The Adventures of Peaches, Part Eleven

Peaches made it all the way to the final boss of the Academy of Raya Lucaria but then turned around and left. I don't particularly want to fight her, and she's not hurting anyone.

Peaches then made his way through a mountain tunnel and out onto the Altus Plateau, the late-game area I was aiming for at the beginning of this playthrough. It is extremely beautiful and absolutely worth it.

Almost by accident, Peach finally arrived at Windmill Village. He did not kill anyone. Like the Raya Lucaria final boss, the villagers aren't hurting anyone, and they look like they're enjoying themselves.

If you're curious, here is actual game footage:
https://amygdalan-arm.tumblr.com/post/677758123996594176/oh-shit-its-popping-off-at-the-windmill-village

Evergrace

Exploring the golden forests of the Altus Plateau in Elden Ring triggered a residual memory of running through a similarly hued forest in a vaguely realistic and vaguely open-world fantasy game when the PlayStation 2 first came out.

I did some digging, and I think this game was Evergrace, which was one of the PS2 launch titles from 2000. There's not much information about the game available online, but its Wikipedia entry is (here).

It turns out that this game was also made by From Software. Interesting!

It might be fun to dig into this more deeply, but maybe not. I get the feeling that Evergrace is one of the many action-adventure fantasy games from the PS1/PS2 era that should probably remain a comfortably hazy memory.