Returning to Elden Ring for Shadow of the Erdtree

Old and Busted: Soulslike New Hotness: SSS - Sad Swordsman Simulator

Man, what a great video. The way that you just “get it” and are able to articulate your appreciation and criticisms is such a delight, and hearing you say that this is one of your all time favorite games makes me so happy. You’re totally right about how combat is both a conversation and a puzzle, and that puzzle extends to exploring the world and piecing together the lore. The way you’ve fully engaged with these parts of the game is really satisfying to see, and I think trying to truly piece everything together and speculate is a very underrated part of the experience that many sadly don’t bother with. Anyway, I empathize a lot with people being kinda awful. It’s easy for people to say that you should just ignore it, but it’s rarely that easy especially when you account for the volume of comments. With that in mind, I fully accepted that I wouldn’t get the chance to hear your thoughts on Fromsoft titles any more, so seeing this video was such a great surprise. I hope you’re not too discouraged from tackling similar projects in the future because every friend, content creator, and video essayist I know who is familiar with your work consistently recognizes you as the best.

Your Dark Souls videos are some of your best work. I’m not shocked they got backlash - real egos staked on fake video game achievements tend to be extremely fragile - but it bums me out thinking we might miss out on more great analysis of similar games because of it.

Man I have called these games cozy and relaxing since dark souls 1. It’s wild to me that people aren’t able to accept or see how that could be, but you are not alone, and your insight and critique resonates loudly among so many players of these games. Thanks so much Noah.

Hey, just in relation to the segment about the feedback on the last Elden Ring review, I just wanted to let you know that that video has become one of my favourite of all time, and I frequently use it as a comfort watch when I've had a rough day. It's not only phenomenally made and written, but it changed how i view Souls games, and let me come at them with a more peaceful angle, helped me reccomend them to friends, and, as an aspiring/hobbyist developer, changed how I think about game design. So I just wanted to thank you, for helping me in ways i never would have expected. Your work has been genuinely touching and affecting for me, and i do a little giggle every time i see a new video youve made, or spot a new article you wrote in the wild. Thank you.

Cozy is right. You know how I played SotE? I got fucking blazed and went through the dlc at a SNAIL’S pace. I took three hundred pictures, I wrote dozens of funny and thematic messages which got thousands of reactions, I changed my build in name, look, theme, and stats every time I found a new weapon I loved. I was a Knightly Dragon Cult Apostle, a Beastly Cleric, an undead Paladin, a Frenzied Monk and a Fencing Valkyrie. I leveled up my dlc spirit ashes and used them in thematic and interesting ways. I spent entire evenings just helping people kill Mohg, just so I could see them excitedly SPRINT to Miquella’s cocoon. It was an incredible experience. It’ll always be among my fondest gaming memories.

It's important to note that the jars of the base game and the jars of the DLC do not follow the same rules. In the Shadow Realm, the jars were created from the flesh of shamans melded with other beings in a twisted effort by the Hornsent to ascend their victims' bodies to sainthood. The jars of the main game, however, are simply filled with the innards of great warriors. There is no punishment involved, and it is seen by everybody, including those placed in them after death (also important, as the jars of the DLC are very much alive during their torture), as a great honor. Marika allows this new practice very begrudgingly, as stated in an item description which I can't remember.

57:59 I sorta disagree that the final boss fight doesn't tell us more about Miquella. He started his story arc because he wanted to save Melania, because he loved her. When we fight him all he says about her is that she'll be remembered. In most people's games she is still alive at this point. But Miquella has already moved on to his glorious destiny, and without his "love" he no longer cares for a sister he has no use for. As such he has lost his very reason for becoming a god in the first place. I would argue that his choice to resurrect Radahn but not Leonard is another sign that he doesn't understand Radahn at all, by the end. The General's compassion was one of the things Miquella most admired. But instead of bringing back a caring man, and the mount he so cared for, Miquella brings back the caring man so that he can become Miquella's mount instead. Objectification writ large. And a compelling illustration of the tyrant that Miquella has become.

Noah firing back all the shade he can against the people who tormented him with the other video is DELICIOUSLY satisfying.

When I first played Elden ring it's world made me think "this is the world as Don Quixote imagined it". the somehow coherent dream logic of it all, the tragedy, the scale, such a good game. And it is a cozy series, idk how ppl don't see it, once you learn it's movement and to accept the tools it gives you it is so cozy.

"Prepare to Die" as a marketing campaign has done more to shape the fandom's reality of a series of games than any comparable example I can think of. It's happened to deeply frustrating effect, precisely for the reasons you outlined in an earlier video: it makes people miss the flexibility and openness of these games to meet players wherever they are. But to that, I'd add another contributor is likely the cottage industry of Soulsborne playthroughs, no-hit runs, and gimmick runs (e.g., broken sword only or level-1 games). With this content being such a sizeable majority of related fan content, I have to assume this is why so many Soulsborne "fans" are closer to being Kaizo Soulsborne fans. It's like they insist on playing a different game than the one they have in front of them, a game which is afforded by the base game but still distinct from it.

it's unfathomable to me that people hate your past soulsborne videos. the inheritors video truly is one of my favorite ever posted to youtube, i return to it frequently. much love noah, i hope that backlash never happens again.

9:09 Dude- the internet is infinite in idiots with bad takes. Haters gonna hate. I think your Patreon speaks for itself in how appreciated your videos are.

“A suffering that grew from a small clearing in the land of shadow into the sinister, glowing glory of the Erdtree itself.” And yet I cannot but be absolutely rocked by the poignancy of the Shaman’s Village. It is perhaps my most favorite location in the entire series. Somehow the weight of the history there, the spring-stone of all that pain that would flow out into the Lands Between, it feels as heavy to me as Ash Lake did in Dks1.

> Buckle up buttercups, because not only are my opinions bad, I have a lot of them. What a god damn battlecry.

For what it’s worth, I hadn’t properly played a video game in decades before I watched your two previous Dark Souls videos in February, and now I own a PS5 and have played all of them (except Sekiro, which is in the post). Found your videos, and then the games an extremely profound experience, so regardless of how many other people hated them, those videos demonstrably, tangibly, literally improved my life.

Dropped everything for this. Literally. My floor is so messed up you'd think Miyazaki made a new poison swamp.

I had no idea people responded negatively to your previous fromsoft videos. I thought they were a beautiful and eloquent way to present your experience with the games. An experience that probably isn't that uncommon, but rather, a less often talked about one. So I was really happy to see that perspective portrayed by such an excellent essayist like yourself because, as you said on those videos, the difficulty of these games is so often missrepresented that keeps players away because of that reputation alone. Which is criminal. Seeing those videos of yours pop-up on my feed was such a pleasant surprise and a welcomed addition to your already amazing collection of work. <3

Personally, my view on the Miquella cutscene at the very end is that it perhaps just failed to capture some of the emotional leaning of the Japanese script. In the Japanese version, Miquella sounds much more childish, apologetic that he hasn't become a god yet, and almost desperately trying to assure Radahn that he will, soon. I think it's meant to make us see Miquella as what he truly is - a demigod who never grew up, not just in body but also mentally and in spirit. He's still just a little kid who idolizes Radahn, his strength, and perhaps sees more kindness than is really there in a man who loves the thrill of mortal combat above all else. To me, it's a sobering reminder that Marika trapped everyone in an endless cycle of violence. She paid back the violence the Hornsent inflicted on her people, and slayed scores more to try and establish a new order in the world, one where such cruelty wouldn't have to be inflicted on anyone anymore - a deathless world, warded by the Erdtree. But an order without death would not stand, and the sins of her past would not cease to haunt her. The hornsent that she genocided manifest in two of her children, another is host to a rot deity that was drowned deep beneath the world, Godwyn is kin with dragons, one of her greatest enemies, and Radahn is every bit the warmonger the banished Godfrey/Hoarah Loux was. And Miquella, born in a regime built on corpses, failed to see how deep the roots of this conflict really went, and ended up idolizing a hero of a kind Malenia wanted to do away with, realizing how a mighty and valorous warrior without a target for their blade could harm the peaceful world she envisioned. Another key thing is that Miquella never visited the places in the Land of Shadow that would have elucidated these things to him. He never visited Jagged Peak and therefore never got close to the finger ruins there, he never visited the eastern portion of Scadu Altus to meet Ymir, and he never prayed at the statue of his mother that blocked the entrance to the ruins of her hometown and the final finger ruins. He never learned about the abandonment by the Greater Will, of how mad the Two Fingers truly were, and simply forged ahead, abandoning everything along the way, all in a misguided attempt to fit the mold of his hero Radahn. Even though it seems like even Radahn didn't really want this, a promise made with a frail child he never took seriously and never expected to be upheld, right up until Malenia marched her army on Caelid and unleashed the rot on him. That, I suspect, is why he halted the stars - not to halt Ranni's fate, but to prevent Miquella from completing his quest. Ultimately, Ranni's and Goldmask's endings feel like the best ones. Either the moon is elected as the new 'deity' of the world, which as we learn is not even anything special, merely the closest celestial object to us, which is probably exactly what Ranni wants, who I guess just fucks off into the void beyond this world with you. Alternatively, the hypocrisies in the Golden Order are identified and straightened out by Goldmask, Marika's dream finally achieved by a nameless, voiceless, identityless mortal man, who doesn't even live to be worshipped for it afterwards. Either way, the world seems to be free of external influences, at long last - especially since you end up killing most if not all of its remaining representatives over the course of the DLC.

Noah, the way you expressed your feelings about the franchise made me think, "Screw it, I have to find out what this "genre" is all about for myself." So, I bought a PS3 and Demon's Souls to experience the Souls series from the beginning because of your video. I understand that not everyone would be as impacted by your video as I was and that it could lead to disagreement or even complete lack of interest. But aggressiveness? Disappointment? I know this is the internet, but this just leaves me dumbfounded. I'm glad you've chosen to ignore those sad individuals who somehow feel hurt by someone else's passion.