there’s something coarse and plasticy about elden ring that i initially didn’t like, then i reached some of the pinnacle vistas and was like “oh but i can see how it works in the context of the scale they’re going for”, and i suspect eventually i’ll be back to sort of not liking it overall only because i perceive it as an outline, and after becoming used to it enough i might be able to imagine more nuanced and elegant ways that it could be filled in
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I am back underground again thanks to the results of the Rakhan fight, I visited just to see what the impact zone looked like and it was so neat that I couldn’t not venture further. I like how it is easy in this place to basically drop down a bit into a whole seemingly optional offshoot mini-adventure for a bit, the obvious goal was just to find and light everything and I’ve not done it yet as I keep finding other places to go explore. I recently faced a gargoyle and was relieved to finish its first half before it became a complication, I have a vague recollection of hearing people complain about it. Anyways I found the site of grace there and stopped for the day, nearby there is what appears to be a coffin with a lot of messages around it so I am intrigued, I do remember Dark Souls 2 after all…
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Okay so didn’t get to play a lot this past week but underground coffin lead me to a different underground region I wandered around and lost like 60-70k runes on a bad tree limb jump, oops. I eventually followed the giant tree limb path correctly, fought a boss (technically 5 of them) and touched a warp thing that launched me into the capital.
I was not intending to go to the capital for a bit (I still need to explore the outskirts) but I don’t fast travel out of new/unexplored locations so I wandered around here. This capital is very well designed, it feels like there are potential paths and places to explore all over the place. Rather than find my way out I accidentally made my way to what seemed like a very important fog gate, tried to wander away and ended up opening shortcuts (i.e. doors) that took me back to where the entrance to the capital via the outskirts is. Unfortunately I never killed the boss that apparently guards this path and you cannot enter that boss arena from the rear when the boss is still alive, the fog gate just won’t let you past. This is a problem as again, I got that fast travel rule.
So I said to heck with it, went through that big scary fog gate and fought Morgott, the Omen King who wasn’t that bad really. The path beyond him was a bit of a dead end though, I backtracked and explored around this part of the capital a bit but eventually conceded defeat and fast traveled back to the part of the underground I was at before this all started. A bit annoyed that I had to resort to that but I’m not sure if I had much of an option to get back to most of the map.
Anyways I did more stuff underground, lost another 40k runes due to tree branches (fortunately I’m like level 122 or so which feels plenty strong with my… 69 strength), got tilted by this and lost to what felt like a mid-level boss for 20 straight minutes. Anyways I found another coffin I could hop in and this took me to what appears to be yet another underground location, so that will be tomorrow’s adventure.
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I hit a point in Elden Ring where the game seemed unusually “are you sure about this?” so I googled and it turns out I’m at one of the very few moments in the game where you can straight lock yourself into a certain ending. I am outside wherever the frenzied flame is and the site of grace lady basically said “please don’t grab that, it’s bad” a few times. I kinda still want to as it was a heck of a journey to get to this place, but I also don’t have a great feel whether this just instantly kills every other side quest with characters that can tie into other endings which would likely be a negative. On the other hand I picked up a few details on what this ending entails by accident (not a big deal, none of the From games I played had very interesting endings IMO) while the others are unknown to me, so not doing it would be more surprising in the long run? Maybe I’ll just punt on all this for now.
At the very least it was very cool getting to this place, it was basically one non-distinct area that had an unremarkable thing that lead to someplace unexpected, and I keep finding things (with some help from ground messages) that keep letting me dig further and further into this place in unexpected ways. All of this has felt increasingly missable.
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The endings are very very minimal, but she makes a pretty passioned plea to not do that thing so I didn’t.
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you won’t be 100% locked into it, but it’s exceptionally difficult to get out of it once you commit.
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Don’t dither COMMIT
Fake Edit: I have played up to the last boss 5 times without completing it, and now I am concerned I have a finishing problem
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i stopped playing elden ring because i was going thru the ending and i realized that i was actually fighting the final boss and kicking its ass so i intentionally let myself die, because i hadn’t beaten malenia yet
i spent several days getting absolutely demolished by waterfowl dance, regardless of summoning or trying it solo
still haven’t finished the game (or malenia), got tired of dying over and over and over lol
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This is my habit with all Souls games. I reach the end and hit a block, and maybe the hardest block. I’m at the point where there’s nothing left to see. Do I I need to prove myself to a game? Do I need to prove myself to myself?
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Switching to rivers of blood and a lot of FP was how I did it
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tbh i like how this one is designed with so few mandatory bosses that you can just decide when you’re done. the lead up to her area frustrated me, i said “fuck it” and finished the game without going further into it
“hit da bricks” is perennially good advice in elden ring
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LOL after all that it turns out I can’t open the door or at least don’t know how to, so I guess I don’t have to worry about it right now at all.
Aside from the blatant “hey go to the red mark on the map to advance the story” part I kinda followed up all the main alternate paths in front of me so I quick traveled around trying to check up various loose threads/stonesword gates I couldn’t previously open. The main thing is that I finally figured out how to proceed in the Carian Study Hall which made me glad as that’s one of the random things that stuck with and bothered me.
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So proceeded as far as the wintery giants place and decided that I should maybe go back and talk to some people as… I’m not sure I actually did that with any of the non-roundtable folks. This put me on a lot of sidequests that I sorta of proceeded through at a fairly rapid clip as I’ve already been to some of the places they direct you towards.
I mention it as… I have decided that for some of these side quests I am okay with peaking at a guide for the next step from time to time as I am pretty sure I’d never actually figure it out on my own. I did the Ranni stuff well enough on my own to finally open that one chest in the Academy and get her ring, there is a slight chance at some point I’d remember that there was that one place underground where I couldn’t advance but zero that I’d draw a connection between said ring and it. Maybe it is a bit of a cheat but I think I can live with it.
The good news is doing so finally allowed me to get up to that place a spotted soooooooo long ago but could never figure out how to get all the way up there, and the good thing about this past ten or so hours of playing is how I’ve started to finally get payoffs to these long ago teases. Like I remember when I first ended up underground in the Siofra River region having like a broken elevated bridge or aqueduct near the edge of that region, being able to finally get atop it and making it about halfway across before the whole middle section was gone as a definitive “stop here” point. The thing is that I swore I saw something on the far end of it, pulled out my telescope thing and sure enough there was an enemy waiting at the edge of it. I’ve been underground several times since then but I never even got close to this point again. Finally I found and used the third imbued stonesword key and almost instantly recognized where I was at. It’s a cool feeling! Makes me feel better about the cheating.
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So I made it to Malenia and… she is gonna be a problem. I wondered exactly what “the hardest From boss evah~” would actually imply and… yeah, that’s definitely a problematic gimmick she has.
I actually beat her first form on my third or fourth attempt (actually wasn’t that bad) but the second form (hopefully the final one) seems harsh in a way I am unsure exactly how to approach, I don’t think I’ve ever had that form end with her having less health than she started out with.
TBF after my first attempt I went “to heck with this” and resulted to my back-pocket plan B for the very first time, my lovely +10 mimic tear summon (just as I knew of Malenia via cultural osmosis I heard of this somewhere). Double beefy boys 2 handing massive club-like weapons with 80 STR each (and now pumping DEX which is a C affinity) is a beautiful thing to behold that can seriously fuck up even phase one of a nightmare-level boss even though I’m not sure I can justify using it again as it feels somewhat unfair. Unavoidable Scarlet Rot is a great equalizer though and the opening of phase two basically makes the summoned ash AI do suicidal things, such a shame it won’t use my flask.
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yeah i skipped malenia after two attempts and feel absolutely no regret about it. 34 year old me is finally able to walk away from something in a video game (doubly hard when i’m otherwise enjoying it!)
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It took me ages to beat her, but I never got bored of the fight or frustrated with it somehow. I was sad when I finally did beat her because I wanted to keep replaying that fight. I used the mimic tear and equipped miracles only before summoning it. Somehow the summon can cast way more shit than you can.
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Same experience doing Mowg recently (well…casually over a fortnight) who on previous playthroughs got bodied hard by my Mimic Tear Co-Bro
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yeah mimic tear is the way to go. using it there are many strategies you can try. what worked for my int/dex build was mimic tear + hoarfrost stomp and power stancing frost uchi’s to rapidly build up both frost and bleed. frost scales with int so was a slightly better option than bleed, but most people recommend a bleed/arcane build for her, which I’m sure works even better if you’re spec’d for it. but hoarfrost stomp is useful because it catches her dodges in both phases and can interrupt a lot of her attacks/create openings for mimic tear.
it took me a few tries with this approach but I’m still not sure how much of my victory was luck.
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it took me a few tries with this approach but I’m still not sure how much of my victory was luck.
Hollow/Ashen/Tarnished Victory is the one thing that has prevented me from closing this out with a second, pumpkin-headed dual-colossal sword Wannabe Me since March
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