I pitied Shadow of the Erdtree's future 'Let Me Solo Her' champion, but seeing how the Elden Ring community's handled business, I'm not so worried anymore

GamesRPGI pitied Shadow of the Erdtree’s future ‘Let Me Solo Her’ champion, but seeing how the Elden Ring community’s handled business, I’m not so worried anymoreWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: FromSoftware)

Elden Ring character Let Me Solo her stands in Malenia�s boss room after climactic battle.

Just a heads up before we get into this—spoilers aheadfor the last boss ofShadow of the Erdtree. You’ve been warned, weary Tarnished.

Nowadays, looking at their slow swings, telegraphed leaps, and one-to-two hit combos, I can’t help but wonder how I was ever so innocent. If you’re fresh off the back of Shadow of the Erdtree, I invite you to go ahead and watch some footage of them or, better yet, re-download Dark Souls and take it for a spin. With wearier eyes, these chumps look like they’re swinging through treacle.

Granted, with this new increase in difficulty comes an increase in build variety. The skill floor for engaging in a FromSoftware game has kept pace with the ways in which said game can be torn apart with mechanical wizardry. Back in my day we didn’t have spirit ashes, and if we were stuck on a boss? That was it. There was no more game to play until we got good.

Still, the fact remains: FromSoftware bosses hit harder, swing faster, and drag their combos on for longer than they ever have. Their attacks are fiercer, trickier to read, and sometimes—in the case of Malenia’s infamous Waterfowl dance—require a hyper-specific set of inputs to even start dodging.

Erdtree’s final boss, Promised Consort Radahn, feels like the end of a long and winding road of design decisions. He is, in a lot of ways, an example of everything “wrong” with FromSoftware’s new boss template. At a baseline, his combos will drag on for hours—but he’s manageable. Then phase two kicks in like a sledgehammer to the head.

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Compared to Malenia, a boss so infamous that her parting death dialogue (yours, not hers) is seared into most Elden Ring players' brains, Radahn isstilla step above.

I finally put him to rights, though—and as I set down my controller, my thumbs sore from hours of movements that just don’t take place in the natural world—I had the thought. “Gee, the’Let Me Solo Her’champion of Radahn 2.0 has their work cut out for them, no matter who takes on the mantle.” I’ve even been planning to write about it. I’m glad I held off, because I have never been proven more wrong.

“There’s always a bigger fish” needs an update. Turns out that there is not only a bigger fish, but that said fish will make you look like a clown in one of your favourite videogames. Here’s a summary of Radahn kills that’re squatting rent-free in my brain, lately:

And you might think—Harvey, those are very specific builds. Parrying aside, surely you’re just describing cheese, here? And to that I’d say, someone beat himusing a saxophone. The indomitable human spirit is both real and specifically designed to heap shame upon my gamer skills. My noble house may never recover.

But that’s a separate issue. As the ingenious and dedicated souls community has so thoroughly proven to me, when it comes to filling the shoes of FromSoftware folk lore, I’m now convinced that thenext “Let Me Solo Her"will be just fine.

Erdtree map fragments: Uncover the Land of ShadowScadutree fragments: How to level up in ErdtreeErdtree bosses: A full hit list for the DLCLeda quest: Track the Erdtree main questSir Ansbach quest: Help the former servant of MohgHornsent quest: Complete the quest for vengeance

Erdtree map fragmentsScadutree fragmentsErdtree bossesLeda questSir Ansbach questHornsent quest

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