So, I went back to my original character in Elden Ring and beat the ending. While I had gone with the Age of Stars ending on the wretched character (who wound up with a strength/faith build dual-wielding greatswords) and I might have gone with a different one, the truth is that this character was always supposed to be the one that went with that ending.
Indeed, I decided to redo his cosmetic appearance to suggest that as he aligned more with Ranni, his skin turned blue like her doll. He'd always been an Int character, but rather than focusing so much on sorceries, I ultimately had him use the Darkmoon Greatsword and its weapon art, which causes your R2 attacks to toss a pretty massive arc of icy magic damage at the foe.
Unlike on the first character, I did die to Radagon once, and then I died I think twice to the Elden Beast, but it was pretty quick. Malikith took three attempts (though one was purely from me not realizing that when you first enter his arena there's actually a gap between the wall and the floor, and you're just on a little narrow bridge at first, so to dodge an attack I just rolled right off the world.)
Ofnir and Godfrey only took me the one try. Honestly, if you can down Malenia, you're ready to finish the game.
I can't actually remember if other Soulsborne games let you stick to the original playthrough after seeing the ending - I've held off on beating the Soul of Cinder because I wanted to finish the Ringed City, but if I could do so without having to get back through the DLC in New Game +, I'd probably go for it. I went for it in Bloodborne because I had beaten the whole Old Hunters DLC before I went to Gherman and the Moon Presence.
I must say that with Elden Ring they took the weapon arts from Dark Souls III and really made them feel worth it. Really, overall I think Elden Ring is such a fantastic evolution of the Soulsborne formula. I love that the co-op items are easily farmable, rather than being practically finite, and not needing them for NPC allies is great.
I will say though that I would love to see one of these games with NPC quest chains that you don't fail simply for playing too far forward. On this intelligence-based, magic-damage character, I wasn't able to get the Magic Scorpion Charm because I progressed too far in the Ranni quest chain before dealing with the creepy roofie potion he gives you.
As I see it, there's nothing really added to the game by cutting off these quest chains if you get too far ahead of them. I'm totally fine with quests where you need to make a choice - do you give Nepheli Loux the potion? Do you help Sellen or help take her down? (I have no idea why, story-wise, you'd attack Milicent at the end of her quest chain, but it's a choice).
Naturally, one of the refreshing things about Elden Ring in the open world genre is that you don't have a million quest trackers and completion meters to fill up. This isn't like finding all the eagle feathers in Assassin's Creed II. And I think it's fine that things are out of the way and in really obscure locations. I'm just not a fan of "well, you've screwed up this save file" especially in a game where you can't load an older save (not that being able to do so would be an ideal solution).
Given the game's success, I do really wonder if and when we'll get an Elden Ring II - if this is to be the big franchise that takes over now that the Dark Souls trilogy is done. There's a similar level of richness to this setting, and I think tons of potential to explore various mythological phenomena. Like, why the hell is Godwyn's body taking on piscine features? Zullie the Witch has a video that suggests it might tie him to the idea of a Ningyo. These games have always had this sort of interesting cultural lensing - taking a lot of Western imagery and traditions and filtering them through a Japanese cultural context.
Simultaneously, there's a fair amount of Cosmic horror in most of them (obviously Bloodborne most of all) and given George R. R. Martin's role in generating the broad mythos of Elden Ring, Godwyn seems to be transforming into something perhaps akin to his "Drowned God" in A Song of Ice and Fire, which the Iron Islanders worship instead of the Seven or the Old Gods. The Drowned God is, of course, very reminiscent of Cthulhu (or possibly Dagon... which was also a... oh hold on.)
Ok, so Dagon was a patriarchal deity worshipped in ancient Syria. In the early 20th century, archaeologists (likely erroneously) scholars thought that he was linked to a mer-man-like being called Kulullû... which, damn if that doesn't sound like Cthulhu.
Anyway, the form that Godwyn's body takes in the roots of the Erdtree in Deeproot Depths actually looks a lot like these depictions of Kulullû that were erroneously thought to depict Dagon. Godwyn's head has transformed in a far weirder way, seeming to become kind of clam-like in shape.
Godwyn's soul was killed while Ranni's body was - meaning Ranni retains her soul but has to live in that doll (which is not actually based on her appearance, but on Renna the witch. Not to go down the rabbit hole, but I actually think that when we first meet Ranni "masquerading" as Renna at the Church of Elleh, it might actually be Renna, as I feel like Ranni doesn't seem to recognize us when we show up at her tower later).
Anyway, while there is water (oddly white, milky water) in Deeproot Depths, there's not much you'd initially link between Godwyn, Those Who Live in Death (which seem to be undead thanks to Godwyn's soul-dead curse,) and the sort of oceanic motif that he's growing into.
But, in some ways, Godwyn's state brings to mind a certain rhyming couplet from Lovecraft: "That which is dead may eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
Godwyn sure seems to be lying in a deathly state (though again, his body is not dead - it's his soul that is dead.) The couplet from Lovecraft refers to Cthulhu, and meanwhile Godwyn looks a whole lot like the real-world mythological figure of Kulullû.
So...
Yeah, this is what I love about these games. We don't have any real answers, sure, but we have some really interesting questions.
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