Highlights
- Elden Ring recontextualizes Souls formula features, bringing beloved elements of Dark Souls and Bloodborne to an open-world environment.
- FromSoftware teaches players valuable lessons through encounters with challenging enemies like the Giant Land Octopus, contributing to the game's informative world-building.
- Players learn that there are more ways to defeat enemies than hit-and-run maneuvers, as the Giant Land Octopus can be overcome by exploiting its tentacle mechanics.
Elden Ring is continually celebrated for everything it offers as an open-world action-RPG with FromSoftware’s beloved brand of Souls elements. Elden Ring didn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel when it came to producing an open world, but how it recontextualized Souls formula features into one is phenomenal, bringing a lot of what fans love about Dark Souls or Bloodborne to a much wider environment for exploration. Because Elden Ring doesn’t leash players to any one path and there are only minimal restrictions on progression in any region of its Lands Between, the open world can be incredibly overwhelming to trek.
Thankfully, even without hand-held guidance, there are many lessons FromSoftware teaches players that extend far beyond that of Elden Ring’s initial tutorial, which players can easily skip out on or miss entirely. There is also a lot Elden Ring fails to teach players explicitly, such as how certain mechanics can function, but how to survive the Lands Between is a skill players will eventually learn the more they traverse it. Part of that education is encountering new enemies and bosses who will present different challenges, such as the seemingly insurmountable Giant Land Octopus.
Elden Ring’s Early Game Lessons Are Invaluable
Because Giant Land Octopus enemies can be encountered so early and appear incredibly fearsome, it would not be surprising if players new to Elden Ring decided to keep their distance. Indeed, Elden Ring’s Tree Sentinel in Limgrave is an early warning that even if players have literally just begun the game and stepped out into its open world for the first time, there will still be purposefully indomitable foes in their path at every turn.
Of course, well-skilled players surely can defeat this particular Tree Sentinel when they originally encounter them, but first-time players will likely perish to them without proper knowledge of the fight and an obvious inferiority when it comes to being under-leveled and under-equipped at that point. This is one of the many lessons Elden Ring teaches players as they play, contributing to the informative layers of environmental storytelling FromSoftware bakes into its world-building.
This Tree Sentinel is easily the most formidable foe in this beginning area besides other bosses like Flying Dragon Agheel that players might run into. But while the Tree Sentinel takes immense skill or subsequent leveling to fell, the Giant Land Octopus is a common enemy type that seems to pose an equal threat until players muster the courage to stand toe-to-toe with it.
Elden Ring Teaches Players There Are More Ways to Beat an Enemy Than Through Damage Alone
Elden Ring’s Giant Land Octopus can be lethal while players are at a low level, and they can be found early enough on in the game for that to be a threat on its own. The Giant Land Octopus has remarkably long tentacles that can overwhelm the player from a distance, which in itself teaches the player that they should try to get within its reach to avoid that needless damage.
Once beside the enemy, players’ blows will inform them that these tentacles cleave from the octopus’ writhing body quite quickly, and the beast also staggers remarkably quickly, too. Players can take this advantage to get free damage on the Giant Land Octopus in this state and continue attacking it thereafter to prevent it from healing by consuming its separated tentacles.
The enemy is relatively easy to overcome by implementing a flurry of brute force onto it, but it is brains alone that conquers this enemy rather than having to whittle down its health while dodging its attacks, which is what a lot of Souls combat commonly boils down to. Not every enemy in Elden Ring has a strategy to exploit such as this, though the Giant Land Octopus teaches players that they should look for one.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Series X/S.
