I Finished Shadow Of The Erdtree So Now You Must Read My Incoherent Ramblings Where I Promise To Try My Hardest To Not Talk About The Difficulty

All right buddies, it's my turn to enter the discourse. Here's my hot take on the new Elden Ring DLC.

It's fine. I liked it.

I think the map is much better designed, the higher focus on verticality and spaghetti-like routes between areas does a lot to hide the seams between vastly different areas/biomes that can provide surprisingly unique exploration interests. It's a little disappointing that it was felt a little small, as some of the best moments of the base game were the two times you find yourself wandering into a certain place and saying something like "holy shit, there's more!?" ^{(1) (1)} If you know, you know.

But it is only a 30 hour expansion (at least that's how long it took me to rush to and kill all the remembrance bosses) so focusing on density was probably the right choice. And to be honest, it isn't fair to expect a DLC expansion to be as large as the base game, the size is already a lot bigger than what I expected.

I've seen people compare it to the early Dark Souls in terms of how the map was designed. Like it's an open world interpretation of that philosophy. I mostly agree with that, but I think there's a few things that hold it back. The instant fast travel to incredibly numerous sites of grace don't allow that philosophy to shine as much as it could. ^{(2) (2)} I mean, the map design in Dark Souls also starts sucking basically the moment you get fast travel. And there's no elevator from the Undead Parish to Firelink Shrine.

Alright that probably needs to be explained. So, in the second Dark Souls going from Firelink Shrine (where you start the game essentially) to Undead Parish is like a two or more hour adventure for a first-time player. When you get to Undead Parish you'd have beaten Taurus Demon and probably Bell Gargoyles. By that time Firelink Shrine would feel like a distant memory.

So imagine then just walking into a church and boarding an innocuous elevator to then realise "holy shit, I'm back here!?" And it's not really even about the map, it's all these little experiences that stick with you after the game is done.

Now it's been over a week since I beat Shadow of the Erdtree, so what has stuck with me?

Well, the art direction is superb, it's honestly very rare for me to actually stop and look at the world. Apart from that, not much.

Uh actually, I do still have clinging thoughts about that BULLSHIT ASS FINAL BO- No! Remember the promise you made Justin. Don't talk about the difficulty you fuck!

Let's go back to world design. This is also a problem I had with the base game (although to a lesser extent), but it's very hard to imagine "The Land of Shadow" (and "The Lands Between") as an actual location that you can exist in. It feels more like an amusement park, a fucking beatiful, vibrant, and mysterious amusement park, but an amusement park nonetheless.

You know how in Dark Souls there's all this decoration out of reach that makes you feel like you're only going through a small fraction of the world? Like the hundreds, maybe thousands of buildings used as scenery in Anor Londo.

You can't do that in Elden Ring. Pretty much everything you can see is something you can go to. Don't get me wrong, that's still pretty cool. And I understand there's a limitation on how much world you can make in a certain time-frame, and it's a certainty that every open world game will need to "miniaturise" what they represent.

But there's something specifically about "The Land of Shadow" that makes me go "oh, is that all?" while exploring it. Kinda like how confused I was just getting a one minute cutscene after beating that FUCKING SHIT FACSIMILE OF A FINAL BO-

I think a lot of that feeling comes from the fact that the "world" takes place on the entire island/continent. That there's nothing else out in the distance that I just can't get to.

When I was a child I played a lot of Need for Speed Underground 2, an open world racing game taking place in one city. From what I remember ^{(3) (3)} I could be wrong, it has been a long time. the city is connected to the rest of "the world" through a highway that is blocked by an invisible wall, that you can't get through, but the NPC cars could.

While the map was pretty small (especially for today's standard), I could always imagine it to be bigger. That highway was always taunting me, that if I could just get somehow get on it, I could see the rest of the world. I could drive to different cities, drive different cars. Obviously, these things didn't exist. But I imagined that they did.

Being in a greater "context" honestly makes the map of games like Need for Speed Underground 2, and other open world games that take place in a single city a la Cyperpunk 2077 feel bigger, more real, more "meaningful" than Elden Ring, at least to me.

I think this amusement park feeling is probably an innate quality with open world games that try to represent large areas of land. The closest I've been to not having this feeling was with The Witcher 3 and Dragon's Dogma 2. ^{(4) (4)} Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom also get close, but because of how interactive the world is, and it's whole state machine deal, instead of the actual map design. Although that still is top-notch.

When travelling through an entire continent with multiple regions and biomes, it should feel like an adventure in Elden Ring. But when you can literally zoom through everything in under 5 minutes, it doesn't seem like there's much there.

Dragon's Dogma 2 has a pretty "compact" map size, but going from town to town is still meaningful even if it takes just as long as in Elden Ring. That's partly because fast travel is a scarce resource so you don't use it often, but a lot of it is because the map is paradoxically less "open."

A lifeless open world isn't the worst thing to ever happen. At least it looks pretty, and has interesting geography to traverse through to make up for it.

The real issue is that I don't want to play Dark Souls anymore.

There have been five Dark Souls games at this point. I think it's been enough.

The first Dark Souls was an experiment to subvert the genre, to challenge conventions. This is the game that took the common sense approach to game design that states you should help struggling players and went "let's not do that, let's make the game harder every time you die." And as it's been said so many times, this wasn't done just for the sake of being hard, but to provide a unique experience.

The second Dark Souls took the first and sanded the rough edges to make it more palpable. It was a critical and commercial success that every game from then on wanted to emulate.

The third Dark Souls took the second and asked "what if we made it shit?"

The fourth Dark Souls took the second, sanded the rough edges again, and asked "what if we made it slightly worse, and leaned harder into a sub-par combat system?"

This fifth Dark Souls took the forth and made it open world. What does it do with it's open world? The same thing as every other game.

A lot was lost when this series became a trendsetter and had it's own genre named after it. It doesn't do anything you don't expect.

The easiest issues I can explain is about the combat system, which might require me to talk about difficulty. And I know I promised to not do that, but I really want to talk about it, so I invite you to consider this argument I made with my expert diplomatic skills in the hope your mind will be changed.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Ok so Dark Souls combat has and probably will always fucking suck balls and is simultaneously too easy and too hard.

Easy in the sense that you do the same shit every fight. And hard in the sense that it's fucking bullshit and boring.

I'm mostly going to be talking about the bosses because let's be honest, no one gives a shit about the normal enemies. I also actually rarely fought normal enemies in the open world because they're so easy to avoid. There's probably something to be said about that, but I don't feel like it.

Now to be Fair and Balanced™, Elden Ring has added many interesting mechanics to avoid it's dependence on i-frame rolling being the only way to avoid damage. The jump button has been a big addition for traversal and combat. ^{(5) (5)} Someone not familiar with the series would probably think is a joke and I find that incredibly funny. And some of the ash of wars and crystal tears like Deflecting Hardtear can enhance other combat styles that weren't that viable before.

The problem is that the process of fighting bosses is still always the same.

1. Enter the boss arena and die a few times for reconnaissance.
   • Discover their long their combos are.
   • Figure out which attacks are roll catchers.
2. Play the game.
   • Roll mindlessly until you see a roll catch.
   • Wait up to 15 seconds for their combo to end.
   • Get one hit in.
   • Repeat 50 times.

It wasn't that bad in the early Dark Souls because we didn't have these 10 string combos on every boss, but I understand they probably had to do something to stop the combat from getting too monotonous and stale. ^{(6) (6)} I will say that even if you always do the same thing, the uniqueness and excellence in animations and design of every boss carry them hard, and almost make it not an issue.

Even with all the additions, I think this system has run it's course. There's only so much you can do with "press the button at the right time 10 times in a row when it's the bosses' turn, then when it's yours, you get a single hit in."

Other games require you to master things like positioning, target prioritisation, pattern recognition, even a little bit of that good ol' "game sense." In contrast, the Dark Souls series is almost entirely reactive in the challenges they present.

At best there are a few knowledge checks if you don't know how to roll, where you can change your build to better counter the boss. Well, the same can be said for Armored Core and those games are actually fun to play but ok I guess.

Although with every boss getting these crazy combo strings with so few opportunities to attack back, I have no idea you could attempt them with different play styles like using sorceries. There is no way you are finding space to start casting without a summon to distract the boss.

I don't even think it's a "press button at the right time is boring" issue. That's also what you do in Sekiro and I consider that Fromsoft's best work by far to date.

I think it's almost entirely because of i-frames. Having to rely on them so much is a shit mechanic. Not only is there some severe dissonance with rolling to a bosses' in order to avoid damage, it's also not fun with these ass hitboxes to get hit when you feel like you rolled correctly. ^{(7) (7)} The final boss has an attack that literally goes well over your head and still hits you. Seriously, fuck that guy (not if you're his brother though). They should remove i-frames, just rip the bandage off and lean into those mechanics that have been slowly introduced. Make it like fucking Monster Hunter or something I dunno.

Please Fromsoft, stop playing it so safe. Stop succeeding and failing in the exact ways anyone familiar with the series could predict the moment they heard "open world Dark Souls." PLEASE DO SOMETHING SO THAT THE DISCOURSE SURROUNDING THE GAME ISN'T ONLY ABOUT IT'S DIFFICULTY.

Or do Sekiro again.

No but seriously, with i-frames being so entrenched into the entire genre, not just Fromsoft's games. The series has a prime opportunity to subvert it again.

Epilogue

My favourite boss was Rellana.

Now I know that might sound strange to anyone who's fought her, because she is literally the embodiment of everything I've been complaining about. But please consider the following argument.

She kinda bad tho frfr.

I haven't been this attracted to a full suit of armour since Knight Atorias.

She also has the coolest weapon(s) in the game. I was so hyped to get her twin blades from her remembrance and it caused me to use a larval tear for the first time to respec some points into intelligence.

Dual wielding/power-stancing is my favourite thing ever, I played through the entirely of the base game power-stancing curved greatswords (Bloodhound's Fang and Morgott's Cursed Sword), so to have a weapon that is specifically for that? Oof, that's good.

Not only are they are two in one weapon, but you can still add something to your left hand. So I also used a Milady with frost added, which meant I could choose between magic + fire, or magic + frost damage.

It's also cool to see this neat animation whenever I switch my left hand weapon.

^{(8) (8)} Ignore the healthbar, I took points off vigor to level int. Don't judge me, I was getting two shot either way what difference does it make?

I dunno I just like the immersion of not having weapons appear and disappear into thin air.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as strong as my base game build. I seriously tried these light greatswords on every boss after Rellana, but those curved greatswords did more damage, staggered more, and had crazy amounts of bleed which is still kinda OP. Even with the fact that the twin blades are much faster, I couldn't capitalise on them when my turn to play could only allow one or two hits.

With them being the only new weapons I liked (even if they were a crutch most of the time) I was thinking of saying something about how I never found any interesting items or weapons while exploring the world previously. But that's probably just a me problem, I'm sure lots of people like the new things.

Also I don't actually want to talk about the final boss that much. So I'll just leave with this - there have only been two instances in any of Fromsoft's games where felt so desperate that I left a boss to grind for more levels. The other time was with Melania.

But there has only been one time in any of Fromsoft's games where I felt so desperate that I changed my entire build and playstyle. Although maybe some of that was because I didn't want a repeat of the 2 hours I spent with Melania.