Technically finished this on Halloween but had to take time to write this.
After nearly a year's worth of time for this game to settle down and other stuff in my personal life to get arranged, I've finally gotten around to beating Elden Ring.
It's a big and somewhat bizarre game to talk about, given its structure and FromSoft's legacy; I'm not entirely sure how I want to go about reviewing the damn thing. After some thinking, I decided I would just go through and talk about each area and my own experience, giving a short summary of how I felt over the course of the entirety of the game, with some brief pauses here and there to sum up certain points. Even just drafting this, this is certainly the longest review I've probably done and it's certainly a bit much for a game I'm certain isn't my game of the year nor my favorite soulsborne but I thought it'd be only fitting.
[LIMGRAVE]
Beginning my adventure, I decided to take up Astrologer as I was interested to see what kind of magic I'd be getting into. I had only seen limited footage of the game prior and my previous experience with Dark Souls was rather magic-less so I figured now was a good time to pick it up. I hadn't expected the prizes and results I would eventually get. Limgrave is an excellent open world to begin with- with several different side paths and distractions to send you in different paths. Personally I remember only having a few hours before work to start my playthrough and my first day was just wandering that coastline and trying to slay a giant that guarded the slope down, all the while seeing others on my timeline at work go east, north, south and what have you. My only issue with Limgrave was that it felt very easy to miss out important items and persons. I'm a bit biased in this regard as Sellen- the only intelligence teacher in this first chunk I nearly missed until my roommate pointed her out. It's a very 'faith' heavy area which is neat but it does feel very odd just how much of it there is out in the field plus Corhyn just being at the Roundtable from the start, I kinda wish the area was more a bit more diverse from the get-go. Thankfully what vendors are available are there, just easy to miss like in my case.
(Weeping)
Intro to the sorta 'off shoot' and optional regions (like dragonbarrows). It's an interesting detour but understably its more of a grinding spot for those that want to take on Stormhill more easily. Can't remember much about the area itself other than the Leonine Misbegotten boss and Runebears.
(Stormgrave)
The first of the games 'Legacy' dungeons, which act as build ups to the game's major bosses, although early on I didn't really appreciate the locale or Godrick nearly as much. I kinda expected each area to be exactly like this, I guess. My own trip through the castle was fine but finding out there were way more hidden areas than I initially realized after the fact was cool. Margit and Godrick make really excellent first 'big' bosses for the player as they relentlessly pummel you if you try to approach them passively. Both of them are very mobile despite their size and their arena's have cliffs on both sides (Godrick's to my chagrin as I told my friend I died multiple times to which he replied "there were cliffs?"). Several months after beating him I had kinda downplayed him in my mind as, again, I kinda figured much of the game would be similar to Godrick and he was just the first of this kind of fight. Going onward in the game and on top of that, rewatching his battle I forgot how sick it is. Margit is cool but mostly just a test to see how well you can manage delays/dodging/varied attacks while testing how well you've grappled with the new mechanics, but Godrick screaming mid-way through the fight only to chop his own arm off and transition to the second phase by grafting a dragon head is a great introduction to just how insane the shard bosses of Elden Ring get.
This was a wonderful first week of the game being out and everyone who wasn't just completely binging it going "did you see the wolfman?" "Oh shit these spells are crazy good!" "Yeah man, this one cave has this really good weapon!". I remember first beating Margit and it was still the first week or so of the game and just seeing this rat race of ghosts get through the Stormveil castle, platforming across the outside of the walls to get into the interior safely. I was wondering just how the game would evolve from here.
[LIURNIA]
(Eastern Liurnia)
Unfortunately this was when I began to fall off at first. I decided to tackle the right half of Lucaria first although in a really eclectic pattern, kept going into the lake area, back onto the rightmost cliffs, back into the lakes. With how open and sparse some of the locations were, I kept kinda wondering what the hell I was doing and how the hell I could get into the Academy in the first place. If 2022 is the year of anything for me (minus the Yugioh resurgence), it was the year of getting real tired of just blindly exploring open world areas. Between Pokemon Legends (and I guess this upcoming one as well), two Xenoblade games and this game, I really can't spend hours on end just combing every inch for whatever potential trinket is out there. So from here on once I got back to the game I figured I'd only chug as much as I needed to tackle the major bosses and characters of the game.
(Raya Lucaria)
Another Legacy Dungeon real early on. This specifically was when I put the game down for most of the year. I managed to first try the Red Wolf boss and I guess I just wanted to ride that high despite not really knowing how other people felt about it difficulty-wise. But, once I picked it back up and beat Rennala I got sucked back into the world. Rennala is a really cool fight, and it really got me to readjust myself to the combat and mechanics to the game. It took me a while to remember that jumping attacks are good and break poise incredibly well. I was wondering what the hell her deal was while beating the first phase but upon seeing that there was a second phase I started getting the vision. The vision that is who the hell thought it was cool for her to summon all those ads. It is cool but as someone getting back in it took me a moment to realize I should ignore those completely to chase Rennala and earn my respec feature.
(Westen Liurnia)
Took on a new strategy of tackling ER, involving the tactic of just ignoring some things and dashing to what looks like dungeons (semi-successfully). Honestly this area seemed somewhat more interesting than the sparse encounters and somewhat odd geography of the eastern section. Might not have Turtle Pope but it does have the four bellfries (although I missed this entirely) and Caria Manor. Caria Manor is a neat mini-dungeon and contains a lot of neat trinkets and a cool fight with Loretta.
It is a bit ironic, maybe hypocritical that I complained earlier about Limgrave's lack of easy to get sorceries outside of Sellen, but then post-Stormveil has Rogier appear in the Hold and Liurnia is chock full of not just sorceries and Int scaling weapons, but armor that facilitates these builds. I did figure this would pique my interest but again it's become very hard for me to really attach myself purely to explorative curiosity, especially when as early as the first few days people catch on to the reuse/templates of off-road dungeons and field 'fortifications' or villages; this kind of realization that kinda kept me tethered to exploring each and every one of these rather than see what the game was mainly offering. I don't know, my process of exploring open worlds is strange- I distinctly remember missing the intended path toward Kakariko Village in BOTW and missing the upgrade korok entirely until the last bit of the game. Here, I recall missing the whetstone knife that is needed to add arts and affinities to weapons until a friend noticed I never got it in the one area that everyone tackled and went to for training in front of those gates. In a sense I do wish it easier to tell when you've 'completed' certain areas and dungeons. After a while it begins to click just when exactly a section will reward you with it's "main" treasure, but early on it just seemed like some areas didnt house the secrets that I assume would be saved for larger dungeons.
[CAELID]
I really wish shit like the chest teleporter was more common. Maybe it is and I just completely skipped much of it but having like a massive trap per region that takes you to an unknown location is super funny. There certainly are more areas later on that utilize the transporters and even a dungeon has several of those trap chests as its gimmick, but some more insane or lucrative/riskier teleports would be fun. Obviously this means my intro to the area was the chest in the dragon-burnt ruins of Limgrave. Only barely explored before beating Rennala, grabbing whatever I saw and immediately I understood the Miyazaki bit of "i can't help myself, the swamps man". It is funny though that the swamp isnt actually all that bad and torrent just lets you run through it.
(The 'dash-through')
Decided to just do a quick runthrough of the area by staying mostly on the main highway and I will say I do like that most of the region's graces are just along that road circling the lake. I figured the dash through would help mediate the 'vibe' i got from other players of how hellish of a place Caelid is, yet it seemed like much of the place was kinda cake. Mostly just needed to not engage with large swathes of the big dogs or birds as multiples of those remain the worst part of the area. Will give props that immediately right of Limgrave is just this hell pit of a location, the first two (three?) places being 'grassy/lakeside/coastal/crags' kinda got old even with how pretty much of the locations are. Caelid being this Blightown 'the area is surrounded by its very own gross filter'.
(Radahn Cake)
It was around this time that I also decided to utilize the re-spec option for ER. Thank god for this, I really don't care for much of the 'dex' options in soulsborne and i figured this would be the time to check it out, turning my Dex points into Str. Whether or not Str ot Dex is better in this game I can't tell ya, but boy do i prefer how it feels. There's nothing more satisfying than just crashing a big hunk of metal over some normal ass dude. This was also around the same time I was told to get the rock spell and boy oh boy is that move good.
This area culminates into a legacy 'event' moment in the form of the Radahn Festival, one of the most hyped and hinted at setpieces in the game as multiple npcs from Alexander to Sellen talk about it. I'm of two mindsets: On one hand they nerfed him so hard. I beat him first try and while I do think I was a bit overleveled I was kinda hoping to fight him a bit more, but I was mostly at a distance seeing my friends pummel him over and over. (Sidenote: bless Patches)
On the other hand, the build up and gimmick of the fight is so unique and the lore behind his existence, being and what happens as he's defeated. Even if I was a bit disappointed by not dying to him, it was a really cool fight and seeing the stars return from his grip felt super satisfying.
(Dragonsbarrow)
That dead dragon with the hundreds of thousands of runes is super funny. That's about all I remember from this area. These mini-areas are super strange with regards to what I should be doing there. Weeping makes a bit of sense given Stormveil is a bit of a spike in difficulty, meanwhile dragonsbarrow I don't know what you do here other than see Gurranq, kill a rune-filled dragon and get the soreseal. (Set-up...)
[Underground Ranni Rivers Sidequest]
(Ainsel alien ant farm boogaloo)
Repeatedly throughout this first half of the game several elevators take you to the bottom half of the world map, several mini river regions that mostly serve as Ranni's sidequest, these are neat little side areas that remind me of some of the later Bloodborne areas. Those ants arent too bad but man do I hate how they look. Thankfully nowhere near as terrifying as Cazadores. Can't remember much about what I was actually trying to get here but the Dragonkin wasn't too hard.
(Siofra and Nokron minotaur)
I got really lost in Siofra trying to light the torches, idk what they were cooking. However, getting back here after several tens of levels only to completely floor the two bosses of Siofra was funny.
After being Radahn and getting to the newly made crater in Limgrave, it was time to explore Nokron. Nokron having an extreme Oolacile vibe at the start is really cool, and getting through the area was pretty alright with a cool Mimic Tear miniboss and another Minotaur/Ancestor Spirit section like Siofra. But then those Gargoyles man. Fuck that Gargoyle boss and everything surrounding it. I don't know why most of the comments I saw about the recommended level was 70 or so and that it should be tackled at all at that point in the sidequest. It seems way more tailored for whenever you want to access the Deeproot Depths later in the game. Otherwise you have to deal with this obnoxious as hell duo fight where both of them start vomiting poison all over the arena and swinging these huge ass hitboxes. This was easily one of the hardest fights for me (Godskin Duo and Crucible Duo be damned) and I don't know if it was my build or my strategy but it really isn't worth doing this fight until way later.
To a certain extent there is no RECOMMENDED level for most of the game outside of whatever you can reasonably kill without wasting several resources. Something I didn't need to think about too often but this more than any other Soulsborne is very lenient with how you progress through the game. Maybe not nearly as open as BOTW but very close considering the few world-state changes and multiple detours around certain dungeons. This is really nice, although I didn't really need to do so as much of the game was actually fairly tame difficulty curve wise. Anyway all you really have to do is u-turn when you get access to the aqueduct and find the ledge that leads to Nokron, which is a neat area full of the silver tears.
(Return to Ainsel and Lost Izal- Lake of Rot)
Honestly despite the kinda obtuseness of the Ranni quest (if I didn't realize/know through osmosis that much of the Ranni quest was based off the river areas I prolly would have saved this until whenever I'd remember they existed), it's pretty fulfilling to have an actual character act as a companion down this section of the river. This whole segment of returning back down to a different section of the rivers and these underground cities but having a mini Ranni to talk to at Sites of Grace makes me wish more of the game had these kinds of companions per area. Ranni getting kinda heated and going "Fine. Fine!.. If you want to know.." when you pry a bit into wanting to learn more about her and her plan is really refreshing compared to the typical souls npc 'cold/aloof/mysterious' act you'd come to expect. Later in the game, Melina does appear more at graces as you close in on the end, which is nice but I kinda wish more of the cast showed up at graces specifically, like a camp chat. I think these games do a good job at having interesting characters but ER specifically has this much more involved and honestly more intriguing cast than the other soulsbornes i've played or seen. All the more it is very funny getting to the end and realizing "oh [spoiler] is kinda going through a cuck thing".
Going down to the Lake of Rot is uhhhhhh.
Man, I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to have a Dragonkin Soldier fight in the middle of a lake of debuff. Otherwise the area isn't too long at least, just gotta deathrun most of the area and not pay too much attention to those insect things at the end. Ansel is a really cool fight though.
Finishing the Ranni sidequest out is very sweet and I wish there was one or two other characters with as detailed a sidequest as this but c'est la vie. Not that I mind much, I obtained the Dark Moon Greatsword and basically pieced together the final parts to my build.
[Random notes intermission]
-Do wish there was a 'new items' menu or indicator.
-The map isn't terrible but sometimes it's very hard to distinguish what direction I'm actually able to go in.
-Some of the overworld music can get kinda grating after a bit
-When people at the start said 'take notes' I didn't quite understand and stopped a few days in. Then I went back to see Miriel only for him to talk about 'Radagon's secret' 70 hours prior and I was like ohhhhhh
-I don't know how they would convey this but i wish it was clearer to determine what attack is what element. These elemental defenses matter about as much as they do in Monster Hunter but if I die to a yellow breath attack, I'd like to know whether my fire defense or my holy defense was the issue or if the breaths are just that strong because good lord.
-I might be a bit worn out of the side dungeons and a lot REALLY like to reuse ideas or assets or bosses, but there are some that like to twist things up in minor details. I did really appreciate the dungeon that opened up into a room that previewed a passage from a later dungeon, more stuff like that would have been neat.
-Along with that note, stonesword keys are a very strange currency to keep track of and determine value of. You end up having quite a few just leftover not even because they want to make sure you can do everything but it feels more like I just stopped caring when i did see stonesword imps
[Altus Plateau]
Again, neat enough location but I think it's just too similar to the grassy, mountainous, ravaged areas akin to Limgrave. At least the lighting change makes itself stand apart from limgrave but with all the lightning in some areas I think it would have been neat if the area was overcast and stormy most of the time. Also not helped that outside of a few encounters most of the enemies feel too samey. Wormfaces are neat. Honestly don't have much else to say as it kinda just feels like Limgrave 1.5. I guess the main thing I got from this area was understanding just how overleveled and overpowering much of the stuff I had was.
(Mt. Gelmir)
In contrast, despite how treacherous the terrain and scaling gets I found myself quite enjoying the Mt. Gelmir area. It does reuse a bunch of enemies and there was one preview of a later enemy that I wish was more prevalent in this area, that being the 'Prelate'. I was kinda hoping most of the enemies would be these kinda fire spewing warriors but nah they get saved toward the end of the game sadly. Hi, Patches!
(Volcano Manor)
Really enjoy the more 'gimmicky' aspects to these legacy dungeons, it reminds me of how different Paper Mario chapters would take on different structures, odd of comparison as that may seem.
Once you finally discover the backroom and enter the actual dungeon its a pretty fun romp across several rooftops and dark passages, with a layer of flowing lava throughout. These early Godskin bosses are fucked up though.
Rya is queen.
[Leyndell]
Neat. More grassy- OOooh never mind. The outer ring of the capital certainly seems more in line with what the Altus Plateau dished out but a lot of other factors begin to converge, Margit shows back up, a lot of prior bosses stop having 'boss' lifebars and are just normal enemies now, and certain plot elements feel as though they begin to converge finally.
(Capital)
This is the part of the game where your mount, Torrent, start's showing up less and less and its a real shame. Obviously much of the game's layouts would be broken if you could just ride around and jump over most of the geometry but it's a large and complex area and I do wish much of it was traversable on horseback. Even if Sellia isn't a 'dungeon' it was nice being able to use Torrent just to jump from building to building. This doesn't feel like a dungeon that much so I think it would have been perfectly fine for most of the outside areas to just be Torrent-summonable. Maybe it was hard to program? Dunno. Neat little evolution on the Anor Londo vibes though.
(Sewers)
Leyndall is fine but uggggggggghhhhh this was getting real obnoxious. In hindsight it's not too bad of an area all things considered but those Revenant dudes are a real pain in the ass. It is very funny that Dung Eater is guarded by a bunch of obnoxious enemies and whenever you meet up with him to give him Seedbed Curses you just torture him. Very fun to do, especially after killing my shrimpin pal. Otherwise it's another souls sewer level. At least this version Mohg was a breeze.
(The throne)
Back to the top the only thing that remained was Godfrey and Morgott. That Torrent thing from earlier is just as bad now since I had to go back and forth a bunch for that Goldmask/Corhyn stuff. At least Godfrey was a joke and admittedly, so was Morgott. This was when I was really getting desperate to get through this as fast as possible as I was nearing my self-determined deadline (before October ended) and thus my strategy became Mimic Tear + Comet Azur for a day or two. This shit is too much. I cannot fathom who in their right mind at From Soft thought it was a good idea to just have a kamehameha, a 10 second 'free fp' buff and a cloning tool just free to use during any boss but I must say it was very funny at least. Shame that Morgott died so fast but I think it's funnier that my man's spent so much time and effort seething only to get melted.
[Snowy north]
(Moutaintops)
It was around this time that much of the game started to catch back up to me, these last few sections don't hold back when it comes to certain enemies and segments. I was also getting uhhhh more desperate and decided just to skip certain sections, bosses and dungeons entirely. I at least made an effort to get the plat and fight most bosses I come across. Most being an odd term as my decision making process sometimes gets confused and decided to fight the obnoxious as hell Death-Rite Bird but not the 16th dragon I've seen all game. Commander Niall and his fort is neat, but very odd. I never did look into his lore nor do I really care to but I do enjoy his kind of 'lemme just summon MY guys' fights. Otherwise not much else to tackle through the Mountaintops until Fire Giant.
(The other two shardbearers and other two underground areas)
Rykard: Because of the Volcano Manor's structure its recommended to do this once finishing the last assassination in the mountaintops, so im getting around to this now. This was such a cool fight. Again, I think most of the legacy dungeon boss fights are really strong but this is probably my favorite. It's a sick fight where you're required to use the Serpent Killer spear that shoots thrusts of winds while circling the giant serpent. It's not too hard and maybe a bit gimmicky but with how unique it felt by this point I was completely down for it. Also really enjoyed seeing the post-Rykard Tanith bit, what the fuck.
Deeproot Depths: This is such a funny area. I wasn't sure when to tackle this given how much I didn't like the gargoyle fight, but I decided to finish this place and as it turned out it was actually quite tame (minus a crucible knight and a runebear). Not much goes on other than that one side cave with the 5 Ant Queens that just serve to give you the uber-runes that leveled me up like 3 times. Fia's Champions are a funny fight as is that dragon (This was when the comet azur bit really felt like too much so I toned down around here).
Mohgwyn and Palace: Honestly I expected worse with this region but it was actually pretty cool- just don't engage with birds nor skeletons. Although the actual 'palace' part of it is super short I did like traversing the dark cavern and beating the shit out of Varre for fucking up my fingers and calling me bitchless. Mohg is also an extremely fun fight, with a similar 'Margit shackle' situation that's a bit iffy if you didn't go down into the sewers of Leyndall, but Mohg himself commands a lot of cool blood and gravity attacks. Him shouting "Nihil! Nihil! Nihil!" and wiping away my health only for me to continue bonking him in his motionless state was very satisfying. Also very funny that he gets owned in front of the comatose malewife he kidnapped.
(Consecrated Snowfield): Technically entered here before getting to Mohgwyn since the teleporter is here but I figured I'd talk about this after that. Basically more of the mountaintops but more fucky. The first bit is this dungeon with an invisible floor to drop down on and tough tiny dudes the first chunk of the outdoors section is covered in a thick blizzard and the last chunk is a puzzle 'town' with the river 'light the torch' bit but with invisible assassins stalking you down throughout and archers on the rooftops. Thankfully the torches don't die out.
[FINALE]
(Haligtree)
Across the final weekend of October would be my final binge of the goddamn game and there was a lot to cover within such a timeframe, even though there were only a few sections left. I had some of the hardest bosses ahead of me and two major locations to still comb over. Firstly was the Haligtree. This place reeks of Dark Souls design doc, almost to a disgusting tee. This place knows it houses the hardest boss in the game and won't allow you to just waltz right in. The trumpeters from the capital are actually aggroing to you, several enemies are reused from prior areas, there's long stretches of powerful enemies atop complex geometry and layouts, tree branch platforming, trudging through swamps... actually this place does feel like more of an evolution of Lost Izalith than the Lake of Rot bit I made earlier. Even has a section where you have to help a long ongoing NPC questline meet its conclusion but thankfully this isn't anywhere near as rough (even if the opponents you fight are relentless, you just need Millicent to go ham on them and distract the others). At the very least it's a lot prettier of a locale than Lost Izalith ever could be. It was all in all a very funny showcase of the game to show my roommate who had not progressed to this area yet and vaguely knew what all it had in store (iirc he left off in the Snowfields by the time I reached here) and to his girlfriend who was visiting for the weekend (who iirc hadn't played this game). By the time they had left to run errands and spend time to themselves I was progressing further down to...
...Malenia. I have no right to talk about this fight tbh. I got through this in perhaps the worst way one could possibly imagine. Firstly, I actually did pretty well on my second attempt, getting her down to the second phase and some damage before eventually dying. Then a while passes and I get no other progress and decide "you know what? I've never summoned through multiplayer before". Does this end well? Ehhhh, results are mixed. Malenia is an incredibly tough fight and one that I think will be a bane for this build of mine for time to come. It took me a while to realize that shields honestly don't make that much of a difference in some fights (as we get to later) compared to good movement but I really didn't have any plans to switch to something more evasive all the sudden. Also it took me way too long to realize I never did get bloodhound step (...and Punchline). Eventually I did pair up with another jolly cooperator and we do pretty well throughout phase one- when suddenly, Malenia staggers. First phase is near death and I go in to attack. My pal is right beside me and I believe he was going at it to also close the phase off. Screen goes black and it seems as though we're going to phase 2. And yet... her health bar isn't at halfway like usual. It's actually empty, i'm a bit stunned but she's still active, needing just ONE attack to finish her off. Either I go in or my buddy, but sure enough she falls. Bless that fellow comrade in putting this nightmare to rest. We take those.
Now this is gonna sound really absurd and preachy coming from a guy that beat her in the stupidest way possible but also I just don't think its that good of a fight. She's strong. REAL strong. Her lore is cool and she's been built up since the very beginning as this absolute monster of a fight. But...she's honestly not as cool or satisfying as I would have liked. Much of her moveset are these super swift, super strong attacks But there's also so many unique and interesting new movesets or tricks to the other big bosses of the game that Malenia doesn't quite reach. Her second phase is cool (but I guess I barely experienced it) but other than that dive bomb of hers and the bird move (which overstays its welcome after the 10th death) its kinda just a basic fight but she hits strong. Rennala's a great magic/puzzle-y fight with these summons and tricky spells, Godrick's mid-fight roar + self-amputation + dragon graft is a sick as hell phase transition, Rykard and Mohg are these absolute monstrosities of characters and fights with unique counters to their strategy, Radahn is this massive set piece with a sick raid fight and a cool, meaningful resolution when you beat him and the stars are freed from his grasp, Morgott exists. But getting to Malenia and finally beating her I was just kinda like, yeah that was funny and unintentional but i dont know if intentionally beating her would have been more satisfying. For a boss that was hyped up as heavily as her I was kinda just left wishing it was a cooler fight rather than the toughest fight. Maria from Bloodborne I think better fills the vibe as the tough as nails, swift, blood-poison (fire?) fight. I spent way more time malding and getting mad at Maria than Malenia, but I can at least say I felt as though I learned Maria's fight. Additionally, once I learned the parry timing I was absolutely styling on her, which felt much more rewarding. Malenia just has a bunch of too strong, too long moves and an obnoxious health regen gimmick that makes the fight overstay its welcome.
(Fire Giant)
I almost forgot this. Cool fight but laughably easy after Malenia. RIP to two real ones during this section.
(Farum Azula)
Gonna be honest, this zone is really cool looking but big shame its also confusing as all hell to traverse at times. It is really cool that this place has basically been hinted at all game and you see bits here and there about the place, from the Beastman literally in one of the first Limgrave caves to the Belfries portal in Liurnia. It's not the toughest place but it does have some oddities to its design that make it feel more in-line with prior soulsbornes. Primarily neither of the bosses here have Stakes for some reason? Honestly this area wouldn't have felt too bad if I didn't have to run back to the boss each time. Maliketh's isn't too bad, just a bit of a walk. Placid Suck though? Man that was obnoxious, having to take the elevator, send it back up, fall all the way down then do the lying down animation, skip the cutscene was just pretty tedious. Like removing that last part would even be nice. Also feels bad just becuase the boss itself is hard so there's that lmao. Also shoutout to the weird bug where if your bag is full but you beat Bernharl you don't get all of his stuff including the legendary armament. I was really mad when this happened but upon booting up a new game plus to kick his ass in Limgrave I put away some stuff in my box just in case my inventory was still full or something and upon mashing the X button the achievement just popped up? Like I didn't even see the Scepter or whatever I needed from him but sure enough I got the plat. I wish I had more to say about the two bosses here but I was so tired of dragons at this point I didn't think too much outside of wanting to beat him (he's the best one in the game at least) and Maliketh wasn't too bad in my run but I really enjoyed the fight.
(Leyndall again but fucked up)
Still no horse, why? I don't know. There's not much else so by this point I was just beelining to the end.
Hoarah Loux might be the coolest thing I've seen in the soulsborne franchise. I haven't played much of the series but a grappler??? Holy fuck even in death it was so sick seeing this guy go.
And finally, the final boss. Somehow my karma for cheesing much of the game's prior bosses has caught up as I'm stunlocked by Radagon/Elden Beast. Primarily the latter, but because you have to fight both of them sequentially it makes Radagon seem that much harder (beat him my second time but would die several times after). Elden Beast on the other hand turned into a nightmare and I truly don't know how. I guess in general the much 'bigger' bosses have been the biggest pain in this playthrough, from the Gargoyles, the Deathbirds, the Dragons and now this. Im not entirely sure how but something about those holy attacks just sliced through my health like it was nothing. Most of the Elden Beast's attacks are fine but those sword beams it attempts at far distances just two shot me.
It was also at this point I realized just how much of my build was kind of restricting me- one fight before the end of the game. I never did get that bloodhound step, and the more I fought this guy the more I realized I needed a better dodge- not a better shield. During a break in my time between trying out the boss for an hour and the following day I had taken notes in an attempt to soften the blows of these two as they had scared me like no other boss prior. What if I couldn't get it done before my deadline? What if I got stunlocked endlessly for hours on end? How was this so hard? I'm pretty overleveled all things considered. And that's the enigma that is Elden Ring. There's so much variation between builds, experiences, play styles, journeys that people will have vastly differing experiences no matter what. The amount of boss encounters here that have been hyped up for being the most difficult thing in the game, Godskin Duo, Radahn, Mohg, Malekith, Morgott, Loretta (2nd), Hoarah Loux, Fire Giant- had been proven to be quite tame with my build, overall thorough exploring and level beefing, yet the final two have left me in quite a predicament.
Again, perhaps this serves as some kind of divine karma as I attempted to break this game over my knee as a means to get through it as fast yet somewhat thoroughly as possible before the year ends, and so I can move on to other games I need to beat before then. But Radagon has other plans. As I type this out even, I am actually at work bored and without any other tasks, still drafting parts of this review -anxious to get back to the arena and test out my new strategies and plans to finally put the game to rest. Although I am a bit saddened that there was still a lot of side content and build potential that I missed out on. I kinda wish I had changed my build once to try out more of the faith or arcane stuff that I wasn't able to properly utilize. Or some of the other moves or Ashes of War that I never fully checked out. The Dark Moon Greatsword is certainly amazing, I'm never gonna deny that now- and mimic tear is an amazingly busted tear that can tank much of anything and having double the frost weapon is stupidly strong. Using the Jellyfish shield is also quite good, but stronger bosses require you to be more mobile than tanky. Comet Azur is also quite the beast, but when aimed poorly it's often punished by something like Radagon's backhand. Sometimes the best stratagem against a tough opponent just requires some thinking outside the box much like in that Magma Wrym became somewhat easier once my camera was off his ass...camera. CAMERA. So upon this realization I figured the final piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. The terrible lock on-
Actually I just needed to switch to rock sling.
Took a few tries but that beast did go down, thanks to a lucky moment where it remained in one place attacking my clone and I could focus on beaming its health down as well. I guess my sword having only a D physical scaling was a bit of a hindrance, once rock sling came into play the dps started to make sense. Also really good since the tracking on those is funny as hell, several times the beast would start flying away and the rocks would just 180 and chase it down.
At the end of the day I do think Elden Ring is still very messy in a few places, all too common to make this feel like an absolute masterpiece immediately despite its ambition. Yet, I can’t remain too contrarian to be completely honest as I am left pretty stunned at just how much From Soft has attempted to not only combine but intensify the best and worst elements of prior games (the worst elements not being extremely bad but…yknow). It’s still a bit in the air as to how I’ll feel about this game since there’s clearly going to be at least one expansion but all things considered I’m glad I chugged and got through this. Fairly certain this is my favorite ‘vanilla’ release of a fromsoft game.
After nearly a year's worth of time for this game to settle down and other stuff in my personal life to get arranged, I've finally gotten around to beating Elden Ring.
It's a big and somewhat bizarre game to talk about, given its structure and FromSoft's legacy; I'm not entirely sure how I want to go about reviewing the damn thing. After some thinking, I decided I would just go through and talk about each area and my own experience, giving a short summary of how I felt over the course of the entirety of the game, with some brief pauses here and there to sum up certain points. Even just drafting this, this is certainly the longest review I've probably done and it's certainly a bit much for a game I'm certain isn't my game of the year nor my favorite soulsborne but I thought it'd be only fitting.
[LIMGRAVE]
Beginning my adventure, I decided to take up Astrologer as I was interested to see what kind of magic I'd be getting into. I had only seen limited footage of the game prior and my previous experience with Dark Souls was rather magic-less so I figured now was a good time to pick it up. I hadn't expected the prizes and results I would eventually get. Limgrave is an excellent open world to begin with- with several different side paths and distractions to send you in different paths. Personally I remember only having a few hours before work to start my playthrough and my first day was just wandering that coastline and trying to slay a giant that guarded the slope down, all the while seeing others on my timeline at work go east, north, south and what have you. My only issue with Limgrave was that it felt very easy to miss out important items and persons. I'm a bit biased in this regard as Sellen- the only intelligence teacher in this first chunk I nearly missed until my roommate pointed her out. It's a very 'faith' heavy area which is neat but it does feel very odd just how much of it there is out in the field plus Corhyn just being at the Roundtable from the start, I kinda wish the area was more a bit more diverse from the get-go. Thankfully what vendors are available are there, just easy to miss like in my case.
(Weeping)
Intro to the sorta 'off shoot' and optional regions (like dragonbarrows). It's an interesting detour but understably its more of a grinding spot for those that want to take on Stormhill more easily. Can't remember much about the area itself other than the Leonine Misbegotten boss and Runebears.
(Stormgrave)
The first of the games 'Legacy' dungeons, which act as build ups to the game's major bosses, although early on I didn't really appreciate the locale or Godrick nearly as much. I kinda expected each area to be exactly like this, I guess. My own trip through the castle was fine but finding out there were way more hidden areas than I initially realized after the fact was cool. Margit and Godrick make really excellent first 'big' bosses for the player as they relentlessly pummel you if you try to approach them passively. Both of them are very mobile despite their size and their arena's have cliffs on both sides (Godrick's to my chagrin as I told my friend I died multiple times to which he replied "there were cliffs?"). Several months after beating him I had kinda downplayed him in my mind as, again, I kinda figured much of the game would be similar to Godrick and he was just the first of this kind of fight. Going onward in the game and on top of that, rewatching his battle I forgot how sick it is. Margit is cool but mostly just a test to see how well you can manage delays/dodging/varied attacks while testing how well you've grappled with the new mechanics, but Godrick screaming mid-way through the fight only to chop his own arm off and transition to the second phase by grafting a dragon head is a great introduction to just how insane the shard bosses of Elden Ring get.
This was a wonderful first week of the game being out and everyone who wasn't just completely binging it going "did you see the wolfman?" "Oh shit these spells are crazy good!" "Yeah man, this one cave has this really good weapon!". I remember first beating Margit and it was still the first week or so of the game and just seeing this rat race of ghosts get through the Stormveil castle, platforming across the outside of the walls to get into the interior safely. I was wondering just how the game would evolve from here.
[LIURNIA]
(Eastern Liurnia)
Unfortunately this was when I began to fall off at first. I decided to tackle the right half of Lucaria first although in a really eclectic pattern, kept going into the lake area, back onto the rightmost cliffs, back into the lakes. With how open and sparse some of the locations were, I kept kinda wondering what the hell I was doing and how the hell I could get into the Academy in the first place. If 2022 is the year of anything for me (minus the Yugioh resurgence), it was the year of getting real tired of just blindly exploring open world areas. Between Pokemon Legends (and I guess this upcoming one as well), two Xenoblade games and this game, I really can't spend hours on end just combing every inch for whatever potential trinket is out there. So from here on once I got back to the game I figured I'd only chug as much as I needed to tackle the major bosses and characters of the game.
(Raya Lucaria)
Another Legacy Dungeon real early on. This specifically was when I put the game down for most of the year. I managed to first try the Red Wolf boss and I guess I just wanted to ride that high despite not really knowing how other people felt about it difficulty-wise. But, once I picked it back up and beat Rennala I got sucked back into the world. Rennala is a really cool fight, and it really got me to readjust myself to the combat and mechanics to the game. It took me a while to remember that jumping attacks are good and break poise incredibly well. I was wondering what the hell her deal was while beating the first phase but upon seeing that there was a second phase I started getting the vision. The vision that is who the hell thought it was cool for her to summon all those ads. It is cool but as someone getting back in it took me a moment to realize I should ignore those completely to chase Rennala and earn my respec feature.
(Westen Liurnia)
Took on a new strategy of tackling ER, involving the tactic of just ignoring some things and dashing to what looks like dungeons (semi-successfully). Honestly this area seemed somewhat more interesting than the sparse encounters and somewhat odd geography of the eastern section. Might not have Turtle Pope but it does have the four bellfries (although I missed this entirely) and Caria Manor. Caria Manor is a neat mini-dungeon and contains a lot of neat trinkets and a cool fight with Loretta.
It is a bit ironic, maybe hypocritical that I complained earlier about Limgrave's lack of easy to get sorceries outside of Sellen, but then post-Stormveil has Rogier appear in the Hold and Liurnia is chock full of not just sorceries and Int scaling weapons, but armor that facilitates these builds. I did figure this would pique my interest but again it's become very hard for me to really attach myself purely to explorative curiosity, especially when as early as the first few days people catch on to the reuse/templates of off-road dungeons and field 'fortifications' or villages; this kind of realization that kinda kept me tethered to exploring each and every one of these rather than see what the game was mainly offering. I don't know, my process of exploring open worlds is strange- I distinctly remember missing the intended path toward Kakariko Village in BOTW and missing the upgrade korok entirely until the last bit of the game. Here, I recall missing the whetstone knife that is needed to add arts and affinities to weapons until a friend noticed I never got it in the one area that everyone tackled and went to for training in front of those gates. In a sense I do wish it easier to tell when you've 'completed' certain areas and dungeons. After a while it begins to click just when exactly a section will reward you with it's "main" treasure, but early on it just seemed like some areas didnt house the secrets that I assume would be saved for larger dungeons.
[CAELID]
I really wish shit like the chest teleporter was more common. Maybe it is and I just completely skipped much of it but having like a massive trap per region that takes you to an unknown location is super funny. There certainly are more areas later on that utilize the transporters and even a dungeon has several of those trap chests as its gimmick, but some more insane or lucrative/riskier teleports would be fun. Obviously this means my intro to the area was the chest in the dragon-burnt ruins of Limgrave. Only barely explored before beating Rennala, grabbing whatever I saw and immediately I understood the Miyazaki bit of "i can't help myself, the swamps man". It is funny though that the swamp isnt actually all that bad and torrent just lets you run through it.
(The 'dash-through')
Decided to just do a quick runthrough of the area by staying mostly on the main highway and I will say I do like that most of the region's graces are just along that road circling the lake. I figured the dash through would help mediate the 'vibe' i got from other players of how hellish of a place Caelid is, yet it seemed like much of the place was kinda cake. Mostly just needed to not engage with large swathes of the big dogs or birds as multiples of those remain the worst part of the area. Will give props that immediately right of Limgrave is just this hell pit of a location, the first two (three?) places being 'grassy/lakeside/coastal/crags' kinda got old even with how pretty much of the locations are. Caelid being this Blightown 'the area is surrounded by its very own gross filter'.
(Radahn Cake)
It was around this time that I also decided to utilize the re-spec option for ER. Thank god for this, I really don't care for much of the 'dex' options in soulsborne and i figured this would be the time to check it out, turning my Dex points into Str. Whether or not Str ot Dex is better in this game I can't tell ya, but boy do i prefer how it feels. There's nothing more satisfying than just crashing a big hunk of metal over some normal ass dude. This was also around the same time I was told to get the rock spell and boy oh boy is that move good.
This area culminates into a legacy 'event' moment in the form of the Radahn Festival, one of the most hyped and hinted at setpieces in the game as multiple npcs from Alexander to Sellen talk about it. I'm of two mindsets: On one hand they nerfed him so hard. I beat him first try and while I do think I was a bit overleveled I was kinda hoping to fight him a bit more, but I was mostly at a distance seeing my friends pummel him over and over. (Sidenote: bless Patches)
On the other hand, the build up and gimmick of the fight is so unique and the lore behind his existence, being and what happens as he's defeated. Even if I was a bit disappointed by not dying to him, it was a really cool fight and seeing the stars return from his grip felt super satisfying.
(Dragonsbarrow)
That dead dragon with the hundreds of thousands of runes is super funny. That's about all I remember from this area. These mini-areas are super strange with regards to what I should be doing there. Weeping makes a bit of sense given Stormveil is a bit of a spike in difficulty, meanwhile dragonsbarrow I don't know what you do here other than see Gurranq, kill a rune-filled dragon and get the soreseal. (Set-up...)
[Underground Ranni Rivers Sidequest]
(Ainsel alien ant farm boogaloo)
Repeatedly throughout this first half of the game several elevators take you to the bottom half of the world map, several mini river regions that mostly serve as Ranni's sidequest, these are neat little side areas that remind me of some of the later Bloodborne areas. Those ants arent too bad but man do I hate how they look. Thankfully nowhere near as terrifying as Cazadores. Can't remember much about what I was actually trying to get here but the Dragonkin wasn't too hard.
(Siofra and Nokron minotaur)
I got really lost in Siofra trying to light the torches, idk what they were cooking. However, getting back here after several tens of levels only to completely floor the two bosses of Siofra was funny.
After being Radahn and getting to the newly made crater in Limgrave, it was time to explore Nokron. Nokron having an extreme Oolacile vibe at the start is really cool, and getting through the area was pretty alright with a cool Mimic Tear miniboss and another Minotaur/Ancestor Spirit section like Siofra. But then those Gargoyles man. Fuck that Gargoyle boss and everything surrounding it. I don't know why most of the comments I saw about the recommended level was 70 or so and that it should be tackled at all at that point in the sidequest. It seems way more tailored for whenever you want to access the Deeproot Depths later in the game. Otherwise you have to deal with this obnoxious as hell duo fight where both of them start vomiting poison all over the arena and swinging these huge ass hitboxes. This was easily one of the hardest fights for me (Godskin Duo and Crucible Duo be damned) and I don't know if it was my build or my strategy but it really isn't worth doing this fight until way later.
To a certain extent there is no RECOMMENDED level for most of the game outside of whatever you can reasonably kill without wasting several resources. Something I didn't need to think about too often but this more than any other Soulsborne is very lenient with how you progress through the game. Maybe not nearly as open as BOTW but very close considering the few world-state changes and multiple detours around certain dungeons. This is really nice, although I didn't really need to do so as much of the game was actually fairly tame difficulty curve wise. Anyway all you really have to do is u-turn when you get access to the aqueduct and find the ledge that leads to Nokron, which is a neat area full of the silver tears.
(Return to Ainsel and Lost Izal- Lake of Rot)
Honestly despite the kinda obtuseness of the Ranni quest (if I didn't realize/know through osmosis that much of the Ranni quest was based off the river areas I prolly would have saved this until whenever I'd remember they existed), it's pretty fulfilling to have an actual character act as a companion down this section of the river. This whole segment of returning back down to a different section of the rivers and these underground cities but having a mini Ranni to talk to at Sites of Grace makes me wish more of the game had these kinds of companions per area. Ranni getting kinda heated and going "Fine. Fine!.. If you want to know.." when you pry a bit into wanting to learn more about her and her plan is really refreshing compared to the typical souls npc 'cold/aloof/mysterious' act you'd come to expect. Later in the game, Melina does appear more at graces as you close in on the end, which is nice but I kinda wish more of the cast showed up at graces specifically, like a camp chat. I think these games do a good job at having interesting characters but ER specifically has this much more involved and honestly more intriguing cast than the other soulsbornes i've played or seen. All the more it is very funny getting to the end and realizing "oh [spoiler] is kinda going through a cuck thing".
Going down to the Lake of Rot is uhhhhhh.
Man, I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to have a Dragonkin Soldier fight in the middle of a lake of debuff. Otherwise the area isn't too long at least, just gotta deathrun most of the area and not pay too much attention to those insect things at the end. Ansel is a really cool fight though.
Finishing the Ranni sidequest out is very sweet and I wish there was one or two other characters with as detailed a sidequest as this but c'est la vie. Not that I mind much, I obtained the Dark Moon Greatsword and basically pieced together the final parts to my build.
[Random notes intermission]
-Do wish there was a 'new items' menu or indicator.
-The map isn't terrible but sometimes it's very hard to distinguish what direction I'm actually able to go in.
-Some of the overworld music can get kinda grating after a bit
-When people at the start said 'take notes' I didn't quite understand and stopped a few days in. Then I went back to see Miriel only for him to talk about 'Radagon's secret' 70 hours prior and I was like ohhhhhh
-I don't know how they would convey this but i wish it was clearer to determine what attack is what element. These elemental defenses matter about as much as they do in Monster Hunter but if I die to a yellow breath attack, I'd like to know whether my fire defense or my holy defense was the issue or if the breaths are just that strong because good lord.
-I might be a bit worn out of the side dungeons and a lot REALLY like to reuse ideas or assets or bosses, but there are some that like to twist things up in minor details. I did really appreciate the dungeon that opened up into a room that previewed a passage from a later dungeon, more stuff like that would have been neat.
-Along with that note, stonesword keys are a very strange currency to keep track of and determine value of. You end up having quite a few just leftover not even because they want to make sure you can do everything but it feels more like I just stopped caring when i did see stonesword imps
[Altus Plateau]
Again, neat enough location but I think it's just too similar to the grassy, mountainous, ravaged areas akin to Limgrave. At least the lighting change makes itself stand apart from limgrave but with all the lightning in some areas I think it would have been neat if the area was overcast and stormy most of the time. Also not helped that outside of a few encounters most of the enemies feel too samey. Wormfaces are neat. Honestly don't have much else to say as it kinda just feels like Limgrave 1.5. I guess the main thing I got from this area was understanding just how overleveled and overpowering much of the stuff I had was.
(Mt. Gelmir)
In contrast, despite how treacherous the terrain and scaling gets I found myself quite enjoying the Mt. Gelmir area. It does reuse a bunch of enemies and there was one preview of a later enemy that I wish was more prevalent in this area, that being the 'Prelate'. I was kinda hoping most of the enemies would be these kinda fire spewing warriors but nah they get saved toward the end of the game sadly. Hi, Patches!
(Volcano Manor)
Really enjoy the more 'gimmicky' aspects to these legacy dungeons, it reminds me of how different Paper Mario chapters would take on different structures, odd of comparison as that may seem.
Once you finally discover the backroom and enter the actual dungeon its a pretty fun romp across several rooftops and dark passages, with a layer of flowing lava throughout. These early Godskin bosses are fucked up though.
Rya is queen.
[Leyndell]
Neat. More grassy- OOooh never mind. The outer ring of the capital certainly seems more in line with what the Altus Plateau dished out but a lot of other factors begin to converge, Margit shows back up, a lot of prior bosses stop having 'boss' lifebars and are just normal enemies now, and certain plot elements feel as though they begin to converge finally.
(Capital)
This is the part of the game where your mount, Torrent, start's showing up less and less and its a real shame. Obviously much of the game's layouts would be broken if you could just ride around and jump over most of the geometry but it's a large and complex area and I do wish much of it was traversable on horseback. Even if Sellia isn't a 'dungeon' it was nice being able to use Torrent just to jump from building to building. This doesn't feel like a dungeon that much so I think it would have been perfectly fine for most of the outside areas to just be Torrent-summonable. Maybe it was hard to program? Dunno. Neat little evolution on the Anor Londo vibes though.
(Sewers)
Leyndall is fine but uggggggggghhhhh this was getting real obnoxious. In hindsight it's not too bad of an area all things considered but those Revenant dudes are a real pain in the ass. It is very funny that Dung Eater is guarded by a bunch of obnoxious enemies and whenever you meet up with him to give him Seedbed Curses you just torture him. Very fun to do, especially after killing my shrimpin pal. Otherwise it's another souls sewer level. At least this version Mohg was a breeze.
(The throne)
Back to the top the only thing that remained was Godfrey and Morgott. That Torrent thing from earlier is just as bad now since I had to go back and forth a bunch for that Goldmask/Corhyn stuff. At least Godfrey was a joke and admittedly, so was Morgott. This was when I was really getting desperate to get through this as fast as possible as I was nearing my self-determined deadline (before October ended) and thus my strategy became Mimic Tear + Comet Azur for a day or two. This shit is too much. I cannot fathom who in their right mind at From Soft thought it was a good idea to just have a kamehameha, a 10 second 'free fp' buff and a cloning tool just free to use during any boss but I must say it was very funny at least. Shame that Morgott died so fast but I think it's funnier that my man's spent so much time and effort seething only to get melted.
[Snowy north]
(Moutaintops)
It was around this time that much of the game started to catch back up to me, these last few sections don't hold back when it comes to certain enemies and segments. I was also getting uhhhh more desperate and decided just to skip certain sections, bosses and dungeons entirely. I at least made an effort to get the plat and fight most bosses I come across. Most being an odd term as my decision making process sometimes gets confused and decided to fight the obnoxious as hell Death-Rite Bird but not the 16th dragon I've seen all game. Commander Niall and his fort is neat, but very odd. I never did look into his lore nor do I really care to but I do enjoy his kind of 'lemme just summon MY guys' fights. Otherwise not much else to tackle through the Mountaintops until Fire Giant.
(The other two shardbearers and other two underground areas)
Rykard: Because of the Volcano Manor's structure its recommended to do this once finishing the last assassination in the mountaintops, so im getting around to this now. This was such a cool fight. Again, I think most of the legacy dungeon boss fights are really strong but this is probably my favorite. It's a sick fight where you're required to use the Serpent Killer spear that shoots thrusts of winds while circling the giant serpent. It's not too hard and maybe a bit gimmicky but with how unique it felt by this point I was completely down for it. Also really enjoyed seeing the post-Rykard Tanith bit, what the fuck.
Deeproot Depths: This is such a funny area. I wasn't sure when to tackle this given how much I didn't like the gargoyle fight, but I decided to finish this place and as it turned out it was actually quite tame (minus a crucible knight and a runebear). Not much goes on other than that one side cave with the 5 Ant Queens that just serve to give you the uber-runes that leveled me up like 3 times. Fia's Champions are a funny fight as is that dragon (This was when the comet azur bit really felt like too much so I toned down around here).
Mohgwyn and Palace: Honestly I expected worse with this region but it was actually pretty cool- just don't engage with birds nor skeletons. Although the actual 'palace' part of it is super short I did like traversing the dark cavern and beating the shit out of Varre for fucking up my fingers and calling me bitchless. Mohg is also an extremely fun fight, with a similar 'Margit shackle' situation that's a bit iffy if you didn't go down into the sewers of Leyndall, but Mohg himself commands a lot of cool blood and gravity attacks. Him shouting "Nihil! Nihil! Nihil!" and wiping away my health only for me to continue bonking him in his motionless state was very satisfying. Also very funny that he gets owned in front of the comatose malewife he kidnapped.
(Consecrated Snowfield): Technically entered here before getting to Mohgwyn since the teleporter is here but I figured I'd talk about this after that. Basically more of the mountaintops but more fucky. The first bit is this dungeon with an invisible floor to drop down on and tough tiny dudes the first chunk of the outdoors section is covered in a thick blizzard and the last chunk is a puzzle 'town' with the river 'light the torch' bit but with invisible assassins stalking you down throughout and archers on the rooftops. Thankfully the torches don't die out.
[FINALE]
(Haligtree)
Across the final weekend of October would be my final binge of the goddamn game and there was a lot to cover within such a timeframe, even though there were only a few sections left. I had some of the hardest bosses ahead of me and two major locations to still comb over. Firstly was the Haligtree. This place reeks of Dark Souls design doc, almost to a disgusting tee. This place knows it houses the hardest boss in the game and won't allow you to just waltz right in. The trumpeters from the capital are actually aggroing to you, several enemies are reused from prior areas, there's long stretches of powerful enemies atop complex geometry and layouts, tree branch platforming, trudging through swamps... actually this place does feel like more of an evolution of Lost Izalith than the Lake of Rot bit I made earlier. Even has a section where you have to help a long ongoing NPC questline meet its conclusion but thankfully this isn't anywhere near as rough (even if the opponents you fight are relentless, you just need Millicent to go ham on them and distract the others). At the very least it's a lot prettier of a locale than Lost Izalith ever could be. It was all in all a very funny showcase of the game to show my roommate who had not progressed to this area yet and vaguely knew what all it had in store (iirc he left off in the Snowfields by the time I reached here) and to his girlfriend who was visiting for the weekend (who iirc hadn't played this game). By the time they had left to run errands and spend time to themselves I was progressing further down to...
...Malenia. I have no right to talk about this fight tbh. I got through this in perhaps the worst way one could possibly imagine. Firstly, I actually did pretty well on my second attempt, getting her down to the second phase and some damage before eventually dying. Then a while passes and I get no other progress and decide "you know what? I've never summoned through multiplayer before". Does this end well? Ehhhh, results are mixed. Malenia is an incredibly tough fight and one that I think will be a bane for this build of mine for time to come. It took me a while to realize that shields honestly don't make that much of a difference in some fights (as we get to later) compared to good movement but I really didn't have any plans to switch to something more evasive all the sudden. Also it took me way too long to realize I never did get bloodhound step (...and Punchline). Eventually I did pair up with another jolly cooperator and we do pretty well throughout phase one- when suddenly, Malenia staggers. First phase is near death and I go in to attack. My pal is right beside me and I believe he was going at it to also close the phase off. Screen goes black and it seems as though we're going to phase 2. And yet... her health bar isn't at halfway like usual. It's actually empty, i'm a bit stunned but she's still active, needing just ONE attack to finish her off. Either I go in or my buddy, but sure enough she falls. Bless that fellow comrade in putting this nightmare to rest. We take those.
Now this is gonna sound really absurd and preachy coming from a guy that beat her in the stupidest way possible but also I just don't think its that good of a fight. She's strong. REAL strong. Her lore is cool and she's been built up since the very beginning as this absolute monster of a fight. But...she's honestly not as cool or satisfying as I would have liked. Much of her moveset are these super swift, super strong attacks But there's also so many unique and interesting new movesets or tricks to the other big bosses of the game that Malenia doesn't quite reach. Her second phase is cool (but I guess I barely experienced it) but other than that dive bomb of hers and the bird move (which overstays its welcome after the 10th death) its kinda just a basic fight but she hits strong. Rennala's a great magic/puzzle-y fight with these summons and tricky spells, Godrick's mid-fight roar + self-amputation + dragon graft is a sick as hell phase transition, Rykard and Mohg are these absolute monstrosities of characters and fights with unique counters to their strategy, Radahn is this massive set piece with a sick raid fight and a cool, meaningful resolution when you beat him and the stars are freed from his grasp, Morgott exists. But getting to Malenia and finally beating her I was just kinda like, yeah that was funny and unintentional but i dont know if intentionally beating her would have been more satisfying. For a boss that was hyped up as heavily as her I was kinda just left wishing it was a cooler fight rather than the toughest fight. Maria from Bloodborne I think better fills the vibe as the tough as nails, swift, blood-poison (fire?) fight. I spent way more time malding and getting mad at Maria than Malenia, but I can at least say I felt as though I learned Maria's fight. Additionally, once I learned the parry timing I was absolutely styling on her, which felt much more rewarding. Malenia just has a bunch of too strong, too long moves and an obnoxious health regen gimmick that makes the fight overstay its welcome.
(Fire Giant)
I almost forgot this. Cool fight but laughably easy after Malenia. RIP to two real ones during this section.
(Farum Azula)
Gonna be honest, this zone is really cool looking but big shame its also confusing as all hell to traverse at times. It is really cool that this place has basically been hinted at all game and you see bits here and there about the place, from the Beastman literally in one of the first Limgrave caves to the Belfries portal in Liurnia. It's not the toughest place but it does have some oddities to its design that make it feel more in-line with prior soulsbornes. Primarily neither of the bosses here have Stakes for some reason? Honestly this area wouldn't have felt too bad if I didn't have to run back to the boss each time. Maliketh's isn't too bad, just a bit of a walk. Placid Suck though? Man that was obnoxious, having to take the elevator, send it back up, fall all the way down then do the lying down animation, skip the cutscene was just pretty tedious. Like removing that last part would even be nice. Also feels bad just becuase the boss itself is hard so there's that lmao. Also shoutout to the weird bug where if your bag is full but you beat Bernharl you don't get all of his stuff including the legendary armament. I was really mad when this happened but upon booting up a new game plus to kick his ass in Limgrave I put away some stuff in my box just in case my inventory was still full or something and upon mashing the X button the achievement just popped up? Like I didn't even see the Scepter or whatever I needed from him but sure enough I got the plat. I wish I had more to say about the two bosses here but I was so tired of dragons at this point I didn't think too much outside of wanting to beat him (he's the best one in the game at least) and Maliketh wasn't too bad in my run but I really enjoyed the fight.
(Leyndall again but fucked up)
Still no horse, why? I don't know. There's not much else so by this point I was just beelining to the end.
Hoarah Loux might be the coolest thing I've seen in the soulsborne franchise. I haven't played much of the series but a grappler??? Holy fuck even in death it was so sick seeing this guy go.
And finally, the final boss. Somehow my karma for cheesing much of the game's prior bosses has caught up as I'm stunlocked by Radagon/Elden Beast. Primarily the latter, but because you have to fight both of them sequentially it makes Radagon seem that much harder (beat him my second time but would die several times after). Elden Beast on the other hand turned into a nightmare and I truly don't know how. I guess in general the much 'bigger' bosses have been the biggest pain in this playthrough, from the Gargoyles, the Deathbirds, the Dragons and now this. Im not entirely sure how but something about those holy attacks just sliced through my health like it was nothing. Most of the Elden Beast's attacks are fine but those sword beams it attempts at far distances just two shot me.
It was also at this point I realized just how much of my build was kind of restricting me- one fight before the end of the game. I never did get that bloodhound step, and the more I fought this guy the more I realized I needed a better dodge- not a better shield. During a break in my time between trying out the boss for an hour and the following day I had taken notes in an attempt to soften the blows of these two as they had scared me like no other boss prior. What if I couldn't get it done before my deadline? What if I got stunlocked endlessly for hours on end? How was this so hard? I'm pretty overleveled all things considered. And that's the enigma that is Elden Ring. There's so much variation between builds, experiences, play styles, journeys that people will have vastly differing experiences no matter what. The amount of boss encounters here that have been hyped up for being the most difficult thing in the game, Godskin Duo, Radahn, Mohg, Malekith, Morgott, Loretta (2nd), Hoarah Loux, Fire Giant- had been proven to be quite tame with my build, overall thorough exploring and level beefing, yet the final two have left me in quite a predicament.
Again, perhaps this serves as some kind of divine karma as I attempted to break this game over my knee as a means to get through it as fast yet somewhat thoroughly as possible before the year ends, and so I can move on to other games I need to beat before then. But Radagon has other plans. As I type this out even, I am actually at work bored and without any other tasks, still drafting parts of this review -anxious to get back to the arena and test out my new strategies and plans to finally put the game to rest. Although I am a bit saddened that there was still a lot of side content and build potential that I missed out on. I kinda wish I had changed my build once to try out more of the faith or arcane stuff that I wasn't able to properly utilize. Or some of the other moves or Ashes of War that I never fully checked out. The Dark Moon Greatsword is certainly amazing, I'm never gonna deny that now- and mimic tear is an amazingly busted tear that can tank much of anything and having double the frost weapon is stupidly strong. Using the Jellyfish shield is also quite good, but stronger bosses require you to be more mobile than tanky. Comet Azur is also quite the beast, but when aimed poorly it's often punished by something like Radagon's backhand. Sometimes the best stratagem against a tough opponent just requires some thinking outside the box much like in that Magma Wrym became somewhat easier once my camera was off his ass...camera. CAMERA. So upon this realization I figured the final piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. The terrible lock on-
Actually I just needed to switch to rock sling.
Took a few tries but that beast did go down, thanks to a lucky moment where it remained in one place attacking my clone and I could focus on beaming its health down as well. I guess my sword having only a D physical scaling was a bit of a hindrance, once rock sling came into play the dps started to make sense. Also really good since the tracking on those is funny as hell, several times the beast would start flying away and the rocks would just 180 and chase it down.
At the end of the day I do think Elden Ring is still very messy in a few places, all too common to make this feel like an absolute masterpiece immediately despite its ambition. Yet, I can’t remain too contrarian to be completely honest as I am left pretty stunned at just how much From Soft has attempted to not only combine but intensify the best and worst elements of prior games (the worst elements not being extremely bad but…yknow). It’s still a bit in the air as to how I’ll feel about this game since there’s clearly going to be at least one expansion but all things considered I’m glad I chugged and got through this. Fairly certain this is my favorite ‘vanilla’ release of a fromsoft game.
Pangburn
1 year ago