I always wondered why Stormveil Castle just feels like it was developed by a different team compared to the rest of the game. It’s the only region in the game with so much density and complexity that 1000 hours in I was still finding new areas and loot.

It feels like as you progress through subsequent regions there’s a noticeable drop in density and complexity, gradually from Raya Lucaria and as you get past Leyndell and Concentrated Snowfields towards the Haligtree you find a lot of areas are either linear or large -mostly empty- open spaces.

There are also a few unique mechanics that only exist in the castle, from the various interactions with Gostoc to him stealing your runes and down to the banished knight that locks you in a dark room (almost pissed myself the first time the screen went black and heard that spooky laugh).

Not hating by any means, the sheer scale of this game is absolutely beyond anything else out there. While many parts of the map are quite enjoyable, Stormveil Castle is just built different.

Elden Ring has three sunflower variants.

The Golden Sunflower faces the Erdtree. The Tarnished Golden Sunflower is "wilted and faded," yet still retains holy essence. And the Shadow Sunflower faces the Scadutree. Its Remembrance describes it as born from "dark notions that bear no sense of Order."

Goldmask resembles the first: an emaciated figure wearing a radiant, sunflower-like halo, turned toward the Erdtree. His Radiant Gold Mask even has much the same bright golden quality as the Golden Sunflower.

Midra looks like its shadow image: a similarly gaunt figure whose head becomes a black center surrounded by Frenzied Flame. The Shadow Sunflower is thorned as well, fitting Midra’s imagery of pain and piercing, especially the barbed Sword of Damnation.

The Broken Gold Mask, however, is a faded, damaged version of Goldmask’s halo, worn by his former closest disciple and friend. Its description tells us:

"One kept the faith, though the faith itself was broken."

That sounds remarkably close to the Tarnished Golden Sunflower in human form: faded and damaged, but still retaining its holy essence. Even its gold is noticeably duller than Goldmask’s radiant mask.

There may even be a mechanical irony here. The Gold Tattoos raise Faith while lowering Focus, the stat that protects against Madness. In trying to overcome doubt through faith, Goldmask’s disciple mechanically makes himself more vulnerable to Frenzy.

The Law of Regression teaches that "all things yearn eternally to converge." Frenzied Flame wants to erase every division and fracture, melting everything back together "until all is One again."

Maybe these three figures mirror Elden Ring’s three sunflowers: holy order, broken faith, and a dark sun without Order.

Where does the design of Marika people commonly draw come from? The one with the low cut dress and all the ornamentation and jewelry. It’s way more egregious in certain kinds of art, but even in the wholesome fanart you see of her she looks like that. I know we only get a glimpse of her actual model after the shattering, and that’s obviously not a good representation of what she looked like, but still. We see plenty of statues and some official art. I feel like her dress has never shown that much cleavage and she really only has the three bits of jewelry(Crown, arm cuffs and belt). Was there someone who drew her like that first and the design as a whole just became super popular? I’ve attached two different photos with the in game vs popular fanart designs. The art I found is actually on the lighter side. In some of the art, the cut of her dress goes down to her navel.

First of all my wife is not a souls player, though she did play ocarina of time growing up which was basically souls of its time. Besides Zelda games she mainly enjoys story and romance focused games like Persona.

Now how this story started is that she saw a clip of Elden Ring and it showed the beauty of the game and it talked about different endings especially one with romance involved. She got curious and asked if I played it, which I have and dark souls 1-3 + bloodborne so I am familiar with the genre and had a sneaking suspicion she did not actually knew what she was in for and the video she saw was a bit misleading to her.

Nevertheless I absolutely wanted to see her try the game and so we did and I didn’t say much about the it really I simply gave her the controller and let her create a character. She made a Confessor named Rosetta inspired by Chrono Crusade.

Now the beginning was not smooth as all of us know from first time playing souls like. The controls were confusing, the messages on the ground more so and where to go probably the worst. She button mashed her way through enemies and made her way through the cave of knowledge.

But it was at entering Limgrave when the true doubt set in, she gets called maidenless. Encounters the tree sentinel which she meets with high pitched squeeking and the running away flailing helplessly. She found the church of Elleh and. The nearby cave with the little gargoyles.

Somewhere here the frustrations seem to really kick in, I don’t want her to have a bad time but I also don’t want to backseat game or spoil the exploration experience. However I decide I will help out to get things started and then if she feels done it is ok. So I guide her to get her maiden and advice to try and level up mainly vigor.

Now she pressed on and explored for a bit after that, think we played a bit more than an hour, but in the end she was tired and had a headache and frustrated at the setbacks and dying, she said she thought it is a beautiful game but she didn’t like it. I said this is understandable but I had fun watching and we called it a night.

Now here is where I fucked up. I promised her the one thing she wants most in the whole world but that we can’t have because of our work schedules. Without really thinking I said ”If you can become Elden Lord I will get you a Cocker Spaniel puppy”

Oh boy, I tell you her eyes literally glinted or gleamed or whatever like they do in animes when somebody locks in. She said that’s mean and asked if I was serious, I had to think if I was and I wasn’t sure but I said yes.

Next day she was ready to try again, she explored and I gave some guidance and advice that I deem fair, for example to not open the chest that leads to you know where. She found Margit and the roundtable hold, Margit was a brutal challenge. I felt fairly safe and she had to work the next days.

Now tonight she had time to play again she absolutely locked in guys, she explored several caves and leveled up to 21 and she beat Margit…

I am in serious trouble now and not sure how to fulfill my promise if this continues. I am excited yet terrified by this sudden burst of determination that I did not think possible. Halp.

Tldr; Wife believed Elden Ring to maybe be a romantic adventure game and never played souls like before. As she struggled gave up after the first hour I mistakenly promised her that which she wants the most in the whole world. Now she defeated Margit and got a taste for blood. I am scared and excited and not sure what I have created.

Edit: I am loving all your comments you are slaying us you funny people.

I’ve put 500 hours in on PS5 and after seeing people were happy with the port, I bought it on Switch 2. This game is still beautiful.

wth just happened

I beat Malenia after like 15 hrs (in 7-8 sittings, im not a madman lol) with moghwyns spear and my mimic tear. It used a lot of borealis ice breath while i used the good ol L2 spam to being her down. Is my unskill valid or am i just that noskill☠️

Never played any Souls games or Souls-like games to begin with. Always been interested in Elden Ring though, but was too scared to pick it up. 10hrs in and I'm having a blast, slowly getting better at combat and exploration. Feel like I picked the totally wrong class in the beginning though (Prophet), since I had no idea what anything meant, but I finally leveled up my strength and intelligence enough to equip a staff and a bleed weapon! I'm very happy about this port, sure I have a RTX5080 PC but I will always prefer handheld gaming due to my disabilities. Nothing beats playing games in bed!

Apologies if I use the wrong flair but I have no one to talk about this 😭😭😭

So there I was, minding my own business on a NG playthrough enjoying some new Tarnished Edition weapons when my wife walks in the room.

Me: -wearing fairly basic drip for an early game run... Carian Knight Helm, Beast Champion Armor/Gauntlets, Silver Grooved Greaves/Shield, Idus Sword-

Her: OH wow is that you? That's SICK! I like the chess piece on your helmet.

Me: Dafuq are you talking about?

Her: Isn't that a... queen or something on there?

Me: -pulls up bigger view and sure enough, a chess piece-

Her: Hahaha that's so cute!

Me: -changes to Beast Champion Helm- There, that's the helm that goes with the chest and arms.

Her: OH SICK! NOW YOU HAVE A BUTT PLUG ON YOUR HEAD.

Soooo I'm wearing the Silver Grooved Helm again.

ER was my first fromsoft game, and I’m currently playing DS3.
Overall I think ER is a better game, but I really like the atmosphere of DS a lot more. I understand ER focuses more on exploring the world, and if every location was the same, it would get boring, but man, I really like the castles and structures of DS.

I also kind of prefer the enemies/bosses of DS too. I think they’re a little more intimidating than ER. I get ER is a different type of world, but man I really love the dark-gothic atmosphere of DS.

What do you guys think?

For those who don't know, Mortal Shell II uses your Steam data to look at your most-played games and changes its lore text based on that.

I was fully convinced it died and immediately came back to life. His boy came in with an elite sneak attack.