I love Elden Ring (FromSoft). It’s my favorite game of all time, tied with Dark Souls III. I need to play DS III again; I haven’t done it since February. The RKG Discord did a Return to Lothric then, and it was fun getting back to it.
I will admit, though, that I’ve been playing mostly Elden Ring since the DLC came out–hell, before that, too. It’s interesting to me that when people talk about the best From game, they like to pretend that there is an objective answer to that. I mean, it’s not unusual that human beings want to rank things, and it’s certainly not unusual to think that your opinion is FACTS. It’s just amusing to me how vehement people get about it. I know that I’m in the minority with Dark Souls III, and I’m really in the minority with placing Bloodborne and Sekiro at the bottom of my list.
While I adore Elden Ring and have played it almost nonstop for two-and-a-half years, there are things that could have been done better. I am currently doing NG+ with my strength character, so I want to start with my issues with NG+ and beyond. This is not limited to this From game, but it’s exacerbated in this one because…well, I’ll just jump into something that really irritates me about NG+.
There are important items in the game that when you get there in NG+, you get nothing. Not a replaced item, but nothing. There are rises in the game that are towers you have to unlock by solving a puzzle (usually). Some are as simple as finding three ghost tortoises and striking them. Some involve jumping; some involve gestures; one, memorably, involves a *sigh* hidden path. They are a fun break from the dungeons, and I enjoyed most of them. They are outposts for the sorcerers of Raya Lucaria (I think) so you usually get something intelligence-related from them like a spell or a memory stone. The latter is how you get another spell slot.
Side note: This is one of the notable improvement in Elden Ring from the prior game. The memory slots, I mean. I can’t tell you how irritating it was to have to dump so many levels into attunement in order to get spell slots. I normally had five slots–and I think that was only with a ring that gave me an extra slot. In this game, every character starts with two memory slots. You get more from certain bosses and from rises, mostly. By the end of the game, you have ten slots. There’s a talisman that gives you an extra two. I think that’s the most you can have (twelve); at least, that’s all I’ve found.
When you reach the rises with memory stones in NG+, you get nothing. That’s right–nothing. No replacement item–not even a damn smithing stone. You open the chest and there is literally nothing in it. I can’t tell you how deflating that is.
Side note: This is one of my issues with the DLC. The exploration is incredible, but there is little tangible reward for doing so. They throw smithing stones at you so liberally, you will be able to upgrade weapons to your heart’s content. I’m sure it’s because they wanted you to be able to try out DLC weapons, which is appreciated. However, if you have thoroughly explored the main game, you have the ability to buy all the smithing stones you want, except for the highest upgrade in both regular weapons and weapons that take somber smithing stones.
In addition, most people who are in the DLC don’t really need to level any more and the DLC gives a healthy amount of runes. This means I have the money burning a hole in my pocket with not much to do with it. Which means I can upgrade a weapon almost completely without even breaking a sweat.
I know it sounds churlish, but I would like if they put something into their NG+ and beyond game. The second game, for all the hate it’s gotten, did something interesting with NG+. For certain bosses, they added extra enemies and tricks in the fight. They also made the big boss souls the souls of the first game.
I still play Elden Ring on NG+ in part because I liek feling OP for a change. Which lasts throughout a lot of the game. But I would like to have a game reason to play on NG+, and it’s just not there. Any added value to the game is from what the player themselves drums up. In my case, it’s seeing how quickly I can stomp through enemies. I have tried new weapons and new incantations/spells, but that’s me–not the game.
One of the issues with Shadow of the Erdtree is that while you can get there in a dozen hours or less, you probably won’t want to. Yes, you can theoretically do the DLC at any level, but you would best be served by having roughly 60 Vigor going in. You will probably not have that in ten hours. YIou might if you farm, but that’s not going to be fun. I went in with 38 Vigor and got one-shot by everything. I went up against the first field boss and fought against him for hours. And hating it mightily.
I respecced to 60 Vigor and had a much better time after that. Which is another thing I don’t like about this game (and all From games). The DLC is brutal. The bosses are on a whole different level. Well, that’s not quite right. In this game, there are a few that are insanely hard, one in particular, but it’s more that there are brutal and punishing areas.
This is the constant tension of these games. They’re supposed to be difficult (though now it’s verboten to say that, apparently), but they also have to be playable. Of course, that window is different for everyone. From has to find ways to make the game playable by a wide variety of people–or not. The reason I don’t like Sekiro is because there is only one way to play it–and I suck at that one way.
I think we’re reaching the breaking point with this tension. The last boss of the DLC was very divisive. And it was a hard skill check that just felt so unnecessary at that point in the game. Plus, the visual clutter was a disaster in actually trying to track the boss. Every move was followed by a blast of holy damage that was done in a blinding explosion. I literally could not find the boss half the time. How did I beat him? By Scarlet Rotting him and running around with max holy damage negation, hoping he wouldn’t hit him. Letting my Mimic Tear do most of the work. Was it thrilling? No. Did it get the job done? Eventually. (After5 hours!) Was I exhilarated after? No. I wasn’t even relieved. I was just numb.
I was not the only one, either. There were several people in the Discord who have felt the same. One thing you need in a boss fight is for it to feel fair or that you actually earned the win. I did not feel that with this boss, and there are several other really hard bosse sin the previous games in which I felt the same.
That’s all for now. More later.