I prefer to think of Belurat and Enir Ilim as one Legacy Dungeon; you explore the first half at the beginning and the second half at the end. And they are literally connected when you find the secret path to the Euporia.
29:59 I don’t think this one is shitty, actually. The lore of Salza and his refusal to destroy the ruins led to some Hornsent survivors, and the Dancing Lion was never a one of a kind entity to begin with, but rather the last one that remained on Belurat, so, having another one in an area we are specifically told was spared by one of the higher ranking Fire Knights makes sense. It’s not a fucking Godefroy case
@@chadofastorano one can convince me that Godefroy isn't some filler name/lore that they forgot to replace with something else, realized they used what they were going to use and just kept the placeholder after deciding that was the most hilarious choice going forward.
@@BLP04 and anyways, isnt the thing we fight just 2 dudes in a Divine Beast costume? Thats how I read the name, "Dancing Lion (like the Chinese ones) of a Divine Beast"
Tbh even if it’s flawed (it 100% is) it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming, although it’s such a shame the abyssal woods were as empty as they are a field boss like a frenzied dragon would’ve been so cool
@@chadofastora ikr I had a really cool lore explanation for a Frenzy Ancient Dragon. So we know that just to the south of Abyssal Woods we have the Jagged Peak. So imagine if Sennesax instead of sitting there b4 Bayle actually went up and fought. Ofc he lost. Then he tried to fly away, but crash landed in the Abyssal woods. Here the Frenzied Flame plus his own despair of his loss drive him to frenzy. He will have the same moveset, but just add a huge howl of shabriri effect to it. Maybe tuning down the flying attacks to show that he is in fact injured. Imagine the cool factor
Kind of makes sense. I mean, it's called the *Abyssal Woods*, so ofc it's going to be empty. It also has a whole legacy dungeon in it, so that counts as something
Finally, some good fucking food: I feel this take so hard. The good qualities of the base game are now better and masterpiece worthy (Combat AI of new bosses and new enemies, overall visual art, world design, indoor level design, new weapons), the bad qualities of base game got even worse (Not enough location density and content in world like seen in Giants Mountaintops and Snowfield, poor enemy/boss density found throughout open world areas) and I even think this DLC has its own unique fuckups of not having enough new enemies and bosses, and not enough general enemy variety in overworld areas. But I think the quality of the good things really overshadow the bad and it should be noted that the indoor locations are more complex and/or engaging to make up for the lack of them. I think this DLC was well worth the wait despite its flaws and believe it wonderfully represents the final hours of a full ER playthrough.
It might just be the artist in me. But I love the symbolism and intricate depictions of the gear, spells, architecture, etc. And this isn't specifically for the dlc. I will run and suffer through the game as a sleep build simply because I love the aesthetics and imagery of everything St. Trina related. Miquella and the Haligtree related things are a close second. It just helps add to the atmosphere of the world and all of its deep lore. I dont care if a specific boss can't be slept, I will hack away at it with my dual sleep swords.
I think the DLC has a few flaws, yes (like every other DLC they've made), but it's by far the best DLC they've made. I’m amazed by it, the new weapons, magics & especially the Backhand Blades are really satisfying to play with, the legacy dungeons are absolutely massive, there’s one dungeon that leads you to 5 or 6 different places, it’s phenomenal, The bosses also are as cool as ever, Messmer is in my top 10 best Soulsborne bosses ever, the open-world is extremely dense in every conceivable way, I have some small criticisms about the DLC, some places could’ve been a bit less empty, but then again, I’m a NG+7 character & I got everything in my build, I only needed to collect the new weapons/sorceries/incantations & Scadutree blessings to keep moving through the DLC, those who have low stock of Smithing Stones will be quite happy with the DLC, they’re literally everywhere & that’s a good thing to encourage experimentation & more build diversity, they really COOKED with the DLC music, I can’t believe how good they are! Also Romina & Rellana needed a cutscene & voice-lines for each of them, it pains me to see them not having one. The world design in the DLC beats the base game world by a significant margin. Great video.
Right, my biggest critique is that there are 11 remembrance-tier bosses, and of those, 5 and a half don't deserve that title. (Its Dancing Lion) even the finished ones with a cutscene ofter are missing something, I love Radahn but the triple slash doesn't feel play-tested. Certain levels (Charo's grave) feel way to empty. And don't get me started on the ghost flame dragon with all the soldiers that chose to attack you instead, or Ancient Dragon Ballsaxx who can burn in Izalith for all I care.
I broadly think this is the case with Elden Ring in general, but especially the DLC. At it's best, it is straight up my favorite Souls game - but the lows are LOW. I'm particularly baffled when people talk up the DLC like it's "a full open world game for 40 bucks!!1!". I mean... is it? It's big, sure, but does that really count when it's so empty? Bearing in mind that the Old Hunters cost like 20 bucks in todays money, I'm really not sure SOTE is actually twice the DLC.
same. It could have been an objective 10/10 if they filled areas with good loot instead of black pyreflies and redflesh mushrooms and given the finger ruins a unique finger type boss. That said everything else is well done.
I really apreciate that you also talked about the normal enemies of the DLC, I feel like outside one or two enemies most of them aren't really put in the spotlight in the way you do with your rankings and video essays in general
@@MohamednacerKhelifi the divine warriors, black knights, mesmer soldiers, canon imps, curseblades, fire knights(greatsword variants), spider scorpions are pretty good imo.
Something that I felt that I haven’t really seen others talking about regarding the new harder enemies is just how much poise/hyper armour they have generally. I imagine the most common melee builds are colossal greatswords or something similar which get you through the base game just fine by jump attack spamming everything that moves so they don’t get to fight back - this strategy is less effective when the horned warrior doesn’t even flinch and then kicks you in the head. This makes the enemies seem harder regardless of their movements because (without considering just running past) you actually have to deal with them - you can’t just whack them out of their attacks, you need to actually acknowledge what they’re doing. I also thought it was super peak how throughout the main path of the DLC you’re constantly ascending upwards. Following Miquella in his ascension to godhood you spend the entire expansion literally ascending yourself to catch up to him. I thought the DLC handled verticality really well just generally, felt like a much more prominent focus than it was in the base game. Regarding the spells, whilst a lot of them are underpowered, most of them are just really cool and I think that’s just as important. In games generally, the best spell options are usually the cheaper, more efficient, consistent damage sources than the nukes. And since the base game handles this for most damage types (catch flame, carian slicer, night comet, discus of light etc) only really adding ‘knights lightning spear’ as a direct upgrade for a main damage source, the flashy nuke spells make me feel more powerful. Even if I would like to see it buffed, returning to base game and just eviscerating a normal group of enemies with light of miquella makes me feel cool as shit. (Holy damage just generally feels more viable now with the sword of light buff + lots of dlc enemies and bosses being weaker to it which is cool also). I was also pretty frustrated with how the npc quests were, specifically the Ansbach and Freyja section in the storehouse. Ansbach is required to progress Freyja’s quest but leaves after completing his own and the item to complete his comes before running into Freyja again, I thought that was particularly dumb. However, I also think a lot of people speak about the DLC in a vacuum without really considering it as an expansion. And as an expansion I think it is outstanding. I have replayed Elden Ring about 5 times after my initial DLC play through and I can’t even remember what it feels like to play without the DLC being present and how I managed to get through the endgame. It presents a fun challenge for how early I can access it and get past Mohg to maximise my time using the new DLC weapons and it’s a challenge to get through the tougher bosses like Messmer (peak btw) with limited flasks, even if that does mean I spend a bit more time gathering the shadow fragments (which whilst I know places me in the minority, I quite enjoy just wandering the map). The base games most linear section is absolutely it’s endgame, basically being a boss rush, and whilst the inclusion of the DLC does nothing to change this, it does allow you to choose what your endgame will be, and swap between the two and I think that is huge for my personal experience. For me personally the DLC is nothing short of 10/10. I don’t think it’s perfect as a stand-alone piece of content but I think it has a more significant impact on the main game than any other Fromsoft expansion. Whilst I think the Old Hunters is important to Bloodborne because the endgame doesn’t hold up super well without it, and a lot of Dark Souls 1-3’s best content is in the expansions, for me, they don’t impact the main game experience nearly as much. I think with the inclusion of the DLC Elden Ring is my new favourite Fromsoft title and maybe just game generally and it might not actually be that close.
@@anonisnoone6125 I'll never understand this argument. I guess the only thing you can actually call "unfinished" is the ending, but I think they clearly stated multiple times that this dlc would not have a new ending and was it's own contained story. Everything else felt pretty damn finished and thought out.
@@MrFRNTIKi said a lot but i feel like midra's manse was pretty unfinished too, is legit shorter than most DLC minidungeons, it genuine has 2 good shorcuts, but only if the level was like trice as long, because those shortcuts are also useless due to the graces you get, pretty curius that midra didn't feel rushed though, what a great boss
@@MrFRNTIKThe finger ruins are unfinished, end of story. There's no reason for such a massive chunk of the map to be just part of a questline for a mediocre talisman. Charo's grave, is all right, could have had more than just two boss fights and a spell, for again how much space it takes on the map. At first glance, the volcano seems like a massive place to explore, in the end, it's extremely linear and only has two bosses, one of them being reused. There is no new dialogue with the base game and DLC NPC characters, no call backs. And don't lie to yourself, these bosses, most of them are straight up missing cutscenes. It's a great DLC, flawed, and is definitely missing content. Time crunch is a real phenomenon.
It's FromSoft's best overall DLC, but it definitely felt unfinished in quite a few places, even more so than the base game. I think that is why it's not quite perfect, but it reaches heights that no other DLC they've made can surpass. The best thing that the DLC does do though, is solidy why Elden Ring is my favorite of the series. Bloodborne is absolute peak, DS3 is amazing, DS1 started that trend of peak DLC design, and you can argue they had a bigger impact for their respective games than ER, but Elden Ring's DLC as a standalone is an utter masterpiece, flawed as it may be. Now, as for the bosses, I will only talk about Consort Radahn since the others I agree with completely. Personally, he is not a bad boss, nor do I think he has bad overall design. His triple slash is not a good move, but it's not a bad move either. Just... pretty mediocre and a very questionable design choice. Lore wise, I think it brings it down as a whole, but as just as a boss fight, Consort Radahn is an easy top 5 for me in the entire game. Using the many tools that the game gives you, from the base game and DLC, and not just relying on the fundamental game mechanics legitimately turns it into one of the most fun bosses in the game, surpassing other bosses that I've fought from the DLC. I can't even begin to tell you the satisfaction I got from using Blind Spot, or guard countering with deflect tear and Milady, or even figuring out how effective Quickstep was against Triple Slash. It ended up turning the "dogshit" combo into a non-issue for me! He's so good, honestly. And yet, he's so flawed! Flawed in that he completely invalidates most builds in the game. Flawed in that it's a visual clutter in the 2nd phase that may not have been that bad for me, but was very much an issue for otherz. Flawed in that you NEED certain tools just to maximize the fun factor of the fight. To cut it short, he's an amazing boss, held back by objective design flaws that you simply can't ignore. The difficulty does heavily contribute as to why he's so hated, yes. But the design flaws are way too glaring and are also kind of representative of the DLC and the game as a whole. In short, it's ambitious, but does more than it needs to do and ends up falling short in quite a few areas. Still, I love it to death. I have my fair share of moments of wishing that they could've done better, but I couldn't help but adore it all. No game of theirs is perfect anyway, and that's perfectly okay.
I think all of Fromsoft’s games are flawed. It’s one of the things I like about them. They aren’t afraid to take risks, even if their ideas don’t land 100% or don’t appeal to every player.
He hit the nail in the head at 45:00. Other DLCs deliver pretty much the same highs as SotE while being in a much more condensed package, which is why they end up being more consistent overall. What tarnishes people's perception of SotE is that no matter the insurmountable height of its many, many, many peaks, they will remember the dullness of its vast and empty valleys just as much. Unnecessary rant to paraphrase what I just said: I am going to tell you all why so many people will forever prefer Old Hunters/Ringed City and would in fact still prefer them no matter how many S++ tier bosses and dungeons SotE ended up having. They're nice little 6 hour long packages with N amount of S++ tier bosses, dungeons and weaponry. SotE is a 40 hour long package with N amount of S++ tier bosses, dungeons and weaponry. The highest highs of Shadow of the Erdtree might be at the same height (or even higher, depending on who you ask) than Old Hunters and Ringed City, but they are forever undermined by the bloated mess of continuous dull, repetitive and uninteresting encounters and situations you are forced to go through in order to get to them. This makes the lows stand out more than in other DLCs, because they last for longer, whereas the highs remain pretty much the same. Remember that you have to go through 4 dog water dragons in an overall empty area to get to the best dragon fight in the series, Bayle the Dread. Still my favorite DLC and it's not close at all.
@@_lalapop Well said, to this day I still kinda go back and forth with how I feel about the open sections, like, they’re kinda cool… sometimes, but needless to say if they do make another open world I would want it to be noticeably more condensed
Every playthrough after the first one doesn't need to go through everything you do on a first playthrough Ringed city is like 3 hours Old hunters is 4-5 hours Ringed city has spear of the church Old hunters has living failures Soo those dlc are not quite perfect either, though i probably like the consistency of old hunters more, to the point i like that DLC a bit more than SOTE, soo your points are right I just think that SOTE has too many issues to be the best one, even if there's ton of peaks that i love South areas and finger ruins are too empty, not many enemies and uninteresting enemy encounters Legacy dungeons are worse than basegame ones ( though still really good, tbh, base game seted up the bar absurdly high, and shadow keep is my third favourite legacy dungeon of the game ) Metyr is a bad boss for being the most secret of them all, cool atmosphere and by far the best new lore adition, but the mechanics are simple and frustating at the same time, PvP is really umbalanced, gaius still has busted hitboxs at times, slash slash cross combo sucks, which makes those fights worse, some minibosses like lamenter and senessax sucks, besides bayle, there's 6 dragons, and 7 NPC bosses, that's too much, that's almost a third of all dlc bosses, and almost half of the non-main dlc bosses, plus a few base game bosses that didn't need to be reused anymore, still, a 9/10 DLC, but old hunters is more of a 9,5sh/10
Not really, this point is glossing over the fact the other DLCs have proportionally even more flaws. Ringed City has 3 good bosses 1 F tier, and two bad-mid areas (Ringed swamp is a joke compared to Shadowkeep). Old Hunters has 3 good bosses, 2 bad bosses, one reused area, a good level that has DS1 hollow type enemy design and another good level that is just way too short, even shorter than Bellurat. Ashes has 1 good boss that's it. It's just nostalgia, of course when people have been playing and appreciating the older games for 8+ years, their mindset is going to be completely different.
Personally, after Shadow of The Erdtree, Im completely comfident that Elden Ring doesn´t really need a sequel on any shape or form. I see it as a game like Minecraft , on a way that for me does not make sense to see a sequel about it; you can make basically the playstile you want, now including taking a more Sekiro like gameplay...Seriously, now with the DLC, the combat variety got insane and I love it. Futhermore this DLC reminded me to one of my favorite open world experiences, Terraria Calamity. Well, gotta wait for Fromsoft to release a pirated themed game.
@@JoseViktor4099 FR, I’ve seen so many people thinking we need another expansion now. Partially due to being unsatisfied with the ending, which is fair, but I definitely think they’re ready to move on
@@MohamednacerKhelifi I really like how bosses and combat overall feels a very Big step Up from the traditional bosses. They look fantastic, the attacks are insanely fun to avoid, It makes optimize and play with new things constantly. And the music and the visuals are Amazing. Also that you are on a constant quest to be stronger until you fight the last foe and you get massively overpowered with all the options. Is a very good Game and mod.
The best part is you can create the story yourself. It's so open for interpretation that everyone has a different experience. I love that the most about this game.
Elden Ring might be my favourite game at this point and I completely agree, it should be a closed chapter now and Fromsoftware doesnt need to make another open world game again. I think they did a decent job at that but the strongest aspects of Fromsoftware are definitely not massive open fields that are kind of tedious to traverse filled with less interesting ruins, catacombs and mobs. They excel at creating handcrafted areas/dungeons, enemy variety and boss design which doesnt require open worlds so I hope they internally move on from open world and do traditional semi linear games again or IF they return to open world, massively decrease the scope of it. Imagine for example if Elden Ring had all of the content it has (legacy dungeons, unique catacombs, bosses, enemies) on maybe like 60% the space, the content density would feel a lot closer to how their old games felt (except i like Elden Rings content more). Or make traversal less boring.
0/10, we didn't get Midra's head Edit: on a serious note, I don't know if adding more cutscenes would be the best way to fix the bosses' presentation. Just look at the Ringed City bosses: you know how many cutscenes they have? Two. And both are for Gael. But that's never brought up as a problem because of the way they are presented. Demon Prince has a jaw-dropping plunge into the original Firelink Shrine, Halflight has a whole-ass intro that might as well be a cutscene (actually, I'd prefer it if it was: the speech is really annoying to listen to every time you want to fight him after a while), and Midir can be seen multiple times around the Ringed City, plus he becomes an obstacle towards the end before his actual boss fight; and honestly, even that has a great buildup, even without any kind of cutscene. I think Rellana didn't necessarily need a cutscene: she needed a better area to hype her up. Oh, and on the matter of the final cutscene, the point of it is to show that Radahn wasn't a willing participant in Miquella's schemes. Miquella recieves no answer from Radhan because he never wanted to give one. With that being said...yeah, it's still a bit underhwelming, especially since we could already have pieced together that Radhan probably wouldn't have wanted to work with Miquella, since they basically have completely different worldviews (one is a conqueror, the other is a...misguided pacifist, let's go with that).
@@pietrocatalano4285 Agreed, Bayle doesn’t have a cutscene but his intro is still great. Also fair take on the final cutscene, but I still would’ve preferred something else 😅, like you said it’s not too hard to guess that Radahn didn’t want to, and I would’ve much preferred getting more info about what Marika did to become a god
If there were like 10-15 extra shadow blessings, a tad bit more refined exploration, CUTSCENES FOR IMPORTANT PEOPLE, and the 3 piece slash combo fixed/ tweaked, I’d give it a 10. Rn it’s a 9.9 🙏🏽 ready for the ds1 enemy ranking babbyyyy
I beat Consort Radahn rl1 3 times (1 with deflect) and it has 2 major issues with other weird ones. The major ones being 1-2 X Slash and Arena elevation, sometimes because of elevation it is easier or harder to dodge some moves depending on the elevation you stand at. And in phase2 because of arena the light follow up of his slashes sometimes stack on top of you and falls closer to you. Weird ones being he punishes some projectile attacks so weirdly and doing gravity pull attacks at close range. Another crictisizm he gets from people are lack of jumpable and dodgeable without rolling attacks as an ER boss. I don't agree that much but clearly it can get better when it gets a patch. You can dodge bloodflame attack by circling around him and can get a opening, and the most optimal way to dodge Holy meteor attacks is running and jumping, and overhead Dash Slash (one he jumps air and send clones) is dodgeable with running to his below yet those 2 moves don't give you openings. Personally I would make all stomps, radagons ring of light, and end of basic combos where he slams swords at the end and causes holy aoe in phase 2 jumpable. TL:DR Changes I would make, •Fix the 1-2 X Slash (only fixing this is enough to make the fight amazing) •Fix the issues with boss arena •Fix the weird responses how he reacts to your some attacks •Add more Jumpable attacks on top of existing ones. •I don't have issues with visuals and it is clear enough for me but it will be better if they make miquellas hair transparent. •Hitboxes are mostly fine but there are still some bugs He is my 3rd favorite final boss in the series after Gael and BIK even with this state rn. But he deserves all those crictisizm because from should see it and fix it.
one thing i really like about the dlc is how it's even more non linear than the base game. For example, i went to belurat, then the jagged peak, then went all the way around scadu altus and got into the back entrance of shadow keep, where i then went to rauh and killed the centipede boss. All this before i had even entered castle ensis to fight relanna. Really made the world much more enjoyable to explore than base game
My problem with that is that it can lock you out of the main questlines early if you're not careful. Approaching Shadow Keep, for instance. Moving past NPCs you "skipped" (i.e explored elsewhere before seeing them) are my biggest gripes. The quest system really shows it's failings here, and worse yet, locks the main story of the DLC behind it
Here’s what I’ll say: Elden Ring was my first From game. I had briefly tried Dark Souls years ago and bounced right off it. I spent more time with Elden Ring than any other game like it. I adore it, a magical experience but felt a bit burnt out by the end. Erdtree came right at the moment I wanted more From again and I got it. I had a blast with the DLC, particularly the combat. The overall highs weren’t as high as my first play through of the base game BUT…after finishing it thoroughly I went back to Dark Souls 3. With as much time as I’ve spent with From’s design in Elden Ring that’s saying something. After the DLC I only want to play games like it. It all left me wanting more From. Promised Consort was a mistake though haha
I easily passed 120 hours on my first playthrough and it felt like 50 hours had gone by. I loved so much about this DLC. Just like Bloodborne and DS3 Ringed City DLC were epic 😎 To me this was worth the 2.5 year wait! I really hate 2 things: 1. Finding the upgrades, to collect every single one is annoying. Wish there were much more to not be picky where to find them. 2. Boss weapons and many spells in this DLC are shit and and not better than the base game
TBF, Flawed Peak describes every game in the series since Dark Souls. Some of the best games ever made, but the parts that grate REALLY grate. Still loved them all and replay them yearly
The abyssal woods is such a cool concept. But it was executed poorly imo: 1. The 'stealth' areas were far too little. There are like 3 lanterns so its too short 2. If there was good stuff there then it would be worth it 3. More bosses/ unique enemies. Enemies specific to the woods would have been so cool. Apart from the lanterns and they are not really 'ememies' as you aren't supposed to attack them
I believe the main issue combat-wise is pretty much the player, and the movement controls we have. Designing these complex and strong, STRONG enemies and making us fight them with goofy ass Dark Souls rolls and sloppy molasses animations just feels wrong. This expansion, as well as the main game, could benefit MASSIVELY if we were just given Sekiro gameplay.
SotE has truly peak content in it, but it's combined with a lot of boring parts like traveling on horse, fighting same dragons/furnace golems, etc. By itself it's not bad, on repeated playthroughs it gets really annoying though.
You really have some well thought-out takes man. Like your point about the dlc having more high points than all the other ones while also being less condensed perfectly sums it up imo. You did a great job constructing your criticisms (especially on the world design) and now the idea of a boss rush gauntlet at the divine gate is just stuck in my head so thanks for that 😭 this video was NOT flawed peak, just unflawed peak :) and congrats on the new setup!! Excited to see more content soon
I got lost in the base game and took my time with it. For some reason with the DLC I felt rushed to complete it and didnt explore nearly as much. If the base game is a 10 (which it is for me) I'd give the DLC an 8.5. But the Radahn boss fight is up there with Malenia for me. Quality video btw
I think personally I loved the dlc for the most part, I just wish Rellana would’ve gotten a cutscene and that Godwyn was the final boss since him and Miquella actually have a relationship as compared to him and Radahn, like he’s just trying to bring his brother back but the way he goes about it is through manipulation
Overall, I would give the DLC 9/10. Here's why: + the lore. Many people whine about lack of Godskins, Godwyn or other things, but I've found the lore intriguing and gripping enough that I've spent many hours trying to fill everything. Many answers, even more questions. I've asked for this + legacy dungeons. Shadow Keep is AT LEAST at the level of Stormveil, maybe slightly behind Leyndell. The other two and Ensis are very solid as well, Enir Ilim gives the "oh shit that is truly ending" vibe + catacombs. One of the issues of the main game was that there were many either boring or ridicoulously difficult dungeons. Here we have only a few, but well developped. Definitely a big step up + weapons. And I refuse to elaborate. Just weapons + npc - bunch of npcs that actually affects your playthrough. That is good. Really good. I hope From Soft will do something similar in the future, because every one of them feels different and real. Much more than in the base game. Probably one of the best roaster I've seen in any video game - main npc quest. As much as I love new npcs, I have to admit. That quest was shit. I had to watch 3 or 4 guides on how to make it and still fucked up the Hornsent part. - furnace golems. I don’t know Whose idea it was, but doing circles around the giant fire thing for 10 minutes is simply boring - some places are empty. As much as I understand why the shaman village or the finger ruins are, Charo's grave and Abyssal woods were just underwhelimg and Rauh Ruins are... weird and forgettable
When you said that some players just run past the lion warriors and later say they suck... I seriously choked. These guy compete for the title of the coolest mobs in the franchise for me, they are glorious, they are incredible, they are super dangerous fun to fight... somebody says they suck just because they beat their sorry arse? Really?😮
@@AlexCatable That’s kinda just a trend with all these games, people often want enemies to not be complex and just work as combat filler to compliment the areas, so a lot of cool well designed ones get hated on
@@chadofastora that's weird as currently I see a lot of hot takes towards Wukong for the in between areas and enemies being "too easy and not engaging". I guess there is no pleasing some people.
Try to make myself like Radahn as the final boss lore wise by comparing what he represent compare to miquella: Radahn is like an Dark Souls age of fire type deal because -Refuse to abandon his steed no matter what, even if the horse is clearly too weak to carry him -Adorn with Lion armor to honor Godfrey, as well as red braids for Radagon, treasuring the old. -Scared of facing a new order for the lands between, by halting Ranni's fate with the star. As well as desperately clinging to life from Malenia's rot to not get his soul taken by Miquella and become the face of a new order. Miquella is like age of dark type deal because -Throwing everything away to satisfy the condition to ascend to godhood. -Although not hating on the old, he do always want to invent new stuff to replace the old. Like Radagon's Ring of LIght, Miquella makes his own new one. -Wanting to create a new order for the lands between. Embracing the new age he desperately wanted. Not matter what by mutilating he's family corpes and souls to met his meet of having a Consort. And having these two clashing idea as the final boss sounds pretty cool yeah. But i would still like an original candidate for a final boss.
The DLC was really good overall in my opinion, but it definitely had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in any game I've ever played. Messmer is one of my favorite bosses of all time, and going from him to the pretty terrible Consort and the highly dissapointing ending really turned me off to replaying it (until I decided to just only replay up to Messmer and Romina). I also think that it'a funny how they made two absolutely beautiful areas in the Cerulean Coast and the Abyssal Woods and then decided to put nothing in them lol. Still, almost everything else was solid, so I'd give it an 8.5/10.
It’s such a hard game to review. It’s so good but in terms of my expectations, it just didn’t live up to it. The lack of lore, cutscenes, poor story, lack of meaningful items, empty areas really put me off. Fragments should have been boss rewards.
I remember watching a video them pointing out the ending cutscene of miqu spouting about what we already know. That it’s really showing how radahn agreed to this it was a one sided promise.
When I recognized how the world was going like dark souls 1, I got really hyped. When I found my first areas and such, it was spetacular, but after some point, it kinda turned into a chore. I thougth the paths were going to be some creative stuff but they were just caves I had to find. I spent a lot of my playtime just wandering around, which was ultra cool because you just get to feel the world and that's the best part of elden ring. BUT there were times that I was just tired of searching for it, I just wanted to move on, I thought of searching the internet, thing that haven't happened in the base game, but I had hope that the feeling of finding it myself would make things better. Turns out... it kinda didn't. I was like 'ooooh it was just a cave down here... that's ok I guess'. I don't know how to explain, but when everything is a secret and there are secrets everywhere, it kinda lose it's meaning. When I found the ladder in the castle that leads to a room with a painting, while on the ladder I was already thinking 'I bet there is going to be an illusory wall down here' Lo and behold, there was. It feels like the payout was never enough for the setup. This DLC made me see how the base game is insane and appreciate it waaaaaaay more. I liked playing the DLC, but when I stopped to think about it, it kinda never clicked for me, and when I think about playing it again, it feels just so much to do.
A bit late but I would like to comment as well. I doubt many people will read all that but fuck it. I need to mention that I'm extremely biased when it comes to Souls games. Bloodborne was my first game of the series and it helped get through a really hard time of my life. Ever since I've been a huge fan of Fromsoft and all of its projects. Given that, I would say the DLC is amazing, it may have some flaws but as a whole I think it was peak. The world felt amazing and crafted in an intricate and intuitive way to emphasize exploration and finding Scaductree fragments. To briefly mention it, I really don't get why people hate on it. Saying it's too complex when it's a simple "do more damage, take less damage" scenario honestly feels a bit hypocritical. You are even given a map with most of the fragments but I will agree having the exact number of fragments needed to max out your level is a bit crappy. Now, the bosses... Once again I'm really biased but I think every single one is amazing in its own way. Yes the Scaductree Avatar is too easy, Gaius and Metyr have some questionable hit-boxes and many of the mini bosses weren't exactly ground breaking, however I think Fromsoftware did a phenomenal job. Even the lowest of the bunch (which in my opinion are the Avatar, Gaius and Metyr) are an easy B tier in my opinion which is amazing considering the stinkers we got in some past DLCs... (Gang Squad, Living Failures, Champion's Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf). Admittedly the lack of cutscenes takes its toll on the build up but overall they were awesome... Now, Radahn... I attempted this guy around 160 times with a pure dex built with the Dragon King's Cragblade at 19 Shadow Blessing level and even though I find some moves to be over punishing (like the double cross slash or the gravity pull followed by the AOE in phase two), it felt like an awesome and incredibly challenging final boss. As a whole, I've heard people consider them too tough but honestly, it felt pretty reasonable in my view and the eye candy spectacle was just amazing. The combat tweaks felt really neat especially the amazing new weapon types though I will agree Sekiro and Bloodborne have a clear advantage over the rest. In terms of flaws I would definitely say there was done wasted space (like the lack of mini bosses in the Finger Ruins) but my biggest gripe is the immense difficulty spike in the early game. I don't know if I was under leveled or what, but the Divine Beast was two or three shotting me with most of his combos. Overall, I don't know if I did a good enough job on describing my thoughts... I didn't have much time to write I script of my own, but finding the video a really fleshed out and reasonable take on the expansion, I wanted to conduct my own thoroughly crafted review. Anyways, that's all, have a great day everyone
Today was the day I was looking at the release dates of your vids while rewatching the top 10 DLC weapons to try and predict when the next one would release. I did not predict it would be today. Thanks for an upload Chad 😭
I can't give a DLC 10/10. simply because some areas are empty as fuck. I mean literally. the part where your horse is too scared felt like they forgot to finish it. Some other areas feel empty too. What comes with legacy dungeons. The shadow keep was the only one that was even close from original game dungeons. Belurat was over so fast i tought i missed most of the dungeon, but no, that was it. Still very good dlc. Scadutree fragment system was kinda stupid. 9/10.
Glad you mentioned the dull open world. While most people are okay with it, I can't justify spending 70% of my playtime tilting the controller stick through an empty field. It's incredibly boring and the "reward" is just some consumable I'll never use anyway. Boss fights are awesome, no question, but the intermissions are worse due to pointlessly massive areas like the Finger Ruins plus the insane number of recycled enemies (felt like I was fighting grave birds and ghost villagers in literally every corner of map). Overall I'm disappointed and don't think my in-game hours reflect the value I got from the DLC. To me it was the ultimate "quantity over quality" experience. Hope I don't get killed :)
I don't quite understand the criticisms of DLCs about empty areas, but is there any game that doesn't have them, especially in an open world? Maybe the problem with Sote is that it gives the feeling that there are areas that take up more content than others and that ends up giving the feeling of little content in the rest of the areas, but they make up for it with tremendous visual settings like Cerulean Coast, Charo's Hidden Tomb and Abyssal Forest, I don't understand the problem, the objective of that emptiness is to give that feeling of insecurity in the environment that is not achieved when it is full of enemies. Also, we are not thinking that in terms of design it is better for the content to accumulate along the main path of the DLC story and not to be spread out everywhere, replaying it would be boring. To me Sote seems to be the best DLC they have made, although obviously I do not omit its errors. It's true that there are some areas with few enemies or content in general, especially below Scadu Altus, they didn't add anything that affects the online and there are still balance issues in general in the game, but the rest of things are incredibly good.
its literally just people comparing it to previous souls games, so of course the open world will feel empty. no one would ever complain about the emptiness of Ash Lake in DS1, because that's the whole point of the area. It's pretty clear that the whole Finger Ruins and Jagged Peak setup are taking a scenic and awe inspiring approach rather than just being traditional levels.
@@vryyyx without a doubt but there are still empty areas in the other souls, and I've never seen so many people agree on how to criticize ash lake for being empty, having more examples: seath's forest and cave are empty, the tomb of the giants is empty and is smaller than the fissure, only lost izalith is unanimously criticized, in ds3 there are several large and empty areas with only enemies, like the road of sacrifices, farron keep is boring, untended graves, smouldering lake obviously some examples are smaller and that compensates, but they still have empty areas and there are many examples throughout the saga, in my opinion abyssal, charos and celurean have their setting as a priority more than just content.
It's a fun attraction park. You go on everything once but only a few afterwards. Though the anti cheat and shader shenanigans ruined my immersion so much.
Honestly unlike many other people i didn't really like base game too much. But I liked the dlc way more. It made me bolst my rating of elden ring from a 7 to a 9.
I would've loved Radahn and placed him as my favorite boss if Elden Rings combat was like bloodborne, i honestly thought it was a fight that over stayed it's welcome, with that said i loved that he was the final boss, i thought it fit the lore perfectly. One of the best games I've played in a long time.
@@michaelbubble2359 honestly I don't get the hype behind ringed city. To me it feels like 2 average areas (ringed city maybe slightly above average), one decent boss (midir), two great bosses (DP and Gael) and one asscheek boss (Halflight). I think OH and Ringed City are much better.
I really wish the bosses were overall better. While bosses like Messmer, rellana, Midra and Rhadan are my favorites in the whole game, I was expecting the same quality to run throughout the whole dlc like ringed city, artorias of the abyss and old hunters. This DLC definitely has some stinker bosses, especially for remembrance bosses, that cash in way too much on spectacle but don’t provide good gameplay. Giaus, Metyr, Bayle, Divine Beast, Jori, and the damn Hippo are all total stinker bosses to me. On top of that, i think they overused the NPC “boss” battles, and I was expecting some new and Interesting field bosses not 5+ dragons, tree sentinels, rune bears (with a couple extra moves), ulcerated tree spirits and Demi human queens. I also think that at least one more legacy dungeon is greatly missed.
@@the_hardcore_experienced I would have to say 2. 3 has some higher highs and 1 has the memorable backstory, but I think 2 is just a super fun ride from start to finish
On the topic of Radahn, my main issue with him is actually that he's just boring to fight lmao, the arena isn't special just a whole bunch of grey, most of his first phase moves feel like they are trying to be Godfreys moves but lacking in the rhythm that made Godfreys moves fun, and Second phase to me looks cheap the teleport attacks all look comedically lame and the lasers on his other attacks feel tacked on combine that with the imo lack luster arena, and he just feels overall lame and unsatisfying to me. The lore around him too ruins a lot of the engagement of the boss to me too honestly the general entire disconnect between base game and DLC does a whole lot of that. A whole lot of Radahns fight feels like they were trying to one up his caelid fight and they failed miserably at that, The Caelid fight has a much better atmosphere Radahn feels so much more powerful he looks so much cooler his attacks look so much less jankilly animated the sound design even is better. Not to mention his imo far inferior DLC visual design he looks like a basic bitch tarnished which is hardly fitting for A Radahn and B some one in an Omens body. Base game Radahn is an absolute UNIT he is wonderfully chunky and incredibly imposing I get why he looks different but fromsoft go out of their way to almost totally ignore the fact hes in an omen body, so if you were gonna just brush off the whole omen body thing why not give him his original design back. Honestly I felt alot of the DLC bosses were boring. I know alot of people like Romina and Rellana but Romina to me was so easy to avoid the attacks of I actually felt like I had just fought and killed a Tibia Mariner, and Rellana to me isn't really that fun either, shes visually cool but also her arena lets down her style and frankly sometimes she reminds me a bit too much of fighting thoes dual wielding banished knights. Metyr has really fun presentation but is a basic ass boring boss to fight. Putrid avatar and Gaius are mounted bosses and just kinda felt poorly put together, as I think most bosses that sit on something in ER are, but atleast putrid avatar takes place in a cool location. Wish we got a bit more of the sleep swamp rather than 1 tiny room and a boss arena. As for the bosses I really liked: Bayle is really fun Midra is also really fun just wish he was harder and Mesmer was the Morgot of the DLC to me loved him to bits, I actually enjoyed the scadutree avatar and the devine dancing lion was also a really good visual spectacle.
In general, it's Fromsoftware's best DLC. To me, it's a solid 9/10. But when you consider the details, other DLCs have something better. Artorias of the abyss had a better build-up and story. Bloodborne DLC had a better atmosphere. Ringed city had a better build-up, story, atmosphere, and ending boss. The only bad DLC was Ariandel.
Well I found everything the map has to offer without looking to a guide or anything. The only things that I messed up was some of the sidequest of the characters.
I had the complete opposite experience for exploration. In the base game, on first playthrough, I felt like I found something of interest every minute or so. Where as, in the DLC, I felt like there were such wide stretches with nothing of note besides being gorgeous
One of my many hot takes, I think Shadow Keep is mid I just wish more off it was this black gothic castle with black knights and Messmer soldiers, just get rid of the storehouse and replace it with that.
They should have made it where you can interact with the gate of divinity after Radahn boss fight. They missed a big opportunity. Idk something like the gate sends you back in time or at least a final cutscene that fills in some of the gaps
Nostalgia or they haven’t played it in years, whenever I have replayed it I have been underwhelmed because the actual content that isn’t a few boss fights is mediocre tbh
@@Jbsweyeah, 3 S tier bosses ( being one of them the best fo the series ) carried the DLC, as well as the ringed city Knights, still peak Knight enemy, but the other boss is F tier, the heap is good, until we get to the swamp, ringed city is amazing, until we get to the swamp Plus the turttle enemies sucks Even though DS1 is the least favourite of the series, i think AotA dlc is better than ringed city, the areas are decent overall, but all the bosses are straight A tier or better, the cutscene were the giant shoots down kalameet is amazing too, the best one of the series until elden ring with godrick phase transition and messmer phase transition hapened, plus i also have a bias of making the second half of DS1 somewhat interesting and being the pioneer when it comes to the high quality bosses ( santuary guardian is a great beast fight, artorias is an amazing Knight fight and kalameet is a great dragon fight, even with his bad hitboxs, manus is more of a thing of his own, being a beast, playing like a Knight but also cast hexes
4:26 this was definitely me it should be slightly easier to find locations it makes me feel guilty like i didnt explore enough i think there should be some secret full areas like the abyssal woods but all of the "Optional" areas are basically as hidden as the candy your mom hid from you when you where 7 years old, its a little frustrating to see i missed most of the areas and cool weapons and all that an then i had to look up how to find this stuff then i got spoiled on like the entire DLC. (This is me nitpicking thought, i still love SotE but tho's are the issues i experienced on my first playthrough)
I just feel and this is probably a nitpick that there is literally 0 effect of anything you do in the shadow realm that effects the lands between. No new ending, no extra dialogue maybe from Gideon, no new extra path that opens due to events in the shadow realm nothing. Now I know it’s been said by Miyazaki that this is a full standalone experience that completely separates from the main story but I do feel that’s a problem as you can seemingly feel absolutely disconnected from what’s really the end story. Like really 0 extra dialogue really they couldn’t get 1 voice actor from the vanilla main game to voice some dialogue that makes my exploits in the shadow realm mean something. Also another small thing was seemingly large areas that had little to nothing in them or maybe 1 or 2 items fingers ruins, hinterland and abyssal woods but that’s probably even a bigger nitpick. Also I’ve heard alot of people complain about the difficulty of the final boss which I probably would have agreed with on my first dlc playthrough but I still feel he is a fair but punishing boss and took me around 2 hours to really get the hang of. I used a sword and shield build with no summons or buffs just raw dog tactics and that’s where I’m getting my opinion from. Is it the best boss in Fromsoft history no not close but I still feel it’s a worthy opponent to end a dlc of a game of this level. Overall a very solid experience 9/10 just was lacking in small areas that I feel that would have made it a legendary masterpiece 10/10 level.
Just to let you know. There is no need for the "IMO" in the title. You even say it's "your take" in the video, so please remove the "IMO". It just makes it look a little worse... IMO
@@davidporta7581 I wasn't trying to be rude, I was just offering a piece of advice. Why did you instantly choose to act like I was trying to be rude? Or is this a misunderstanding, idk? Just let it be known he does not need to change the title, I was just saying that the "IMO" makes his video look less professional and complete, which I think doesn't do the video justice because the video is pretty good. 👍
It is extremely flawed, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s basically just more Elden Ring. In my opinion, it’s about on par with the base game, which is no small feat. And maybe a little disappointing for me, but I’ve realized that my expectations may have been too high. It has all the best aspects of base game Elden Ring, but also most of the worst. My biggest gripe is the emptiness of a few of the regions, and another small gripe I have is the new crafting resources, namely Scarlet Buds and Deep-Purple Lilies. It’s a small gripe because I’m glad these flowers exist and are farmable, but it basically makes regular rot and sleep pots useless. Why is the significantly stronger version farmable and the weaker version isn’t? It doesn’t really make sense. It seems like an apology for the limitation of certain crafting resources, but since those resources are still limited, it feels out of place. What I think they should’ve done is make Trina’s Lilies grow (and respawn) in the Cerulean Coast, and have the Deep-Purple Lilies only down by St. Trina. They also could’ve placed respawning Aenoian butterflies around the Church of the Bud.
The bosses are absolutely heart breaking. FSW played cheap and used dirty tactics this time , for the fist time. Making bosses close gaps instantly, AI input reading when you’re casting spells or healing, triggering attacks that you cannot dodge bc ur locked in animation …. Forget the combos and speed and damage , u can get gud and overcome that U cannot overcome Input reading and it’s so fucking cheap and dirty and what “hard for the sake of being hard” means.
The hiding giant areas part was my least favorite. I missed half of the dlc in my first playthrough because every area had an obscenely obscure choke point as the only way to get there. Idk how they expect you to find half of the content without literally hugging every wall on the map or just looking it up Inb4 people tell me to git gud at le exploring
I think Fromsoft definitely learned from their mistakes in the base game. Especially the boss reuse, as I think it was done in much better taste, and had some very unique factors even if they were a reuse
The DLC’s lore was egregiously bad imo, basic plot holes were introduced for what are main points of the story. I know Souls games are almost always presenting the illusion of deep world building with their style, but here the illusion felt so slapped together it actively undermined any investment I had in the world of the base game.
As a ps4 player phase one of Radhan is great; honestly a blast (Minus that one attack). The second phase though is just pain with the frame dropping and clutter. Sucks to be poor lol.
Input reading, gap closing are the two biggest problems with this dlc. Every issue stems from those two AI problems. If I’m telegraphing boss movements and dodging their attacks after passing the learning curve, the extra sprinkle of bull shit that makes this dlc unfair and different from the other games is the input reading. Again, if i successfully evade an attack, create spacing , and heal , pressing the heal button activates an instantaneous attack from the boss that I cannot dodge due to being locked in animation. This happens ALL THE TIME. They do this because they want players to use the spirit summons. It’s fucking bull shit. Because using the summons makes the boss fights non existent.
I think it would've been so cool if your quest outcomes in the DLC led to new alternate endings in the base game. Or choices made in the base game have mpact on quests in DLC. I don't think it would be too complicated to implement I'd be satisfied with an alternate ending cutscene or a small batch of weapons/items based on the choices I made during the current playthrough.
I like most of the bosses from this DLC, the enemies can go fuck themselves. I'm yearning for the boss fights and I have to go through that shitty slog on how some fucking trash mobs are overtuned as hell. There are some elites, the greatsword, double sword yellow big guys are super annoying and not worth my time, there is a buffed up version of them that has powers like dancing lion boss, I was streaming it on discord and the boys watching me saying "here he goes, prepare yourself" and as soon as this mf does the storm weather shit, I start evading and running away from him, they all laughed. Skip, enemies that give me no reason to fight them are trash to be skipped and a major nuisance when running to the next grace, no matter how much development effort is put into them. This is my biggest gripe with souls games. I want to fight a badass boss, not worrying about having to die these shitty enemies that give me like 8k runes that I don't care about.
@@Jbswe I played all of ds3 and sekiro. Hundreds of hours on both. Elden ring gameplay is exactly like ds3. I don't need to have played ds1/ds2 or bloodborne to have a valid opinion on this.
@@zydeox1221 yes you do lmao you would 100% not last playing those games especially ds2 if you’re talking like this because the main challenge is getting through the levels without using all your heals.. or running through the enemy’s and getting fucked over because there’s 10 enemy’s chasing you, all the 3 games you played are the easiest at running through and avoiding fights with annoying enemy’s you can not like it and that’s fine, but going through the levels slowly and carefully while killing most enemy’s is literally the epitome of the early souls games
@@Jbswe Er... no? If I want to waltz into straight to the boss I can do that... No one in the world can prevent from doing that. Besides that, who are you to come tell me what my experience is supposed to be for a game that I bought? Enemies in souls games are meaningless annoying and filler as a bump in the road to fight the good boss fights. Again, I don't need to have played all previous 5 games to decide what I want with Elden ring.
@@zydeox1221 read again what I said I didn’t say you have to experience the game a certain way but I’m saying demons souls dark souls 1 and 2 pretty much force you to experience the games in that way every level is way more linear with an enemy gauntlet and a small amount of heals you can sometimes go like 20 minutes or even a hour without finding next bonfire checkpoint there is not a single part in elden ring levels design that is as tense as going through sens fortress the first time and finally getting that relief of finding the next bonfire. The only big level like that is the sewers in Lyndell that’s is huge place easy to get lost with many shortcuts reminds me of a ds1 level, I was hoping there would be less graces in Elden ring tbh some of the dungeons do a decent job at spreading them out, You can not like that but I could tell by your comment you have only played the newer games with that mindset and have no idea what you really get yourself into when playing the older games. Its fine you like the bosses I do too but these games aren’t just boss rush games loll just download boss revive mod if you want that
Who cares about the flaws ! This game is more engaging than any western games we have nowadays . As long as from software don’t go public we’re good . If you want to ramble and complain there’s tons of assassin’s creed and cod games .
Don't forget about Ansbach. Everyone in the community likes Ansbach.
@@davidnewhart2533 I love that based man
I don't like him sorry
@@cheerlessmarshes2768and that’s why you’re cheerless
@@yurinoworry savage comeback!
@@cheerlessmarshes2768 I was just being goofy. What’s your issue with Ansbach, I am curious?
I prefer to think of Belurat and Enir Ilim as one Legacy Dungeon; you explore the first half at the beginning and the second half at the end. And they are literally connected when you find the secret path to the Euporia.
Also from the elevator in the dancing beast boss room just in case you hadn’t noticed that, cause I sure as hell didn’t until I got to Enir-Ilim.
I wish the sealing tree covered belurat so they had to be one legacy dungeon.
I wish you didn’t get teleported to Enir-Ilim and Belurat was actually necessary to progress.
A jagged peak if you will
@@drain1718 ✍️🔥
29:59 I don’t think this one is shitty, actually. The lore of Salza and his refusal to destroy the ruins led to some Hornsent survivors, and the Dancing Lion was never a one of a kind entity to begin with, but rather the last one that remained on Belurat, so, having another one in an area we are specifically told was spared by one of the higher ranking Fire Knights makes sense. It’s not a fucking Godefroy case
@@BLP04 Ya it is definitely a better reuse than godefroy 💀
@@chadofastoraGodefroy is peak Elden Ring. Please never insult my glorious king again 🙏
@@chadofastora Jack is a Mimic has a really good video explaining godefroy. Dude actually has a purpose in the story.
@@chadofastorano one can convince me that Godefroy isn't some filler name/lore that they forgot to replace with something else, realized they used what they were going to use and just kept the placeholder after deciding that was the most hilarious choice going forward.
@@BLP04 and anyways, isnt the thing we fight just 2 dudes in a Divine Beast costume? Thats how I read the name, "Dancing Lion (like the Chinese ones) of a Divine Beast"
Tbh even if it’s flawed (it 100% is) it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming, although it’s such a shame the abyssal woods were as empty as they are a field boss like a frenzied dragon would’ve been so cool
@@LucaHard-e6m Ikr, just one quality frenzy flame mini boss in there would’ve completely turned it around
@@chadofastora ikr I had a really cool lore explanation for a Frenzy Ancient Dragon.
So we know that just to the south of Abyssal Woods we have the Jagged Peak. So imagine if Sennesax instead of sitting there b4 Bayle actually went up and fought. Ofc he lost. Then he tried to fly away, but crash landed in the Abyssal woods. Here the Frenzied Flame plus his own despair of his loss drive him to frenzy.
He will have the same moveset, but just add a huge howl of shabriri effect to it. Maybe tuning down the flying attacks to show that he is in fact injured.
Imagine the cool factor
@@aayushdasgupta9754 That would be sick 👌
Kind of makes sense. I mean, it's called the *Abyssal Woods*, so ofc it's going to be empty. It also has a whole legacy dungeon in it, so that counts as something
The last thing elden ring needs is any more dragon bosses
Finally, some good fucking food: I feel this take so hard.
The good qualities of the base game are now better and masterpiece worthy (Combat AI of new bosses and new enemies, overall visual art, world design, indoor level design, new weapons), the bad qualities of base game got even worse (Not enough location density and content in world like seen in Giants Mountaintops and Snowfield, poor enemy/boss density found throughout open world areas) and I even think this DLC has its own unique fuckups of not having enough new enemies and bosses, and not enough general enemy variety in overworld areas.
But I think the quality of the good things really overshadow the bad and it should be noted that the indoor locations are more complex and/or engaging to make up for the lack of them. I think this DLC was well worth the wait despite its flaws and believe it wonderfully represents the final hours of a full ER playthrough.
If it was 25% smaller and 25% more dense. With more interconnectivity, it would probably be one of the best games ever.
It still is though 🤨
It might just be the artist in me. But I love the symbolism and intricate depictions of the gear, spells, architecture, etc.
And this isn't specifically for the dlc.
I will run and suffer through the game as a sleep build simply because I love the aesthetics and imagery of everything St. Trina related.
Miquella and the Haligtree related things are a close second.
It just helps add to the atmosphere of the world and all of its deep lore.
I dont care if a specific boss can't be slept, I will hack away at it with my dual sleep swords.
I think the DLC has a few flaws, yes (like every other DLC they've made), but it's by far the best DLC they've made.
I’m amazed by it, the new weapons, magics & especially the Backhand Blades are really satisfying to play with, the legacy dungeons are absolutely massive, there’s one dungeon that leads you to 5 or 6 different places, it’s phenomenal, The bosses also are as cool as ever, Messmer is in my top 10 best Soulsborne bosses ever, the open-world is extremely dense in every conceivable way, I have some small criticisms about the DLC, some places could’ve been a bit less empty, but then again, I’m a NG+7 character & I got everything in my build, I only needed to collect the new weapons/sorceries/incantations & Scadutree blessings to keep moving through the DLC, those who have low stock of Smithing Stones will be quite happy with the DLC, they’re literally everywhere & that’s a good thing to encourage experimentation & more build diversity, they really COOKED with the DLC music, I can’t believe how good they are! Also Romina & Rellana needed a cutscene & voice-lines for each of them, it pains me to see them not having one. The world design in the DLC beats the base game world by a significant margin.
Great video.
@@HeyTarnished Well said
I do think it’s at least partially unfinished and there’s certain bosses that are overtuned (genuinely can’t see in phase 2)
Right, my biggest critique is that there are 11 remembrance-tier bosses, and of those, 5 and a half don't deserve that title. (Its Dancing Lion) even the finished ones with a cutscene ofter are missing something, I love Radahn but the triple slash doesn't feel play-tested. Certain levels (Charo's grave) feel way to empty. And don't get me started on the ghost flame dragon with all the soldiers that chose to attack you instead, or Ancient Dragon Ballsaxx who can burn in Izalith for all I care.
I broadly think this is the case with Elden Ring in general, but especially the DLC. At it's best, it is straight up my favorite Souls game - but the lows are LOW.
I'm particularly baffled when people talk up the DLC like it's "a full open world game for 40 bucks!!1!". I mean... is it? It's big, sure, but does that really count when it's so empty? Bearing in mind that the Old Hunters cost like 20 bucks in todays money, I'm really not sure SOTE is actually twice the DLC.
Ashes of ariandel was 15 usd on launch for 1/8th of the content in this dlc lmao
@@Jbswemore like 1/20th tbh let’s be real
@@nickzanoni582 yeah pretty much lmao it’s kind of insane I’ve seen someone say ashes was better 😂😂 they stuck in 2016
are you drunk? Shadowkeep alone has more playable space then the entire of Old Hunters.
@@vryyyx Size != meaningful content.
It’s a 10/10 for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of problems with it.
same. It could have been an objective 10/10 if they filled areas with good loot instead of black pyreflies and redflesh mushrooms and given the finger ruins a unique finger type boss. That said everything else is well done.
same all the parts are here I just feel like they misplaced some rewards and paths
@@shirouyasha69don’t forget smithing stones. God. The smithing stones. We can literally just buy them straight up from the bell bearing shop.
I really apreciate that you also talked about the normal enemies of the DLC, I feel like outside one or two enemies most of them aren't really put in the spotlight in the way you do with your rankings and video essays in general
Is there any good enemies in the dlc
@@MohamednacerKhelifi black knights and the new imp types are great imo, all the others stink bad
@@MohamednacerKhelifi the divine warriors, black knights, mesmer soldiers, canon imps, curseblades, fire knights(greatsword variants), spider scorpions are pretty good imo.
My opinion has arrived
💀
@@rigorm136 how tf did u respond before the comment was made i'm so confused
@@Dovahkiin6798 just built different
Something that I felt that I haven’t really seen others talking about regarding the new harder enemies is just how much poise/hyper armour they have generally. I imagine the most common melee builds are colossal greatswords or something similar which get you through the base game just fine by jump attack spamming everything that moves so they don’t get to fight back - this strategy is less effective when the horned warrior doesn’t even flinch and then kicks you in the head. This makes the enemies seem harder regardless of their movements because (without considering just running past) you actually have to deal with them - you can’t just whack them out of their attacks, you need to actually acknowledge what they’re doing.
I also thought it was super peak how throughout the main path of the DLC you’re constantly ascending upwards. Following Miquella in his ascension to godhood you spend the entire expansion literally ascending yourself to catch up to him. I thought the DLC handled verticality really well just generally, felt like a much more prominent focus than it was in the base game.
Regarding the spells, whilst a lot of them are underpowered, most of them are just really cool and I think that’s just as important. In games generally, the best spell options are usually the cheaper, more efficient, consistent damage sources than the nukes. And since the base game handles this for most damage types (catch flame, carian slicer, night comet, discus of light etc) only really adding ‘knights lightning spear’ as a direct upgrade for a main damage source, the flashy nuke spells make me feel more powerful. Even if I would like to see it buffed, returning to base game and just eviscerating a normal group of enemies with light of miquella makes me feel cool as shit. (Holy damage just generally feels more viable now with the sword of light buff + lots of dlc enemies and bosses being weaker to it which is cool also).
I was also pretty frustrated with how the npc quests were, specifically the Ansbach and Freyja section in the storehouse. Ansbach is required to progress Freyja’s quest but leaves after completing his own and the item to complete his comes before running into Freyja again, I thought that was particularly dumb.
However, I also think a lot of people speak about the DLC in a vacuum without really considering it as an expansion. And as an expansion I think it is outstanding. I have replayed Elden Ring about 5 times after my initial DLC play through and I can’t even remember what it feels like to play without the DLC being present and how I managed to get through the endgame. It presents a fun challenge for how early I can access it and get past Mohg to maximise my time using the new DLC weapons and it’s a challenge to get through the tougher bosses like Messmer (peak btw) with limited flasks, even if that does mean I spend a bit more time gathering the shadow fragments (which whilst I know places me in the minority, I quite enjoy just wandering the map). The base games most linear section is absolutely it’s endgame, basically being a boss rush, and whilst the inclusion of the DLC does nothing to change this, it does allow you to choose what your endgame will be, and swap between the two and I think that is huge for my personal experience.
For me personally the DLC is nothing short of 10/10. I don’t think it’s perfect as a stand-alone piece of content but I think it has a more significant impact on the main game than any other Fromsoft expansion. Whilst I think the Old Hunters is important to Bloodborne because the endgame doesn’t hold up super well without it, and a lot of Dark Souls 1-3’s best content is in the expansions, for me, they don’t impact the main game experience nearly as much. I think with the inclusion of the DLC Elden Ring is my new favourite Fromsoft title and maybe just game generally and it might not actually be that close.
It's flawed...and that's ok,not every fromsoft game is nor needs to be perfect
WHOAAAAA! Hot take 😂 😂
The problem is that a lot of this dlc specifically feels unfinished just like certain areas of the base game.
@@anonisnoone6125 I'll never understand this argument. I guess the only thing you can actually call "unfinished" is the ending, but I think they clearly stated multiple times that this dlc would not have a new ending and was it's own contained story. Everything else felt pretty damn finished and thought out.
@@MrFRNTIKi said a lot but i feel like midra's manse was pretty unfinished too, is legit shorter than most DLC minidungeons, it genuine has 2 good shorcuts, but only if the level was like trice as long, because those shortcuts are also useless due to the graces you get, pretty curius that midra didn't feel rushed though, what a great boss
@@MrFRNTIKThe finger ruins are unfinished, end of story. There's no reason for such a massive chunk of the map to be just part of a questline for a mediocre talisman. Charo's grave, is all right, could have had more than just two boss fights and a spell, for again how much space it takes on the map. At first glance, the volcano seems like a massive place to explore, in the end, it's extremely linear and only has two bosses, one of them being reused. There is no new dialogue with the base game and DLC NPC characters, no call backs. And don't lie to yourself, these bosses, most of them are straight up missing cutscenes. It's a great DLC, flawed, and is definitely missing content. Time crunch is a real phenomenon.
It's FromSoft's best overall DLC, but it definitely felt unfinished in quite a few places, even more so than the base game. I think that is why it's not quite perfect, but it reaches heights that no other DLC they've made can surpass.
The best thing that the DLC does do though, is solidy why Elden Ring is my favorite of the series. Bloodborne is absolute peak, DS3 is amazing, DS1 started that trend of peak DLC design, and you can argue they had a bigger impact for their respective games than ER, but Elden Ring's DLC as a standalone is an utter masterpiece, flawed as it may be.
Now, as for the bosses, I will only talk about Consort Radahn since the others I agree with completely.
Personally, he is not a bad boss, nor do I think he has bad overall design. His triple slash is not a good move, but it's not a bad move either. Just... pretty mediocre and a very questionable design choice. Lore wise, I think it brings it down as a whole, but as just as a boss fight, Consort Radahn is an easy top 5 for me in the entire game. Using the many tools that the game gives you, from the base game and DLC, and not just relying on the fundamental game mechanics legitimately turns it into one of the most fun bosses in the game, surpassing other bosses that I've fought from the DLC.
I can't even begin to tell you the satisfaction I got from using Blind Spot, or guard countering with deflect tear and Milady, or even figuring out how effective Quickstep was against Triple Slash. It ended up turning the "dogshit" combo into a non-issue for me!
He's so good, honestly. And yet, he's so flawed! Flawed in that he completely invalidates most builds in the game. Flawed in that it's a visual clutter in the 2nd phase that may not have been that bad for me, but was very much an issue for otherz. Flawed in that you NEED certain tools just to maximize the fun factor of the fight.
To cut it short, he's an amazing boss, held back by objective design flaws that you simply can't ignore. The difficulty does heavily contribute as to why he's so hated, yes. But the design flaws are way too glaring and are also kind of representative of the DLC and the game as a whole. In short, it's ambitious, but does more than it needs to do and ends up falling short in quite a few areas.
Still, I love it to death. I have my fair share of moments of wishing that they could've done better, but I couldn't help but adore it all. No game of theirs is perfect anyway, and that's perfectly okay.
I think all of Fromsoft’s games are flawed. It’s one of the things I like about them. They aren’t afraid to take risks, even if their ideas don’t land 100% or don’t appeal to every player.
He hit the nail in the head at 45:00. Other DLCs deliver pretty much the same highs as SotE while being in a much more condensed package, which is why they end up being more consistent overall. What tarnishes people's perception of SotE is that no matter the insurmountable height of its many, many, many peaks, they will remember the dullness of its vast and empty valleys just as much.
Unnecessary rant to paraphrase what I just said:
I am going to tell you all why so many people will forever prefer Old Hunters/Ringed City and would in fact still prefer them no matter how many S++ tier bosses and dungeons SotE ended up having.
They're nice little 6 hour long packages with N amount of S++ tier bosses, dungeons and weaponry. SotE is a 40 hour long package with N amount of S++ tier bosses, dungeons and weaponry.
The highest highs of Shadow of the Erdtree might be at the same height (or even higher, depending on who you ask) than Old Hunters and Ringed City, but they are forever undermined by the bloated mess of continuous dull, repetitive and uninteresting encounters and situations you are forced to go through in order to get to them.
This makes the lows stand out more than in other DLCs, because they last for longer, whereas the highs remain pretty much the same.
Remember that you have to go through 4 dog water dragons in an overall empty area to get to the best dragon fight in the series, Bayle the Dread.
Still my favorite DLC and it's not close at all.
@@_lalapop Well said, to this day I still kinda go back and forth with how I feel about the open sections, like, they’re kinda cool… sometimes, but needless to say if they do make another open world I would want it to be noticeably more condensed
Old hunters is like a 4 hour dlc max replaying it and ringed city is like 3 hours long lmao replaying ringed city is nothing impressive tbh
you can skip the dragons before bayle, you don't have to fight them
Every playthrough after the first one doesn't need to go through everything you do on a first playthrough
Ringed city is like 3 hours
Old hunters is 4-5 hours
Ringed city has spear of the church
Old hunters has living failures
Soo those dlc are not quite perfect either, though i probably like the consistency of old hunters more, to the point i like that DLC a bit more than SOTE, soo your points are right
I just think that SOTE has too many issues to be the best one, even if there's ton of peaks that i love
South areas and finger ruins are too empty, not many enemies and uninteresting enemy encounters
Legacy dungeons are worse than basegame ones ( though still really good, tbh, base game seted up the bar absurdly high, and shadow keep is my third favourite legacy dungeon of the game )
Metyr is a bad boss for being the most secret of them all, cool atmosphere and by far the best new lore adition, but the mechanics are simple and frustating at the same time, PvP is really umbalanced, gaius still has busted hitboxs at times, slash slash cross combo sucks, which makes those fights worse, some minibosses like lamenter and senessax sucks, besides bayle, there's 6 dragons, and 7 NPC bosses, that's too much, that's almost a third of all dlc bosses, and almost half of the non-main dlc bosses, plus a few base game bosses that didn't need to be reused anymore, still, a 9/10 DLC, but old hunters is more of a 9,5sh/10
Not really, this point is glossing over the fact the other DLCs have proportionally even more flaws. Ringed City has 3 good bosses 1 F tier, and two bad-mid areas (Ringed swamp is a joke compared to Shadowkeep). Old Hunters has 3 good bosses, 2 bad bosses, one reused area, a good level that has DS1 hollow type enemy design and another good level that is just way too short, even shorter than Bellurat. Ashes has 1 good boss that's it. It's just nostalgia, of course when people have been playing and appreciating the older games for 8+ years, their mindset is going to be completely different.
Personally, after Shadow of The Erdtree, Im completely comfident that Elden Ring doesn´t really need a sequel on any shape or form. I see it as a game like Minecraft , on a way that for me does not make sense to see a sequel about it; you can make basically the playstile you want, now including taking a more Sekiro like gameplay...Seriously, now with the DLC, the combat variety got insane and I love it. Futhermore this DLC reminded me to one of my favorite open world experiences, Terraria Calamity.
Well, gotta wait for Fromsoft to release a pirated themed game.
Can you tell me with details what is so good about terraria calamity
@@JoseViktor4099 FR, I’ve seen so many people thinking we need another expansion now. Partially due to being unsatisfied with the ending, which is fair, but I definitely think they’re ready to move on
@@MohamednacerKhelifi I really like how bosses and combat overall feels a very Big step Up from the traditional bosses. They look fantastic, the attacks are insanely fun to avoid, It makes optimize and play with new things constantly. And the music and the visuals are Amazing. Also that you are on a constant quest to be stronger until you fight the last foe and you get massively overpowered with all the options.
Is a very good Game and mod.
The best part is you can create the story yourself. It's so open for interpretation that everyone has a different experience. I love that the most about this game.
Elden Ring might be my favourite game at this point and I completely agree, it should be a closed chapter now and Fromsoftware doesnt need to make another open world game again. I think they did a decent job at that but the strongest aspects of Fromsoftware are definitely not massive open fields that are kind of tedious to traverse filled with less interesting ruins, catacombs and mobs. They excel at creating handcrafted areas/dungeons, enemy variety and boss design which doesnt require open worlds so I hope they internally move on from open world and do traditional semi linear games again or IF they return to open world, massively decrease the scope of it. Imagine for example if Elden Ring had all of the content it has (legacy dungeons, unique catacombs, bosses, enemies) on maybe like 60% the space, the content density would feel a lot closer to how their old games felt (except i like Elden Rings content more). Or make traversal less boring.
0/10, we didn't get Midra's head
Edit: on a serious note, I don't know if adding more cutscenes would be the best way to fix the bosses' presentation. Just look at the Ringed City bosses: you know how many cutscenes they have? Two. And both are for Gael. But that's never brought up as a problem because of the way they are presented. Demon Prince has a jaw-dropping plunge into the original Firelink Shrine, Halflight has a whole-ass intro that might as well be a cutscene (actually, I'd prefer it if it was: the speech is really annoying to listen to every time you want to fight him after a while), and Midir can be seen multiple times around the Ringed City, plus he becomes an obstacle towards the end before his actual boss fight; and honestly, even that has a great buildup, even without any kind of cutscene. I think Rellana didn't necessarily need a cutscene: she needed a better area to hype her up.
Oh, and on the matter of the final cutscene, the point of it is to show that Radahn wasn't a willing participant in Miquella's schemes. Miquella recieves no answer from Radhan because he never wanted to give one. With that being said...yeah, it's still a bit underhwelming, especially since we could already have pieced together that Radhan probably wouldn't have wanted to work with Miquella, since they basically have completely different worldviews (one is a conqueror, the other is a...misguided pacifist, let's go with that).
@@pietrocatalano4285 Agreed, Bayle doesn’t have a cutscene but his intro is still great. Also fair take on the final cutscene, but I still would’ve preferred something else 😅, like you said it’s not too hard to guess that Radahn didn’t want to, and I would’ve much preferred getting more info about what Marika did to become a god
If there were like 10-15 extra shadow blessings, a tad bit more refined exploration, CUTSCENES FOR IMPORTANT PEOPLE, and the 3 piece slash combo fixed/ tweaked, I’d give it a 10. Rn it’s a 9.9 🙏🏽 ready for the ds1 enemy ranking babbyyyy
soft cap of blessings is at lvl 12, you literally wont notice a difference beyond that. there already is extra blessings.
What i found bad is the price
40 bucks is too much, even for this DLC
@@Tuzsuz12 Ig it’s a little questionable, but I think it was worth. I understand disagreeing though
i mean it's basically a full game i feel like 40 dollars is fine
@@skoop4477 yeah but out of the 25 hours it took to beat, 10 was for radahn 😭
@@Tuzsuz12 damn lol radahn took me 20 out of my 50 hours first playthrough
@@skoop4477 i checked again
It was 40 hours
But damn i feel like i rushed
I can't believe even Joseph Anderson liked the dlc
I want the next game to be 80% streamlined levels where you can't ride your mount, but the other 20% should be open world to connect the regions.
@@leadfaun Sounds like a good balance
I beat Consort Radahn rl1 3 times (1 with deflect) and it has 2 major issues with other weird ones.
The major ones being 1-2 X Slash and Arena elevation, sometimes because of elevation it is easier or harder to dodge some moves depending on the elevation you stand at. And in phase2 because of arena the light follow up of his slashes sometimes stack on top of you and falls closer to you.
Weird ones being he punishes some projectile attacks so weirdly and doing gravity pull attacks at close range.
Another crictisizm he gets from people are lack of jumpable and dodgeable without rolling attacks as an ER boss. I don't agree that much but clearly it can get better when it gets a patch. You can dodge bloodflame attack by circling around him and can get a opening, and the most optimal way to dodge Holy meteor attacks is running and jumping, and overhead Dash Slash (one he jumps air and send clones) is dodgeable with running to his below yet those 2 moves don't give you openings. Personally I would make all stomps, radagons ring of light, and end of basic combos where he slams swords at the end and causes holy aoe in phase 2 jumpable.
TL:DR
Changes I would make,
•Fix the 1-2 X Slash (only fixing this is enough to make the fight amazing)
•Fix the issues with boss arena
•Fix the weird responses how he reacts to your some attacks
•Add more Jumpable attacks on top of existing ones.
•I don't have issues with visuals and it is clear enough for me but it will be better if they make miquellas hair transparent.
•Hitboxes are mostly fine but there are still some bugs
He is my 3rd favorite final boss in the series after Gael and BIK even with this state rn. But he deserves all those crictisizm because from should see it and fix it.
one thing i really like about the dlc is how it's even more non linear than the base game. For example, i went to belurat, then the jagged peak, then went all the way around scadu altus and got into the back entrance of shadow keep, where i then went to rauh and killed the centipede boss. All this before i had even entered castle ensis to fight relanna. Really made the world much more enjoyable to explore than base game
My problem with that is that it can lock you out of the main questlines early if you're not careful. Approaching Shadow Keep, for instance. Moving past NPCs you "skipped" (i.e explored elsewhere before seeing them) are my biggest gripes. The quest system really shows it's failings here, and worse yet, locks the main story of the DLC behind it
Here’s what I’ll say: Elden Ring was my first From game. I had briefly tried Dark Souls years ago and bounced right off it. I spent more time with Elden Ring than any other game like it. I adore it, a magical experience but felt a bit burnt out by the end. Erdtree came right at the moment I wanted more From again and I got it. I had a blast with the DLC, particularly the combat. The overall highs weren’t as high as my first play through of the base game BUT…after finishing it thoroughly I went back to Dark Souls 3. With as much time as I’ve spent with From’s design in Elden Ring that’s saying something. After the DLC I only want to play games like it. It all left me wanting more From. Promised Consort was a mistake though haha
Hears Halo ODST music in the vid:
Instant approval
Fun fact. The fat official in Demons Souls that taunts you has more cutscenes then all ov Shadow ov the Erdtree.
@@Soulute367 Bruh 😭
I easily passed 120 hours on my first playthrough and it felt like 50 hours had gone by. I loved so much about this DLC. Just like Bloodborne and DS3 Ringed City DLC were epic 😎
To me this was worth the 2.5 year wait!
I really hate 2 things:
1. Finding the upgrades, to collect every single one is annoying. Wish there were much more to not be picky where to find them.
2. Boss weapons and many spells in this DLC are shit and and not better than the base game
@@rubeng370 Ya man, if we don’t see more buffs then idk what fromsoft is doing 💀
TBF, Flawed Peak describes every game in the series since Dark Souls. Some of the best games ever made, but the parts that grate REALLY grate. Still loved them all and replay them yearly
@@spacefaringyoshi Fair enough
The abyssal woods is such a cool concept. But it was executed poorly imo:
1. The 'stealth' areas were far too little. There are like 3 lanterns so its too short
2. If there was good stuff there then it would be worth it
3. More bosses/ unique enemies. Enemies specific to the woods would have been so cool. Apart from the lanterns and they are not really 'ememies' as you aren't supposed to attack them
I believe the main issue combat-wise is pretty much the player, and the movement controls we have. Designing these complex and strong, STRONG enemies and making us fight them with goofy ass Dark Souls rolls and sloppy molasses animations just feels wrong. This expansion, as well as the main game, could benefit MASSIVELY if we were just given Sekiro gameplay.
SotE has truly peak content in it, but it's combined with a lot of boring parts like traveling on horse, fighting same dragons/furnace golems, etc. By itself it's not bad, on repeated playthroughs it gets really annoying though.
I really hope you blow up on yt one day, you're easily one of my favorite soulstubers and you always bring great vibes and takes!
@@TheMagmaCubed Thanks
@@chadofastora I agree, the quality of these vids deserves like 300K subs minimum.
You really have some well thought-out takes man. Like your point about the dlc having more high points than all the other ones while also being less condensed perfectly sums it up imo. You did a great job constructing your criticisms (especially on the world design) and now the idea of a boss rush gauntlet at the divine gate is just stuck in my head so thanks for that 😭 this video was NOT flawed peak, just unflawed peak :) and congrats on the new setup!! Excited to see more content soon
@@jessetroy7761 Thanks. And ya I definitely feel a little more confident now with higher quality 60 fps footage in my vids
I got lost in the base game and took my time with it. For some reason with the DLC I felt rushed to complete it and didnt explore nearly as much. If the base game is a 10 (which it is for me) I'd give the DLC an 8.5. But the Radahn boss fight is up there with Malenia for me. Quality video btw
it's flawed and I still had more fun playing it than any other game I've ever played
I think personally I loved the dlc for the most part, I just wish Rellana would’ve gotten a cutscene and that Godwyn was the final boss since him and Miquella actually have a relationship as compared to him and Radahn, like he’s just trying to bring his brother back but the way he goes about it is through manipulation
Overall, I would give the DLC 9/10. Here's why:
+ the lore. Many people whine about lack of Godskins, Godwyn or other things, but I've found the lore intriguing and gripping enough that I've spent many hours trying to fill everything. Many answers, even more questions. I've asked for this
+ legacy dungeons. Shadow Keep is AT LEAST at the level of Stormveil, maybe slightly behind Leyndell. The other two and Ensis are very solid as well, Enir Ilim gives the "oh shit that is truly ending" vibe
+ catacombs. One of the issues of the main game was that there were many either boring or ridicoulously difficult dungeons. Here we have only a few, but well developped. Definitely a big step up
+ weapons. And I refuse to elaborate. Just weapons
+ npc - bunch of npcs that actually affects your playthrough. That is good. Really good. I hope From Soft will do something similar in the future, because every one of them feels different and real. Much more than in the base game. Probably one of the best roaster I've seen in any video game
- main npc quest. As much as I love new npcs, I have to admit. That quest was shit. I had to watch 3 or 4 guides on how to make it and still fucked up the Hornsent part.
- furnace golems. I don’t know Whose idea it was, but doing circles around the giant fire thing for 10 minutes is simply boring
- some places are empty. As much as I understand why the shaman village or the finger ruins are, Charo's grave and Abyssal woods were just underwhelimg and Rauh Ruins are... weird and forgettable
When you said that some players just run past the lion warriors and later say they suck... I seriously choked. These guy compete for the title of the coolest mobs in the franchise for me, they are glorious, they are incredible, they are super dangerous fun to fight... somebody says they suck just because they beat their sorry arse? Really?😮
@@AlexCatable That’s kinda just a trend with all these games, people often want enemies to not be complex and just work as combat filler to compliment the areas, so a lot of cool well designed ones get hated on
@@chadofastora that's weird as currently I see a lot of hot takes towards Wukong for the in between areas and enemies being "too easy and not engaging". I guess there is no pleasing some people.
@@AlexCatable FR
Try to make myself like Radahn as the final boss lore wise by comparing what he represent compare to miquella:
Radahn is like an Dark Souls age of fire type deal because
-Refuse to abandon his steed no matter what, even if the horse is clearly too weak to carry him
-Adorn with Lion armor to honor Godfrey, as well as red braids for Radagon, treasuring the old.
-Scared of facing a new order for the lands between, by halting Ranni's fate with the star. As well as desperately clinging to life from Malenia's rot to not get his soul taken by Miquella and become the face of a new order.
Miquella is like age of dark type deal because
-Throwing everything away to satisfy the condition to ascend to godhood.
-Although not hating on the old, he do always want to invent new stuff to replace the old. Like Radagon's Ring of LIght, Miquella makes his own new one.
-Wanting to create a new order for the lands between. Embracing the new age he desperately wanted. Not matter what by mutilating he's family corpes and souls to met his meet of having a Consort.
And having these two clashing idea as the final boss sounds pretty cool yeah.
But i would still like an original candidate for a final boss.
The DLC was really good overall in my opinion, but it definitely had some of the highest highs and lowest lows in any game I've ever played. Messmer is one of my favorite bosses of all time, and going from him to the pretty terrible Consort and the highly dissapointing ending really turned me off to replaying it (until I decided to just only replay up to Messmer and Romina). I also think that it'a funny how they made two absolutely beautiful areas in the Cerulean Coast and the Abyssal Woods and then decided to put nothing in them lol. Still, almost everything else was solid, so I'd give it an 8.5/10.
Imagine just existing talking to your homie, amd suddenly a small UNIVERSE emerges from underneath your feet.
I would just quit.
It’s such a hard game to review. It’s so good but in terms of my expectations, it just didn’t live up to it. The lack of lore, cutscenes, poor story, lack of meaningful items, empty areas really put me off. Fragments should have been boss rewards.
I remember watching a video them pointing out the ending cutscene of miqu spouting about what we already know. That it’s really showing how radahn agreed to this it was a one sided promise.
When I recognized how the world was going like dark souls 1, I got really hyped. When I found my first areas and such, it was spetacular, but after some point, it kinda turned into a chore. I thougth the paths were going to be some creative stuff but they were just caves I had to find. I spent a lot of my playtime just wandering around, which was ultra cool because you just get to feel the world and that's the best part of elden ring. BUT there were times that I was just tired of searching for it, I just wanted to move on, I thought of searching the internet, thing that haven't happened in the base game, but I had hope that the feeling of finding it myself would make things better. Turns out... it kinda didn't. I was like 'ooooh it was just a cave down here... that's ok I guess'. I don't know how to explain, but when everything is a secret and there are secrets everywhere, it kinda lose it's meaning. When I found the ladder in the castle that leads to a room with a painting, while on the ladder I was already thinking 'I bet there is going to be an illusory wall down here' Lo and behold, there was. It feels like the payout was never enough for the setup. This DLC made me see how the base game is insane and appreciate it waaaaaaay more. I liked playing the DLC, but when I stopped to think about it, it kinda never clicked for me, and when I think about playing it again, it feels just so much to do.
I honestly feel like Elden Ring in its entirety is a joke... An inside joke that is via Miyazaki's crazy dark cynical Daoist nature.
A bit late but I would like to comment as well. I doubt many people will read all that but fuck it.
I need to mention that I'm extremely biased when it comes to Souls games. Bloodborne was my first game of the series and it helped get through a really hard time of my life. Ever since I've been a huge fan of Fromsoft and all of its projects. Given that, I would say the DLC is amazing, it may have some flaws but as a whole I think it was peak. The world felt amazing and crafted in an intricate and intuitive way to emphasize exploration and finding Scaductree fragments. To briefly mention it, I really don't get why people hate on it. Saying it's too complex when it's a simple "do more damage, take less damage" scenario honestly feels a bit hypocritical. You are even given a map with most of the fragments but I will agree having the exact number of fragments needed to max out your level is a bit crappy.
Now, the bosses... Once again I'm really biased but I think every single one is amazing in its own way. Yes the Scaductree Avatar is too easy, Gaius and Metyr have some questionable hit-boxes and many of the mini bosses weren't exactly ground breaking, however I think Fromsoftware did a phenomenal job. Even the lowest of the bunch (which in my opinion are the Avatar, Gaius and Metyr) are an easy B tier in my opinion which is amazing considering the stinkers we got in some past DLCs... (Gang Squad, Living Failures, Champion's Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf). Admittedly the lack of cutscenes takes its toll on the build up but overall they were awesome... Now, Radahn... I attempted this guy around 160 times with a pure dex built with the Dragon King's Cragblade at 19 Shadow Blessing level and even though I find some moves to be over punishing (like the double cross slash or the gravity pull followed by the AOE in phase two), it felt like an awesome and incredibly challenging final boss. As a whole, I've heard people consider them too tough but honestly, it felt pretty reasonable in my view and the eye candy spectacle was just amazing.
The combat tweaks felt really neat especially the amazing new weapon types though I will agree Sekiro and Bloodborne have a clear advantage over the rest.
In terms of flaws I would definitely say there was done wasted space (like the lack of mini bosses in the Finger Ruins) but my biggest gripe is the immense difficulty spike in the early game. I don't know if I was under leveled or what, but the Divine Beast was two or three shotting me with most of his combos.
Overall, I don't know if I did a good enough job on describing my thoughts... I didn't have much time to write I script of my own, but finding the video a really fleshed out and reasonable take on the expansion, I wanted to conduct my own thoroughly crafted review. Anyways, that's all, have a great day everyone
Today was the day I was looking at the release dates of your vids while rewatching the top 10 DLC weapons to try and predict when the next one would release. I did not predict it would be today. Thanks for an upload Chad 😭
@@szalyn8849 You got it. Also, one way you can tell is that I always post a poll related to my video the day before I post it
@@chadofastoraohhh, alright! That's good to know 👀
I can't give a DLC 10/10. simply because some areas are empty as fuck. I mean literally. the part where your horse is too scared felt like they forgot to finish it. Some other areas feel empty too. What comes with legacy dungeons. The shadow keep was the only one that was even close from original game dungeons. Belurat was over so fast i tought i missed most of the dungeon, but no, that was it. Still very good dlc. Scadutree fragment system was kinda stupid. 9/10.
Glad you mentioned the dull open world. While most people are okay with it, I can't justify spending 70% of my playtime tilting the controller stick through an empty field. It's incredibly boring and the "reward" is just some consumable I'll never use anyway. Boss fights are awesome, no question, but the intermissions are worse due to pointlessly massive areas like the Finger Ruins plus the insane number of recycled enemies (felt like I was fighting grave birds and ghost villagers in literally every corner of map). Overall I'm disappointed and don't think my in-game hours reflect the value I got from the DLC. To me it was the ultimate "quantity over quality" experience. Hope I don't get killed :)
@@Br0seid0n Well said, I personally still think it’s worth it overall, but I get your points
I don't quite understand the criticisms of DLCs about empty areas, but is there any game that doesn't have them, especially in an open world? Maybe the problem with Sote is that it gives the feeling that there are areas that take up more content than others and that ends up giving the feeling of little content in the rest of the areas, but they make up for it with tremendous visual settings like Cerulean Coast, Charo's Hidden Tomb and Abyssal Forest, I don't understand the problem, the objective of that emptiness is to give that feeling of insecurity in the environment that is not achieved when it is full of enemies. Also, we are not thinking that in terms of design it is better for the content to accumulate along the main path of the DLC story and not to be spread out everywhere, replaying it would be boring. To me Sote seems to be the best DLC they have made, although obviously I do not omit its errors. It's true that there are some areas with few enemies or content in general, especially below Scadu Altus, they didn't add anything that affects the online and there are still balance issues in general in the game, but the rest of things are incredibly good.
its literally just people comparing it to previous souls games, so of course the open world will feel empty. no one would ever complain about the emptiness of Ash Lake in DS1, because that's the whole point of the area. It's pretty clear that the whole Finger Ruins and Jagged Peak setup are taking a scenic and awe inspiring approach rather than just being traditional levels.
@@vryyyx without a doubt but there are still empty areas in the other souls, and I've never seen so many people agree on how to criticize ash lake for being empty, having more examples: seath's forest and cave are empty, the tomb of the giants is empty and is smaller than the fissure, only lost izalith is unanimously criticized, in ds3 there are several large and empty areas with only enemies, like the road of sacrifices, farron keep is boring, untended graves, smouldering lake obviously some examples are smaller and that compensates, but they still have empty areas and there are many examples throughout the saga, in my opinion abyssal, charos and celurean have their setting as a priority more than just content.
The base game is better, but this dlc was very fun and challenging to play. 9/10
You could even call It a "jagged" peak
It's a fun attraction park. You go on everything once but only a few afterwards. Though the anti cheat and shader shenanigans ruined my immersion so much.
Honestly unlike many other people i didn't really like base game too much. But I liked the dlc way more. It made me bolst my rating of elden ring from a 7 to a 9.
I would've loved Radahn and placed him as my favorite boss if Elden Rings combat was like bloodborne, i honestly thought it was a fight that over stayed it's welcome, with that said i loved that he was the final boss, i thought it fit the lore perfectly. One of the best games I've played in a long time.
BASED VIDEO
This channel is so fucking underrated. Kudos, boss.
@@aaronblackett9737 Thanks
Honestly even if its flawed its still the best dlc they put out
It’s definitely peak, but I think that Old hunters and ringed city are a little better imo
@@michaelbubble2359 these 3 can be easily interchangeable but i think the vast amount of content that sote has gives it a decent edge over those 2
Old Hunters > Ringed City > SOTE
Ringed city 😂@@MaleWingDiver
@@michaelbubble2359 honestly I don't get the hype behind ringed city. To me it feels like 2 average areas (ringed city maybe slightly above average), one decent boss (midir), two great bosses (DP and Gael) and one asscheek boss (Halflight). I think OH and Ringed City are much better.
I really wish the bosses were overall better. While bosses like Messmer, rellana, Midra and Rhadan are my favorites in the whole game, I was expecting the same quality to run throughout the whole dlc like ringed city, artorias of the abyss and old hunters. This DLC definitely has some stinker bosses, especially for remembrance bosses, that cash in way too much on spectacle but don’t provide good gameplay. Giaus, Metyr, Bayle, Divine Beast, Jori, and the damn Hippo are all total stinker bosses to me. On top of that, i think they overused the NPC “boss” battles, and I was expecting some new and Interesting field bosses not 5+ dragons, tree sentinels, rune bears (with a couple extra moves), ulcerated tree spirits and Demi human queens.
I also think that at least one more legacy dungeon is greatly missed.
How are metyr and bayle bad. Their some of the best bosses in the dlc. And the divine beast is not bad he’s just not amazing
@@TheSophisticatedAxolotl In your opinion maybe, personally I find them both to be huge camera messes, same with divine beast
I loved using that GoW soundtrack in the background
@@the_hardcore_experienced I recently replayed the Greek trilogy and can’t get the soundtrack out of my head
@@chadofastora What’s your favourite between the trilogy?
@@the_hardcore_experienced I would have to say 2. 3 has some higher highs and 1 has the memorable backstory, but I think 2 is just a super fun ride from start to finish
SoTE is flawed peak I definitely agree...some might even call it...jagged
Both you and Joseph Anderson had good analysis on this game!
Thanks
You could say a “jagged peak”
On the topic of Radahn, my main issue with him is actually that he's just boring to fight lmao, the arena isn't special just a whole bunch of grey, most of his first phase moves feel like they are trying to be Godfreys moves but lacking in the rhythm that made Godfreys moves fun, and Second phase to me looks cheap the teleport attacks all look comedically lame and the lasers on his other attacks feel tacked on combine that with the imo lack luster arena, and he just feels overall lame and unsatisfying to me. The lore around him too ruins a lot of the engagement of the boss to me too honestly the general entire disconnect between base game and DLC does a whole lot of that.
A whole lot of Radahns fight feels like they were trying to one up his caelid fight and they failed miserably at that, The Caelid fight has a much better atmosphere Radahn feels so much more powerful he looks so much cooler his attacks look so much less jankilly animated the sound design even is better. Not to mention his imo far inferior DLC visual design he looks like a basic bitch tarnished which is hardly fitting for A Radahn and B some one in an Omens body. Base game Radahn is an absolute UNIT he is wonderfully chunky and incredibly imposing I get why he looks different but fromsoft go out of their way to almost totally ignore the fact hes in an omen body, so if you were gonna just brush off the whole omen body thing why not give him his original design back.
Honestly I felt alot of the DLC bosses were boring. I know alot of people like Romina and Rellana but Romina to me was so easy to avoid the attacks of I actually felt like I had just fought and killed a Tibia Mariner, and Rellana to me isn't really that fun either, shes visually cool but also her arena lets down her style and frankly sometimes she reminds me a bit too much of fighting thoes dual wielding banished knights. Metyr has really fun presentation but is a basic ass boring boss to fight. Putrid avatar and Gaius are mounted bosses and just kinda felt poorly put together, as I think most bosses that sit on something in ER are, but atleast putrid avatar takes place in a cool location. Wish we got a bit more of the sleep swamp rather than 1 tiny room and a boss arena.
As for the bosses I really liked: Bayle is really fun Midra is also really fun just wish he was harder and Mesmer was the Morgot of the DLC to me loved him to bits, I actually enjoyed the scadutree avatar and the devine dancing lion was also a really good visual spectacle.
Flawed peak. A descriptor that all of Fromsoft's souls games have
@@insertedgynamehere___969 Pretty much
In general, it's Fromsoftware's best DLC. To me, it's a solid 9/10. But when you consider the details, other DLCs have something better.
Artorias of the abyss had a better build-up and story.
Bloodborne DLC had a better atmosphere.
Ringed city had a better build-up, story, atmosphere, and ending boss.
The only bad DLC was Ariandel.
Is there any strong handsome knights that could come help slay this dragon😛
11:19 i really wished torrent was just too frightened to sprint but still runs at a good speed so we could still use him with caution
@@rerite-oy4xu That would’ve made a big difference
Well I found everything the map has to offer without looking to a guide or anything. The only things that I messed up was some of the sidequest of the characters.
I had the complete opposite experience for exploration. In the base game, on first playthrough, I felt like I found something of interest every minute or so. Where as, in the DLC, I felt like there were such wide stretches with nothing of note besides being gorgeous
One of my many hot takes, I think Shadow Keep is mid I just wish more off it was this black gothic castle with black knights and Messmer soldiers, just get rid of the storehouse and replace it with that.
They should have made it where you can interact with the gate of divinity after Radahn boss fight. They missed a big opportunity. Idk something like the gate sends you back in time or at least a final cutscene that fills in some of the gaps
22:09 bro mixed something beautiful here! Halo/ elden ring
21:51 Never forget jumping feet first into hell on the streets of New Mombasa.
@@user-sd7ie1zn1r “Get set for a combat drop”
OOH-RAH!
I will never understand why people love ringed city so much
Nostalgia or they haven’t played it in years, whenever I have replayed it I have been underwhelmed because the actual content that isn’t a few boss fights is mediocre tbh
@@Jbsweyeah, 3 S tier bosses ( being one of them the best fo the series ) carried the DLC, as well as the ringed city Knights, still peak Knight enemy, but the other boss is F tier, the heap is good, until we get to the swamp, ringed city is amazing, until we get to the swamp
Plus the turttle enemies sucks
Even though DS1 is the least favourite of the series, i think AotA dlc is better than ringed city, the areas are decent overall, but all the bosses are straight A tier or better, the cutscene were the giant shoots down kalameet is amazing too, the best one of the series until elden ring with godrick phase transition and messmer phase transition hapened, plus i also have a bias of making the second half of DS1 somewhat interesting and being the pioneer when it comes to the high quality bosses ( santuary guardian is a great beast fight, artorias is an amazing Knight fight and kalameet is a great dragon fight, even with his bad hitboxs, manus is more of a thing of his own, being a beast, playing like a Knight but also cast hexes
@@jajasking9652 I agree after replays ds1 dlc holds up higher then ds3 imo
@@jajasking9652there is only 2 S tier bosses in the game for me (I don't like midir)
@@MohamednacerKhelifi I like midir
4:26 this was definitely me it should be slightly easier to find locations it makes me feel guilty like i didnt explore enough i think there should be some secret full areas like the abyssal woods but all of the "Optional" areas are basically as hidden as the candy your mom hid from you when you where 7 years old, its a little frustrating to see i missed most of the areas and cool weapons and all that an then i had to look up how to find this stuff then i got spoiled on like the entire DLC. (This is me nitpicking thought, i still love SotE but tho's are the issues i experienced on my first playthrough)
I just feel and this is probably a nitpick that there is literally 0 effect of anything you do in the shadow realm that effects the lands between. No new ending, no extra dialogue maybe from Gideon, no new extra path that opens due to events in the shadow realm nothing. Now I know it’s been said by Miyazaki that this is a full standalone experience that completely separates from the main story but I do feel that’s a problem as you can seemingly feel absolutely disconnected from what’s really the end story. Like really 0 extra dialogue really they couldn’t get 1 voice actor from the vanilla main game to voice some dialogue that makes my exploits in the shadow realm mean something. Also another small thing was seemingly large areas that had little to nothing in them or maybe 1 or 2 items fingers ruins, hinterland and abyssal woods but that’s probably even a bigger nitpick. Also I’ve heard alot of people complain about the difficulty of the final boss which I probably would have agreed with on my first dlc playthrough but I still feel he is a fair but punishing boss and took me around 2 hours to really get the hang of. I used a sword and shield build with no summons or buffs just raw dog tactics and that’s where I’m getting my opinion from. Is it the best boss in Fromsoft history no not close but I still feel it’s a worthy opponent to end a dlc of a game of this level. Overall a very solid experience 9/10 just was lacking in small areas that I feel that would have made it a legendary masterpiece 10/10 level.
0 Melina /10 for me. The only thing I wanted to see after THAT ending.
I guess you could say this DLC is
a Jagged Peak
@@Fiddl3head FR
I really wish i liked Elden Ring
Just to let you know. There is no need for the "IMO" in the title. You even say it's "your take" in the video, so please remove the "IMO".
It just makes it look a little worse... IMO
Leave the guy put the title he wants. His video, his title...
@@davidporta7581 I wasn't trying to be rude, I was just offering a piece of advice. Why did you instantly choose to act like I was trying to be rude? Or is this a misunderstanding, idk?
Just let it be known he does not need to change the title, I was just saying that the "IMO" makes his video look less professional and complete, which I think doesn't do the video justice because the video is pretty good. 👍
It is extremely flawed, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s basically just more Elden Ring. In my opinion, it’s about on par with the base game, which is no small feat. And maybe a little disappointing for me, but I’ve realized that my expectations may have been too high. It has all the best aspects of base game Elden Ring, but also most of the worst. My biggest gripe is the emptiness of a few of the regions, and another small gripe I have is the new crafting resources, namely Scarlet Buds and Deep-Purple Lilies. It’s a small gripe because I’m glad these flowers exist and are farmable, but it basically makes regular rot and sleep pots useless. Why is the significantly stronger version farmable and the weaker version isn’t? It doesn’t really make sense. It seems like an apology for the limitation of certain crafting resources, but since those resources are still limited, it feels out of place. What I think they should’ve done is make Trina’s Lilies grow (and respawn) in the Cerulean Coast, and have the Deep-Purple Lilies only down by St. Trina. They also could’ve placed respawning Aenoian butterflies around the Church of the Bud.
this coming out after what joseph anderson said in his latest video is genuinely so funny
The bosses are absolutely heart breaking. FSW played cheap and used dirty tactics this time , for the fist time. Making bosses close gaps instantly, AI input reading when you’re casting spells or healing, triggering attacks that you cannot dodge bc ur locked in animation …. Forget the combos and speed and damage , u can get gud and overcome that
U cannot overcome Input reading and it’s so fucking cheap and dirty and what “hard for the sake of being hard” means.
28:57 hey can't you say the projectile grab forces you respect the lampreys every now and then just like 28:31? Why would you hate it?
The hiding giant areas part was my least favorite. I missed half of the dlc in my first playthrough because every area had an obscenely obscure choke point as the only way to get there. Idk how they expect you to find half of the content without literally hugging every wall on the map or just looking it up
Inb4 people tell me to git gud at le exploring
I think Fromsoft definitely learned from their mistakes in the base game. Especially the boss reuse, as I think it was done in much better taste, and had some very unique factors even if they were a reuse
The DLC’s lore was egregiously bad imo, basic plot holes were introduced for what are main points of the story. I know Souls games are almost always presenting the illusion of deep world building with their style, but here the illusion felt so slapped together it actively undermined any investment I had in the world of the base game.
As a ps4 player phase one of Radhan is great; honestly a blast (Minus that one attack). The second phase though is just pain with the frame dropping and clutter. Sucks to be poor lol.
@@thisday5881 Sorry, that’s rough. I used to play Elden Ring on last gen as well and I can imagine the Radahn fight would be pretty unstable
great video as usual man
@@uhBloor Thanks
Input reading, gap closing are the two biggest problems with this dlc. Every issue stems from those two AI problems.
If I’m telegraphing boss movements and dodging their attacks after passing the learning curve, the extra sprinkle of bull shit that makes this dlc unfair and different from the other games is the input reading. Again, if i successfully evade an attack, create spacing , and heal , pressing the heal button activates an instantaneous attack from the boss that I cannot dodge due to being locked in animation. This happens ALL THE TIME. They do this because they want players to use the spirit summons. It’s fucking bull shit. Because using the summons makes the boss fights non existent.
0:32 *FUCKING* *BASED*
I think it would've been so cool if your quest outcomes in the DLC led to new alternate endings in the base game. Or choices made in the base game have mpact on quests in DLC. I don't think it would be too complicated to implement I'd be satisfied with an alternate ending cutscene or a small batch of weapons/items based on the choices I made during the current playthrough.
@@bengage9695 I agree that would’ve been awesome
I like most of the bosses from this DLC, the enemies can go fuck themselves. I'm yearning for the boss fights and I have to go through that shitty slog on how some fucking trash mobs are overtuned as hell. There are some elites, the greatsword, double sword yellow big guys are super annoying and not worth my time, there is a buffed up version of them that has powers like dancing lion boss, I was streaming it on discord and the boys watching me saying "here he goes, prepare yourself" and as soon as this mf does the storm weather shit, I start evading and running away from him, they all laughed. Skip, enemies that give me no reason to fight them are trash to be skipped and a major nuisance when running to the next grace, no matter how much development effort is put into them. This is my biggest gripe with souls games. I want to fight a badass boss, not worrying about having to die these shitty enemies that give me like 8k runes that I don't care about.
Sounds like someone who is new to souls games..
@@Jbswe I played all of ds3 and sekiro. Hundreds of hours on both. Elden ring gameplay is exactly like ds3. I don't need to have played ds1/ds2 or bloodborne to have a valid opinion on this.
@@zydeox1221 yes you do lmao you would 100% not last playing those games especially ds2 if you’re talking like this because the main challenge is getting through the levels without using all your heals.. or running through the enemy’s and getting fucked over because there’s 10 enemy’s chasing you, all the 3 games you played are the easiest at running through and avoiding fights with annoying enemy’s you can not like it and that’s fine, but going through the levels slowly and carefully while killing most enemy’s is literally the epitome of the early souls games
@@Jbswe Er... no? If I want to waltz into straight to the boss I can do that... No one in the world can prevent from doing that. Besides that, who are you to come tell me what my experience is supposed to be for a game that I bought? Enemies in souls games are meaningless annoying and filler as a bump in the road to fight the good boss fights. Again, I don't need to have played all previous 5 games to decide what I want with Elden ring.
@@zydeox1221 read again what I said I didn’t say you have to experience the game a certain way but I’m saying demons souls dark souls 1 and 2 pretty much force you to experience the games in that way every level is way more linear with an enemy gauntlet and a small amount of heals you can sometimes go like 20 minutes or even a hour without finding next bonfire checkpoint there is not a single part in elden ring levels design that is as tense as going through sens fortress the first time and finally getting that relief of finding the next bonfire. The only big level like that is the sewers in Lyndell that’s is huge place easy to get lost with many shortcuts reminds me of a ds1 level, I was hoping there would be less graces in Elden ring tbh some of the dungeons do a decent job at spreading them out, You can not like that but I could tell by your comment you have only played the newer games with that mindset and have no idea what you really get yourself into when playing the older games. Its fine you like the bosses I do too but these games aren’t just boss rush games loll just download boss revive mod if you want that
Kinda unrelated, but seeing that dmc clip I really want you to make a dmc franchise boss ranking video.
Who cares about the flaws ! This game is more engaging than any western games we have nowadays . As long as from software don’t go public we’re good . If you want to ramble and complain there’s tons of assassin’s creed and cod games .