I beat Elden Ring yesterday.
I wanted to put that on it’s own line because it’s weighty with import, at least to me. (By yesterday, I mean the 16th of April). First, though, I have to get out of the way that even though I took great pains to set up save-scumming so I could get the plat on one playthrough, it didn’t work. Steam just decided the saves weren’t valid or something? Anyway, I have other saves I’ll try, but I’m oddly not that upset about it. I know I’ll keep playing the game so I will get it in the end, but I have the plat in my heart. And I chose the hardest ending to get–plus the one I really wanted, Ranni’s ending–just in case the save-scumming didn’t work, so there’s that at least.
Anyway, that frustration aside, the last boss was easily the hardest boss in the game for me. It’s the hardest end boss in a Souls (specifically Souls) game ever. Again, there will be spoilers as I’m talking about end game content, so this is your fair warning. Still here? Then let’s talk about that final boss. There’s a cutscene, of course, once you enter the golden mist. It’s Radagon, Marika’s consort, and he’s a sight to behold. Radagon of the Golden Order, to give him his full name. By the way, this was the moment that I realized I’d been mixing up Radagon and Radahn the entire game. Which is hilarious, but now things make more sense. Anyway, he’s fast and has a ton of attacks that do massive holy damage. He has one AoE attack that you have to roll through because it’s not dodgeable, much to my frustration. I beat him fairly easily, but I didn’t celebrate because I knew he was just the first half of the final boss.
Side Note: There was one games journalist who, on a podcast, declared himself a real From player now because he beat the Elden Beast–which is the last boss. That’s not cool at all and one reason I do not like him. He has massive hipster indie boi energy–which I am not fond of.
Anyway. The Elden Beast was really frustrating because it fell into the category of ‘not tethered to the world’ enemy that is my least-favorite because of my spatial issues. I had no idea how close it was to me, which mattered because it had so many AoE attacks. It did a ton of holy damage as well, so I actually specced for this fight by stocking up on holy damage negation, both in armor and in talismans. I thought about respeccing my character for the fight as well, but I was stubborn in wanting to do it with the stats I’d organically accrued throughout the game.
Side Note II: I laughed as I read how to fight one boss because it was suggested to have 60 Vigor so you can tank one hit. I have 30 Vigor, and I only got to that point very recently. I went through the first half of the game under 20, so I was always one-hit-killable. I will say when I watch people on the Tubes of You with massive health bars, I’m so jealous! But I know it’s a trade-off and my ability to blast spells and incantations from afar might make some melee players jealous as well. It’s funny because I have many powerful spells, but my journeyman spell is the Lightning Spear. It can kill regular enemies in two or three goes and is fairly quick to get off. It’s funny that I have Comet Azure (called the boss melter), Meteorite of Astel (another boss melter), Swarm of Flies (yet another boss melter) and a bunch of high-level damage negation incantations, but I revert to Lightning Spear to get the work done.
Here’s the thing about the final boss. It’s too long. From has fallen in love with the multi-phase end bosses with a shit-ton of HP. A real set-piece of a boss. Which, I can understand because it’s the last impression* the player will have of the game. But, and I say this with love, it’s not needed or what I want. Luke Westaway from Outside Xtra said he doesn’t like it when the last boss is rock hard, and I agree with him. This is something that having a life-threatening medical trauma has done to me; I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Having the last boss be off-the-scale hard feels too try-hard to me.
For comparison (and I’ve done this with other From games), Gwyn, the last boss of the first Dark Souls, had 4,250 HP, one phase, and gave you 70,000 Souls. The last boss of Elden Ring has two phases. The first phase, Radagon, has 13,339 HP. The second phase, the Elden Beast, has 22,127 HP. That’s nearly 35,000 HP. And I got a whopping 500,000 Runes from that fight, which is mind-blowing.
My point is that this end boss has nearly 10 times as much HP as Gwyn. That’s ridiculous. And making a boss have a shit-ton of health is not necessarily adding fun to the game. Yes, you can do more damage in this game than in previous ones (I’m assuming), but it’s still a lot. I got the Elden Beast down to half an inch of health once and then to less than a sliver another time. It was enraging. I considered calling in a human to help. But for this boss, I wanted it just to be me and my Mimic Tear. Not to prove anything, exactly, but because I was so close.
I have to say, though, that one reason I was so close was because I cheesed the first part of the fight. There is a well-known bug that if you race towards Radagon the second the cutscene ends and stand in front of him, he won’t move. Then, you hit him, but not hard enough to break his poise. It’s recommended to use the Carian Slicer, which is a sorcery. I would hit him with it, wait until the damage number faded, then hit him again. Right before the last hit, I would summon my Mimic Tear, slash him twice quickly to finish him off, then quickly apply two holy-negation incantations before the cutscene into the Elden Beast. Cheese? Hell, yes! Do I feel bad about it? Nope.
Why not? Because it was the end of the game and I did not want to spend hours on the boss (which I did, anyway. At least two, even with the cheese). I cannot emphasize enough that I had nothing to prove and that I did not want to end the game hating it with all my heart. I was already tired and weary from the last quarter of the game and how brutal it was. It was also easily the best part of the game, but that didn’t negate the difficulty.
Even with the cheese, the Elden Beast took everything I had, which was nearly not enough. On the winning try, my Mimic Tear spirit summon died with about a fifth of the health bar left to go. But I was not deterred. I was dialed in and remained calm. I just made sure my buffs were in place, then did what I needed to do. The funny thing is that for all the boss-killing sorceries I have, it was the lowly Pest Threads, an incantation that you can buy from Gowry and only takes 11 Faith to use (and is recommended because it goes through a big enemy in several places–and the Elden Beast is massive) that did the trick.
Once the Elden Beast crumbled into dust and I got the Site of Grace, I literally did not know what to do. Not in the practical sense, but emotionally. This game had consumed me for nearly 2 months and 225+ hours. It had given me so many highs and more than a few lows, making it quite the journey.
It’s really hard to explain in words how awe-inspiring this game is. How the world is teeming with life and doesn’t feel like a game world. I mean, it obviously is, but I don’t feel like the center of the universe. I don’t feel as if the world exists for me. It’s there and I just happen to be traveling through it. Each area is distinct and yet, they integrate together well. The NPCs all have their rich lives and you’re incidental to most of them.
There’s one, Diallos, who is a bit of a ponce when I first meet him in the Roundtable Hold. He’s maundering about one of his servants, a woman, missing and how she’s special, blah, blah, blah. I have to admit that I did not think much of him, but I agreed to help him because of course I did. The next time I ran into him, it was in Liurnia of the Lakes on top of a water-logged house. His servant has been assaulted and he talks a big talk about avenging her. Lanya. That’s her name. I run into him later back at the Roundtable Hold, where he once again maunders about revenge, his house, and blah, blah, blah. I have to admit I didn’t take him seriously because he was such a poncy whiner.
Later, I find him in the Volcano Manor, and he’s thinking about becoming a champion. And more whinging. Man, does he go on and on and on. As am I, apparently. This is getting long so I’m going to end it here and carry on in another post. Until then, I beat Elden Ring!
*Not really since the game no longer automatically goes into NG+, but for the sake of this post, let’s just say it’s true.