One thing I was worried about this week was losing where I was in Elden Ring. Being sick and playing a game with very specific timing rarely go together. Turns out, playing in areas I had already been and exploring more was the perfect game mix!
I did explore Caria Manor and met Ranni. Those spider hand monsters are definitely the stuff of nightmares. Anyone following Elden Ring knows what I am talking about. If you don’t know, well I will leave the surprise intact for you!
One thing I have been doing is trying to work out some of the more obvious quests. Some assassination missions from the Volcano Manor have been nice. They are one of the very rare Elden Ring quests with map waypoints. Exploring where some portraits were painted though has been far more elusive.
The idea of these quests is simple. Find the view shown in the portrait, and if you are correct you will see the ghost of the artist. They will point to what they were painting and vanish leaving some rewards.
What this did let me do was go over many areas where I was already familiar with enemies. There weren’t any new difficulty jumps or patterns to learn from new enemies. This turned Elden Ring from an exercise bordering on masochism to a very relaxing way to spend some time.
This has allowed me to grind my way up to level 90. My stat allocation isn’t as optimal as it could be, but I have decided against respeccing at the moment. I have some handy incantations I can use, including a dragon breath that causes Scarlet Rot. My vigor allows me to take quite a hit, and my stamina lets me panic roll without exhausting my stamina at times.
I have managed to take out some more Elden Ring Rune bosses, including Starscourge Radahn. That was an interesting fight. And by interesting, I mean I died continually for a while! But for now, I am exploring the capital city at the base of the Erdtree.
It took me way too long to work out how to get into the capital. And the answer was ridiculously simple in the end. I had to walk around the city some more (OK, a lot more) to find the way in. That was it. Without the map for Leyndell, I thought I was following the directions of grace correctly. Oops. Still haven’t found that map fragment!
This is where From Software games tend to earn their ‘brutal’ reputation more than the combat. Unless you spend time looking at descriptions of random items you pick up, there is nothing to tell you what to do. The portraits you find can be taken more as collectibles on their own, rather than quests to complete. I was looking for something completely different when I discovered they were more.
To me, Elden Ring has made the combat difficulty easier by allowing mechanics like a summon. This allows you all the benefits of online coop play, without needing someone else online. But the quest and lore structure remain intact.
This is why I think Elden Ring is the best introduction to From Software games. Instead of facing a world telling you to ‘Git Gud’, you only have to focus on decrypting the world around you. Combat has some handholding, without making the difficulty ‘easier’. Once you crack the code of the world, you can then look at dealing with combat on your own without summons.
Or not, it’s completely up to you. Bottom line it took playing Elden Ring sick to see how different that experience is from Sekiro or Bloodborne.
