The game Elden Ring Runes, though, the horses aren't real and therefore, this review is slightly different.
The neck of Torrent is adorned with enough fur shaggy to make Jorvik Wild jealous. His long forelock and wide set ears give him the Highland Cattle, fresh-out-of-bed look, and there are several dapples on his butt which are adorable however they are mostly covered in tacks and bags.
Mane Quest's issues eventually come into something that I'd not noticed them, but now cannot un-see: Torrent looks like a horse, but their legs bend like...well that they shouldn't much like a goat but they're also not exactly:
Let's move on to the bit I'm not fine with: Torrent's joints. Our goat-horse is suffering from the two very frequent issues of excessively bending forelegs and completely stiff fetlocks. I feel like a broken record at this point, because I've pointed this out in numerous games however, a horse's joint fetlocks should be less stiff in order to bear the weight. Moving an extra joint is of course extra work, but I still am constantly disappointed that an game with the same dimensions and resources of Elden Ring does not consider this vital for the character's mount.
We could try to make this clear by pretending you believe that Torrent is more horse than goat or at a minimum, a mix of both: watching footage of goat walks their legs are relatively straight. Since Torrent's legs look significantly more equine , compared to uuh... caprine I'm not completely content with this excuse. Particularly since there are other non-goat horses in this game that are enemy mounts, and they've been known to have the same issue.
Although it is visually jarring it is, at the very least, an element of truth to the goat's legs: they may look weird, but they work. playing the game for longer has led me to realize that the choice is understandable from a perspective of gameplay - in a game like Elden Ring, where precision and timing is essential against any opponent, your horse's lack of coordination could be enough to stop you from using it during combat.Meaning: I get the reason why smooth movement is favored over the realism of horses.
I also would think that at some point in Elden Ring's design process somebody mentioned, "Maybe the player needs the help of a horse," and somebody else added, "Not fucked up enough that it should be a goat with buy Elden Ring Runes horse legs" and everybody nodded.
