I have one more post in me in which I lavish praise upon Elden Ring (FromSoft). I have to say that no matter where FromSoft goes from here (and I have a feeling I may not be along for the ride), I will always have Elden Ring. Before I get into it, here is the post from yesterday in which I just gush about Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree.
I don’t believe in perfection, but this is as close as it gets for me. They got rid of several of the things that made previous games frustration such as excessive boss runs, elaborate upgrading systems*, and weirdly named stats. They added a guard counter in addition to the parry and a dedicated jump button. Plus, Torrent, the spirit speed, which makes traversal much easier. Horse combat isn’t great, but it’s passable.
I’m doing the DLC with my dex(ish) character, and I’m astounded at how much easier it is when I just attack endlessly. I love my incants, but I need to use them sparingly. I did not put all those points into dex and endurance just to fiddle around the edges with my spells. Though I do love my spells. So much.
It’s funny because I’m a big pyro person in From games. That’s not the funny part; the funny part is that I don’t use that many fire spells in Elden Ring. I use some, but there are so many great sorceries and incantations in the game, I like to keep a wide spread. One thing I appreciate about Rory (the R in RKG) is that he will try something new just for shits and giggles. And he will drop things without thinking twice about it, even if he absolutely loved it for several episodes. In the previous games, he was mostly a sword and board guy. In this game, he had a lot of fun dabbling with the incantations.
It sparked so much joy when he showed love to the Lightning Spear, Rotten Breath/Ekzyke’s Decay, and Swarm of Flies. I never thought he would becomeso enamored with the dragon heads, but it was great to see. He cycled through weapons every few episodes. Mostly because he got bored, but also because the lads insisted he change it up now and again.
His build was all over the place because Krupa let him put his points pretty much wherever he wanted, which meant he spread them all over the place. That’s what I do, even though I know it’s not optimal. i can’t help myself, so it was nice to see Rory do it as well. One of the guys affectionately nicknamed it the smorgasbuild, and the name stuck. Many people were frustrated with it and urged him to do a real build. There were plenty of people who had Very Strong Ideas as to what those builds should be.
People were predicting that Rory would not be able to make it past this point or that with his build, especially since he had low Vigor. They said he had to get it up to fifty or sixty by the end game or else. I openly laughed at that because I had 18 Vigor for the first hundred hours of the game (halfway through). I don’t recommend it, but I did it. When I reached the end boss, I had something like 30 or 33 Vigor. I upped it to 38 to beat the final boss, and I felt that was luxurious.
I’m not saying it’s a good thing to have such low Vigor, but Rory is a much better player than I am, so him having 30 Vigor for the first half of the game was fine. The whole reason it’s fun to watch Rory play is beacuse he doesn’t think like the typical FromSoft fan. He’s not into min/maxing, and he goes mainly on vibes. He also gets bored really quickly and jumps to something new.
Plus, the boys knowingly nerf Rory because otherwise, Retry wouldn’t be as engaging. The whole point of Retry is for Rory to try over and over again. And, boy. There is one boss in particular that he had trouble with (hint, I included the first video of it from above-emphasis on first), but that’s not surprising as everyone has trouble with this boss. In addition, they made Rory fight all the main bosses solo, which is not how they are supposed to be fought.
I don’t understand why people watch the show if they just endlessly gripe about the way Rory plays. He has a very distinct style, and if you (general you) don’t like it, there are plenty of other YouTubers to watch. I mean, it’s a cottage industry now–pumping out FromSoft content. If you want to watch someone do a onebro naked no upgrading/leveling up/fists only blindfolded run, I’m sure you can find several of them.
Also, what works for you (again, the general you) doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. That is one of the great things about this game–you can play it in so many ways. My first run was a faith run (well, faith/int.); I’ve done an int. run, a pure strength run (that later turned into a paladin), a pyro run; and now a dex(ish) run. I’ve done several others, but they were similar to the ones I already mentioned.
I like to joke that all my runs end up looking the same, but this one is different. I am slashing away like nobody’s business, and I’m pumping my endurance so I can swing my sword endlessly. I’m laughing at enemes that gave me so much trouble in my first playthrough. (To be fair, though, some of the enemies that did not give me any trouble in the first playthrough are a bit of a struggle now.)
I’m still using Morgott’s Cursed Sword. It’s wicked, and the Ash of War does some serious fire damage–which satisfies my pyro soul. It really is the perfect sword for me, even if it’s not the best dex sword. I’ve been messing around with some dex weapons in the DLC, but I don’t love any of them.
That’s not exactly true. I like quite a few of them, but none as much as my beloved Morgott’s Cursed Sword.
*Well, not completely gone. Upgrading in this game is easier than in past games, but still needlessly complicated. One of the funniest things in the RKG playthrough is Krupa repeatedly trying to explain how the smithing stones work with increasing impatience.