I love Elden Ring. I have four characters, one at the very end of NG+ about to go into NG++. But, I’m realizing that–oh, spoilers for the end game–the second half of the game is porbelmatic for me. In my first playthrough, I thoroughly explored everything. Every nook and cranny. Every cave and every catacomb. I wanted to see all the secrets the game had for me. At hour 100, I thought I was in the end game and nearly done. Oh, I was a sweet, summer child. The reason I thought that was because I was told to kill two shardbearers to get into the capital city. So I erroneously assumed that was the last area. Someone in the RKG Discord said it was like ringing the two bells in the first Dark Souls. When you do it, you think the game is over! Nope. It just opens the path to the second half of the game. Which, by the way, is universally considered much weaker than the first half.
In Elden Ring, when I reached the capital city, I literally said to myself that I was in the end game. At a hundred hours. I ended up with 225+ hours on that plathrough, so I wasn’t even halfway through. Although, I will say tha I saw the end boss probably before the 200 mark and then did some clean up. At any rate, though, the game was roughly twice as big as I anticipated it to be.
There are three areas in the end game. There is one repeating one as well, but that is mostly just the very end with two different (dual) bosses, but no actual new stuff. Wait. Three bosses. Kinda. It’s complicated.
I’m going to thoroughly spoil the end of the game so be forewarned.
After the capital city is the Mountaintop of the Giants. This is probably my least-favorite of the mandatory areas. You get there from the capital city, and I had a really tough time getting there in my first playthrough. I will say that my number one tip for a beginner is to make sure your health is over 18. Yes, that’s a weirdly-specific tip, but I was at 18 for the first hundred hours, and it was not a good time. I had to add several points in Vigor at one time to use a certain invaluable item that stayed with me for the rest of the game. Even then, I was hurting because it was 22, I believe. By the end of the game, I was at 30 Vigor. It’s funny because an article I read said you should have 60 Vigor by the end of the game (I ended up with roughly 180 levels, so it’s possible), which made me laugh in both envy and incredulity. 60 in Vigor? In what reality. Honestly, most people do not have that much. But 40 seems to be bare minimum if you’re going strength.
My first two characters are at the end of the game because I was using them to get the plat. My first playthrough was 225?+ hours as I stated, and then I parked her at the end of the game to wait for the DLC. I know from long experience that I don’t want to do it for the first time in NG+and I want everything open so I can get there as easily as possible.
The second character is at the end of NG+. I did NG in about a hundred hours and NG+ in about a dozen to fifteen in order to get the last ending I needed. Then I went around and did some other stuff in NG+ just for fun. I want to see NG++ so I’ll probably do that soon. Maybe.
My other two characters are sitting in the Mountaintop of Giants–wait. My third character is, but my fourth is not there yet. I have to do the exasperating thing to get there–the thing that took me forever on my first playthrough because I kept getting one-shot by the imps on top of the roofs that you have to traverse in order to get to the Mountaintop of Giants.
I love snow and ice. I think we all know this by now. However, I do not like it when they are used in games to obscure vision. This is the case of the beginning of this area in the Consecrated Snowfield. When I emerge into it, I just heaved a sigh of exasperation. It is not fun to not be able to see. My vision is not good in general and since my medical crisis, it’s even worse. I don’t consider it fun to be blundering around, not seeing the enemies in front of me.
Also, I will just say it. There are many reviewers who have said the game is 10/10, no notes, no filler. This is not true. There is some filler, and a lot of it is in the second half. This whole area feels like filler, if I’m to be honest. I am in the minority who hated the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne. They were tedious and samesy, and by the end, I just could not be stuffed to do the last ones. When I was doing the plat, I grimly made my way through them, not enjoying it at all. I realized near the end that I didn’t actually have to do all of them–i Just had to do the one that finished with the unique boss–whom you had to kill for the plat. That particular string of dungeons included the Defiled Chalice Dungeons in which your health was halved. And the even more infamous Defiled Chalice Amygdala, who had given many people so much difficulty. Including Rory from RKG. I included the video above. I actually didn’t have that much trouble with this one because I used the tail cheese, but the one before her was a nightmare.
Anyway, the way I play the games, I binge on them until I’m done. By the time I got to the Mountaintop of Giants, I was already experiencing a bit of fatigue from the game. By the time I left the area, I was thoroughly sick of the game.
I will say the last area, Crumbling Farum Azula is incredible, but balls hard. Especially for my squishy caster, one hit by nearly anything and I was gone. It wasn’t fun at all. Weirdly, though, the main boss of the area did not give me much trouble–even though many people find him the hardest or in the top five. For whatever reason, it did not faze me–unlike the last boss of the game. We’ll get there in a second.
Honestly, If they had gotten rid of the Mountaintop of Giants and Miquella’s Haligtree (the last optional area), I would feel much better about the game. I really feel like they put this in to pad the game, which was so not needed. I know it’s a wide open world game, but that does not mean it needed to be that expansive. The thing that is brilliant about the first half of the game is that it’s filled with interesting things in every nook and cranny. No exploration felt wasted, and I found all sorts of meaningful things wehnever I looked. Then, starting with the Mountaintop of Giants, there wasn’t much new. There’s one new kind of enemy, kinda, but you can find versions of them elsewhere. Plus, the trolls in this area are more like yetis, which is cute. Other than that, though, it’s all the same enemies–maybe with a palette-swap.
I’m done for now. I’ll pick this up tomorrow.