Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 2

So yeah, I'm definitely having a lot of fun with Elden Ring. I do find that this game is just so nice to let me... decompress? Which is a weird thing to say about a game notorious for being tough, but it's also a very grindy game where the runes and the slow unlocking of areas in the map really does let me see my progress in a semi-meaningful manner. I can just hop in, play for a couple of minutes and see that rune meter go up and maybe level up or upgrade some equipment or something, y'know?

I'm still taking it easy in terms of the main story, and Margit does make for a pretty good 'beef gate' enemy, all things considered. I'm really enjoying the scenery and slowly learning a lot of the mechanics -- there's a lot of stuff to upgrade, a lot of mechanics and different ways you can play, though obviously your starting stats (and how you level up) does kind of pigeonhole you into one way or another. 

I've breached out of Limgrave in search for better equipment, particularly with a guide that tells me where to find certain nice early-game weapons for the class I'm playing, which is Astrologer. The Roundtable Hold do have some traditional RPG vendors, but none that sell intelligence-stat spells, so I do need to look for the NPC that does that. I do enjoy playing as a spell-slinging magician shooting from afar, though I do admit that going in full Guts from Berserk would be the most thematically-appropriate class to play in this setting. 

So far the story is mostly just the world-building. All the background information about the demigod war and this Godrick-the-Grafted guy who's the first demigod we'll be fighting in Limgrave... whose castle I can't even enter yet. I'm sure things will get a bit more complex afterwards, but now I'm just learning about the world and the game mechanics in general. Still haven't defeated Margit yet, though I haven't really tried to... I'm slowly working my way and killing the mini-dungeon bosses around Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula!

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Noble Sorcerer
As always, we'll start off with some humanoid enemies... and it is admittedly a bit hard for me to tell if we've got a new enemy or not, or if it's still considered the same thing by the game (and the Wiki classifications) or just the same Godrick soldier with better equipment. The Noble Sorcerer is a bit fancier than the Wandering Noble, though, in that it can cast spells! Just like my Astrologer! Noble Sorcerers can shoot 'Glintstone Pebbles', which is such a delightfully whimsical name for the game's equivalent of Magic Missile, flavoured as shooting a specific kind of magical stone at the enemy. It's pretty fun to see that the Wandering Nobles have their own 'elite' versions and they're not all just abused and bullied by the Soldiers of Godrick! 

I guess this is about time that I mention the 'Spirit Ashes' mechanic. In addition to weapons, spells, talents and a buttload of other things, one thing that makes Elden Ring a bit easier than your average Souls/Borne game is the ability to essentially use the Spirit Ashes to summon a ghostly facsimile of enemies or heroes of long bygone eras. The Noble Sorcerer is one of the few I've gotten, which do add a bit of a lore in the description. The Noble Sorcerer's spirit ashes describes that, well, at least my Noble Sorcerer ghost buddy was once a nobleman who tried to learn at the academy of Raya-Lucaria... but he's only got money and no talent, and was only able to cast only the most basic of sorceries. Poor Noble Sorcerers! And now as an undying spirit he's forced to do my bidding and tank hits from giant trolls!

Starcaller

I found these guys gathering around a bunch of craters with purple rocks, and they seemed to be some kind of weird cult. Turns out that they're scavengers that dig around the wake of meteorite strikes for bizarre, purple rocks -- like the Gravity Stone Fan item I looted from them, which explains a bit on how they're able to fight... they can manipulate gravity, represented by them slamming that slipshod-looking pickaxe onto the ground, and then using magic to lift up a boulder larger than their torso and then wield that as a giant hammer. That's honestly a hilarious bit of visual comedy in an otherwise pretty dour game!

Alabaster Lord
A bit more impressive than their Starcaller minions (worshippers?) is this guy, who rose out of one of the craters and actually uses some gravity-themed magic like pulling my character close to him so he can bash me with his giant sword. Visually, the Alabaster Lords aren't the most interesting... they resemble drow elves or dark elves of traditional fantasy games -- gaunt, dark-skinned and white-haired, with stern eyes and whatnot... it's a bit of a played-out trope, even with the cool gravity magic. 

But the additional item lore does give them an interesting bit of description -- the Alabaster Lords are literal aliens, or as much as 'aliens' can be in this setting, actually having skin made out of stone and 'rising to life wherever a meteor strikes'. It was quite literal with the one I killed in-game, and there seem to be a bit more with these guys later on in the game. I do admit that the one I met wasn't the most impressive enemy out there, but at least the gravity magic depiction was pretty cool. 

(Note that the overworld versions are technically called "Lesser" Alabaster Lord, while the actual Alabaster Lords are the versions that serve as bosses of minor dungeons with higher HP and stuff. For the purposes of this review, I'll consider all of them the same enemy unless there's some kind of significant lore or visual difference). 

Fanged Imp

Fuck these guys in particular. I get it. These Dark Souls/Bloodborne-style games are meant to have as many annoying enemies as possible, to punish you and make you die if you lose your focus. I get that. I respect that... but there's a special kind of irritation when it's the common enemies that fuck you over and kill you, knowing that you have to go through the exact same gauntlet of the same enemies because that's how the game's set up. 

Fanged Imps are... well, they're more 'gargoyle' than 'imp' in terms of what they are exactly, being stone statues that blend in with the catacombs they inhabit. Pretty simple in terms of what they are, they're gangly rock-men with devilish heads and tiny nub-wings. Only when an unfortunate Tarnished gets close enough that they pounce you and really charge in and swing like an unhinged lunatic with these weapons that the game call "Forked Hatchet", but it doesn't even look like a weapon. It looks more like a malformed, mutated fork-sickle thing that's just meant to be as assholish as possible. And the Imps, in addition to hitting fast and probably surprising you, also deal the 'Bleed' effect with their nasty rusty implements.

The dungeon you first find them in, Stormfoot Catacombs, is also placed relatively close to the starting area (though I missed it while running all over Limgrave) and also chock-full of environmental traps like fire-breathing pillars. The Imps also hide in different ways, picking corners just out of sight or latching on to the wall like stony asshole geckos. 

What bastards! If nothing else, they really do embody what I think of when you say 'Imp'. 

Erdtree Burial Watchdog

There are some things about this boss that made me go 'huh' in retrospect. What, exactly, is it protecting? Is the stone creature created by the same force that made the also stony imps? Why the fuck is there a mass of corpses piled up like some kind of sick grape-soup attached to tree roots at the back of the room the Watchdog is in? Did the Watchdog and the Imp do that with the corpses in these catacombs, or was this grotesque tapestry the very thing that the Watchdog is guarding? And there is also the typical 'aw man the boss killed me again, better remember the pattern' that these Elden Ring bosses are slowly drilling into me. 

But my biggest question when I saw it was "but it's a cat???"

My next question was just looking at the sheer bizarre absurdity of this thing. It's a giant stone cat with the most uncanny sneering-demon-possessed-mummified-carcass face. It sits like a regal cat. It has a comical crown and cape put onto it, which contrasts so much with its 'immortal protector gargoyle-golem' vibe. Its tail glows and it breathes fire, because why the fuck not, that's not the weirdest thing here. It's also wielding like a giant Berserk greatsword, because, again, why the fuck not, that's not the weirdest thing here. 

It's a cat. It's a cat statue with all of these absurdities I listed above... and then it moves by... standing up like a human. Okay, I thought, then it's just a giant humanoid boss. Fine... and then halfway through it just jerks and floats through the air with telekinesis or some shit, before slamming down with sword shockwaves. I've seen some people online describe it as "a toy whose arms and legs can be moved by a child, and this invisible giant child is moving the giant cat around the room", which... is such a bizarre way to explain the logic behind what parts of the stone-kitty actually do move and what parts don't, but there you go!

The boss fight isn't honestly even that hard; I had more trouble with the imp dungeon. But the sheer absurdity and me going 'wtf is it doing' has made this bizarre rock kitty somehow one of the most memorable boss encounters so far. It's just so weird!

Demi-Human Queen

Not quite found in the starting area of Limgrave, but found as the 'boss' of the Demi-Human Ruins in the Weeping Peninsula area. Turns out the Chiefs aren't the real leaders of the Demi-Humans, but there's a bigger head honcho! She doesn't quite have a boss bar like the two chiefs, since she's not found in a dungeon, so I guess she's not quite considered a boss? She basically has a lot of the same anatomy as the emaciated rat-people that she presumably 'rules' over, though her limbs are longer and her larger size makes how thin these Demi-Humans are a bit more apparent. 

She has a shoddy crown on her head, and wields a Demi-Human Queen's Staff -- which she uses to cast spells and shoot rock shards at you. In one of the nicer bits of animation, the Demi-Humana Queen alternates between using the staff to cast spells, using the staff as a goddamn club, and there are even animations for her trying to channel a spell, failing, and then throwing the staff away in frustration. That's neat, and really shows just how wretched this giant rat-queen is. 

I actually really like the AI of the game programming all the lesser Demi-Humans to cower and surrender after I kill the Queen... which... yeah, I kind of need the runes and loot. Sorry, surrendering rat-people. 

I play the Astrologer class, which was why I hunted down the Demi-Human Queen to loot her staff... and it's rather interesting that the little story around the Demi-Human Queen lies around the staff -- it's a powerful staff with minimal intelligence stat requirements, meaning that anyone stupid can hold the staff and cast sorceries... even an angry Demi-Human. And a Demi-Human with a staff, I suppose, is powerful enough to be the strongest of them all. 

Interestingly, however, if you do the questline of a nobleman called Sir Kenneth Haight, clearing a fort of Godrick's soldiers, he would talk about 're-establishing connections with the Demi-Humans'. Heck, when you arrive in this fortress, the Demi-Humans are actually fighting against the Godrick soldiers. This, combined with Boc's clear sentience and intelligence, implies that whatever state the Demi-Humans are in is unnatural. When you return to the fortress, it's even staffed full with Demi-Humans who don't seem to mind Sir Kenneth's presence (though they'll still fight me). That's quite interesting!

Miner

Another human (humanoid?) enemy is the Miner, who was the main enemy found in the Limgrave Tunnels dungeon. Which... is extremely peaceful to explore thanks to how different the Miners were compared to the fucking imps. The Miners are maybe a bit more powerful if we're counting damage output, and there are some carrying sacks (like the one pictured here) that can lob explosive coal or whatever... but the Miners are so passive. They won't really attack you if they're absorbed in their mining, so you can just leave them be to let them toil for eternity. Of course, disturb their mining, or, god forbid, steal the stones that they're trying to get into, and they'll go straight into murder-mode. 

There isn't much story behind the Limgrave Tunnels, honestly, and none I can really find online that explains what's going on there, so I guess these guys might either be cursed, or just similar to the Soldiers of Godrick where they've degenerated so much that they are now wholly focused on one single activity -- mining and mining only. 

One thing to note is that these guys, for some reason, are really resistant to regular sword slashing damage, which I guess makes them an early-game enemy that forces people who rely on swords to diversify their weapons (or spam spells, as I do) but I'm not really comprehending the logic why. I guess maybe their skin has been turned a bit stony thanks to all the time they've worked in mines? That sounds like it fits the logic of this game, at least. 

Giant Rat

These sure are giant rats! They're the size of dogs, they have a nasty look in their faces, and you can tell that their fur are pretty nasty and diseased-looking. They are big rats and attack in swarms. Again, I don't really have much to say about them. I would say that they look appropriately diseased, but I saw the great work they did with the dog model and that is a truly rabid, diseased-looking animal. This guy's just a slightly dirty, slightly angry rat. 

Archer Golem

Oh, oh, this guy. He is really cool, though! I was just wandering around the Weeping Peninsula when suddenly the sound of something like a cannon being shot whistled through the air and something exploded next to me... which I think isn't too far off from the intended experience here. Which, well, to be ambushed by heavy artillery. It's something that those loser Soldiers of Godrick do around chokepoints, but with very visible ballistae that take quite a while to reload. When I first met the Archer Golem, I thought that it was some kind of a missile launcher... but that's impossible in my fantasy game, right? Turns out it's just really big, really powerful arrows slamming and creating gigantic craters all around me, being shot by this giant suit of armour with glowing flames on his chest and limbs. 

Ultimately, though, these flames kind of are their undoing -- whether you're a barbarian swinging around giant broadswords or like me, astrologers that spam-machinegunning pebbles, once you close the distance by dodging his giant bows, the Archer Golem is surprisingly a rather easy 'miniboss' to fight, with his glowing, fiery ankles being weak and causing him to collapse. 

There really isn't much in lieu of context of what the golem is. The Archer Golem I met was near Castle Morne, which has its own little tragic story with the lord of the castle and an uprising by the Misbegotten slaves... I guess the Golem is likely to belong to the (now deceased) lord, meant to protect the castle against invaders that come from the outside... not realizing that the biggest threat to the lord came from the inside? Pretty cool setpiece, if nothing else.

Common Troll

Speaking of setpieces, these guys! I've seen a lot of these guys lumbering in the distance of Limgrave, keeping a wide berth and just avoiding them until I get some levels. They're this setting's trolls, apparently, not undead giants as I thought they were. I mean, yeah, All Trolls Are Different and all, but come on. These guys are super-gaunt old man corpses with their stomach hollowed out. Why are their stomach hollowed out? You really can't fault me for thinking he's an undead revenant of some sort, can you? 

What a nasty-looking creature, by the way. I love how wretched these trolls look. Ragged mop of hair, two 'tendril' mustaches streaming down from a face that's mostly skull... flabby old-man musculature on his arms and legs... which, by the way, those muscles are actually animated to flop around pathetically if you hit them, really driving home how this guy, while huge and threatening, has seen much better days compared to what their size and appearance suggests. 

In addition to the lumbering ones that roam Limgrave, some of them are actually used as beasts of burden (!) by the Soldiers of Godrick, who lash two of these trolls to pull giant carts (with, of course, treasure chests in them). Groups of Godrick soldiers and Kaiden Swordsmen would escort these convoys, and there's some great storytelling through gameplay where these 'enslaved' trolls are so passive that they don't fight like their wilder cousins, and will only halfheartedly stomp you after you hit their legs. They also have giant chains attached to giant stakes driven through their chest, and... yeah, how are you alive, trolls? Are you sure you're not undead? 

Anyway, a very, very cool monster design. Disturbing looking, but very cool. I like this one. 

Stonedigger Troll
This guy acts as the boss of the Limgrave Tunnels  dungeon, and he's got a giant ornate club instead of the swords that regular trolls use. He sure is a big scary guy,  and it's a bit harder, as always, fighting big scary guys when they're running around in a short, confined arena. I died a couple of times to him before I realized that he can be stunned surprisingly easily with magic spells, at which point the fight kind of became trivial. 

I don't actually have much to say here that I haven't said in the 'Common Troll' entry. He sure does look like a giant, shambling, corpse, and that open stomach still raises a lot more questions than it answers. 

Abnormal Stone Cluster

These are... super weird. Most of the enemies we've seen have been pretty standard 'high fantasy' or 'dark fantasy'. Sure, they are creative and all, but then we've got these guys. Also called 'Lookout Stones' by the Wiki, the Abnormal Stone Clusters are mostly found posing like that picture on the left -- a mass of spherical stones with a single glowing purple light, arranged around a portal to an 'Evergaol', which implies some kind of a prison. And the Abnormal Stone Clusters aren't hostile, they're just... there. Being creepy.

And attacking them has them turn their attention to you, wiggling and levitating like a worm, and even splitting apart into individual stones to attack you like a 2D platformer enemy. There's an eyeball on one end (which is the glowing part) and they have an attack where they clump all their rocks together and detonate. I'm honestly not quite sure what these guys are meant to be. Their location around Evergaols seem to give the fandom the collective theory that these guys are some form of ancient lookout system, but they're just essentially glorified security cameras, and not the actual guards? Eh. They look weird, and I do like weird, but it's just kind of a bit bizarre to see these guys who look more at home as enemies in a 2D Zelda or Metroid game than a game like Elden Ring, is all. 

And I guess that does make me appreciate the game a bit more, knowing that there's place here for stuff that... that are just 'weird' instead of just cool. I feel like this is a nice place to end this review!