does anybody here remember when the radahn leak came out and everybody thought it looked so unbelievably shit that it was fake

It honestly boggles my mind how people can seriously call this peak fromsoft. This isnt even their best DLC let alone better than anything in the Elden ring base game. Either people have lowered their standards extremely, or theyre fanboys.

From "I wanna do that again!" To "Thank God I don't have to do that again"

@45:50 fun joke, but lore-wise Torrent is spooked because Flame of Frenzy is able to kill not only physical beings but also spirits, that´s why he´s noping out.

It’s insane how few cutscenes there are in this. And the ones we get aren’t really base game tier either. The post final boss cutscene is one of the laziest things I’ve ever seen and made me feel like I did something wrong.

I think this dlc showed that the basic dark souls combat system has been streched to the point of breaking. They have to finally let go of it, or accept that they hit the limit of difficulty in their games and focus on something else.

I really wish rune arcs were common in the DLC Loot and exploration did feel pretty hollow. Rune Arcs are so stupidly rare in base game (assuming you play offline mostly), they're the only item in the game that is still valuable to the player regardless of level.

This man needs a friend, one that will give him a hug during these dark times.

16:16 man I agree with most of what you said, but saying elden ring doesnt have camera issues is WILD. Idk maybe ur talking about remembrance or main bosses, but Jesus ER has dogshit camera all over the fkin place. Especially when they stuff a 50m2 room with a 40m2 boss

I absolutely love the aesthetic of the Abyssal Woods, so seeing the area so utterly wasted just makes me really sad.

When I first saw the Radahn fight,I was like,whens my turn to attack?

no this IS elden ring. the exact same issues that plague the main game are here in the DLC too

I love the fact that after rubbing out the map and just leaving Messmer and Bayle it resembled a snake. Definitely unintentional. But an awesome coincidence.

I find my self looking at the consorts fog wall and think “ am I having fun right now?” “ is this fulfilling?” I have found that elden ring has given me a sense of relief when I beat bosses, not a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment like every other from soft game.

Some of the quest made no sense either. It just felt like homework, and the quests don't branch out or have any versatility what so ever. Example: When Leda asks you who we should eliminate, we either suggest Thiollier, Hornsent, or say I don't know. I find it kind of pathetic that it doesn't matter at ALL what you choose, because it's going to result in the same way.. Leda going after the Hornsent. I was really hoping there was a way to CONVINCE Leda, or shift her focus towards Thiollier/St. Trina after we tell her St. Trina's words. I think that would've open up a WHOLE new opportunity or change in narrative to story if Leda were to take no risks, and kill St. Trina or something.

pretty sure the significance of midra’s boss room is it being the place he housed the three fingers before he went crazy. it’s why the bonfire is called “discussion chamber” or something like that

I for one hated the new lore about Miquella and Radahn. The pre-DLC lore was just fine: The Blade of Miquella challenges The Starscourge, unleashes an eldritch rot-nuke to end in a stalemate, now a magic zombie giant is pinning the stars in place. Radahn's story was tragic, but complete. Bringing him back as Radahn Prime was just fanservice, it felt fake. Mogh was just fine being super-duper evil. He was mistreated as an omen, and that drove him to worship an outer god of blood and pain. The Golden Order creating it's own enemies was a fine enough theme. Hell, I was even expecting him to have been charmed, but in a creepy yandere way and Miquella couldn't turn it off. Him just being a pawn seemed both needlessly cruel and cheapened him as a character. It also undermines Malenia's inherent tragedy, being so devoted to her brother (who made it his life's work to cure her rot) only to be absent when he needed her most. At least this explains why we couldn't reason with Malenia beforehand, but again damages her character because that just means she was just sitting on her ass for however long, rotting out her brother's tree. And Miquella! God forbid we have just one morally pure demigod in the family, now he's a creepy cult leader lopping off pieces of himself, brainwashing people with magic instead of some super-charisma. There's pretty much nothing furthering the Rot/Abundance dichotomy between him and his sister, and we couldn't interact with him at all in a way that didn't involve violence. This whole story reads like fanfiction, and not the fun trashy kind.

I’m so glad someone talked about that terrible move from radahn

The one thing I never thought would happen in a FROM game happened while fighting Radahn. I felt bored. It has never happened during any of their other previous games, or even when I was going for the plat in the base game, but holy hell when I made it to the end I just felt burnt out and couldn't continue.

You're one of the few people I've ever heard actually talk about the intendedness in how to dodge waterfowl, and yeah Radahn's triple slash is just an extension of the same problem. It's like in the language of their games, all of the ways to really avoid it are exploits, or just block it, which isn't really avoiding it and also build dependent, or simply run, which is probably the most intended thing, but that's also a bit stupid and doesn't always work either. Radahn's triple slash is so sloppy and amateurish, are they even trying anymore. The move that cuts s is the downward slash. It's supposed to cut s because the downslash can hit you while you're knocked up in the air, the problem is, if you stand on a rock or something, you become elevated, and it becomes impossible to roll through anymore. I'm glad I'm not just being gaslighted and someone recognizes that Messmer is by far the best designed fight in this DLC. He and to a lesser extent midra just make me wish for a boss rush.

The reason Torrent was never unphased by anything we went through in the base game is because he's just a spirit -- he doesn't really "die" per se. He was afraid of the Madness Forest because the Flame of Frenzy can kill spirits, hence why he didn't want to be summoned I still think it's bullshit though. You can see in the trailer Torrent riding towards Midra's Manse. They definitely cut a bunch of content which is a shame

The most annoying part of the DLC is simply visiblity, it feels like Im fighting the particle effects rather than the boss which I think is the fault of fromsoftware's shift towards appealing to an audience that appreciates spectacle rather than actual sound design. A lot of exploration also seems like wasted space, especially the abyssal woods and a lot of middle of the map in general. They vast amounts of recycled enemies dont really help with this issue either. The side content just doesnt really warrant the size of the map. If the game was more similar to the older games with each area consisting of more condensed but uniquely designed zones them it would be a lot more bearable. Instead I have to waste hours traversing the map to even get to the stuff I want to fight.

This whole video encompasses my entire feelings for the DLC. The DLC felt like wasted potential all the way through. Everywhere I've explored ended up with me asking if that's it. The finger ruins was my biggest disappointment. A giant spot on the map, but it's only there to look pretty since there's only 1 thing in the middle. The questlines were complete barebones. The boss lore was nearly non existent. The bosses themselves were terrible except Messmer and Midra. Everything felt completely sudden too. The introduction to Messmer's fight felt right of left field. I didn't even know I was about to fight him, and I also thought he was the final boss, so it just didn't feel right. The DLC also just ends abruptly after the cutscene. It felt like a joke. The worst part though is how the DLC has next to no tie in to the base game. No continuations to unfinished stories, Miquella's needle doesn't do anything in the DLC even though it says it's unfinished and can prevent someone becoming a lord of frenzy flame like Midra, and hell, I don't think any NPC in the base game mentions anything about the land of shadow or your actions there. I would've expected Gideon to be completely enthralled by you finding the land of shadow and Miquella. Melina also would've had something to say about Messmer and Marika's home too. I honestly felt like I wasted $40 for a fan mod.

If the people who uncritically accept absolutely anything that From puts out aren't willing to accept the very valid criticisms that are being made on a daily basis under the excuse of "git gud" they should at least listen to someone with over a 100 runs, including no hit runs.... right?...... right?

The new DLC weapons are on pre patch 1.7, you can see this in their poise damages and hit-stun values for pvp, which leads me to believe there are even more oversights and rushed parts in this DLC and as it is now is not what they set out to make. Also before the DLC released for the public, Radahns frametrap full combo'd into the cross swing, just thought I'd let you know that.

I think the problem lies in the fact that Fromsoft really wants these insane spectacle bossfights that are crazy hard but we as the players dont really have the tools to deal with all the spam and 20 hit combos. In Sekiro when a boss does a massive string of attacks it was a good thing (if you were good) because that was your way to massively build up their posture bar. Now obviously Elden Ring has tons of ways to make things easier. There are summons, cheesey builds etc. but I would argue if the players feel the need to cheese these bosses or use their overpowered summons then thats probably not the best design? Elden Ring feels like its trying so hard to be hard but they forgot that in order for it to be enjoyable it also needs to be fair and right now with the controls we have it just is not fair. The bosses can fly all over the arena and do 20 hit combos and all we have as a reliable answer is dodge roll?

I just want a sekiro 2

The white elephant is the gameplay, but you also touched a point not many comment and it is the lack of storytelling and build up for these remembrance bosses. Only Messmer, Miquella and Bayle get this treatment. The rest are just flashy but random encounters. Almost not cutscenes, no dialogue, no one that tells their deeds, and almost no items that bring lore beyond their remembrance rewards. What happened? Couldn't they make Miquella's followers to at least give info about any of the other remembrance bosses?

The DLC just carries over the same problems from the base game. If you level accordingly, you're railroading 95% of enemies. To make sure you don't railroad the legacy bosses as well, they artificially inflate their health, defense, damage, AOE, speed, consecutive attacks, etc. It's not as fun because it's not the refined experience you got in previous titles.

59:56 Genuinely such an L take. Armored Core VI was in development since 2018, with passionate people who had a love for the Mecha Genre and FromSoft's early history on board, alongside getting together Mecha Giants like the original artist behind AC, and artists from other huge franchises like Evangelion and Gundam, to push out the one of the best mech games in recent memory. Comparing that to a freaking 360 Demo or calling it "Very Little Effort" kinda spits on the 5 years of work that went into reviving their original Breadwinner (around only a year less than Elden Ring was in the oven) It's an achievement that they brought back Armored Core so utterly hard while also making Elden Ring. AC isn't a Golden Egg, its their retired old Goose that kept them alive before Souls was a thing. Which, at the moment is due for either an Expansion or a New Generation if reports from Miyazaki are anything to go off.

How you feel about this DLC is how I felt about Elden Ring itself.

If they gave the dlc boss arenas any personality then there would be too much terrain/architecture getting in the way of the boss’ spinny bs aoe moves lol 10/10 design, working as intended

I've been saying so many of these exact same things regarding the fights, and it's always dismissed with "skill issue." I'm not good enough to no-hit the game, but I can confidently say I'm an above average player. So it's nice to hear these criticisms be brought up by someone at your level.

The Radahn fight is an example of a developer trying as hard as they can to make a boss "uncheeseable." They added so much weird cheesy stuff (in terms of souls-like mecahnics) that you can obtain and use in these fights. I just dont understand why they seem to have gotten so angry at people using the games mechanics as they're presented. Everything from his reach to his moveset to his behvavior screams, "You must play this how WE want you to." Artificial difficulty in games has been a problem for a while now, but this fight shows the pinnacle of it.

The most disappointing part about the DLC is all the recycled enemies and bosses from base game. The new enemies are almost all reserved for legacy dungeons. In the overworld there are very few. A lot of reskins of enemies like red roaches, shadow dogs, etc., but those are just reskins, not new enemies. Huge areas with nothing in them comes close second, it just wasn't fun to explore. Blue flower area is just Limgrave, it even has a similar huge hole like the one after fighting Radahn. For a 40€ DLC I expected more DLC and way less base game.

i like how they made phase 2 radahn tank ur fps as a bit of meta difficulty l, miyazaki is truly a genius

I haven't finished SotE, but the thing that struck me the most was how empty the open world is. It's almost as if they decided to re-purpose the open world from a place of wondrous discoveries and treasures to a traversal puzzle, aka how do I get down from this cliff. I think though, Elden Ring has to be understood for what it was designed to be. Sekiro is about improving yourself as a player more than improving your in game character. DS3 is somewhere in the middle , you have to improve both yourself and the character. Elden Ring is on the opposite end of that, improving your in game character more than improving yourself. What matters most is what items you have, your rune level, your tools, your weapon upgrades, your spirit ashes, your scadutree frags. The game is about counteracting challenges by finding, equipping, and using the correct tools, not about git gud. That is also why you get a lot more respecs than you would Dark Souls. Trying to approach Elden Ring bosses with a Dark Souls mindset , looking for that "dance" with the bosses is setting yourself up for disapointment - as a huge fan of Sekiro, Bloodborne and the Souls series, I found that out the hard way.

i remember being so flabbergasted when i first fought radahn in the dlc. it was hard to put in words how bad the fight is. but you put it nicely. whole fight is just meta build time, be it completely naked light weight ash of war stuff, or just full heavy greatshield. same thoughts with madness woods. i was so confused why that whole area even exists, its just empty.

On Radahn's -ignoring move: I think it's some kind of fuckery regarding framerate. For many attempts I gaslighted myself into thinking I was rolling at the wrong time until I took footage and went frame by frame until I could see clear as day that my char would still be halfway through a roll when the HP bar would take the hit. I think it may have something to do with the fact that normally being displaced or knocked down by a boss attack gives you temporary s but the first swipe is supposed to combo into the downslam so it checks to see if the first attack hit then ignores your s if so, but some spaghetti code lets it do that normally maybe. Weirdly enough, I had this issue when I was locking Elden Ring to 30fps and when I turned that off the attack worked as intended 100% of the time.

As much as i loved the DLC, something felt off from the minute i finished Belurat. I couldnt put my finger on what it quite was, until a very specific instance where i killed a bunch of imps in a room in a catacomb, which looked heavily guarded. Turns out the item they were guarding was a Somber Smithing Stone 2. One other place where things felt really off was Abyssal Woods. Way too empty. The fear that the atmosphere tried to induce fell flat the moment you realized the woods were empty with one repetitive enemy type. Assassins Approach trivialized the whole thing. I really have no compains with the bosses. The level design is DS1 levels of good, but the rewards undermined everything significantly. I felt the sense that they tried to mesh DS1 within Elden Ring, but were forced to artifically increase the map size to cater to expectations from the success of the previous open world.

Duuuude, you literally explained everything i felt perfectly and detailed. Great video.

Torrent is a spirit so he can’t be killed by anything (that’s why he is never afraid) except by the frienzied flame (that’s why he won’t come in the woods).

SOTE definitely feels like a standalone project. Something you play through fully once and never touch again unless you want a specific item or fight. I wonder if fromsoft decided to cater to newer players who never had the opportunity to play the game on release.

Promised Consort is the result of us praising FromSoft from leaving the roots of Demon’s Souls and pursuing spectacle. It was inevitable.

You pretty much summed up my exact opinion about the bosses in this DLC. When I got to the Dancing Lion, the very first boss I fought in the DLC, I was legit baffled. For the first time since I played DS2, I was not having fun fighting a boss in a Souls game. Then I fought almost every other boss in the DLC and had pretty much the same feeling. At first I thought it was just cuz I didnt have many Scadtree fragment yet, but even after collecting a ton of them and trying the bosses again I was still not having fun and just wanted to end the fight already. It is extremely rare that a Souls boss makes me wanna spam the most OP weapon or spell I got to quickly get their fight over it, and somehow this DLC had so many bosses like that. In the base Elden Ring, only Malenia and Elden Beast made me feel like that. Mostly Elden Beast cuz Malenia only pissed me off with her water dance attack. I would actually bet money that Miyazaki saw how players were using summons like Mimic Tear and spamming that Rivers of Blood skill to breeze through base bosses and decided that DLC bosses would not just have way more HP and attack damage, but also they would be way more offensive to deal with summons. All the while completely ignoring players like me who always solo bosses and play a melee build... Anyway, when it comes to the exploration of the DLC map, I actually liked it. It wasnt perfect, as I think some areas are extremely empty and we could have had more varied environment, but as a big new area I was okay with it. Optional dungeons were mostly fine I guess. The main ones could have been bigger, maybe more unique looking as well, with more secret walls to find. And lorewise...I am not surprised at all for the lack of it. I am used to Miyazaki barely giving us anything concrete and just leaving us to guess wtf is going on. But anyway, all in all, I did not hate the DLC, but I do feel it shouldnt have been 30 bucks. That is too expensive for the mixed feelings I have after playing it. Like half of the bosses REALLY let me down in a way that reminds me of Dark Souls 2. At times this DLC unironically made me ponder if I am too old for Souls games now. Bosses that make me feel like I am wasting my time playing the game should not exist in a Souls game.

i think the problem is that most of elden ring bosses belongs in Sekiro

It’s okay I know In two years “Why shadow of the erdtree is underrated” “Shadow of the erdtree is a masterpiece” “Deep depth dive on why shadow of the erdtree is perfect” Will all be video titles flooding my feed soon😂

What a banger of a video

I am assuming what happened is that fromsoftware weren't planning on doing a dlc from the beginning only after the success of elden ring reached a certain point that they decided to make a dlc which explains why it was announced a whole year later after release and only with an art picture because they only just started working on it, that means that the whole map and it's content was made in one year and 3 months, cut that time down because they were also focusing on armored core 6, so basically shadow of the erdtree was made in 9 months it was too large of a scope and was rushed simply because they never planned to make ahead of time

This is unrelated to your review save for at the end, but I do think your view on Armored Core is pretty ridiculous. The franchise overall is really fun, and 6 is amazing (despite some issues with the multiplayer, but if anything those issues arose due to various Souls mechanics being implemented into the game). I'm unsure if you've beaten it or not, but if you haven't I recommend playing through it. It's a genuinely amazing game with plenty of great weapons and AC parts to try, and although it offers a very different experience when compared to Elden Ring, I would not agree that it is a "B-team" game in the sense of quality. Cheaper to make compared to ER's gargantuan map size, perhaps, but certainly not B-team in terms of quality. In fact, there are various aspects of the game that I actually PREFER when compared to Elden Ring. Just a nitpick on that last tangent, I'm not sure if I agree with your overall review as I'm still thinking on the DLC myself, but I do think you do AC a disservice here and at the very least it'd be nice to hear your thoughts on it (especially if you really did just buy it as a show of support and have yet to play it).

I entered this video thinking the DLC was OK, like a solid 8. But as the video kept going I realized how much better it could have been. You were so real with the map critique.

I've got nothing substantial or constructive to say. But I'll admit that I deadass laughed at the line "Getting hypnotised by a sexy femboy? I can understand that." good on you sir, good on you

The idea of Shadow of the erdtree being a sequel wouldve been so good in hindsight. Especially with how different the dlc is with its progression compared to the main game, why wasnt this just a sequel? I wouldve definitely waited longer and wouldve been more excited to find out that due to the contents of the dlc it would instead be turned into a sequel. What i mainly dont like about the dlc is that it left me feeling… empty by the end of it.

Thank you so much for summarizing your thoughts about Radahn! Its exactly how I feel and its a shame that the last content for my favorite game ends that way :(

It feels like two different studios worked on these bosses , we have midra , metyr , messmer and even romina which are all well designed and than we have the rest.........

I'll level with you, I don't understand what you wanted with this game. You seem so negative about every single thing they did, I can't imagine what you even found fun about the base game. I really can't. You hated so many fun bosses, claimed certain things were just bad design (the zombie boss has the easiest diodgable moves, no idea how you struggled with this but mesmer was no problem). You clearly didn't pay attention to lore, so your confusion with details like torrent running away is silly. You have a good point about some things, like the final boss feeling crazy hard and having that wide triple attack being nearly undodgable. Honest question, artifical difficulty... what does that even mean? People say that, but it generally doesn't make sense to me. It usually boils down to people feeling something is hard without being fun. Okay, sure, that's fair. But that's not "artificial". It's hard, you don't like it, and it just comes off like people want to try to blame from soft for losing to the game when in fact you didn't learn the game. It's like saying "this loss didn't count, it's artifical difficulty. It's not that I haven't learned, it's that the game's challenge is not fair." I've never felt this in the entirety of fromsoft, so I'm at a loss for understanding this argument. Ironically, it's lazy, the very thing people accuse fromsoft of being every time they say "artificial difficulty." Sorry if I'm coming off combative, I do have my issues with the game (camera on bayle and a few other fights is awful, some places are indeed empty, repeat bosses), but I really enjoyed the dlc regardless and hope they continue with this game design and simply fix these quality of life issues. It sucks you didn't enjoy it, I hope they don't let you down next time.

Honestly I am not losing sleep because I didn't get answers for Melina or Godwin. I found the story for Elden Ring to be a mixed bag, and it didn't even come close to Dark Souls lore or Bloodborne lore. And for the most part I enjoyed the bosses except the last one. The most egregious part of the dlc in my opinion was the quests and exploration in general. I don't mind if this is the last we see of Elden Ring. It had it's moment to shine. I am ready for a new story.

I agreed with much of this. The first thing that irked me was just the camera and trying to read tells of the animal bosses, but then their faces would become transparent thus removing the tells of their attacks. I found phase 2 of many bosses to severely limit player interactions. The "undodge-able" attacks became an issue after commander gaius. ever time i struggled to dodge something I would just think "it must by some frame perfect garbage. Metyr's swooping beam attack cannot be dodged. There is a way to med roll radahn's triple swipe, but you have to be moving around his right side before the attack has started, to be able to clear it. But this attack just stopped me from completing the DLC. In phase 2 it would just catch me and stun lock me into death (50 vigor and 17 levels of fragments). I went into the DLC with a venomous fang build and there's just a stretch where everything was immune to poison. the ghostflame dragons, petulance knight, Death Bird, and the furnace golems. The furnace golem i enjoyed the first one as a better fire giant, but then the spamming fireball attack and having to kill 8 of them became such a massive chore. I changed my build so many times just trying to adapt to the bosses. I can enjoy a spectacle, but from a technical side in regards to the combat I just felt it lacking.

From's obsession in designing every boss around spamming dodge rolls makes build variety matter less and less. And that is just boring.

Didn't finish the video yet but you didn't mention the deflecting hardtear for the final boss's bs attack. Not defending the attack or anything, but the deflecting hardtear actually made me enjoy the final boss.

I can sign under every word spilled in here, but most importantly: "I'm a sucker for a redemption ark"

One of my main gripes is how open and barren some of these areas in the dlc are. I mean, the finger ruins serve one questline purpose. Otherwise, they are quite literally pointless. Also, dont get me started on the loot in this dlc. Why would anyone want a smithing stone 5 in an end-game late dlc area?

The AC6 slander isn't really justified. Armored Core games have always been pretty simple and straightforward, and the gameplay is more fun and coherent than what you find in SoTE. I think the issue with SoTE is that too much was cut, and what was left wasn't fleshed out and refined enough, which might just come down to a time/money thing, plus the expansion of the team creating a dip in quality.

Don’t mind these glazers bro. W opinion

As someone who has damaged reflexes cause of years of substance abuse and a neurological disability, im so glad there are people willing to criticize this dlc despite the vitriol of the "get gud" mob. I suck at these games, no shame in it, but i do love them. Beat er, and bloodborne, moving to the rest next. But man, these games are so far from perfect. I use hella cheesy builds to enjoy the game, and thats fun for me. But when even 1 shot players, people who live and die by the most challenging way to engage these fights, have genuine critiques of these enemies, there is most certainly something amiss with the design. Fantasic video.

14:07 oh my fucking god, it's just like the DS3 Soul of Cinder juggle slashes that outright ignore your s so you can be hit in the air where you have s to do the juggles. This attack juggles you too, but after 8 years they didn't bother to fix it I guess.

You just summerized most of my issues with the dlc

It’s pretty insane that dlc bosses nearly force you to use cheese tactics against them. Like what part of that is supposed to be satisfying?

Feeble King referred to the Radahn fight as Fromsoft entering its “Visual Clutter as Difficulty” phase.

36:00 Okay, I had this on in the background and chuckled when I heard this. I had to rewind the video to make sure I wasn’t tripping. On a serious note though, you’re absolutely right. It should feel like an epic dual.

Agree with a lot of what you’re saying but malenia’s waterfowl can be dodged by running away and then dodging into her on the third, no spin at all required even on heavy load. It would also really surprise me if the devs did it any other way

The best difficulty review available! On top of that from the no-hit runner's point of view, so that nobody can criticize that it's a skill issue.

A lot of these boss fights feel like they're purposely made to be reacted to by popular streamers.

My biggest issue with the Shadow of the Erdtree is what I believe to be the root of every problem with content, loot, weapons, boss design and perhaps the one of the few things Dark Souls 2 got right: Separate DLCs. Dark Souls 2 has three DLCs: Crown of the Ivory King, Crown of the Sunken King, and Crown of the Old Iron King. Each DLC has its own content with bosses and lore unique to the DLC while expanding upon the lore of Dark Souls, which is infinitely easier because Dark Souls is "ruined" unlike Elden Ring where the land is actively falling apart. Why I say this is because this DLC feels horrible because it is a jumbled mess in an attempt to get out as much content as possible so that they can move on to the next project. Shadow of the Erdtree was not about Miquella, nor Radahn, and not even Mohg. It was about Marika and just happened to involve Miquella, Radahn, and Mohg. The Land of Shadow is where Marika was born, where she grew up and her village was tortured and killed; it's where she was chosen as an empyrean- something that multiple god candidates can have, such as the old lady with the crucible and the gloam-eyed queen (or Ranni, Miquella, and Malenia)- and Marika won that battle for the throne. Using this, she countered by destroying everything about the crucible. She had Godfrey rebrand the crucible with his knights by making it seem like they were using their faith to create artificial animal limbs and could make the earth tremble- making omens, symbols of perfect societies and the crucible thriving- a terrible curse that must be destroyed. We see that Marika protects her village to this day, having her son and her technically-not-son's friend (Gaius) guard an entrance to what seems like a small furnace that was probably used to burn away whatever Marika had to get passed like we do. Marika's son, Messmer, is leading the crusade against the crucible and as such, everyone you see in the DLC is somebody effected by this... until you get to the point where the game reminds you that Miquella and Radahn are also here. At some point, the game will be like- "Remember that Miquella is here, dismembering himself for the greater good!" or "This guy grew up with Radahn!" despite the fact that regardless of whether or not Radagon and Marika are the same person, anyone of Carian lineage should hate them because Radagon not only broke up a family, but abandoned his wife for his other self and had the audacity to bring his children. The only person who properly responds to this is Ranni, who goes on a mission to never let gods bother mankind again because of it. Sure, that's not the full gist of it and I may have missed some parts. But Shadow of the Erdtree is about Marika, not about Godwyn, not about Miquella, or even Radahn. Another example: St. Trina is Miquella's other half. And the reason she's left in some chasm to die and why there is no addition of sleep spells, weapons, incantations, or the like, is because he abandoned her there to die and so whatever you find in there is it. Most bosses have such high sleep resistances that sleep doesn't matter, and eternal slumber is infinitely better, but it doesn't matter because nothing you fight that actually matters is truly affected by eternal slumber. We also find out that St. Trina is quite literally guiding people in death by soothing the body while the soul can rest. Putrescent Knight is what happens when a body without a soul is comforted by St. Trina, because a mass of flesh whose soul has most likely already been burned by ghost flame has no meaning, it hates it. But no, we get nothing expanding upon that at all. What would have been better to have multiple DLCs like: 1. "Shadow of the Erdtree" Where we learn of Marika's past as we do already in the current DLC. Expanding on her crusade with the crucible, leaving bosses such as Midra, Messmer, and Rellana. This also gives them an opportunity for larger and greater detailed areas, while also possibly adding another set of important bosses. 2. "Era of Compassion" Where we enter through Miquella's cocoon to an alternate world like the realm of shadow, but instead it's all about blood and faith- Miquella actively fighting off Mohg's advance while trying to ascend to godhood so that he can finally wake up. We could have an entire sleep area where St. Trina isn't an enemy, but rather we get to see why she was Miquella's other half, putting many incredibly aggressive enemies into eternal slumber so they can't fight us but also causing other enemies like the putrescent knight to exist. Meanwhile we get a bit more about Mohg and his motivations, not "he was charmed and a pawn," but rather "he was charmed and stronger than Miquella anticipated." 3. "Realm Beyond Time" Where we learn about dragons and the five fingers. Here we could get Bale and more dragon centric bosses and areas, perhaps even more aspects of the bestial lore with Maliketh and ancient deities or legacies of them like ghost flame. And just plenty of other ideas that don't necessarily need to land perse, but rather just go to show that so many of these stories are too big to be cramped into one DLC. The reason why it worked in the base game was because everybody was supposed to be converging in the lands between, everybody had their own factions in their own areas and these areas were exactly as we found them- Godrick and his lot were pathetic, Radahn's faction is fighting off scarlet rot, the Haligtree is dying but awaiting Miquella's return, Mohg and his people are seeking refuge in blood and killing tarnished, while Ranni and the carians are silently building strength. This all worked because the main premise was ascending to elden lord while helping or destroying these factions, while Shadow of the Erdtree just has all of these groups that don't get enough time to shine because they've only gotten increasingly more complex, not less. Elden Ring 2 or another DLC won't matter because they put the most important aspect of the game in the DLC, the divine gate. Apparently, people can just ascend to godhood, which while fine, defeats any purpose of a sequel. By the point in the game, you canonically enter the DLC, the fingers are dead, the greater will no longer responds, the lands between is falling apart, you have to kill the guy guarding death to make sure that everything stays dead, and you burn the tree that helped make everyone immortal. By this point, if you beat the game already, everything is dead and practically every faction is without a leader. What would a sequel do? Just solidify who we got rid of? All the empyreans that had access to the divine gate are gone. We stopped Miquella, Ranni didn't need it because of us, and Malenia would never try to surpass her brother. So, who'd be left that would make a compelling story? The world outside of the lands between is falling apart too, so no land of reeds, the badlands may just be the land of shadow, but nobody knows, all the outer gods that matter have been sealed or already are wielded by characters we defeat. So, they hastily wanted to conclude the story just to ensure that nothing else could happen. Not only that, Marika and Radagon having an endless number of children stops making sense after the fifteenth important demigod and now we're trying to figure out how she had to do this while married to Godfrey or Radagon, who all these important demigods look like. Shadow of the Erdtree is great, I love it, I loved it on my first playthrough and there are plenty of other things I'll love as I play more when I feel like beating the game again. But there are some things that seemed like nobody discussed beforehand or just ignored because they wanted to get this one project over with so that they could get the next one. Which is insane because a possibly rushed project performing this well to me isn't an omen of things to come, but an omen of things that'll be missed in future projects.

The most memorable boss fight I had and FS should had continued taking inspiration from was Slave Knight Gael.

I feel like Elden Ring is too big and too unfocused. The rabbit hole that is the frenzy status effect, insight changing game mechanics all the way to the 2nd half of Bloodborne, the emergence of winter lanterns, hidden areas it's secret bosses, chalice dungeons and DLC have so much more depth to it than Elden Ring. Because Elden Ring has like a million things you can look into but it all stops short. Gloam-eyed Queen Godwynn The Shattering Radagon's roots Frenzied Flame roots how the TEMU winter lanterns came to be Difference between Messmer's fire and Fell God's fire Melina What did Morgott think of Miquella The list goes on forever But it doesnt get deep. Ive seen videos of people yapping about the implications of a single chalice dungeon in Bloodborne because of the designs on the walls for like 2-3 hours. And it reads like a fun audio book while you play and immerse yourself in it. What am I supposed to immerse myself into in Elden Ring? Catacombs? With Death roots that lead to Godwynn's body that has a bunch of missing lore? All the catacombs are the same, what are the implications between them all. Oh some of them have death roots because the tree has roots. That's it. Wide as an ocean deep as a puddle. Go back to tight, linear well crafted stories.

You hit it on the nail when you said it feels like the developers were fans of the mod community.

25:03 Thank god you aren't the one designing the bosses lmao "blood red"

There are legitimate gripes raised in this video but other complaints just seem to be "they didn't make the game the way I wanted". Most players don't belong to the community of players who refuse to use summons and take the time to practice to the point where they can do no-hit runs. The game gives a lot to those people, but complaining that this tiny minority of players didn't get everything they want seems a bit much. Most people don't care if they can't finish Radhan without getting hit and not using summons. And of those who do, a significant portion don't care if they need to use an exploit or a particular move/talisman/weapon to do it. The number of people who care about this are probably dwarfed by the number of people who bought the game and got angry that they couldn't beat the first tree sentinel. But you wouldn't expect FS to adjust their vision to please that minority of players. The game is the game. It facilitates lots of playstyles but if your preferred playstyle is a challenge run, and it only facilitates that style 95% of the time, it's a bit much to start dumping on the developers. Just because you're disappointed doesn't mean that someone did you wrong.

Sure - Consort Radahn is complete lazy spam garbage boss mechanically - but it's also a lazy asset reuse from base game. For the Elden Ring ending, I expected something cool and unique - but what I got was lazy asset flip.

Just starting this video, but I want to say that you have a really good commentary. I think by the end of this video, I will respect your opinion, but I enjoyed it myself. I at least hope you enjoyed this more than Lords of The Fallen.

Unfortunately, I absolutely agree with like 90% of the whole video. It's a shame and I hope they learn from their failures.

the most depressing thing is that fromsoft will probably never hear critiques like this, because its completely drowned out by the overwhelming blind support from fanboys + the git gud crowd. this game and DLC sold extremely well, and thats all that matters. At least i have KC:D 2 to look forward to.

I agree on some surprisingly empty zones, some surprisingly bad designed bosses, but I got the feeling that everyone is loosing sight on the fact that it shares many flaws with the base game (sometime artificial difficulty, gimmick bosses, some zones clearly below the others) and the overral quality of this DLC remains unusual in the game industry (unmatched atmosphere, esthetics, level design, weapons/talismans that deepens the mechanics etc)

Just wanna give a quick mention the reason Torrent is scared of flame of frenzy is because he is a spirit and the only thing that can actually make the spirits perish is frenzied flame which is seen in the frenzied flame ending where torrents whistle gets destroyed

There is a plot point that everyone seems to ignore and i didnt see anyone talk about. In the Frenzied Flame ending we see Melina, a spirit, still alive, while everything else is supposed to have been burned by us. In the DLC we learn that Frenzied Flame is so powerful that it can burn even spirits. Is this a massive plot hole or how would you explain it? Honestly, for a 2.5 years development of a DLC, that already had most of its lore written(per Miyazaki) i was expecting more quality and better boss design. What's even the point of this massive map if half of it is empty anyway? 3/4 areas are basically empty areas just to reach a boss (Abyssal Woods, Jagged Peak, Ancient Ruins of Rauh and Finger Ruins). Dont even get me started on the final boss and ending.

Sekiro will always and forever be the best designed and most complete FromSoft title we will ever get I fear

Also, it’s important to ask why the scadutree fragment system was put in place to begin with. It’s because so many players over leveled themselves, and it’s a consequence of the meta builds and ash summons only put in place to appease the masses. FSW are boxing themselves in, because they’re trying to cater to the casuals while still making the game “hard”. And so bc of cheese and summons, you get an artificially inflated difficulty spike that becomes unfair and unbalanced for players who opt out of cheese and summons.

My main issue with the DLC was the fragments. I did not feel that they were common enough. I would clear out bosses/waves of mobs in the hope to find one, however was met with a cookbook. If they were as common as golden seeds it would have been fine, for an open world rpg the reward for exploration was unsatisfying for the most part. A beautiful, empty world.

Great video. Probably my favorite Elden Ring video to date. I don't even have all that much to say, because it was just spot-on from beginning to end. Your explanation that the Waterfowl Dance doesn't have an "intended solution" is a perfect phrasing of my problems with it, which I was never quite able to articulate. This DLC was a very upsetting and depressing disappointment, but it's really cathartic to hear some sane commentary on it for a change. Thanks, man.

The bosses felt like they were designed with the mimic in mind

The Dancing Lion having a cutscene, then being reprinted randomly later, should say it all.

I’m not the greatest player but I did beat the entire DLC as a naked dragon using dual great katanas which doesn’t really have that great of a move set over using just one. But when I got to radahn I felt forced to switch to asmongolds shield poke build and it trivialized the fight. After spending an entire night trying the boss just to beat it in two attempts with a great shield was pretty underwhelming but other than that I really enjoyed my time with the dlc. Of course I abuse the wiki so getting my scadu fragments wasn’t an issue but I know other people won’t do that and some of these fragments were not intuitive to get. The most egregious had to be the glowing giant pot mobs who can drop many different things and I didn’t realize they even dropped fragments until I got to radahn and went on my hunt just to in the end respec into a great shield build anyway

About the question at the end, gameplay seems like it's designed by a B-team because From Software is B-tier when it comes to mechanical design. They are extremely good at creating cool worlds and spectacles, but their mechanical decisions have been very inconsistent since DeS. Also most of the problems you mention were problems in the main game. They've been trending towards normie sh*t from the start of DS3.

I’m surprised you gave it such a scathing review, I really liked it. I think their goal was to make it feel like it fits perfectly into Elden Ring, as if it could have always existed, and it does, that’s why there’s mausoleums, catacombs, recipe books, etc. It’s literally more Elden Ring. I think you and others were expecting sequel-levels of difference and that’s a bit ridiculous, it’s an expansion, of course it’s gonna be like the base game. Also I don’t get the criticism that there’s “nothing of value to find” and that you’ll “have a complete build by the time you get to the DLC?? There’s tons of weapons for every build you can think of. Every type of character, STR, DEX, INT, FTH or any combo have many new weapons, ashes of war, spells, talismans, etc. there’s new stuff everywhere! Why would any player choose 1 weapon from the base game to use through the whole DLC? That’s boring and I don’t believe many players did that, and From adding new weapons is exactly part of the fun. Majority of players pick a stat to main and bounce around different weapons of that stat. This is further supported by From because the forges give you Ancient dragon smithing stones so you can try out more weapons. On your 1st playthrough of the DLC it rewards exploration with these new tools and gives you tons of content to use these new tools on for fun. Yeah on repeat playthroughs you’ll run straight to the content you care about but that’s true of base Elden Ring too so that’s not very fair criticism.

For torrent being scared in the forest. Frenzy is the only thing in lore that can kill him, as seen in the frenzied lord w/ melina ending. Other than that great vid🙏

This review is exactly how I feel

Glad someone is mentioning how bad the boss arenas are. Way too many empty squares/rectangles. Putrescent knight arena was pretty cool tho

Pretty damn good video. When I first step into the land of shadow I was at awe of the visual it has (sadly no cutscene but alr), looked around and seeing how they design the map verticality as the other areas was "hidden" below the cliff made me really want to go there, literally couldn't fathom the danger and monstrosities those area must have. Now that I have completed the DLC there was alot more copypaste mob than I wanted, though I enjoyed my time (Bayle was best fight), the criticism you made was very valid -There was this emptiness around the map that seem things was missing compared to the base game, giant open field that doesnt lead to anything much, not much things tuck around the corner, you would usually always find caves or catacomb in the base game, but now its just more wild animals that runs around in the DLC -I loved the starter area of Gravesite plain, almost every corner you tryna peek into have something to do (Churchs, Abandoned Village, Ruins, Dungeons) or finding new pathways up or down to new area, rest of the game was meh for me especially with copypasted enemies again, Ellac River was definitely the worst since there's no new boss down there after you take quite some time to ran to the end of it (they put an Ulcerated Tree Spirits, it was so bad), I did enjoy the Rivermouth Cave -Before that there was the poison swamp area which doesnt even have a boss guarding the entrance to the Ellac River, I expect there to be a Poison Crab boss or something lol, even that would be nice -Abandoned Ailing Village really hyped me up that there might be a legacy dungeon filled with these bloodborne inspired (in my opinion) enemies with even scarier monsters and mini-boss, but nah they remained the same and just scattered around the map, which for me I think the Abyssal Wood should have been the deathblight swamp that everyone initally thought and the origin of these bugs things, being the main enemies of the area with a legacy dungeon -Night time only mini-boss got completely abandoned for the DLC, so that sad, literally one of the reason that encourage you to re explore area, now its just for getting Larval Tear and some non combat things that happened at night time. They should've just put the Ghost Flame Dragons as night time only enemies - There was some interconnectivity and its decent (Shadowkeep was nice, liked going from Church District back to Storehouse again), would love it if I could go from Abyssal Wood and somehow ended up to Cruelan Coast, Finger Ruins (since midra have fingers egg store in the manor), talkin bout Finger Ruins, what a disappointment, hella spectacle but man was it empty as hell -Bosses are hit or miss I guess, my progression went alright,Renella as my first boss really took some time but was decent to learn, Radahn took less tries for me but pretty bothersome, Golden Hippo definitely the worst, Furnance Golems was boring, Romina I did in first try, best fight was Death knight, Messmer, Bayle. I feel like Scadu Tree Avatar should've been a field boss and using torrent would be cool as hell for it.

The lack of new enemy types in the dlc REALLY bothered me. We waited 2 years to fight more skull nobles