#pretty sure this is you Bloodborne people too

[kakyoindilfhunter]

This really is the lot of you, isn't it?

(it's about to be me too once I finish ds3)

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hello Dapper. I don’t really expect too much about this, but do you have any ideas for Wargs? They have an interesting relationship with goblins and are weird in that they’re essentially sapient wolf monsters, but I don’t think they’re ever really used that creatively.

Monsters Reimagined: Wargs, wolf panics, and the Economics of Lupophobia

While the surface level answer is pretty simple (warg is a conversion of varger, an old Norse way to refer to mythological wolves like Fenrir) there's actually a surprising amount of material to drill into here on the topic of sapient wolf monsters, especially for someone like me who has a interest in moral panics and mass hysteria events. Wolves were effectively a boogyman for pre-industrial societies, a deep seated generational fear that we only recognize today through cultural relics like the big bad wolf or boy who cried wolf.

TLDR: If you want to do something interesting with wargs beyond just "wolves that talk" I'd advise playing to their folk / fairytale roots. They're creatures of embodied dread, drawn from the stuff of the feywild to sow fear among those who would travel off the path or too close to the wilderness. This lets you tell interesting stories about how the party/major characters respond to fear: Does fear of being attacked in the dark drive the party to make risky decisions that might endanger their quest? How do the villagers react when the wolves are very literally at the door, demanding just one of their neighbours as a meal in exchange for safety?

I'd also advise getting weirder with a warg's powers, playing into that fear of the unknown by doing unexpected things. The party can fight off a pack of wolves, sure, but what does it mean when the lead wolf rips off the bard's shadow and takes off into the night?

Background: If you want a window into the headspace of wolf-panic, think about the neigh omnipresent fear of sharks created by the Jaws franchise. Children who have never seen the movie, let alone seen a shark in person can become irrationally afraid of getting into deep water because they've absorbed the pervasive cultural phobia, which goes onto shape environmental policy as sharks are overhunted or killed out of spite for their perceived threat.

So it was for wolves, even after they were largely hunted to near extinction by medieval and postmedieval societies, the fear of them was so ingrained into cultural traditions that wolf and werewolf panics were a thing that went hand in hand with witchtrails. France had a country wide one as late as the 1760s and the movie based on it ended up inspiring Bloodborne. Alternatively look at the anti-wolf efforts during the colonization of the Americas, right up to the opposition to reintroducing wolves back to Yellowstone park.

On that note (and because we can't have a Monsters Reimagined without some kind of class analysis), lets talk about how these fears are propagated: On many levels it makes sense for everyday people to be afraid of wolves, they're a hunting species that can absolutely pose a danger to us, and when you're living or travelling outside the protection of a settlement you really are vulnerable to a coordinated pack of carnivores running you down.

However, the primary threat that wolves pose to humans isn't predation, it's property damage, specifically in how they kill livestock. While we can talk about individual farmsteads beset by beasts, in reality the herds that wolves were most likely to prey upon belonged to the landowning classes, powerful people who had a profit incentive in seeing wolves driven off or exterminated. This is where you get bounties on dead wolves, not just paying for the value of the hide but actively rewarding people for going out and killing as many wolves as possible to the point of it becoming a profession. This practice has existed for MILLENIA and is still active today, primarily in places where big agriculture influences governments.

It seems incidental at first but then you realize that it fits the model of just about every other kind of cultural panic: widespread ignorance and fear that just so happens to mobilize the populace in a way that financially benefits a select few. You can see the same thing happening today in england with badgers of all things, which have been identified with the local dairy industry as a threat to their herds. This is not only led them to petition the government to cull the badger population, but to put out anti-badger propaganda, eventually turning it into a culture war issure to the point where conservative mouthpieces like Jeremy Clarkson openly encourages killing and gassing badgers on sight.

Returning to the land of fantasy for now: I think it's worth taking the idea of the warg and mixing it with a few other "black dog" cultural archetypes, which can also include the creatures like the shuck or church grimm. In this instance the warg is a sort of curse made manifest, the fear of a haunted place given literal teeth. People who transgress into these forbidden spaces find themselves pursued by a manifestation that dogs them till they're exhausted and vulnerable, much like a wolf harrying its prey.

The bhargest is also of special interest here, considering how I like to relate goblins back to the feywild. You could easily see bhargests as agents of fey that feed on human fear, leading a pack of goblins or hobs that occupy the desolate lands they've called to haunt. My version of Maglubiyet would also delight in employing such creatures as his emissaries.

Going back to the vargr/ Norse mythology angle, it's interesting that most of the wolves that show up are destined to devour something, whether it be a god or celestial certanty like the moon and sun. It's like the concept of an inevitable chase is so fundimental to what a wolf IS that it became a theme of ragnarok's inevitable certantly. Consider having certan packs of wargs be offspring of some fenrir style god eater, beasts of forboding doom who's mere presence is an omen of ill times.

Alternatively, if you wanted to play on the big bad wolf angle, give wargs the ability to take on flimsy human disguises, all the better to get close to their pray and sow fear among the townsfolk. Historical wolf panics after all are not all that different than serial killer panics, and it'd be a fun twist on a traditional werewolf adventure to have the party on a creature that didn't play by the usual lycanthropic rules.

Artsource

[eliotbaum]

Them³. 

Some people expressed interest in the backstories & relationship between these characters so it’s under a cut. Beware, it’s full of Vallaki spoilers and. very long……. 

Lydia Petrovna/Fiona Wachter/my pc Father Dunant

Alright so, a not-so brief overview of each individual’s background and where their stories meet. Mind you, that is everything I currently know about the characters, and I'm pretty sure Lady W is still hiding something.

Lydia Petrovna has always been a frail, meek-hearted woman, but with a kind soul. For what she lacked, her best friend from ever since made up for it; Fiona Wachter was everything she ever wanted to be. Strong, assertive and with force of will. 

But Lydia also desired her in a different way, one that went beyond friendship and admiration. Fiona was not aware of those feelings and pursued Nikolai, while Lydia fell for Vargas, despite Fiona’s warnings and wishes for her not to do so. It fell on deaf ears, as Vargas seemed like a genuinely kind man. Suffice to say to those who played the game: the good qualities Lydia loved disappeared over time and he ended up emotionally abusing her, smothering her in a way where she completely lost who she was. Lydia was always desperate to help others despite her constitution and lack of powers or influence, so she thought putting on a bright face and encouraging the "all will be well" ideology would suffice. But she suffered greatly under it, too, coping with solitude and drug/alcohol abuse. Regardless, she kept holding onto hope, believing a better tomorrow will come one day. 

Vargas growing more paranoid of everyone ended up manipulating Lydia into believing Fiona and her husband were not to be trusted. And with Lydia’s facade steadily replacing what Fiona loved about her, ultimately drove the friendship to a breaking point after decades.

Fiona Wachter received a prophecy from an oracle (Madame Eva) while she was a young lady. The prophecy foretold of an outsider coming into Vallaki to bring great ruin, but his blood would also bring back sunlight to the town. She believed in this prophecy ever since, all the while pledging allegiance to Ravenloft as a family tradition, which earned her conflicting powers. On one hand, she could perform miracles and harm with radiance, on the other she received darker powers from her pledge. As such, she is also caught between two fronts — wishing for sunlight to shine upon the lands again while serving Ravenloft as is her family tradition. (This is something my PC challenges her with a lot)

This was all kept secret from her best friend as Fiona had always been a cautious woman. Fast forward to her strained relationship with Lydia that broke apart during Nikolai's early death. 2 years before the campaign starts, he died of an illness, and when Fiona turned to Lydia for comfort she didn't receive it. Lydia pretended like everything was fine still, and tried to deflect any mourning or sadness with Vargas’ messed up ideology. Suffice to say, Fiona felt betrayed, bereft, in more ways than one. And then, her daughter, who was to be betrothed to Viktor Vallakovich, Lydia's son, went mad after prolonged contact to Viktor. Fiona went scorched earth and planned an assassination on Vargas ever since.

In comes my lil guy! Father Kasper Dunant, a humanitarian priest always striving to be virtuous, to be of help, but who leaves calamity in his wake for whenever he tries to do good. Up to a point where experimentations with blood healings destroyed his hometown, (if this sounds like Bloodborne. big inspo haha) and he fled — only to get trapped in another ruinous and cursed place. In Vallaki, he helped with the St. Andral church and Father Lucian, Lydia's brother. Vargas also took a liking to him, which resulted to Kasper and Lydia growing closer. He was attracted to her gentle heart, her kindness he found beyond her facade. They became light in each other's darkness. 

Meanwhile, Fiona Wachter invited him & the party, intrigued by hearing of outsiders. She had hoped they could be part of her prophecy, and she intended to more or less rope them into her assassination plans. Now this being conflicting with many values and relationships our characters built, the party took a "safer" angle, in which we removed the biggest threat (general Strazni) from town and saved townspeople during riots following the assassination; Lydia being among those saved, who they hid away at the Martikov’s tavern. Lydia, who had fallen for Kasper early on, held onto him as she had lost almost everything (Vargas assassinated, Viktor teleported away) and they both found new hope, comfort and love in eath other. 

And in a way, Fiona also freed Lydia of the shackles of her abusive marriage.

Fiona would've taken charge of Vallaki had it not been for Kasper's suggestion to establish a council instead of a single ruler. Consisting of him, Fiona, Vasili (completely different character in our game and not secretly, yknow), a homebrew NPC and Ireena. Fiona and Kasper started to develop this dynamic of push and pull, feeling for how much they can trust and work each other with their opposing views in terms of politics and Ravenloft. But they had one moment where they forged a bond; Kasper, a blood cleric, summoned a mock sun through 'Daylight' for her (my flavor is that he spills blood for some spells). 

Voila, exactly what her prophecy foretold. She understood it wasn't real, but Kasper promised her to bring true sunlight back to Barovia. In a moment of fervor, Fiona suggested they could rule the town, the country together.

They are still very cautious but enjoy the tension and mystery they have about each other. Lydia, in the meantime, has been growing conflicting feelings about Fiona. While she was certain old feelings have been put to rest, the things Kasper tells her of Fiona seemingly awakened something again. There's a lot of guilt and hurt there, though, muddled with affection, and Lydia is sorting out her feelings still.

Meanwhile, Fiona still resents Lydia for her weakness. It was always clear how much Fiona cared for Lydia, repeatedly challenging her to put down this mask, to be herself again. And being hurt by seeing her friend lose herself so easily.  It's bitter, but Kasper has been meekly trying to calm the waves, to little avail so far. 

It is, A Mess to say the least, and Kasper together with Lydia have been growing concerns and worry for Fiona’s safety and ultimately, herself, since she changed so much, became so much darker since her husband’s death. But those two idealists hope there is still a chance to save her 🥺💦

tl;dr young outsider priest becomes entangled in noblewomen’s personal drama while both believe the gods and fate has sent him their way as he tries to mend a broken relationship 

[fantomette22]

A little something about the students dress

Alright so I was looking at references (to draw a character) and ended up doing a bit of research on academic dresses & graduations uniforms! I only find a couple of things so if someone have more infos I will be very interest!

So in Bloodborne we got those dear uniforms :

The one with the robes is very classic of what people in old classic university still wear for big events and graduations such as in the U.S.A or UK. A decades/century ago they did wore those uniforms of course way more often. Now we wear mostly casual clothes.

(This image always made me think of Byrgenwerth. With the balcony and all. That remind me of a post I made a while ago I have still no clue what those balcony were use for!!!)

At first, I discovered that between a bachelor/licence degree, master degree and phd/doctorate you aren't going to get the same clothes. Plus, colours can differ depending of : the level of the degree, the school or the field you graduate in (can differ depending the countries as well).

Bachelor outfits are the most simple ones with not a lot of colours for most of them. Sometimes they don't have hoods but depends. Sometimes they seems to have very large selves like the Byrgenwerth one. The master ones have a bit more colours and I read generally long sleeves but that depends? Then the phd/doctorate ones are generally very colourful! And like the last sources below v They even had even more beautiful outfit for very important members (so I guess Willem pope outfit still make sense XD)

As for the colors it really depends the country etc but I read red is often associated with medicine and surgery (what a coincidence!). White / purple or even red is for theology and blue could be for sciences (Byrgenwerth/willem researches seems to be quite a mixt with theology/sciences so make sense).

(@katyspersonal we did talk a while back on colours on clothes meaning but hey it had have academic significations that fit well too! So in the end, drawing Laurence with white & red clothes is even more accurate now! XD) Oh I wanna draw him in an entire red academic dress now...Future drawing idea ).

Also I forgot to mentions that there's the hat/trencher that's part of it as well. It's not part of the set in the game but ennemies have it.

Also little side note: some dress have stripes or ermine bands on the clothes that represents their grades and also "academic curiosity, academic honesty, and academic courage."

So i suppose the garb Micolash, Damian & co have would look more similar to a master degree one? I guess?

But I won't throw any rocks at Fromsoftware even if the ones we got might not be too much detailed/ accurate because they sure did their homeworks to find and design those clothes. They aren't historians and they probably found a lot more things than I here (plus Japan don't have those dresses too). They're not going to design like 5 different outfits in the game too XD. (Yes I want more details for my story bc making things way more complicated is way more accurate I guess...) We don't know how exactly those types of institutions fonctions in Bloodborne universe too. And it's a fantasy world after all. So it's free real estate

I dunno if you guys @pyro-madder @karnaca78 @secteel or others could know more about it 🤔

But for now it's all!

Sources :

PS : I found this piece of medieval scholar dress and it really look like the same as the guy in the cainhurst painting and cut content Beltran!

They are probably wearing a "simarre". Some magistrate/ university professor / religious clothes people would wear. So pretty oblivious and what we thought @heraldofcrow

[katyspersonal]

Okay Lore Queen

What are your thoughts on Melina being the GEQ? Is there real evidence for it or was this another overblown “Miquella is Griffith” theory trend?

Awww, am I Lore Queen? 🥺

Okay, to be honest.. not only I am sure there is no solid evidence in the game itself for this, but also I completely missed the spreading of this theory, apparently fdhhfdfds The first time I ever heard that it exists and is popular was a video from Zullie! I don't remember which, but the line that 'many people suggested she might be Gloam-Eyed Queen herself' surprised me! Until that point I did not even consider the connection, I just thought that she was given Destined Death long ago just in case if things go BAD, or something along those lines?

As for the reasoning, there are a few things:

Maliketh is said to have sealed Destined Death, Gloam-Eyed Queen's power, and the seal on her eye DOES look like a clawmark! Melina only mentions that she will "give Destined Death" in Frenzied Flame ending, when this eye is unsealed, helping the assumption that the power of Destined Death was what got sealed in her until this point!

Her sealed eye is also pretty 'gloam'! More than that: her Japanese name is 宵眼の女王, and 宵 more specifically means nightfall, early night, late evening, twilight or dusk. Fun fact: her eye is similar to literal color 'Dusk'!

( x ) Not only pre-patched version mentioned her as Dusk-Eyed Queen first, but it also makes sense to name Fia's ending as 'Age of Duskborn'! Granted, I am not sure people thought under this angle, but even then, gloam means dark and Melina's eye still qualified :p

There is also that besides Marika, only her children got to be chosen as Empyreans: Ranni, Malenia and Miquella! So whereas some people believed GEQ was chosen by the Two Fingers as Greater Will grew dissatisfied with Marika (oh those pre-SOTE times...), others believed GEQ was a daughter of Marika who rebelled! Melina being daughter of Marika but strikingly "underwhelming" for a Demigod for the lack of better term could also mean that she had her true power taken! The Godskin prayerbook is also oddly found in Stormveil, so if we assume it was one of the treasures Godrick stole from Leyendell, what exactly was it doing in Leyendell to begin with? :p

Finally, the DLC added this bit:

So now we know Melina, rather than being given some sort of fire powers by Marika, was more likely naturally possessing "vision of fire"! Maybe cursed, or maybe it was just her nature connecting with the burning of the Erdtree!

So... yeah, these clues feel more like 'material for interpretation and speculation' than as a solid evidence that there IS something here, right? I think GEQ also feeling "too important" played its role! Fromsoft does have a strange brand of mentioned characters, so for me it was simpler to skip this theory as Elden Ring was not my first game from them! But they like to drop that mentioned character who feels so significant that the audience just CAN'T believe they only exist in memories and description but never were encountered in the game! Off the top of my head, Bloodborne for example has 'Suspicious Beggar is Izzy', and sometimes EVEN 'Rom is Caryll'! Again, as someone used to them doing the thing, I'd not be surprised that we never would meet GEQ!

OKAY you wanted my THOUGHTS, not just analysis, right? I think this idea is cool! It has to deal with several assumptions, but... most Elden Ring theories do anyway... 🙄 It would also make Marika giving Melina her purpose so funny fdfdsdh Just going "Hey, you wanted to slay gods once? Well I have good news-" before the Shattering fdshfhfds Personally, I go back and forth about it, and recently I am stronger on the side of not believing that Melina is GEQ!

My impression from GEQ is that she was an equal of Marika, chosen at the same time as her and on the same terms as her! Ancient Elden Ring not only featured Crucible and Divine Spiral, but also Destined Death Rune! Needless to mention that Destined Death Rune is opposite of Marika's Rune by concept, color and design!

This makes me feel as though GEQ and Marika were some sort of balance for one another: Marika was day, light and life and GEQ was night, darkness and death! GEQ's fire is God-Slaying Flame, something to ensure that nothing and no one can live forever. GEQ being a daughter of Marika does not have a very "equal" vibe to it. However, Marika wanted to be 'eternal' and believed herself to be worthy of seizing that power! She would decide who dies 'a true death' and how, and it sure would NOT be her or her children!

So, Melina was born with a curse for the same reason why Messmer was born with a curse. Karmic retributions for destroying GEQ, Fell God and what happened to Belurat where Romina is from respectively! Marika tried to deceive the fate and make a better world, but unfortunately as far as Greater Will was concerned back then, it made the world capable of "self-correcting". On the other hand, Romina is survivor of Belurat and it backfired on Malenia, whereas wraiths that haunt Omens are horned spirits so maybe Mohg and Morgott were result of victims of the Crusade cursing everyone living under Marika's light. No matter how much she tries, she can't remove 'dangerous', 'destructive', 'evil' things from nature.

Melina's eye also could imply something else!

(Images by Zlofsky) Shadowbeasts (Maliketh and Blaidd) do have this eye color as well! Maliketh doesn't have eyes, however Beast Eye he gives us as Gurranq is most likely his own! So, ignoring 'dusk-eyed' thing, what if his second eye was used to replace Melina's real one, similarly to how Marika used her seal to replace Messmer's real eye?

Alternatively, since Shadowbeasts are not just vassals of Empyreans, but also assassins in the situation if Empyrean resists the will of the Two Fingers, the similar coloration might be because conceptually Melina and Shadowbeasts are similar! Melina is our friend, helping us to grow stronger, but at the same time she is the one to come assassinate us if we fuck up big time, right?

I also agree with the idea that this statue likely depicts GEQ herself! Not just because non-optional Godskin Apostles, Wormfaces and actually guarded Destined Death itself are in Farum Azula! But also because these three wolves appear to be conjoined, which makes me think of a youkai Kamaitachi!

There is a youkai, Kamaitachi - a flying weasel spinning in whirlwhind and associated with strong winds in general that delivers sharp cut wounds but there is no bleeding or pain! Already sounds a bit like how Destined Death hurts in my opinion, especially seeing how some attacks of Godskins are also whirlwind-like! Kamaitachi's claws are also sickle-like! This is literally a name: kama is sickle and itachi is weasel.

So, unusual Shadowbeast for her! I also like to think that she had Scadutree like Marika had Erdtree. Removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring, and removing Shadow Realm, that IS the death realm, from the world's map..

I also question whether this statue's aesthetic is more akin to Rauh than it is to.. well, anything else:

There is an option Divine Beast boss fight in Rauh who, inexplicably, uses Deathblight in Phase 2 instead of storm-blizzard-lightning but there is NO Deathroot or Godwyn eyes in sight, so who knows?

______________________

So yeah, the theory does hold some weight and I can see that it is something fans could eventually come to even without communication with each other! It is not really just a fandom invention that became too popular! I just skipped through it because of how I read Fromsoft's lore personally, and now I bounce back and forth! I had a middle ground idea sort of, that it was not possible to kill GEQ but she became a baby and Marika raised her in order to control! (feel weaker on this one after Melina was called Messmer's just sister, not adopted or anything like that)

[galactickohipot]

I finally finished the Elden Ring DLC yesterday, and it was really good! It really reminded me of the Bloodborne DLC in terms of scale and lore implications.

When I beat the last boss, the silence and the melancholy reminded me why I play those games. I read a few messages from other players, and left mine too. It was contemplative, sad and delightful... as always, thank you Fromsoft!

Messmer's fight, the build up, the small arc during the fight and the lore afterwards were really amazing! The discovery of the Shaman Village was a pure moment of wonder as well. It made me think about the other version of Firelink Shrine you find in DS3, and how i felt i had found something very significant to the story. This studio is so good at evoking those feelings and creating these situations.

I don't understand why people are disappointed, honestly. It recontextualizes a lot of the base game, the environnements are great and the dungeons are really well designed. The new weapons and spells are neat.

Sure, I guess it could always have been better... I'm not super fond of the boss design in Elden Ring still, I get bored so fast when I have to dodge attacks for 30sec before having a small attack window. It probably comes from the fact characters can get busted super easily with the open world format, so it's just a balancing issue. The last boss, yes... was a bit much, but it was never as frustrating as Sister Friede for me, at least. You can still use summons to make it easier anyways.

To be fair, I think I'm not really into open worlds that much, even with Fromsoft doing so well with this one.

I'm not always ultra positive when I beat Fromsoft games. It's always after a moment of reflection that the experiences I had with it takes root and I'm able to appreciate it for what it was. These are very contemplative games after all.

Concerning the lore:

Was the Grace the golden negative space between the gates of divinity all along???? I had this feeling when watching the trailer, but it seems the shapes do really match after all. I really like the symbolic hehe

I was also so scared Miquella would be revealed to be Evil All Along too. Of course, there was no need to be afraid, FS is usually pretty good at character writing and nuance.

Like Ranni, he used his family's skin to further his plan, in the end. Radahn, Godwyn and Mohg happened to be victims in their machinations. Miq really just thought consent was an option tho haha.

If anything, I think I like Radahn's character even more with this DLC!

[julijbee]

Id love to hear your review of the dlc and your alternate plot ideas if youre willing to share! The plot seemed. questionable

i am so glad you asked (evil smile). so i'm going to spoil the whole dlc, even irrelevant things that aren't "main story" plot that you'll probably want to experience on your own if you're still playing so proceed with caution. also this is entirely opinionated and you'll likely have a different opinion from me and that's fine. my opinions aren't objective fact they're just how i feel.

also if you are familiar with the plot of elden ring, particularly to do with miquella, as well as the plot of the dlc, you know what content to expect. if you are new to this content and have no idea- first of all what are you doing here? second of all i'll be discussing incest and sexual assault. peace and love, enjoy my 5,920 word review.

I played the dlc as a NG+, FAI/DEX build using vyke's spear, godskin peeler, and bloodhound's fang, and used my incantations for both buffs and attacks and switched them often. summoned mimic, always wore pot on my head, and favored light/med carry weight.

:D

GAMEPLAY (not story, just scroll if you only care about story)

so i'm going to start with reviewing the gameplay first because unlike the story section this is more positive, and while less people probably care about this, I DO!! i've been playing fromsoft's games for years and its because i enjoy them and think playing them is fun, that the stories they tell have resonated with me and i liked (most of... .. .) them has been a happy bonus. my honest opinions about the gameplay difficulty is that at this point in my souls playing hobby i think i've finally become one of those really annoying people who has no real idea of how hard the game actually is. with the exception of a few bosses, i thought the dlc was easier than expected, and i sometimes found myself wishing i found some of the earlier bosses more challenging, because those were objectively more fun fights than the later ones. i think the scadutree fragments are a really interesting way to both:

a: help players control the difficulty of the dlc, collecting more if they are stuck somewhere, or abstaining from use if they want more of a challenge

b: encourage exploration of their very vertically dense dlc map

it both maintains that idea thats vital to elden ring's formula, that the open map allows for you to explore and level up before attempting a boss again, but also ensures that you can find those levels you need without having to grind too hard in a smaller dlc area, and aren't kept from the main story for too long. i really enjoyed this, and honestly the side stories were the only things keeping me playing once i realized what the main story was doing, and all the life was slowly sapped from my body.

i am pretty sure at this point in time that i have completed most of the bosses- i think i am missing one of the four mausoleum bosses and i think i skipped one of the dragons on the way to bayle because i was sick of fighting so many dragons in a row, and i'm sure i've missed some mini bosses or areas, especially in the rauh area which i am guilty of sprinting through at a certain point.

with the exception of the final boss and bayle, i enjoyed the bosses in this dlc. the thing with the difficulty of these games is that in the past a lot of the difficulty spikes between games comes down to movement speed of player and bosses, and the effects this quicker and quicker timing has on the gameplay. they've also introduced some combat enhancements or tried out some ideas like weapons arts in ds3. (in non-souls games you have a lot more variations on the formula, with bloodborne's parry mechanics and less of a reliance on the character builds and armors, sekiro's systems being something that almost felt like you had to relearn how to play their games)

elden ring complicates this formula even further by introducing an expanded and much more practical system for weapon arts, a shit ton more weapons and armors, faith and int builds that are finally viable, and consistent boss summons with the spirit ashes. i'm both impressed that the game maintains the challenge of prior titles and even has some bosses that well outdo their difficulty, and also remains fun to play. the dlc maintained this FOR THE MOST PART, but with bayle and the final boss this kind of stumbled.

the problem i was shocked elden ring didn't already have was that when you're already going as fast as seems feasible, how do you augment the difficulty to give new challenges, and how do you make something fresh within this old formula. their bosses are difficult, but for the most part they're fun, and you can get to a point where you make that call of okay, this is hard but this is possible, or no this isn't possible right now, i need to change my strategy or level up or something else. the dlc was very fun to me because i was able to utilize the full arsenal of things id acquired over the course of my two prior playthroughs of the base game. if i had trouble with a boss, i realized at some point that i had plenty of viable builds i could apply to my character that better suited the boss. i switched between weapons, swapped out miracles, did some experimentation with the talismans and armor, and it felt a lot like fun trial and error to see which build would work, and very rewarding when it finally did!

bayle and the final boss felt kind of like they knew they were obligated to be crazy difficult, but they couldn't quite iron out how to do that without it being ridiculous. bayle less so than the final boss, but i feel like the warning for the final boss was there in bayle. he was whispering to me hey, hey, watch out. you know i cant be the worst, you know that final boss will be worse. also bayle gets a bit of a pass because he was a side story boss (i appreciated that the main story was a little bit easier than the side stories, because obviously you want your players to be able to get through the main stuff, with the side stuff being the extra. i personally liked that. anyways.) i did not have fun playing the final boss and it wasnt just the psychological damage (though that made me want to stop trying way more than the difficulty did tbf.) so far as gameplay is concerned i really enjoyed the dlc and i had a lot of fun exploring and fighting my way through it, there were some beautiful areas that made me excited to look at the concept art, and the weapons and new systems they added were a lot of fun when i tested them out. if it were just this gameplay i would be happy with the dlc and would probably still be playing it now.

THE STORY REVIEW. (hell.)

what makes me mad is that to some extent they gave me what i wanted. if you look back through my old posts or have the displeasure of knowing me in real life and heard me gushing about this, you already know some of my dlc wishes came true!

some of my dlc wishes:

i wanted new flowers to pick (small fish all things considered)

i wanted a boss with a large spear to skewer me in the air like a kebab

i wanted more frenzy content

i wanted some kind of resolution or at least some mention of godwyn's situation

i wanted miquella's gender to be unambiguously weird

i wanted miquella to be evil

i wanted more explanation for marika's whole "deal"

i wanted dumb melodramatic dlc npcs that are doomed to die horrible dlc deaths but one of them must be unspeakably snatched while doing so.

let sword freak (denoted by a line i heard from one of the dlc trailers) be a woman

please let the bewitching branch item description not imply what i think it implies about miquella and mohg

so. if you know the story you will already notice some red flags. i'll start with some positives

i really enjoyed my little dlc npcs, hornsent was the only thing carrying me through the middle-end section of the main story as i was buffeted on all sides with the terrible realization that they were going the exact direction that i begged and pleaded they would not go. i loved the heightened role the npcs played in the story, how frequently i was able to check in with them and have new little dialogues or tidbits, and i love that there are absolutely batshit unhinged women in this dlc and i am so happy there are more than one. in no particular order, things i really liked about the npcs:

hornsent is my sweet cheese he is my guy. i was really rooting for him and as someone who went into this dlc as an attached weepy miquella fan, i was on his side before the dlc killed my hopes and dreams and dashed them against the rocks. character who abandons all sense of self and personhood to become the embodiment of their hurt and rage? faceless formless gnarled twig of a character with desiccated bugs all over his face? character who i can feed soup to? character who somewhat hates me? character who made me laugh following the messmer fight by calling him "your ugliness"?? his death was inevitable and i accepted it, because i agree with him. miquella should not take his revenge from him, there will be no forced absolution nor "gentle kindness" imposed upon him. this was the evil miquella i wanted, the god so compassionate that no discord nor hate could exist under his rule, and all will be enveloped in kindness. it is horrifying to discard the self when the self is entirely made of hurt, and it is horrifying to be robbed of personal agency. anyways i love hornsent.

freyja is so gleefully ready to commit unspeakable acts of violence and so genuinely happy and excited about it that it makes me squeal. i love a character that is so excited to punch things that they cant keep it to themselves. they are happy and thrilled to be in the dimension of violence and strife. and she's so nice! usually you see these people falling into the edgelord stereotype which i am not particularly fond of unless they're especially pathetic and camp about it, but she was just a joy to interact with. when she told me not to worry if we were to fight on opposing sides, she would gleefully meet my blade and it would be an honor to do so, i wasnt even sad! yeah! it will be fun freyja, thank you. little bit soured to her towards the end there where she learned about the incest plot and had no other reaction to that other than to be excited radahn would be back, but to be fair to her why would she give a shit about this. sure, freyja. i'm happy for you, glad you're enjoying this dlc.

speaking of unhinged women, leda is despicable. i love her. the point that she sees nothing wrong with herself or her actions is integrated into even the most inane little dialogues, the one that stuck with me was her explanation of the war with the hornsent- she said they were the losing side of a war, and it was a terrible shame what happened to them, but they were no victims. (they had it coming. further than that, it was right that they were the ones to lose, winning holds significance in terms of showing divine favor and justice. its a terrible shame what "happened" to them (passive word), but they were not victims, the actions of marika and messmer's army were somehow vindicated in their actions). she's another look at what i had hoped for with my evil miquella point. i will expand on this when i start ranting about miquella so put a pin in this for now.

moore. another point into the miquella as a refuge category, or miquella as the water that washes away, and provides absolution. outside of that though i'm always somewhat on my guard with a character who has a speech impediment and seems to have some kind of cognitive disability, but he made me happy to talk to. i don't know if what i'm feeling is unsure about how he's written, or just wishing for more from him, but the exchanges you have with him where its clear his motivations are intensely people-pleasing, and that he is honestly very sad as a person made me sad :( hes a big guy, and dangerous in a fight (as i figured out pretty fast after he downed me with scarlet rot) so its difficult to minimize this outward appearance to keep oneself a: safe and b: friendly or pitiable enough to others that they offer the sort of protection necessary in numbers in the situation he finds himself in. i think he makes sense as a character, and i think hes very concerned with the opinions of others and his helpfulness to them and his perception. and while i think the kindness and generosity is learned and a necessity, i also think he's just genuinely a kind person, which is why he's relying on his strengths like this. anyways, sorry moore. :(

igon is way too much and i'm so glad he's real. i genuinely cracked up when i summoned him for the bayle fight and cackling at him got me killed. i wasn't expecting him to scream his little heart out and then keep going. and then keep going again. he won't stop it's spectacular. another thing of note is that he didn't get a single hit off that entire fight for me, drawing his bow took too long, and he spent most of that fight flat on his back with the damage counter going up. it just made his shouting even funnier, i wasn't even mad he was awful as a summon, he was so funny i was just glad he was there as a morale boost. also appreciate that dragon priestess seemed pretty done with him. i hope everyone else can appreciate his autistic charm with me.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MIQUELLA NOW.

so i want to set the context for my dlc experience properly so everyone can understand where i'm coming from, because miquella was already a delicate character to like, and how they're a radioactive trash fire that's trying to kill me.

(also dlc confirms he/them miquella alongside he/him base game and she/her trina so you'll note the pronouns shift around. it's a little complicated given the whole trina splicing and diverging of identities thing so it'll be inconsistent, but hopefully everyone can tell who i'm talking about as i'm talking about them.)

having a character who is unspeakably old, but also has the physical appearance of an 8 year old is a red flag so large that anyone could see it, and i knew this from the moment i started picking up their lore in earnest. IN THEORY this could be a very compelling character, it has been done a couple times before well, and countless times before very poorly. i was not optimistic, and already in the base game his character was not treated as well as i would have preferred, but i was coping.

having someone who is trapped by their own body, or confined by both the perceptions of- and the realities of their body can be a compelling character. having someone who's life is impacted by perceptions of, judgements upon, limitations thereof of their body tends to be a character that i gravitate towards because surprise, this can be relatable for a lot of people- and a lot of different types of people. whatever allegory you're applying to this narrative of the disconnect between the body's presence in the world and the world's treatment and expectation of the body, i'm sure you can tell there's a broad scope of applications there. and then you add on this element where they're present in the realm of dreams. the implications of a god who walks dreams, the realm of the subconscious free of expectation and limitation, and then also is trapped by both a cursed body and the weight of duty, faith, and expectation, i enjoy these dynamics, i really do. it only helped that their gender was weird, and he walked dreams as a girl.

and the thing is, i've wanted him to be evil, i wanted him to be evil so bad you have no idea. not just because (by base game assumptions...) evil had been done to them, and theevil was a reaction to this, no! there was always something wrong with them, he was always scheming, they didn't turn evil.

the haligtree and their actions in going against the golden order are calculated- do i think their aspirations are better than his mother's? maybe? i think it's more the order he instates has the possibility of being better as a side-effect of his actions and they would have gone forward with their own ambitions with or without this possibility of things being measurably better. taking in a class of people subjugated by the current order to build their armies feels a bit cynical and calculated, no?

the second huge red flag was the bewitching branch item description. at first i was a bit thrilled, there! i said, there is the canon justification for my somewhat unfounded hopes for evil miquella! the suggestion that he is able to meddle with emotions and perceptions is a pretty troubling trait to have! especially by a character who is spoken of with both love and to a smaller degree hatred and fear! and then i spent longer than a few seconds thinking about this and was immediately worried about the implications that had on the mohg issue.

THE MOHG ISSUE.

so first things first, the existence of the dlc does not mean that suddenly mohg isn't bad gay rep anymore. like let me be clear here, for two years we had a gay pedophile in our triple a title who kidnapped his little brother for pretty unambiguously sexually charged reasons, the fact that the dlc seems to tack on an addendum of "oh by the way its actually not his fault and he didn't choose to do that" doesn't suddenly erase those two years, and the initial judgements a new player or someone who is unfamiliar with the lore might make. like that's bad, guys, that's pretty bad. i was really disappointed at the time that they had included this character archetype- moreso because i was a fan of their previous games that had their little nuggets of queer representation, and i made the mistake of expecting better from the developers and writers.

i was also mad because they didn't have to write it this way, this was a choice they made to include this, and it's my preference to not enjoy it, but it wasn't necessary at all. if the plot necessitated that something go wrong with miquella's cocoon and initial schemes for god pupation, it didn't have to be that his half brother kidnapped him.

(my borderline au content writing no one asked for: an alternative that i was fond of at the time (B.D., before dlc) was that proximity to malenia's rot could have caused him issues. you still have the issue of something has gone wrong, miquella remains asleep and rots in his cocoon, but you also have this element of the potential guilt on malenia's end- that would be incredible guilt to know she was at fault for the failure of all they had been working towards, and the added grim irony that (as we figured at the time) in shedding his curse in order to help her shed hers, she unintentionally sabotaged him by staying so close to "guard" him. it also involves malenia more in the game story, which was something i had hoped for a bit more of from the base game anyways.)

my concern over the bewitching branch lore can be summed up by saying this. having someone the story paints as the victim suddenly revealed to have wanted it all along, and been the instigator behind the assumed assault is shitty. it's just shitty. and i'll admit i might be more sensitive to this topic than the average elden ring player, so this is all colored by my opinions and biases, but it's bad taste. it's not a fun surprising revelation, it's not a plot twist you feel particularly excited about, you feel bad, and then you feel confused. I like the lore of elden ring, i've spent a lot of time reading it and speculating on it, and it is confusing why miquella would be the one to instigate their own kidnapping and assault.

you would assume that their intended plan would be the plan A he was going with, stay in the cocoon, do his thing, remain in the haligtree so it is sustained and they are safe within it, let malenia handle the defense and conquest while he naps, wake up at some undetermined date with his goals achieved (whatever those mysterious goals may be) and continue on with later stages of their plans. and you would assume that being ripped from the haligtree and doused in blood in a basement somewhere was not within the bounds of his plan A. part of why i dared to hope that i was reading too much into the potential mind-control thing was because it didn't seem like mohg's actions were benefiting miquella's plan in any way- it seemed pretty bad. the haligtree was dying, malenia was rotting, their body looked to be in pretty awful shape, and even their allies did not know where he was.

BACK TO THE DLC.

the dlc did not really expand the context in a way that made this make sense to me. context that he was discarding his body entirely made sense for miquella's character, and if they didn't care about the state of their body, i guess he wouldn't care that his body was taken from where it was abandoned- but it didn't seem like that was their intention to abandon his flesh from the start? or if it was, that they placed his flesh within the haligtree for a reason, and i'd assume he'd have wanted it to stay there. if they were concerned that his flesh was no longer safe in the haligtree and wanted it spirited away by any means necessary (i.e. "kidnapping"), first off i'm unsure of the danger that would cause that, but second off if he didn't care about their flesh- see earlier point- why would they care if it was endangered within the haligtree enough to have it kidnapped? so, this already doesn't make sense to me, and the added justification of oh, he just has the hots for their brother, this isn't satisfying to me. sure i don't enjoy it as a story element in general, but past that it just doesn't feel like a satisfying justification in context. he's ambitious and he's seeing his ambitions through by any means possible, why would they act in this selfish manner that seems to be detrimental to their own ambitions?

issues with the sense of the mohg situation aside, why radahn? the justification given in item descriptions and dialogue states that miquella found him sure and kind and worthy of being a lord in contrast to the conflict, fragmentation, and personal afflictions they were facing, but. why radahn? i liked radahn, i'll gladly point out that yes, he does seem to satisfy all of these character traits, but there isn't any established context between them. miquella doesn't interact with radahn in the base game, malenia dooms him to walk the battlefield addled by scarlet rot and reduced to an empty husk, and if it was miquella's intent to have him be their consort from the start, this paints malenia in a pretty negative light, no? we were led to believe they were a united front, her and miquella, that many of his actions were for her benefit, and they worked so hard in part because of his desire to cure them BOTH of their afflictions, especially and explicitly her affliction. so she's sabotaged miquella's plans? for what reason, did she not agree with it, did she hate radahn? there's no explanation given for this, like how there is no further explanation as to why it is radahn miquella is so hell bent on bringing back to life.

which is odd when you consider that there is another demigod who meets miquella's criteria, was definitely loved by miquella, seemed to be loved by malenia, seems to be depicted in the haligtree, and miquella was previously confirmed to have been trying to bring back to life. where the hell is godwyn?

let me clarify here, i do not like this plotline they have created where miquella apparently has the hots for every other brother in his family, i don't tend to appreciate incest as it occurs in stories, and if it were my choice i would just choose not to include it. i also understand that plenty of people don't care about that, and that media like game of thrones that features incest pretty prominently within the story is beloved by mainstream audiences. i am also aware of the historical trend of royalty being inbred and incest existing on a sliding scale of taboo through the millennia. the greek gods are all siblings, i still enjoy greek myths, etc. etc.. so if i were the sole writer for elden ring and was beholden to no one the story i would write would diverge from the current canon and i would not write myself into a position where miquella is marrying their brother because personally i do not enjoy this. this is not the reality we live in, and this is not the story we got.

within the framework of their story, it should have been godwyn, and i have no idea why it wasn't. i can speculate all i want, was it misplaced fanservice because people liked radahn? was it a plot twist executed poorly, is there some other reason im missing but someone else has pieced together and they'll call me an idiot over? i don't know, and i also sort of don't care, it doesn't make sense, and it also disregards a lot about radahn's character than i and others liked to get him to fit into this weird situation.

where is his horse? if miquella cared for him, and they were able to bring back a whole demigod, was it so impossible to resurrect his beloved horse? if miquella didn't care about him enough to bring back his horse, wouldn't radahn put up a fuss about that? if miquella was controlling him to agree to being his consort, and didn't allow for him to be concerned about his horse, this raises a few more questions about malenia fighting radahn and destroying all of caelid- and likely everywhere else if the fires at the borders of caelid ever go out. was he always controlling radahn, were they ever controlling radahn? what are the limits of this control, what are the rules, if any? there are too many frustrating elements that make very little sense about radahn.

conversely, these elements make a lot more sense when applied to godwyn, and it pisses me off that it seems like, to my speculative eyes, they pivoted away from him. it would make sense why they would need a body to resurrect him when he is just a deceased soul, and his body is busy being a tumor. you could argue radahn's body was not in great shape and was eaten by alexander, and that's a completely fair point, but to me godwyn makes much more sense. not to mention, again, miquella had been explicitly trying to bring godwyn back in the base game.

(and this is a smaller gripe, but radahn's previous boss model had no feet. in his lore they discuss him riding his horse, and then learning the gravity magic to lessen the load on his horse so he could keep riding it. like yes the missing feet could be chalked up to rot, but he also just could have not had feet and was using his beloved mobility horse and the gravity magic to get around the challenge of not being able to walk. i thought that was cool if true, and it was a little speculative thing about his character i really loved, and that just kind of got thrown out with the dlc too so i guess i'll have to die mad.)

was it really necessary to have the assumed sa victim with the body of a child secretly be the instigator and assaulter all along? and then to add insult to injury not even have their actions make any sense within the existing plot? like was that all entirely necessary.

OTHER DLC LORE OPINIONS

you might be surprised to learn that i did not hate most of the other dlc lore.

miquella using mohg's body as fuel to resurrect their consort, while fucked up, i think could work with character motivations. especially if he was holding a grudge towards mohg, or mohg's actions were in fact antithetical to their plans, or he wasn't the one in control of mohg's actions. it could make sense that he would want to humiliate him (as ansbach mentions a few times...). and as i've said before i think miquella is fucked up, i think they do bad things, i think their moral compass is skewed, i think he's a creature of ambition and spite. i could see a world in which he does this out of hatred and spite, but in the situation they've set up where miquella was the one potentially compelling mohg? it lessens that spite, why would they be so hateful or willing to humiliate him if they were the one to compel his actions? you could just say oh, miquella is cruel and messed up like that and he's doing it for the hell of it, but it's not that compelling and doesn't make it as interesting. it just kind of feels gross. so yeah, in the current story i'm not a huge fan, but i see the potential here.

marika's character development was genuinely cool to me- and i understand i'm speculating and i've been speculating this whole time, but that's my business and and i acknowledge it's speculative. marika as a hornsent is a really cool concept to me, and it makes pieces of the main game make more sense. it makes her motivations make more sense, adds color to her character (and she was already interesting to me) and even though this dlc is like a lot of their other dlcs where it adds characters and backstory for no reason and does the ds3 thing of surprise! more secret children! i enjoyed it. it gives her more of a why past judgements of her personal moral character, it grounds her more, i like it. i also enjoyed the tidbits with the pots and sages, further (if not vague) developments with the outer gods. like this is speculative lore than i enjoy, and it's the kind of stuff i was excited for in the dlc.

as i said before elden ring kind of did the ds3 thing where they just added a secret child that was suddenly plot relevant and added a bunch of unnecessary lore, but i didn't really care too much in ds3 and i don't care here. messmer's voice actor is funny and messmer himself is compelling enough that i'm fine with not taking things too seriously. it helps that without messmer there is not hornsent, and a dlc without hornsent is a dlc i wouldn't have finished. (genuinely, i was so discouraged by the main story plot revelations i didn't feel like it was worth it to finish the dlc, but i felt bad leaving hornsent unresolved so i killed messmer. and then just finished the dlc anyways, so thanks hornsent.)

truly and genuinely i was happy with st. trina. i was so excited she was included in this, i've been a st. trina truther for too long and i don't even know what that means because there were like two sentences about her in the whole game, but she's great. i could take or leave thiollier, on the one hand having a creep as a character is fine and hes written in a way that feels believably creepy while also like hes enough of a 3 dimensional character that he has his own personality and motivations, but him included with miquella being elected the president of incest for no reason was a bit of a sour note.

the idea that miquella is discarding his body, and every piece he discards is a piece that they may hate, but they also have to discard those pieces that he doesn't hate, and their power, and all that he is, that's a real sacrifice and i think it speaks to the depth their character COULD HAVE HAD. that and their very clear conflict with their own gender, and conflict with himself over his actions. they discarded the girl sleeping within them and locked her in a pit in the ground so that none would find her. and he discarded with her their love, and the "treacherous" parts of himself that doubted, and disagreed, and with this he was able to become more resolute on their path. trina disagrees entirely with miquella's path to godhood and begs you to kill him, pities him, says their path is destroying him, and those are all doubts he has discarded with her. it is genuinely sad to me that this is not the side of miquella that we get to enjoy as a character because of all of the rest of the mess that's thrown on top in the dlc.

and of course i'm mad because he's acting like marika, they're shaving off pieces of themself and sacrificing for ambition, and they're becoming her while he's intent on being the opposite of everything she stood for, and we were so close to having this. we were so close.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

so far as gameplay goes, i enjoyed this dlc and it did a good job of replicating that feeling of playing elden ring and exploring again in its condensed and familiar setting. i like a lot of their new mechanics and ideas they introduced, though some of the later bosses fumbled it for me balancing the difficulty with actually enjoyable boss fights that feel fun to play.

the main story pissed me off so bad i almost put down the dlc, and erased all excitement i had to play it (even keeping in mind the reservations i already had going in). the side stories were frustratingly fun and compelling when compared to the main story being such a trash fire. i wish things were different but they are not, and i am very disappointed.

if you actually read all of this bless you, i hope you have a beautiful day.

[medi-melancholy]

i only know very vague things about the ER dlc from skimming tvtropes and glancing at twitter and looking up some music and cutscenes, but here's my takeaways so far, mostly about Best Worst Boy

miquella in the running for one of the best soulsborne characters ever oh my GOD i love his whole everything. what a fun fascinating fucked up lil guy. what a good year for beautiful awful well-intentioned extremists and their plans for utopia. it's impossible to say whether he's a Good person or Bad person but you can't deny he does both good and bad. at the very least his intentions and goals come from a good place but his methods and values are uhhhhhhhhh something else. i love it!

i'm seeing people very upset that the version of miq they had in their heads is ruined forever so they're gonna ignore canon and like. sorry i guess! but the foundations for what he's really like were always there, and the new revelations about his actions are interesting and also in line

miq and malenia's relationship isn't any less valuable and malenia isn't any less badass ok? ok. calm down lol

enjoyers of pure and helpless miq who makes for a pretty victim or damsel in distress can still keep that image, because, hey, playing that role was also within his plans, it seems! He Has The Range!

also it's not a bad thing that we see a physically older/more mature version of miq! that's a win-win tbfh! and has some fascinating implications to me, from an outside perspective without all the info--did he find a way to break his curse, even if only temporarily?? is it tied to him nearly entirely reaching godhood?? i think it's neat and he looks gorgeous! it's not like everybody's gotta throw all their fanart away now, again, calm down

mohg isn't instantly some innocent victim in all this nowwwwww aaaaaaaaaaa he was still a really fucked up dude, and idk if we even know exactly how deep miq's charms over him went, maybe miq took advantage of some feelings or urges that were already there, maybe mohg's preexisting traits and personality made him do even more things than what miq himself was expecting, idk! there's room for interpretation and regardless he's still a fascinating monster of a guy, and i love having ansbach for perspective

this fucking family tree keeps getting BIGGER because so many fuckers got wiped from history because no one fucking gets along. it's so funny to me

i sure as shit wasn't expecting radahn to come back or be relevant in any way but yknow i do kinda dig it! he's a great and iconic character. yet i am seeing lots of complaints about that too lmao,, ER at its core was always based around and focused on That Big Goddamn Family so having things circle back around to figures already involved in things makes sense imo

but also GODWYN IS DEAD GODWYN IS VERY VERY DEAD GODWYN IS BEYOND DEAD i was hoping for some more info about him at the very least and maybe there's some i haven't heard about myself yet but holy shit ok he wasn't gonna have a physical appearance or be a boss or anything, but i'm seeing a ton of people disappointed that isn't exactly what happened

so what if things are messy and complicated and fucked up and squicky all over, welcome to soulsborne, like, idk what to tell you, i'm still so baffled by people who are shocked and appalled by dark or unusual content in elden ring and don't wanna talk about it or acknowledge it. where did yall come from???? did you play des or ds or bloodborne or even sekiro?? ? ?? ?????

i also saw some people complaining about the tragic/hopeless/depressing/upsetting quest or story parts and i'm so ???????????? seriously does no one realize what they're playing, why does this feel like an ER exclusive problem for from games?

music is great as ever i don't care what anyone says

messmer is cool as hell and super interesting and i can't wait to read up on him even more. i loooove his voice and just, how he looks and moves. he has a ton of personality and presence about him

leda what is wrong with you. i love you so much girl

happy pride month! 🥳

also i saw this phrase uttered along the way and i'm kind of obsessed with it lmao

[val-of-the-north]

With the new trailer showcasing that Mesmmer is indeed THE VILLAIN of the dlc, will he be worse than Mohg?

I think it'll all be a matter of perspective on who is worse than the other, really, ahah.

So far, Messmer does seem to display the traits of an oppressive tyrant who despises all who are different or "inferior" in his eyes and wishes to purge them in his flame for the simple crime of existing. That is... really bad. But I probably don't need to tell you that.

Mohg, on the other hand, rose from the oppressed and vowed to start a dynasty centered around love... but built on the blood of innocents. His is a weird murder cult full of like-minded individuals lost to cessblood, but it's nowhere near as methodical as what Messmer is perpetrating. However, his most defining crime is more personal and, sadly, immediately felt by a lot of the audience. Kidnapping Miquella and all the lore behind it makes people uncomfortable, and understandably so, even if comparing it to the active genocide of an entire culture might make it seem small.

We don't know yet what the future holds for Messmer. He might have done even more awful things that we are yet to discover (likely), and I think he will ultimately come out as being worse than Mohg, but only through more pragmatic lenses. The thing Mohg did is just... less abstract to more people, even though we are living in times where what Messmer does is pretty much relevant. But I can't really fault people for finding the Lord of Blood worse.

- However, I want to throw my hat into the ring and say I don't actually think he is going to be the main villain. I feel like they are marketing him a bit too much for that to be the case. He is going to be a key antagonist, for sure, but I think there is something else they are hiding from us.

We know that the old man in the painting is going to be a boss, and we know next to nothing about him or the woman beside him. There's also the whole Miquella quest + Marika's skeletons in the closet, which I am sure will take us beyond Messmer and into some deeper frontiers. He is either going to be like Maria from Bloodborne or like Godrick/Artorias and actually come earlier into the story than we expected him to lmao.

I guess with the open-world design especially, everything is possible. We might be able to reach him almost immediately if we are not exploring at all. But yeah, for now I am keeping an open mind about all of this...

[wardingshout]

your ALTTP drawings are so cool <3333 and your artstyle looks awesome!

What are 3 things that inspire you to draw?

thank you so much I'm so excited to hear people like them !!! ;v; I have sooo many things I want to draw that are super challenging for me right but I hope I can get to do all of them at some point !!!!

I feel like it's almost hard to narrow smth down to 3 things bc So many things inspire me to draw ! (my struggle is more so in motivation and energy department I guess)

I ended up typing a lot bc I got excited but I think these 3 are my biggest ones !

1) Nostalgia! especially when felt from environments around me or in little random moments! I always end up with a bunch of random photos of like environments or buildings or the clouds on my phone bc I felt a certain way in a certain moment and while my memory is pretty bad, snapping that photo usually helps me revisit that moment even if it may have been on some random day! and while not rly related to feeling there's also always smth fun to see around like the shape of a tree or the way shadows fall or colours ! maybe it's more about general vibes than nostalgia hmm...

I definitely don't draw environments as often as I'd like to and even when I do I haven't posted much but even so it's smth that fills me with a want to draw! to try and also bring out that kind of nostalgia or warmth !

I want to do more edgy dramatic stuff too but trying to make warm feelings has too strong a grip on me haha

2) Video games a lot a lot !! and other media too!! I absolutely love creating fanworks, I'm just a nerd and I want to share and show my love for stuff !!

video games are especially fun bc I already get to spend my time in x world and depending on what game it is that either means being bombarded with interesting visuals, fun little moments to recreate or for visually "simpler" games you get to imagine it in a 3d space all on your own and I love that ! like right now of course I'm losing my mind over alttp but in the past, games like Yume Nikki (and fangames), older pokemon games and Star Stealing Prince have had this exact effect on me too !

for a little add on I wanna say I used to worry a lot about accuracy and it could make fanworks pretty intimidating but one of my friends (shoutout to Cai) said smth earlier this year that I cannot for the life of me remember right now But it completely changed my mindset to instead be like. it's more important to make up my own interpretation of stuff rather than make sure everyone agrees it's accurate right? I can't even remember it right now but it completely changed the way I played games since like Bloodborne and Zeldas bc rather than worry about getting things instantly Right in my brain I would discover little lore pieces at my own time and instead try to put stuff together in my own way and idk games have been infinitely more fun since And it's inspiration machine to me !!

3) and most of all other people's art !!!! I could spend days browsing the internet just looking at all the amazing things people make and it's so contagious to me ! even if I couldn't ever create the kinds of things I enjoy seeing myself I can't help but feel so inspired and motivated to create something too no matter how it ends up!

creating an inspiration folder for myself that's full of just Anything like environments and character art and photos and colour schemes has been on of the best things I've done for myself! I rarely look at other stuff When I draw (for worse imo, like I rly need to get better at referencing) but if I ever feel stuck I can look through that and almost instantly find smth that kicks me in gear ! sometimes I see art and it's amazing and impressive and sometimes I see it and just think "man that looks like it was so Fun I want to have fun too!" and both work perfectly for me! :D

anyway uuuuh take pictures of nice things and save cool stuff there's always smth to be inspired by in little things! here's a little collection of random photos of my own from the past year that make me happy and also go !!!!!! (not a lot of city stuff tho bc usually ppl are on those )

I ended up going through my camera roll and it was so hard to pick stuff bc everything made me go !!! ocean and buildings are the big themes tho only one shows here haha

[getranched]

coulddddd we have a rundown of the habitants of the ranch?

Well I'm not sure about every single being who makes this (cosmic nightmare) house a home

But I'm sure we can give you a good rundown!(also PSA this account does deal with unreality so if that kind of thing messes with you be careful)

First up is the Ranch itself! A mimic in its final stage of life! They normally become dungeons or haunted houses but this lovely guy had the (mis)fortune to become a familiar with Moon in around the 1700's I'm pretty sure. And as a fully adult mimic it spawns thousands of baby mimics which end up replacing our furniture and the like.

EREN INTERJECTION i’m eren, OR RIJU, a shapeshifter. i just live here idk. i have a friend who’s a burmese python but he doenst live here. uhmm yeah idk i just eat the food in the fridge and sometimes i’ll throw bits of my fresh kills in there too. idk uhmm yeah im friends w everyone here except for like. FD maybe?? but he doesnt live here i dont think….

tbh i dont really keep up with who comes in and who doesnt HAHA im usually in my room playing with bones or reading when im here at the ranch

Twi interjection! I'm Twilight (or just Marth) i'm just kind of here, and if i'm not, i'm tending to my acnh island Tabantha. (Also this account is being shared between 15 or less people, some are more active than others and their individual accounts are being followed by this one)

Is it really an interjection if everybody’s doing it when nobody else is typing? Who knows! I’m Vivian, local semi-moth humanoid and god/dess of the Lost and the Traveling on occasion. Unlike most local chumps deities, I am a multiversal being, which means I am THE deus ex machina in any given situation, and like to Borrow from other universes. cough cough: ner beskar’gam. Also, I have a sapient AI living in “my” spaceship (which is legally his, don’t tell xem), just for funsies

This is Sky now. I'm not really supposed to be in this galaxy, I crash landed in the front yard on one of my spaceships. I tried apologizing to the landlord but we ended up throwing hands, not my fault. Eventually I stayed at the Ranch tho. Hobbies: leading prison breaks, motorcycle rides, eating lightbulbs for the sake of trolling, antagonizing gods, blasting my friends into space. Ended up adopting a demon cat guy. (Vivian note: this is not the catboy incubus. This is a different demon cat guy) (Sky note: Yeah, my boy is the cat butler, the other catboy is a pain in my ass) (Vivian again: and a pleasure in mine)

This is Luna! I am the goddess of horses and all things related. I spend most of my time as a horse (sometimes a centaur) AND I AM NOT A CHUMP VIVI! anyway I used to run an empire ages ago before it was destroyed, and I got sealed away. I have Twi to thank for breaking my seal! Nowadays I'm restarting my cult (its horse girls mostly rn) and fixing horse races. If you ever see a horse say hello it might be me.

Heyo! I'm saria, local milf. I have deer antlers because some grass god decided it'd be cool to mix the local humans with deer. (to be fair, he was right.) I'm mostly human, though. I stream bloodborne because that game reminds me of my found family and my village. I'm still piecing together what happened to my people, but for now I bake, garden, and play my silly little video game. catch me having tea with a succubus and a doll on tuesdays and shopping with a horse on thursdays.

Hi! I'm Wild! I was Moons first kid after my dog and I accidently ended up in this world, escaped jail, and hid in her man eating garden. Most of the time, I sail the seas of my home world and have the best adventures with the greatest pirate crew u could ever imagine. But, I do come visit home from time to time, too, thanks to my crystal that lets me travel through time and space. Somebody's gotta bedazzle FD's tools and give Moon a headache, ya kno?

Yormp here! I’m not totally sure who I am, I’m working on it. Moon says I’m a creature of my own choice, but I’m not too sure about that. Before I was an omen of war, and my friends called themselves pestilence, conquest, and death. Then I died, some time passed, I don’t remember it all, got cursed to be an otter for a bit, and met Moon. Now? I’m just going to college. Learning a little. If I really do get to choose, I think I’ll choose not to be War reborn this time.

Oh… and uhh. Goose.

Hmmm? OH it's my turn! Hey hey hey! I am (the) Sun Sun Sun and when you're with me everything is fun fun fun!. I'm Moon's counter part. We share a body, we share a mind, we are the same person, but not quite! Much like Moon I am also a clown, but instead of resembling a porcelain doll I have the body of a goat (sorta)! You can think of me as Moon's opposite! We may not agree on much, but we do hold our family very dear to us! I'm also referred to as a father and much like Moon, I don't mind what I'm called! Speaking of Moon, she wants her turn to speak now!

Hello, dearest traveler,

It seems you have found our home. I'm (the) Moon. I am the one that eats many gods in this world. But do not worry, it is strictly business. As of this moment, I have taken the form of a porcelain clown. This body was provided to me by a dear friend. I am also referred to as the father of many Ranch residents. Though I am called a father, and might be referred to as Mr. Vilon, I do not care much for what I am referred to as. Most use she/her.

[Psst. Moon. Don't forget to tell them some house rules!]

Ah yes... While you are here traveler, be sure keep some things in mind:

- Mind your teeth and your belongings, else they might be stolen

- Remember to keep your feet off the grass. The plants get hungry after a certain time.

- Not everything is what it seems. I'm sure you will become familiar with our mimics both big and small.

- Do not assume a door, hallway, or stairwell will take you to the same place twice.

- The void will always listen to your troubles.

- Do not pet the cats. Some are... not the kind that you want the attention of. Or maybe they are. That's up to you.

- And most importantly, remember, that sometimes, it is better to stay lost than to be found.

Enjoy your visit,

The Vilons

[pleas3pretendimnothere]

Still dealing with chronic illness issues, but that's okay! I was able to read what I was!

The Sword of Summer & The Hammer of Thor

By Rick Riordan - I read the first two books in Riordan's Magnus Chase trilogy, and as usual, I have little to say that hasn't already been said! Riordan continues building his mysterious universe of delightfully fun and silly young adult characters navigating their lives as the children of gods. I'm a huge fan of Norse mythology, and this series dives right into that stuff...

The first two Magnus Chase books are just like the rest of Riordan's works. Each follows a new adventure amongst unlikely friends who suddenly encounter some sort of doomsday timeline--something terrible is about to happen, and this time our team only has three/four/five days to stop it! It's a familiar script, but if you're familiar with Riordan, you know not to take the books too seriously. You go in to meet colorful characters and learn obscure facts about godly mythology. They're guilty pleasure novels, but somehow, Riordan is always able to attain stakes. Characters gain and lose, kill and die. That, I believe, is what make his worlds most endearing.

My biggest shock of this series? The representation. A homeless hero. A deaf best friend. A Muslim partner. And a genderfluid love interest. My jaw was consistently on the floor, and I was once again absolutely thrilled with Riordan's commitment to inclusion. Thanks to cheery, playful dialogue, it never comes off as forced, and I will never not recommend Riordan's work to people of all ages. RENT IT!

Love, Theoretically

By Ali Hazelwood - All right, I have to be honest. I'm in a book club with a friend, and we love bad books. We previously read Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis and had a great laugh. Published Reylo fanfic? Unbelievable. We had to know what happened. That book was so strange and...upsetting (a sex scene where the MC is uncomfortable the whole time? Wow, that's sooo hot...). So my friend insisted we read another book from Hazelwood...

I admit, I am not the target audience for books like these, but I really hated this one. Hypothesis was fun because of the Reylo of it all. But Theoretically? Bland, slow, and incredibly unrelatable (to me, at least). Incredible average. I don't enjoy fanfic, nor do I enjoy relatable-girl rom-com reads. This book was made to be disliked by someone like me. The constant mentions of Twilight. The persistent, quirky thoughts of cheese. A seemingly perfect love interest with exclusively perfect friends. A quirky family that's...actually also pretty perfect. And an absolutely, objectively perfect ending. Come ON. I was ASLEEP.

At least reading all the different ways Hazelwood could skirt around using the word "vagina" kept me laughing. If you like plain, inoffensive, modern-day romance, sure. Read it. Whatever. But I prefer more turmoil in my love stories, stuff that goes beyond "It's so hard to just be myself...". SKIP IT!

Factotum

By D.M. Cornish - Okay, now this is the stuff I love! Can't sing enough praises for Cornish's series, and this finale does not disappoint. Like the two books preceding it, Factotum struggles with pacing at times, but otherwise, it's another fascinating thrill in a horrifying world. I may have teared up a bit at the end.

I'm a sucker for huge fantasy. I love gothic settings, and I love a heartfelt parent-child relationship story. I would die for this series' main character, and so would all of his caretakers. He must be protected, and in this finale, our poor MC is being actively hunted. As the reader, you just want this young boy to be safe, to follow his dreams and go about his life, but never has he been more in danger. It was scary and violent, and I had so much fun--even when our little boy was being mind-tortured.

Great, high-stakes action. Beautiful prose. Mesmerizing world with monsters and kings and gods. Delightful artwork, and loveable characters. Bloodborne for kids, and now one of my new favorite book series in the gothic/fantasy genre. I'm just desperate for more. By all means, do not overlook this little series from the 2000s. BUY IT!

[halfbakedspuds]

Thanks to @honeybewrites for the tag

WIP Questionnaire tag

Rules: answer the following questions about a WIP!

I may as well do this for the Tempest Prince

What's the first part of your WIP that you created?

Probably the idea of the bloodmoon being responsible for beast activity ramping up. (not an actual bloodmoon, they just call it that because it looks like a second moon made out of churning blood that only the hunters can see)

If your story were a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

'kickstart my heart' by Mötley Crüe would work really well for this, but I think for the darker parts later on 'House of the rising sun' as covered by Ghost of Johnny Cash would work better with some lyric changes

What are your favourite characters that you've made? Why?

I have two:

Lifvinja Ravenscar was really interesting to write because of the whole psychology of someone who spent the first fifteen years of her life believing with good reason that she likely wouldn't live to see her twenties only to accidentally make herself immortal. The psychology of someone who feels isolated both because she'll outlive everyone and because her clockwork body makes her the outsider in any setting. Also her feelings towards her 'late' wife (I mean it's been a thousand years) and how it's shaped her life.

Eileen Snowsong only shows up much later, but I enjoyed writing her mostly because I relate with her more than any of the other characters (which says a lot given how much I relate with most of them). I can't say why I relate with her without spoilers, but part of the reason is her specific inner tug of war between what she feels is expected of her and who she really is.

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

Bloodborne definitely.

Probably Percy Jackson too but I'm not so sure about that one.

What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

Writing a series of this length is daunting.

Like, I have all 21 books roughly planned out (with the Jason, Alex, and Helga's story being five books long) but it's daunting trying to write it simply because it's such a massive undertaking, and trying to talk myself out of that fear has been my biggest constant struggle.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

There are these things called Beasts, which are sort of like the universe's immune response to humanity. Whenever a creature is touched by the void (Usually during a bloodmoon) they mutate and disfigure into a beast, and it's around that point that they become the problem of the hunters. Humans are somewhat immune to this process, however that's how Demihumans are created and that's a story for another day.

It tends to be more concentrated around heavy population densities, so cities are the most commonly hit, and it got so bad in the area from Central to Southern Asia that the hunter vanguards in the area broke off to deal with it themselves because the hunter cities just did not have the manpower to give them adequate support

How do your characters travel/get around?

Most hunters use witchpowder lanterns to partially detach from reality and relocate to a different part of the world in a matter of seconds.

However, Jason and Alex have some upgrades from regular hunters.

Jason figured out pretty early on that he can literally ride the lightning and travel that way (which is a few minutes faster than lantern travel as long as he's not hopping from Antarctica to Northern Canada, Scandinavia or Russia.

Alex has portals, although he has passed out several times in the past from the exertion of keeping them open, so he doesn't like doing it.

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I have so much done in the first book, but two years on the introduction still refuses to click for me, so I guess trying to get it to work

What are your hopes for your WIP?

Mostly just that people enjoy it and that I don't fuck it up too badly.

Open tag for anyone who wants to hop on

[katyspersonal]

12, 13, and 17 for Peace on Planet Bloodborne 🐦‍⬛

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I am not sure whether Gratia finally transcended the status of unpopular character after over half a year or not, not from what I've seen? 🤔 But she is a GIANT WOMAN that uses a literal chunk of iron to fight, like, the hugest fucking dumbass woman but one that could punch a wall into a dust fdhdhfd She deserves her place amongst the 'fleshed out' Old Hunters with others! The second known female Old Hunter, too, and with enough references available for fanart at that!

(From this ( x ) page, by AstralLace)

She is also found in the prison for people who learned too much about the Healing Church's secrets, or at least were a threat for it, and the fact that Simon has her fist equipped ( x ) is so cool?? She possibly was one of the people that were able to see through the charade and intended to make it fall apart, and considering Gehrman and Maria knew about everything, it creates even more interesting potential for the story and link with other characters!

For bonus points, in the game, bright red hair is linked to Cainhurst! Sure, could be just a design decision, but with writing the stories everything can go! (Gratia for queen lol)

13) best blorboficiation

Correct me if this is not as frequient as I've gotten the impression of, but I think making Edgar THE grumpy nerd actually was beneficial for the fandom dhfhsdf It is mostly the impression that can be gotten from how his face looks, but the shitposts potential is infinite! Like, yeah, I kinda detalise his character, but the fact that on simpler level he is one of the core driving comedy tropes appeals to me- because of course it does XD

17) there should be more of this type of fic/art

🤔 I think it would be really good to see more of Cainhurst aesthetic art (primarily clothes-related one) than only Knight sets! They look fantastic, but Cainhurst offers an even bigger variety of sets, like Cainhurst Guardian, both variants of the noble dress (burgundy like Arianna's and grey like Forsaken Castle Ghosts), the armours of the guys in the throne room (also frequently found all over Chalice Dungeons), and also every other gremlin from the portraits that never appeared IN game! King of Cainhurst especially has two whole unused models to work with.

Like, all Bloodborne aesthetics are pretty great, but these gothic vampire noble aesthetic ass people are under-explored! I don't believe Bloodborne attracted people with just werewolves/hunters aesthetic dsfhfdh

[crystalelemental]

Alright, tried out the Trial Tower in Nobeta. I made it about five minutes in before going no thank you and ditching that mode entirely. I have zero interest in that whatsoever. So I guess final thoughts tonight! I'll be picking up a different game tomorrow, not sure which one yet.

Okay so my first post about the game already mentioned the Dark Souls comparisons to be made, given that the "souls-like" feel is what was apparently being aimed for. But you know, I think that's the wrong comparison, having finished the game. The real comparison is Bloodborne.

Through the hidden lore you get from item drops, what you learn of the world is that humans were, at one point, piddly weak losers that the other races bullied, until humans had a breakthrough and promptly genocided everyone else. While timeline is shaky, my interpretation is that this was possible almost exclusively through the use of these soul dolls, that are basically powered by the souls of the dead and damned. You know, the usual "kill the prisoners and inject their souls into this kill bot, what could go wrong?" A lot of this happens through the Church, who has outrageous political influence to the point of being able to decimate an otherwise well-respected kingdom with effectively no consequence. It's implied they're also the cause of a plague that people thought turned you into beasts, and are pretty pissed that witches are incidentally immune due to the incense used in their rituals negating the virus/drug. Nobeta in particular was a powerful witch they sealed away to, I assume, prevent interference.

All of that is...a lot more Bloodborne aligned in style than Dark Souls, if you ask me. Just slap in some alien shit and it's got all the toppings.

The specific variety Nobeta brings is that its protagonist talks, and there's a more clear driven story going on, at least as far as character events go. The pivot is that Nobeta as we see her at the outset is not Nobeta. The cat leading you is...well, we don't really know their name or exactly what their deal is, but they're trying to bring back the true Nobeta by bringing her body back to the throne that has her soul sealed up. The current host, Nonota, was crafted to run her body and fight for the church I think? Exact purpose wasn't completely clear, but somewhere along the way things didn't feel right and she sought answers, running into this need for the throne, and developing a sense of self despite being an unconscious amalgamation of soul residue. Your conclusion is that Nobeta revives Nonota in the body of the cat left behind, attaching the bow that the first boss asked Nonota to preserve, and that she effectively tried to grant continued existence to all the other soul dolls that gained consciousness through herself. It's an alright twist.

Now, I do understand there is set to be some story in the Trial Tower mode. Specifically, once you clear it, there's a scene. I do not know that scene, maybe it adds a lot of context. But personally, I feel like this game overall is trying to emulate the FromSoft storytelling style, but it doesn't quite land.

I think a big part of it is that there's a weird mix of "not enough background information" and "too many direct answers." Nobeta's ending and events have clear-cut answers, whereas a lot of things in Souls games have answers that are murky. Approximate understanding, but there are gaps you have to intuit. It doesn't have a hook for a deep dive in that way. But at the same time, the background information regarding the Church and what's going on with demihumans is...pretty lacking? Like okay, all the other races are dead now, so...why do we care that they existed? There's not really a situation where it feels like any talk of beasts and the experiments intermingle. Souls are just souls, there's no deeper meaning to them, in the way Bloodborne had blood ministration causing the beast transformations if you dig enough. The Church is just a shit organization, that did some sketchy stuff, and there's...not much else to dig into about the specifics. There's not really speculation to make about orcs or elves or anyone else either, because there's no enemy with consciousness whose dominant soul is clearly among those races to shed light on what was going on or hint at the causes of strife. It just comes away feeling less dynamic.

As for the gameplay aspect, this is where things diverge. This does not play like a Souls game. It plays like a shooter. Magic is core to everything you do; melee only matters under one restrictive condition. Your arcane attack is standard damage. Ice works like a gatling gun, with low damage but rapid fire attacks. Fire is several bursts of good damage at close range, so I think that's usually shotgun, but it also charges to function like a rocket launcher with an explosive attack, but you can attack with it and it's your melee that quadruples your damage. Then there's Thunder, which is your sniper rifle that deals obscene damage and tracks from here to Timbucktu. I'll be honest. Once I got Thunder, I did not turn off Thunder unless puzzles required other spells. Arcane can pierce shields, so that's really handy at times. Fire buffing physical is how you have to break a lot of the stones that create barriers. Ice when charged makes a shield that negates fire floors, which doesn't come up too often. But Thunder is just always good damage and range, and when charged puts you in the JoJo's Frozen Time for a bit and it's all super busted.

Upgrades are found in chests, and it's...not too hard to find most, but I definitely didn't find all of them. This isn't too big a problem, I don't think, except where Wind is concerned. I feel like missing Wind tomes is a recipe for being unable to progress. There's one (1) optional area that I found before I was supposed to, because I remembered an unbreakable stone that the Fire tutorial explained the solution to, so I doubled back, but it turns out there was an easier way there later on. It got me early access to Thunder though, so good trade.

Leveling is interesting, but also kinda bland. See, this is another souls-like thing, in that you spend your points on upgrading statistics you choose, but unlike the Souls games, there's no equipment, and thus no restrictions, so the stats you allocate to don't really matter as much? I put most into offenses, since Strength also influences mana recovery, but HP and MP were pretty easily managed through recovery so they weren't huge needs. Endurance also only came up one time during an attempt at what I thought was a jump puzzle, but was actually the boundary edge of the zone and almost got me killed, but I had enough to continuous air dodge back to safety. All this to say...the game's balance is really just looking for whether you leveled all your stats fairly evenly or not. Getting to level 25-30 in every stat is gonna be fine. Which does impact replayability. It's a short game, you know? When there's not much variety, how engaging is a second playthrough?

"That's what the Tower is for." Fuck the tower. Okay look, I have a vendetta against games that implement levels as a feature, then slap in a mode that says "you can't level up for this." What the fuck's the point then? It's even worse when you can tell the allocation of whatever levels you did get are shit garbage.

The tower itself is just a boss rush. Defeat eight bosses in sequence, Mega Man endgame style. The problem is they're massive HP sponges, you can't level up, you only get points to spend on stuff from very specific skills like casting in melee range or hitting the absurdly specific Absorption parry timing, and those points are used to upgrade or access spells since you only start with Lv 1 Arcane, Wind, and Absorption. These points also need to go to healing for HP and MP, because your regen rate is absolute garbage. This is the first any only time all game I truly ran out of MP and had no recourse. When the points are already that hard to farm, and spells are a dire need to deal anything close to reasonable damage, I have no investment in this mode. I could eventually do it, but there's no saving, and I am no longer in a privileged position of being able to just play a game for 5-7 hours straight for vanity's sake. I will not be participating in this one.

All in all, it's a fairly cute game that I would recommend, if it weren't for its rarity and price tag. This game is fucking $50 on the Switch e-shop. That is like $30 too many for such a short experience, with the kind of challenge mode it has thrown in. I can't even say it's anything visually impressive. It sort of hits a disqualification on price tag alone, which is kinda sad, but I hear it's like half as much on Steam, so those playing on PC are free to get it. It's worth it for $25. But not for $50.

[less-than-three-3]

Lies of P might be the best souls game I've played

this is only half a joke tbh

There's so much talk about how yeah it might be one of the best soulslikes out there but it still can't reach the quality of the Fromsoft games and I'm just like... no, Neowiz has really got the baton and delivered a really great evolution of the linear Souls "genre".

There are definitely some rough spots (but so do the Souls games) but what they've presented and improved on is truly magnificent. It's not Bloodborne x Sekiro (PLEASE STOP SAYING THIS OML), but it is very much its own thing and does what it sets out to do very well, in a lot of aspects. Full ramblings below, some spoilers likely.

I want to preface everything I am going to say by reiterating that, though this delivers a lot of Souls elements excellently (and some not), this is very much its own game, and not only stands on its own two feet but runs a mile with them. I feel like a lot of folks play Soulslike games (even by Fromsoft themselves lol) and expect all their skills and knowledge to transfer over, or expect mechanics to work and present themselves just like in Souls games, and it's because those are the golden standard for many people. I get it, but it's still kind of meaningless - not because "the games can't compete/compare with them" but because they do different things and excel at providing different experiences; they may be "souls-like" in nature but there are so many different directions one could take with the genre.

And so I was elated to really get to know the mechanics of Lies of P (I'll refer to it as LoP). I won't lie, when I played the demo, I didn't really get it yet, so I definitely felt a little frustrated, but once you get the hang of it, the controls are so satisfying the whole way through (like the Souls games! wow!). I think maybe a lot of people forget that this learning curve is a huge part of what makes the Souls games tick, because they've put in so many hours into "getting good", and so when they have to go back up the curve, they feel frustrated again.

The main thing is, obviously, the parry system, which is pretty much the mechanic LoP really uses to separate itself from the From catalogue. Is it like Sekiro? Yeah sure yes both games use perfect parries to build stagger, but I contend that it is even still very distinct from Sekiro's parry system. In Sekiro, the game is the parry system, it's more or less how you actually kill most bosses, with Vitality only acting as a way to make progress to help you build up stagger.

In LoP, there's two big things that make it very different. The first is obvious as soon as you fight that first big dude with the parry tooltip - attack patterns are not nearly as rhythmic and fast paced as in Sekiro, mostly. Long windups and big tells make some aspects of getting used to parrying easy, but at the same time the timings can be very tricky and can demand a lot of attention. This alone really contributes to a very different game feel, even though they are both, nominally "perfect parry" systems.

Another thing is that the parry timing window is quite tight. Some would say it's too tight, but I honestly think a lot would be lost if the parrying were too easy. In Sekiro, the parry window is actually quite wide, but locks you out and heavily punishes you for fishing for parries, forcing you to be methodical and patient even if fights get hectic. In LoP, it's quite the opposite - there's a lot of time between attacks often, and it forces decision making and risk/reward between attempting to parry, blocking (and taking the rally-able damage), dodging, or hitting them (and maybe having time to parry or dodge still).

The delicate balance between these options is very important; if parrying were always the right option, then yeah it would just be Sekiro - that's not interesting. But perfect parrying is not the only way to build stagger which makes all options at least somewhat useful, and you can even build your p-organ (lol) and whetstone to help you build stagger with just attacks, more like Elden Ring's charged R2 stagger fishing. Sometimes if you aren't comfortable with a parry timing, then the right play is to dodge or block. Insisting there is only one right answer for approaching any given boss is inherently antithetical to this game's design - and I'd argue to Souls games in general.

And this brings me to another common complaint - the dodge isn't that good, and upgrade should not have been locked behind p-organ. I also really disagree with this, in part because I didn't actually really think the p-organ upgrades were that game changing. But it is also in part that if the dodge is too strong, like a DS3 roll, then again that balance is thrown out of wack and dodging becomes the right answer too often. This is still a "parry game", and if dodge becomes preferable to parrying, that's an issue. Parrying shouldn't be the only answer, but it also shouldn't be much weaker than other options. Additionally, having an especially weaker dodge at the beginning forces those stubborn Souls players to stop mashing the dodge button and force them to actually learn and engage with the parry mechanics - nudging you to learn without blatantly telling you to.

I did really enjoy the p-organ as a way to express and expand a player's build choices, though I felt like some nodes and slots were just completely useless, and the choice for which 2 nodes to go for was too obvious. If it were, for example, +1 heal, improved dodge, increased stagger damage, and damage mitigation, or something, that's a very compelling choice to do. But I don't use the cube and I don't think the stagger window is too short, etc., so I felt like some slots were just not that interesting. Phase 4 is a great example of a very compelling node choice, and I wished all of them were like that.

Though speaking of build choices, holy fucking shit this game's build options are SO COOL! I absolutely loved the modular weapon system, and I respecced a good few times to play with various different weapon combinations. The boss weapons were a little disappointing to me but that's ok because goddamn the weapon customization system carried the hell out of the game. I do wish the slash vs. stab proficiency wasn't as prominent but even with that, I was able to make so many silly weapons. Big sawblade baton/cleaver (which carried a lot of my playthrough), rocket wrench, crit dagger spear, etc.

Being able to use a blade I liked, keeping its upgrades, with a new handle that has a new moveset is just such an incredible idea that I can't believe From never thought of something like it. Each part also has their own weapon arts, and while they were a little homogenous at times, this kind of system has huge potential, especially if you can make it Ash of War-like and become a third layer of modularity. For a build diversity fanatic this was a goldmine, and I can see myself replaying it to get the other endings with a bunch of other weapon combinations and builds. For me, this was easily the best part of the game.

Something else I really liked that I think maybe would go under the wayside in discussions is how they present the story and quests. Souls fans might not like it if it feels too "handholdy" but I really appreciated the game telling me "yeah this NPC has shit to say to you right now". And the story itself was honestly pretty impressive, with some Souls-like "world discovery" moments but also mainly straightforwardly presenting moments and arcs, however intertwined. I did not expect what outwardly just looks like an edgy Pinocchio adaptation to have so much interesting lore, history, and plot moments. Probably one of the biggest surprise hits of the game for me.

But for as much as they really took the Souls formula and ran with it and elevated it, there are definitely some things I wished were improved on. The map design, both visually and in layout, was pretty disappointing. It's aesthetically good for sure, but nowhere near what From delivers. And in terms of layout, the maps are really quite linear, sure with twists and turns but hardly any exploration or branches to check out - map design elements I have come to know and love from playing the Soulsborne games.

Boss design I also felt was just a bit too inspired from Souls. Don't get me wrong, I think the boss quality is actually quite high and fits very well generally with the game's mechanics. But there are some bosses where I'm just like, ok I get why you wanted to include this because Souls has a habit of doing these, but you really didn't have to. There are a couple of bosses with extra appendages that swing after attacks (one especially takes after Gael, which I know people love, but..), and that's just really annoying to try to parry and I feel like I either end up bsing the parry, or I just eat the block chip damage. There are couple gank bosses... woo... I guess... But I did really enjoy most of the bosses (though nothing is breaking my top 10, probably). Just, I could really tell that this sure is a love letter to the Souls games from the boss design lol.

The music is actually quite good - boss themes and especially the records you collect are beautiful. But I am once again pretty disappointed by most of the game just being silent, which is a carry over from the Souls trilogy that I really wish did not carry over. Especially because there are segments that do have music that I really loved - notably the final area and the church with the organ music playing that fades out as you get further away from the main chapel. I dunno, it's not really worse than in the Souls games, but it just stings that much more that there is some really great music that they kind of just confine to the record player, which shows to me that they can make great ambient music but just didn't want to make any for the actual areas.

But despite that, overall, I truly loved playing this game. I think I honestly enjoyed it more than the Souls trilogy for sure, and maybe even more than Bloodborne (Sekiro and Elden Ring are still solidly near-perfect experiences and hard to beat). It plays nothing like Bloodborne, and is very distinct from Sekiro and the Souls games; it very boldly and excellently carves its own space within the genre. And with that post-credits scene (for which the big reveal was fucking hilarious), I surely cannot wait for what they make next, either a sequel or DLC, and the improvements they'll bring, as they expand this fairy-tale-verse (lol).