If at First You Don't Succeed,Try Finger, But Hole

If at first you don’t succeed: Try finger, but hole

At first we heard faint whispers of your arrival from distant, soft lands that spread throughout our humble abodes like roots of a great tree. The prophecy of a great return was foretold by the seers, yet many years were to pass until eventually such mutterings faded to forgotten hearsay.

Alas, the silence was felled, and the whispers rose again, this time as echoes of an unmistakable forward-march, no longer a hope beyond the horizon, but a formidable fleet at our coastline. The announcement of Elden Ring rang loud and clear as a glorious battle cry now on our shores. They had come to rule over us, forever changing our ways, and we were here, waiting, to serve.

Oh Elden Ring, at last you have descended upon us from our most beloved of dreams, extending your grace to us mere mortal gamers, providing plentiful purity capable of absolving even the most heinous of sinful free-time.

The blossoming of a distant promise, a fledgling gamer desire, now a magnificent presence towering over the industry. B-rated games we once praised as AAA, now forced into your suspended shadow, our shackles cut clean and cast aside, no other game too important to pause whilst worshiping your will. Your elegance so cleansing, our hands, tarnished from the toiling in average entertainment, are unstained anew.

Blasphemous is he who doth contest the dominance of the Souls franchise, for its undeniable mark has placed a cursed, yet oh-so-blessed, seal on the hearts of all gamers alike. For under the rule of the Elden Lord, order has been established, Death stolen and kept at bay, and perfection attained at once.

That is, of course, if you believe all what the Elden Lords speak of — for if simple supremacy were the answer all along, why are we still somewhat hollow, our doubt eating away at our excitement, frustration souring our most elated expectations? Perhaps selfish human souls can never be satisfied…or maybe, the prophecy of the perfect game was too good to be true.

As many before me have bravely confessed, “I want to love you Elden Ring… I’ve tried so hard to follow your every command… but I fail to deliver the undying love you sorely deserve. Forgive me Marika, for my faith is not sufficient to wield the divine responsibility bestowed upon me by your grace…” or something along those lines.

Why is it that the closer we inch toward perfection, the more glaringly apparent imperfection becomes?

With all our wishes granted, all our dreams come true, the beautiful expanse unlocked before us, we’re suddenly confronted with the futility of our exploration. I know not if Elden Ring purposefully rocks our philosophical boat, but in providing an insurmountable abundance of content, does so irreversibly. Never before have I marveled at a game with such awe, yet questioned so thoroughly my investment.

Spending hours pioneering initially had its charm, but once I had sunk a good chunk of time into solely planning my build, scoured Liurnia from tip to toe, It became apparent to me I’d have to begin to trim down somewhere, somehow.

Herein lies the prerequisite attitude tweak while living in, traveling through, Elden Ring’s vast universe: When we go for a hike with friends, we do not do so with the intention of becoming completionist cartographers of the entire Earth, its oceans and its core, its galaxies and stars — we do it for fun, for relaxation, for happiness and health.

Despite the exponentially more accessible lore compared to previous Souls releases, twenty cryptic NPC conversations in, and I was over it…

Having lost faith in the plot’s capacity of understandably unraveling itself, I turned to the most ‘spoiler-rich’, ‘lore-explained’ video I could find. Watched it, rewatched it — watched a couple more videos, and I decided I was set.

Didn’t fully get it. But that’s ok. Creators of such videos claimed it took them weeks to piece together the knowledge and commit it to memory, and frankly, I ’ll take a pass on that process.

That said, I’ll defend the souls franchise till death just like the next fromsoft fan-boy, dismissively hailing such mysticism as academically stimulating, as mysteriously magical. But If the sincerest truth be told, late-game exhaustion beat me to the point of admitting a preference for less of a religious-studies like density, and a lot less of a walkthrough dependency.

For those of you wretches who run in blind, I salute ye purists. With all the love in my heart I assert that each person may spend their time however they please — but good luck getting through Melania without a hefty stack of respec forums; that or 200+ eye-watering, head-banging hours as ‘detective-tarnished’.

Relinquish thyself from the pursuit of perfection reserved for only the most tortured of tarnished who rest at nothing but true satisfaction. Instead enjoy Elden Ring’s gorgeous grandiosity by hopping on with a couple of friends: scout a route for a hike, take in the scenery, snag a souvenir, and go at a lil’ old PvP (provided the servers aren’t trolling you with the inability to summon, and the toxics are elsewhere doing other unspeakable things).

There is so much to love here — so much heart and soul poured into this masterpiece. Any regret or disappointment pales in comparison to the infinite reservoir of gratitude granted. As my brother Pangus_Bongus aptly said, “this is the Two Worlds we’ve always been waiting for.”

Thanks for reading! If you’d like similar content for your publication or blog please feel free to contact me at smasponswrites@gmail.com