During the current, albeit happily soon-to-be-ending Zelda drought, we’ve spent considerable time playing Elden Ring. We’ve dispatched Godrick the Grafted, Rennala, Radahn, Morgott the Omen King, Rykard, a host of smaller albeit still “great” enemies, and even now we have Godfrey, First Elden Lord, in our sights.
True, it’s been no speed-run, nor even a speed-walk. Our eyes now skitter past the time-played meter, as we fear we may be approaching the world record for Elden Ring hours by someone who’s yet to beat the game. (Itzal would like to point out that Demelza’s rune-farming accounts for most of those hours.) (Demelza counters that without her rune-farming, we would still be trying to vanquish Margit the Fell Omen.)
Ahem. Suffice it to say we’ve had plenty of time to consider Elden Ring and how it compares to our usual fare, Legend of Zelda. With a scant two months until the release of Tears of the Kingdom, we present our musings over what we like and don’t like in the Lands Between, and what we’d enjoy seeing transferred to Hyrule.
Thumbs up on weapons
First and foremost, we applaud the durability of weapons in Elden Ring. Not only do they not break, they can be improved. (Unfortunately, gathering the upgrade materials generally gets us killed a time or two.) Here’s hoping that TOTK’s weaponry, even if not upgradeable, is more sturdy than that of BOTW.
Moreover, there’s considerable variety in Elden Ring‘s arsenal. Indeed, we are partial to the game’s offerings of staffs and magic spells, the better to attack at a distance, rather than getting up close and personal with things we’d rather not. In contrast, we miss certain useful Hyrulean tools, such as the Hookclaws or the Cryonis skill. We most especially bemoan the lack of a Paraglider in the Lands Between. No, instead we go SPLAT when we misjudge the depth of a drop to a ledge below in Elden, or we miss the ledge entirely and plummet still further and get the message YOU DIED.
(Speaking of YOU DIED, we are hard-pressed to decide if we prefer that emphatic, unsympathetic announcement to Zelda‘s kinder, gentler GAME OVER.)
Names and places
We wish names were not so very similar in Elden Ring, with certain entities having more than one alias. Consider Margit, Morgott, and Mohg, the latter including both Omen and Lord of Blood varieties… and don’t get us going on Renna, Rennala, Ranni, and Lenne. (And no, Ganon and Ganondorf does not begin to compare.)
On the other hand, we are delighted by the voices and dialogue in Elden Ring. Well played, FromSoftware!
We miss having safe spaces in the Lands Between. In Elden Ring, Roundtable Hold is as safe as it gets, and even there we’ve been attacked by invaders. Please, Nintendo, let us retain our Kakarikos and our Lurelin Villages, or their reasonable facsimiles, in Tears of the Kingdom! (Nor would a friendly neighborhood canteen be unwelcome.)
Given the above, we delight – Itzal in particular – in finding Sites of Grace in Elden Ring. In BOTW, there are shrine warp points, true, but not nearly as many as we wished we had; in addition, there is something heady about careening through a dangerous Elden area – cue the redundancy complaint – with foes hot at our heels, and suddenly spotting the lifesaving, golden wisps of an undiscovered grace.
Our kingdom for a bank
In BOTW, we collected rupees and sold mushrooms and whatnots to build our wallet. And yet, other than those greedy Great Fairies in BOTW and the occasional armor purchase, money was not much of an issue for Link. In Elden Ring, in contrast, we constantly covet more runes to upgrade our characters, and have we mentioned THERE IS NO BANK. You die, you lose your runes, unless you’re brave enough to go back for them. At least in Breath of the Wild, GAME OVER didn’t mean MONEY GONE, bwah haha.
No pause for Zelders
That brings us to one Elden characteristic we hope is never adopted by Nintendo: the inability to pause the game at will. [1] And before Elden enthusiasts rise up in outrage, yes, we recognize that the game is designed to be demanding! Or, if you must, we recognize we are wimps! But still. Sometimes you want a quick huddle with your sofa sidekick to share strategy (or panic) before a coming battle. Sometimes you want a break to get a snack or a cocktail. In Elden Ring, there is no pause; there is only die or not die.
Where there’s help, there’s hope
If we had our druthers in Zelda, we’d have Elden Ring‘s ability to summon NPC allies to our side. If not for the Sorcerer Rogier, Stormveil Castle might yet be un-stormed (by us). Imagine if we had a Mimic Tear, a carbon copy of Link, to help us bring down a Lynel! (Itzal opines that it would take a herd of Links to make a Lynel fair game, but, it must be admitted, he is prone to hyberbole.)
We haven’t had many play dates together during our Zelda drought. We started Elden Ring together, but geographic distance and work commitments meant less time for joint forays. Recently, however, we’ve attempted co-op multiplayer.
Demelza’s Astrologer, with which we first started, is far advanced from Itzal’s late-entry Warrior, but we’re still able to adventure together as long as Demelza doesn’t mind having her health and magic and endurance bars cut in half when she enters Itzal’s world. And she doesn’t, although it is true that occasionally she forgets she’s been nerfed and forges forward as if she still had Vigor and Endurance to spare. Indeed, at the ripe old age of, um, ripe, Demelza has even taken to sending her signal out into the world, where she has had a modicum of success helping other Tarnished.
(We will not speak of the time she was in the middle of changing out her equipment and armor after a foray into the Lake of Rot and was summoned to help defeat Mohg, Lord of Blood. Nonetheless, she answered the call to duty wearing mushroom armor and with little else but a staff, bravado, and bravura. Thankfully, Mohg’s Shackle was the one useful item she had equipped, so she and the host prevailed. Nonetheless, she now knows to turn off her summons when she’s dressing. And as an aside, why is fungi deemed helpful against rot?)
In our perfect world, we’d be able to play co-op in Tears of the Kingdom. And Zelda would be a playable character. (Perhaps there’s still some hope for the latter, Nintendo?)
And oh, those vistas
Elden Ring is challenging and addicting and frustrating and gorgeous – and more violent than we’re accustomed to in Zelda play. But dare we say it? After so many hours in the Lands Between, we are better gameplayers, in no small part owing to Elden’s unforgiving nature.
We don’t profess to be excellent, mind you; never will we traipse around Caelid wearing only our skivvies and a pot lid. But still. Perhaps we’ve improved just enough that when we delve into TOTK, we’ll spurn Amiibos and online guides.
You Died – with a cocktail in hand
In keeping with our blog’s theme, we can’t leave this post without commenting about cocktails.
When we play Elden Ring, we do enjoy the occasional adult beverage, but we don’t try to pair our libations with the day’s play, as we do with Zelda titles. Had we so attempted, we would quickly have exhausted the selection of drinks that include Corpse Revivers or similarly death-inspired options. We’re looking forward to having a greater variety of selections to pair to gameplay in Tears of the Kingdom!
[1] One alleged workaround, accessing the menu explanation screen, is not at all the same as a true pause.