Still thinking about Elden Ring. I probably will be thinking about it for a long time–maybe for the rest of my life. Yesterday, I took care of two field bosses, one that gave me so much trouble when I tried to fight it earlier. Again, spoilers for end game content. This was the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast that is just out in the middle of nowhere after you use a sprit spring in Mt. Gelmir. You can rush past it, of course, but it’s a bit tricky because it’s in a crater . There is one way out from the situation (rushing to the right and galloping over a beam, then jumping). Before, I was barely making it to the second half of the fight. This time, if I could make it past it killing me in the very beginning (because I’d summon my Mimic Tear and then it would gore me before I could heal), I was making it to the end of the fight with ease. It only took two real attempts to kill it and to get a really badass weapon in return. What was the difference? Swarm of Flies and Pest Threads, and more health. That’s it. Pest Threads wrecked it. I could have had it much earlier, but I just didn’t think to go back to Gowry to get it.
I was just talking with Ian as to the joys of finding cheese for a particularly difficult boss as an accessibility option. I will admit that I was not above Googling the cheese options, as evidenced that I used the Radagon cheese to do the first half of that fight. But, my proudest moment was fighting Malenia and figuring out the cheese on my own–spamming Swarm of Flies (before it got nerfed) and keeping my distance until she died. That’s basically what I did for Beast Clergyman/Maliketh, too–and I figured that out on my own.
Do I feel guilt about cheesing the bosses? No. Would I before my medical trauma? Probably. I used to buy into the toxic mindset that if I didn’t beat the boss solo and in a true fashion (which includes spells), then I was not doing it the right way. So in that case, how I beat Beast Clergyman/Maliketh and Malenia would not have bothered me, but how I cheesed Radagon would have. And I flat-out summoned for some of the boss fights, including Placidusax. I just couldn’t be bothered at the time. I did look up cheese, but there wasn’t any that was actual cheese. Funnily, just now, I found one that involves poison arrows, but I did not find it at the time.
Look. My whole goal in playing Elden Ring was to enjoy the journey. I’m just grateful that I was able to experience another FromSoft game. I didn’t see any reason to put meaningless limitations on myself. In the RKG group, there was a thread about whether or not spirit summons was cheating. Or made the game too easy (in context of whether Rory should be allowed to use them when they do the Elden Ring playthrough). I think gatekeeping of any kind is nonsense, but this is especially so since FromSoft specifically added it to this game! Like, it’s totally new. It’s clear they expected people to use them! And it’s also clear that they’ve tuned many of the boss fights to include spirit summons.
Ian just beat Rennala and we were talking about her. She was particularly hard for me in the early game because she’s in an abyss so it’s difficult to gauge how far away she is. With my spatial issues, that made for a VERY frustrating boss fight. In addition, she can summon spirits of her own–except hers are HUGE and hit ten times as hard as mine do. She can summon a dragon, an assassin, and a wolf (if I remember correctly). One time, she summoned them one after the other so I had all three attacking me at the same time. My paltry little wolf summons seemed pitiable in comparison.
Yes, the Mimic Tear is really good (though not as OP since it got nerfed), but I see it as leveling the playing field. As I mentioned before, the last boss had nearly 35,000 HP in comparison to Gwyn’s 4,250. It has two separate bosses (not just phases) compared to Gwyn’s one. If you could parry or was a Pyro like me, Gwyn was easy-peasy. It took me less than a minute to beat him. Even with the cheese, it took me ten minutes to beat Radagon/Elden Beast. Gwyn has no AoE attack. Elden Beast has several. Both Gael and Midir (DS III second DLC bosses) have roughly 16,000 HP. That’s less than half of what Radagon/Elden Beast. So, yeah, the latter is like mashing together Gael and Midir.
My point? FromSoft is cranking up the difficulty with each game. I can’t tell you how much health Isshin had because in Sekiro, it was more about posture than health, but he had four phases. Well, he himself had three, but the first phase was Genichiro, so it’s not like the two different bosses in the same boss fight, consecutively, is a new thing. There’s also King of Storms/Nameless King, for example.
My point isn’t that FromSoft should stop ramping up the difficulty (though I could make a case for that), but that they expect you to ramp up your skills/tools in return. In other words, if they’re going to make the final boss ten times as difficult as the final boss of Dark Souls, then, yeah, I’m going to cheese Radagon and use the Mimic Tear for the Elden Beast.
Side Note: I still think it’s hilarious that so many guides suggest you have 60 Vigor at the end of the game. I had 18 for the first hundred hours, not because I’m anti-health (believe me, I am not), but because I wanted to have a strong faith build. plus, sorceries. That meant buffing my Faith stat, my my Mind stat, and then, of course, my Intelligence stat. In fact, the reason I started ramping up my Vigor stat was because I wanted to use the Mimic Tear and could not. It used HP to be summoned rather than FP. It has 660 health. That’s what you need to give it. 18 Vigor has 598 HP. I was 62 HP short and you get increasingly more amounts of health per extra level. I had to get to 21 (680) before I could even summon the Mimic Tear and then quickly quaff a Flask of Crimson Tears to replenish my health if I didn’t want to immediately die with one hit.
Vigor 30 means I now have a whole 994 HP. 60 would give me 1900. So when bosses nearly one-shot me (or DO one-shot me), that means they’re doing nearly a thou damage in one hit. Granted, I can do that with some spells, but in the case of, say, Radagon/Elden Beast, that would still mean hitting them over thirty times.
My point is that I have zero guilt for cheesing. Or, to put it in a more positive way, for coming up with creative ways to beat a boss. So this demand that Rory play ‘pure’ is grating. I mean, it was before Elden Ring, but it’s especially true with this game because there is just so much to it. If you want to play the game as a naked wretch, never leveling up, getting no hit, and never using the spirit summons, have at it! Go on with your bad self. If that’s how you enjoy the game, more power to you!
But miss me with the ‘it makes the game too easy’ bullshit. Or judging people who use the Mimic Tear. Or Comet Azure. Or a hundred other meaningless ways people gatekeep. Men. Let’s call it what it is. It’s overwhelmingly white dudes who do this shit in games. Well, dudes, anyway. Cis dudes. The endless list of things you have to do (and not do) in order to be a REAL gamer is exhausting and, ultimately, meaningless.
The point of a game is to have fun–or at least for it to be a positive experience on some level. I can’t say that I think From games are fun, but they are definitely more positive than negative experientially. One reason I put Sekiro at the bottom of my list is that I was miserable playing it and there was no way to mitigate that misery. You can’t over-level or summon, for example. And there’s no magic in the game.
Where does this game fall on my list? 1 or 2. I need more time and distance (and another playthrough) before I can say definitively. But it’s definitely ahead of Sekiro, BB, Dark Souls II and the OG DS. It’s just Elden Ring and Dark Souls III. I have a hunch it will just edge out my favorite, but only time will tell.