Call & Response: Bonfireside Chat Liurnia Responses
Added 2022-08-05 17:33:51 +0000 UTCHey folks! It's time to gather responses about the Liurnia of the Lakes region in Elden Ring for the upcoming Bonfireside Chat Roundtable Roundtable. Respond to this post with your comment for a chance to be read on air!
Try to have your responses in by Tuesday, August 10.
Some guidelines:
1. Your response must be about this area, not the game in general.
2. Please keep your response short. About 200 words or two paragraphs, if possible.
3. If precedent holds true, we will have wayyy more responses than we can read. So please don't be upset if we skip your response or shorten it to cover as many unique viewpoints as possible.
Thanks so much for your support, and we look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Comments
Don't know if this is too late but wiegraf here: I can't believe you didn't mention that the Sweetlings are all messed up little Harries Potter. Everyone talks about Lucaria being Hogwarts inspired and I enjoyed this horrific little goof on everyone's least favourite fantasy franchise. My head canon is that Renala is J.K. Rowling and the rebirthing of the "sweetings" is her perpetually ruining her franchise by adding shitty extra details to it. P.S. Fuck J.K. Rowling
Kyle Thompson
2022-08-12 20:43:54 +0000 UTCOn the Albinaurics: The blue boy mask that you find states that it is an imitation of a young Albinauric’s head. Somewhere it is stated that Albinaurics lose the use of their legs as they age. My first thought was that the pale crawling villager Albinaurics, who get slaughtered were the final form of the blue guys. Also perhaps they cartwheel to highlight their “childlike” nature? What do you think? Thanks a bunch!
Joshua
2022-08-11 17:40:41 +0000 UTCHi guys! Wanted to let you know that you are the very first Patreon I have ever subscribed to. When I completed all your episodes that were on Spotify and found out the rest would be on Patreon behind a pay wall I was a little sad (not mad, I totally get it) but I decided that your work was worth me breaking a (admittedly primitive) principle of mine and it totally is. I live in Lima, Peru and I haven’t been able to find people that love these games like me to talk about. Bonfire sidechat really scratches that itch for me. My question is what is your usual sales pitch to people when you tell them why they should play the souls series?
Chris Espinosa
2022-08-09 21:54:21 +0000 UTCIt's possible I'm reading connections to other games where they don't exist, but I can't help but wonder if the Albinaurics were inspired by first generation and second generation Super Mutants from the Fallout franchise. The parallels are certainly there, with the first generation being of higher intelligence, and the second generation being much simpler brutes who end up mostly as raiders across the wasteland. Even the idea of (later game spoilers) the first generation Albinaurics creating a sanctuary for both kinds (as well as other outcasts) with Miquella's Haligtree reminds me of Jacobstown being a sanctuary for first and second generation Super Mutants alike in New Vegas. If I really wanted to stretch the connection, Mohg's area having so many second generation Albinaurics who are obviously being experimented on despite allegedly being a similar sanctuary for those mistreated by the Golden Order has some parallels to Black Mountain, also from New Vegas. The biggest difference being that the second generation Super Mutants being flawed was a mistake resulting from someone other than The Master trying to replicate the Super Mutants (if I recall correctly) whereas the Albinaurics second generation seems to be deliberate. The inspiration may be unintentional, but it definitely felt similar to me in a way I found cool.
Benjamin
2022-08-09 20:54:53 +0000 UTCThe first time I played Elden Ring, I somehow missed the entrance to Stormveil and circled all the way around the castle instead. So Liurnia has a special place in my heart because it was my accidental introduction to Elden Ring. If you thought it was overwhelming having to adjust to this game's scope, imagine doing it in an area most players don't reach for the first 15-20 hours. It wound up being one of the most memorable sessions I've had with any game. The higher difficulty was a quick lesson in using the game's options and choosing my battles. The fact that I managed to bumble my way into Raya Lucaria by the end of my first evening was a perfect example of FromSoft rewarding curiosity and the player's personal ambition. By now I obviously have a full picture of Elden Ring's story and world, but that plotless first session felt like the closest thing I've ever played to a modern Zelda 1 -- pure adventure, intimidating and driven only by a sense of discovery.
Mike Suskie
2022-08-09 12:53:38 +0000 UTCHey guys! I've been listening to the show for years, but this is the first time I'm playing a game concurrently with a season. Really enjoying it! I wanted to share my somewhat differing opinion on Rennala's hat. I really like how silly it looks, and the stat boost would work great with my build. But after playing with it for a bit I just had to take it off. It was just too large! It took up too much of the screen and distracted me from everything that was going on behind it. I think this is the first time the design of an outfit has stopped me from using something in a FromSoft game.
SindrElf
2022-08-09 07:03:09 +0000 UTCLiurnia is the part of the game where the novelty of Torrent and mounted combat started to wane for me. The fact that you can't dodge or get any i-frames or do much of anything special on horseback really started to bug me while fighting the giant crabs, lobster snipers, and big ol groups of albinaurics and monks that you end up running into. The way all these enemies hit stun Torrent leaves you open to being stun locked and knocked off with no real recourse other than to run away. That combined with Liurnia being one of the largest regions in the game really started to give me Torrent fatigue. It's not that I don't he's a very good boy (of course he is and I genuinely love his design) but there's just not that much there other than the double jump to differentiate him from just a much faster, stripped down version of the player character
Bryan Bronstein
2022-08-08 17:21:53 +0000 UTCLiurnia is great, but it had the highest concentration of the element I found most bewildering, which is the waygates. The open world in Elden Ring is as seamless as any FromSoft game: some cutscenes transitioning between major areas, but otherwise leaving movement in the player's control. The waygates introduce breaks in this continuity - this is okay when there is intent behind it, but I can't find a good reason for some of them. An example of this is the waygate in the Laskyar Ruins taking you to the gate of the Academy. Finding this in my first playthrough resulted in missing the approach to the gate - that's a great area and I'm just not sure what is gained by letting players easily skip past it, or why that waygate is where it is (there's an equivalent one in the Purified Ruins, too?). The teleporter in East Liurnia that just takes you to West Liurnia feels egregious as well. It's not that the waygates are necessarily a bad mechanic (I liked the Four Belfries), it feels like many could have been factored out, maybe with more development time. Maybe I'm missing some lore tidbit that makes these feel more holistic.
David Cabatingan
2022-08-08 14:48:03 +0000 UTCI actually spent considerable time in Liurnia on my first playthrough prior to even reaching the Weeping Peninsula or Stormveil, having found the path around after bouncing after Margit. After a few hours, I was eventually dissuaded when I realized that the flowers could shoot at me with ranged magic, returning after Stormveil. The entire region is now one of my favorites on replays, aesthetically and questline wise. For whatever reason, the beauty and intrigue of the area pulls me in, while I may rush through Limgrave I can’t help but stop and take in the game, even 9 or 10 playthroughs in. There’s something breathtaking being pressed against the Altus Plateau, stars bright overhead, the Academy high above and the Erdtree looming that makes me pause and appreciate how gorgeous this game really is.
Lucas West
2022-08-08 14:21:28 +0000 UTCI have thoughts about the Albinaurics: Second Generation Albinaurics are mainly found near the Academy, and we know that the Academy is full of petty, self-absorbed asshats. My theory is that one of the Sorcerers intentionally designed these adorable frog-men cartwheel around in order to show off their legs. It's a ridiculous approach to movement, but it's an *amazing* way to front on whoever designed the 1st Generation. This petty nerd programmed his constructs to literally shove their working legs in the nose of some rival (or mentor, or former lover...) who couldn't get the Albinauric Version 1.0’s to walk. I think this also helps explain why the Mark 2’s look like lumpy balls of clay. Chad the Douche-Wizard was either (A) too busy flexing on his rival to spend any time making his constructs look human, or (B) deliberately made them look that way to mock his rival for caring about Albinauric humanity.
Patrick Galasso
2022-08-08 13:56:44 +0000 UTCDefeating Renalla hurt me as much as killing a Colossus in SotC. For a bit now I’ve wondered if Renalla isn’t possibly a slight dig at players caught in FS past. Her daughter wants to keep Renalla’s legacy alive but it’s just sad to have fought that broken being before Ranni takes over. An extra knife twist that the most emotionally broken npc here is the respec source 😭
Jereme Makowski
2022-08-08 07:41:06 +0000 UTCLiurnia felt pretty empty and samey to me. There were some really cool outcroppings of buildings, sunken towns, and the like. But it was definitely the place I got turned around the most. Other than maybe Caelid but that place fucked me up for more than just that reason.
Josh Sanko
2022-08-08 06:08:28 +0000 UTCLiurnia really felt like the place Elden Ring came into its own in tons of ways. The open worlds the lore, and the characters in particular. The opening vista is so beautiful and you could really feel the distance between you and the academy. The hands of so many factions are in Liurnia, and the characters that represent or even lead those factions that you meet are fantastic.
Howard Quote
2022-08-08 05:58:56 +0000 UTCAs I'm sure you are aware, there are a number of lower-body armor pieces in Elden Ring that consist of some raggedy fabric, a few scraps of decaying metal, and no shoes. I was wearing one such piece the first time I reached the end of the Academy of Raya Lucaria. This meant that as I entered the boss arena I was greeted by a blissed-out co-ed apparently licking my character's bare feet, then looking up to make conspicuous eye contact while grinning like a pervert. It was a strange first impression for the Queen of the Full Moon to make, but I must say, it has stuck with me.
MrReciprocity
2022-08-08 03:10:31 +0000 UTCGiven how hard the games lore is to understand without an outside source (like this podcast!) Raya Lucaria was one of the only places that made it clear during my first play through that the Erdtree wasn’t the only legitimate thing to “worship” in this world. Before I understood anything about the factions, I noticed the rays of moonlight look very similar to the rays of gold from the Erdtree, which I think the developers probably did on purpose. This is even more evident in the late game Ranni quest area, which makes sense given her goals. Also, all the water adds a moon/tide element helping make this one of the most comprehensively themed levels in the game
Brendan Cullerton
2022-08-07 22:40:00 +0000 UTCOn my first play through in Liurnia I missed almost all of the npc quests from patches to shrimp man and even Alexander. Yet I found found all of the caves, ruins and many secrets. This was likely because I explored off the somewhat beaten path which seemed to be encouraged to be taken because of landmarks like ruins and towers. This is contrasted by the places with npc quests that can be found in small, somewhat hard to find areas. Did you guys seem to have that problem as well or did I play the game “wrong” by exploring the open world?
Jedi Bain
2022-08-07 21:54:24 +0000 UTCGiven what happens during Rennala's fight; what do we think she was trying to accomplish? My money's on her trying to find a way to bring Ranni back into a physical body.
DealerUmbra
2022-08-07 21:52:32 +0000 UTCThe design of Liurnia is among my favourites out of all the areas From has designed. After the incredible size, freedom and density of Limgrave and surrounding areas, I wasn't expecting a second moment of emerging (in this case, from the castle behind Godrick) into a stunning vista promising endless possibilities. The way the areas either side of the swamp funnel both your gaze and your gameplay towards the centerpiece of the academy is just stunning. This whole area is such a treat. Also the upside down Carian Study Hall is absolutely delightful (despite Miriam's assholery).
Ben Harvey
2022-08-07 21:26:51 +0000 UTCStumbling into Liurnia before ever approaching Stormveil gave me major “stumbling into Blighttown through the Valley of the Drakes” vibes, which were only solidified when I stumbled up the coward’s path into Altus Peninsula before ever approaching Raya Lucaria. Fromsoft’s dense, labyrinthine approach to level design has this magical ability to make me feel like I’m doing a big-brain sequence break when I’m actually just a big stubborn moron who refuses to go where I’m supposed to (and probably couldn’t figure out where that is even if I wanted to). Liurnia owns. I spent dozens of hours exploring every nook, cranny, and horrifying hand castle; I crept past the legally-distinct-from-the-eye-of-sauron tower, I came back a hundred hours later and still managed to discover a whole-ass village of the albinaurics that I had completely missed earlier. One of my favorite fantasy regions ever in a game that has several of them.
Drew Edgar
2022-08-07 17:13:52 +0000 UTCI’ll never forget the moment you first step out onto the Lake-Facing cliffs after defeating Godrick, which for me, was among the most mesmerizing experiences in Elden Ring. The golden Erdtree towering above, a majestic castle floating in the sky - it gave me the feeling that the preliminary part of my journey had ended. I was now ready to set off and traverse this massive landscape, somehow get to that castle (or academy as I would soon realize) and eventually find my way to the foot of the Erdtree. That sense of scale and seeing your objective in the distance encapsulates the feeling of adventure in Elden Ring.
Steve White
2022-08-07 13:12:40 +0000 UTCGetting got by the giant orb in Raya Lucaria is one of my top Elden Ring moments. I saw the ramp and all the bloodstains, and knew exactly what would happen. Foreknowledge didn't stop me from trying and failing to Scooby Doo my way out of danger, and it remains one of my favorite gags in the game.
KL
2022-08-07 10:05:28 +0000 UTCI dont have much to add but someone should make a twitter like "can you pet the dog?" But instead its "does game have turtle pope?"
Josh
2022-08-07 06:21:30 +0000 UTCLiurnia is all told my favorite overworld region in Elden Ring. It's probably the most gorgeous area in a game where every frame is a potential wallpaper, and it's IMO the best slice of open world craftsmanship on offer here. Moving back and forth between the lake and the cliffs/hills on either side makes for highly efficient exploration. It gives you a consistent sense of how the area fits together as you overlook the lower portions you have been and will go on to visit. There are tons of things to catch your eye from any given point, and a large amount of variety thanks to the two distinct but regularly interlinked sections. It also feels the most dense with significant lore to me, even including Altus. I almost consider it the point where the game's story *properly* begins, with Limgrave being fairly isolated and like a great big extended tutorial.
Joacim Tornéus
2022-08-06 21:27:38 +0000 UTCThe Academy of Raya Lucaria is easily my favourite dungeon in Elden Ring and perhaps my favourite Fromsoftware level ever. As someone who is a sucker for all things magic, I had been anticipating the moment of waltzing into the academy ever since I had heard mention of it and had seen its spires towering over the misty waters. The gradual build-up towards that moment is perfection. It’s a long haul of moving through the swamps, piecing the story of the academy together by examining the environment and reading item descriptions, which is all punctuated by the academy beginning to dominate the horizon more and more. Few landmarks in Elden Ring make me feel like my destination is closing in on me, rather than the other way around. When you walk through the doors the first impression is (for lack of a better word) magical, with the wispy tendrils and vapours of starlight making it feel like I was walking through a nebula, which fits so well with the academy’s study and obsession with stars. It felt like both a by-product of the mage's study and decorations to make the school seem more mystical. I’ve never played a game with such a well realized space that captures the traditional expectations one has for a magic academy. Every other example I can think of pales in comparison to the sense of wonder Raya Lucaria exudes, the feeling hangs in the air itself.
Ethan Ward
2022-08-06 19:45:06 +0000 UTCHey guys! I wanted to comment on the giant inflated ants that live in the Ainsel River. I also read them as queens/parents when I first encountered them, but I think they're actually meant to be a reference to Honeypot ants. These ants have specialized workers called "repletes", which they use as living food storage. Other workers feed the repletes until they swell up just like in the game, and then harvest the stored food later. Based on the fact that we get large runes from killing these, my guess is that a similar process is going on here, though these giant ants are likely being fed humans and the like. The body horror of a creature existing solely as a larder is really creative here. Love the show, keep up the great work!
Forrest Henry
2022-08-06 19:40:46 +0000 UTCLiurnia is the place where I made my favorite personal lore discovery. While at first I thought that the Cuckoo was just a cool bird that they used to represent the local "knight" enemy type, something stuck in my brain and wouldn't let go. Over time, the game revealed the history: while the Academy was neutral in The Shattering, it wasn't neutral in the divorce. They stayed loyal to Radagon. Cuckoos are brood parasites, they lay their eggs in other bird's nests (and are the root of the internet's favorite insult: cuck). Radagon cheated on his wife and left her to care for his weird egg. Then it all came together for me: Radagon is the goddamn Cuckoo! Those are his goddamn Knights! I am a goddamn genius! I know the timeline in Elden Ring is weird, and this is tenuous, but this will be canon to me until the day I die, and the joy I felt putting the pieces together in that moment was such a special experience I had to share.
Matt Kaiser
2022-08-06 15:21:53 +0000 UTCI truly hope that Elden Ring's success and its exposure to wider gamer population will result in some constructive feedback/criticism for From Soft. Some of their decision regarding gameplay design are the best in the biz, but at other times they leave me perplexed. For example quest design. There is no rhyme nor reason to how Nepheli's questiline is triggered forward with the bird ashes. It is nothing new; things like that happened often in the previous From games, but I don't think it is too much to expect from big developer to have quests that make sense. It is even more irritating considering how they fixed the issue with not finding NPC with the messeges they drop a'la Varre's message about Church of Roses. But once again it, From cherry picked when to use this mechanic. In short, I hope that From will learn how to be better, not how to be even more From.
Mateusz Swietoslawski
2022-08-06 08:19:05 +0000 UTCRudest lobsters I've ever met.
Em Kyla
2022-08-05 23:39:02 +0000 UTCIt’s an interesting area. I think that the run from the grace to the Red Wolf is my favorite place to pvp in those hallways.
Coleman
2022-08-05 22:54:01 +0000 UTCLiurnia offers the first glimpses we get of some of the game's most effed up little dudes. I definitely see references to other works in the dude design. The albinaurics are clearly a nod to the milky blooded androids of the Alien films. While we're on sci-fi, the shape shifting silver tears sure do seem to be inspired by the T-1000 from Terminator 2. Speaking of robots, who else thinks that the warrior jars, particularly Alexander, are an homage to Tik Tok from Return to Oz? As it happens, Liurnia as a whole has a real Return to Oz vibe. A once beautiful continent, with it's emerald kingdom now crumbling, sinking, and becoming over-run by stone faced kings and torture devices.
Matthew Bennett
2022-08-05 22:41:20 +0000 UTCShout out to the High Page enemy in Raya Lucaria, blocking the passage to the dead Graven School of Mages where you find the Azur’s staff. That dude was a real bane of my existence for a solid block of playtime. I don’t know if anyone else had the same experience with these crossbow-wielding maniacs, but I found them to be consistently tanky wherever they were placed regardless of my level, and with perfect dodge / backstep moves that made them tough unless you had a poise killer. The real challenge of course is their pulley crossbow, which must have some kind of overtuning because their fire bolts do ridiculous damage and pin you down to enable more of their pincer attacks. All in all, a grunt enemy worthy of being an Elden Lord.
Mystic Referee
2022-08-05 22:19:32 +0000 UTCIt was quite a surprise to find a Harry Potter inspired magic school in a game inspired by GRR Martin. That being said my face lit up when I beat the woman controlling Hogwarts and the reward was bring able to change my avatar's gender.
Tom Healey
2022-08-05 20:11:57 +0000 UTCI fought Rennala probably more times than any boss in Elden Ring, though probably not for reasons you might expect. I believe I beat her on my second attempt, but just as I did, I simultaneously died. Nevertheless, the trophy "Rennala of the Full Moon" popped up, and when I went back to the Library, Rennala was there waiting to let me respec. Only, I didn't get the runes from defeating her! They were trapped in that moon realm from her second phase, and nothing I did to return there let me get them back, including being summoned by other players. Because I'm stubborn, I put down my summon sign and helped others defeat her for as long as it took to get the runes that I felt she owed me - and then some! It helps that she's just a fantastic boss.
Luna
2022-08-05 20:05:05 +0000 UTCAs someone who teaches the history of philosophy, I can't help but think of Empedocles (em-PED-uh-cleez) whenever a Crucible Knight sprouts a tail, or someone talks about the Frenzied Flame blending everything back together. According to Empedocles, the universe consists of four elements (earth, air, water, fire), being controlled by Love and Strife. When Love is dominant, the elements blend together. When Strife is dominant, the elements separate. As the universe transitions between extremes, elements combine to form organs and body parts, which combine to form complete organisms. The process is random, however. An organism can only survive and reproduce if its body parts turn out to work well together. I doubt Miyazaki and Martin were thinking of Empedocles when they were working on lore, but I love having an excuse to mention FromSoft in class now.
Micah Tillman
2022-08-05 20:02:35 +0000 UTCA couple of parts of Liurnia were eye-opening for the difficulty and my character level in this game. I found the Ainsel River Well area before completing Stormviel and it kicked my butt. I fought my way through and Dragonkin Solider of Nostkella was way too tough for me at that point. I gave up and kept exploring the world after a few failed attempts at the boss. This inspired me to explore all of the corners of Liurnia and Limgrave to level up and prepare. By the time I made it to the Academy I was unstoppable. I didn't have any issues with the Zombies and I remember thinking the Red Wolf of Radagon was a complete joke of a boss. I thought it was interesting to contrast my experience with your comments that Dragonskin was pretty easy and the zombies were tough to get through for you guys. Elden Ring truly provides varied difficulty and experiences for bosses and areas like no other souls game thanks to the exploration options it provides. Gotta love it.
Dale Catracho
2022-08-05 19:45:38 +0000 UTCGetting the title card for Academy of Raya Lucaria was one of my top 3 favorite moments in the game, and one of my favorite vistas in all of Fromsoft’s games. The wispy, blue aura that surrounds the academy upon first sight literally embodies the feeling of “magic in the air” to me. I love the architecture of the academy, the lights glowing through the windows, everything about it screamed “magic school”. I took a screenshot as the title card appeared, and it’s been my desktop background ever since. The landscape of Liurnia itself is actually not my favorite. In fact, I found it to be quite dull, outside of the massive crystals that dot the lake, but the academy was my favorite of the legacy dungeons, and the fight with Renalla literally had my mouth agape during the second-phase cutscene. I really think that’s when I decided I was playing a masterpiece.
Austin Paul
2022-08-05 19:41:22 +0000 UTCOne of my favorite aspects of Elden Ring is the way the geography feels both coherent and surprising. Liurnia is one of the best areas for this. The first glimpse from the base of Stormveil reveals the general shape of the entire space. But once you start traversing it, you find new vantage points that complicate it in your mind. The huge cavern holding The Village of the Albinaurics is a standout example, but this experience appears in subtler ways too. I think about the journey through the northern tributary toward the mineshaft that leads up to the Altus plateau, bypassing the lift. I had looked down at this area from above and hadn't seen anything that stood out to me, but when I returned to explore, with those massive cliffs channeling me claustrophobically onward, and found that mineshaft leading up along the cliff face to a new continent, it dramatically shifted my understanding of the space. What's more, it wasn't dreamy/weamy or spacey/wacey. It maintained, even complicated, my sense of the world's coherence. Traversing Liurnia helped me begin to grasp just how stunning an achievement The Lands Between's design really is, even more than Limgrave did. Thanks for all the chats! Love the podcast, comrades. Cheers. ~Jeff Moscaritolo, Bloomington, IN
Jeff Moscaritolo
2022-08-05 18:31:56 +0000 UTCHere are my points on Liurnia. Feel free to use all or some: 1) the hardest I've laughed in Elden Ring occurred in the southern tip of Liurnia. I was riding through the marsh and saw a player note. It said "First off flower, then prawn!". I looked around thinking "flower?, prawn? What the hell are they talking about? Well whatever let's keep riding. Ohh hey a cool flower I'm going to pick it up." I did not expect this giant lobster motherfucker to burst out of the ground and bubble beam me like a damn Blastoise. I barely survived the encounter because I could not spot cackling to myself, FIRST OFF FLOWER, THEN PRAWN! 2) Latenna was my go to spirit summon for the first half of the game. I was playing a tanky paladin and it was a great role-playing experience to have to defend my legless archer with my holy hammer. 3) my first thought when I encountered the first Gen Albinaurics was that they were a clear reference to the replicants in Blade Runner and Alien. They bleed white, are made by humans as a labour source and degrade over time, having their bodies start to fail them after a limited number of years. Anyways thanks for another great chapter of Elden Ring podcast. Cheers gents!
Matt DiTomaso
2022-08-05 18:04:34 +0000 UTCLiurnia sounds like the best place to say this since it involves Rennala. I am so thankful for the amount of times you can respec per playthrough in Elden Ring. I've scuffed an entire save of Dark Souls 3 experimenting with builds only to find I hit the limit on a build that I didn't enjoy enough to bash myself against the DLC with. I know the limit is the amount of larval tears you can find per playthrough, but From was generous with their availability. I could mess with builds to my heart's content, without the fear of burning a precious resource. It may be a mechanically imperfect reflection of the rebirthing process per the lore, but I'll take better quality of life over flavor almost every time. (maybe presumptuous of me to add this, but if you do read this aloud, my name is pronounced "ice-uh")
Isa B.
2022-08-05 18:04:29 +0000 UTCI'm grateful they didn't add any barely-visible, underwater trenches like previous games. Those always felt like cheap, bullshit deaths for games renowned for being tough but fair. People complain, but I'll gladly take the ejaculating lobsters instead because at least I can see them coming.
Andrew O.
2022-08-05 17:56:18 +0000 UTCReaching Liurnia was one of the the first major “woah…” moments of this game for me and many. I think peeking over the cliff seeing the sunken rooftops covered in mist and fog then looking forward and seeing the huge academy towering over the entire area definitely set the mood of “holy crap! this game is for real” only for it to be the first of many times this has crossed my mind. From the small caves and tunnels in the cliff sides to the grandiose gothic style Raya Lucaria Academy. I think Liurna is definitely one of the strongest areas of the game that balances enemy strength and variety as well level design and upgrade paths (magic and melee resources are abundant). Having some great npcs and quests like Rya and Blackguard Bogart, Hyetta, Thops, and we’re not even talking about Caria! For me the areas bosses aren’t the best or most well designed however I enjoyed the Rennala fight on both my Melee character and magic character which is always hard to do. COURT DISMISSED, BRING IN THE DANCING LOBSTERS…. (Unfortunately lol)
Christian Denas
2022-08-05 17:56:06 +0000 UTCShoutout to a friend playing a mage character who solved phase two via the demi-humans spirit ash and termed it "Super Monkey Ball"; turns out a horde of screaming, aggressive friendos just wreck a boss who can be staggered. :D
Timothy Post
2022-08-05 17:53:40 +0000 UTCRennala isn't Elden Ring's Most Metal Boss Fight (I can think of two contenders later one that might be the most metal; possibly equally so but different subgenres), but it's my favorite. It's not too hard (though it can be a wall for magic-damage-focused characters, and wow if you are in the wrong spot for the dragon summon), but it's not necessarily a cakewalk, and the theme, story, cutscenes - it's creepy, fantastical, over the top, and I love it. I plopped down my sign and helped so many others through it that I have a huge stock of Rune Arcs even near the end of the game. "Foul trespasser, send word far and wide, of the last Queen of Caria, Rennala of the Full Moon, And the majesty of the night she conjureth." Any Final Fantasy mage boss wishes they were this cool.
Timothy Post
2022-08-05 17:51:00 +0000 UTCI feel like Liurnia is the most deceptive area of the game. When you ride through you can easily be funnelled straight to the front door of Raya Lucaria via a dragon and an unfortunate wizard. My first playthrough led me to skipping past almost all of the NPC's in the area due to the waygates. Once I realised the breadth of the area it became easily my favourite continent in the Lands Between due to the amount of lore and storyline quests you can pick up here through adventuring. RIP my boy Iji, you were a real one.
Sean McGee
2022-08-05 17:45:57 +0000 UTCLiurnia is my favorite continent in Elden Ring. The view of it from behind Stormviel, whether you kill Godrick or not, isn’t just a breath taking vista showing off future legacy dungeons and perilous forests, but an encapsulation of the game’s heart on it’s sleeve ethos. This view strongly, and I’m convinced intentionally, recalls Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. The sublime is in Elden Ring’s DNA it begs you to explore its landscapes and fallen monuments. And Liurnia’d college town sunken into a lake while you explore the college which is filled with morally shattered learners, it’s the epitome. The misty aura and glowing rock hues are also just a personal favorite.
Mateus Silva
2022-08-05 17:44:08 +0000 UTCThe arrival at Liurnia after clearing Stormveil, that clifftop panorama overlooking the rest of the gameworld, made me stop playing for several minutes to catch my breath. It felt like the next generation of the 'leaving the vault' moment in Fallout 3 - made even more powerful by the fact that I'd been playing for maybe 20 hours until that point without a true sense of how big Elden Ring really was. Part of me wishes they'd had a Doom 2016 style 'Elden Ring' titlecard overlay come up at that point.
The Narcissist Cookbook
2022-08-05 17:41:10 +0000 UTC
