I’m back to talk more about Shadow of Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). Here’s the obligatory:
*SPOILER WARNING*
I ended the last post with some judicious bitching about Igon, the favored NPC of this DLC. I want to repeat that I don’t hate or dislike him; I just don’t love him the way other people do. I’m pretty meh to him. In part because he reminds me too much of my inner voice and of a certain type of white guy that gets on my last nerve (but not other people’s).
I don’t like delusional people. And, yes, he is delusional. He thinks he can take on Bayle, who has literally battered and broken his (Igon’s) body. You find him lying in the road moaning about the pain. Viewing it through my dark lens, this is a person who let his obsession destroy his life. If you talk to his family members, they would probably all tell you how Igon has disappointed them on a day-to-day basis. His kids will say they love him, but he’s missed all their soccer games because he just had to have a go at Bayle yet again.
I get impatient with people like that, especially if they have no insight about their own behavior and how destructive it is to people around them. I will say that the actor did a magnificent job with the voice acting. I thought it was a bit over-the-top, but he was asked by FromSoft to keep going bigger with it. He had no idea that Bayle was a dragon or what the hell was happening (I’ve seen him being interviewed), which is fantastic.
He was emoting his heart out. I heard it took him six hours to do a dozen or so lines. And it shows. I have nothing but love for his outsized performance. When he says, “CURSE YOU, BAYLE!”, you can feel that shit deep in your bones.
I think, though, the fact that people are so passionate about different NPCs is a plus overall. Of course you are going to bring in your own shit because that’s human. I grew up with two narcissists who only cared about themsleves. Even when they showed care for other people, it was in the vein of ‘how does this affect me?’. There are so many distinct NPCS, and that’s true for Shadow of the Erdtree as well. Whether I like them or not, they stood out in my mind. Simple, sweet Moore; narrow-minded Needle Knight Leda; hearty and warrior-like Redmane Freyja; angry and desperate Igon; poor, gentle Thiollier; studious and questioning Sir Ansbach; angry and vengeful Hornsent; silent and decisive Dryleaf Dane, to name several. At some point, I may do a post about the NPCs themselves, but suffice to say that every one of them left a lasting impression.
In general, I was comfortable with the more linear storytelling of the DLC. I like finding lore by reading the item descriptions, but I did not mind the story being more explicit. We were following Miquella and uniting to help him. Until we weren’t. Then it was are you fighting him or fighting against him? I never helped Leda in her invasions so I don’t know if anything changes for her fight if you help her. I’m assuming not because she’s all about protecting Miquella.
I will say that I don’t understand why you go through the first half being exhorted to help Miquella and fight for Miquella and then when you go into Shadow Keep, you break Miquella’s charm and apparently become his sworn enemy. Is it because that’s where Messmer is and Miquella doesn’t want you to find him?
Yes, I can watch lore vids, but I’m not really into that. I don’t know exactly why. I think it’s because I like to make up my own lore. I’ve watched a few Vaati vids, but not many. I probably will at some point because I would like to have the definitive lore, but probably not until I’ve thoroughly explored everything in the DLC.
I loved exploring during my first playthrough. I had played the hell out of Elden Ring so I lost any fear in playing it. When I stepped into the Land of Shadow for the first time, I felt afraid once again. Not of any given enemy, but just because I did not know what was going to happen. This is one of the brilliant things about a new From game–the first time through is full of raw emotion. Fear, danger, excitement, joy, anger, and everything in between. It’s fresh and exciting, and nothing in the gaming world compares.
I did not know what was around the corner or what would jump out at me. I did not know what a mausoleum would do because it was bigger and walking in the main game. I did not like the enemy I found in the first mausoleum; it was definitely a ‘welcome to the DLC’ moment for sure. It’s also the reason I dumped 20 points into Vigor, which really mitigated the damage I took. Or rather, it meant I could take three hits rather than one or two.
I am not a stats min-maxer at all, but I would say that you should not go into the DLC with less than 60 Vigor. 50 if you’re super-hard. I was 38 when I first started and that was woefully bad. Once I bumped it to 60, I didn’t touch Vigor for the rest of the DLC.
I will say that I had mixed feelings about the incantations I got in the DLC. One issue was that I was not able to get two of them (at least) because I messed up the NPC questlines. It really annoyed me because I’m a soft completionist and even though I have the plat already, I wanted all the incantations. And sorceries, but that was secondary to the incantations. There was one that is easily the best journeyperson’s incantation–Knight’s Lightning Spear. The regular Lightning Spear is my journeyperson’s incantation for the base game, and this one is so much better.
The one thing that irritated me was that the two highest-faith incantations took 72 faith. The best one in the base game takes 50. That’s a huge leap. I get that they wanted to make it special, but that’s quite the leap. And, apparently, one of them isn’t very good. It’s Minor Erdtree, and it a healing incantation that heals you and nearby allies. Except people say it’s not nearly good enough for how much it costs. Which is sad. The other is Miquella’s incantation, which has people divided on how good it is.
I like Romina’s Rotten Butterflies, but they’re not nearly as good as Malenia’s Scarlet Aeonia. I was looking over the list of the new incantations, and there are really only a few I use. People have said that most of them are trash and it’s as if FromSoft went for flash over substance. I like Pest-Thread Spears, Knight’s Lightning Spear, and Messmer’s Orb. Fire Serpent is fine, and that’s about it. To be fair, I haven’t given every new incantation a fair shot, but I have tried all of them out. At least the ones I have. No, I’m not still salty I messed up NPC questlines, why do you ask?
That’s it for now. More tomorrow.