The Platinum Road #1 - Lands Between, Running it back (Elden Ring)
With Elden Ring: Nightreign just around the corner, I figured now was a good time to get the Elden Ring platinum. Only problem is, I already have it… on PS5. £30 later for a PS4 copy and I’m here to see how quickly I can get the platinum trophy.
Despite the above, this isn’t a ‘Speedrun’, I’m going to try and be fast and efficient but I’m not resetting the save or refunding the game or anything like that. I also don’t intend to exploit any glitches or be quitting out at doors because again, not a Speedrun. I don’t have a time to compare to (as far as I’m aware) but I’ll be using IGT (In Game Time) to judge my performance.
All things considered, Elden Ring has a pretty simple trophy list. There are three story related trophies, three ending trophies. Each of the games 15 ‘Remembrance’ bosses (major bosses) has a trophy related to them, 1 of which I’ll need for the different endings anyways. There are an additional 11 strong bosses with trophies, all but one or two are needed for other trophies. Getting a max level weapon for a trophy comes with the territory and finally the four trophies for getting all Legendary Weapons, Spells, Spirit Ashes and Talismans requires an extra 8 optional small bosses that are all on my path anyways. Long story short, there’s a lot of synergy for getting each trophy. You can get all but the other two endings in a single playthrough.
This series is still working, this is going to be a long article in part based on the scope of Elden Ring. I’ll adapt future Platinum Road entries to match the game I’m playing. The tense is also all over the place here, some of it is past and some of it is present. I’m not checking the whole thing again to make changes.
Playthrough 1: Arise, Tarnished
Starting off, I chose the Samurai class thanks to it’s high dexterity and the powerful ‘Unsheath’ ash of war on the Uchigatana it starts with. The Grafted Scion is not a needed boss so we fall to our deaths to skip the fight. As much as it pains me, we skip the Cave of Knowledge and the Soldier of Godrick fight. Heading to the Gatefront site of grace, we meet Melina and get Torrent then it’s on to the Forlorn Hound Evergaol to fight the only boss on our hitlist that doesn’t have trophy progression - Bloodhound Knight Darriwill. Darriwill hits hard but staggers easily thanks to Unsheathe. I’m not well practiced so it took until my 4th attempt. Beating Darriwill gives us our weapon for the run, the Bloodhound Fang.
Bloodhound Fang is a fast hard hitting weapon with bleed, which will make short work of most of the games bosses. Better yet, it uses the Somber Smithing Stone upgrade path for weapons. Somber stones are the ‘Fancy’ version of the regular smithing stones. Regular smithing stone weapons go to +25 and need 12 of each Smithing stone tier (1-8 + an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone) whereas Somber weapons are on a scale to +10, only requiring 1 of each tier (1-9 + an Ancient Dragon Somber Smithing Stone). Thanks to Elden Ring’s open world format, I can get the weapon to +10 very quickly, making most of the early and mid game trivial. Any Elden Ring player knows the pain of starting a new save and having to collect all the relevant Golden Seeds and Sacred Tear items to increase health and healing so I’ll spare the details.
After Dariwill was down, I needed to get my weapon upgraded thanks to the +1 Stone on Agheel Lake followed by the +2 Stone on the Coast of Morne Castle in the Weeping Peninsula. While in the area, I took on Castle Morne which housed the Leonine Misbegotten and the Grafted Greatsword. There was a death in Morne and a death to the boss but it was mostly a quick painless affair. I’ve also got in my notes that I killed Kenneth Haight which is quite amusing.
There’s the quick 1-2 of beating Margit before Stormveil and getting access to the Roundtable Hold
Leaving Limgrave and performing basic set up, I’ve obtained:
Margit, the Fell Omen
Shardbearer Godrick
Roundtable Hold
Leonine Misbegotten
Legendary Armament 1/6
4 trophies, progression on a further 1 out of 42
Stage 2: Wet, Wet, Wet
If it wasn’t obvious, I’m doing this run region locked - meaning I can’t leave the distinct zones of The Lands Between before finishing all I need in the area. Next up was Liurnia, most of which is handled on the left coast of the lake. First up is one of three NPC boss fights of this playthrough against Adan, the Thief of Fire. Adan can be tough due to their ability to bleed and access to a legendary incantation but it’s that same incant as our reward.
The Village of the Albinaurics is on the way and houses one half of the secret medallion we need to access the Haligtree later so we popped in, killing the Omenkiller boss while here. Upon returning to the Roundtable Hold, we kill Ensha like the rat he is. Levelling up here and I realised I didn’t have enough Runes for the +3 and +4 Somber stones I needed. A brief detour was to kill the Grafted Scion and Bols, Carian Knight and damn Bols can be a tricky tricky boy when he wants to be, taking four tries.
The last stop on our west coast after upgrading with Iji is Caria Manor, which has plenty of things we need for this first playthrough. The Manor houses the Sword of Night and Flame which we need for Legendary Armaments as well as Lunar Witch Ranni who we need to talk to for a few other trophies. Royal Knight Loretta guards the ay and despite being immune to our bleed as a she is merely a ghost, she’s still easy to take down. Speaking to Ranni and the stage is set for the ending trophy as well as another entry on three of the Legendary trophies.
Before we leave Liurnia, we have to do the main dungeon, that being the Academy of Raya Lucaria. While you do need a special key to access it, you don’t need to kill the dragon that guards it. It’s easy runes so bye bye Glinstone Dragon Smarag. It was a this point where I thought, oh yeah I should head to the Tombsward Catacombs for the Lhutel the Headless spirit ash. A not so short jaunt to the Black Knife Catacombs proved I was an idiot. A quick bit of research and an embarassed ride down back to the Weeping Peninsula sorted that right out.
Even when I’m not doing a speed(ier) run, I never hang around in Raya Lucaria because I’m just not a big fan of it in general. Sprinting through like it’s a bullet hell leads to the Red Wolf of Radagon who I actively despise as a boss. I don’t have a death written down but I’ve written an angry face in my notes so take that for what you will. Above the arena is the Radagon Icon, the first of our Legendary Talismans. Moongrum is harder than most bosses thanks to his frame perfect parrying but some Laurel and Hardy shenanigans later meant I was ready for Rennala. One cycled the first phase twice but the first time in phase 2,, greed got me killed by the summoned Bloodhound Knight and the winning attempt left me with 1hp and no heals. Defintely the most intense Rennala has ever been. Renalla’s Rune is unique in the way it doesn’t need activated. Rather, it’s already activated and doesn’t need a visit to one of the Divine Towers, giving me the Great Rune trophy.
The quickfire round here of going Underground to Siofra and Ainsel to battle the Ancestor Spirit and then Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella before returning above ground to climb the Ruin-Strewn Precipice to kill Magma Wyrm Makar.
Arriving (but not staying) on Altus, I’ve obtained
Royal Knight Loretta
Red Wolf of Radagon
Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon
Great Rune
Ancestor Spirit
Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella
Legendary Ashen Remains: 1/6
Legendary Talismans: 1/8
Legendary Weapons 2/9
Legendary Spells 1/7
That’s 10 Trophies, updating on a further 3
Stage 3: Festival Bound
As I analyse my notes, I see that I’ve gone to Forth Faroth in Caelid for the Radagon’s Soreseal (and I assume the Dectus half). I needed Fort Haight for post Radahn so I should have saved Makar for a different playthrough but that’s neither here nor there. Killing Elder Dragon Greyoll here is primarily used for the runes she gives but her dragon hearts allow us to get legendary spell, Greyoll’s Roar at the Church of Dragon Communion here in Caelid. While I’m in the area, I doubled back to Dragonbarrow for the easy Somber +8 and +9 I’ll need for later.
Starscourge Radahn cannot be fought until the player has reached the Altus Plateau or if they’ve gone through the steps in Ranni’s quest - speaking to Seluvis, Sellen and Blaidd. The former is quicker and it puts Redmane Castle into Festival mode which means it’s empty - allowing you to teleport straight to the boss. Radahn was a little tricker than usual but nothing special. The boss of the attached Wardead Catacombs proved a lot more challenging thanks to Caelid’s wacky scaling. Beating the Putrid Spirit here after 6 tries earned me Redmane Olgha, the second of our Legendary Ashen remains. Our last pit stop in Caelid is back to Redmane. Now that Radahn is dead, the castle returns to normal. Thanks to our late grace, we’re right outside the boss room for the Leonine Misbegotten/Crucible Knight fight. Nothing to say here other than it gets us a Ruin Greatsword, our third Legendary Armament.
Leaving Caelid (but still not going to Altus), there’s not too much to add here but we’ve obtained:
Starscourge Radahn
Legendary Ashen Remains: 2/6
Legendary Talismans: 2/8
Legendary Armament 3/9
Legendary Spells 2/7
11 trophies, 4 updates.
Stage 4: Like a reverse Breath of the Wild
Heading to Mt Gelmir via being abducted in Raya Lucaria, I made some cool jumps to get into Volcano Manor proper and beat the Godskin Noble on my third try (the lack of close grace was annoying). I think I got my +5 stone here but I haven’t got it written down. I have +6 written down though. Some parkour through the depths of Volcano Manor gets me the stone for +7. Combined with the +8 and +9 I got earlier means our weapon is nearly complete. I did have to kill Alberich in the Roundtable Hold for runes but that’s just a footnote unlike the Bols massacre.
We may as well cover Altus here since we’re in the neighbourhood. There’s surprisingly little we have to do in Altus in comparison to the size of it. The first stop was The Shaded Castle, home to Elemer of the Briar and his legendary weapon - the Marais Executioner Sword. Even when you’re not doing a fast run, there’s not much to see here. Elemer himself was a first try but his challenge can vary from playthrough to playthrough.
The Draconic Tree Sentinel guards the entrance to Leyndell, one of two mandatory bosses that don’t have an associated trophy. They can be a wee bit tricky, taking a 2nd try to get past. It is very important to get the Bolt of Gransax when you first visit Leyndell as it disapears after the Fire Giant. Thankfully I remembered (Not that it would have mattered, all three playthroughs have to go through Leyndell).
After Leyndell, I did a short sweep of Altus for the stuff I missed - killing Godefroy the Grafted for the Godfrey Icon and finishing the Sainted Hero’s Grave to get the ash for Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff.
Trophies earned:
Godskin Noble
Shardbearer Rykard
Elemer of the Briar
Godfrey, the First Lord
Shardbearer Morgott
Legendary Armament 5/9
Legendary Spirit Ash 3/6
Legendary Talisman 3/8
That’s 19 trophies and 3 updates to the ongoing.
Stage 5: Going Underground! (Again)
Killing Radahn causes the stars to return on their journeys which leads to a massive meteorite creating a hole in Limgrave. This is why we have the Fort Haight grace. First up is the Mimic Tear boss. The boss copies your build and can be cheesed by stripping naked and then equipping everything. I didn’t do that because it’s not really fun. The fully equipped Mimic died first try anyways.
The path here kind of splits into an unofficial left and right depending on what you want to do. I chose Right which involved the Regal Ancestor Spirit, Valiant Gargoyles and a trip to Deeproot Depths for incant Elden Stars. It’s about as exciting as that - Moose was first try, the awful gargoyles were mercifully only second time and I found Elden Stars on a vague memory of where it was on my first playthrough.
Going the other way is a trip into Nokron. Despite it being a fairly significant story locale there’s not a whole lot going on here. You’ll find the Mimic Tear ash here alongside the Fingerslayer Blade which is unfortunately not a weapon. Returning to Ranni unlocks a new part of Ainsel River. Usually I’d absolutely blast through this area but I needed the Moon of Nokstella which required an ascent through the city section here. Returning back down I went to where the Baleful shadow invasion is but I clocked on it doesn’t happen unless you talk to Mini Ranni, a quick back and forth later I had the key for the chest in the Raya Lucaria library. Post lake crossing, I got the ring from the chest.
Stick with me here, we’re nearly there. Astel, Nautralborn of the Void is one of Fromsoftware’s coolest designs but the boss isn’t terribly challenging. Considering you can just run past Adula afterwards, Astel is the last barrier. Still beat him first time. Speaking to Ranni beneath the Cathedral of Manus Celes earns you access to the Age of Stars ending as well as the Darkmoon Greatsword legendary talisman.
Lastly here on the Moonlight Altar we have to beat Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader in the Evergaol to get the Black Knife Tiche summon and kill some ghost turtles for the Spell Ranni’s Dark Moon. And breathe.
Trophies earned here:
Mimic Tear
Regal Ancestor Spirit
Valiant Gargoyles
Astel, Naturalborn of the Void
Legendary Spirt Ash 5/6
Legendary Armament 6/9
Legendary Spells 4/7
Legendary Talisman 4/8
Stage 6: Summit beyond the Clouds
Mountaintops of the Giant isn’t my favourite area but thankfully we don’t need to spend much time here. There’s two points of interest before we reach the Forge of the Giants - Heretical Rise and Castle Sol. Heretical Rise is one of the many sorcery towers throughout the Lands Between, with the gimmick here being there’s an invisible bridge leading into it. Usually difficult, online messages mark the way.
The other bit is Castle Sol, Elden Ring’s most disapointing mini dungeon given the premise and potential it had. Legendary Armament Eclipse Shotel is right on the path to the boss so there's very little chance of missing it. The boss, Commander Niall is usually fairly easy but I got greedy and stuck in a little bit of a rut, meaning it took until my 5th try.
I still dislike the Fire Giant but not as much as I once did. It’s a long tedious fight but thankfully I got it done on the second try, letting me access the Forge of the Giants.
Trophies as follows:
Commander Niall
Fire Giant
Legendary Armaments 7/9
Legendary Spells 5/7
Stage 7: We interrupt this playthrough…
There wasn’t a good way to fit this into the playthrough so I’m putting it here. Elden Ring has a good amount of overlaps between it’s quests, like “Hey this NPC is involved in this quest and that one”. While that is cool, it doesn’t quite work in a playthrough like this. Queue the treasure hunts.
First was a return trip to Limgrave (and I suppose the most egregious breaking of the region lock rule) to save Sellen from the Mad Pumpkin Head. You need Sellen to complete the Legendary spells quest. Little did I realise that the quest doesn’t trigger until you have one of the two Glintstone master spells. The only one of the two you can access is Comet Azur from Master Azure in Mt Gelmir. Once you fetch it and speak to Sellen she gives you a key to break out Lusat from the Sellia Crystal Hideaway. I previously got the Grace for the Church of the Plague so I was right next to the cave. Reaching Lusat and receiving Stars of Ruin means we now have all the Legendary Spells. I couldn’t warp out of the cave and had too many ruins for Memory of Grace’ing so I had to beat the Crystalian Trio to escape.
The second treasure hunt is for the Cursemark of Death. I warped to the Carian Study Hall (of which we got the grace for when heading underground for the first time). Before going through, I thought I best burn the Erdtree first. Returning to the Forge and following through on the cutscenes, I returned to the study hall, made it to the bottom/top, killed the Godskin Noble and got the Cursemark of Death. Batman whirl transition to Deeproot Depths, making your way up to the corpse of Godwyn you have to fight Fia’s Champions first. I usually play the game offline which means you fight a preset group of NPC enemies. I played online, which means I got random ones which is pretty cool. I still died to Lionel so the random NPC’s didn’t matter. Success on the second attempt at least.
Lichdragon Fortisax is a boss I hate no matter what. Never difficult, just really frustrating to fight. Even worse it comes after all of Fia’s malarkey. Thankfully if you leave the Fia stuff to post Burning the Erdtree, you can skip most of the annoying stuff that occurs beforehand.
Trophies Obtained:
Legendary Sorceries and Incantations
Erdtree Aflame
Lichdragon Fortisax
Stage 8: The Holy Blood and Rot
The Consecrated Snowfields are straight up just not a fun area so luckily we can juat head to the key points we need to get to. Our first stop is the Cave of the Forlorn which is like one of a handful unqiue mini dungeons in the whole game. Here we fight the Misbegotten Crusader, the only Leonine Misbegotten boss that actually uses their respective legendary weapon, this one being the Golden Order Greatsword.
Next up I had to do a little preparation for Mohg. By that I mean I had to visit the one church in Altus, kill Eleonora and get the purifying crystal tear for my physick. I’ve got it written down that I got my weapon to +10 here but I think it came afterwards. Either way rhe invader that blocks the way to the teleporter caused me to lose 100K odd runes which I was malding about for a bit. Mohg himself is a super fun boss so I didn’t mind that I didn’t get it until attempt 3. Top tier boss, even when you nigh cheese it with BF.
The Haligtree and Elphael are next on the list but first you must make it through Ordina, the town at the northmost point of the snowfields. On the first few playthroughs I used to hate this area but when you discover the nack for it it’s easy to plow through. There’s also nothing to mention regarding the Haligtree nor Loretta really but Elphael itself has a good few items we need.
First though I had to visit the Weeping Peninsula for more Stonesword Keys because I wasted some on the wrong door which admittedly is an easy mistake to make when you don’t do any research. First we get the final Spirit Ash - Cleanrot Knight Finley, completing the Legendary Summons trophy. Continuing on we find Marika’s Soreseal and the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talismans.
There was no point delaying the inevitable. Next up was Malenia. Blade of Miquella, Goddess of Rot and still one of my most challenging fights even after 600 hours. The first lot of attempts totalled 8 before I had to call it a night. There was a good mix of phase 1 fumbles and genuine phase 2 attempts here. Day 2 I had two further attempts before I realised that my load out needed changed. The talismans I had been using - Warrior Jar Shard, Claw Talisman, Turtle Talisman and Carian Filigreed were replaced by the Two Handed Talisman, Blade of Mercy, Twin Head Turtle Talisman and the Dragoncrest Shield Talisman. Bettering my basic moves rather than Ash of War that Malenia was too fast and dodged all the time. It was the fourth attempt that got the win with the new Talisman loadout. At 14 total attempts, Malenia was the hardest boss of the run, beating out the second hardest by one. More on them later.
Conquering Elphael and the Snowfields net me the following trophies:
Godslaying Armament
Shardbearer Mohg
Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree
Legendary Ashes
Shardbearer Malenia
Stage 9: A Cardinal Sin
With all the optional stuff out the way, we can begin the final stretch towards the end of the game. Farum Azula is such a cool location but sadly there's nothing we need in the first half of it. I dashed through to the Godskin Duo fight and noticed the summon sign for Bernahl wasn't there. No big deal but it's relevant later. I think this is the first time I've beaten the duo solo, and it was the first attempt to boot. They can be annoying but it's only the start of the fight that's annoying, after that it's easy to make it a consistent 1v1, albeit with a changing target.
A wee bit further beyond is where our next talisman, the Old Lords Talisman and our next legendary weapon should be. Bernal invades the player on the bridge to the chest the talisman is in but as I approached and opened the chest, he didn't spawn. After picking up the talisman and very promptly dying, I did some exploration. I revisited Volcano Manor to see if he was there and he wasn't. My second option was his only other spawn point, the Warmasters Shack in Limgrave. He wasn't there but his loot was on the ground, including the weapon - the Devourer’s Sceptre. After a little bit of research (while writing this) and no testing, I assume Bernahl drops the weapon if killed in Limgrave, since he can't be attacked in Volcano Manor. That would be a cool time saver but we still need to be here for the Old Lords Talisman so.
Since killing Maliketh warps the player to Capital of Ash, I like to do Placidusax first. Placidusax is one of only a few bosses that doesn't have a Stake of Marika nearby for lore reasons. Most of these bosses still have a Site of Grace nearby or within a wee distance. If a Grace was far away, required iffy platforming and had a cutscene between every attempt at the boss, it'd be a shame if it took 3 attempts to beat. Just happy Placidusax is a fun boss, one I usually beat first time so it was almost a novelty to get beaten a couple times.
As much as I love Maliketh, he suffers from the same problem as Morgott, being that he doesn't have enough health comparitive to the players power level at this point. He goes down first time.
Releasing Destined Death into the world, we obtained:
Legendary Armaments
Godskin Duo
Dragonlord Placidusax
Maliketh, the Black Blade
Stage 10: Moonlight on the Ashes
Reaching the end of this playthrough, mostly a boss rush save for a little detour. I did actually fall to me death when going for this final talisman which was led to a bit of an annoying run back. Thankfully that meant that was Legendary Talisman trophy obtained and the end of all the collectible items I needed.
All that’s left is Sir Gideon Ofnir, Hourah Loux and finally the Elden Beast, which as mentioned are fought back to back. Not in the same arena but there's no exploring or anything in between. Gideon can be quite tricky if you don't get him on the first attempt - his evil villain monologue gives you a lot of time to prepare or approach or just begin to wail on him. Subsequent attempts don't have that same privilege.
Legendary Talismans
Hourah Loux, Warrior
Age of Stars
Playthrough 2: May CHAOS, TAKE THE WORLD
NG+ is an even speedier affair than the first time around, with the repeat trips to Fort Haight and Fort Faroth for the Dectus Halves, Godrick and Radahn being our generous Great Rune donors. Morgott has to be slain before we take our new path, this time beneath Leyndell, into the Subterranean Shunning Grounds. Down here we’ll get our last Incantation - Bloodflame Talons as well as access to the second of our three endings - Lord of Frenzy Flame. While it is more thematic, you don’t have to engage with the Hyetta questline to get this ending which is fine by me since it involves a lot of collecting.
Mohg was pretty easy, lacking his entire phase 2 from his Lord of Blood encounter. Dropping down to the Frenzied Flame Proscription is always a little bit annoying thanks to how specific some of the jumps are but I got it only after 3 or so tries. Fire Giant and Godskin duo were first tries, Maliketh nocked me but went down round 2, Hourah Loux was unusually tricky taking four tries and an infuriating death to a near beaten Elden Beast caused a runback for the successful attempt
Trophies earned in this Playthrough:
Mohg the Omen and
Lord of Frenzied Flame
Second Playthrough brings us up to: 13:10:54
Playthrough 3: Last one to become Elden Lord is a rotten Albinauric!
There’s nothing special about this last playthrough, it’s just a straight shot to the end - Godrick, Radahn and two Dectus Halves. In the second playthrough I did try running through to the Ruin Strewn Precipice to get to Bellum Highway instead of going via the Academy but it’s in no way faster. This time I just did the normal Academy route to get there, obviously not needing to enter the academy proper. After that it’s just the gauntlet of Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Sir Gideon, Hourax Loux and Elden Beast. Easy as you like. Saying that, Draconic Tree Sentinel took a couple tries which was fine but then I failed early Gideon that meant he took 7 tries and after battering Hourah Loux, I somehow lost to Radagon and the Elden Beast 10 times before beating them, They probably each got 5 kills a piece.
Trophies earned in this Playthrough:
Elden Lord
and of course the platinum trophy, ‘Elden Ring’
Final time, IGT: 15:15:04
For comparisons sake, the original times: 71:01:41 for first playthrough, 98:52:57 for platinum
That’s a difference of: 83:37:53. Not bad at all.
I’m not done with the world of Elden Ring just yet, Nighreign is just around the corner and of course there’s two versions of it… Stay tuned!
