#or npcs

[babealore]

I’ve already counted two women that Ubisoft could have replaced Aya with

[klysanderelias]

I've come back to Elden Ring (because I'm weak, partially) and I have to say, after coming to terms with the sad reality that Fromsoft peaked with Bloodborne, Elden Ring is... fine. 6.5/10.

I think partially my opinion on it improved because I ended up watching some lore videos and being impressed with some of the Act 3 reveals - I can't give them too much credit, because if I'm 70 hours into a game and quit because I'm sick of it, whatever comes at hour 100 doesn't matter. Still, I think it raises my estimation of the game.

I'm still salty as fuck about what in the hell a Tarnished actually is, and how the whole dark souls -esque system is supposed to operate here, but I've seen at least some explanation given, again something I had to watch lore videos to see, but assuming there's any basis given in the game and it's not just wild assumptions or external interviews/materials, it's... well, it's better than nothing.

I guess basically what I'm saying is, I lowered my expectations. I stopped trying to understand things and I just started going no thoughts head empty. I began worrying more about my build and my runes than I did about what was happening in the story. And that sucks? It's depressing, to a certain extent, because the whole things dark souls games are famous for is something I just can't afford to engage with, because this game is so fucking long and expansive that I can go ten hours without seeing anything important.

And I guess once again I'm gonna complain about Melina, because once again I'm looking at my in-game time and trying to think about how many conversations I've had with her, and/or how many times I've even seen her show up, and it's like... I'm twenty hours into this character. I think I've seen Melina five times? Not counting the cutscene in the starting area?

It doesn't matter, at the end of the day, I guess. I shouldn't get so worked up about it. It just bothers me because there's usually a comfort NPC who you genuinely feel affection for, whether that's someone like the Doll in Bloodborne or Siegward in DS3, or even Gavlan in DS2, and I just don't think there's anyone like that in Elden Ring. I found Fia to be underwhelming and suspicious (especially after I progressed her questline far enough mostly by accident), and too many of the others just don't show up enough or with enough fanfare to actually draw a reaction. Blaidd is maybe the closest? But even he isn't the kind of character to make me go 'oh fuck yes it's Blaidd', I'm just like 'oh hey.' I went to go look up the list of NPCs and I had completely forgotten about Iron Jar Alexander, who is a fucking bro but so far across three playthroughs, about 150 hours, I've found him in three places? And the one I've found him the most at is just where he stands at a door and goes 'oh man the radahn festival sounds cool'.

Anyway the point is, I'll die mad about Melina, partially because there's so many cool things they COULD have done with her character and they completely whiffed, but also because the Frenzied Flame stuff is possibly the most fascinating of all the Elden Ring lore to me, and Melina is tied into that ending, and it's all really underwhelming.

I dunno man, Dark Souls games have always had kind of lackluster endings, and there's a part of me that's really been warring between 'just because they don't provide easy answers doesn't mean that there isn't a whole host of interesting information to draw upon in the visuals and implications given' and 'sufficient good faith will excuse the holes in the worst writing, and at some point you need to draw a line of what you're willing to accept.'

Like, when we talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion, there's a lot of truly fascinating imagery and symbolism in the anime, especially drawing on Christian iconography and mythology, and the creators have explicitly said that they put it in because it looked cool. They didn't have a plan, they didn't have any intention to pay it off. That doesn't mean that there's no value in analysing and extrapolating based off that imagery! But it also means that you're allowed to dismiss it as stupid and incoherent as well!

And I guess where I've fallen is like, Elden Ring is a new IP with a whole new lore created for it and I'm probably going to spend years of my life thinking about it! But I'm not going to be thinking about it the way that I spent years of my life thinking about Dark Souls 2 or Bloodborne, where I could gush about how much I loved the things that they did and how excited I was to think about the questions and holes left in the storytelling.

I could spend a lot of time being negative about it, and I've written and deleted a lot of words doing just that. It was sixty bucks, and I've gotten 150 hours out of it, and will probably get another 50-100. It's a good value for your money. The gameplay is good and engaging. I think it's fine.

I just don't think it's anything special any more.

[itssomethingcosmic]

this may be an episode I return to every Halloween… the edge of town scenes are very VERY fucked up it’s creepy as hell…

[knowledgebeyondbooks]

[I need to be a little more active on this blog...]

[bluebearyprincess]

I know this is weird but I totally ship Pagan with Sable like no joke

[raredrop]

why are so many outfits for pvp???

[loamsprach]

90% of my experience playing wow is mocking combat errors.