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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Eldon's Ring of Law, so please read it as appropriate!
I was so close that I was finally going to be the King of Eldon.
The Golden Tree was burning, I knocked down the game's penultimate boss, and finally the entrance to the Boss Battle was only a step away from me, and the royal city of Rodel was also turned into a snow-covered city of ashes by me. It won't be long before this broken, burning world will be ruled by me. Along the way, I explored all the tombs and dungeons I found, and finally arrived here, with a few minutes to go before the game came to an end. There are no more bosses in the game for me to challenge, and there are no other mountains for me to climb, but I still stop at the blessing point before the final boss battle, desperately searching Wikipedia for various interpretations of the game. For me, I don't want to, and can't bear to, open the game and end the Eldon's Circle of Law tour.
It's not ridiculous to have emotions for the game, at least that's what I think. During the 200 hours of gameplay I spent at Elden's Circle of Law (which included the time I reviewed the game, which I thought was a masterpiece), playing it had become my daily activity, and I kept postponing going to bed just to explore another cave or find a new blessing point.
Discovering new things while exploring, stumbling into a new area you've never seen before, and encountering new types of enemies contribute to the addictive feel of Eldon's Circle of Law. Without these feelings, the grandeur of the game will diminish and the charm will be lost a lot. The thrill of discovering something new is addictive, but it also feels like a constant infusion of serotonin in a tired brain, feeling a pang of emptiness as soon as the stimulation is stopped.
I'm not surprised by the arrival of the parting, as there are already signs in the game that the journey is coming to an end. As the characters started mentioning that I was nearing the end of my journey, I could feel like I was desperate to find something else to do. I thought to myself that there was still a sacred tree area in the game that I had not explored, and there was a super powerful boss waiting for me to challenge in the depths of the north. Before I finish the game, I had to complete all the NPCs' side quests, and for that I could even endure discomfort to satisfy the nasty dung eater.' When I wondered what sage Gway would do after he died, I would only do it myself and would not let anyone tell me the plot. At the time of his death, I knew that this man was a corrupt family member, well, at least it was a new discovery.
But I finally explored everything I could find, and at this point my gaming experience went from discovery to exploration to a grind that didn't end, a desperate struggle to try to dig through everything through the game so that I didn't have to open up the ending and turn the page. It was at this time that my phone became a key device like a gamepad during gameplay, and on this tiny screen, I repeatedly rummaged through the various guides I found on Google and Wiki to see what other secrets I didn't know about the junction. For me, the faded, the guidance of the mobile phone is a hundred times more useful than that of the finger witch, and perhaps even the "white mask" Van Ray will be jealous of me having such a powerful guide.
But there are pros and cons to exploring this approach with the help of a raider. In the beginning, one of the things that fascinated me about Eldon's Law Ring was the novelty of discovering things on my own, and I could either stumble for an hour, or I could explore it first, and then come back and challenge it when I became more powerful and resourceful. But by the end of the game, there was nothing new to discover, and I couldn't find more power or mysteries on my own. There's nothing else in the game except the boss in front of you, and the boss will soon be knocked out by me. So I started digging deeper into the collection raiders, going back to find caves and bosses that I should have explored more than 100 levels ago. Although the process felt empty to me, at least I could still gain something.
I gathered the last few weapons, as well as many amulets that were neither important nor useful to me, and some armor that I would never wear, and saw some plots that I wasn't sure if I understood. I looked at the vast area of the map with no blessing points and wondered if I hadn't explored it thoroughly, or if it was something that was inherently unexplorable. I was still standing on the cliffs of Lienia and scanning the distance, trying to find a place I hadn't seen before. While I'm not sure if spending the last few hours under the Guide will affect my experience, it's certainly less fun than when I first explored on my own.
It wasn't long before I returned to the blessing in front of the throne and watched as my faded one leg was bent and one leg was lying flat at the blessing point. I still don't want the game to end, there's definitely something else here for me to explore and collect. But even so, I came back here and realized that sooner or later I would have to push ahead to get through the game. Getting through the game doesn't diminish my love for it, it does free me from the freak of digging through the horns just to squeeze out a little more content from the game.
Eventually, my faded one left the blessing and spent more than a dozen seconds walking through the throne room up the stairs. I checked the gear for the last time, the handles were fully charged, and various achievements were unlocked completely. I pressed the triangle button on the handle and passed through the golden fog door, heading towards the final boss battle without turning back.
Translation: Liu Sheng's non-love sword
Edit: Zoe
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