As with most action role-playing games, one of the first choices you’ll have to make is deciding which class to adopt for your character. Play style, personality, and aesthetic preferences all have a role in the player’s decision. Elden Ring, a game still trending across the internet, is no different when it comes to other games of the same genre. Elden Ring gives players ten different starting classes each with varying beginning characteristics, spells, and tools to match your aesthetic and preferred strengths until you can build into the play style that you like. With ER, a chosen class does not determine a strict style of play for the rest of the game, but is rather a starting point or foundation upon which one can build.
For many players, the character build and look is often based on personal relatability and is influenced by individual personality. Quite often, the build that looks “coolest” is what players prefer to choose. Fortunately for ER, each character class, whether a melee-strong warrior or samurai class, or a magic/ faith-based class like the prophet or astrologer allow for a flexible amount of customization to cater to a gamer’s preferred aesthetic as well as allow for the gradual build of individual perks and strengths. No particular class is objectively more powerful than the other, which allows for a fair and balanced selection for all players and gaming styles.
The astrologer class, for instance, has the highest level of intelligence and mind which allows for improved and effective use of Glintstone sorcery in exchange for having less HP and lower levels of strength. Meanwhile, the vagabond class boasts higher vigor, strength, and endurance stats but has intelligence, faith, and arcane stats within the single digits.
Of all the classes, the samurai class is the only one derived specifically from actual history. While generic European style knights obviously appear in the game, samurai, which are uniquely Japanese, made its way into ER. This class allows for a solid all around non-magical class with strong physical attributes like dexterity and strength. The samurai class boasts armor that allows for fairly decent damage resistance and an exceptional starting weapon the Uchigatana for bleed damage. Additionally, the package includes a longbow that allows for devastating ranged damage. If there is any class anyone would pick for aesthetic reasons alone, the samurai class with its unique armor, weapons, and fighting animations would allow it to become one of the more popular classes to choose. One could almost pretend to play as a real-world samurai that somehow found himself in the Lands Between.
While this may just be the personal preference of a history geek, if a samurai could make its way as a playable class, ER could even further diversify their cast of classes by adding other real-world warrior classes like imperial Chinese general, Ottoman Janissary, Templar Knight, or Shaolin Monk with balanced melee-to-magic stats. Perhaps a DLC with more character classes in the future?
