I had a marathon session of Elden Ring last night. For whatever reason, I really want to see credits roll (after 175 hours, I think I’ve earned it) so I’ve been chugging through the main storyline as best as I can. I previously thought that the area I was in was the last area (that was my impression before going into it), but I was confused because I knew of at least two other areas. Were they optional areas maybe? It didn’t seem like it from the little I’d gleaned about them. One in particular seemed like it was a real place. Or rather, a critical area. In addition, I hadn’t met half the main bosses I knew I had to defeat, so what the hell? As I worked my way through what I had thought was the last area, it dawned on me that it wasn’t, indeed, the last area. It also dawned on me that I had no idea how to make progress within said area. There was a particular loop I had done for an hour without finding the next place to go. And the enemies were whomping me at every turn. Not only were some of them just that hard in and of themselves (which they were), but also there were relentless mobs of them, and it wasn’t possible to draw one away all the time.
Side Note: There is a spell in Dark Souls III called Hidden Body (also in the original game), which is pretty self-explanatory. It makes you mostly invisible. Couple it with the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring that muffles your footprints, and you can sneak around with abandon around enemies. Both are available in Elden Ring. The former is called Unseen Form and the latter is Crepus’s Vial (a talisman, this game’s version of a ring). There is, apparently, also a talisman that lengthens the duration of sorceries That’s the same as the Lingering Dragoncrest Ring in DS III, but I don’t have it yet. In other words, it’s firmly in end-game content.
In DS III, with all of this equipped, I could run around with abandon, only engaging with enemies on my terms. In Elden Ring, it may work or it may not, depending on, uh, I don’t know. Sometimes enemies will spot me right away. Sometimes, they won’t. I can sneak past some without them noticing whereas others will turn on me in an instant. It1’s more frustrating than a nerf across the boards because I don’t know when it’ll be great and when it won’t.
Anyway. I was trying t o get through this area on my own, but I just could not find the next place. I literally was looping around again and again, getting increasingly frustrated. One thing that annoyed the fuck out of me was that they put a previous field boss right next to a Site of Lost Grace. Even using my sorcery/talisman combo, I could not be guaranteed that he wouldn’t see me. If he caught up to me, he could chop me to death with his two massive cleavers (hello, cut-rate Capra Demon) in two hits. Now, I know I have a tiny health bar with less than 30 Vigor, but that’s just not on. Sites of Grace are supposed to be safe havens. Putting a nasty ex-boss outside one is just mean. It’s not the only time it happens, but it’s especially irritating when I’m trying to figure out where the fuck I’m trying to go.
I finally gave up and looked it up on the Wiki. I was in the completely wrong place. I had to go to another Site of Grace and climb UP a statue. Yeah, ok. That’s something I would have thought of on my own. Spoiler: no, it isn’t. I have spatial issues as I’ve mentioned before, and that’s not something that would have ever occurred to me. Once I did that, I was able to make really good progress, but I remained salty that I had wasted hours in the wrong place.
It reminds me of the first game and how there are three ways to go. If you go one of two ways, you’ll be pulverized–either by skellies or ghosts you can’t hit. If you go the third way, there are enemies who are tough (at the time), but manageable. Hardcore Souls fan will say that it’s obvious which way you’re supposed to go because the other two ways are impossible. Which, yes, if you’re an old hand at the game, that makes sense. But what’s the one thing you hear about the game CONSTANTLY? That it’s brutal. The ultimate PC edition is even subtitled ‘Prepare to Die’. So skellies that can two-hit you and/or bleed you out? Sure, why not? Ghosts that can’t be hit? Yeah, that seems about right. My point is that before playing the game, you don’t have any reference for what is and isn’t considered acceptably hard. You may think the game wants you to repeatedly die in two hits. Why wouldn’t you?
The same thing happened in this area. Not only were the enemies way too fucking hard, but I couldn’t figure out on my own that instead of going linearly down a path, I suddenly needed to scramble up a dragon’s corpse/statue.
I will say, though, that once I moved to the next part of this area, I got sucked back into the game. I had to climb up a tree–oh! That reminds me. I was in a different part of the game completely a few nights ago because I wanted to finish a certain NPC questline. I will admit that I looked up how to do her questline. I had to find a certain Site of Grace, and the several things I read just did not lead me to the solution. It was frustrating because I tried so hard to follow their directions, but to no avail. I found a video of it and it was completely different than the written version. I was so mad at wasting yet more time! Writing walkthroughs is an art, yo. The NPC questlines are so good in this game.
Anyway, once I climbed the tree, there were messages on the floor. They said boss fight, but I assumed that I would get a Site of Grace first. I needed one as I had no mana left. Nope. It was right into a boss fight–one of the big names in the game! I was not happy about it, but I mentally girded my loins as I summoned my spirit (the best one in the game, imho). Much to my surprise, the boss was cake. Surely, there would be a second phase? Nope. He was really that easy. A little bewildered and more than a little confused, I lit the Site of Grace and leveled up. It felt a little let down, to be honest (and in reading commentary about the boss fight, I was over-leveled for him). I went forward and soon ran into an even bigger boss.
*SPOILER*
Morgott, the Omen King. Remember Margit waaaaaaay back in the beginning of the game? The first major boss you actually have to fight? Well, this is his big daddy, on steroids. He has every tool that Margit had, and so much more. There was a golden summon sign available and when I touched on it, I was surprised and delighted to see it was Melina, my Finger Maiden. I summoned her and my spirit summon, Mimic, during the fight. Mimic is the best goddamn spirit summon by far. Don’t @ me. Because they mimic my build, they have a heal. Which, I don’t need to tell you, is fucking awesome.
I got the cutscene and had chills running down my spine. I have to admit that all the field bosses had made me a little bit blase about bosses. There are so many of them, with several of them being just different iterations of another boss. There are seven or eight Ertdree Avatars, for example, and you fight all of them the same way. Mainly, racing around them in circles on Torrent, firing Black Flame and/or Lightning Spear at it once per circle when you can safely do so. It’s the most boring, dull fight ever. Having to do it that many times is annoying as fuck.
Anyway. Morgott the Omen King was a showstopper. There was lightning all over the arena. Everyone was hurling spells. It was glorious and epic. His second phase kicked it up to a hundy, and it was all-out war. He was constantly raining lightning swords down on the field as I sidestepped them to the best of my ability. I truly felt as if it was a battle for the ages. It is by far the best boss fight in the game thus far. Here is a video of the fight with Melina and a Mimic Spirit Summons in it. I’m not embedding it because I don’t want people to accidentally see it if they don’t want to. I took longer than this person did, I think, but it wasn’t that long a fight.
It energized me, I’ll tell you that much. But what happened next did not. Since this is running long, more about that in my next post.