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I didn’t initially intend to write this. But here we are. Huge, massive spoilers for anything and everything ahead.
The short of it? My initial tiering has not changed: Elden Ring still goes into Tier Two, flying enemies are still quite annoying (if much less deadly than when I first wrote), and many of my initial thoughts were mostly correct. So you may be asking why I am writing this at all: it’s for the simple reason that I wanted to revisit a few of my statements, add on the late-game issues I experienced, and give my closing thoughts on my 72 hours (plus, I already took a bunch of screenshots – it is a very pretty game after all).
A quick review of my original points: the flying enemies are indeed quite frustrating all the way through the game, though my troubles lessened greatly after investing into the bow I had. Watching Chezni made me realize how useful sorcery (or ranged attacks in general) can be against them, as he efficiently dispatched so many of the same birds which plagued me. Still, my comments that targeting and actually hitting them outside of a surprise attack held up.
Attack windups continued to have their protracted, anxiety-inducing pauses throughout, though I came to realize that this was a side effect of FROMs attempt to punish panic-rolling: attacks which either didn’t hit immediately after starting or had secondary damage which would catch you the moment you exited your panic roll. I commend the effort and it did make several attack patterns far more interesting to learn, but it also goes too far in many places.
A third enemy design issue which only really crops up once you hit the final areas of the game (the Consecrated Snowfield, Miquella’s Haligtree, or Crumbling Farum Azula) is common to many previous entries as well: the attacks simply do so much damage that you don’t really have the ability to withstand them, even with 40 Vigor. This led to an extreme case of my first complaint from my original impression: running past all the enemies, picking up the items, and fighting the boss. I could scarcely tell you the movesets of the sorcerer enemies in the Haligtree, since I fought precisely one of them before realizing that one mistake meant death and that there was a pretty straight run to the boss of the area.
The trouble doesn’t stop with common enemies, however. Once you get to the later bosses (and keep in mind I’m speaking of the last third of the game here), it’s no longer a matter of pattern memorization: it’s a matter of creating the most effective glass cannon you can while barely surviving the attacks which affect a wide area. I did not expect to miss fighting the Soul of Cinder because of his more comprehensible and – for lack of a better word – fair move set. So many of these bosses have attacks which are either unblockable/undodgable or require more precision than I possess that it became a matter of simply summoning the Mimic Tear Ashes and spamming my weapon skill until the boss was dead, hoping that one of the instant death attacks didn’t happen. Sadly, this worked far more often than not.
Ah yes, the Mimic Tear Ashes. Have you ever wished you had about twenty to thirty times the health, infinite FP, and didn’t actually have to press any buttons to attack or defend? Mimic Tear Ashes are for you: a summonable ally in significant portions of the game (and all but a select few bosses) which has all your skills, abilities, and current equipment – all for the cost of a single Estus. On the one hand, the Mimic Tear Ashes got me through the last third of the game in a fraction of the time and effort it would otherwise have taken. On the other, having a clone of yourself which is actually just more awesome than you in every way makes the boss fights less than trivial (I would be hard-pressed to identify most boss attacks after I picked those Ashes up since I spent so little time actually preparing to fight) – and yet, it’s so cheap and effective that it’s hard not to use it. Amusingly, this was true for me even after they supposedly nerfed it. Quite simply, the Mimic Tear Ashes are bad design: there are no functional downsides and it allows you to completely break the intended game balance by splitting the boss aggro between two characters who both have the most effective equipment for a given fight.
The sad part about this is that the area where you get the Mimic Tear Ashes was brilliant and part of the best questline of the game. You fight through several underground areas, all of which are at a far more effective scale than the overworld (there is far less “between” space, empty areas, or sprinklings of enemies for the sake of enemies). Finally, you approach Nokron, filled with mimic slimes that take the form of enemies from several locations across the world, culminating in the boss fight: you!
These ups and downs are applicable to Elden Ring as a whole: the huge legacy dungeons are generally fascinating to explore, slowly leading you towards a final confrontation with a holder of a Great Rune, generally in fantastic fashion. At the same time, so much of the overworld feels utterly empty and devoid of meaningful interaction, particularly as you get to late-game areas. You could spend 30 minutes combing through an area, clearing out the enemies and slowly draining your resources – or you could hop on your horse and just look for the grace/teleporter/item you need. Will you miss some items? Yes. Will any of those items be useful or new to you? Probably not.
Admittedly, these problems extend to some of the legacy dungeons as well – in some, there are rooms and corridors and more rooms in places which are just…empty. No items, no enemies, no purpose. But then elsewhere, you reveal a hidden wall and fight through a huge lava castle or find yourself exploring a fully fleshed-out city by climbing on rooftops, roots of the Erdtree, or even the enormous dragon corpse. Ups and downs, empty rooms and jam-packed catacombs.
There are enough good ideas and fascinating bosses in Elden Ring for one truly stellar experience: the army you summon for Radahn might not make for the toughest fight in the world, but it truly felt like a battle against a god. Ranni’s questline has you go from tracking down an NPC to find the entrance to a forgotten city to exploring a lake of Scarlet Rot eating away at the roots of the world to fighting a dream dragon from the nightmares of Fia, the deathbed companion. Following Alexander’s (the better Siegward, according to Chezni) efforts to become a true warrior jar and passing his remains on to another aspirant after his death. Even climbing the Divine Tower of Caelid, an experience reminiscent of the many other platforming sections of Souls games, felt like a fresh adventure. There were many moments like this, but they were almost drowned in the vast expanses of the overworld or the less than stellar repeated catacomb layouts (even if the ideas contained within were fantastic), the many nooks and crannies which simply felt as if they were missing something to reward the player, or any number of boss fights which relied either on a simply stunning amount of damage output (Malenia and her whirlwind attack first form and three-hit KO combo second form – and even Mohg, Lord of Blood to a degree) or a truly grueling experience (the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast for melee characters, Radagon and his ludicrous AoEs, or the Fire Giant’s massive health pool and boring but highly damaging attacks – making him the worst boss in all of the catalog I have played) – or ones which just rely on being able to damage/kill you from afar while you spend half the fight trying to run back up to them (while this is mostly a problem for melee builds, it also hints at the unusually high percentage of too-large bosses with tells that become unreadable as you try to hit them with a sword).
I think part of the proof for Elden Ring simply being too large – beyond the limited rewards for exploration as previously mentioned – can be found in the constantly repeated bosses. While the “mainline” or set piece bosses are typically used only once, the rest are often found in multiple areas or just appear as characters with slightly different flavoring. I never thought I would get bored of fighting dragons. Even my early favorite boss, the Ancestor Spirit, made an entirely unnecessary reappearance as the Regal Ancestor Spirit and I couldn’t even tell you what was different about it other than the name.
I find myself having completed the game (partly to keep myself from being spoiled by Chezni‘s Let’s Play), but not as satisfied as I had hoped. There were great moments and dull moments, great mechanics (a jump button and infinite stamina outside combat) and bad mechanics (Dark Souls really didn’t need a crafting menu), parts that kept me coming back and parts which made me almost give up. The best quests, bosses, and dungeons make me want to play again, but I don’t particularly relish wasting so much time in the Lands Between those moments.
