i respect your thoughts on this, but i feel differently, nothing is perfect, but to the right audience, it can be, or get really close. i can’t tell there are things they do that I don’t like, there’s absolutely bullshit in all of their games and anyone who denies just wasn’t playing them. But for me, the value of this game is larger than the sum of its parts. most people don’t like it for performance or assets or story, they like it because it gives them a worthy challenge to overcome and a chance to figure things out for themselves. media can sometimes help us make sense of things in our lives. With this dlc, they upheld the standards that they had for all their other dlcs, but they also went above and beyond, the music, the animations, the weapons, the new mechanics. Pushing out a DLC of this size in 2 years with no micros. you said it’s unsure of what is, as in it has no clear direction, and i think that’s a virtue for an open world game with players of all kinds of skills levels. And contrived is not necessarily bad. there’s a callback to new londo ruins in the dlc, and i was playing it, i could not believe how much fun i was having. i had the same feeling with anor londo in ds3. it was fun. having a game make me go through these emotions. making me sad over a giant blacksmith i talked to in the first game? what you call contrived i look at as callbacks and eastereggs. i don’t think they were out of ideas. the dlc alone is bigger than dark souls 1, not necessarily better, but just saying, its huge. i know about the ps5 performance issues, my friend had those but i think there’s a fix online, but i completely agree that its bad for both sony and from that its not fixed. but as a pc player, i don’t have much issues, very rarely will the game lag or crash. I think this game is not for everyone, and saying it’s not a masterpiece or a 10 is valid, but for some people, it is.

also regarding the story, the dlc explains radagon and marika through miquella and st trina, the same way ashes of ariendell explained the base game through rot and burning the rot. and even if u know lore, you’re probably missing a lot, and it’s by design that the story in unknowable. its designed specifically to be speculated on and pieced together by millions of players online. and the fact that the story is mysterious, is like games back in the day, when they didn’t have that much story, its just bullshit fantasy for us to marvle at. i wouldn’t compare it to GoW or the last of us. but just because it’s a different type of storytelling and it’s vague on purpose , doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. it’s really a matter of taste and whether you choose to care about the story or not.

Fair points, I think with time the entire dlc will sit with me better, it definitely has its good parts and certainly isn't a bad addition but it has shortcomings that are as apparent as it's best parts, and that is frustrating on top of poor performance issues, to clarify I don't mean pop ins or some tearing, it's a drastic slow down and chug like a fuzzy KZfaq video think about 480p

not what i meant, i think it’s reasonable. so far ive respeced multiple times, ive beaten bosses with the backhand blades, bloodfiend arm, smithscript daggers, milady with crucible wings aow, i used the thrusting shields and im doing a challenge run with the carian one right now, ive tried like 30 new weapons and a ton of builds. im having the time of my life dude. you clearly didnt watch the video, but i get it, who cares. the shield was to show there is no reason to complain bc the game effectively gives you an easy mode in the form of a brick wall to hide behind. I’ve decided on beating the last boss with the kung fu weapons or backhand blades. thats how i ROLL baby. Ok peace ✌️

@@LilBasho most people are not going to do that tho. They are going to have a fodder enemy build and a boss build. Which is lame, bc in base game and every other game, any build was viable

give em some time, i think they will, i remember when er came out most people spammed spells or bleed and status effects, then they started having more interesting builds as they replayed the game. i love how everyone who is hiding behind a shield now, including me, are people who thought they were gonna go in and kill everything no problem. it takes practice to be good at any game. they just need sometime to find their embers and start timing their rolls lol. even the best players who never stopped playing are getting their asses beat haha. Miyazaki is definitely watching how people we play and making his designs more maniacal lol.