I’m back for my (probably) last post about my game of the year (GOTY). I say probably because we all know I have the tendency to go off the rails. I have every intention of making this the last post, but who knows what I might think of along the way?
Here’s an interesting thing about my memory since my medical crisis. It’s completely gone. Well, not completely, but it’s a fraction of what it used to be. Before my medical crisis, I had an excellent memory. Now, it’s completely gone. Or rather, it’s very spotty. When I first got out of the hospital, I had such a hard time with names. Granted, I was high as a kite so that probably had more to do with it.
Now, I can remember names. But dates? No. Things that were planned? No. Before my medical crisis, I had no issues remembering which days I had Taiji private lessons, for example. Now, if I’m doing something engrossing before the time, I have to put a sticky on my monitor to remind me. I’ll be real. It’s just if I’m playing a game at the time, and it’s only fairly recently. I have a hunch it’s more to do with me not bothering to remember than me actually forgetting.
I took a quick look at my Steam library, and there are a few games that I had fun with, but nothing really memorable. Many of them are based around cat restaurants, which was a big theme for me this year.
I will say that as is my wont, I mostly play three or four big (big meaning games that truly engross me) games and a half-dozen smaller ones intermittently. I have a few cozy games I play late at night when I just want to relax and unwind.
Here’s the way I do my GOTY. As everyone knows, I am a huge FromSoft fan. Basically, I split things up between From games and non-From games. The latter includes mostly indie games, mostly cozy games, and mostly quirky games that others may or may not have heard of. I have my list of top FromSoft games of all time and a list of my top five favorite non-FromSoft games.
A quick recap of my lists.
My favorite FromSoft games of all time
6. Sekiro
5. Bloodborne
4. Dark Souls
3. Dark Souls II
We need to talk here. I have gotten so much shit over this part of my list because I place Sekiro at the bottom. No matter how many carefully I phrase it, people get mad. Most people think either Sekiro and/or Bloodborne is the best FromSoft game with Dark Souls (OG) in the mix as well.
I mentioned in the last post how I thought things with my uncle would go after killing the Khan (as they call Khotun Khan)–and I will say that they got the ending with the uncle right. Yes, I’m going to go into spoilers yet again–not that it’ll be very surprising to most people who played the game.
I said that I would reconcile with my uncle because that’s the way it would have happened in a Western game (and, yes, this game was done by an American developer). Since they had done so much of the story very Westernized, I assumed it would be the same with this as well. Instead, they had Lord Shimura show up to aid in the last fight against the Khan, but then he sends a message to Jin that he (Lord Shimura) wants to talk to him (Jin). They meet and walk around, talking and reminiscing. As they did this, it slowly dawned on me that they were not going to reconcile. The grave countenance of my uncle tipped me off that this was going to end very differently, indeed.
I suddenly realized that he was going to kill me. Or rather, he was going to try to kill me. Because I had betrayed him, and while he did help me (ostensibly) with the Khan–I’ll get to that in a minute–he wa still the jito of the area. He could not countenance me defying a direct order because that just would not do.
I could undrestand that (as the player, and as an Asian person), especially during feudal times. There was a rigid hierarchy that had to be followed and while I was way more on Jin’s side than on his uncle’s, I could at least understand why Lord Shimura thought the way he did. He wasn’t wrong as much as he had a different way of looking at things. He thought it was better to die with honor than to win through trickery, and while I don’t agree with him, I can see his point of view.
I’m not going to rehash my issues with the big moments of the second act, but I do need to talk about the end of the third.
I will say that I should have taken a break after the second act. And then the third. I am in the DLC now, and…well, I’ll get to that in a bit. Also, I have included the trailer for it below.
In the last post, I rambled all over the place about Elden Ring in general because that’s my style. I know that the DLC is going to be over-the-top in terms of difficulty because that has become FromSoft’s trademark, but I really hope it doesn’t. Starting with Sekiro, I was hitting the top of my ability. Actually, starting with Dark Souls II DLC, really. You know what? No. It’s just every goddamn game. But I will say that the DLC of Dark Souls III was when I really noticed it. Then, with Sekiro, it just became very obvious that I sucked at the game. “When it clicks–” oh shut the fuck up. It never clicked with me, and I went trhough the game, stony-faced and teeth set, grimly beating each boss by whittling down their health. My nibling’s spouse messaged me (after I said that the combat hadn’t clicked with me) to say, “I didn’t think it was possible to beat this boss (Genichiro) without deflecting. I wrote back and said, “It’s possible, but it’s not fun.”
I will just say it. I disliked playing that game and now, I can’t play it at all. Again, not will not, but cannot. I am simply not able. I mean, I may be able to whittle down every boss’s health again, but I don’t want to do that. And I’m not even sure I could do that, actually. After my medical crisis (months later), I tried to fight my nemesis, Father (Owl), and he just handed my ass to me over and over again. And again. I cheesed him the first time I fought him, but I couldn’t even do that. And I know that I could not beat the last boss again without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. If I could even do it!
I love the FromSoft games. I’m sure I’ve said that a time or twenty. But I do not love how they inevitably buy their own hype so that the last quarter of every game is just tears. Actually, in this game, it’s the second half of the game. Starting with the (oh, obviously, *SPOILER WARNING* for the whole game and the whole post) Mountaintop of the Giants until the end of the game, it just…
Apparently, I have more to say about what I want (what I really, really want) from the Elden Ring DLC. I will be brutally honest. I don’t want really hard bosses that make me cry. I just don’t. I sort of bought into the mentality before my medical crisis. I would never say it out loud, but I made it my personal policy to beat bosses solo and I felt bad when I couldn’t do it.
Side note (yes, already!): I was the same way with being fat. I have hated my body for most of my life. My mother put me on my first diet when I was seven and consistantly told me how fat and disgusting (implied) I was for the next twenty years or so. At some point, can’t remember exactly when, but it was probably in my early thirties, I had to ban her from mentioning my weight at all. Not even under the guise of being concerned about my health was she to mention it.
She did not like it. At all. She was pissed, but I held firm (for once in my life) because she did not give two figs about my health. It was just how I looked and whether I could get a man or not. And, yes, specifically a man. A woman without a man was worthless in her eyes. Even a terrible husband like my father was better than being alone according to her.
She instilled a deep hatred of my own body in me. I was made to feel that I was beyond grotesque because I was solid. I wasn’t even fat at that age. I was chunky and solid, yes, because I have a mesomorph’s body, but I was not fat. And even if I was, I was seven. I was not fully formed yet, obviously (though I would say I am still not), but it set me down a dark path for the next forty-plus years.
When I started taking Taiji classes, I slowly begin to let go of my body hatred. I was amazed at what my body could do, but I still wished it came in a better package. I tried to balance the fact that it could do so many awesome things with the feeling that it was so ugly.
I always refused to talk about diets, bodies, and anything like that. Intellectually, I knew tha tbeing fat was not a moral failing or something that should be mocked. There were fat people I found gorgeous, but for me? No. I never looked in the mirror and I hated having my picture taken. It’s kind of funy that my mother gets frustrated that I refuse to have my picture taken, but it’s her damn fault! You can’t consistently tell your child that you think they’re gross and disgusting, and then expect that they’ll be happy to have their picture taken! Especially an AFAB child!
I wrote a post yesterday (now day before yesterday. Changing the time has been kicking my ass) about what I wanted from the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but I veered into a rant about an area I really do not like in the game. So I want to touch on more things I want from the DLC. I’m going to start with the pie-in-the-sky wants that will never happen.
I want the emphasis to be on exploration and not hard-as-nails bosses. I don’t want to cry while playing the DLC. I’m not exaggeraitng here. I have cried while playing the DLCs of previous FromSoft games beacuse they are so hard. I know the thing to do is to take breaks, but I can’t do it.Once I start playing, I keep on playing. I become obsessed with the game and can’t think of anything but. Thats’ not uncommon with games in general and From games in particular, by the way.
There’s even a meme about it–just one more try. It’s often said about rogue-lite-likes in which one run can be as short as a minute or as long as an hour. Also, the better you get at the game, the longer you have to play, obviously. Because you don’t die as quickly, I mean.
With From games, it’s a bit different. There is no run, per se because it’s just one big open game. It’s not do the same floors over and over again, slowly getting better with each iteration. It’s go throughout the whole game and slowly get better, but you have to fight different bosses and enemies the whole time. But, when youi’re doing a boss run, it’s similar in that you’re doing the same thing over and over again.
One of the quality of life (QOL) tweaks that From made for Elden Ring (probably as part of the bid to make it more mainstream) was making most of the boss runs almost negligible. You can warp to any Site of Grace (except when you’re in caves, catacombs, or mines) from the start of the game–which is such a nice touch. In the first Dark Souls game, you had to walk everywhere. I know why they did it, but it was really frustrating. And a lot of people saw it as not being respectful of their time. After you killed Ornstein and Smough, you got the Lord Vessel–which allowed you to fast travel. Not to every bonfire, though Only to certain very limited ones. Again, I understand why they did it that way (thematically), but it suuuuuucked to actually experience.
In the second game, you got to fast travel from the start. Same with the third game. To and from any bonfire that you found. The purists decried the addition, but I welcomed it. In fact, one of the reasons I don’t play the original as much as the other two in the series is for this reason.
I have written several posts about what I think might be in the Elden RingShadow of the Erdtree DLC. I will be honest with you–it’s all wild speculation. Well, most of it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the blue-hooded woman is Roderika’s sibling (or maybe a friend, but I’m doubling down on sister),
I would love to see more of Roderika and since this DLC is widely considered to be outside the timeline of the base game, we don’t have to worry about that aspect. The ending for Roderika and Hewg is one of the most poignant storylines in the game. And, yes, there will be *spoilers* throughout this post.
In the base game, Roderika becomes like the adopted daughter of Hewg, the chained blacksmith. They sit across from each other. Roderika went to the Lands Between to be grafted, but she said she was too cowardly to do it.
Turns out she had a talent for spirit tuning–which means she’s the one who upgrades your spirit ashes. She learned under the tutelage of Hewg, who said he owed it to a spirit turner he once knew.
OH MY GOD.
It’s her mother, not her sister. The woman with the blue hood. And she’s the one who Hewg knew. Oh, please, please, please let that be the case! I would be so thrilled about that. Or maybe that blue-hooded figure is not related to Roderika, but is the woman Hewg once knew. I would be fine with that as well.
Hewg mentoered her and taught her all he knew. Then, as the game progressed, it became clear that he was not all there. He forgot things he should have known, which to me, signals that he had dementia. Roderika was worried about him as well. Then, I don’t remember exactly when, but I think after you beat the final boss, the Roundtable Hold goes on fire. which is very much a From thing. The safe area goes on fire when the story is done. Hewg won’t leave, and Roderika decides to stay by him.
This is in direct contrast to Gideon and Nepheli Loux. By the way, I always call her Nepheli Loux. I don’t know why because I don’t call anyone else out by all their names, but for her, it’s both names. Always. She is the best. Anyway, she was the adopted daughter of Gideon until she questioned him about an atrocity he committed, and he turned on her. That broke my heart because she was distrught and blamed herself, but it was all on Gideon.
Having the oddly uplifting ending of Hewg and Roderikka really heartened me. Yes, it’s still bleak. The Roundtable Hold was afire and he was losing his mind, but Roderika was determined to stay by his side.
So, yes. I want the blue-hooded lady to be Hewg’s friend. That would mean everything to me.
Yes, it’s another post about the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer. Elden Ring. FromSoft. DLC. Here was part two. Oh, by the way, I saw there was an area in the ‘crumbly lands’ (as Rory from RKG calls Crumbling Farum Azula) that I had not seen before. One with a Crucible Knight I had not fought before. What?! How could there still be something I haven’t seen in the game? I had gotten up to a certain point, but didn’t explore thoroughly enough, apparently. I know this because there was a talisman mentioned that I did not have (you don’t need all the talismans for the plat, just the legendary ones).
I went to the new area and got the talisman, but only becuase I had the ability to sneak by all the enemies without fighting them. This area is hard as nails, and I did not enjoy it at all with my squishy caster. Yes, the character was a strengthcaster, but soft on the strength and heavy on the caster. I’m going to do the DLC with this character beacuse that’s the way I do, but it’s going to be so fucking hard. If I had any sense, which I apparently don’t, I would do the DLC with my strength character who has somtehing like 70 Vigor and 70 Strength. Yes, the soft cap is 60, but I don’t care. I was just going all out with doing a strength run.
And I will say without equivocation that running with a strength character is SO MUCH EASIER than being a caster. So much so that when I didn’t kill Mohg on the first try (got him to a sliver) as a strength character, I was pissed. When I met him on my first playthrough, I was pleasead to beat him on the tenth or so run with my caster. I crushed the game with my strength character. I was curious to see how I would do against Malenia because melee should be much harder against her. I did about the same as I did with my caster because Mimic Tear and I just completely stunned her with our fully upgraded greatswords and Hoarfrost Stomp. She did not stand a chance. I got her in roughhly the same amount of tries as I did with my caster, which was about a dozen.
Anyway. Back to the trailer. I left off in the last post just before my favorite moment. In a trailer chockful with new enemies, places, consumables, and weapons; in a trailer that was exciting from start to finish, you would be forgiven for thinking that my favorite moment was when there was a boss reveal or a new enemy design or even the new cutie, hipporcupine, who I talked about in the last post. So happy and gleeful as it spiked out its face.
So, in the last post, I talked about the first half of the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer and posited several wild theories. I can’t stress enough that I am not a Vaati in any way and that all my theories are juest me spitballing. Any time I watch one of his lore videos, I’m just amazed at how he’s able to piece everything together so well. Also, I remember his video on The Ringed City DLC. There’s a puzzle in it that when you knew the solution, it makes perfect sense (in the realm of FromSoft games). Well, no it doesn’t really.Even knowing what you have to do, it doseon’t make sense. Not even with the cryptic note that is given.
Vaati said it took about ten hours to figure it out (and it takes maybe a minute to do once you know the secret), and he casually added, “Because there are no wikis and I don’t have a Vaati to tell me what to do.” It was very funny. He went through all the machinations he tried in order to figure out the puzzle and his thought process. Mad props to him because I would have given up hours earlier than he did and just waited for someone else to figure it out.
I don’t actually watch that many lore videos because I like making things up in my head. It’s the same with other mediums–I’d rather not analyze ever word and every shot. When I was doing my MA, one of the profs liked to go page by page with a book and deconstruct every word. I remmeber he spent ten minutes on one word in a book, and all I could think was, “Maybe he just liked the way that word sounded.” He said that since the book was so sparse, every word had to be meaningful. I almost wanted to scream because that was not what I considered good analysis of art. In addition, not all writers wrote like that–I certainly don’t. I’m not precious about my word choice, and I write really fast. So I’m not laboring for an hour over each word.
Anyway.
Back to the trailer. Why am I dissecting it like this? Because I can, but also to take my mind off my life–even if it’s only temporoary. And why not? It’s been fun to do and I’m only half-done.
I looked more into the lion head boss, and I could not find any outfit like that one. But I noticed more similarities between it and Margit/Morgott, such as the ‘thorns’ that are on the robe around the head. And the fact that it’s definitely a humanoid figure who is wearing a lion’s head over its own. it doesn’t loo,k like a real lion’s head, either. The way it moves its head is not the way a real lion would.
More Shadow of the Erdtree speculation because I can. And I wll. And because I need to distract myself from my real life sadness right now. I don’t want to get into that because it’s still raw. And I’m in tears. So I’m trying to distract myself. I am very sad that the trailer came out on the same day that my life changed, irrevocably, for the worst, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Oh, and *spoilers* and all that for the base game.
Instead, I’m going to speculate more about the Elden Ring DLC and talk about what was in the trailer. First of all, the music in From games is so underrated. It’s gorgeous. And it’s fashioned in a way to guide the action. There is a moment in the trailer that gives me literal chills–and the action on the screen is by far the most innocuous (not action-y at all). It’s just the Tarnished walking purposefully forward.
By the way, I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I loved the fact that the Tarnished in several of the shots are just the starting class characters. I don’t know why, but it’s more meaningful than if it were the Tarnished tricked out in late-game armor. I mean, you’re going to have to be pretty beefy to take on the DLC because that’s how FromSoft rolls, but the imagery of the base Tarnished taking on these fantastical creatures just strikes a chord in me. Also, the first Tarnished they showed–wait. The Bloody Wolf was in the Closed Network Test, but not the actual game. The Raging Wolf armor set (this class’s armor) can be found in the game. I still think of this as the the iconic Tarnished, though.
Anyway. The rest of the Tarnished shown in the DLC trailer are actual starting classes, I think. Let’s watch the tralier (which I included again) and I’ll point out if there are any that aren’t.
In the beginning, we see the feet of a presumably female character. I will admit that I went into the game and tried on any armor that I thought might match the fancy pale blue silk dress and black shoes of the character, but I could not find any. The closest, and I will admit this is confirmation bias at work, was the Traveling Finger Maiden’s set, but it was not blue. And did not have the pattern the dress in the trailer did. And the shoes were not black. But other than that, nearly identical.
Next shot, the egg in Mohg’s arena. But we all knew that. Then the Bloody Wolf riding Torrent to the Erdtree (or Haligtree) and whatever the hell happened to it. In the official gameplay reveal trailer for the base game, there’s a sequence of him jumping onto Torrent and riding away from the Erdtree.
Next, there is like a bat signal, which I assume is a rune calling to the Tarnished, and a Tarnished that looks similar to the Vagabond, but not quite the same. Then a magnificent new…enemy? NPC? in gold with an absolute fuck-off sword. Cannot wait to meet her. Hopefully, she’s a friend. Then a guy in heavy armor with a holding a big pot. He’s a chonker, and his armor is reminiscent of the Veteran’s Set, but isn’t that one. That’s just what it’s closest to. Then, there is a dead white mask in a field. Or, at least everyone is assuming it’s a white mask. (Varre). But it seems to be the skin of the actual character and they have long flowing white hair (and maybe they’re just sleeping).
The next shot is the one in which I was sure it was the lower level of the Caria Manor. It’s not. After looking in the game, it’s definitely the Church of Cuckoo in either an earlier time or a different universe. Which in my mind means the regal-looking woman is a younger Rennala. Another wild theory I came up with today was that it was Ranni, but it’s not. Since I’m 99% sure it’s Raya Lucaria, that would make it Rennala. Which was my first thought, anyway.
Next is a Tarnished wearing the Raptor set galloping through the poison swamp near the Village of the Albinaurics–or something similar. I’m not wedded to that, though it does look very similar. Then there’s a portrait of a couple who a lot of people assume are Fia and some old man. He shows up later pulling his own head off. I think it’s Tanith and Rykard–and then him pulling his own head off later makes sense (because he becomes a snake). Then a brief shot of walking in an area with huge pots–maybe where they are being made? Then a shot of the prisoner Tarnished wakling up a pillar over a pool of lava. Maybe still where the pots are being made? At first I thought it was Volcano Manor, but I don’t think it is.
Then a shot of a city that at first I thought might be Leyndell, but I’m more inclined to think is Elphael. Which is where Malenia was. And in Miquella’s tree. The Haligtree. which means the tree that we see in the beginning may be the Haligtree rather than the Erdtree.
Oh wow. I’m not even halfway through the trailer. Guess this won’t just be one post.
Next up is the Wicker Man Fire Giant. Yes, another fire giant. I hope ti’s a better one to fight than the one in the main game–who is boring and not skippable. And infuriating. Although I will say that it was partly my fault because I skimped so hard on my Vigor. I only had 18 Vigor until I wanted to use my Mimic Tear–which takes 21 Vigor (because you use HP to call it) and leaves you with 20 HP. I probably had it at 22 or 23 by the time I met up with the Fire Giant in the main game. And he could one-shot me. I cannot stand fighting a boss who can one-shot me. And, yes, it was my fault for skimping on my Vigor, but still. I was so mad about it, I summoned two humans to help me with that fight–and I have no guilt about it.
That one also had the most HP in the game–and it was such a boring fight. I’m hoping this one is more varied. It’s too bad because it’s such a pivotal moment in the game.
Next up, the brainsucker. No, that’s not going to be what it’s called, but that’s what it’s going to be like–and I am going to hate it. It’s like a bastardized verison of the wormface in the base game. People really did not like it, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t love it, and I’m going to hate it actually doing that to me, but it didn’t gross me out.
Last thing I want to tackle in this post is the lion boss that is not actually a lion. Or rather, it’s someone wearing the lion. As I saw pointed out several time. The lion head has horns on it and teeth of its own, but there is another set of horns (omen) under it and another set of teeth as well. In addition, the shot of the not-lion foot is very similar to a shot of Margit’s foot.
I maintain it’s him with his own version of a beast regent. I am sticking with that for now.
Last week, it was announced that the much-anticipated trailer for the Shadow af the Erdtree trailer (Elden Ring DLC) was going to drop on Wednesday, February 21st. I was so stoked. It had been almost two years since the game came out, and I was ready for the DLC.
Then, something terrible in my personal life happened that made me unable to enjoy the trailer or participate too much in the discussion of it in the RKG Discord. It’s been almost a week since then, but I’m still dealing with the tragedy. However, I have watched the trailer several times and content creators’ reactions to the trailer. Almost to a person, it’s been sheer, unbridled enthusiasm–and terror.
FromSoft gives a ton away in their trailers. I usually don’t watch them. You can’t really tell what’s going on without context, but they are not shy about showing off the bosses in the trailers. In fact, the final boss of Dark Souls III was on the box cover. I’ve soften a bit about watching trailers and since it’s been two years, and I wanted to get hyped for the DLC, I decided to watch it.
It’s incredible. FromSoft does a trailer like no one else. They say everything and nothing at all with each. The music and art direction are both beyond compare. And the boss/enemy design is so goddamn imaginative. And this trailer is the best yet.
Here’s the thing . Given the rabid fanbase, it’s hard for FromSoft to keep surpassing themselves–and yet, they do. This trailer is jaw-droppingly amazing. I remember when the base game came out, there was a games journalist who snippily said that the game wasn’t that great-looking and that she had seen it all before. After five minutes of the game. Look. They may not push the graphic fidelity envelope, but their art design is top quality.
I’m still dealing with my personal life, but I have more capacity to analyze the trailer now. I have watched a ton of reactions and read theories. I have included the trailer, obviously, and I want to throw out my own wild theories about what I saw in the trailer. After that, I’ll mentioned the other theories I’ve read/heard. I’m not watching any actual lore videos because I don’t want to know ahead of time. But I’ve heard enough to ponder and either agree or reject the premise.
First of all, everyone who said that we’d access the DLC through Miquella’s egg were right. Which means defeating Mohg–who was fairly easy for me the first time around, but really annoyed me as a pure melee/strength character. I got him down to a sliver the first time with that character, and then he did his bullshit blood heal bullshit. He got me, and I lost any interest in beating him fairly. So I cheesed him with no regrets.