At the beginning of 2023, Twitch streamer MissMikkaa made headlines for beating Elden Ring’s infamous rot queen, Malenia, Blade of Miquella, with two fully completely different controllers on the identical time. It was a ridiculous feat of dexterity and focus, however would you imagine this methodology of play was how she completed FromSoftware’s newest Soulslike in its entirety? Well, it seems MissMikkaa has been embarking on what she’s dubbed the “Ultimate Challenge Run” and, now that she’s wrapped up Elden Ring, she’s doing the identical factor with Dark Souls Remastered.
Challenge runs aren’t new throughout the FromSoft neighborhood. Kotaku has reported on loads of wild ones, from utilizing a drawing pill to taking part in with an digital saxophone. MissMikkaa’s, nevertheless, might be essentially the most intense problem run I’ve seen in a minute as she performs two copies of the FromSoft sport concurrently with two several types of controller inputs: a DDR-compatible dance pad and a PlayStation 5 DualSense. This is the premise for her “Ultimate Challenge Run.” As MissMikkaa specifies in her livestream overlays, the purpose is to “kill bosses on the same try on both game instances” utilizing the 2 completely different controllers. Kotaku caught up with MissMikkaa to choose her mind about taking part in FromSoft video games in such a peculiar and tough method.
This Takes Lots Of Focus To Pull Off
MissMikkaa defined the method of establishing the “Ultimate Challenge Run,” together with the mannequin of the dance pad she’s utilizing. After getting the dance pad hooked as much as her PC, she used the software program remapper PleasureToKey to synch the pad’s motion arrows to the WASD keys, with the opposite buttons performing actions like attacking, dodging, therapeutic, and the like. The dance pad has a restricted variety of buttons, although, so she would generally must “create specific profiles for certain bosses or scenarios” to change between earlier than encounters just like the one with Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy. But except for fine-tuning the dance pad’s keybindings, this “Ultimate Challenge Run” challenged MissMikkaa in lots of different methods.
“In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble focusing on playing two games at once. It’s not an easy task trying to position your character, attack, dodge, and heal twice as much as what you’re used to,” MissMikkaa tells Kotaku. “There were a few days where I was feeling mentally fatigued from the amount of work my brain was doing, but the further I got in the run the more used to it I became. Physically it wasn’t much different from the previous runs I had done, luckily I was already used to 6-hour dance pad sessions. Midway through this run there were definitely a few moments of smooth sailing, but towards the end, things definitely got much harder and that was also partially used as a motivator to get me through.”
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Focus was tough to take care of throughout your entire run, MissMikkaa says. Playing a FromSoft sport, whether or not that’s Bloodborne or Sekiro, can already look like an insurmountable problem requiring tons of focus. These are punishing video games, in any case! Adding a second layer on high—that’s, taking part in one other occasion of the identical sport however with a separate controller concurrently—will increase each the extent of issue you’ll face when taking part in and the main target required. Gravity killed her, loads, as a result of she “lost track of [her] character’s position and instead focused more on attacking and dodging.” But navigation obtained higher as time went on.
The Bosses Were Equally Challenging
As you may anticipate with a FromSoft sport, the bosses have been a selected sore spot for this “Ultimate Challenge Run.” MissMikkaa says she died some 198 occasions to Malenia and her lengthy sword alone. It doesn’t examine to the extent 1 dance pad run she did again in October, through which she died over 500 occasions to the goddess, however she nonetheless factors to Malenia as a real check.
“Malenia was by far the hardest boss in this run,” MissMikkaa admits. “She is a true test of skill and experience in most challenge runs. It was a lot of trial and error to kill Malenia both in regards to figuring out what build I wanted to use and just trying to survive when I got two waterfowl dances at the same time. But besides the obvious answer, I had a lot of trouble with Margit due to falling out of the arena. I was also struggling a lot with Mohg, specifically with his second phase transition since I didn’t use any in-game items like Mohg’s Shackle or Purifying Crystal Tear.”
That she prevented herself from utilizing particular gear additionally added to the issue. MissMikkaa says she not solely tried to “not use any weapons or Ashes of War that would be considered too ‘OP’,” however she additionally couldn’t summon anybody or use any of the spirit ashes in battle.
It was simply her, the enemies in entrance of her, and her two controller inputs. That’s it. In addition to those self-imposed limitations, MissMikkaa explains that she relegated herself to sure sorts of character builds, beginning with a strength-focused one to start with earlier than switching to an arcane one for the late sport. Thankfully her gear of selection—bleed weapons similar to the Great Stars nice hammer and high-defense armor like the Bull-Goat set—helped ease the restrictions slightly bit by letting her “outpoise [a boss’] poise damage in order to hit them through their attacks.” She’s tanky. And after all, as a result of she’s taking part in two copies of the identical sport, she’s pressured to have gear parity between her two characters.
Giving Up On This Was Never In The Cards
Regardless of how difficult this “Ultimate Challenge Run” has been for MissMikkaa, she guarantees that she “never once thought about giving up.” The issue is a giant motive why she was so motivated to complete the problem. She discovered herself adapting to the method after each livestream and, as soon as she obtained to Malenia, who’s already an non-obligatory endgame boss, MissMikkaa stated she was “pretty confident” that she might beat the queen of rot alongside most of the sport’s different brutal enemies.
“The easiest part of this run was keeping myself motivated throughout,” MissMikkaa explains. “It was a fun challenge and I enjoyed every aspect of learning and mastering it. I love finding new ways to challenge myself, especially in Elden Ring. This idea was not really seriously considered at first, but when I found myself with an extra capture card in my streaming PC I started thinking to myself, ‘What would happen if I played two games at once?’ At first, I was unsure if the challenge was even possible to begin with, and so were the people around me. But I was kind of curious to see how far I could go. I’ve got to say…I’ve never had so many people coming in and questioning my sanity as I have during this run.”
I imply, I’m questioning MissMikkaa’s sanity, too. It’s exhausting sufficient stepping right into a FromSoft boss area on only one platform. Doing that twice, on the identical time, with one in every of your controllers being primarily a slipper bathtub mat, and nonetheless strolling away victorious makes me each envious of her abilities and stoked about her accomplishment. Talk about “getting good.”
MissMikkaa tells us she completed Elden Ring round January 8, performing an All Remembrances playthrough which requires you beat a FromSoft sport by defeating all of the bosses that drop consumable “boss souls.” Since then, she’s been bouncing between video games on Twitch, like Forspoken and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, whereas embarking on one other “Ultimate Challenge Run” in Dark Souls Remastered. At some level, she stated she desires to play by way of Elden Ring with “a real guitar,” with actions like attacking and therapeutic tied to full chords as an alternative of simply particular person strings. Lord assist her.
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