So I have been stuck at the final boss of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree for several days now. The fight itself is an awesome spectacle — if you’re an spectator, that is. Giant meteors, huge area-of-effects attacks that seem impossible to avoid, and just the sheer violence of it all. It’s really amazing to watch, especially if you follow YouTubers like Ongbal, who casually yet perfectly dodges every seemingly unstoppable attack.
But as a player facing this boss, I felt overwhelmed to say the least. Even with my greatshield and heavy armour, it was tough. My character was repeatedly knocked off my feet, tossed around, and slammed to the ground. Summoning NPC companions only made the encounter harder as the boss gets beefier with a longer health bar. In short, these are the fights where you have to “git gud”.
Or as some gamers have done since Shadow of the Erdtree was released, you could go online to air your grievances. By now, it’s practically a tradition to bring up the difficulty of FromSoftware’s games when a new one is released. And it always plays out in a similar fashion. Players grouse about the bosses being “unfair”, while others retort that it’s due to the player’s skill level. You get the drift.
But Elden Ring introduced many more gamers to FromSoftware’s unique blend of gameplay and storytelling. It’s the developer’s biggest ever game with over 25 million copies sold. And sales of Shadow of the Erdtree have already reached over 5 million copies 3 days. These numbers are mind-boggling. Expectations are higher than before, and I wonder if the developers felt that they had to make the fights bigger, grander, more spectacular.
I hope that the next FromSoftware game returns to a smaller, more contained world that should be easier to balance the gameplay and difficulty. Elden Ring’s open-world design meant that players can easily overpower enemies by rushing ahead to acquire certain items. They could also summon other players to help them beat tough bosses. Now, this design does encourage creative ways to take down hard enemies. But perhaps the developers have overcompensated by upping the difficulty level, turning it into an arms race between players and developers. It’s a balancing act. And at the moment, some boss encounters in Shadow of the Erdtree are simply not as fun to play.
In our reviews this week, we tested a terrific OLED monitor from Samsung, gave our final verdict on the Elden Ring DLC, tried out Dyson’s expensive but impressive mop.
The Samsung Odyssey OLED G8 is the one of the best monitors this year. With a stunning 32-inch 4K OLED screen and the same processor used in Samsung’s flagship 8K TV, the G8 offers top-notch visuals that’s perfect for watching videos and playing games. And it looks great on the desk, thanks to a sleek and elegant design. It’s not cheap, though, at around S$2,000.
FromSoftware’s expansion to its popular Elden Ring game looks to be another roaring success. It replicates the open-world formula of the original game, and manages to bring back that sense of equal parts wonder and apprehension that every new player faced at the start of Elden Ring. One of the best DLCs ever made, and perhaps the best S$50 you’ll spent this year.
The impressive Dyson WashG1 does a great job at keeping your home clean. It rolls dirt and debris into a little compartment, while mopping the floor. It has two water tanks: One to hydrate the rollers, while the other holds the dirty water from the rollers. This design works really well, and the only downside is that the WashG1 is expensive at S$999.