I’m in the end game of Elden Ring, and I’m deep in my feels about it. How do I know it’s the end game? Well, settle down, wrap a comfy duvet around you, and listen up. It snowed, by the way, and actually stuck to the ground. That’s the best! It’s April 14th and we have visible snow. How great is that? Prince was right in that sometimes it snows in April, especially in Minnesota. He’s a Minnesotan through and through.
Reminisce with me as I remember back to roughly a hundred hours ago, Elden Ring-wise. Oh, wait. Before I go on, I will be talking about the end game of Elden Ring so obviously:
*SPOILERS*
I was doing Ranni’s questline, which is MASSIVE. I first met her at the very beginning of the game in the Church of Elleh. You have to go there at night in order for her to appear. Or rather, the form she decided to take appears. She herself is–well, I’ll get to that in a second. She calls herself Renna, is blue, and has four arms and two faces. She gives you the spirit summoning bell, talks about Torrent (who you have to have for her to appear, I believe) and that’s that. I went back a few more times, but she wasn’t there.
At some point, Kale, the Nomadic Merchant in the Church of Elleh tells you about his friend. Oh, this is after you hear the howling at Mistwood Ruins. Or maybe after you meet Renna. Either way, he gives you a gesture to use when you hear the howling. I tried it, but I could not get the howling to replicate because there are big bears in the area and I had to race around to avoid them. Plus the wolfmen who roam the lands as well. That meant I could not open my map to see where I needed to be. So I missed the first step of Blaidd’s questline, unfortunately.
Side Note: I’m glad that the questlines in Elden Ring are more generous as to if you miss a step along the way. I missed both this and D’s first encounter, but I was able to make progress in both these questlines. I also skipped Millicent invading me because I wanted to wait until I was stronger, but then missed it completely because I beat the boss of the area.
Here’s the thing. Normally, when I play From games, I just play them the first time through. I didn’t even think about platting until I watched Daniel from RKG plat the first game. And even then, I just checked my own game to see how far I was without intention of platting. I called it not-platting for the longest time. I already had both endings–I Just needed to do some of the more fiddly bits like get all the boss weapons. Which takes three consecutive playthroughs (two-and-a-half, to be more precise) because you can make three weapons out of *sob* Sif’s soul and you have to get to Anor Londo to have the Giant Blacksmith craft the boss weapons.
Then I decided to do the third game, which was also just having to do the fiddly bits because I had all the endings. Three official endings, though there is a variant on one of them that is the darkest ending of all. The variant doesn’t count for the plat. You also have to go through three consecutive playthroughs (meaning up through NG++) to get one of the rings. The worst part was getting thirty of one item for a covenant–and having to do it thrice. Yes, you can do it through PvP, which is what I ended up doing for one of them–asking Ian to let me kill him again and again and again.
The second game, by comparison, was relatively easy. The only problem was that a few of the trophies didn’t pop because I played offline so I had to do them again. And one of them, the upgrade every path once one, was bugged so that even though I had done it all, the trophy didn’t pop. I finally had to buy fifteen (I think it was) daggers and upgrade each one with a different path to get it to pop. On a character who didn’t have it done already. It was a pain in the ass, but not hard to do. Oh, and in this one, you also had to get to NG++ in order to get two spells that weren’t available beforehand. But, in this case, you could do the ‘open the late-game bit for a million souls per NG’ by beating the Rotten (by going down the well) over and over again by using Bonfire Ascetics to top off the 3,000,000 Souls (collective, thankfully, not current) mark needed. That was fun!
I didn’t even look at the trophies for the first hundred hours of playing Elden Ring. I really don’t like to sully the first playthrough like that. But around the hundred hour mark or when I had 2/3rds of the achievements and was working on Ranni the Witch’s questline (Renna. Don’t know why she gives you an alias the first time you meet her). It’s very involved and opens up a whole underground area that is incredible. Three major areas on the map with several sub-areas in each. Some of the most breathtaking visages are in these areas.
I would say this questline added anywhere from 30 to 50 hours to my playtime. It’s elaborate and very detailed, involving three other NPCs. Blaidd, Iji, and (ugh) Seluvis, who reminds me strongly of Severus Snape and is a spellcaster to boot. And is completely repugnant. I met Iji before really embarking on this questline, and he is the best! A giant blacksmith, just like Cuddles from the first game (my name for the giant blacksmith of that game).
This questline is amazing. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several people assigned just to designing this questline. It blows my mind how it’s completely optional and involves one of the shardbearers, who, in and of himself is optional. even though he’s in the trailers and everything. Starscourge Radahn. Quite possibly the worst boss fight in the entire game, though it’s certainly epic and breathtaking in scope. You have to beat him in order to go to two other areas, which is just incredible.
I did everything I could to have all the bits and bobs done by the time I entered the final area. Well, not exactly the final area, but the final new area. Oh! I mentioned Ranni’s questline because it was while doing it that I made the conscious decision to get the achievements. As I said, I normally would play the first playthrough not paying attention to that stuff, but after having done so much of Ranni’s questline and realizing I did not want to HAVE to do it again, I made the choice to pick up the achievements during the last third of the game.
To that end, I have a guide for how to do the plat in one playthrough open on my second monitor as I play. There was one achievement (for the legendary armaments, i.e., weapons) that you could miss getting Bernahl’s weapon if you don’t kill him at the–look, it goes like this. You find the Warmaster’s Shack early in Limgrave. Some dude sells you Ashes of War. Neat. Cool, even. At some point, he disappears and a bell-bearing hunter (pain-in-my-fucking-ass more like) appears (at night).
Many, many, MANY hours later, there is a Knight Bernahl in the Volcano Manor. For me, this is over a hundred hours later. Yes, he sells Ashes of War, but I don’t connect him to the earlier guy because why would I? Well, it’s the same guy. And the wiki I was reading told me that if you kill Rykard (the boss of Volcano Manor) before killing Bernahl at the Warmaster’s Shack or killing him when he invades you in Crumbling Farum Azula (last new area), then you’re SOL. In other words, he won’t spawn at the latter area if Rykard is dead, in theory because he disappears from the Volcano Manor once Rykard is dead.
When I read that, I had already killed Rykard without getting Bernahl’s weapon. I was mad, I’ll be honest with you. I was going to have to go to NG+ to get the plat. Yes, it’s right in the beginning and I could reach the Warmaster’s Shack in ten or fifteen minutes from the start, but I wanted to finish exploring the world after beating the last boss and (hopefully) scum-saving for the two other endings. I decided I would try scum-saving for the armament as well and tried to put it out of my mind.
I went into Crumbling Farum Azula and made my way to where one of the legendary talismans was. I died trying to open the chest despite having the Unseen Form/Crepus’s Vial combo going on, which is utter bullshit. Much to my surprise, Recusant Bernhal invaded me! I ignored him as I got the legendary talisman, but then I took him on because hell yes I wanted to finish that achievement in NG!
Well, he’s an utter asshole. Two hits of his big club (what I needed for the achievement, in fact) killed me. And he could heal. And he had a flame incantation that could pull me towards him. I was using Swarm of Flies, which is the Dorhy’s Gnawing of this game and quite OP. I tried other spells and incantations, but just spamming this one over and over while rolling through his big swings got the job done. I got his weapon!
Except, the achievement didn’t pop. WTF? The wiki I was reading said this was an issue since the last patch. They suggested several things to try and placing the weapons in my chest one by one is what worked for me. The achievement popped and it was such a feeling of relief! I only have eight left. Three are bosses. Three are endings. One is the legendary talismans (can’t get the final one just yet) and the last is the Elden Ring, the achievement you get for getting the rest of the achievements. That’s the same in all the games–it’s the Dark Soul in the three Dark Souls games.
I am so close. I can’t believe that I’m nearing the end of my Elden Ring journey. It’s been quite the ride, and I’m sure I’ll keep playing the game once I’m done. That’s just how I roll.