Elden Ring: Breath of the From Software

I finally beat Alecto, it turned out the key was to . That fight just crystalised my feeling that this is a good game filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. I didn't feel clever after beating her, I only felt like I had figured out the gimmick and then moved on. I have 60 VIG and dislike how so many attacks are effectively instakills. Next on my shit list was that Bell Bearing Hunter in Caelid. By way of analogy, I liken the game to a 12 course meal where 8 of the courses are amongst the best dishes you've ever had while 2-4 of them are absolute trash that you wouldn't serve to your enemies. As an overall experience it's quite positive but the negatives really detract from the overall sentiments if only because they're adjacent to such highs.

To Gary's earlier point, the uneven pacing kind of works in that as soon as you get bored a new part of the map opens up which lets you build momentum past the bullshit. Maybe the fault is with me and I should just skip the bullshit fights but when the game's whole premise is on overcoming adversity, it makes it difficult to know when I should just move on because the game is being a jerk or "git gud". I'm currently in the Volcano Manor which is full of cool people. In general I like it when the world feels a little bit lived in.

So these games have had eye rolling difficulty insta kill any player bosses you need to hit 1000 times forever and I think it's the weakest thing about them. I think the low density of those bosses relative to regular bosses is a little better in this game though just relative to the overall content makeup. I tend to max out at the hardest of them which are too much for me... but I just summon some absolute ringer in MP to make up for it. It's why I barely managed to beat the last boss in Sekiro but never beat the sculptors demon, an incredible bullshit boss in a game you can't summon help. A podcast I listen to on Souls which has somewhat negative things to say about Sekiro and DS3 calls this problem "sustained perfection" and that captures it perfectly. You can make a hard boss that has tricky instakills, you can make me hit it literally 40-50 times to kill it, but don't do both. The Git Gud assholes eat that shit up but it isn't an enjoyable skill to be tested to me.

It was even worse in DS3 when they basically made almost every boss unstaggerable and changed how poise worked to make you stagger at anything no matter what a tiny poke it is.

I looked at a recommended "order" and I am so far off of that it is hilarious. They have Castle Morne before StormVeil and I don't even know where that thing -is-. I can't find the Glintstone Key so I can't go to Raya Lucaria and I just killed some Spirit Knight in Carina Manor. I was glomping around Caelid and clambering down the Sacred Tower there and I'm supposed to not have done Siofra until late game??! What's even going on, haha.

What I like about this game more than any other Soulsborne game is I can just go somewhere else. I can just go there. Dodge mutant hands, kill God, get some clothes re-worked. Whatever.

S T O R M V E I L C A ---nm I just walked around it. You couldn't do that in Dark Souls. There was a next boss, gating the next area of the game for like 85% of it. This is so different.

My only issue with the game is I don't know what things -do-. Rune Arc? No idea. They are hard as balls to find, so they must be good. They "invoke the Shard" I have but what does that mean? Does it mean the smoke monster won't one-shot me? They seem too precious to just fire off and test.

You're not wrong on not explaining stuff. Runearcs usage is only relevant when you kill one of the Big Bosses that holds a shard of the elden ring. It's a powerful consumable but not like essential or anything.

I killed the big mutant fella, I can use an Arc. I just literally don't know what it does. Will I grow an extra head? Does it buff me? Should I save it for a boss fight? Can I use it in a boss fight? Mysteries abound!

The weird old lady says it will empower me with the essence of the blah blah blah. It's probably good, but I only have like 6 of these and maybe I need them to fly later or something.

Each one does a different thing when you pop a rune arc. The one you have gives you like +5 to every attribute till the next time you die.

To the best of my knowledge, you don't need them later. Hold onto those starlight shards consumables though if you find them, they can buy you summons later in the game.

Sewer maze sucks, just like it always does. Glad to be out of that "iconic" From area for this game.

Gary Sax wrote: Sewer maze sucks, just like it always does. Glad to be out of that "iconic" From area for this game.

Once I find the sewer lobsters I bailed on this area. Not fun. I'll have go back eventually, there's important stuff at the bottom.

I hate to say it, but I would actually have bought a real strategy guide for this game. I have never bought a strategy guide, ever, but I think it would enhance this game. I don't really enjoy running to a wiki every 10 minutes and this game... this game is bullshit.

My second monitor has 10-15 wiki tabs up whenever I play this game. Most of them are just reminders to do stuff, but the current area I'm in and the map are the main ones.

God, don't blame you.

My thing is once I get the vibes and mystery out of my first playthrough, about half to two thirds through I turn to a guide and start grinding on plot stuff and cool weapons.

I do that on a location basis. I’ll play through a castle or catacomb blind, then follow a guide to make sure I got everything.

I do a high level overview of major missable stuff up front (questlines, items that go away after you do x, etc etc) sou can keep an eye out for points of no return, then aside from that I'll check an area when I'm done with it and see if I missed anything that looks cool/worth going back and doing

I just beat Radahn and found him trivially easy. I’ll chock it up to me being over-leveled. I kept putting it off due to his reputation of being hard, especially after they re-buffed him. Oh well, I’m not complaining.

Does anyone else find the “Let me solo her” stuff as great and charming as I do?

It's a real feel good thing to me too, I've had this experience a number of times since I never hesitate to summon against super hard challenge bosses.

I remember I had a motherfucker just go absolutely ham on the really really hard final boss of the DS3 DLC (Slave Knight Gael) while I kept my shield up and got like 3 hits in. Copious bow emojis followed.