In my last post, I was talking about the things I found frustrating about the Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoft) DLC. I ended by talking about my displeasure with how the bosses were created for this game. In the DLC, it’s not so much that they have two bosses as one (looking at you, last three bosses of the base game. Per yooz:
*SPOILER WARNING*
Beast Clergyman/Maliketh, the Black Blade; Godfrey, First Elden Lord/Hoarah Loux; Radagon/Elden Beast. In the DLC, there weren’t any like that (as far as I remember. My memory is trash since my medical crisis). But, there’s another thing the base game did that has carried over into the DLC. It’s having two phases for a boss with different names for each phase. So Malenia, Blade of Miquella becomes Malenia, Goddess of Rot, for example. And some bosses didn’t have a name change, but they did have two phases with different moves.
In the DLC, there are plenty of the last example (two phases with no name change, but different movesets). This has become the standard, I think, and I just take it for granted that there will be two phases for any major boss fight. There are none of the first type in the DLC as I mentioned, but there are at least two of the second I can think of off-hand. One is Messmer who is Messmer the Impaler in the first phase and Base Serpent Messmer in the second. This is one of my favorite bosses in the DLC, and I was not expecting to have feelings for him. Not, “I want to shag you” feelings (though, you know, I would not say no), but “Oh, your mother treated you so poorly, let me give you a hug” feelings.
Also, it was an enjoyable fight because I had explored before going in so my Scadoooooootree Blessing level was at least 10 (halfway) for the fight. And my Revered Spirit Ash was 5–also halfway as far as you can level. I had Mini-Me, of course, and one of the NPCs, Hornsent. For whatever reason, his summon sign was in the arena, which is not usual for NPC summons. I missed it the first time and only saw it near the end of my second attempt. We got him on the third try.
Here’s an interesting fact that I only recently learned about the Mimic Tear. They will use whatever weapon/tool you have in your hands at the time you summon them. I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it never occurred to me that if you summoned your Mimic Tear with, say, your seal in your right hand, Mimic Tear can’t use the weapon you also have in that right hand.
So, of corse you can put your seal in your left hand and that way Mimic can use both, but I prefer to leave Mimic with a shield. I want Mimic to stay with me as long as possible, which means a shield. I will say that witth my strength characer, I will two-hand sometimes for the added oomph, but I still prefer to hide behind my monsterous shield.
Back to Messmer. He was probably my favorite fight in the game because it was such a spectacle, and I barely had time to take it in. Let me be clear. He was a total jerk. He needed to be taken care of (as in, gotten rid of), but he ended up the way he was because his mother sent him down that path. I’m not going to talk about Marika in this post (his mother), but suffice to say, she is at the center of all the drama and lore.
From a agameplay point of view, I liked that the fight with Messmer was a surprise because he’s more at half-game than the last boss–which was where you would expect them to be. Also, I enjoyed the frenetic pace of the fight because I had friends to help me. I’ve seen people fight it solo with no spirit ash (or shield), and it’s painfully grueling.
Let’s contrast him with the *sigh* last boss. I always sigh when I think of this boss because it could have been (and should have been) som much better than what it was. Once you piece the lore together, it makes some kind of sense–I guess–but it feels very retcon to me. I don’t think FromSoft went into the DLC with the idea that Radahn would be the champion of Miquella. I could be wrong, but it seemed so out of left field to me (especially because I fucked up the NPC questlines.
It was cool to see Radahn, I guess, but it didn’t make sense to me. Also, I am not the Radahn stan that so many players seem to be. I don’t dislike him, but I don’t have the slavish adoration for him that others do.
The spectacle, as with the Messmer fight, is top-notch. You want to feel epic? Just enter that boss fight and watch the cut-scene at the beginning. It falls apart, however, when you begin to examine it. Why Radahn? Why in that manner? How did Miquella choose him? There are lore videos explaining all this, and it makes sense in retrospect, I guess. But…I just don’t buy it. Usually, when I read the lore and/or piece things together in a From game, I come away feeling satisfied that Miyazaki crafted each section of the story, carefully, before stitching it together.
I didn’t feel that as much with the base game of Elden Ring, and I wondered if it was because of George RR Martin. The fact that he wrote the world the game was set in, I mean. When the Elden Beast burst out as the final boss, I was like, “what?!?” Yes, there were a few item descrptions that mentioned the Elden Beast, but, come on. The game is huge and sprawling. Two brief item descriptions about the Elden Beast is not enough. Also, the arena is enormous, and they only JUST added the ability to use Torrent in the fight.
It was one of my least-favorite fights in the base game, honestly. It starts with Radagon, and if you manage to beat him, it was round twoooooo with the Elden Beast. I just could not byi that point. I had poured over 200 hours into the game, and I was done with it. So I cheesed Radagon, pulled out the Mimic Tear, and went to work on the Elden Beast. which consisted of getting in one or two attacks on it, and then having to run around the arena for the next five minutes as it flippered hither and fro. That’s not even to mention the massive amounts of holy damage it did with every attack–and most of them from a distance.
Not going to lie. I was really disappointed in that boss because it just felt like, what the fuck? Radagon would have been a great last boss, but they had to slap on the Elden Beast. And, again, there is some weak lore surrounding it (the Elden Ring became it, apparently), but that felt very tagged-on-at-the-end rather than an important part of the lore.
I was so tired by that point that I cheesed the fuck out of Radagon. It’s a well-known glitch (or cheese strat), and I felt no remorse about it. Look. You had to start from the beginning of the fight every time, and I was just not having any of it. Funnily enough, when I fought the duo with my strength character, Radagon did not give me much trouble (I decided to fight him true), but I stil had problems with the Elden Beast. Not five hours problems as I did with my first playthrough, but I think it took me five or six tries to beat it.
More tomorrow.