When FromSoft released Demon’s Souls over a decade ago, it was just a weird little game from a weird never-heard-of developer. Apparently, GameSpot gave it their Game of the Year award in 2009, which is very much ahead of the curve. I have included the video of the GameSpot staff talking about why they gave the game the Game of the Year award.
It was wildly divisive in that people either loved it or really, really hated it. I would say that it has remained so for the rest of the games. It appears that there are more people who love Elden Ring than have ever embraced a From game before. That makes me happy because they deserve more love.
One thing interesting about going through a new From game is to note all their trademarks, for better and for worse. one example is how each biome is exquisitely crafted and elegantly designed. In Elden Ring, many of the biomes are associated with colors. Limgrave is green, Liurnia of the Lakes is blue, Caelid is red, and a later subterranean area is purple. I think of Altus Plateau as gold, but I’m not sure that one is as obvious or even true.
Let’s talk about the various smaller dungeons dotted across the lands. The caves, catacombs, and mines are not my favorite. At all. They remind me of the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne, which I did not like at all. I did the first dungeon and then decided not to do the rest. They are so samesy, and I got lost more times than I can count. I feel the same with the small dungeons in Elden Ring. They are the damn same. I don’t care what the theme is to them or the puzzle you have to figure out to move forward because they are essentially the same thing. Run around in a dungeon with some kind of impediment such as poison or scarlet rot (a stronger poison). There are imps/little gargoyles jumping at you from unseen places. There’s some puzzle you have to figure out such as jumping on top of huge cleavers that chop into the ground so you can ride up and jump off elsewhere (great). That plus one gimmick of the dungeon. In one case, it was holy light that burned off the black mist on the enemy, rendering them able to be killed. Another was a crystal cave that looked a lot like the one in the original Dark Souls (though, thankfully, not with invisible paths).
As for the bosses, they’ve been mostly….ah, how do I say this? Lesser than the ones in the main story or even the field bosses. Many iterations and some have even been normal enemies. It’s good for getting resources and runes, but I don’t find them very interesting. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I finished one and was satisfied with the experience. No, it’s just, “Oh, another cave. Fine. I’ll do it” and taking my rewards afterwards. As with the Chalice Dungeons of Bloodborne, I have no interest in the caves of Elden Ring.
Look. I appreciate that they’re not just fetch quests or escort missions. Truly. They are several steps above what other open world games have. But that doesn’t mean they’re good. Someone in the RKG Facebook group asked if anyone else thought Elden Ring was too long. He got a lot of haters in the comments, but I gave a nuanced response. Do I think the game is too long? No. Do I think it drags on in places? Yes. Would I have been happy with half of the open world content cut out of the game? Also yes. Am I mad it’s there? No. But here’s the thing.
FromSoft games are known for the way the game pulls you in. For a tightly-knit experience that also allows for a feeling of expansiveness. Some of that has been lost in Elden Ring expressly because I can go anywhere. Like most people, I spent dozens of hours in the beginning just wandering around and experiencing everything. I didn’t care much about the main story because it would always be there. I didn’t get to the first legacy dungeon until twenty or thirty hours into my playthrough. I didn’t get to the second one until at least double that, if not more. I just finished the, ah, fourth? Fifth? One of those. Fourth or fifth major area. I’m 175+ hours into the game. That’s many, many hours. Yes, I’ve been very thorough and have done almost all the optional content, but still. That’s a lot of time .And, yes, I’m slower than most other people in playing these games. I’m really bad at the games.
A few days ago, my attention was lagging. I did not care as much about the game as I did when I first started playing. Oh, another catacomb? *Sigh*. Yet another copy-and-paste boss with a palette swap? *Double sigh*. I started cleaning up some of the NPC questlines and that’s when I realized I needed to push towards the end. The NPC quests were so cool and they gave me a sense of purpose to my time with the game again. I wasn’t just meaninglessly clearing out another corner of Caelid, for example. Oh no! I was actually getting important shit done (important within the context of the game).
That’s when I returned to the main storyline and looked up how to get out of the loop I was in (stuck and unable to find the way forward). That’s when I stormed it to the next major area and took on two story bosses. That’s when I endured the most frustrating platforming section in the game because it was so pointlessly hard for the next hour, and that’s when I made it to the next completely new area.
I’m continuing this after taking a break to play more Elden Ring. I cleaned up one other area because there was a main boss in there. I think you *have* to fight this boss? I’m not entirely sure as it’s at the end of an area that then pretty much closes itself down. He’s pretty prominent in the lore, though, and it was a really interesting boss fight. It was definitely a gimmick boss fight, but I’m OK with that because it harkens back to other fights in the series in a way that pleases me. I summoned a human summon to help me after only getting through the first phase and half the second with my spirit summon. Could I have beaten the boss on my own (with just spirit summoning) if I did it over and over again? Yes. Did I want to? No.
Then I went to the totally new area, which was the snowy area. And it’s stunning. It has ghost animals that are translucent. I don’t know if you can kill them because why would I test that? It’s also hard as balls. Which is expected, but I have to admit that my soul is a bit weary of the unrelenting brutality.
Apparently, there is a faction in ‘the community’ who do NOT approve of the bosses being tuned to being doable with spirit summons, NPC summons, and human summons. I peeked into the Elden Ring Reddit, and, oh, the wailing about how it used to be back in the old days. We did it on our own, naked, with no leveling, damn it! We didn’t have any of these new-fangled summons that you kids now have!
Then, of course, there are also the people who loftily claim that the bosses are all too easy, blah, blah, blah. I pay no attention to them because anyone can be a badass on the internet. Plus, it’s so boring. There’s a difference between just saying you one-shot a boss and humble-bragging it. And, look, not to be cynical, but anyone can say anything on the internet. Not to say people haven’t one-shot Isshin, Sword Saint with their eyes closed and their hands tied behind their backs, but I’m also not saying they did. And, at the end of the day, it. does. not. matter. I mean, it matters to the person who did it, but in the grand scheme of things, whether you beat a boss solo or with a summon–it’s meaningless.
I would not finish Elden Ring if I made myself fight each boss solo without any spirit summons. I simply would not have. When I went up against Margit so many hours ago, I had notions about soloing him. I had already resolved that I would not care about field bosses and catacombs. It was only the main story bosses that I would care about soloing. Which, by the way, is not as easy as it seems. To discern who is a main story boss, I mean. Because there are so very few of them. 13, I believe, are actually necessary to fight. Two shard-bearers, at least one guardian boss before a shard-bearer. Two more that I fought a few days ago. So, yeah, I think it’s just five bosses for sure so far. I’ve fought dozens of bosses. If I disregard field bosses and catacomb/cave bosses, I have fought…eight major bosses. Dang. Ok, there are one or two others who might be included, but damn.
NPC questlines. Let’s talk about them. All the games are known for their questlines because they can be esoteric and, frankly, byzantine. But they are next level in this game. Not only in quantity, but in quality. In the other games, yes, NPCs moved around a bit, but they mostly stayed in one place. In this game, they are moving all the time. I will admit that I have had to look up how to do the questlines because they are so complicated, but I really like that they make the world feel more alive.
*SPOILER*
I need to talk about one questline in particular, and it’s going to be a massive spoiler. So I’m putting a spoiler warning along with telling you blatantly that this is a HUGE spoiler. HUGE. Still here? Ok. Here goes.
Patches dies. I find him before fighting the boss of The Shaded Castle, and he hands me an item to give to the lady of Volcano Manor. His breath is labored and it’s clear that he’s not long for this world. He knows it, too, which is very upsetting to me. Then he dies. He actually dies!
Now, to be clear, he can die in the other games if you kill him. But he never canonically dies in the game. So does that mean he’s dead for good? Is this From’s way of saying that Patches is gone for good? That this is the last Dark Souls-like game? I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case, but I would be greatly saddened.
*UNSPOILERED*
I find the familiar touches to be comforting. It reminds me that this is a beloved franchise that has given me so many hours of, ah, we’ll just call it enjoyment. Some people were dismissive of the idea of an open world Dark Souls, but that’s what I was hoping the game to be–and it is. It’s pretty much everything I wanted it to be–for better and for worse.