Info about ELDERBORN:

Official game description:
Players about ELDERBORN
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About the Game
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**ELDERBORN** is a Metal Action Fantasy Slasher with brütal FPP melee combat and souls-like/RPG character progression. In the times of legend, the barbarian tribes need a new dark messiah. The player becomes a merciless slayer who will uncover ancient secrets in the city of doom, and forge their own destiny. This ambitious indie game, five years in the making, combines old-school single-player feel, a classic heroic story, and modern level of skill-based challenge. All this and more creates an action-packed, lore-filled, engaging adventure that will last 8-10 hours in a single play-through. Prepare for:  
*   Skill-based, **souls-like melee combat** in first person perspective, complete with 11 varied weapons to master  
*   Character **progression and skill system** that allows you to play the game in your very own way  
*   A **hand-crafted**, mysterious, and dangerous world to explore - catacombs, ancient, monolithic city, and more  
*   A large **selection of enemies**, each with their own fighting style, tricks, strengths, and weaknesses  
*   An epic and somewhat exotic original **heavy metal soundtrack** with an occasional electronic beat  
*   An unapologetic tribute to Robert E. Howard-esque **heroic fantasy** and the awesome pop-culture of the 80's and 90's  
*   **New Game +** mode!

Release date: Jan 30, 2020

Categories: First-Person Melee Combat, Soulslike Combat, Hack and Slash, Character Progression, Single-player, Dungeon Crawler

Feature scans:
- Proton/Linux: score 30; verdict: Minor Performance Issues; summary: Performance on Steam Deck is mixed; one user finds it acceptable with occasional frame drops, while another reports very poor performance. No Proton-specific workarounds were mentioned, suggesting the game may not be fully optimized for Linux/Steam Deck.
- Steam Deck: score 70; verdict: Broken; summary: The game displays a wide range of performance on Steam Deck: some users report an acceptable experience with minor frame drops, while others describe it as unplayable ('runs like shit') and experience severe FPS drops requiring extreme resolution reduction. This inconsistency contradicts a seamless green-checkmark experience.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $5.00 - $10.00
  - Reasoning: The majority of reviewers indicate the game is too short (3-6 hours) and recommend purchasing on sale. Several mention $5-$10 as acceptable, with $15 considered too high. A few recommend even lower at $3, but the community consensus for fair value appears to be between $5 and $10 for the base game.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 6.0h
  - Story completion: 5.0h
  - Session length: N/A
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: Multiple reviews consistently report completion times between 5 and 6 hours for a standard playthrough, with a more extreme speedrun estimate of 3 hours. The most frequently cited typical playtime is around 5-6 hours, which covers both the main story/campaign and general game completion (as the game is linear). No clear evidence was found for typical session length or distinct endgame content duration beyond the main playthrough and optional NG+ replay, so those fields are null.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: Elderborn's combat becomes deeply satisfying after players learn to parry and master the flow, but early repetitiveness and a learning curve may deter some.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: Learning to parry and counter
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: repetitive combat; slow start; steep learning curve; Souls-like death mechanic
  - Unlock drivers: unlocking second weapon for parry; mastering combat rhythm
  - Conditions: exploration for rewards; persisting through learning curve; playing on normal difficulty
- Player Archetypes:
  - Battle-Hardened Brawler (buy)
    - Motivation: The thrill of intense, skill-driven melee combat and the satisfaction of mastering parries and dodges.
    - Playstyle: Aggressive close-quarters fighting, relying on parries, dodges, and environmental interactions (e.g., kicking skeletons). Often explores different weapons and abilities to find the most effective combat approach.
    - Experience: mixed
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: Souls-like fan; melee combat enthusiast; challenge seeker; action game veteran
    - Reference games: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic; Doom; Dark Souls; Bloodborne; Vermintide
  - Retro Exploration Enthusiast (buy)
    - Motivation: Nostalgia for classic dungeon exploration, immersive dark fantasy world, and a self-assured retro game design.
    - Playstyle: Thoroughly explores every area searching for secrets and hidden lore, moves at a slower pace to absorb environments and music, and enjoys solving puzzles through brute force.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: old school player; dark fantasy fan; exploration lover; retro gamer
    - Reference games: King's Field; Dark Souls; Dark Messiah; Blood West
  - Completionist Grinder (buy)
    - Motivation: Earning every achievement, completing all challenges, and uncovering all secrets through repeated playthroughs.
    - Playstyle: Methodically tracks achievements and challenges, often using guides; performs multiple playthroughs at different difficulties and speedruns for specific goals; grinds XP via challenges and secrets.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: completionist; achievement hunter; hardcore player
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Value-Conscious Player (sale)
    - Motivation: Getting a fair price for the content provided, avoiding buyer's remorse on a short game.
    - Playstyle: Tends to play through once and then move on; avoids grinding or multiple runs unless the sale price makes it feel like a good deal; may wait for sales even if interested.
    - Experience: familiar
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: budget conscious; sale watcher; efficiency seeker
    - Reference games: N/A


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Engaging combat system (weight 0.54): Combat is described as great, fun, fast-paced, satisfying, and fluid. Players enjoy the visceral feel, rhythmic flow, and stylish execution, even if the system is simple.
- Excellent weapon variety (weight 0.53): Players praise the large selection of weapons, each with unique uses, play styles, and subtypes (sword, hammer, spear, dual sickles, etc.). Weapons feel distinct and require adaptation, contributing to engaging combat.
- Satisfying parry mechanics (weight 0.29): Parrying and blocking are highlighted as very satisfying mechanics. The combat system is skill-based, forcing movement, kicking, and counterattacks.
- Great heavy-metal soundtrack (weight 0.25): The heavy metal soundtrack is widely praised for enhancing the game experience. Music is described as memorable, excellent, and awesome.
- New Game+ adds replayability (weight 0.19): New Game+ mode is appreciated for adding replay value, with some players noting it introduces new areas and enemy types, encouraging multiple playthroughs.
- Excellent first-person melee (weight 0.18): Players rate the first-person melee combat as the best in its class, blending tactical souls-like elements with fast-paced action.
- Varied enemy types (weight 0.14): Enemy variety is noted as good, with distinct behaviors and strategies required for different foes such as skulls and pyromancers.
- Good value for money (weight 0.14): The game is considered cheap and good value, especially at the $15 price point or on sale. Worth the money.
- Satisfying hack-and-slash (weight 0.14): The hack-and-slash gameplay is satisfying, with players enjoying beating enemies and the visceral feedback.
- Good level design (weight 0.12): Level design is considered very good, interesting, and surprisingly well-crafted, enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
- Reminiscent of Dark Messiah (weight 0.11): The combat and overall feel are compared favorably to Dark Messiah, with mentions of Spartan kicks and satisfying melee. Considered a great spiritual successor.
- Appealing mix of Doom and Dark Souls (weight 0.11): Players appreciate the unique blend of Doom/Quake and Dark Souls/Soulslike mechanics, finding it a compelling combination.
- Great graphics and optimization (weight 0.1): Graphics are praised as great, stylized, and well-optimized, contributing to a visually pleasant experience.
- Dynamic and responsive combat (weight 0.08): Combat is described as arcade-like, dynamic, responsive, and fast-paced, keeping the action engaging.
- Great atmosphere (weight 0.08): The game creates good atmosphere with pleasant environments, enhancing immersion.
- Interesting skill tree (weight 0.08): The skill tree is simple and clear, with stats (strength, speed, life) and sub-skills that provide meaningful progression.

Common complaints:
- Game length is too short (weight 0.41): Multiple clusters highlight that the game is very short, often completed in 3 to 5 hours. Players felt the content was insufficient for the price, with only a few levels or chapters.
- Too few and predictable bosses (weight 0.17): With only two bosses, both described as predictable and weak, players were left wanting more. The lack of memorable boss fights is a notable flaw.
- Lack of map and navigation aids (weight 0.11): The absence of a map, mini-map, or quest tracking makes it easy to get lost and frustrating to navigate. Players found this to be a significant oversight.
- Ending is anticlimactic and disappointing (weight 0.11): The ending is widely criticized as unimpressive, anticlimactic, and underwhelming. Players felt it did not provide a satisfying conclusion to the game.
- Story is minimal and uninteresting (weight 0.11): The story is described as almost nonexistent, mediocre, or forgettable, with little atmosphere or narrative depth. This fails to engage players.
- Traps cause frustrating instant deaths (weight 0.09): Traps can cause one-hit deaths or deal excessive damage, leading to cheap and frustrating deaths. Their inconsistent introduction and use compounds the issue.
- Limited abilities and skills (weight 0.09): Players felt there were too few abilities or skills available, limiting gameplay depth and character progression. This contributes to the repetitive nature of combat.

Gameplay feedback:
- First-person melee combat (weight 0.82): The game is consistently described as a first-person melee action game with hack-and-slash elements, featuring light and heavy attacks, blocking, parrying, dodging, and kicking.
- Souls-like mechanics (weight 0.5): The game incorporates Souls-like elements such as bonfire checkpoints, enemy respawn, and losing currency on death, similar to Dark Souls.
- Weapon variety (weight 0.4): Players highlight multiple weapon types including swords, spears, hammers, and greatswords, with different movesets and speeds, allowing varied playstyles.
- Dungeon crawling (weight 0.14): The game features labyrinthine level design with traps and hordes of monsters, emphasizing exploration and dungeon crawling.
- Short playtime (weight 0.13): Players report the game is approximately 5 hours long and can be beaten in an afternoon, making it a short experience.
- Difficulty options (weight 0.12): Multiple difficulty levels are available, including a 'Hard AF' setting, catering to different player skill levels.
- Skill progression system (weight 0.11): The game includes a leveling and skill progression system that allows players to upgrade abilities and unlock skills.
- New Game+ mode (weight 0.1): A New Game+ mode is available with stronger enemies, providing replayability after completing the main game.
- Dark Messiah combat style (weight 0.1): Combat is reminiscent of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, with hardcore action and strategic positioning.
- Throwing enemy heads (weight 0.07): Players can throw enemy heads as a ranged attack, which is encouraged and adds a unique tactical option.
- Doom-like inspiration (weight 0.07): The game draws comparisons to Doom and Quake, but with melee weapons instead of guns, emphasizing fast-paced action.

Performance notes:
- Low FPS in later chapters (weight 0.19): Players report significant frame rate drops, particularly in chapters 2 and 3, with some experiencing as low as 30-40 FPS even on mid-range hardware like GTX 1060 and RTX 2080Ti.
- Mixed hardware performance (weight 0.09): While some high-end systems like RTX 2080Ti struggle, other users report smooth performance on RX 590, GTX 1060, and RX 580.
- Generally solid but with issues (weight 0.07): A few players describe the game as technically solid-ish or acceptably smooth on Steam Deck OLED with minor frame drops.
- Poor Steam Deck performance (weight 0.07): The game runs poorly on Steam Deck, with direct feedback using strong language to describe the performance.
- Occasional crashes and failures (weight 0.07): Some users report frequent crashes or that the game fails to start on certain systems.
- Performance in combat and open areas (weight 0.06): Lag occurs when combat starts, and frame drops happen broadly in various scenes.
- Inconsistent hit detection (weight 0.04): Hit detection feels inconsistent, impacting combat reliability.
- Optimization issues at high resolutions (weight 0.04): The game does not perform well at 4K resolution.
- Works on low-end hardware (weight 0.04): Some users report the game runs well even on Pentium 4 or low-end hardware, indicating optimization is not uniformly poor.
- Unusual GPU behavior (weight 0.03): Some users report that the game does not make the GPU fan spin, suggesting low GPU utilization.
- Minor bugs with enemies and vaulting (weight 0.03): There are minor bugs related to enemies and the ledge vault mechanic, which can feel unreliable.
- Frame limit helps but not enough (weight 0.03): Using a frame limit provides some help but does not fully resolve performance issues on GTX 1070.
- Hardware requirements too low for performance (weight 0.03): CPU and GPU requirements appear lower than what is needed for consistent performance.

Recommendations:
- Wait for sale (weight 0.51): Many players suggest waiting for a sale, especially a deep discount, to get the best value. Some explicitly say not to buy at full price.
- Good value on sale (weight 0.5): Players find the game worthwhile when purchased at a discounted price, often mentioning specific price ranges like under $10 or $15.
- Price-specific recommendations (weight 0.2): Some players suggest specific price points like $3, $5, or $8 as the maximum to pay for a fair experience.
- Not recommended (weight 0.18): A minority of players think the game is not worth the time or money, even at a discount, and advise against buying.
- Recommended for hack-and-slash fans (weight 0.18): Players who like linear hack-and-slash games, button-mashing, and melee combat often find the game enjoyable.
- Genre-dependent value (weight 0.17): The game's worth depends on whether the player likes the genre, with some saying it's worth full price for fans.
- Recommended for soulslike fans (weight 0.12): Players who enjoy souls-like games or difficult combat are more likely to recommend this title, especially at higher difficulties.
- Not even on sale (weight 0.08): Some reviewers state the game is not worth purchasing at any price, including when discounted.
- Limited mechanics (weight 0.06): Some reviewers note that the game has limited mechanics but works well for players who enjoy simple, repetitive combat.
- Dark fantasy and metal appeal (weight 0.06): Fans of dark fantasy, punishing combat, heavy metal music, and first-person action are especially likely to enjoy the game.
- Doom-style gameplay (weight 0.05): Players who enjoy first-person melee combat similar to Doom's fast-paced action may find the game appealing.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Disappointment (weight 0.17): The game's short length, abrupt or unfinished ending, and lack of a final boss are major disappointments. Combat is widely considered shallow, unsatisfying, and lacking impact compared to other games, while the difficulty scaling feels non-existent and the price is seen as too high for the content.
- Frustration (weight 0.17): Frustration stems from numerous technical issues, including bugs, glitches, poor hitboxes, unresponsive controls, and performance drops. Level design is often confusing, with tedious backtracking and unfair enemy placements, while combat mechanics like parrying feel unpolished and bosses are either too tanky or rely on repetitive patterns.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.15): Despite its flaws, players enjoy the core combat, finding it fun, fast-paced, and satisfying, particularly with the kick and parry mechanics. The heavy metal soundtrack and dark fantasy atmosphere are highly praised, and many find the gameplay loop engaging and entertaining for its duration.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.14): Satisfaction comes from the rewarding combat feel, especially the impactful kick and parry mechanics, along with a satisfying soundtrack and good weapon variety. The game is considered good value for its low price, providing a short but sweet experience that does not overstay its welcome.
- Excitement (weight 0.09): Excitement is driven by the fast-paced, frenetic combat combined with a heavy metal soundtrack that creates an adrenaline-fueled power fantasy. Players enjoy the wide variety of satisfying weapons, ragdoll physics, and the unique blend of genres like Dark Souls and Doom.
- Boredom (weight 0.04): Boredom is caused by repetitive combat and level design, with a lack of enemy variety and a monotonous color palette. The short length and tedious second half, combined with a simple loop of finding keys, leads to a dull and unrewarding experience.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Players appreciate the game's unique personality and successful fusion of elements from Doom, Dark Souls, and Dark Messiah. The artistic direction, atmosphere, and homage to sword-and-sorcery are valued, along with decent combat and a solid weapon variety for a budget title.
- Admiration (weight 0.02): Admiration is expressed for the excellent combat rhythm and game design, often calling the game a hidden gem or one of the best first-person melee games. The awesome soundtrack, great atmosphere, and well-written story are also highly praised.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance stems from repetitive or poorly implemented music, such as a grating metal soundtrack that doesn't stop when pausing. Specific annoying enemies like shield dogs, along with performance drops and input buffering bugs, also contribute to the frustration.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Surprise comes from the game exceeding low expectations, often being much more fun and engaging than anticipated. Players were surprised by the quality of combat for the price, the sheer amount of time sunk into it, and the discovery that it is a hidden gem.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger is directed at poor game design, including untelegraphed instant death traps and weapons that feel samey with large ones being useless. Technical issues like the game failing to start and poor achievement design also provoke anger.
- Fun (weight 0.01): Players find simple yet profound fun in mindless hack-and-slash action, enjoying the core loop of smashing and slashing enemies. The pure, straightforward action is described as super fun and engaging.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from unclear navigation, a lack of guidance and maps, leading players to get lost easily. Some players are also confused by the high number of positive reviews, as their experience did not match the praised fluid gameplay.
- Joy (weight 0.01): Joy is derived from simple, satisfying actions like decapitating enemies and using the kick mechanic. Headbanging to the soundtrack while enjoying smooth combat evokes a sense of joy, with the game feeling like a wonderful gem with a 90s adventure aura.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement is found in humorous elements, such as a joke about the word 'Jurmum' sounding like 'your mum' and the amusing idea of solving puzzles by hitting them. Strange, unexpected erotic content in a slasher game also provides a source of amusement.
- Disgust (weight 0.01): Disgust is triggered by the game being seen as a garbage asset flip with no aesthetic integrity. Motion sickness from a fishbowl effect and floaty movement, combined with bad music, makes the experience literally sickening for some players.
- Irritation (weight 0.01): Irritation is caused by cheap, one-hit death traps and universally disliked mechanics like the lava scorpions' fire area. These elements are seen as frustrating and poorly designed, leading to irritation.
- Mild disappointment (weight 0.01): Mild disappointment comes from a short story and high price for the content offered, with the game feeling too easy and simplistic. The lack of dismemberment and somewhat repetitive music also contribute to a slightly underwhelming experience.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is focused on the developer's future projects, with players expressing a desire for a sequel with a longer campaign, more bosses, and smoother animations. There are hopes for deeper skill trees, weapon customization, custom maps, and multiplayer.
- Slight disappointment (weight 0.01): Slight disappointment results from the game length being somewhat short and limited in content, with an unoriginal first level. The lack of an equipment system and a short campaign leave players wanting more.}