I made it to the final area of Elden Ring. I have known for some time what it is, but have avoided it. I kind of knew how to get there, but not really. Last night, I decided to find it. I looked up the wikis and found out that I had reached the field boss who was guarding the entrance, but I had noped out of the fight for several reasons. One being that it was a copy-and-paste boss of a much earlier boss, and I think we all know my feelings about that particular phenomenon. The other reason was that I used so much stuff just to get to that point, I knew I couldn1’t take him at the time.
Last night, though, I was ready. I got him down to about a quarter health the first time I fought him, but his bullshit homing lightning stopped me (literally) in my tracks. I have mentioned more than once that I do not like being able to be one-shot by bosses, and it’s very common in this game. I went the first half of the game under 20 health, which is laughable. I finally took the time to beef up my vit, er, vigor? It’s Vigor in this game (it changes all the damn time).
I was done with the boss fights by this point. I always get this way late in From games because they are so grueling. In this case, it’s also because my perspective has changed from my medical trauma. It’s more difficult for me to beat my head against a wall repeatedly without thinking it’s a waste of time. I did it with a late-game boss a few nights ago and while it felt great at the time (when I finally killed the boss), it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat any time soon.
Anyway. I looked up how to beat this boss. There was a very cheesy cheese that involved Poison Mist–which I did not have. I went and got it, but I didn’t want to cheese THAT hard. I watched another video on how to do it easily, and their suggestion was to stick as close to the boss as possible in the second half of the fight. The boss would want to pull away so it could do its ranged attacks and would be unhappy with you sticking to dat ass. Which, ironically, is how you beat many Dark Souls bosses. Circle around the boss and smack dat ass.
Anyway, with my Mimic Tear summon and my smack dat ass strategy, I tore up this boss in about fifteen seconds. It barely had time to go into its second phase, let alone fry me with homing lightning. I was quite pleased with my performance, and my first step into the last area was breathtaking.
Sadly, that was the last time I could appreciate the beauty of the area because the enemies….From likes its mobs. A lot. And in this section, the mobs are nearly unmanageable. Not only do they come out of nowhere, but the guards can two-shot me. Two-shot me! At this point of the game! And there are so many of them. Plus, there’s a mini-boss from earlier who is just a regular enemy now, guarding one of the bonfires.
I hate the last area. I hate it quite a lot. So for now, I’m going to go elsewhere and do other things because there’s a lot I need to clean up and big chunks of other areas that are undone.
I took a break from writing and went to an optional area in order to advance one of the NPC’s questlines. This area is filled with poison and just a grim and miserable area. One of the enemy types can use flasks and will do so liberally. And there are three of them in a small area that I need to traverse in order for me to get the fucking item I need.
I’ve reached that point in the game where I just am impatient with everything. This happens in every From game I play. I gorge on it for umpteen hours until I suddenly am tired of fucking everything. I just don’t have the time or patience for the bullshit. This includes mobs, enemies who are hiding around the way, POISON SWAMPS (why does it always have to be poison?), and environments designed to confuse. For this one area, I am using a wiki to get through it because I cannot possibly be fucked to explore. It has zombies that hug you and take huge chunks of your life–and poison you. There are the guys who use flasks and throw perfumes at you–that explode into flame. There are sorcerers who throw dark yellow magic at me–that homes. Some of them are on spectral horses. There are basilisks–which I have mostly avoided. There is a ball of gyrating legs and an agonized skull that can do massive damage if it touches me–and is hard to lock on to, which means it’s hard to magick. There are slugs. There are also Cleanrot Knights. And every level looks the same so I get lost while running around, trying to avoid poison hugs.
None of this is fun. And at some point, I just started sprinting past everything while looking at the guide because I could not possibly be fucked. I’ve talked several times about the thin line between engagingly hard and fuck all this fucking bullshit. This area is in the latter, and the frustrating part is that it isn’t even that hard. Each individual enemy except the spinny gyrating asshole is not a problem. It’s the ‘let’s throw in everything AND the kitchen sink’ attitude of the area that makes it bullshit.
I don’t like artificial difficulty, which is what this area is filled with. I end up running by everyone because I simply do not want to deal with the tedium. Now, I just want this one item and am really impatient that I can’t fucking find it.
I really don’t have the will to bash my head repeatedly against the wall. In addition, my health is still apparently rather slim. I hate that I can be one or two-shot at this point, and sometimes, I can be easily overwhelmed by a mob of enemies. I also hate that it means I have to pick off enemies one by one, sometimes using cheese in order to do it while not really seeing where the enemy is.
One thing I like to do when I’m feeling a bit tired of the difficulty is to go back to the first area and mess with different spirit summons. It reminds me of how far I’ve come and how I’m not the newbie scrub I used to be.
I’ve been thinking about starting a new character in Elden Ring so I can mess around with strength and/or dex weapons. I have so many weapons with big angry red Xs and it makes me sad. It’s always been that way for me in FromSoft games, but I really had hoped it would be different this time. But, no. I’m still using the first greatsword I found. Every time I get a new weapon, I barely even glance at it because I know I can’t use it.
If I do start a new character, it’ll probably be a Prisoner so I can have that offensive magic, but then just pour points into strength. I would continue with my current character as well, of course, because that’s just the way I fucking roll. I’ll report back if this is indeed what I do.