In the last post, I finished by whining about the catacombs/caves in Elden Ring. I hate them. I’ll be honest. The first playthrough, I went into every cave I could find and went to look for more. That’s because I wanted to experience all the content there was to be had. That’s my nature with open world games–at least until I get bored. That was 75 hours into Skyrim (Bethesda). I loved it for the first 50 hours, but then just really started hating it. It was my own fault, honestly, because I tried to do all the factions in one playthrough. In other words, I tried to muscle through it.
I loved The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt…until the third act. I can remember the exact moment when I hated the game as I’ve detailed in the past. I was in a dark cave with Philippa. I had to do something, I can’t remember what, and then find my way out. SHE could teleport in and out but for some reason, could not take me with her. Or would not. So I had to find my way out. And I could not. It took me over an hour to do it, and I seriously contemplated giving up. But I knew I was pretty close to the end of the game.
I did somehow find my way out, much to my relief. But my desire to finish the game had vanished. I had played roughly 70 or 80 hours at that point and the thought that I might not have been able to finish the game boggled my mind. I understand that my spatial issues are just that–my issues. However, it’s pretty discouraging that in the talk about accessibility in games, this is never brought up. I am used to it, though, as I’m invisible in almost every way. My race is never brought up, nor is my sexuality. Nor me being childfree, areligious, and a whole host of other things. So I’m used to my issues being ignored–it doesn’t make it any better in dealing with them. In fact, it makes it worse. In the popular vernacular, I do not feel seen, which is an isolating feeling. I’m used to it, though.
Back to Elden Ring. As I was playing it, I went back and forth as to whether it was my favorite From game or not (thus by default, my favorite game of all time). While I was playing, I put it ahead of Dark Souls III by a hair. It’s a fucking incredible game. My first playthrough was 225+ hours long, and I did not see everything. Most everything, yes, but not everything.
There was one mini-boss/field boss I missed (though, to be fair, it was just a copy of a field boss I had fought…at least three other times), but this one, once I found it, was very cheesable. You can get up on a ledge above it, send your spirit summon at it, and then just spell it from afar. I never even had to get close to it, and I did not break a sweat. I will grant that in this case, being a caster made the field boss a piece of cake whereas it would have been much harder I presume as a melee person. I say presume because I’ve fought it another time, but I did the exact same thing.
Is this my favorite game of all time? You are going to have to wait on that answer because I’m still debating. I have gone back to Dark Souls III on PS4 in order to help Krupa with his plat run. Is that character a strengthcaster? Of course. Am I wearing the ridiculous Sage’s Big Hat with the Black Witch Set? Of course. Am I wielding Lorian’s Greatsword? Hell to the yes! Chaos Bed Vestiges, Hidden Body, and Tears of Denial? Yeah, baby! With the rings of Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, Witch’s Ring, Lingering Dragoncrest Ring, and Saint’s Ring (for the extra spell slot). I just read that the two pyro rings stacked. I did not know that. That does not work that way with any of the other games!
In Googling further, all the different incantations do this. So the miracle rings stack and so do the sorcery ones. I don’t think this works that way in the other games, and I’m fairly sure that the wikis said they didn’t stack in this game in the early days. That means I need to change my rings. Because the combined increase is 40% whereas the Witch’s Ring is 25% and the Great Swamp Ring is 12%. Apparently, there’s a multiplier that makes it 40% total. That’s huge!
It’s brilliant that I am still learning things about this game after platting it and having had played it for several hundreds of hours. I think I’m up to–Steam says 972 hours. Add 30 hours or so on the PS4 so we’re over or near 1,000 hours. And I am still finding out new thing s about it. It’s amazing. I want to say I’ve played more than that. I’m up to around 400 hours on Elden Ring. Three complete playthroughs and about a third into another. That’s skewed by the fact that my third playthrough (on NG+) was a dozen or so hours because I was just rushing to get the third ending I needed for the plat. It’s funny. The basic ending has several versions, apparently, depending on which NPC you help. In my first playthrough, I did all the NPC questlines. In my second, I did most of them. In the third, I did none. That means I got the very basic ending. In this playthrough, I am not far enough to have done much of anything towards any of the endings. I’ve done all the questlines in my first playthrough, so at this point, I could just watch the endings on YouTube.
Apparently, they consider the ‘good’ ending and the ‘bad’ ending the two NPC questlines that are the most elaborate. One of them took me 30+ hours the first time through and I would seriously pay $30 or more for that questline itself. It just kept going and going…it’s my favorite questline by far of the whole game. Weirdly, though, it’s not my favorite ending (this is the ‘good’ ending). Don’t get me wrong. I love this NPC and this ending. It’s the first one I chose in case I could not get the save-scumming to work and had to play the game again. I did not want to have to do this questline one more time, but I did it, anyway, because it’s just so good. Plus, it has two BAE in it.
The ‘bad’ ending includes the questline of another character…wait, you don’t actually have to do that questline to get this ending. You have to do the questline to cancel out this ending. This is my second-favorite NPC and involves the hardest boss in the whole game. At least it can. It doesn’t have to. This questline can go in interesting directions.
One thing I have to give massive credit to FromSoft for is NPC questlines. It’s always been a strong point of the games in part because the NPCs are not static. It’s one of the criticisms of the second Souls game that I agree with–once the NPCs made it to Majula, they did not leave again. In the other games, they move around freely. Well, not freely, but it seems as if it is. In the original game, if you don’t do certain things at certain times, you can mess up NPC questlines. In the third game, same. Or if you do certain things, it messes up certain questlines.
I love that the worlds seem real in these games. No wait. Not real, exactly, but alive. You are not the focus of the worlds, which is how it should be. It adds to the feeling of isolation and desolation that the world is not catered to you. In Elden Ring, I messed up the beginning of the ‘good’ ending questline and was bereft at the thought that I would not get to experience it, but FromSoft was more gracious in this game in that they did not make it so you had to do every step at a certain time.
The NPC questlines in Elden Ring are brilliant. They are worth the price of admission alone. The fact that doing something for one NPC may mess up your relationship with another is incredible–albeit nerve-racking. This is another area in which I think FromSoft has not gotten enough credit–their NPCs. Love them or hate them, you will certainly remember them.