I Finally Finished Elden Ring

 

I'm gonna take a knee, this took a while.

-109 hours total spent on my playthrough. That puts it just under Dark Souls at 115. This was a really long game, but it maintained its quality throughout, although Crumbling Farum Azula was such a hard-ass slog.

-Elden Ring has the exact same plot as Dark Souls. The old order of gods is crumbling; the magic force that held the world together is broken and in the hands of degenerate lords; only an undead warrior can fix it all. All the lore is buried in item descriptions and cryptic lines. What it has on Dark Souls is scope and accessibility. Spirit ashes help mitigate boss difficulty, along with the ridiculous amount of build combinations one can achieve. It's amazing how far a good combat system will take a game.

-Some of these bosses were definitely designed for summoned play. That second phase of the Beast Clergyman , where he reveals that he's Maliketh? His endless combos don't give you enough time to hit him. I spent more time chasing the Elden Beast than fighting him, but thankfully, I'd summoned two sorcerers who were able to complement my melee faith/dex build.

-My favorite boss fights were probably Godfrey and Maliketh. Least favorite were the Fire Giant and that goddamn Draconic Tree Sentinel before Maliketh, which wasn't even a boss. I probably died to that bastard ten times before me and a summoned managed to kill him (I even died during this).

-Did George R. R. Martin have anything to do with this, really? Considering Elden Ring has the same basic plot of every From Soft Souls game, I don't see much of his work anywhere.

-Why can't From Soft figure out that if you're fighting a giant enemy, then you're really fighting the camera? Most games would have the camera pan out, enabling you to actually see what the titan you're attempting to slay is doing, thereby enabling you to dodge. It's funny how they add modern open-world conveniences like fast travel and a steed, but can't grasp the need for an improved camera.

-I've started another playthrough with a intelligence/strength build, but I'm not sure if I'll come back to it. Elden Ring is a fantastic first experience, but one-hundred hours is a long time to spend on a video game. Deadspace Remastered awaits (I never played the first one).

Screens below:

 

Letters to a Dungeon Master

 

Greetings, Dungeon Master. Let me begin by stating that I appreciate all that you do for your party. Your campaign has, for the most part, held my interest despite being riddled with cliches and stock-characters. I personally always get a kick out of your frequent fumbling for names. "Gump Stumpin" and "Beeph" will always illicit a chuckle. You are also very punctual. Now that I am finished buttering you up, it's time for some constructive criticism.

Firstly, I believe you could lessen your judgemental attitude regarding the sexual proclivities of the party. Dungeons and Dragons is, for many of us, our main interaction with the outside world, other than perhaps a rushed trip to the local convenience store while under cover to replenish our supply of Chicken in a Biscuit baked snack crackers. Some of us might like to get our rocks off in ways that would be deemed "unconventional" by lesser minds. The fact that my half-orc barbarian can't get an erection without being primed by a busty Kuo-toa fish maiden sucking on her flippers is an essential piece of character development, and I could do without another labored sigh or lengthy stare. Also I think it would be best if you do not look any of the party in the eyes ever, lest such a look be misconstrued as an aggressive gesture and set off my social anxiety.

Secondly, I believe it is acceptable to punish the characters of party members who no-show. Dungeons and Dragons is a life-long commitment, and it is unacceptable for so-called "real life" to get in the way. What is reality but an illusion, and who is to say what is real and what is not? I don't care if Lawrence has a wife and kids, his pretentious paladin is getting half a pound of raw crayfish shoved up his rectum to fester until the next session. Surprise, bitch! Your ass reeks of sticky fish-juice. Perhaps he'll learn his lesson and treat the party with the respect it deserves.

Thirdly, if the party wishes to spend a session murdering an entire town, the wishes of the party must be respected. Our characters are veritable forces of nature, single-handedly capable of slaughtering death knights and ancient dragons, and so the lives and social mores of pathetic peon npcs should be of no consequence to gods like ourselves. Really, Dungeon Master, let's not pretend like you had much of a narrative planned anyway. So what if Olfric the goblin king beheaded the mayor and took a dump in his neck stump for all of the town to see? Who are you to stifle a player's creativity? What you're doing is ruining a good time.

Any further criticisms will be sent to you without delay. Please process this information and improve your campaign ASAP.  

Elden Ring: Thoughts After 97 Hours

 

Just a man with a big sword and some flaming red hair.

I put Elden Ring in my game of the year list, but I didn't give it game of the year. After my initial sixty or so hours with the game, I burned out on it right around when I got to Mountaintops of the Giants. My build was pretty much settled by then; Faith/Dex/Arc with the Bloodhound's Fang or Uchigatana serving as my main weapon (although Rivers of Blood replaced the dependable Uchi) with a few lightning and flame incantations to help me out. Despite breezing through most of the game to that point due to my heavy reliance on my Mimic Tear, Mountaintops the of Giants represented the first real jump in difficulty since Caelid. All of the sudden, yetis and giant crows were taking huge chucks out of my health, and the Fire Giant had a health bar the size of Texas, and there was nowhere left to go. That is, until I checked IGN's guide and found out that I'd skipped the Deeproot Depths and Subterranean Shunning Grounds, as well as a couple bosses. Playing a From Soft game is a community experience, in that I actively enjoy looking up secret areas and ideal weapons. These games are too obscure in their references; most open world games would have a quest book and a marker for, say, Ranni's quest, but not Elden Ring. You gotta be paying attention, and if you haven't been, at least somebody else was. And so my love of the game was rekindled after leveling up and finally putting down the old Fire Giant. On to Crumbling Farum Azula, Consecrated Snowfields and the rest of the end game. But goddamn, is this shit getting hard. Not hard like a challenging boss; hard like you don't have room to breath due to the constant horde of challenging enemies thrown at you. Miquella's Haligtree is full of Leonine Misbegottens and giant mages that'll summon a glowing blue hammer to smash your face in. And now, so close to the end, I'm starting to get burned out. To Elden Ring's credit, I've put nearly one-hundred hours in, and I think I'll see it to the end, which will probably take another four or six. Only a select number of titles have breached the one-hundred hour mark: Skyrim; the Witcher 2 and 3; Dark Souls; and Civilization 5. Elden Ring is a great game, a fantastic experience that's more open and accessible than any souls game before it. However, that Nintendo Hard shit wears on you after a while. In Dark Souls, the first Capra Demon boss fight was difficult because you get jumped in a tiny room by a giant monster wielding two greatswords and two dogs to stunlock you. The fight is hard because the player is unfairly disadvantaged. I don't think Elden Ring's endgame is Nintendo Hard, but it borders on the verge of being so. A thirty-seven year old gamer with limited free-time like myself is hard pressed to persevere. Let's hope there are plenty of summons to vanquish the Elden Beast, eh? 

Some random screens because this is a beautiful game:

New Music: Dark Night

 A slow blues burner that I wrote last month. I think I was going for a Tom Waits vibe, maybe mixed with a little Tin Pan Alley, although I don't think the latter came through. I got a mini-wah pedal for Christmas, so that's all over this track. I love my telecaster, but that 60 cycle hum can be hard to bear. Don't think it takes away from this track, however.

Writer's Block: The Dead God

 

The Dead God

Amidst a landscape of billowing dust and unrelenting haze, the dead god lay like a mountain, its vast bulk rising out of the dirt to precipitous heights, birds encircling the crest of its brow, which was furrowed in death, forming an expression of perpetual confusion. How could a god die? Gods were eternal; they lasted while the world wore away to slivers of bone and fossilized forests. Still, it was the age of apostasy. He walked roads that were nothing but faint outlines in the dirt, and every glimpse of a structure revealed crumbling stones that were more imagination than outline. Sometimes he would stop and bend down to investigate something in the rubble but the object would always be formless, a heap of unidentifiable material, brown or tan, baked by the merciless rays of the sun. He looked, though, as he would always look. There were small ways of keeping faith.

The god seemed to last in his perspective forever, and it wasn’t until he crossed the event horizon that the body began to grow in magnitude exponentially, as though it were moving toward him rather than he trekking toward it. As the distance closed, he kept stopping and staring, straining his eyes, looking for any tremor or tell that the mountain slumbered instead of rotted. But then the smell hit him, a profound reek, and he had to cover his face and blink his watering eyes. What life that remained in this place were dissembling the corpse, working the copious amount of flesh and sinew into their baser elements. Leathery skin hung in great straps; flies and beetles nested in the dried flesh while birds had eaten out its eyes and roosted in the hollow sockets of its orbits. Over the many weeks it had taken to cross the great desert he had seen almost nothing that walked under its own power; a tiny lizard under a stone; a fly landing on his perspiring brow. There was more life writhing through the dead god than in all of the desolate waste, and it horrified him to bear witness to it, made his empty stomach clench and heave at the grotesqueness squirming before his eyes. Are we all parasites he uttered, and his voice stirred the flesh, made it tremble until a cavity opened and two great doors peeled back to release several crested things that stood in the shadow of the god as he retreated to the brightness of the sunlight. They had long beaks and bone-like protrusions jutting from their skulls, and their bodies were long-limbed and diminutive, stunted torsos meant for climbing and scampering. Their lengthy fingers ended in talons that gleamed in the dark shadows, and though he could see no eyes in their heads, he could feel their gaze as they waited for a legible sign. From the sheathe at his hip he removed his sword, and the light glittered on the metal blade, and the creatures, eyeless or not, read his intentions and retreated back into the depths from which they came. Monsters from Rian’s fantasies. His brother had enjoyed tales from foreign lands, hearsay and merchants’ rumors. Yet he lingered still in the castle, locked away in his sequester, shunning the light and the heat and the decay festering about him. He hadn’t wanted to leave, had seen no reason for it. It is safe and cool here. There is water and servants and food of a sort. I hear the echo of conversation and that is enough. Nothing that you seek is true. Our parents have told you lies.

A shimmering caught his eye. One of the great appendages lay outstretched, palm turned upward, the soft meat of the hand gone now, leaving almost nothing but bone, but there was a shard jutting from a cuticle, blade-like, gleaming. A three-foot long splinter of fingernail so sharp that it cut the thick leather of his glove as he reached for it. Only a sudden shadow thrown across the desert before him warned of the beast leaping for his back. With a tremendous heave he pulled the shard loose and swung it in one motion, letting its momentum turn his body like a gyroscope. A head fell free of a body, its crested skull landing softly in the sand. He bent down and picked it up, examining the black blood dripping like oil from its neck. There were no eyes, only taut skin, and the beak had tiny teeth like a saw-blade. He didn’t think the others would bother him now, and why this one had decided to pursue fresh meat instead of feasting on divine flesh perplexed. The lips of the cavity trembled and glistened, quivering with subsurface activity. He would not be going through there, even if there weren’t monsters inhabiting the body.

He stepped onto the hand and began to climb the god’s forearm, using the shattered blade of his sword as a pick, the shard of fingernail carefully wrapped in cloth and tied to his back. The desert sun lowered, sending shadows across the waste, and it was dark by the time he reached the summit of the god’s shoulder. There, on its anterior deltoid, he made camp.