Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

The good: -The dlc is big with a beautiful map to explore -The bosses are visually interesting -Bosses like Mydra and Bayle are one of the best in the entire game -The NPCs are one of the most interesting and engaging in the series -Some of the new weapons are very fun to use.

The mid: -The difficulty. It yet again confuses me on where to put this game and its dlc in the scale of the easiest and hardest game in the series. The presence alone of the summons and several builds that almost have no counter to them make this game and dlc the easiest, but aside from that almost all of the bosses would be the hardest but their surrounding mobs and area bosses are still way too easy for a dlc area and they have their damage tuned a bit high for compensation.

The bad: -The story ends in a beyond dissapointing manner and, to add insult to injury, the boss is a reuse from the base game. Also the cryptic manner of which it is told hold it back, compared to their previous titles.

-Many of the mobs in the dlc are just reskinned base game mobs and the new additions feel like they have infinite poise, which essentially removes the need for slow but poise breaking weapons -The NPCs still break if you don't babysit them -The DLC is very badly optimised even compared to the base game let alone with other games. Some areas will make the fps dip to single digits, and when the game speed it tied to the fps, it makes bosses in more complex rooms almost impossible to fight -The scadutree fragment system is bad: you can obtain a significant amount before fighting a single boss, but you just end up exploring the map in a suboptimal way. Even then the consistent question when playing the DLC is "is my Scadutree level optimal for this area" and the answer is no, since even at level 20 two different enemies from the same area might deal drastically different damage. Some bosses will always deal 70% of your healthbar no matter what and still demand +6 minutes of consisten damaging to defeat them.

-The map is very confusing and some areas require the finicky platforming these games are known to include for some reason.

-Some of the areas are best described as "empty". At around 60-70% of the map there is nothing really to do. The random items are useless in the stage of level progression most people enter the dlc.

-Some of the bosses are a visual mess.

-The DLC requiring an endgame boss to be defeated means that most of the characters' level is hitting several softcaps, so inside the dlc, having this many empty areas, most of the areas have almost no value to be explored more than once except out of boredom. This is worsened by the fact that the DLC-specific leveling system is spread and hidden in such obscure places it actually makes the exploring this huge daunting task that must be done on replays.

I enjoyed the dlc, but I would hope their scope for the next games would be a bit smaller, closer to their previous releases, or at least experiment a bit more with the open world idea and not it be just the dark souls engine and playable characters in a 40 acre fields.

FROMSOFTWARE DID IT AGAIN. They gave us a dlc that is better and presents more content than 99% of the games we see out there. It is absolutely fantastic, improving upon everything the base game did right and correcting some mistakes.

This dlc contains 3 main legacy dungeons, and tons of secondary areas. The main ones are super fun and intriguing to explore, and some of the best we have seen yet. The secondary ones, although not that great, for obvious reasons, seem way more unique than the repeated dungeons of the first game with some very interesting bosses.

The bosses also shine here: there are 10 main ones and a lot of secondary bosses, and they are some of the hardest bosses Fromsoftware has ever created, and also some of the best and most fantastic boss fights I have ever seen.

I also need to say the lore and characters are very unique, expanding a lot from what we had previously learned about some characters, and it might also change the way you look at some of your favorite characters.

The weapons also feel great to use, and they definetely help to bring a lot of variety into the dlc and the base game.

Overall, I can't praise more Myazaki and his team for creating such a masterpiece, certainly one of the best dlcs of all time (if not the best), and it's a mandatory experience for Elden Ring lovers.

This is sold as a DLC? It has more content than most $70 AAA games.

• New weapon types, loads of new weapons
• New soundtrack (which is incredible of course)
• New skills, armours, items, crafting, tons of new enemies and bosses and I could go on but I don't want to waste your time because you Must play it.

The game is very challenging but as you go through the DLC, you will get stronger and stronger.

The locations are mind blowing which shouldn't be a surprise because it's Fromsoftware we're talking about but I found myself taking screenshots after every steps almost..

One recommendation I would have for all of you. Please do yourself a favour and do not watch any videos, guides or tips on it. Go in blind, explore and experience everything yourself and you will gain something from this masterpiece that will stay with you for a lifetime.

Have fun and enjoy. I am speechless.

This has the same Flaws and the same pros as the main game and what I mean is the exploration is fun the first time and then it's become a waste of time but the boss is so good. I will return to it even if I have to look at my horses ass too much again.

Difficulty wise I would say that it is fair, except the last boss but I kind of expected it to be horribly hard because this is the last elden ring we're gonna get so why not make the most hard-most b** fight of them all. I defeated him after five hours and I was just like I'm finally done ho ah.

The new weapons are really fun to use and really feel like late game items I'm kind of saddened that I can't find them in the main game but they are fun to use here and the enemies didn't put up too much b** the only enemy I didn't like at all was that giant fire running around the fields.

I am going to play this game again. I know I am but the only problem is that every time I played I am reminded why I loved the Dark Souls game so much because there's so little distant between the fun stuff to do but in this. There is a long distance between the fun stuff to do that involved the horses ass so sadly.

I don't think it is as good as the Dark Souls games, but that mostly because of wasted time. But the bosses is on power with dark souls free and I truly enjoy the stance breaking mechanic it is the most fun to break your enemy to make it critical attack.

The combat is more fun and elden Ring.