Worstgen

Yes and no.

On the one hand, I think this is pretty much the perfect ending for these parties. On the one hand, Radahn becoming a slave to his younger brother’s infatuation is the perfect dark ending for his character, as Radahn’s whole character is about how he himself was infatuated with his own idols and sort of enslaved their own legends in his mind, and how his own perception of them may have not been who-

Elder Lee Hung

-they truly were, etc.

I think Miquella becoming the next Marika with his own Lord Consort is great, and I love how all of Marika/Radagon/Godfrey’s children are reflections of certain aspects of their characters. This stuff is unironic peak fiction.

Malenia sort of gets a gimped ending I think. She kind of dies in delusion believing that she was still protecting her brother. It’s kind of like Miquella “abandons”-

Elder Lee Hung

-her though I’m sure he intended to return to her after achieving Godhood.

All of these things I like.

On the other hand, Godwyn got robbed LMFAO. No amount of gaslighting will make me believe that this DLC, and Miquella in particular, wasn’t leading up to some kind of big Godwyn development. Godwyn and Miquella should have been the ER twin princes, not Miquella and Radahn.

Jeanstealer

Yea, I sorta remember the Godwyn controversy. At the time I thought less of it as a lore fumble and more as a gameplay fumble to not have a wholly unique foe as THE final boss.

I dunno, I feel a bit more indifferent about all three than I would've liked.

Jeanstealer

The concept of Miquella sounds cool on paper. His role in the story is pretty unique as this pseudo-pure Messiah figure. What's unfortunate is how From made his charm ability kinda undermine most of his potential for interesting character relations and interactions imo.

Jeanstealer

Malenia is unfortunately a flat character. They don't do anything interesting with her resilience and single-minded loyalty. The cut content with her / Millicent would've made her a good deal more compelling.

Jeanstealer

Radahn is cool enough, but I have issues with how he's supposedly this le uber kind dude judging by Miquella’s obsession with him hinging on this trait, a trait that comes out of left field and isn't alluded to.

Also, another issue with Radahn, and Melania too, is that their in-game presence is wasted.

Jeanstealer

Fromsoft’s storytelling, especially when it's delegated to beyond-textual stuff, is very minimalistic. Thus they have the incentive to make every cutscene and line count in order for the character you face to leave a strong impression. And that's something that they've been doing more prominently than ever in ER. Characters like Gideon, Godrick, Messmer, Godfrey and Morgott all manage to make their onscreen presence

Jeanstealer

manage to make their onscreen presence worthwhile. You *hear* the gleeful, almost child-like joy when Godrick grafts a dragon head to himself and gets high on his illusions of grandeur. It tells you so much about him. With Messmer you get to *personally witness* his pent-up grievances with the destiny Marika left him lead to him outright denouncing her in his last moments.

Jeanstealer

You *feel* the weight of duty Morgott has been left to shoulder as he solemnly reminisces about individuals who were once his family. And so on.

Jeanstealer

When you encounter Radahn and Malenia, they're both far from a sound state of mind and fail to show anything engaging character-wise. Lmao, Radahn is fought as an empty husk TWICE. You can ofc argue that it feeds into the theme of his tragic predicament / fate (as you've pointed out), but it just leaves him with less flair than I would prefer, unfortunately.