#Elden Ring is a game I want to love so fucking bad but at the same time the game wants me to hate it so fucking bad

[eyebrowpunk]

in the end, most of what I hate about Elden Ring and its difficulty can be summed up thusly;

most combat in Soulsborne is about two things: spacing, and timing. knowing where to be at any given moment in a fight, and what actions to take and when. those take some learning, but once you’ve got them down, they stay with you, and partially carry forward into the other games as well. once you know what an enemy can do, and what you should do in response, all that’s left is to execute it well enough that the boss’ hp bar runs out before yours does. know when to roll, where to be when you see the windup for the AoE, when to back off and heal, and when to close the distance and get a few hits in. once you’ve learned the rules, remember to follow them and that should get you through most of the game.

however, Elden Ring regularly breaks these rules.

enemies are hyper aggressive, and can often either start another attack string almost immediately after concluding the last, or straight up opt to continue the combo based on what you’re doing. enemies have ranged attacks that come out instantly, or can close a gap in a fraction of a second if they so choose, so no amount of space you put between you and them can guarantee even a second’s reprieve. a bunch of enemies have what I deride as ‘beyblade’ attacks, where they just turn their entire model into a hitbox and throw themselves at you with pinpoint tracking for several seconds, rendering rolling almost futile and (presumably, I haven’t played with shields much) tearing through stamina when blocked.

and that’s shit!!! it feels like absolute shit when the game actively resists your attempts to master it. when I played Bloodborne I got destroyed many, many times by Vicar Amelia because, as I later realised, I was still trying to play the game the way I played Dark Souls. when I played Bloodborne the way Bloodborne intended, I had a great time, and now Vicar Amelia is a boss I can tackle with ease.

on the other hand, it doesn’t matter how “good” I get at Elden Ring, there’s nothing I can do if I run in to punish Margit after avoiding a seemingly complete attack string, and he decides to counter with a sudden lightning fast conjured dagger combo. I have no answer for when I try to back off and heal, and crucible knight responds by crossing the arena and undoing all the hp I just restored in less time than it takes for me to recover from my drink. I bashed my head against Malenia for hours straight and even after all that whenever I dodged even one hit of her Waterfowl Dance it felt more like a fluke than me actually learning to deal with her.

so much of what you’re up against in this game feels like it straight up comes from a different game, with different rules, and for all the amazing and fun and sometimes outright broken new tools this game throws at you, you’re still not quite equipped to deal with it on a very fundamental level.

[feukt-42]

Elden ring + Shadow of the Erdtree lore thoughts

Alright, so, first off, obviously, spoilers ahead.

I've been thoroughly enjoying and getting my ass kicked by SotE and what ive seen of the lore so i wanted to ramble about it.

I specifically wanted to talk about how Elden Ring explores power and godhood.

In the base game, godhood isnt seen as inherently bad. Marika's golden order is fucked up six ways to sunday, but the blame mainly rests on Marika's shoulders it seems. She's a genocidal homewrecking war-mongerer who threw two of her children in the sewers bc of racism, she's not a good god, but it doesnt portray the problem as her being a god, just her being a mess. The game provides several "solutions" to unfuck everything :

Ranni's ending has you completely throw the system in the trash. She says, fuck it, godhood's the problem, im out of here. She is kinda right, but the lands remain fractured and the power vacuum left behind is going to be immense. We're on the right track but could be better.

The frenzied flame ending is just pure concentrated nihilism so i think we can move past it for this one.

The bunch of other endings are fairly similar : you beat Marika/Radagon's ass and you impose yourself as Elden Lord to keep her in check and fix the issues you see as most important. This doesnt fix anything long-term, the god in power is still the exact same fucking mess but with a chaperone now i guess.

None of these endings are very satisfying, they all leave you with a sense of "it could be worse i guess" (except the frenzied flame one but you get the point). This is where Miquella comes in :

Everything we hear about Miquella sounds great. He's kind, compassionate, against racism, doesnt like violence, etc etc. Cherry on top, he's even one of the characters with a direct shot at godhood, brilliant ! Why cant we just put him in charge, he'll do much better than the absolute wreck we have right now.

And thats where the base game leaves us, Marika is a fucked up mess of a person, and the obvious solution is to put the much better Miquella in her place.

Shadow of the erdtree, on the other hands, aims to set the record straight. The problem wasnt just Marika, the problem is inherent to godhood in and of itself.

In SotE, we see the land of shadow, the realm where Marika came from and ascended to godhood, and the realm where Miquella intends to do the same. And the more we hear about who Marika was before in snippets of lore, and the more we watch Miquella tread the road to godhood, we realise something :

There is no such thing as a good god

It doesnt matter how kind and compassionate you were, what your morals were, who you loved, who you loathed, none of it matters because you cannot grasp the power to become a god without sacrificing who you were before.

In the dlc we see Miquella shed more and more of himself, his flesh, his arms, his eye, his heart, his doubts, his fears and even his love. Miquella has shorn so much of who he was that he formed an entire new person (St Trina) from it. Some of him remains, he still wishes for a kinder world, but he cant sacrifice anymore of himself for it. Now he has to start sacrificing others.

Miquella was always blessed with the ability to charm others, and he sees it as the least painful path to make others do as he wishes. And so he charms his sister, he charms Mohg, he charms Radahn, his followers, Leda, Moore, Thiollier, Freyja, the hornsent, Ansbach, and everyone he can convince to give themselves up for his dream of a kinder world, regardless of the pain they might cause or feel by being enthralled by him.

And oh boy do they feel pain. Mohg is used and discarded like a ragdoll, and his followers and dynasty slowly crumble to nothing as the last pureblood knight watches helplessly, himself entranced by the one responsible after he failed to kill him. Radahn's soul is shoved in a corpse so that he can play consort to a god that is his antithesis, depriving him of his glory and honour as lord of the battlefield. Malenia is left alone to rot after Miquella has no use or help for her, and she endlessly waits for her brother to return. Every one of Miquella's followers has to grapple with those feelings of betrayal, manipulation, and lost memories returning all at once. It is by no means painless.

And so we end up with a god that is not much better than Marika was. On his path to godhood, Miquella has caused as much pain to those along the way as his mother once did, in this very same land that still feels the scars of Marika's ascension.

The only way to gain power is to take it from everyone else, and that cannot be achieved without pain.

[amiya-shirou]

Spoilers about Miquella and Marika's DLC Lore

Hate how there's so much black and white perspective in the Elden Ring community, especially regarding Miquella and Marika. Sorry if this sounds too much like an aggressive rant, it's not really my intention

"Miquella did fucked up shit which clearly clashes with his previous lore about being kind and compassionate, SOTE has bad writing" even in the base game he was already said to be the most fearsome of the demigods and it was kinda implied that he made kindness his weapon as he knew well how to make others love him, perfectly consistent with Ansbach's speech

"Miquella is manipulative so obviously he never really cared about Malenia" with all the things he did for her? is it so hard to believe he truly cared about his twin sister for the sake of which he went so far as to find ways to protect her from an Outer God's influence? with Malenia seemingly knowing about Miquella's plan and everything?

"Radahn loved his horse and protected people so he was obviously a perfectly good gigachad who could never ever agree with Miquella" he was among the forces attacking Leyndell. his ideal was Godrey - a conqueror, and the first Elden Lord. having an obsession with battle and war certainly doesn't sound like someone who could never do anything wrong, no matter how honorable he might be in battle.

"Marika did a lot of bad things and was a tyrant so obviously she never held any real love for poor Messmer or even Godwin and all she cared about was power." she made blessings to help Messmer specifically, something unique enough it's specified she never did such a thing again. 2 of these are dropped by Tree Sentinels protecting her home village which she bathed with Grace and clearly held deep love for. She went to great lengths to help him with his curse when she could have just killed him or imprisoned him where he coulnd't be of harm like she did with the Omen twins. she smashed the Elden Ring, literally sacrificing her position as queen as that action put her against the Greater Will and resulted in her shackling, which definitely doesn't sound like someone who cares about power and herself alone. And about that, if she's been imprisoned ever since before the start of the game with no one knowing about it, why are most people so easily assuming she voluntarily abandoned and ignored Messmer? she physically couldn't contact him if she wanted to. Like, it's debatable, maybe she did abandon him since before the Shattering, but it definitely doesn't feel that obvious to me, and Messmer misinterpreting her disappearance feels more in tune with the FromSoft style tragedy

all this sounds like those who insisted that since Ranni caused the Shattering then of course she can only be evil and manipulative all the time and clearly holds no real affection for the Tarnished and is only manipulating us as well. Which I feel completely clashes with her questline, narrative and characterization.

Kind people can still do evil, especially if they don't fully realize how bad what they're doing is, or if they think they're making a necessary sacrifice. Cruel, fucked up people can still love, and love might be the very reason why they ended up being so cruel. This is something the whole game is built on, and even before Elden Ring, a constant of the Souls series has been about fighting tragic individuals who ended up in antagonistic positions despite their originally good intentions.

imho Marika and Miquella are both better, more complex character than they would have been otherwise, and leave more to discuss about the game's themes and narratives, specifically because they have multiple facets to them. The hated Queen of the Golden Order was originally a victim. Her kind son who tried to fix his family's wrongdoings discarded so much of himself and did so many things to achieve his dream of compassion that he ended up being just as wrong as his mother. Isn't this much more interesting than putting out an entire game-sized DLC just to say "manipulative evil queen girlboss truly didn't care about anything and just wanted power!!" and "Kindly Miquella is so perfect!!! this surely fits our 'nothing is perfect or eternal and everything is ambiguous' narrative"?

[miquella-everywhere]

even if the dlc did make sense in the lore somehow (which it doesn't) it would still suck lmao. like the themes of the cycle of trauma and abuse is so overdone and it's tired. plus it's like 70% dark souls and bloodborne references. and we didn't even really get to meet the titular character. really makes me not want to play the game tbh.

Yeah I agree about the overused cycle of trauma thing somewhat, but y'see I think it could have been done fine if Fromsoft didn't completely flip Miquella's lore on its head:

In the base game Miquella rejected Fundamentalism and the Erdtree because it could do nothing to cure Malenia of her rot and he was appalled by the Erdtree/Marikas treatment of the Misbegotten and other races of the world. He literally created God Fuck Off metal to grant Malenia respite and could also clearly drive away the Frenzied Flame as well as the other Outer Gods with it's potential ... But now Miquella is all about following in his moms footsteps and being a brainwasher who wants to marry his brother???? Huh?????????????

Literally. How does Miquella creating an Age of "Compassion" fix the fact that his sister is infested with an Outer God and his brother is literally unalived cancer and spreading at an alarming rate????

I can somewhat understand the DLC stance where Miquella wishes to purge/atone for all the horrible things that his mother has done, but the problem is that it's conveyed in such a way that makes it quite frankly extremely weak storytelling and boring. Turning Miquella into a a fanatical Martyr really destroys the ideology of Base Game Miquella who did everything in his power to save the ones that he loved, creating a haven for the outcasts of the world, creating Unalloyed Gold to give relief to Malenia, doing all that he could with the Mausoleums and the Eclipse to try a grant Godwyn a true death. The whole "Miquella abandons everything" plot in the DLC in my opinion is EXTREMELY WEAK storytelling and a massive disservice to Miquella's base game character, and ngl, it only furthers my belief that Fromsoft had absolutely no idea how to handle Miquella's character.

Speaking of Miquella's character: Fromsoft did not need to go absolutely full fucking tilt on Miquella's Bewitching Powers to the point that it is his only goddamn personality.

The thing that pisses me off the most about how Miquella's character is handled in the DLC is that everything about him from the Base Game is literally thrown out the fucking window. The Haligtree, the Albinaurics loyalty to Miquella(i hate you gaius oh how i hate you), his character defining bond with Malenia, his relationship with Godwyn EVERYTHING he did to try and grant his beloved brother a true death, THE ECLIPSE!!!!

It just all means fucking nothing in the DLC. Nothing happens with any of the things that made Miquella so goddamn interesting.

Miquella the Unalloyed, the character that I fell in love with doesn't even exist anymore. He's now been replaced with Miquella the Kind, a character who was specifically crafted to give Miyazaki an excuse to shoehorn radahn into the story and to make it so there is a big-bad final DLC boss so that we kill Miquella so he won't have any large impact on the overall outcome of Elden Rings story.

But honestly that's just it though. That's where the problem with the DLC lies; the fact that Fromsoft had doubled down on their idea that their DLCs should be their own thing and isolated from the rest of the main story.

For a game as large and expansive as Elden Ring and for Miquella who in the base game his presence and importance could be felt nearly everywhere, keeping the DLC isolated was a massive MASSIVE mistake, and it only makes the story presented feel disconnected and unimpactful.

Now do I know anything about game design? No. Do I know anything about how hard it is to make games. Nope but I can imagine.

BUT.

I definitely think that Fromsoft and the DLC would have benefited immensely if it were delayed just a bit longer. I would not have minded in the slightest if the DLC was delayed 3 years. 4 years. IDC. The DLC evidently needed much more time to cook and to actually have been made with love and an understanding of its own lore.

And what's even more frustrating is that there are actually SO many ways they could've made the DLC and Miquella have weight on the story while keeping it mostly isolated from the main game; Just like how the Painter in the Ashes of Ariendel was creating a new world as the old one was burning away. Miquella and his Unalloyed Gold could have created a world where the Outer Gods no longer had any influence, just like how Goldmask and even Ainsbach said: "Create a world for men not the Gods."

Except well, that's honestly kind of impossible seeing how the story forces us to kill the one character who had the power to banish the Gods, and going off with Ranni into the Stars leaves the Lands Between vulnerable for the other Outer Gods to swoop in and lay claim to whatever they want, and also Death Root is still very much a problem, still spreading its cancer all over the Lands Between and even beyond time, meanwhile the story forces us to kill the one person who was trying to grant the cancers source a true death......

😒

And yeah

We never get to meet Miquella even though there is a SHITTON of evidence that he was actually helping us in the base game (see the spirit summoning bell, Torrent in general, cut quest/ending involving miq etc)

Just... Absolutely awful writing and sadly... This is what we got. And what an absolute fucking mess it all is 😔

[sleepygremlin11]

The reactions to Miquella as a character is honestly so telling about the broader souls gaming community. I mostly mean on Reddit because I am like 90% straight cis Reddit guys couldn’t analyze a evil character with any sort of benefit of the doubt. TLDR at the bottom because I’m a hoe who loved to ramble…

I’m not gonna pretend that I have a perfect grasp on Elden ring lore, so if anyone notices anything like crazy wrong with this feel free to let me know. But, from what I have seen on YouTube and Reddit people are desperate to make miquella out to be the most evil mf to ever exist in a video game. In all of the analysis I’ve seen of him as a character. People don’t seem to want to acknowledge that he’s probably mentally stunted from his curse. Like be so for real 10-year-olds are the most evil motherfuckers to ever exist, being stuck like that for hundreds of years, would drive anyone to a little bit of mass genocide. People also don’t want to see that he had majority positive intentions, and if you’re looking at it in a way that acknowledges that he’s probably despite his actual age only thinking with the mental capacity of a young child, the sort of black-and-white morality that he used in his campaign is completely fitting for a kid of that age. I think dudes on Reddit just are all not allowed within 60 feet of school so they’ve never interacted with children before, but I think if I asked my cousins that are that age they would solve a corrupt world they would say they would force everyone to be nice if given the opportunity.

Also, please take a second to consider the situation he was raised in before you make judgments on him just being a completely morally black character. Marika is absolutely insane from what we know of her, and wouldn’t you know it? So much of what Miquella does is similar to his mom. But he also leads with intentions to be better than her and a more positive force broadly. anyone who has played Elden Ring can and should tell you that the setting of the game is absolutely grim dark. Most of the characters you meet want you dead and if they don’t want you dead, they will probably end up dying by the end of the game. Even in the games happiest endings, the end is still bittersweet and nothing is really fixed. particularly because that’s just what the souls like genre goes for in it’s messaging.

I don’t want to make baseless accusations of homophobia to an entire group of people and a fandom that is admittedly accepting for websites that tend to be cesspits of homophobia and transphobia. But I feel like despite They being similar intentions and results Rahni does not get as harsh of a reaction as Miquella does. I firmly believe that this is because he is one of the few queer characters that we see in any soul games. It’s of course not great that the one aspect of queer representation is an incest pairing where one of them is getting molested. But I would still categorize him as a queer character. I think with a het pairing people would be more willing to make the relationship seem less predatory, but because it’s a queer relationship and Miquella is admittedly a bad character, people don’t look at their relationship with any sort of nuance. Radahn and Miquella are not the only examples of incest in Elden ring, and I think it’s also very common for stories based on pantheons to have incest. That sure is weird as hell, not a good thing, and it’s weird as fuck in my opinion. But it’s common in these stories. This could just be me being naïve, but I have never seen such a harsh reaction to a couple in media even when discussing other similarly, toxic and abusive pairings within media.

Idk if anyone’s willing to share their thoughts on this, I am more than happy to talk in the comments, so please let me know what you think 🥺

TLDR: Miquella is an evil but well written character and his actions make sense in the story. Fandom should not regard him as harshly as they do. Especially on sites like YouTube and Reddit, which are adorably dominated by straight cis men. I think part of the reason fandom reguards him so harshly in these communities is because he is a canon queer character. It’s also two in the morning right now when I’m writing this so this probably makes no sense and I’ll delete it tomorrow. 





[lostbrazilian]

Ok so, i've finished SotE a few days ago and i fucking LOVED IT and i need to talk about it, particularly about Miquella. Because the thing is, i really like what From has done with his character but also i've seen a lot of discourse about it and i need to get my 2 cents in before i explode

So uh, long ass essay and spoilers below

First things first:

Character assassination my ASS

Fromsoft actually did fucking character necromancy the way they added depth to otherwise one-note characters. Even if unexpected, what we learn in the dlc makes a disturbing amount of sense and ultimately elevates the game's lore in my "humble but objectively correct" opinion. That being said, while Miquella is undoubtedly a irredemable villain by the time we fight him, his character is also much more than just the "gay evil twink" ppl make him out to be

Elden Ring's demigods, while powerful and often monstrous, are also very clearly people: they have feelings, ambitions, ideals and tragic elements about them, which is why many of them are very likeable or at least compelling characters. And Miquella is a prime example of this, because the driving force behind his character, and ultimately the reason of his downfall, is his compassion

Miquella saw the flaws of the Golden Order from a young age, mainly how it oppressed others and was powerless to help his sister. And everything he has done since has been in an attempt to bring about a better, more compassionate world for all. And while the way he manipulates others and removes their free weill is a clearly nefarious aspect of his plans, that doesn't mean his kindness wasn't genuine, for two main reasons:

First, many of Miquella's followers go on to stand with him even after their charm has been broken, which makes clear that many are koyal to Miquella not just because of brainwashing, but also because they genuinely believe in his end goals. And while we'll never have confirmation of this, i don't think the denizens of the Haligtree, or Malenia for that matter, are all under Miquella's spell. At the very least the majority of them must've willingly chosen to remain loyal to him (plus, his charming powers must have a limit of some kind, otherwise he wouldn't need to become a god to rule the lands between)

Secondly, St Trina's very existence proves that Miquella's love and compassion is not only genuine, it's strong enough to manifest as a whole ass second being, which in turn makes her abandonment all the more tragic. It's possible that Miquella himself was always driven by ambition, and that he saw his other half as a "weakness" to be expunged; Or perhaps casting Trina away was a necessary evil, a selfless sacrifice in the name of a greater good. Regardless of the reason (i tend towards the latter), the end result is clear: It was grave mistake

For without love, there can be no Compassion. Miquella's Age of Compassion would be doomed to become an era of subjugation and endless war, where those who resist Miquella's charm would not be allowed to exist. It's an end result that Miquella himself would definitely NOT want, but it's the one he uwittingly locks himself into after he casts away his humanity. Hence why St Trina begs us to kill Miquella, as she understands his ascension would essentially result in a fate worse than death for him

So, TL;DR: I think Miquella genuinely wanted to create a better world, but in his quest to do so not only did he forcefully take away the free will of others, he also wound up becoming a heartless monster that, if unchecked, would bring about great suffering to the world and himself. It's classic "good intentions, bad outcome" tragic writing and ultimately it makes Miquella a very memorable and compelling character, even if he is ultimately a villain

[cerastes]

ngl Shadows of the Erdtree feels like the first FromSoft experience I’ve had where the optional superboss stuff feels *less* difficult and unfun than the main story bosses in general - I have to wonder what the development of the DLC looked like from a top-down design perspective or something

The only real native-to-DLC bosses I have issues with are Death Knights (incredibly boring movesets), Commander Gaius (That Forward Charge's Active Frames Are Kinda Bullshit) and The Final Boss' Phase 2, I think everything else was fun, Midra, Metyr, Romina, Rellana, Putrescence, Avatar, Dancing Lion, Messmer, Bayle, I loved all of them. At most, I think Metyr has some dumb attacks as well, Bayle has some camera issues when up close, and Dancing Lion's Lightning Form has some pretty fucked up combinations in which it calls lightning on top of you but you can't see it because the camera is looking at it from below, rendering the lightning markers invisible, but that's about it

The bad parts were mainly tied to fighting Another Death Rite Bird, Another Ancient Dragon, stuff like that, things that were already jank in the base game. Closest to True Jank in the DLC is when you have to fight a Ghostflame Drake on extremely uneven terrain, and not really a boss, but Wicker Men/Furnace Giants are so, so, so incredibly dull to fight. Otherwise, I think bosswise the DLC goes hard.

"I have to wonder what the development of the DLC looked like from a top-down design perspective or something" -> This is a really interesting line of thought, I have to say. I personally think that they focused first and foremost on having a big area that didn't feel empty: Both the base game and the DLC, for all their virtues and flaws, undeniably have the single best open world I've seen in my life. It never feels empty. My main complaint with open world games is that, sure, you have a big world, now, do you have jack all to do in these huge swathes of digital land that you used to make sales? Usually, No, but Elden Ring definitely manages to nail this spectacularly, so I think that was their priority, at the unfortunate cost of other things. I think it also has to do with FromSoft feeling like they need to keep upping up the ante compared to previous entries and overblowing things with sensational looking fights instead of thoroughly mechanically sound fights: Malenia, for example, I think suffers from this, because she's an amazing fight right up until she uses Waterfowl, which is by no means undodgeable, but it being a lingering, persistent implication of damage+healing throughout the fight past a certain point serves to annoy more than to enrich the fight; Waterfowl is cool as hell the first time you see it, and just a bummer every time afterwards. It's a really beautiful, showy move that'll have journos and youtubers making content for it, but it gets in the way of gameplay ultimately. Now, multiply this by 50 and you have Phase 2 of the Final Boss: EVERYTHING is this big extravagant light show, no simple attacks, everything has to be a rave. To a certain degree, this happens with other bosses, too -- 80% of the bosses announce their Phase 2 with a HUGE explosion, it gets boring and old fast -- but Final Boss Phase 2 is just needlessly extra in ways that make me think they wanted to make it look good first and make it play fun a distant second.

So, yeah, I think their priority was the open world, and they nailed it, but it was such a huge undertaking that everything else kinda suffered, in particular user experience imo, in conjunction with Making The Game Escalate More almost by necessity at this point.

Mind you, please don't get me wrong, I loved the DLC, it's just that I'm talking about the flaws more, but it's important to keep in mind this is coming from someone that Enjoyed It.

[sweetmapple]

I got Bayle down to two hits left on my second try and I wanted to hear more of Igon screaming so I threw the fight and I can’t even get two hits on that vile dragon now, hubris strikes once again but Igon is peak

Nay, beyond peak

Igon perhaps is the most bad ass mf in this entire game. Ansbach, yes of course I love him

But now I understand that interview with Igons VA. 8 hours in the booth for what amounts to a total of 7 minutes of dialogue. I heard that and I was like damn okay, must be pretty intense

But JESSUS CHRIST

THE CONVICTION IN HIS VOICE THERE IS NO FEAR JUST HATRED PURE GLEEFUL HATRED THE SPIRIT OF IGON ABANDONED ALL ELSE SAVE HIS FOUL RAGE AND DISGUST SCREAMING IN GLEE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO RIDDLE BAYLE’S DREADFUL HIDE WITH HARPOONS FROM HIS MF GREATBOW

I have never ever ever ever ever heard such a performance in a game before, he’s hitting emotions I didn’t even know existed. Like the snide pride he spits out “BEHOLD A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR” I’m practically vibrating with hype FUCK

It got me equipping a non upgraded weapon dealing pittance damage just so I can pulverize his hide with the Elden Ring equivalent of a 2x4

[ganondoodle]

okay more elden ring DLC spoilers below the read more

what fucks me up the most is ....... that we never actually get to meet the real actual Radahn, hes either a rotting zombie or some constructed meat puppet with a manipulated soul of his

the most we know is from the base game stuff, his men and everything, but we never get to meet him- and now ... it undermines the whole festival, i felt like it was sorrowful goodbye and attempt to grant him an honorable death- that made me fall for him in the end, the lore around that and the whole build up and vibe of it, it felt so genuine but now you cant feel that, bc you know .... either way he will be suffering, let him rot for all eternity being a threat to friend and foe alike, as this mindless monster chowing away at corpses like a beast when he used to be a powerful respected general

or kill him but instead of giving him the death he wanted his soul is instead grafted into a meat puppet by his half brother so he can be controlled and made to agree to marry him despite rejecting it in life (as far as i understood it, he definitely did reject it though bc otherwise malenia wouldnt have tried to assassinate him to get him delivered over)-

so theres no good answer and im left wondering, did his men know of that? im gonna guess no, bc the whole point of the festival was to bring him HONOR when there was nothing of his honor left, of him left, and theres no honor in being turned into a literal marionette for your half brothers sick play

you could call it tragic, and it is, but it feels so much more ..... like just wanting to violate him even in death, just because he hasnt suffered enough, lets make it even more horrible just for sufferings sake (like i get it, i like when my favs also get to suffer, what happened to him in the base game was a part of why i love him so much- but theres a limit to that imo) it takes away from so much of the festival and everything, you are not taking part in one last final battle so Radahn can die fighting, you are handing his soul over to his half brother that wants to use him like a puppet, LITERALLY, to make a mockery of his memory, make him do things he would never have if he was himself, i cant think of anything more horrible to do to him

and his people are utterly convinced they are doing right by him, when the rot was probably better than what miquella would do to him, as horrible as that was.. and if they WERE aware then wow ....... i guess miquella really had everyone on his side huh uwu, like that sucks even more, so none of them ever felt and cared about him or were all also brainwashed YIPPIIIE

(not to mention how much interesting miquella lore gets twisted into actually he was just a scheming little creep and everyone that followed him was quite literlally brainwashed- i know the whole bewitching thing is like, his thing, but MAN- it feels like whoops it was all a dream and it never actually happened when its done bad)

(and i know Radahn is a fictional character but people are gonna pin it on him i just know it, like espeically those that dont care about lore and are just there for the fights .... like its not his fault!!! and i felt like he was already hated enough, first by his too hard boss battle in base game and now in the DLC its a repeat of that even harder (though i find the complaints a lil >_> bc i have seen people just walk right over story bosses so just ... overlevel yourself if you want to do that too, you dont have to fight a boss for three days, explore and level up?) and it was already annoying how malenia defenders AND radahn defenders kept trying to make the other into some horrible asshat, when they are both not great and thats valid, but now its??? )

[bigprettygothgf]

anyway i beat the elden ring dlc a few days ago (started lvl 100 and eventually capped at 150 and 18 scadutree blessing by the end) and my final verdict is that its fucking incredible, i cant say its a 10/10 bc theres still some frankly inexcusable bullshit (5+ reused dragon fights including a new all time worst, final boss phase 2 performance impact, npc gank fight*) but literally everything else is fucking stellar. the map is one of the best designed world maps ive ever seen in a game and going through the individual segments really recaptured the feeling of opening up lordran for the first time in ds1. as for that thing everyones talking about - im sorry to use the SI words but to be blunt all the complaints about the dlc's difficulty have entirely been a skill issue lol. yes its hard but fromsoft dlcs are always hard and given how difficult elden ring already was what else were people expecting? the expansion literally gives you its own self contained leveling mechanic. use it.

yet more camera issues aside most of the new bosses are amazing - special shoutout to messmer, the dancing lion, bayle once i switched to a longer range weapon, metyr, and maybe midra. negative shoutouts to the golden hippo and commander gayass for their ds2 hitboxes but they are comically weak to fire and i was using the new anvil weapon on them so they died in like 10 hits lol. rellana was also fucking annoying but i have a feeling ill figure her out when i get to rl1. of course the elephant in the room is the final boss and my thoughts on him are uh. well i dont know. i love the first phase but dear god they really went overboard with the onscreen effects in phase 2 and i dont think he would even be half as difficult if you could actually see wtf hes doing. the hair does not help. lorewise no one would actually be confused why hes there if they actually did the npc quests but its a fromsoft game so admittedly i cant really blame people for missing those. but still. my final thoughts are that his design decisions are highly questionable but after beating him i got that good sense of accomplishment instead of "thank fuckign christ thats over" so thats a good sign. i dont feel like going into more plot stuff rn but i think it did a mostly (but not entirely) satisfactory job answering questions i had about the base games (very messy) story. prepare to see some really bad takes about miquella lol

anyway yeah its fantastic. literally the size of an entire souls game on its own. well worth the purchase. play it

*yes i know the game really wants you to summon for it but i simply refuse to use summons and there is 0 excuse for how those npcs behave together in a 3v1. fucking eat me from behind leda.

[not-your-bro]

Tell me rfn the kind of video games climbing class stays up until 3am grinding and getting way too invested in

OOH. this is an interesting question bc i think they have fairly different taste in video games.

chris is into games with deep mechanics, so he gravitates to rpgs, including turn-based. likes strategy games, too. as a example of his taste, chris loves pokemon, but he plays it in a way i do not personally understand, in that he's crafting the most optimal team and also not naming his pokemon. all that said, he isn't opposed to turning his brain off with fps games when he just wants to relax. in all games, he is a chronic cutscene skipper (a trait that makes josh grind his teeth). if he picks up an in-game document that he deems too long, he's like "i ain't reading all that. i'm happy for u tho. or sorry that happened."

josh plays fewer games and has narrower taste. obviously, he's into horror in all forms, from AAA down to the smallest of indie titles (tho he prefers indie). i think he wouldn't have pegged himself as a fighting game guy, but he checked out mortal kombat bc of the fatalities and got really into it. he'd be into hideo kojima games. if i can include post-2014 games bc we're just having fun here, this would include death stranding (which chris would not understand the appeal of). josh would also love the weird, wide world of elden ring, in particular how it's stripped of things like quest logs. he would really enjoy making his own physical notes (which, again, would feel like homework to chris).

now, here's what they learned they can't play together.

moody, atmospheric horror that relies more on suspense or dread than fear. josh would love silent hill games (the good ones lmao), but chris would find them unenjoyable to play and narratively confusing & boring. warning for silent hill 2 spoilers here, but i made a joke in a fic about chris getting, like, too deep into sh2 before going, "oh. did this guy do something to his wife?" and i stand by that. i think he's just like whatttt is going on and when will this be over.

competitive games that rely too heavily on luck. obvious examples are mario party & mario kart games. josh gets too fucking moody when he feels he loses unfairly, and it brings the (mario) party down. and every time he suggests them, he's like "i seriously won't care, like it's not a big deal." but it is a big deal. in his heart. if he loses fair and square, he's fine, but he hates feeling robbed by bad luck.

...and here's what they do play together.

freaky asf horror games. like, the kinds of games with moments that are gonna have "streamers react to..." compilations on youtube. ideally, chris is playing and josh is watching, bc josh loves to watch chris react to games like this, especially if he himself has played them before. nothing more enjoyable than sitting next to chris, knowing what horrors await him but not saying anything. josh has a ps4 with p.t. (which he will never, ever delete) and he delighted in making chris play that. he also made chris play doki doki literature club, under the guise of "giving him a well-deserved break from horror." good one, josh.

chris's rpgs are long as hell and he gets very into them, so when he's particularly sucked in but josh still wants to hang, josh is like ok just bring your console over and play here, idc. now, josh knows chris is a cutscene skipper, so josh spends the entire time peppering chris with questions. what's happened so far? what's going on right now? who's this guy - what's his deal? at some point, they start making shit up, spitballing what they think is going on based on context clues, but also throwing in their own wild ideas just to make each other laugh. (after chris finishes the game, they read a plot summary to see how close they were.)

i think chris is a kingdom hearts fan, but again, not the way i'm a kingdom hearts fan. he thinks they're fun as fuck to play, but he has NO clue what's going on. in fact, playing kingdom hearts as a kid is probably what triggered his aversion to cutscenes. he was like that shit goes on FOREVER, and for WHAT? i'm enamored with the idea of chris foisting kingdom hearts on josh - like, "try it, bro, it's really fun. but just skip the cutscenes they're super long and confusing." and josh is like "now, now, christopher. a lot of work went into these cutscenes. we can't just skip them. that would be disrespectful." so josh lets them roll - initially as a bit, but then they both get invested, and next thing you know they're barreling through all 983094 games together.

resident evil 4. periodt. it has stuff that appeals to them both: horror/gore for josh, more action-oriented gameplay for chris, plus short cutscenes they can both find enjoyment in, because they're either freaky or funny or both. they would lament (as did i) that re5 and re6 have co-op but are so much worse, but they'd still play them once. and they'd both love the modern remakes + new re games. josh's favorite of those would be re7, and chris's would be re2 remake.

[acapelladitty]

I want you to know that you are so strong to keep a smile despite the hate. I'm sending a soft anon because your inbox needs it and I don't need credit to be kind.

You are a lovely person. I'm glad I grew emotionally and got a chance to see how genuine you really are. Hate and jealously are hard emotions to overcome, but you still treated me with kindness.

I hope you get to enjoy a cool video game today, or write a horny drabble to show off to the ditty admirer club

And thank you for being apart of the rogues fandom. ♡

I am a creature born of empathy and giving the benefit of the doubt long after I probably should. I always assume the best in people, even if their actions aren't necessarily the kindest or the most welcoming. And that mentality has allowed me to make friends that, otherwise, I may have brushed off after they'd had a bad day.

Thank you for the generous words and I am glad that whatever relationship we have was able to survive some not great intentions at the start.

Honestly? I'm killing time working my way through the Elden Ring DLC and it's over for me lmao. The horny drabbles can wait until after I've worn Messmer the Impaler like a ventriloquist puppet. And the Gotham Rogues fandom will never get rid of me cause I'm a fucking idiot lmao xx

[miquella-everywhere]

Miyazaki said that the SoET was supposed to complete “The Elden Ring circle” and “honour GRRM’s contributions” by “focusing entirely on Miquella” 😭

When I heard about the DLC originally I was worried they were gonna make Miquella cheaply evil, because Fromsoft is allergic to positive divinity and good endings I guess. But looking at all the Miquella lore it would make just no sense, the best-worst outcome could’ve been Miquella corrupted by Mogh. They didn’t even make it an interesting evil. I have a friend who thought Miq was brainwashing ALL his followers, which thankfully isn’t the case. This is one of those “twists” or more “complex” endings where the straight forward route is a thousand times better. Isn’t us helping Miquella fix everything so much more interesting ? Miquella is supposed to be a parallel to Marika, isn’t it natural for us, tarnished warrior, to take up Godfry’s role? And not the out of nowhere larper. “Age of Compassion” is already set up as a name! Also as everyone said, Godwyn is just wasted! Why don’t we help Miq grant him a true death? Imagine the rotten, bulbous undead Godwyn as the final boss and act of mercy. Imagine if we could help Malenia too ughh. Who cares about Fia and her taking advantage of Godwyn’s remains.

By the way, do we get any mention of Miquella’s shadow? Or Fingers?? Good on the Dragon and Marika lore we love a nuances queen

"Focusing entirely on Miquella" 😒

I've been trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible, since the leaks ruined the build up and nearly everything for me, but from the people that I have been talking to they all say that Miquellas presence in the DLC is almost like an afterthought and his only major role is to be Radahns backpack in the final battle...

So basically I've been getting the impression that Miquella's entire development feels forsaken and pushed aside and that makes the final boss even more of a "Wait, what the fuck????" moment than it already is 😭 Even my bestie @marble-writes who is primarily a dragon slayer(go queen kill them all👏😂) and not much of a lore enthusiast said that Miquella's big twist felt so out of left field and lazy...

Back when the first trailer dropped I was literally frothing at the mouth at the idea of Miquella being our companion and guide, similar to Melina's role, through the Realm of Shadow. And it makes sense! Base-game lore built up Miquella as this kind, compassionate soul, so why wouldn't he be our friend? Why wouldn't he be our guide because, just like the promo said, we were being guided by him. And even if he didn't turn out to be a companion I at least expected him to be like Ranni in that he would be a major NPC and quest giver and we could interact with him and help him with whatever he needed help with...

But nope, just toss all that wonderful potential aside and make him the big-bad backpack and a dollar-store Serosh rip off :'(

I'm just... so devastated, especially after reading that article with Miyazaki saying that he wanted everything to go "full circle" when really it all just feels like a series of dashed lines that don't connect but vaguely form a circle. There's far too much missing to even really call it a cricle :(

AND GOD MIQ AND MALS SHADOWS!!!! I have not seen or heard anything about that so I am assuming that their shadows, the one that every empyrean is supposed to have, are ignored and forgotten just like Miquella's character development 😭 (and if im wrong and they are there dont tell me, i want to find and experience them for myself)

But still its yet another thing that is completely forgotten and leaves even more plot holes within SotE's lore and further erodes Elden Rings story as a whole 😭

and I dont know anything about the fingers at this point sorry :(

[locuas642]

shadow of the erdtree

On a mechanical level, the DLC for Elden Ring is excellent. it delivers beyond what normally would be expected from such a thing. In fact, it's a flat-out Expansion.

there are more items and weapons, many of which enrichen the game and allows for further experimentation and exploration of the mechanics.

New enemies and bosses that, like it or not, are made with the mindset that the people who enter the DLC are late-to-endgame high-level players who have enough love for this type of games that they want to enjoy a new challenge. And in that sense, the game delivers and delivers hard.

A New massive area that challenges the player to explore and find it's secrets, sometimes hard to discover the path to a certain area, but with a world that is never empty. and the new Field Dungeons are each so damn big with new puzzles and new enemies and new bosses in them. Each field dungeon is at least as big as some of the biggest field dungeons in the base-game, and many have their own personality on top.

the controversial part, however, is the plot and the Lore reveals that come with it. With people feeling it is bad, that it didn't really add, that it ruined certain things or made things too complicated. and also that it did not expand enough on the new things added and other things.

Now, I disagree with the most negative takes on this lore. That it is bad, that it reads like fan-fic, that it ruins the characters. I think the overall additions to the lore are great, particularly with the feeling that everything in the Land of Shadow are things that were forgotten or erased from the history of The Lands Between. I think that, in the long-term, people will be more positive on all these lore reveals, particularly when they are put into a greater analysis.

If I have a criticism, it's more on terms of presentation of the story. It's the typical stuff. Messmer's dialogue is limited to when you encounter him. there is a boss that would have been cool to at least have them say a word. There are reveals that exist exclusively in the item descriptions. These are, of course, intentional, because FromSoftware likes to force you to make your own readings of the characters. It will tell you some basic ideas about Messmer, but the details (like wether he was from the Godfrey lineage, that he Malenia and Miquella were tripets or, in fact, if he is from a different parentage entirely) and leave it up to your interpretation.

Not Theorize, because Theorizing implies there is a mystery to be solved. There is none, only the text to be read.

I feel the beginning of things, the DLC could have done more to set the stage of the story and give us motivation to move in that direction. As it stands, it feels we are doing the Story because we, as players, know thats where the content is, than we feeling motivated as characters to see it through.

The Messmer Fight Fucking Slaps however

[mrslittletall]

Violence for 1 and 7? =D

I chose violence

You didn't specify a fandom, so I guess I have to answer it for all of them? ^^ 1) the character everyone gets wrong In Dark Souls I don't really see much character discourse. But I think people give Gwyn too much flak. Yes, he is technically the villain but you also to take in account that he tried to let his people prosper. Nobody in the game is it told that people that came from the light sould can continue to exist in the age of dark. I actually think it is pretty safe to say that they would lose their immortality or long lifespan and start dropping dead left and right. It makes a lot more sense why Gwyn acted this way then outside of he simply wanted power. Yes, he is afraid of dying and that is not a good thing but I wish people would not paint him as someone who prolonged his age for only his own good and nobody else. In Bloodborne I could make it easy for me and say Gehrman, but I will choose Micolash. Not everyone gets him wrong, of course, but I see him softened too much. Far too much. I wish people would lean more into him being someone who does horrible experiments because he is madly curious. Someone who lost his mind by delving too deep into the Eldritch knowledge. Someone who is more than elated to be able to get a Hunter into his grasp and mocks and runs away from them until they finally get him. He may not always be like that but Micolash clearly went down an arc where he became a villain and I want to see more of it. In Elden Ring I have to say Mohg. Because either people make him into a secretly super soft guy who planned to let rule Miquella his empire from the get-go (he is calling himself the Lord of Blood, PLEASE) or they put him as completely black villain who has no nuance. Mohg is a rather grey character in my book. He coped horribly with his parental neglect and in a way that is rebellious against the Golden Order and finding solace in what he is. That doesn't mean that he cannot do bad things however. The guy canonically did kidnap a bunch of people. Oh how I love to write Varre in mad love with him despite knowing deep inside himself how fucked up this is. In Hollow Knight it is the Pale King. People see the dead baby pit and deem his a irredeemable without even thinking about the why. First, he is a Higher Being with completely different morals than humans. Second, he considered the vessels lifeless mutations. Third, he actually did love the Pure Vessel and messed the whole plan up. Fourth, he is not a colonizer, he simply won the battle for followers, stop saying he is a colonizer or that he genocided the moths! Please just read my fic Off Balance for my take on him.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? I try to not hate characters. It is more common with ships for me that I start to dislike them but they are easier to avoid than whole characters. I can just say that I tend to avoid fans of certain characters. I don't avoid fans of Dark Souls characters. I think they are generally fine. In Bloodborne I am very wary of Lady Maria fans. Most of the time they are Gehrman haters and flip their shit if you headcanon her to not be a butch lesbian. My blog title is actually from such a hater. They said I wanted Lady Maria to be a tradwife simply for stating that she might have worn dresses when she was done with the hunts. Sophie from Sinclair Lore even told me that the doll's clothing might have been Maria's clothes that she wore in the research hall, so yeah, if even a lore expert agrees with me, I cannot be wrong. In Elden Ring I don't specifically like fans of soft Mohg but that has to do with my own interpretation. They can do what they want. I just am bored by Mohg as someone who does not do atrocities. He is more fun as a war criminal. In Hollow Knight... I don't know. Some Radiance fans can be really annoying because of how they dunk on PK while acting like Radi is the innocent victim which is... not the case and is clear to anyone who played Hollow Knight until the end. Alright, I think that was it. Thank you for the ask!

[lastoneout]

hi idk if you're a huge kalos fan but how are you feeling about the direct

I haven't watched it yet, but ngl Kalos wasn't my favorite OR my least favorite pokemon game, I was pretty neutral on it overall. My main complaint was how annoying the map was to traverse before you got fly, but aside from that it was fine, introduced some cool pokemon and had a decent plot. Tbh for the next Legends game I would have preferred Jhoto, but eh. It's not a huge deal to me.

My real issue is that it's a little hard to get excited about it when I know how bad crunch is at Game Freak and that despite saying they were reevaluating their tight release cycle bcs like, ScarVi was borderline unplayable at launch and Arceus got abandoned the second they were done with it despite being the most popular game in years....I just have no faith that this game will be good, or at least it won't be anywhere near as good as it has the potential to be :/

I hope I'm proven wrong tho, and I don't think it's wrong to be excited about the game, something something no ethical consumption and I'd be a major hypocrite if I told people to drop any game company that has bad practices bcs almost all of them do, I just can't get hype. I was really, really hoping Game Freak would slow the hell down and stop making new games for a couple of years, put all of their focus on gen 10 and release that maybe in 2026 or 2027, but nope gotta make that money even if the games we release are falling apart at the seams and our devs are working on two or three projects at once.

And like, given the current trend in decreasing quality I'm genuinely unsure if the game is even going to be functional enough to be worth playing, especially since I figure to hit a 2025 release they probably started working on this right after Arceus came out, and there has simply not been enough time to make this game good. Plus there were a lot of points in ScarVi where I legit just wanted to put the game down and stop playing entirely bcs the graphics and glitches and framerate drops started to make me annoyed and dizzy, and once I was done with the main story I lost like all motivation to keep playing(I like finishing my dex, I did it in Sw/Sh and Let's Go and have almost done it in BDSP and Arceus, but I don't care about ScarVi's dex at all), and I haven't even bought the DLC yet. Tbh I'm probably not even gonna pre-order this, I'm waiting till it's out to decide if I want to buy it or not.

Anyway sorry to be a buzzkill, I don't fault anyone for being excited, I've loved Pokemon for more than half my life, it helped me meet my fiancé, it really means so SO much to me, so I get it, but like....I think I love the series too much to get excited for this. Seeing what Pokemon is turning into is just...painful and sad. I hope y'all enjoy it tho, and who knows, I could be wrong, maybe it will be fantastic and super polished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief bcs they got their shit together! That would be nice.

Edit: I do want to say I'm glad it has been 3 years instead of the usual 2, and I'm VERY glad they didn't announce gen 10, but unless the scope of this game is narrow as fuck and they also don't release until like November-December 2025 AND this team was NOT the same team who worked on ScarVi's DLC that is still not enough time to make a game with the scope they've been establishing as their new baseline. TOTK took SIX years to finish. Elden Ring's DLC was built on top of an existing game and it still took TWO whole years just to make it. Most open-world games take a really, really long time. Adding an extra year is great, but they need to be taking a lot longer than that between games. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to inspire confidence.