Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 23

At this point I focus most of my efforts at Farum Azula, which is a very impressive visual spectacle but a bit of a nightmare to navigate because all of the crumbling ruins really do look the same. The enemy variety is probably also not the best, with Beastmen or Knights forming around 90% of the encounters and they're not the most interesting things to fight through. 

Add that to a lot of questions being raised more than answered throughout the course of the dungeon transversal, and I actually think that once the hype of seeing the giant floating city is gone, Farum Azula might be my least favourite part of the game? I mean, I still think that the presentation of our introduction to Farum Azula might be the best in the game (with really only Leyndell, Caelid and maybe Nokron matching it) but navigating it and going through it was probably the least fun I've had with any of Elden Ring's legacy dungeons. It's not a major complaint since I did get through it, but... I don't know. I just really didn't enjoy jumping around and navigating through the crumbling ruins, all the enemies are very samey and boring -- there's one or two cool dragon fights and crucible knights, and then it's back to a slog of beastmen. 

And also? I'm not the biggest fan of how Maliketh is presented compared to the other major demigod characters. I know it's the 'style' of these SoulsBorne games, but while I enjoyed the presentation of practically everything else, and how the story is truly formed only if you talk to everyone and read everything... I felt like the strange juxtaposition of Gurranq-in-Caelid and Gurranq-in-Farum-Azula to be a bit off, and that Maliketh himself barely had any buildup, even less than Mohg. And the cutaways of the game transporting us to and away from Farum Azula felt really... random. At the end of the day Farum Azula just felt like a cool dungeon that felt really off and detached to the rest of the world, and at the end of the day, past the spectacle, it might be my least favourite part of the game. 

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Astel, Stars of Darkness
In a very random location in the Consecrated Snowfield, the Yelough Anix Tunnel, is... another Astel? Actually, is Astel the name of the species, then, not the name of the individual we saw in the depths of the world? This one felt bizarre. There is some discussion, perhaps, to be made about the repeating bosses here and there, and I don't mind when it's... Catacomb Watchdogs or Erdtree Avatars or whatnot. But repeating seemingly unique bosses like Godrick and the first Astel just feels a bit... off. I wouldn't have minded if the Yelough Anix Tunnel gave us some context to this thing, since the original Astel had such a great buildup with how we reach there... but all the underground locations and the Nox culture have actually done a bit in setting up the tone. Stars of Darkness here is just squatting in a random cave, which has a Frenzied Flame theme instead of anything relating to the Astel. It's weird. 

Stars of Darkness has an extra grab attack (or maybe it's just one I didn't see with the original Astel) where it disappears, and makes like six shadowy clones that charge in from all sides of the circular room to grab you. 

Putrid Grave Warden Duelist
A boss of another minor catacombs that isn't just a straight model reuse, the Putrid Duelist is one of the Duelists from Leyndell but infected with Scarlet Rot. We've seen enemies like these before where we just add rot or frenzy to them; and at some point I stopped noting them down unless they have unique armour or whatnot. But the Putrid Duelist actually has something cool in that those snake-like bracelets and helmets actually turn into snakes to attack you. Somehow, the rot infection has also animated their stone armour? Huh. 

Soldjars of Fortune

In one of the catacombs that I've slowly been clearing out with a checklist (it is a point of contention for me that Elden Ring doesn't at least 'mark' the dungeons I've cleared) one of them has a bunch of special Living Jars that set themselves on fire and charge at you with the express purpose of blowing up. Based on the Spirit Ashes you find, these guys are called by the gloriously punny name of 'Soldjars of Fortune', with the description of them being 'reckless spirits [that] sacrifice themselves to vanquish their summoner's foes, and explode upon death'. They are actually distinguished from the regular Living Jars by having yellow wax-lids instead of red. That's neat. I wonder if this is an adaptation that the Living Jars themselves made, or if whoever made the Living Jars in the first place created these variants for a particular reason?

 

Iron Fist Alexander

"All vessels are destined to one day break... But the great Alexander lived as a warrior to his last! HA HA HA HA HA!"

And speaking of Living Jars... My boy Iron Fist Alexander is probably my favourite NPC in this game, and by a huge margin compared to everyone else. We first meet him with his ass stuck in a hole in the ground all the way back in Limgrave, and he's shown up almost every other area in his journey to find and fight powerful warriors. After what was supposed to be a humiliating defeat during the Starscourge Radahn fight (ironically, in-game he's likely to be one of the last ones to fall due to his high health) Alexander continued to train himself to be the best 'warrior vessel', eventually aiding in our fight against the Fire Giant and even beating a couple of dragons in Farum Azula. 

And Alexander is a great showcase of how the Living Jars function, because through all of this Alexander makes it a point that his goal in life -- and it's portrayed as something noble and normal to him -- is to continue fighting stronger warriors, and to take in their remnants into himself. Because if the implications isn't already clear from item descriptions and animations, the Living Jars contain the remnants of corpses, and Warrior Jars like Alexander feel a sense of pride and purpose in creating the most perfect warrior ever.

And of course, the strongest warrior that Alexander has seen is, of course, us. Cause he fought Radahn and the Fire Giant, yes, but we beat them. But Alexander doesn't attack us like a crazed madman, not like so many other NPCs that become hostile to us. He gives us an option, asks us for permission, and even if he beats us his dialogue makes a note of how we weren't 'giving it his all'. And when he dies, he gives a defiant, prideful speech to the skies. The Great Alexander, yes, lived and died doing what he loved... living as a warrior to his last. That's a bit of a sad story, but ol' Alexander is one of the few characters in the otherwise depressing world of Elden Ring who chose how he died, and died happily. 

Godskin Duo

Serving as the mid-bosses of Crumbling Farum Azula are these assholes. The Godskins have been some of the more annoying bosses in the game, so obviously having two is a way to up the difficulty without programming a new boss moveset. They also have a shared health bar that's way bigger than their combined health. Which means that even if you manage to kill the two of them... they'll keep resurrecting in their empowered second-phase forms until you reduce that total health bar to zero. 

And they are notoriously difficult to fight because both Godskins have abilities that allow them insane mobility and reach, with the Noble inflating itself into a spinning wheel that rolls around the room and the Noble being able to turn himself into a giant flesh-whip.

In one of the minor caves around the Mountaintops, it's infested with those Spirit-Caller Snails that summon spirits of ghostly wolves and samurai, and the boss are actually these Godskins one after the other, which I thought was a nicer 'story' as a boss fight than just two of them hanging out in their fleshy skin-hoodies in a random room. 

Recusant Bernahl

This guy is an interesting one. Acting as a kinda-sorta miniboss in Farum Azula, Bernahl is one of the longest-running NPCs in the game, being a random Ashes-of-War tutor all the way back in Limgrave, until you find him having defected to Volcano Manor and working with them as one of the Tarnished-hunting assassins. We even go and kill a bunch of Tarnished with him as an assist, and he even shows up to help us fight the Godskin Duo! And then, rather abruptly, he fights me. I suppose he goes insane from anger or madness or something? It's implied from a lot of the item descriptions and dialogue about him that Bernahl was, like Vyke, quite close to becoming Elden Lord until he lost his maiden, and now he's just lashing out in anger under otherwise noble cause of "we refuse to be your pawns, o' Golden Order!" Honestly, this is why I strongly dislike the 'invader' mechanic. It's not like you're going to break immersion by having Bernahl spawn in my world and talk to me and explain why he views me as fighting for the Golden Order or something? They clearly could do it, they did it with Iron Fist Alexander and it feels far more natural. 

Gurranq, Beast Clergyman / Maliketh, the Black Blade

"O death... become my blade... once more!"

Crumbling Farum Azula is unique in that it technically has two bosses, but one of them is completely optional. The main boss for storyline purposes is this guy! You enter the coliseum-like arena and find... Gurranq! Or just 'Beast Clergyman', as a boss. Gurranq is this big ogre-like being in ragged hoods who we meet in Caelid and is the host of a collection side-quest of collecting all these Deathroots sprouting around Those Who Live In Death. In-between his moments of lucidity (he actually goes hostile briefly during the progression of the quest) he mutters something about a 'sin', and his primal bestial spells mention that Gurranq used to be someone much more imposing called Death of the Demigods. Would've been nice if someone, anyone, actually mentioned this, though. 

Gurranq himself is... he sure is a big brute in rags. I felt like Morgott pulled that look off much better, you know? Gurranq just pounces and charges at you like a gorilla. Sure, he uses some of the beast spells that he teaches us... but it's just throwing rocks and the same 'sword explosion' anime attack that I've seen the Vulgar Militia do all game long. Gurranq is also disappointingly easy, being relatively predictable. 

Fortunately, at around 60% health, Gurranq ditches the robe and the beast spells. He stabs himself in the hand, and reveals his true form. I don't think he's classified as a demigod, but he might as well be -- he is Maliketh, the Black Blade. Not to be confused with Malekith, the Marvel comics villain. The spelling is completely different! Maliketh is the 'shadow' of Queen Marika, similar to what we've seen Blaidd be to Ranni. And Maliketh is badass in a simple but extremely effective way. A lithe, muscular giant wolf-man with flowing white hair, and black-and-gold armour? It's a very simple design, but one that just screams 'cool' to the inner eight-year-old in me. I recognize it's far from being Elden Ring's more creative designs, but he looks neat. I suppose him being a big badass werewolf makes him the 'boss' of the Farum Azula Beastmen?

He's also insanely fast, really hammering home the 'savage beast' side that his Gurranq persona didn't have. As Maliketh he just jumps all over the colosseum arena like a frenzied, rabid monster and just swings that giant sword of his and unleashes crazy amounts of anime air-slash combo moves, except of course they are black and red. In an interesting twist compared to most of the other bosses in this game (and especially compared to Fire Giant and Rykard, the two main bosses I took down before him) Maliketh is insanely fragile. He dodges my attacks like it's no one's business, but I'm carving out chunks of his health pool with every sorcery that lands. But he's jumping around so much, leaping across the entire length of the arena and clinging to giant pillars. It's quite refreshing, actually, to have both boss and player be dodging each other. 

I think out of the 'demigod' or demigod-adjacent fights, Maliketh might be the one I finished off the quickest, with less than five attempts to take him down. But I also think that the experience in fighting him is the most intense due to how fast everything is. I don't have much else to say about Maliketh's design as a monster otherwise. 

Dragonlord Placidusax

The other big boss of Crumbling Farum Azula requires is a bit of a secret boss, and significantly harder than Maliketh. Or honestly any other boss at this point in the game. One of the two 'secret' bosses of the game, the way to get to Placidusax is to jump and navigate a bunch of hidden ledges, and then 'go to sleep' in a little coffin enclave that is empty... something that is honestly quite easy to miss without a guide. We then get a really cool scene of a sepia tone being applied to the place, the giant tornado slowing down, and the ruins slowly reforming themselves. This secret boss, by the way, is the only real thing that explains that there is some time magic being cast upon Farum Azula -- which people tend to use to handwave the Gurranq paradox (the Caelid!Gurranq can still be alive despite you completing Farum Azula). But the ancient dragons being apparently able to bend time and affect their aging is another nice way for them to have the flavour of these ancient dragons being something a bit more divine than just big fire-breathing dinosaurs. 

But Dragonlord Placidusax is the dragon lord of the ancient dragons, and environmental storytelling in Farum Azula show quite clearly that the ancient dragons used to live there in cohabitation with the ancient Beastmen (who seem to worship them). The Dragonlord Placidusax was, in fact, identified as the first Elden Lord... before even the Golden Order's Elden Lord, Godfrey. It is another nail in the coffin of how the seemingly 'big good' Golden Order have been whitewashing (gold-washing?) history in making it look that only those 'blessed by grace' that are part of the order, and everything else is secondary. Omens are to be locked up, demihumans and misbegotten are to be shunned, albinaurics are to be purged, and dragons and fire giants are enemies to wage war against. When Placidusax himself is apparently a former Elden Lord himself. 

Placidusax's design is quite cool, too. The way we first see him, he's in a meditative state, looking like a strange cocoon with his two heads pointing upwards and his wings wrapped around his body in a prayer position. It's a position not unlike how we find the Two Fingers, envoys of the Greater Will. 

And then he fights, and it's a really cool design. Placidusax is a more elaborate version of the 'Ancient Dragon' model we've seen. Four legs, four wings, looking far more regal and humanoid than the wyvern-like lesser dragons we've seen before... with one particular exception. Placidusax has multiple legs, and they are coiled around his body. We only see two, but there are clear stumps where his heads used to be. Presumably, going with the whole 'fingers' theme, Placidusax might have had five heads at one point? It'd also make him quite similar with the fantasy genre's premier multi-headed dragon Tiamat. 

But even wounded, Placidusax is one of the hardest boss in the game, controlling the weather in a way far greater than the likes of Lansseax and Fortissax were. He creates giant spiral-shaped spears of lightning and launches it all over the place, and at one point begins turning himself into a storm cloud and teleporting all over the place. Placidusax is an intensely cool but hard boss fight.

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I would like to say that I didn't actually beat Placidusax just yet, but I would like to talk to him because I did experience his boss fight and it's topical. But next up we'll probably cover both the Haligtree and the final leg of the story together... after beating Maliketh, the Rune of Death sealed within him erupts and properly sets the Erdtree on fire and transforms Leyndell into the 'Ashen Capital', which is our final main-story dungeon. All very exciting, but to my understanding this means that we don't really have that many monsters left. So I'll probably combine the Ashen Capital and the Haligtree together... and then after that, who knows, the DLC!