It took me 10 hours in the Land of Shadow before I begrudgingly faced the Dancing Lion. That 10 hours was spent exploring the new world as thoroughly as I could, finding all but one map fragment, diving shallowly into various dungeons, and feeling that unique joy that comes with exploring a FromSoft world for the first time. The magnitude of the panorama seen after beating Rellana was lost on me, because I had already discovered that part of the world in reverse. Elsewhere, I had already explored most of Shadow Keep before hitting the back door of the Golden Hippopotamus. If we’re to take Elden Ring’s bosses as the main course—which I think increasingly they are—then I had basically nibbled around the chocolate chips of the cookie… Read more.