So I was wrong, I thought it would be year before I played this again, but it was like less than 1. Did a cestus/spiked star fist build with bloodhound step on cestus/Hoarah Loux's Earthshaker on the star fist. It was kind of cool how I actually got to mess with ashes of war since I couldn't with the Great Club. Didn't experiment too much with it cause I knew I wanted the bloodhound step for fun dodging. The Earthshaker is a crazy ass ash of war though, just a AOE that does huge stagger and good damage. Cestus was pretty fun, I like that heavy attacks will pretty much stagger most human-sized enemies so it was fun to just keep jabbing enemies to interrupt them. Had problems with larger sized enemies compared to Great Club so it wasn't strictly better, cause I did just skip a lot of shit.

Ran through every dungeon and I'm pretty sure I fought every boss that wasn't a map boss, and it took me 40 hours less than my first playthrough. Still have the same problems with Elden Ring that I think the bosses do too much. I summoned for a lot of the main bosses, or used mimic tear almost every time once I got it, makes all the bosses feel forgettable, but I know I would despise fighting them solo; or they are just nothing jobbers that I just want to brush by them quick. I honestly tried to solo Malenia this time, and the Cestus did fuck her up with the stagger; almost fucking got her first try except for a mistake, then it was endless spiral of me remembering why I hate her and Elden Ring bosses and summoned mimic. Last boss sucks ass too.

Elden Ring is a huge change in the Souls formula. The addition of the open world is kind of fucking insane and adds A LOT to it. The sense of exploration is really cool and the amounts of surprises offered is ESSENTIAL for open world games feeling fresh for more than 20 hours. Coupled with that classic Fromsoft combat loop this game doesn't really drag, maybe sometimes, but most of the time I was having fun.

But also, I don't think I like the open world format compared to the tight and compact levels of previous games. I dont think the open world isn't tightly constructed, it might just be the most put together open world I have ever seen, but its still huge. I could run through Dark Souls 1 four and a half time probably in the time it took me to beat this. I don't think THIS game should be shorter, I think the length of it is good, but I probably won't replay this game for years, which sucks because this has the most build variety I actually want to try.

Speaking of, the ashes of war system is really cool, I just wish some weapons weren't fucking locked out of it for no reason(?). I rushed and grabbed the Great Club (btw, this games takes the most work to grab the Great Club so a minus), and I can't change its weapon art. I learned to really like its weapon art, but if I can't change it, that means I cant change its scaling. I got my Club to max and it capped at B scaling, couldnt apply heavy to it to make it A scaling. Like, at least let you change weapon scaling without changing its art.

Elden Ring definitely has some of the peak Boss designs/ideas in From's catalogue. Some of their fights fucking suck gameplay wise, but they are so brain blasted good ideas. I kind of don't like how huge the bosses are, like I do like that they are huge because they really feel epic, but its just kind of annoys me. I don't really care about all the re-used bosses, it makes sense for the asset re-use, and most of them have something special going on.

Lore wise I haven't really gotten anything out of this as much as Dark Souls, that might just be because it just came out and I can't read other people's theories and such, but even then all the main bosses feel so disconnected altogether to me. Doesn't feel that connected to me as DS1.