The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)

[Terminal Blue]

One thing I've really been enjoying since I started noticing it is the soundtrack. I'm normally not really into orchestral soundtracks, but this one seems to have cut through my normal indifference and may end up being one of my favourite video game OSTs.

However, Reddit on the whole, seems to disagree, and it's brought me to the conclusion that a lot of people judge video game sountracks purely by the strength and memorability of the melody. A lot of Elden Ring's big tracks aren't particularly melodic and don't tend to use repeated phrases, it's more about creating a mood or feeling through dynamics and orchestration, and I think this is why I like it more and why some people like it less. Vordt's phase 2 theme is instantly memorable and exciting, it's good boss music which is why it's become synonymous with boss music in memes, but I don't really feel anything listening to it.

By contrast, I couldn't hum most of the major boss themes in Elden Ring (despite having listened to them quite a lot), but I remember very strongly how each of them made me feel and I feel like I understand the character of each boss better just by hearing their music.

It also means that the rare melodic tracks get to stand out even more by virtue of being unexpected.

I think one reason why I'm perhaps generous to some of the more shitty or unfun bosses in Elden Ring is that the soundtrack still sells them. I don't think Radhan is a good boss in terms of mechanics and design, and his visual design is super goofy, but his music carries him so hard. Despite having just said that, though, I don't even think his track would make my top 5. The OST as a whole is just that good.

 

[CriticalGaming]

One thing I've really been enjoying since I started noticing it is the soundtrack. I'm normally not really into orchestral soundtracks, but this one seems to have cut through my normal indifference and may end up being one of my favourite video game OSTs.

However, Reddit on the whole, seems to disagree, and it's brought me to the conclusion that a lot of people judge video game sountracks purely by the strength and memorability of the melody. A lot of Elden Ring's big tracks aren't particularly melodic and don't tend to use repeated phrases, it's more about creating a mood or feeling through dynamics and orchestration, and I think this is why I like it more and why some people like it less. Vordt's phase 2 theme is instantly memorable and exciting, it's good boss music which is why it's become synonymous with boss music in memes, but I don't really feel anything listening to it.

By contrast, I couldn't hum most of the major boss themes in Elden Ring (despite having listened to them quite a lot), but I remember very strongly how each of them made me feel and I feel like I understand the character of each boss better just by hearing their music.

It also means that the rare melodic tracks get to stand out even more by virtue of being unexpected.

I think one reason why I'm perhaps generous to some of the more shitty or unfun bosses in Elden Ring is that the soundtrack still sells them. I don't think Radhan is a good boss in terms of mechanics and design, and his visual design is super goofy, but his music carries him so hard. Despite having just said that, though, I don't even think his track would make my top 5. The OST as a whole is just that good.

I love the music in Souls games. I think they fit beautifully with the boss fights and such. But they are also totally unmemorable to me.

I can pick out the specific moments in a final fantasy game where a given song plays. But you could play me any boss theme from any Fromsoft game and I would have no fucking clue where it belongs. I love the music in the moments while playing, but beyond that the music never stays with me.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I love the music in Souls games. I think they fit beautifully with the boss fights and such. But they are also totally unmemorable to me.

I can pick out the specific moments in a final fantasy game where a given song plays. But you could play me any boss theme from any Fromsoft game and I would have no fucking clue where it belongs. I love the music in the moments while playing, but beyond that the music never stays with me.

Bloodborne is the only FROM one that stood out melodically to me, beyond menu themes. It just felt like they actually hired people to do it well vs reach back into the “generic orchestral theme” bag. The main theme, Cleric Beast, Gascoigne, Bloodstarved Beast, Gehrman, etc. are instantly recognizable to me, but also perhaps because there was a point where I’d listen to the OST on its own.

 

[Dalisclock]

One thing I've really been enjoying since I started noticing it is the soundtrack. I'm normally not really into orchestral soundtracks, but this one seems to have cut through my normal indifference and may end up being one of my favourite video game OSTs.

However, Reddit on the whole, seems to disagree, and it's brought me to the conclusion that a lot of people judge video game sountracks purely by the strength and memorability of the melody. A lot of Elden Ring's big tracks aren't particularly melodic and don't tend to use repeated phrases, it's more about creating a mood or feeling through dynamics and orchestration, and I think this is why I like it more and why some people like it less. Vordt's phase 2 theme is instantly memorable and exciting, it's good boss music which is why it's become synonymous with boss music in memes, but I don't really feel anything listening to it.

By contrast, I couldn't hum most of the major boss themes in Elden Ring (despite having listened to them quite a lot), but I remember very strongly how each of them made me feel and I feel like I understand the character of each boss better just by hearing their music.

It also means that the rare melodic tracks get to stand out even more by virtue of being unexpected.

I think one reason why I'm perhaps generous to some of the more shitty or unfun bosses in Elden Ring is that the soundtrack still sells them. I don't think Radhan is a good boss in terms of mechanics and design, and his visual design is super goofy, but his music carries him so hard. Despite having just said that, though, I don't even think his track would make my top 5. The OST as a whole is just that good.

I'm just gonna throw out I really do like the ambient music for a lot of the regions. Limgrave has this lonely, almost abandoned feel to it(and I swear it feels like a really downbeat take on "Somewhere over the rainbow") , Caelid feels wrong to befit it's hellish landscape like you somehow ended up in DOOM, and the Altus Plateau has a lovely melancholy theme of Autumn and Sunset slowly fading into Winter. Lyndell has a kinda similar tone that even more evokes ruin and grandeur. Sadly I don't have much education in music or else I could probably say a lot more about it.

Anyway, I finally finished Farum Azula. Had my last meeting with Pot Boy Alexander and, yeah, definitely getting those Siegmeyer feels again. I know he got the death he wanted but I can't help but feel bad for him somewhat. Had a lot of trouble of the fucking Dranonic Tree Sential and finally just ended up running past the fucker to get to Malikith each time. It's telling when one of the hardest bosses in the game has another Boss guarding his door(but at least you can kite him pretty easily). Malikith, man, that was one of the hardest bosses I think I've beat my head against. His first phase isn't so bad but that second phase I feel like I'm fighting a giant murder monkey on fucking crack. I get it, he's meant to be one of the most dangerous things in the entire world who literally has Death in his sword but he's still a giant pain to even get a hit on without getting murdered.

Went back to the Capitol...somehow and ran into my old friend Gideon. And that was a very short fight. As soon as I saw he was targetable I ran up and backstabbed him while monologuing and it wasn't even fucking close to a fair fight at all. He went down like a chump. And it's wierd he's even there considering the next boss is literally right up the path from him and evidently hadn't gotten there very long ago, where Godfrey had to have passed through, so GIdeon must have arrived RIGHT after Godfrey passed through or something in time to wait for you. Either that or Godfrey was giving Morgott a very long hug. IDK, there's this implication you've been gone for a long time considering how much ash is covering Lyndell by the time you come back from Farum Azula. Then again, time seems to be really wierd in Farum Azula. It's stated in some of the Lore then Farum Azula has been Crumbling since ancient times but the whole thing looks like a very, very slow motion explosion, like it ripped itself apart but it's spread out over eons instead of minutes. It's a really wierd place.

Godfrey was much more manageable then Malekith. Got him to phase 2 on the first try. Probably took me 10-15 tries to take him down for good with help from the Mimic Tear(Tiche just doesn't do enough damage it feels like and I'm kinda annoyed I spent so much time trying to get her).

So pretty much I'm ready to either fight the last boss, or I can go finish the Brace of the Haligtree and at least try to take down Malenia, which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do because there's very little left I'm interested in at this point.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I'm just gonna throw out I really do like the ambient music for a lot of the regions. Limgrave has this lonely, almost abandoned feel to it(and I swear it feels like a really downbeat take on "Somewhere over the rainbow") , Caelid feels wrong to befit it's hellish landscape like you somehow ended up in DOOM, and the Altus Plateau has a lovely melancholy theme of Autumn and Sunset slowly fading into Winter. Lyndell has a kinda similar tone that even more evokes ruin and grandeur.

Anyway, I finally finished Farum Azula. Had my last meaning with Pot Boy Alexander and, yeah, definitely getting those Siegmeyer feels again. I know he got the death he wanted but I can't help but feel bad for him somewhat. Had a lot of trouble of the fucking Dranonic Tree Sential and finally just ended up running past the fucker to get to Malikith each time. It's telling when one of the hardest bosses in the game has another Boss guarding his door(but at least you can kite him pretty easily). Malikith, man, that was one of the hardest bosses I think I've beat my head against. His first phase isn't so bad but that second phase I feel like I'm fighting a giant murder monkey on fucking crack. I get it, he's meant to be one of the most dangerous things in the entire worth who literally has Death in his sword but he's still a giant pain to even get a hit on without getting murdered.

Went back to the Capitol...somehow and ran into my old friend Gideon. And that was a very short fight. As soon as I saw he was targetable I ran up and backstabbed him while monologuing and it wasn't even fucking close to a fair fight at all. He went down like a chump. And it's wierd he's even there considering the next boss is literally right up the path from him and evidently hadn't gotten there very long ago, where Godfrey had to have passed through, so GIdeon must have arrived RIGHT after Godfrey passed through or something in time to wait for you. Either that or Godfrey was giving Morgott a very long hug. IDK, there's this implication you've been gone for a long time considering how much ash is covering Lyndell by the time you come back from Farum Azula. Then again, time seems to be really wierd in Farum Azula. It's stated in some of the Lore then Farum Azula has been Crumbling since ancient times but the whole thing looks like a very, very slow motion explosion, like it ripped itself apart but it's spread out over eons instead of minutes. It's a really wierd place.

Godfrey was much more manageable then Malekith. Got him to phase 2 on the first try. Probably took me 10-15 tries to take him down for good with help from the Mimic Tear(Tiche just doesn't do enough damage it feels like and I'm kinda annoyed I spent so much time trying to get her).

So pretty much I'm ready to either fight the last boss, or I can go finish the Brace of the Haligtree and at least try to take down Malenia, which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do because there's very little left I'm interested in at this point.

Interesting to hear that about Tiche, whom it would seem is the best spirit ash to take into battle according to the most recent interwebs rankings. Depending on how much FP he costs, it’s pretty tough to compete against “free” with mimic even post-nerf (although apparently a +10 Tiche can nearly solo Malenia’s first phase now so idk).

Anyways, I’m at the point of Ranni’s quest where the teleport leads you to Ainsel River and yeah, Miyazaki seems to be channeling Kojima at this point of the quest. I mean I guess I would’ve figured it out without the wiki eventually but oh well. Time is of the essence the further I go now.

 

[Dalisclock]

Interesting to hear that about Tiche, whom it would seem as a the best spirit ash to take into battle according to the most recent interwebs rankings. Depending on how much FP he costs, it’s pretty tough to compete against “free” with mimic even post-nerf (although apparently a +10 Tiche can nearly solo Malenia’s first phase now so idk).

Anyways, I’m at the point of Ranni’s quest where the teleport leads you to Ainsel River and yeah, Miyazaki seems to be channeling Kojima at this point of the quest. I mean I guess I would’ve figured it out without the wiki eventually but oh well. Time is of the essence the further I go now.

To be fair I've only used Tiche(all the Black Knife Assassins are canonically female, apparently) in like two boss battles and both endgame ones so maybe she falls off there. Then again it's hard to get her before endgame and I've only be able to get her to +8 because I'm out of 9 ghost glovewart(I've got plenty of the top tier one but not the one before it) and don't know where to get more.

Also, Fun Fact: You can summon Melina(your ghost "maiden" friend) to fight with you for Morgott. Her moveset is almost exactly like a Black Knife Assassin. There's a lot of interesting implications in that fact alone. Especially since all the Black Knife Assasins are female and apparently they're also Numen like Marika which I think means they probably work for her in some capacity. Add to that that Melina constantly quotes Marika(presumably from first hand experience) and talks about being born "At the foot of the Erdtree" and talks about her unnamed mother.

Seriously, there's something really interesting going on with Melina, but I don't think the game gives a definite conclusion. Is she Marika? Is she one of Marika's kids? Is she somehow connected to Ranni(neither of them have a body. Ranni is stuck in a doll while Malina is a ghost or something)?

 

[BrawlMan]

Another girlfriend plays...

​

 

[CriticalGaming]

Elden Ring Randomizer Turns It Into A Whole New Game

One of Elden Ring’s most ambitious mods adds hundreds of hours of more content

kotaku.com

Let's the choas playthrough's begin!

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Elden Ring Randomizer Turns It Into A Whole New Game

One of Elden Ring’s most ambitious mods adds hundreds of hours of more content

kotaku.com

Let's the choas playthrough's begin!

OMG no thanks, vanilla’s more than long enough! That is assuming RNG wouldn’t work in anyone’s favor here.

 

[Dalisclock]

Malenia is dead. She was hard, even with every advantage I could stack(+10 weapons, high levels, rune arc, summons) but it did feel like a thrilling fight even with other people finally helping me take her down. And honestly, after finishing the battle I felt like I did hit a flow state there for a bit. Yeah, summons help a lot, especially pulling her aggro, but you still need to have skill to survive her ability to 2-3 shot you. That's of course, assumes she doesn't decide to use one or both of her "I win" moves, namely the fucking Waterfowl dance or the blg Rot Flower AOE attack. I guess that's the "git gud" but it does feel like the longer you play these games the more you tend to internalize an enemie's/bosses battle flow and the level design(like after a while you can generally intuit how to find a path forward or when you're about to enter a boss arena).

*Comes in*
"I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella and I have never known defeat*
Me: "Ms. Malenia, I have some news about your brother...."
*DIES 50 times, finally suceeds and kills her*
"O, dearest Miquella, my brother...
I'm sorry. I finally met my match..."
Me: "LIKE I WAS TRYING TO TELL YOU, I found your brother and killed his kidnapper. I came to tell you where to find him so you could go to him."


But scratch her off my list. Also, something weird I noticed is that when you reach the Roots of the Haligtree Grace, you can also find a nearby elevator which takes you back to nearly the beginning of the area. While this is a cool looping bit of level design, I'm not sure why it's there, because the grace just before Melina is right there near the bottom of the elevator, so if you've unlocked one you've very likely unlocked the other, which makes me think the Grace was added later once they realized how hard Malenia is and just decided to ease the runback(though they could have added a Stake of Marika there since most people probably were gonna just run straight back into the battle).

Anyway, all I have left is the final boss. I tried him once before I had to stop for the night and he promptly brought his holy hammer down upon my head. So yeah, good times. Well, also some exploring stuff I missed(I skipped all the hero tombs and some of parts of the legacy dungeons) but that'll be when I feel like it.

There's a teleporter in the capital which takes you to an isolated divine tower in the sea, and from it you can actually see Faram Azula. It looks like an unfinished animation, so I'm guessing someone ran out of time. But it does show that Faram Azula is a physical place that does correspond to its location on the map.

One of the things I find most interesting about Elden Ring's lore is that, even more explicitly than in Dark Souls, it's not just that the history is ambiguous and lots of events have faded into myth, but there has been a deliberate attempt to conceal and scrub the history of anything that doesn't fit the golden order's sanctioned history and mythology. My guess is that Faram Azula was deliberately hidden at some point.

Yeah, I went there and realized it's probably the only place in the game world that you can actually SEE Farum Azula without actually being there. And it's curious because even though you can clearly see the giants forge from Farum Azula, you can't see Farum Azula from the giants forge.

 

[Dalisclock]

It's done. I've killed the Boss and Beat the game. I used my save states from after the boss to see the 4 endings I've unlocked(Standard/Fracture, Duskborn, Perfect Order and Stars) and then Youtubed the two unambiguously bad endings. So yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that 5/6 endings are basically the same thing with a few changes in visuals and like 2 lines. Ranni's is the exceptions and the one you have to go through the most effort to get and I guess is the "canon" ending in that regard? I guess if we ever get ER2 we'll find out....maybe....maybe not.

The final boss(s) was a bit much. Radagon was pretty good but the Elden Beast kinda got on my nerves even if it is really pretty and ethereal and I guess a pretty good surreal take on fighting an abstract concept of either the Elden Ring itself or something akin to the moon presence. Or to rephrase this: I like the concept, I love the music and the LOOK of the fight but I don't actually like the fight itself because of how BS it feels a lot of the time. There's a lot to be said about the final Boss duo but I'll just leave it on this note and move on.

I did kind of break my controller by accident during one of the numerous attempts to win the game. The top of the left thumbstick basically came off and I had to do the last 10-15 attempts(I really lost count) with half a thumbstick but you know what, that controller was 5 years old and survived pretty much every FROM game prior to this excluding Bloodborne(PC port when, Sony?) as well as games like hollow knight. So lay your head to rest, good controller. You served well.

Overall I really did enjoy my time and I'm also happy to be done. I feel a bit exhausted after 73 hours spread over like 3 months and even then I skipped a lot of the piddly side content dungeons through liberal use of the wikis and conservative use of the chicken farm. I ended up taking down all the demi-gods, with Malenia being the last of the family to fall before going on to kill her dad/mom, who may have been already dead...I'm not really sure if they were alive or dead or what at the end. And I have no idea if I ended up making the world a better place in any of the not-obviously-awful endings because very little information is given. A little bit of animation/narration would be been appreciated, even with your mimalistic storytelling, FROM. The game did feel massively EPIC, even more then DS3 did, and it made me tolerate the bloat a lot more then I probably would have otherwise.

Also, on a lighter note, I've been playing on PC with, while not minimal specs, fairly close as far as the GPU is concerned and the game ran on high with good performance(I barely noticed any slowdown even in big boss fights, maybe a handful of brief moments in the entire game). And everything still looked great(not counting some of the low res distant landscapes from the top of some of the high points). So GREAT SUCESS!

I do have a bunch of stuff I want to ponder over and reiterate, mostly lore and worldbuilding related, but I'm gonna make that a separate post because I need to recheck my notes and so people who don't care can just skip over it. Also it's probably gonna be a LONG post or a series of them.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

It's done.

Congrats!

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's done. I've killed the Boss and Beat the game.

Congrats. So when you gonna play it agian? Will you play it again?

 

[Dalisclock]

Congrats. So when you gonna play it agian? Will you play it again?

Probably gonna give it a rest until the DLC drops. At that point I'll have had a chance to long for Souls again and I'm not looking forward to seeing the ending, so I'll be much more inclined to mess around and explore some of the places I didn't bother with this time.

I'll sure I'll do a NG+ at some point where I just run through the highlights and don't both with a bunch of the other stuff but right now I'm shifting my gaming to stuff that's not Souls. I just can't run through a Souls twice in a row because once I've run through the 50-70 hours of seeing most of what the game has a offer I'm always done and ready to give it a rest. Notably I started playing 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and it's a nice palate cleanser, though "It's just like one of my Japanese Animes"

 

[Terminal Blue]

Snip

About to make this infinitely worse.


Anyway, I accidentally got bad touched by the three fingers by being too curious about the door, so that happened. I honestly really like the way that's done. You're meeting a godlike entity that wants to erase individuality and return everything to a state of oneness. Did you really think it was going to give you a choice (well, apparently I did).

It honestly got me thinking about the setup of the whole game, and how it deals with free will. In the end, what you're doing in the game is always what the greater will wants you to do. You follow the grace and kill the demigods (and ultimately the god) because that's the only way to progress the game, but your character is doing it because the guidance of grace is telling them to. The fact that it's an open world game makes this more obvious because you have so many options available to you, but in the end you're always lead back to the same result.

The fact that meeting the three fingers and inheriting the flame of frenzy strips your character of agency makes it kind of obvious that your character never had agency to begin with. You're the pawn of an outer god doing its dirty work for it. You can use miquella's needle to free yourself from the flame of frenzy, but there is no needle that protects against the influence of the greater will (because if there was the game would end).

It's just a nice little bit of ludonarrative that I enjoyed despite being caught out by it.

Also, I love how the three fingers and the two fingers are just two parts of the same hand. It took me way too long to notice it.

 

[Silvanus]

It honestly got me thinking about the setup of the whole game, and how it deals with free will. In the end, what you're doing in the game is always what the greater will wants you to do. You follow the grace and kill the demigods (and ultimately the god) because that's the only way to progress the game, but your character is doing it because the guidance of grace is telling them to. The fact that it's an open world game makes this more obvious because you have so many options available to you, but in the end you're always lead back to the same result.

The fact that meeting the three fingers and inheriting the flame of frenzy strips your character of agency makes it kind of obvious that your character never had agency to begin with. You're the pawn of an outer god doing its dirty work for it. You can use miquella's needle to free yourself from the flame of frenzy, but there is no needle that protects against the influence of the greater will (because if there was the game would end).

It's just a nice little bit of ludonarrative that I enjoyed despite being caught out by it.

Hmmmm.... I'm not sure about that. Certainly you're walking the path the Greater Will wishes as you kill the demigods (+ Godrick & Rennala), as it wants to restore the Ring. But I doubt the Greater Will wished you to slay the Elden Beast, its avatar-of-sorts.

I imagine it wanted a new (pliant, with less... multiple personality disorder) Elden Lord.... much like the Moon Presence wants a new surrogate, but you can defy it by killing it.

And I severely doubt anyone would be happy if you pursued the Dung Eater ending. Greater Will, Formless Mother, & Frenzied Flame are probably all in agreement that that shit is just wrong.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Guess what my dumbass did? Saw a red phantom looking monster screaming in the sewers and my instinct was just to kill first ask questions later. Well turns out, of course I was supposed to talk to him, because he was the fucking Dungeater and he still has a quest line beyond that point. Was wondering why he didn’t leave any message or anything back at Round Table. Figured I was supposed to just kill him in the sewers because that’s kinda what he led me to believe earlier.

Bah. No I’m not reloading a USB save, even if it was from a few hours earlier.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Guess what my dumbass did? Saw a red phantom looking monster screaming in the sewers and my instinct was just to kill first ask questions later. Well turns out, of course I was supposed to talk to him, because he was the fucking Dungeater and he still has a quest line beyond that point. Was wondering why he didn’t leave any message or anything back at Round Table. Figured I was supposed to just kill him in the sewers because that’s kinda what he led me to believe earlier.

Bah. No I’m not reloading a USB save, even if it was from a few hours earlier.

i never found him so he isnt important for the platinum.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Hmmmm.... I'm not sure about that. Certainly you're walking the path the Greater Will wishes as you kill the demigods (+ Godrick & Rennala), as it wants to restore the Ring. But I doubt the Greater Will wished you to slay the Elden Beast, its avatar-of-sorts.

The Elden beast is described as a vassal of the greater will. It's also the thing that became the Elden Ring.

In the ending cutscene, apart from the lord of frenzy and the age of stars, we see the Elden Ring is still inside Marika, and it's implied your character takes it in order to become Elden Lord. In this sense, I would read it less that you killed the Elden beast and more that you subdued and absorbed it, becoming its next vessel.

As for how shitty some of the endings are, I don't think the Greater Will cares. It didn't care about all the people Marika killed, it only cared when she defied it by shattering the Elden Ring. I suspect that's why all the endings where you take the Elden Ring are basically identical. Nothing has fundamentally changed, you're just the new Marika. You can make the world nice or shitty depending on your choices, but you're still a servant of the Greater Will. The source of your power and the order of the world is still the Elden Ring.

Ranni's ending is different presumably because Ranni doesn't have a body, and thus can't become a vessel for the Elden Ring. The frenzied flame ending is different because Marika's body crumbles away completely, implying that the ring, and thus the concept of order, has actually been destroyed. These endings are different because the whole order of the world is fundamentally changed in some way.

Random aside, it's actually a really weird coincidence that I've been writing about the historical concepts of order and chaos lately, because the game uses the word chaos in the premodern sense. When Shabriri says "let chaos take the world", it doesn't mean "let everything be really confusing and random" or "let there be an absence of stable authority", it means "let the world return to the undifferentiated state before creation". This kind of stuff is actually pretty common with the souls series, and why it's really fun to discuss them with academics, because whoever writes and translates them are a bunch of nerds. It's why I never feel bad about reading too much into them.