Elden Ring:
Elden Ring: Exchanging Bonfires for Grace
Elden Ring: Exploring The Open World and Legacy Dungeons
Elden Ring: The Infamous Difficulty of Dark Souls Is Ashes
Elden Ring: PvP Lacks Grace, While Combat is Divine
Elden Ring: Goldmask's Revelation Can't Mend the Ending
The Dark Souls series is famous for its punishing difficulty, a factor which has received acclaim and condemnation. The developers of Elden Ring have fiddled with the formula so players can adjust the difficulty by their choices. Perhaps, due to my previous experience with FromSoftware games, I found Elden Ring easier than Dark Souls III. I never farmed runes/souls. In previous Dark Souls games, players would reach an area too difficult to proceed. To beat it, they would repeatedly clear enemies, collecting their souls. Collecting enough souls would let the player level up, allowing them to proceed through tougher areas. There were enough runes per enemy in Elden Ring, and no enemy tough enough to require farming. Fextralife lists fifteen Main Bosses, fifteen min-bosses, and eighty-seven field bosses. I don't comprehend how it categorizes these. Only a small minority are mandatory. Some I wouldn't even claim are bosses. What I do know is that at some point I started recording how often I died to each boss. There are a surprising amount of zeros on my sheet, like Magma Dragon, Ancestor Spirit, Astel, Stray Mimic Tear, and Morgott. On average, I died about twice per boss, a significant decrease compared to past Dark Souls games. To have this many zeros, but an average of two deaths per boss, means some foes stand out as particularly difficult.
One of the first mini-bosses, Margit the Fell Omen, defeated me ten times before I was able to convert from the combat style of Sekiro to Elden Ring. Many bosses are voluntary, like those trapped in evergaols. These jails contain foes, imprisoned for their crimes against powerful forces. Set them loose for dangerous duels. Like all enemies, those trapped in evergaols vary wildly in difficulty. I defeated Adan, Thief of Fire, easily on the first attempt, while the Crucible Knight in Limgrave slew me nine times. Another troublesome boss is the Dragonkin Soldier. He defeated me at least twenty times. This battle occurs in the Lake of Rot. Rot is the most horrific status effect in the game. It's similar to poison, but drains the player's health like a legendary vampire. Imagine trying to stand on a tiny pedestal of a ruined castle as this gigantic dragon statue flails its pillar like arms. Not only is being knocked into the rot certain death, but the Dragonkin's attacks cover a huge area, inflicting enough damage to kill any Tarnished in two hits.
A surprisingly difficult recurring boss was the scattered collection of Bell Bearing Hunters, particularly the foe residing at the Isolated Merchant's Shack. This particular merchant's shack was in Caelid, the hardest region aside from the Consecrated Snowfield. Not too distant from the shack were the Jar Warriors, a trio of warriors, randomly generated from all the players that had previously defeated the Jar Warriors. An interesting conceit, the player has to defeat each of them in one on one battles. I wasn't able to defeat the Bell Bearing Hunter or the Jar Warriors until dozens of hours later after I'd defeated Mohg, the Omen.
Until the end, only a handful of enemies offer a challenge. I labored against late game foes like Malenia, Millicent's sisters, Ofnir, Godfrey, Hoarah Loux, Dragon Lord Placidusax, Radagon, and The Elden Beast at least four times, and as many as ten times. This isn't a walkthrough, so instead of discussing their strengths and weakness, I want to highlight their uniqueness. The duel with Malenia was the pinnacle experience of battle between two swordsmen. Despite the rot pond, the two on four battle with Millicent's four sisters required me to deal damage, but protect Millicent. Ofnir, a Tarnished in search of the Elden Ring, was the strongest NPC battle. A powerful spellcaster, he acted exactly like a player, while showing the evolution of spellcasting in combat from its beginnings in Dark Souls. The encounter against Godfrey was much harder than against his Golden Shade. In the initial encounter I let my Spirit Ash summon solo him, while at the end, I did it myself, alone. Placidusax, like most dragons, was simple. Or he would have been, except that when he was low on health, he shot from his mouth a series of nearly undodgeable laser beams that killed me in one hit. The combat with Radagon fused elements of the duels with Malenia and Ofnir. A humanoid, Radagon wields a mace, while deploying holy magic. The enjoyment of this battle is reduced because the player must immediately fight the Elden Beast. I'd spoken to some people who had beaten the game before I did, and they described the Elden Beast as frustrating. I agree. It has too much health, resists most status effects, and flies around out of reach, casting spells at a distance. Between each flight, it lands briefly, giving the player only a brief amount of time to chip away at its vast health bar.
Unfortunately, Elden Ringcontinues FromSoftware's tradition of including at least one gimmicky boss. One of Marika's sons, Rykard, seeking immortality, blasphemed against the Erdtree. In the Legacy Dungeon that Rykard rules, Volcano Manor, there is a weapon called, Serpent-Hunter. This weapon, which is easy to acquire, makes an otherwise very difficult boss one of the simplest in the game. I equipped the Serpent Hunter, summoned my Mimic Tear, and then re-equipped my normal gear. The Mimic Tear struck with the Serpent-Hunter, repeatedly stunning Rykard. Rendering him immobile and harmless I was able to deal damage with my Frozen Needle and katana. This isn't a trick boss who changes an element of the game, but a pathetic find item, use item, win game mechanic.
Unlike previous Dark Souls games, difficulty seems like an option the player can adjust. There isn't a menu option, but by certain choices the player can ease their challenge. The player has more freedom to set the difficulty by choosing their path. They can avoid harder enemies until later. But the main choice revolves around summons and Spirit Ashes. In previous FromSoftware games players could summon NPCs or other players to aid them. NPCs could only be summoned at a boss, while players were plentiful at every Bonfire. They'd help you traverse a dungeon and beat the boss at the end. This is still an option, but it's inferior. In previous Dark Souls games, summoning an ally increased the damage and health of the enemies. It was noticeable, but the idea was you and the ally could split the boss' attention, taking turns to attack and heal as needed. In Elden Ring, summoning one ally makes a boss significantly more difficult, while two allies renders them impossible. For example, I was working on one of the final bosses, Godfry. He is tough, especially his second form. I expended ten lives beating him without a Spirit Ash. I thought I'd be a good Tarnished and help out another player. That was a mistake. In solo combat, Godry occasionally does an attack where he stomps the ground, sending out a shock wave that hits the whole arena. Actually, I'm not certain he does this in a solo battle. But I know I went into a battle as an ally. And in that battle he did this attack every two seconds. You couldn't do anything, because you were too busy timing a roll every two seconds to dodge this attack that hits the entire area. It was impossible. A similarly difficult boss was Borealis the Freezing Fog dragon. I tried to help a few Tarnished, and it never went well. I assumed it was tough, but ventured a solo attempt. I beat it on my first attempt! After that I didn't help too many people during the game, because bosses become too strong with an ally, and also because of Spirit Ashes.
In previous Dark Souls games the player could summon NPCs if they'd fulfilled specific conditions. That is true of Elden Ring. But Elden Ring also introduces Spirit Ashes. Important! It's too easy to miss a crucial item, the Spirit Calling Bell. This is supposed to be given to the player if they backtrack (unlikely) after they have received their horse/ox steed. But if the player doesn't backtrack early enough, the NPC that is supposed to give them the Bell will move on. Then the bell can only be purchased at one specific merchant. The only problem is, how can I know to purchase the Bell if I don't even know it exists, because the NPC that was supposed to give it to me was in a spot I wasn't likely to visit and then she left? The answer; the internet. The Bell is the tool best suited to adjusting the difficulty of Elden Ring. The player needs a Spirit Ash to pair with the Bell. Fextralife lists sixty-four unique Spirit Ashes. The player summons a spirit version of a monster, enemy, or character to help them. This creature functions like a normal NPC summon, autonomously performing its function of healing, tanking, or attacking.
I had the Bell and the Ashes, but I was confused. Why didn't my Bell work? It's because the player can only call Spirit Ashes near a Rebirth Monument. These tiny pillars are hard to see, but fortunately, the game displays a large symbol on the screen when one is in the vicinity. If the player leaves the area with a Spirit active, the Spirit disappears. Spirits are always available for boss fights, but are limited elsewhere.
Back to difficulty. These Spirit Ashes let the player determine how difficult a boss is. Spirit Ashes are not created equal. Some summon a weak creature like the Putrid Corpses or Wandering Noble. Or the player could summon the game breaking spirit, the Mimic Tear. Hidden in the Sacred Ground in Nokron the underground Eternal City, this Spirit Ash summons an exact copy of the player, including their weapon, armor, and the consumables in their pouch. This unit was so strong it nearly soloed a number of bosses, including Golden Shade Godfrey. It seemed to take less damage than I did when hit by the same attack! For the player interested only in winning it's obvious the Mimic Tear is essential at every boss fight. I absorbed this lesson so well, I summoned it before every boss. Later I came to regret this decision. I stopped deploying the Mimic Tear, mostly. For instance, I soloed Ofnir (though it required six attempts), but used the Mimic Tear against Malenia. Most players consider Malenia one of the three hardest bosses in Elden Ring. Without the Tear she was a tiger. I lost five times. With the Tear she was a kitten. I beat her on the first try.
Unlike Sekiro, there is no way to re-fight defeated bosses. I came to feel as if I had made the game easier, quicker, but significantly less enjoyable. I wish I could replay bosses. I also wish playing with other players didn't make them too difficult. I found it harder to beat bosses with a human ally than to beat them on my own, even without a Spirit Ash.
To see a summon sign, whether written on the ground with a Tarnished Furled Finger, or created at Effigy of the Martyr by a Small Golden Effigy, the player needs to use a consumable called a Furlcalling Finger Remedy. Using one immediately cancels any of your signs you might have written. But you can now see the summons signs of others. Furlcallings are cheap and plentiful, so unlike some Souls games, you don't have to worry about running out. Sometimes I summoned a companion to defeat a dungeon, but I never used a human ally to defeat a boss.
Difficulty was experienced in other ways. For instance, because Elden Ring is an open world game, the player can go anywhere. If the player travels a difficult path, when they return to easier areas they will find they are too easy and no fun. Also, the player will see similar looking enemies in different regions. Frustratingly, these enemies can be scaled without enough indication. Scaled enemies are an insult to the player.
One way Elden Ring tries to alleviate the difficulty of the open world are the red and blue scarabs. These creatures, which abundantly populate the open world, restore similar colored flask charges when killed. I never needed these. The open world is not the threatening part of the game.
Finally, I ask again, for every Dark Souls games, add a death tracker next time. Even Nioh has one!
I AM THE BROST
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