I completely agree with the majority of your critique. There's no excuse for this DLC to be so empty and devoid of new enemies/bosses and meaningful loot or side areas worth exploring. The cost of SoE is nearly 2/3rds the price of the full game. I don't think my expectations were too much thinking there would be a lot more meat on the bone after 2 years development and the size of the base game, in comparison. And while I am making comparisons.. Every legacy dungeon in SoE (of which there aren't many) aside from the Shadow Keep is disappointing or mediocre when judged alongside Storm Veil, Volcano Manor, Leyndell Royal Capitol, Farum Azul, Miquella's Haligtree or any other number of locations from the base game. SoE legacy dungeons aren't complex. They're too linear, easily navigated and have poor loot in comparison while also having far less replay ability. Speaking of locations in comparison to the base game and SOE.. The complaint about the caves, tombs, mines and other side areas from the base game wasn't that there were too many.. It's that they were not unique enough and recycled enemies & bosses too frequently. Fromsoft took those away and didn't replace them with anything! I have never been more disappointed in a Souls game as I was exploring the empty areas in SoE. So much empty map that was difficult to access.. Only to find nothing there. How deflating an experience. Fromsoft also could have added more dynamic builds to the game by allowing us to equip another talisman and armor piece, like a cape or something. The empty place for another talisman and armor slot are right there in the equipment screen. FromSoft already have the tailoring needle mechanic allowing the removal of capes in the game, too. Fromsoft could have given us factions again. They could have given us skins for Torrent. They could have added more PVP arena functionality. Boss arena rush mode. Grace remembrances to bring back a boss, like bonfire ascetics in DS2. So much could have been added to make this a proper full DLC worthy of the price and the success garnered by the base game and it just wasn't done. Such a shame. And don't get me started on the lore. Thinking about it only further illustrates how rushed this DLC was and makes me feel like Fromsoft has gotten lost in the sauce. Or are trolling us.. Because they are seemingly too lazy to try and make any real effort to connect the lore for the DLC to the base game. It feels wholly disjointed and random. Anyways, long story short.. SoE is a major disappointment. If you told me a couple months ago that this would be the send off to one of my favorite games of all time & this is the only DLC we would ever be getting for Elden Ring... I wouldn't have believed such a travesty could be possible. Well, such is life.. Good video!
@@HailEarendil thank you for watching and leaving a well thought out comment! I'm a fromsoft noob, only having played elden ring... But for me looking at just this game and it's DLC... I agree with everything you added! Again.. thanks for watching man 👍
Nah fully agree. Lore and story being terrrible aside, the DLC felt like a disjointed mess. So many of the areas felt hodgepodged together and didn't make cohesive sense. Despite being told that the Lands of Shadow and TLB were once connected, I have a hard time seeing that. TLB felt like a real world connected and everything made sense. The Lands of Shadow felt like a bunch of biomes crunched together to force variety and it felt artificial and strange. They could have easily halved a lot of the areas and put a larger emphasis on the dungeons, which they implied they would but we didn't get that. The only fully fleshed out legacy dungeon we got was Shadow Keep, which was so disappointing. Midra's Manse and Castle Ensis were insanely short. The dungeons and catacombs had more variety, but I would have preferred less attention on those and a wider focus on the legacy dungeons. It was also roughly 7/10 for me. They definitely chose quantity over quality and they doubled down on the flaws of the base game.
I have never truly understood the whole success of Elden Ring. One of the strongest points of Dark Souls were locations and open world completely negates this aspect. Who the hell even wanted an open world Dark Souls? What is it 2009? When Far Cry and Assassins Creed went open wrld it made sense because those series got better because of their mechanics and here? What mechanically is so good in Dark Souls to get open world? Nothing. This is so stupid. At this moment Souls is a normie hobby you know Elden Ring sold 20 million copies. Open world destroyed everything cool about Dark Souls and gave nothing cool n return. I don't even think that the pure gameplay of Dark Souls is compatible with open world, this game plays strange. Souls elements like bonfires and estus flasks and exploration are timeless but the main gameplay is not.
from your not mentioning previous fromsoft titles I can guess you didn't play them. I won't spoil any of them or their DLCs. All of the DLCs. the one for dark souls. the 3 for dark souls 2. the 2 for dark souls 3. and the 1 for Bloodborne were ALL better then their base game in some way. maybe just a really good boss. or music. or visuals. there was always something. something way better then the base game. elden rings DLC fell so far short of this it's unreal. so much of the DLCs 'interesting' things are just re-do's of past games things. the eye creatures in abyssal woods? the ONE interesting thing there? copy-paste from bloodborne. Winter Lanterns. Rellana? it's just a female Pontiff Sulyvahn from dark souls 3. Radahn 2? it's radahn again but with attacks nearly identical to pontiff sulyvahn again except without any of the class. even the flip move he does is taken from another boss. that being one from dark souls 1 DLC. it's wholly unoriginal and empty, and I honestly fucking hate it for wasting my time. i played in co-op and not being able to use horse going through some of these empty areas just HOPING to find literally anything of interest. it was so exhausting and felt like work. it sucks
Damn. Yeah I haven't played any of the other fromsoft games, but I plan on it. Glad to see I'm not alone in my opinion of shadow of the Erdtree. Thank you for watching and commenting man, I really appreciate it.
Let’s not forget Metyr just basically being Eberitas from Bloodborne, and Bayle is LITERALLY just Midir from DS3 both in the attack animations he uses and in how you fight him.
I'd argue that the only DLC that wasn't that great was for DS3. I personally enjoyed AoA but it seems quite universally disliked by most of the fandom, and I can see why. It was very self-contained story and lorewise. I cut DS3 some slack though, given that DS1 was intended to be a standalone. But otherwise you're 100% correct, the DLC's are generally considered the best part of the game. I remember some people saying not to have high standards for SotE because the studio is going mainstream and I thought "No way, From always delivers". Man I was eating my words. I was so disappointed.
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
I completely agree with the majority of your critique. There's no excuse for this DLC to be so empty and devoid of new enemies/bosses and meaningful loot or side areas worth exploring.
The cost of SoE is nearly 2/3rds the price of the full game. I don't think my expectations were too much thinking there would be a lot more meat on the bone after 2 years development and the size of the base game, in comparison.
And while I am making comparisons.. Every legacy dungeon in SoE (of which there aren't many) aside from the Shadow Keep is disappointing or mediocre when judged alongside Storm Veil, Volcano Manor, Leyndell Royal Capitol, Farum Azul, Miquella's Haligtree or any other number of locations from the base game. SoE legacy dungeons aren't complex. They're too linear, easily navigated and have poor loot in comparison while also having far less replay ability.
Speaking of locations in comparison to the base game and SOE.. The complaint about the caves, tombs, mines and other side areas from the base game wasn't that there were too many.. It's that they were not unique enough and recycled enemies & bosses too frequently. Fromsoft took those away and didn't replace them with anything! I have never been more disappointed in a Souls game as I was exploring the empty areas in SoE. So much empty map that was difficult to access.. Only to find nothing there. How deflating an experience.
Fromsoft also could have added more dynamic builds to the game by allowing us to equip another talisman and armor piece, like a cape or something. The empty place for another talisman and armor slot are right there in the equipment screen. FromSoft already have the tailoring needle mechanic allowing the removal of capes in the game, too.
Fromsoft could have given us factions again. They could have given us skins for Torrent. They could have added more PVP arena functionality. Boss arena rush mode. Grace remembrances to bring back a boss, like bonfire ascetics in DS2. So much could have been added to make this a proper full DLC worthy of the price and the success garnered by the base game and it just wasn't done. Such a shame.
And don't get me started on the lore. Thinking about it only further illustrates how rushed this DLC was and makes me feel like Fromsoft has gotten lost in the sauce. Or are trolling us.. Because they are seemingly too lazy to try and make any real effort to connect the lore for the DLC to the base game. It feels wholly disjointed and random.
Anyways, long story short.. SoE is a major disappointment. If you told me a couple months ago that this would be the send off to one of my favorite games of all time & this is the only DLC we would ever be getting for Elden Ring... I wouldn't have believed such a travesty could be possible. Well, such is life.. Good video!
@@HailEarendil thank you for watching and leaving a well thought out comment! I'm a fromsoft noob, only having played elden ring... But for me looking at just this game and it's DLC... I agree with everything you added! Again.. thanks for watching man 👍
Nah fully agree. Lore and story being terrrible aside, the DLC felt like a disjointed mess. So many of the areas felt hodgepodged together and didn't make cohesive sense. Despite being told that the Lands of Shadow and TLB were once connected, I have a hard time seeing that. TLB felt like a real world connected and everything made sense. The Lands of Shadow felt like a bunch of biomes crunched together to force variety and it felt artificial and strange. They could have easily halved a lot of the areas and put a larger emphasis on the dungeons, which they implied they would but we didn't get that. The only fully fleshed out legacy dungeon we got was Shadow Keep, which was so disappointing. Midra's Manse and Castle Ensis were insanely short. The dungeons and catacombs had more variety, but I would have preferred less attention on those and a wider focus on the legacy dungeons. It was also roughly 7/10 for me. They definitely chose quantity over quality and they doubled down on the flaws of the base game.
I have never truly understood the whole success of Elden Ring. One of the strongest points of Dark Souls were locations and open world completely negates this aspect. Who the hell even wanted an open world Dark Souls? What is it 2009? When Far Cry and Assassins Creed went open wrld it made sense because those series got better because of their mechanics and here? What mechanically is so good in Dark Souls to get open world? Nothing. This is so stupid. At this moment Souls is a normie hobby you know Elden Ring sold 20 million copies. Open world destroyed everything cool about Dark Souls and gave nothing cool n return.
I don't even think that the pure gameplay of Dark Souls is compatible with open world, this game plays strange. Souls elements like bonfires and estus flasks and exploration are timeless but the main gameplay is not.
from your not mentioning previous fromsoft titles I can guess you didn't play them. I won't spoil any of them or their DLCs. All of the DLCs. the one for dark souls. the 3 for dark souls 2. the 2 for dark souls 3. and the 1 for Bloodborne were ALL better then their base game in some way. maybe just a really good boss. or music. or visuals. there was always something. something way better then the base game. elden rings DLC fell so far short of this it's unreal.
so much of the DLCs 'interesting' things are just re-do's of past games things. the eye creatures in abyssal woods? the ONE interesting thing there? copy-paste from bloodborne. Winter Lanterns. Rellana? it's just a female Pontiff Sulyvahn from dark souls 3. Radahn 2? it's radahn again but with attacks nearly identical to pontiff sulyvahn again except without any of the class. even the flip move he does is taken from another boss. that being one from dark souls 1 DLC.
it's wholly unoriginal and empty, and I honestly fucking hate it for wasting my time. i played in co-op and not being able to use horse going through some of these empty areas just HOPING to find literally anything of interest. it was so exhausting and felt like work. it sucks
Damn. Yeah I haven't played any of the other fromsoft games, but I plan on it. Glad to see I'm not alone in my opinion of shadow of the Erdtree. Thank you for watching and commenting man, I really appreciate it.
Let’s not forget Metyr just basically being Eberitas from Bloodborne, and Bayle is LITERALLY just Midir from DS3 both in the attack animations he uses and in how you fight him.
I'd argue that the only DLC that wasn't that great was for DS3. I personally enjoyed AoA but it seems quite universally disliked by most of the fandom, and I can see why. It was very self-contained story and lorewise. I cut DS3 some slack though, given that DS1 was intended to be a standalone.
But otherwise you're 100% correct, the DLC's are generally considered the best part of the game. I remember some people saying not to have high standards for SotE because the studio is going mainstream and I thought "No way, From always delivers". Man I was eating my words. I was so disappointed.
Agreed 👍🏼