simply surviving, landing attacks when I could and dealing devastating damage when staggering my foe. Sometimes, I would get too greedy and aim to attack, which left me open to attacks, and much like I was baiting minions into leaving themselves wide open, I too fell for my own trick. Elden Ring rewards patience over power.
Much like the freedom with player stats, the world can also be approached your way. I spent a lot of time grinding enemy encampments and exploring the starting areas of Limgrave before finally heading to my first main boss, Margit the Fell Omen. He certainly gave me a run for my money, but thankfully, with the help of a Spirit Ash to help me fight, we managed to take turns focusing aggro and finally defeating him. Victory is often hard-fought, and that sense of satisfaction never seems to fade. There’s also a sense of frustration that comes with the territory too, often falling to enemies, or even messing up your aim on a charge forward, sending you off the edge of a cliff. Even minor enemies can give you an incredibly hard time if you don’t think out a plan of attack.
Early on in the game, I was scaling up the side of a castle, which turned into a trial-and-error approach. I would make it through enemies and get a false sense of security, only to try to get a backstab on someone that went disastrously wrong, leading me to fall in combat and try again. Should you fall, you drop all your Runes, and it creates a sense of urgency to retrieve them, because if you fall without doing so, they are lost forever. Thankfully, Sites of Grace are scattered throughout the world to give you moments of reprieve, allowing you to level up, replenish your Flasks that heal and restore FP, and manage your equipment and other abilities. All of this does, however, come at the cost of respawning enemies, which can be great if you’re grinding, or a nightmare if you just scraped through a battle within an inch of your life.
In stark contrast to its brutal and visceral combat, the world of Elden Ring is actually quite beautiful. Limgrave is both a visually gorgeous and haunting world, somehow looking absolutely jaw-dropping while conveying feelings of isolation and desperation. There’s a moment, right at the start of the game, where you ascend from the tutorial and push open the doors of the crypt you’re in, where Limgrave reveals itself to you, and it’s similar to the opening moments of Breath of the Wild, where you know you’re in for something very special. It’s an incredibly detailed world, with each biome offering its own distinct feel, whether it be wonder, dread… or a mix of both. Enemies are gruesome by design, while even some of the characters you meet have an unsettling appearance that makes them feel right at home alongside the creatures trying to kill you. Textures and details remain incredibly sharp, from the individual links of chainmail in your armour to the intricate, ornate symbols carved into armour plates. There’s an impressive level of detail across the world, and even smaller elements can look remarkably intricate when you stop to take them in. But what really makes the world of Elden Ring stand out is the minimalist approach to its UI, which has only the essential information you need, leaving nearly the entire screen free to sell you the world. I’m really surprised more games don’t do this, as the immersion is simply phenomenal.
Now, the big question for many is: how does this all perform?
Elden Ring on Switch 2 generally sits around 34-35fps, with the game sometimes dipping slightly below the 30fps mark. Rather than feeling like obvious stuttering, these moments are more noticeable as a slight slowdown. Thankfully, they are few and far between, and I found them happening mainly when summoning my mount or blitzing through the landscape. Visuals remain sharp in both docked and handheld, with handheld looking and performing particularly well. There is upscaling at play, with some dithering visible on objects up close and a level of detail pop-in used to maintain performance, but the experience feels largely intact when transitioning to Switch 2.
For my Tarnished looking into accessibility, you can rebind the controls as well as use motion controls throughout the game. As always, I recommend further research into finding out if Elden Ring Tarnished Edition suits your accessibility needs.
At $115 AUD, Elden Ring Tarnished Edition is priced around the same price point as its PC and console counterparts, offering really competitive value, especially considering you’re getting the base game and Shadow of the Erdtree expansion together.
Elden Ring Tarnished Edition was well worth the wait on Switch 2, bringing us the base Elden Ring experience and the exceptional Shadow of the Erdtree expansion in the same package. Sure, there might be moments where performance slightly dips, but these do little to get in the way of this challenging and grand adventure. For gamers who have never experienced Elden Ring, this is a fantastic way to do so, and for returning players like myself, having this outstanding world available on a handheld is the perfect excuse to return to the Lands Between. Much like how the original Elden Ring was a defining Souls-like of the genre, Elden Ring Tarnished Edition is one of the defining ports on Switch 2, bringing a sprawling action RPG to a hybrid device. It’s polished, punishing, and an essential purchase for those looking for their next challenge.
So What’s it like? Elden Ring Tarnished Edition is like Dark Souls, polished to near perfection.
In the Interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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