DIALOGUE
DISPATCHES SEPTEMBER
Issue 373
Dialogue
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Mountain at my gates
I like to binge. Be it a podcast, Netflix series or a game, I like to immerse myself completely in fictional worlds – and to do that, there has to be something to hook me. With a series, it has to be a premise. With a podcast, it has to be about something I know nothing about. But with games, it is something different. Some games are seductive in a way they give you little dopamine bumps, like your guns in Borderlands or Destiny getting stronger. Some games reward your intelligence, your ability to solve a problem, and others just give you the thrill of the win. A few rare games absorb you totally, like Breath Of The Wild, which call you back because of the thrill of discovery. Yet very few games (or books or series) really nail the thrill of adversity, which brings me to the game I actually want to talk about, and that is Elden Ring.
“I may just step away for a bit. Because where do you go after The Lands Between?”
I finished it this weekend after two solid months of play, and as the credits rolled, I sat there trying to process what I had played. At 42, I had wondered if my hands still had the dexterity. I basically completed it in its entirety with the first semi-decent sword I found (Bloodhound’s Fang). I only touched magic in the very late game, the rest of it spent as a melee tank, with my mimic bro messing up fools. This is how I have beaten every Soulslike. But unlike Dark Souls, where I had to sometimes farm if I hit a wall, in Elden Ring I just went and did something else. I’d come back a few hours, a few levels and an upgraded weapon later, and that problem became a victory. Miyazaki himself has said that if you don’t have pain or adversity, then how can you feel the joy of overcoming it?