Elden ring taught me that I had to be calm when playing games. It taught me to know that I will be able to clear content, its just a matter of when. I used to think of games in terms of, can I clear this content? Now I think of games in terms of, how long will it take me to clear this content? I also realized that single player games aren't hard. They are literally designed to be beaten.

I also learned that I play a lot better when I'm more focused on my body than the screen. I started bringing the same mindsets I use for sports into playing games and it helped a lot. It used to be that when I played games the screen was all that existed. Now I focus more on the pleasure of my fingers gliding across the keyboard, or just the contentment of experiencing my body doing something it enjoys.

Margit the fell omen and Godric the grafted took me like 30+ tries each. I beat blood flower lady on the second try (with mimic tear) and the final boss in maybe 6 tries (with a less powerful tear). I was beating bosses on the first or second try pretty consistently, like the starbeast things, ancestor spirit, dragonkin soldier, magma wyrm, and some of the crypt dungeon bosses.

I had put 40 hours into hades back in 2020 or 2021 and I probably cleared the game with no heat 5 or so times in those hours. More recently I sunk my teeth into hades and put in another 60 hours. In those 60 hours I got 100% on steam and was able to clear the game on +17. I also got through the first phase of hades on +32. But, I realized getting good enough at that fight to get through all 3 phases would've been rough. But regardless the difference in skill level was really apparent to me. It was so much fun to actually get constant story progress because I was actually clearing the game.