Summary
- The final boss in Elden Ring has unfair hit boxes, skewing the difficulty against players.
- Radahn, a fan favorite and now in Mohg's body, poses a challenge with exaggerated hit boxes.
- Hit boxes in both Radahn and Malenia's fights seem intentional to add artificial difficulty to the game.
FromSoftware is known for making difficult games, and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree continues this controller-breaking tradition. Soulsborne games are difficult in general, with many bosses causing issues with delayed attacks, hyper aggression, and large AOE moves that players swear they dodged as their character is sent flying across the arena with a sliver of health. The final boss of Shadow of the Erdtree has all of this and more, but the more in question has made the fight a little unfair for players to deal with.
Before the hotly anticipated release of the expansion, Malenia, the Blade of Miquella and Elden Ring's mascot, previously and proudly wore the title of the game's most difficult fight. Her immense difficulty became legendary with her Waterfowl Dance attack and vampirism mechanic. Still, with the introduction of Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss, Malenia's title as Elden Ring's trickiest boss is under threat, and after looking at some of the decisions behind this enemy, it's easy to see why.
Warning: Spoilers for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's story are below.
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Shadow Of The Erdtree's Final Boss Is Unfair
Why Elden Ring's Radahn Fight Is So Tough
Radahn, the Starscourge, became a fan favorite with the Elden Ring player base thanks to his immense power and love for his loyal steed, Leonard. Unfortunately, when the Tarnished finally meets Radahn, he has been driven mad by Scarlet Rot and has practically become a cannibalistic zombie that mindlessly roams the desert. It's a sad sight for the once proud general, and players finally put him down with the help of many warriors that have traveled to the Radahn festival in hopes of claiming a Great Rune .
Radahn was made mad by Scarlet Rot after his fight with Malenia, in which she bloomed and decimated all of Caelid.
Because of his popularity, many wished to face Radahn in his prime, and although Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't quite deliver, it gives players the next best thingby putting Radahn in the body of Mohg. He may now be smaller, but he's certainly meaner. His status as the final boss has made the new Radahn faster, with more aggressive attacks and even more extreme AoE, thanks to some help from Miquella dangling off his shoulders as the general attempts to turn the Tarnished into paste.
All of this is hard enough to deal with, but the hit boxes do not help matters. Despite the Promised Consort's weapons already being relatively large, the hit boxes protrude further than the weapons, leading many to be hit by attacks that they swore they dodged. This makes judging distance harder, since the range of Radahn's swords has been artificially bolstered, and when paired with everything else that the great general can do, it skews the fight heavily against the Tarnished.
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Radahn Isn't The Only Boss With Massive Hit Boxes
Malenia Benefits From It Too
The larger hit boxes seem to be a conscious choice from FromSoftware, since many are very precise and some skilled players are able to dodge attacks by a whisker using stances from some Ashes of War. A good example would be the Crucible Knights, especially the sword variant, whose slashes can be dodged by using some Katana stances, such as Moonveil's Transient Moonlight. Another would be Morgott's spear attack, which seems to have very precise hit boxes.
The Crucible Knights were doomed to enslavement by Marika and the Greater Will, since they worshiped the Great Tree, prior to the Erdtree, and the Crucible of Life.
These can all be dodged by a whisker, with the hit boxes being very true to the physical models of the weapons, but when compared with Promised Consort Radahn's sword attacks, it seems like they have come from another game. The hit boxes are massive compared to the swords that they are tied to, but he isn't the only benefactor of this, since Malenia's already long sword has an even longer hit box. Both these bosses are known for their immense difficulty, and this could be artificially bolstered by some intentionally over-the-top hit boxes.
All in all, FromSoftware's games can be as frustrating as they are beautiful, and sometimes a touch of artificial difficulty is part of the experience. Although the hit boxes are an unfair representation of the weapons and attacks used, perhaps the accurate versions would have been too easy to deal with, relatively speaking. Still, with everything that Radahn can do in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's climatic final fight, giving him extra reach that the player can't see doesn't come across as particularly fair, especially with all the AOE moves he has.
Source: YouTube/sn0wsh00
Elden Ring
RPG
Action
- Platform(s)
- PS5 , Xbox One , PS4 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , PC
- Released
- February 25, 2022
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bandai Namco Entertainment , From Software
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op , Online Multiplayer
- Engine
- Proprietary
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
