This encounter in the Divine Tower basement is also tuned a good bit higher than that one. I did the harder one first too, so it was no problem for me.
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Elden Ring is finally real
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
Millicent is a real champ in that fight if you summon her
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I defeated Melania, but I don’t know how I did it. I’ve been using the Black Knife Tiche summon to help me, and together with the frost ash of war I put in my Greatsword, I was doing a lot better. Then one time she starts the second part of the fight with almost zero health and dies immediately after her opening attack. It must have something to do with alternating bleed and frost damage Tiche and I were dealing, right?
I’m certainly not complaining.
I’m certainly not complaining.
I actually found that the horse made it way harder. It seems like it should be a horse fight, since he's so big, his area is so wide, and you're even *able* to use Torrent. But all his attacks have super long range and hit zones, so I found it pretty hard to dodge and still get close enough to attack. Once I ditched Torrent and went for his feet, it went a lot faster and easier, I could dodge attacks and keep dealing damage better and faster, etc. The only time I used the horse was when he rolls away, it's too far to get to him on foot in time, so I'd have torrent sprint me there then jump back off. It actually kind of sucks since he's so huge and it seems like a horseback fight against a giant should be epic and cinematic... but you just end up staring at his ankles and sides or getting completely camera-fucked, in true Souls tradition.
But I also used the Doot Horn to absolutely clown on him like a chump, so that could have something to do with it too I guess
She died for me just a moment before I finished off the boss. She did even worse against the magma wyrm makar. I summon her for everything because she's cool, but I don't place a lot of faith in her.
I fought the Ancestral Spirit boss in Nokron the other day. I wailed on him a bit and he did his disappearing act. But instead of reappearing and using his healing move, he just...never came back. After 15ish seconds, the rest of his life bar got hit, he died and I got his remembrance from beyond the astral plane or wherever he'd fucked off to. It's not like he was a hard boss, but I guess I wasn't going to complain.
That's sick. I wonder if it's a bug or intended.
Regulus
Sir Knightbot
I can't imagine it's intentional, but she almost always starts the second phase with some health depleted regardless, so I dunno. She has weak stagger resistance, so critical attacks are pretty common in the fight. When I realized what was triggering it, I kept my Hand Ballista handy so I could blast her out of the sky as soon as the second round started, lol.
There are certainly more practical weapons to do this with, but in coop being really @#$%in' cool is a big priority.
There are certainly more practical weapons to do this with, but in coop being really @#$%in' cool is a big priority.
My Prophet run might be the most I've enjoyed playing as any character in any of these games, and it's definitely the most playing as a magic user has felt fully realized in terms of theming.
I can see how people might have felt Incantations were underpowered if they were stumbling through blindly, but as a second playthrough when you know how the world is laid out, you have extremely early access to a huge array of damage types and status effects. Between holy (Cipher Pata in the hub), fire (starting gear and hub vendor), black fire (Storm Veil), lightning (overworld enemy early in Liurnia), scarlet rot (dragon incantations in Caelid, but you can basically get there just by following the main roads and ignoring enemies), and bleed (doing Varre's quest to get access to Swarm of Flies as soon as you hit Liurnia), a Faith character with just enough Arcane to meet minimums for blood and dragon spells has a tool to deal with pretty much any situation. Beyond a wide range of damage types, this also means tons of variety in terms of spacing and timing. The focus on exploration also makes healing spells feel more useful than they've ever been. You have just enormous room for error and basically never have to run back to a site of grace because of a bad encounter.
I'm assuming that once I hit the plateau and definitely in the late game Holy resistance will become enough of a problem that I'll need to work on some sort of new melee weapon and will need to start putting some points into Strength or Dexterity for minimums, but I bet there will be a way to work around that for a while because Incantations provide so much versatility, even if they might lack the pure damage output of Sorcery.
I can see how people might have felt Incantations were underpowered if they were stumbling through blindly, but as a second playthrough when you know how the world is laid out, you have extremely early access to a huge array of damage types and status effects. Between holy (Cipher Pata in the hub), fire (starting gear and hub vendor), black fire (Storm Veil), lightning (overworld enemy early in Liurnia), scarlet rot (dragon incantations in Caelid, but you can basically get there just by following the main roads and ignoring enemies), and bleed (doing Varre's quest to get access to Swarm of Flies as soon as you hit Liurnia), a Faith character with just enough Arcane to meet minimums for blood and dragon spells has a tool to deal with pretty much any situation. Beyond a wide range of damage types, this also means tons of variety in terms of spacing and timing. The focus on exploration also makes healing spells feel more useful than they've ever been. You have just enormous room for error and basically never have to run back to a site of grace because of a bad encounter.
I'm assuming that once I hit the plateau and definitely in the late game Holy resistance will become enough of a problem that I'll need to work on some sort of new melee weapon and will need to start putting some points into Strength or Dexterity for minimums, but I bet there will be a way to work around that for a while because Incantations provide so much versatility, even if they might lack the pure damage output of Sorcery.
Good news for Estragon and others early in or planning Faith builds: Patch 1.04 is out and they buffed almost every incantation. They ALSO buffed almost every sorcery that didn't get buffed last time. It looks like the vast majority of spells, especially the higher-level/later-game ones, got some combination of two buffs from increased damage, reduced cast time, reduced recovery time, better hyperarmor, or reduced FP, plus a couple with reduced stamina cost. (Except for the most basic spells - so starting pyromancies, lightning spear throw, etc. are untouched, glintstone pebbles and such are untouched, they were good enough already.) Spellcasters rejoice! Now a lot of the suckier high-level spells I ended up not using because they weren't quite worth it (or were so slow and unarmored you literally couldn't cast them in 90% of practical situations) will hopefully be better! (The lightning spears where you float and slam them into the ground, in particular were disappointing and frustrating offenders here.) My sorcerer is excited to re-do her spell list to try out a bunch of other spells that got tested and immediately shelved for simply not being generally worth using over pebble/great gs shard/comet or stars of ruin/comet azur.
They also buffed FP and stamina growth at lower levels, so early points in mind and endurance will have bigger returns. (For existing characters, you'll have to activate something that changes your base stats, like Godrick's great rune or equipping an armor that adds points, to see this reflected; new characters and newly-added levels will be automatic, of course.)
BUT WAIT, there's more! They also buffed mega-huge weapons and strength builds - Colossal swords/colossal weapons have faster attack speeds and lower recovery times (except for jump attacks), two-handing them has increased attack power, and they have higher block percentages and stability ratings. UNGA BUNGA'S BACK, BABY!
Helping in that regard, but also overall, they ALSO buffed a ton of ashes of war, mostly in the same way as the spells - faster cast time and/or faster recovery time, lower FP or stamina costs. Some also got windows in the middle of long animations to roll-cancel out of it, which I imagine is nice. A couple got added hitboxes to weapon movement (so e.g. when you're whirling your polearm/twinblade to do the blackflame tornado, that whirling weapon will now also hit and damage enemies).
Those two have me more excited than ever to play my pure-strength big-weapon feller.
But what about nerfs? Well, there are a few, but not many. Status buildup when using the dragon communion seal or albinauric staff got nerfed; swarm of flies got an extra nerf, and madness buildup on frenzy spells got a nerf. Only one weapon art got nerfed: lightning cloud form from the cragblade had its damage from a quick press nerfed (so charged damage should be the same?) (it also got faster like others, though). Shockingly, taker's flame and the DOOT horn weren't nerfed. Working as intended, baybeeeeee! (for now)
Some other spells got tweaked in a way that's probably an overall buff, like the giants' flame spell where you throw a shower of flames; single-cast damage got nerfed, but now enemies can get hit by multiple fires. Adula's moonblade's damage got nerfed, but also made it so it was easier to hit with both the slice and shot.
Anyway, yeah. Big patch, lots of cool buffs where they were needed. We'll see if the axe swings back the other way and next time around has more nerfs, but in the meantime, go slay some shit!
They also buffed FP and stamina growth at lower levels, so early points in mind and endurance will have bigger returns. (For existing characters, you'll have to activate something that changes your base stats, like Godrick's great rune or equipping an armor that adds points, to see this reflected; new characters and newly-added levels will be automatic, of course.)
BUT WAIT, there's more! They also buffed mega-huge weapons and strength builds - Colossal swords/colossal weapons have faster attack speeds and lower recovery times (except for jump attacks), two-handing them has increased attack power, and they have higher block percentages and stability ratings. UNGA BUNGA'S BACK, BABY!
Helping in that regard, but also overall, they ALSO buffed a ton of ashes of war, mostly in the same way as the spells - faster cast time and/or faster recovery time, lower FP or stamina costs. Some also got windows in the middle of long animations to roll-cancel out of it, which I imagine is nice. A couple got added hitboxes to weapon movement (so e.g. when you're whirling your polearm/twinblade to do the blackflame tornado, that whirling weapon will now also hit and damage enemies).
Those two have me more excited than ever to play my pure-strength big-weapon feller.
But what about nerfs? Well, there are a few, but not many. Status buildup when using the dragon communion seal or albinauric staff got nerfed; swarm of flies got an extra nerf, and madness buildup on frenzy spells got a nerf. Only one weapon art got nerfed: lightning cloud form from the cragblade had its damage from a quick press nerfed (so charged damage should be the same?) (it also got faster like others, though). Shockingly, taker's flame and the DOOT horn weren't nerfed. Working as intended, baybeeeeee! (for now)
Some other spells got tweaked in a way that's probably an overall buff, like the giants' flame spell where you throw a shower of flames; single-cast damage got nerfed, but now enemies can get hit by multiple fires. Adula's moonblade's damage got nerfed, but also made it so it was easier to hit with both the slice and shot.
Anyway, yeah. Big patch, lots of cool buffs where they were needed. We'll see if the axe swings back the other way and next time around has more nerfs, but in the meantime, go slay some shit!
It looks like they also made Shield Talisman + Fingerprint Stone Greatshield take some nominal stamina damage instead of none at all, which seems like a reasonable tradeoff for colossal weapons swinging faster.
I feel the same about Swarm of Flies doing less bleed buildup. It was honestly way too good, and I like that the solution is yes to power that down a bit but also to improve basically every other Incantation. Many of the Incantations they're improving are already great to begin with! Late game spells being too slow to use in practice has already been a tricky balance issue in these games. I wonder how these will be in practice now.
I'm pretty happy with their approach to rebalancing so far. My only real outstanding wish is that I do think Poise values need to be reworked a bit. Every attack dealing either 50 or 100 poise damage does feel a bit placeholdery in order to get the game out of the door with the system technically working, but some more gradations and readjustments across the board would be ideal.
According to the patch notes, this also appears to have fixed the bug I encountered where a site of grace refused to ever register as a fast travel point when I touched it for the first time while being summoned as a hunter, so theoretically at least it's safer to stay summonable as a hunter while touching a new site of grace.
I feel the same about Swarm of Flies doing less bleed buildup. It was honestly way too good, and I like that the solution is yes to power that down a bit but also to improve basically every other Incantation. Many of the Incantations they're improving are already great to begin with! Late game spells being too slow to use in practice has already been a tricky balance issue in these games. I wonder how these will be in practice now.
I'm pretty happy with their approach to rebalancing so far. My only real outstanding wish is that I do think Poise values need to be reworked a bit. Every attack dealing either 50 or 100 poise damage does feel a bit placeholdery in order to get the game out of the door with the system technically working, but some more gradations and readjustments across the board would be ideal.
According to the patch notes, this also appears to have fixed the bug I encountered where a site of grace refused to ever register as a fast travel point when I touched it for the first time while being summoned as a hunter, so theoretically at least it's safer to stay summonable as a hunter while touching a new site of grace.
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Worth noting that From also acknowledged that this patch accidentally shortened the duration of Cerulean Hidden Tear, which they'll be fixing shortly.
I've also seen reports that Malenia is bugged now (healing whether she lands a hit or not), but this is unconfirmed and maybe only in multiplayer.
I've also seen reports that Malenia is bugged now (healing whether she lands a hit or not), but this is unconfirmed and maybe only in multiplayer.
as far as bugs go, at least it's funny
Regulus
Sir Knightbot
Is that the case? As far as I can tell there's a broader range than that. It seems to be organized by weapon class. I want to say it goes something like this:
bolts & arrows -> light weapons like daggers or claws -> sidearms like straight/curved swords and katana) -> hammers -> great weapons -> colossal weapons
This isn't really all that different from how it was organized in Dark Souls, but poise damage is higher across the board so it's more difficult to tank more than one attack.
Apparently whatever changes they made to stabilize the online multiplayer experience is what's causing the bugs. The server is incorrectly registering things like dodges and hitbox contact. It's also made a previously very rare bug far more consistent, which is that in a fight with multiple health bars, finishing one off with a damaging status proc would prevent the next healthbar from filling, so it remains empty.
Interestingly they nerfed the "infinite FP for a few seconds" physick effect by reducing its duration to like 8 seconds, but apparently that was a mistake and they'll be restoring the original duration as part of an upcoming smaller patch.
Interestingly they nerfed the "infinite FP for a few seconds" physick effect by reducing its duration to like 8 seconds, but apparently that was a mistake and they'll be restoring the original duration as part of an upcoming smaller patch.
Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is currently kicking my ass (although I think I might be underleveled for something for the first time in like 60 hours). I do love that it’s a Bloodborne-ass boss with a Bloodborne-ass name, though.
Edit: Got 'im! Take that, you big weirdo! I never figured out how to dodge his grab attack, which was an insta-kill every time it happened, but I got lucky my last run and he didn't do it.
Edit: Got 'im! Take that, you big weirdo! I never figured out how to dodge his grab attack, which was an insta-kill every time it happened, but I got lucky my last run and he didn't do it.
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R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I killed Maliketh, who turned out to also be the beast cleric who taught me how to throw rocks at things. Someone having a double identity seems to be a recurring theme in Elden Ring, it seems.
After that, I got zapped back to the Capital, and then had to fight Gideon, which was a turn of events I did see coming.
I’m almost done! I can almost taste the inevitable abrupt ending and credits!
After that, I got zapped back to the Capital, and then had to fight Gideon, which was a turn of events I did see coming.
I’m almost done! I can almost taste the inevitable abrupt ending and credits!
That's about where I am. Good game, looking forward to being finished.
For some reason the game wasn't letting me summon the horse for Fire Giant, but I don't think I needed it. Fight took two tries, his attacks are strong but easy to dodge.
For some reason the game wasn't letting me summon the horse for Fire Giant, but I don't think I needed it. Fight took two tries, his attacks are strong but easy to dodge.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I was indeed very close, as I saw both of those things tonight!
I got the Ranni ending, which most people went with by looking at the trophy numbers. I’m not made of stone.
I want to start a new character who focuses on sorcery, since I totally ignored that aspect of the game. I probably won’t get far, just see how it feels.
I do need to get those other endings sometime, though.
That is, by most accounts, The Good Ending (especially when considering the actual meaning instead of the somewhat drastic mistranslation). It also comes at the end of the longest and most involved sidequest, which has some of the more compelling dialog and exposition and some of the most interesting characters, so I think it's pretty natural that people would go for it. But man, like all of the quests, it really makes me thankful that there are guides all over the Internet because tracking down every step of that would, even if it's more explicit than some quests in past games, still be kind of a nightmare.
I think my sorc is going to do either the plainest ending, or maybe Goldmask's, either of which count for the main trophy (along with Fia's or the Curse's endings). For NG+ from my other character I might do a quick boss-slaughter straight story run to get the Frenzied Flame ending, which covers the three trophy endings. I'd like to get the other three at some point but I also think I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to play something else for a while (even though I have so many build ideas I want to doooooo).
I'm getting into the last third of the game on my sorcerer, and I'm not sure if I'm just overleveled (I did some bird grinding, but mostly to put a few extra points into side stats like strength for my shield and endurance/mind/vigor, my int-pumping has been almost all through my normal levels) but dang I'm powerful. It helps that my Carian Royal Staff is +10, but I got up through +9 through totally normal exploration and play and did a quick run through Moghwyn Palace for the Ancient to get +10. I'll switch to frost glintstone shard to try and get freeze up and that alone will chew through some bosses - I ate Morgott for breakfast and don't know if frost even got a chance to trigger. OH WELL. I'd rather be disappointed for making things too easy than rage over their being too hard, for my mental health's sake. I have no intention of grinding any more levels as I head into the endgame, regardless, though I also know that late-game enemies definitely have the HP to absorb my power (I dipped into the Shunning Grounds to get the Grace and sniping an omen from above revealed they have quite a few HP.
Regulus
Sir Knightbot
I've seen this in a few places and the actual "mistranslation" in the ending seems pretty minor to me. The English dialogue is less direct/more 'poetic' and perhaps more difficult to interpret as a result, but outside of an error in a single line my read is that they otherwise have the exact same meaning.
I'm still learning, so my Japanese is really poor... I'd love to hear what some of our fluent members think of this.
Yeah the only line that feels like it was messed up was the very last one. The English localization makes that final line seem sinister when it's definitively not. Everything else still decently carries over the intended meaning. The "real" translation is pretty much exactly how I interpreted it to begin with because nothing about the quest and dialogue up to the ending ever implied a weird sinister turn.
Regulus
Sir Knightbot
On the subject of Ranni... I have some thoughts on both her and Melina.
Basically, I think there's some pretty significant circumstantial evidence linking the two.
Taken alongside this, there's also some circumstantial and symbolic evidence that Ranni may not be Rennala's biological daughter:
In addition to this, there's some pretty strong evidence that Melina is Marika's daughter... the most direct (but arguably not necessarily most reliable) being her internal name within the game's files - "MarikaOfDaughter" presumably an awkward translation of "MarikaNoMusume" or something similar. Alongside the above evidence, I feel like there are three main options:
- Melina states she's "burned and bodiless". Due to the black knife ritual, Ranni herself is also bodiless. And when we finally discover Ranni's corpse atop the tower in Liurnia, it appears to pretty severly charred.
- Both of them keep one eye closed at all times, with some kind of mark or seal over the closed eye. If we take Ranni's "spirit face" to be her "real" face, then both of them have the same eye (their right eye) closed.
- Both of them have some connection to Torrent. As far as I know, they're the only characters that do.
- The game features a handful of other characters with some kind of shared state of existence; Marika/Radagon (two souls in one body?) and D/Darian (one soul in two bodies). Could Ranni and Melina be similar?
Taken alongside this, there's also some circumstantial and symbolic evidence that Ranni may not be Rennala's biological daughter:
- Rennala is betrayed by a Liurnian faction known as the "Knights of the Cuckoo". As you may know, the cuckoo is a bird that is known for brood parasitism; it leaves its eggs in the nests of other birds, tricking them into raising its offspring. Since they're not directly linked to Radagon, I wouldn't normally put too much stock in this, but...
- Radagon famously leaves Rennala with an egg before he leaves her. Since we don't have a concrete timeline of events, we don't know if this predates the "birth" of any of their children. Is it possible that Ranni was born from this egg? Did Radagon cuckold her?
- Ranni is stated to be an Empyrean - a candidate to succeed Marika as an representative of the Greater Will. We don't know exactly what makes someone eligible for Empyrean status outside of being chosen by the Two Fingers, but the other two in the game whose lineage we do know (Malenia and Miquella) are implied to be such because they were both born of Marika and Radagon.
- It's suspicious that Rennala's amber egg has a Great Rune at all. Radagon gave it to her before the Marika shattered the Elden Ring, so where did the rune come from? The second phase of the Rennala fight is technically not Rennala; it's actually an illusion conjured by Ranni. In a sense, Ranni herself is one of the shardbearers we fight, but she's said to have cast off her rune when she cast off her Empyrean flesh. Maybe the "Great Rune of the Unborn" is her rune?
- The Great Runes themselves are designed such that if you overlay them properly, they (unsurprisingly) form the shape of the Elden Ring itself, the main body of which is formed by four layered rings with a single line running through them. In game, the shards held by siblings occupy the same "space" on the Elden Ring. Morgott's and Mohg's are stated to be similar and appear to occupy the central ring. Radahn's and Rykard's occupy the rightside ring, and while Miquella's rune is unaccounted for, Malenia's appears to form the left ring. Curiously, the Great Rune of the Unborn lines up with Malenia's rune. I find that pretty suspicious.
In addition to this, there's some pretty strong evidence that Melina is Marika's daughter... the most direct (but arguably not necessarily most reliable) being her internal name within the game's files - "MarikaOfDaughter" presumably an awkward translation of "MarikaNoMusume" or something similar. Alongside the above evidence, I feel like there are three main options:
- Ranni and Melina are supposed to be thematically parallel, with Ranni being Radagon's offspring and Melina being Marika's. Ranni's motivations specifically run contrary to Radagon's (who would prefer to maintain the Golden Order), and by the end of the game Melina states that she's following her own purpose rather the one given by her mother... but I'm not entirely sure yet what Marika's motivations are, so I'm not sure if they mirror each other here.
- Ranni and Melina are twins, like many of the other demigods (Malenia/Miquella, Morgott/Mohg... maybe Radahn/Rykard? There's no direct evidence for the last one, but who knows?)
- Ranni and Melina are the same person with a split soul or some similar state of being. Potentially a side effect of the ritual that allowed Ranni to destroy her body? Melina said she was born at the foot of the Erdtree, and the Erdtree is where souls are supposed to return under the Golden Order... maybe that has something to do with it?
It's a mistranslation, and the most well known article about this is mostly correct. (I disagree on some points, but they're more right than wrong.)
Even if the number of incorrectly translated words is technically small, in aggregate and as a result of how they flow together it does reverse or obscure the meaning of certain lines.
I do think the case is slightly overstated in the article, though. You can still end up reaching the correct interpretation nonetheless, because there are also times when they translate her whole deal correctly. ("Mine will be an order not of gold, but the stars and moon of the chill night. I would keep them far from the earth beneath our feet.") So, if you internalize that basic framework from the correctly translated bits, you can kind of get at what she's saying in the parts that aren't translated as well, and you'll more or less be in the ballpark. But there's enough inconsistency that you could also reasonably end up not being able to do that, while the Japanese text is more consistent across all of her scenes.
I don't think this is because the English text is more ambiguous or more poetic or more difficult to interpret. I think they've more or less matched those aspects of the text, but made some errors about the basic gist of the lines.
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FWIW: I interpreted this ending similar to the Dark Souls "Age of Dark" ending. The golden order goes away (until someone comes along to change it) and people are left to "fend for themselves" without the guidance of higher beings/spiritual organization. So even if there was mistranslations, I think I picked it up mostly fine just because all of the Souls games have similar themes.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. Estragon's link sums it up. I started to write my own take on it, but then realized I was just repeating everything the article said.
I've found one other error in the translation on my own when looking at the lore: Maliketh is not Marika's "half-brother." The word used for that, 義弟, means (in this context) a sworn brother. This is the same word used to describe Blaidd's relationship with Ranni. In that case the translation clearly implicates that they are not related, Blaidd was "like an adopted brother" to her. Maliketh is the same; he's not related to Marika, he's her sworn brother, the shadow given to an Empyrean.
There's also an oddity I noticed which I wouldn't quite describe as an error but a stylistic choice that might have lore implications, relating to the final boss: In JP a lot of bosses' names (particularly on their health bars) are written as Descriptor, Name (with a comma). Examples of this being translated directly in that same format are "Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon," "Godfrey, First Elden Lord," "Mohg, Lord of Blood." So, get into the tree and you fight Radagon of the Golden Order. But in JP, his name follows the same format as above: "Radagon, (the) Golden Order."
There are plenty of ways to translate that simple format. Instead of "Ohga, Redmane Knight" the ash became "Redmane Knight Ohga" and this is typically fine. BUT. Radagon "of" the Golden Order can read to me like he is its follower, adherent, or even leader, someone associated with the GO. But the way I read his Japanese name, it's saying that Radagon IS the Golden Order.
One of the theories I've seen floated around is that Radagon's great rune, the cross-hatch background behind his statues, behind the complete Elden Ring images, and sealing the tree's door when we can't get in after Morgott, is Order, or The Rune of Order, or specifically the Golden Order. Does Radagon simply bear that rune like the shardbearers? Contain it like Marika does the Ring? Or is that him? There's evidence elsewhere to indicate that bearers of great runes, at least some of them, are their rune in some cases. When Marika shatters the ring, her body also literally shatters, and we see that her/Radagon's insides are the Elden Ring itself. Fia lays with the corpse of Godwyn, Prince of Death and bears a child, which is a rune. (Note to self, check the JP for this sequence.) The amber egg Radagon gave Rennala bore a great rune, which may have been Ranni according to the Cuckoo's Egg theories. Now, the metaphysics of Runes are very wibbly-wobbly and not nailed down, but there are a lot of tantalizing suggestions in a lot of different directions. Maybe it's reaching. But Radagon's nature is already so questionable, what with him being Marika (though at one point, having "yet to become her, become a god" according to her) and bearing a great rune since before the shattering. But when some theories already conflate entities with the runes they bear, the formatting of Radagon's boss name jumped out at me.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
The somber way Ranni picks up Marika’s head in her ending is noticeable, as well.
I’ve never gotten into the plots of From’s games. The final boss in this one is an alien god being made out of a star cluster that was living inside a guy who was also his wife? I rolled my eyes and just hit them with my big sword until they became EXP.
Regulus
Sir Knightbot
Yeah, that's the article I had read. I was a bit wary because I'm not familiar with the site at all, didn't get the best impression from its audience given ableist language in the comments, and most of the people I've seen spreading this article around online are "western localizers are SJW cucks" types. Thank you for backing it up. I still think that it's a little overstated just how "off" the English is (since I arrived at the same conclusions about the Age of Stars even before reading the article), but I trust you on this.
Yeah, I like that explanation about "Radagon's Rune". It's a cool touch. One curious thing I noticed while farming Cuckoo Knight Armor outside Raya Lucaria: The seal outside the academy also features a diagonal crosshatch pattern.
I definitely get this. A big problem with basically any discussion of video game or animation translations is that it ends up being reduced to a culture war issue so it can be hard to tell who to trust. The comments below that article are definitely a cesspool!
For the record, I don't think this means that localization is terrible or that they have an agenda. I think it has some issues, but also I think that's basically inevitable for any translation project this large, and especially for a work that contains some much intentional ambiguity.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
I started my magic character tonight and was having a lot of fun shooting beams at everybody. Sadly, it all went south when I tried to join somebody’s game at the Margit boss, and my game froze on the loading screen. After I eventually quit the game and started it again, it worked fine. I sure was worried, though! I think I’ll put the game away for a while. I may have played it too much.