Elden Ring DLC - I'M TORN - An Honest Mini-Review After 10 Hours Playing 

I agree with a many of these criticisms of both the base game and SotE I think there is something to be said about the flaws of a "Souls-like" open world game. It can be very difficult to create compelling, challenging bosses when you can explore so much of the world before encountering what are intended to be early-game bosses. As with any game system, I think it is both a boon and a flaw. It allows players who are not as skilled at the game to explore the world and find as many upgrades as possible before fighting difficult bosses. Stuck on a boss? Go for a ride on your horse and collect as many upgrade materials as you can to upgrade a nice bleed weapon. The game also gives these players access to summons, spirit ashes, and great shields. I think it is a good thing for the game to be more inclusive in a way that isn't just nerfing bosses to the lowest common denominator. The DLC did nothing to alleviate this aspect of the game. Most people are coming into the DLC with a fairly high level character with a few +10/+25 weapons, so that is the new baseline. Instead of balancing the game around having a fully upgraded weapon, they felt the need to create an entirely new progression system. In my playthrough I ran straight for Belurat. I was upgrade level 3 when I encountered Divine Beast. The fight was challenging and I died quite a few times. I enjoyed it. My friend came here much later in his playthrough, somewhere around upgrade level 10. It was trivial. This is an issue that is present for nearly every boss in the DLC. Fromsoft has no way of knowing when you might stumble upon these Remembrance bosses, so it's hard to fine tune health and damage numbers to make a satisfying encounter. I probably would have preferred a flatter difficulty curve, one that doesn't rely on the existence of Scadutree Fragments at all. Unfortunately, removing Scadutree Fragments means that exploration would become significantly less meaningful unless those fragments are replaced by interesting items. Personally, I found exploring and finding fragments fun the first time around, and I was pleased with all the weapons, talismans, ash of wars, and spells that I was stumbling across. Almost all of the new weapons are both unique and powerful in their own ways. However, I did feel just the same as you with regards to the bits-and-bobs found around the maps. I also have no use for smithing stone 1s or string when I already have access to the ball bearing vendors. That being said, I think you would be surprised by how many very cool items there are to find littered around the world if you went looking for them. It ain't all string. One aspect of your critique that I find somewhat confusing is what you did and did not find enjoyable in the DLC. You say that Divine Beast was "very challenging" but also that you completed it on your first attempt. It feels strange that both bosses you seemed to enjoy the most were the ones you beat in a single attempt. What was different about Divine Beast and Putrescent Knight, besides you having a much easier time with one because you were likely at the appropriate upgrade level. When speaking about the Putrescent Knight, you state that "if I read the boss wrong I was instantly dead" and "I reached the point where I was just trying to out damage it." I know hyperbole is a thing, but you show clips of you not "instantly" dying to hits. And, even if it were true, it comes across as self-inflicted misery, as you also say you are using Bloodboil Aromatics for these encounters. If you want the fight to be more back and forth and not a DPS race, don't use the item that gives you damage and makes you take more damage. If making it a DPS race "quickly [saps] the fun from the encounter" just don't use the things that turn it into that. You have the agency. It's entirely possible that ER just isn't a game for you, but I don't see many of these critiques as flaws of the genre, but instead a comment on your personal taste. You don't seem to enjoy exploration for explorations sake. Finding items that you choose not to use in favor of your tried-and-true occult star fists when the boss is moderately difficult is a you problem, not the fault of an empty world. When going to into side dungeons-catacombs, forges, gaols-you leave before exploring, saying "I know it's going to be empty." That's just factually incorrect. It's like you've decided that things are boring, the DLC is bad, and the world is empty while willfully ignoring the things that exist to be found. It's very odd. I will admit, though you didn't even get to this point, the back half of the DLC is quite sparse. There are large areas with a few pieces of equipment but extremely long stretches of emptiness. Beautiful emptiness, but empty none the less. I'm assuming this is largely an issue with them smashing two DLCs together with not enough time to fully flesh out a few of the areas towards the end. There is also the massive problem of reusing bosses. I don't want to fight anymore Erdtree Avatars or Furnace Golems. I don't need to fight a reskinned dragon for the 20th time. Finally, going into the DLC on NG at level 320 is absolutely wild.

i do agree with a lot of your points here. I think the map is rather empty, which is weird because base game is the exact opposite. It doesn’t reward exploration as well, there were so many talismans, weapons, spells, and secrets in every corner of base game. Instead, the dlc uses scad fragments as a main incentive which just isn’t as engaging as new items for your build. Now, onto some things I disagree with- Damage numbers are kind of crazy at the start, but I want to say, your scad level is INCREDIBLY important. It increases ur defense marginally, and after a few levels the damage numbers felt a lot more fair. You have to get them if you want any semblance of a balanced fight, i think the bosses are well designed, and with the proper level, the damage numbers are fine so that complaint is moreso regarding the scad level system. Which is also valid, I don’t mind a system like that. Sekiro did it well. But sadly, the DLC world doesn’t offer enough incentive beside that so it’s more of a hassle than anything. (defense talismans such as the dragon crest great shield also help immensely with damage numbers.) You also say From should stick with smaller games. I don’t agree with this, and while I understand why you think that I don’t think they should dismiss open world entirely. FromSoft, as you said, excels at tight level design. But this is also something they’ve done for years. Elden Ring was their first attempt at an open world, and they did phenomenal at it. It’s (imo) the best open world we’ve ever gotten from a game. It’s so dense with secrets and things to do, amazing art direction, etc. While the dlc doesn’t reward exploration which makes its size seem redundant, the map is actually incredible and reminded me of DS1. I don’t know if you got far enough, but the way Shadow Keep interconnected between all the regions was amazing and gave me a sense of awe not even DS1 did. The map is so layered in comparison to base game, with things leading back to one another. It’s like a large DS1 map in that regard. Besides the final boss, you can actually do the bosses in any order too. The map is open and accessible regardless of boss progression, similar to how in ds1 you can tackle the bosses in a different order than intended, but expanded upon. The incredible map design and interconnectivity is why this is possible, no other open world game has this much thought put into it. It genuinely did what DS1 did but better. I just don’t think they filled it up enough to warrant its size. But the actual map design is better than base game. What im trying to get at, is that if this is their first foray into an open world, imagine what we would get with refinements and adjustments in future titles. We could get something really magical, an open world that truly feels like a world and not an objective list. (which base game ER is the closest we got to that) I wouldn’t want fromsoft to abandon the idea completely, because if anyone can achieve a true open *world* in a game it’s fromsoft, and they very well might be the only developer who can.

You're spot-on! I think Elden Ring and by extension the DLC have 3 flaws for me personally; 1. I think the quantity of discoverable events in Limgrave is perfect but all other areas are somewhat 'too empty' by comparison. I prefer it a bit more dense. 2. The Scadu Tree fragment placements seem too random, sometimes they are on random pot enemies, sometimes they're behind boss fights, sometimes on random locations. I think the overall exploration experience would have been better placed at predictable locations like bonfires and as boss fight rewards. I think Major Leveling mechanics are better when they're somewhat predictable and thus scalable. (When you discover and clear a new area, you should imho be rewarded for it.) 3. Personally I think uniqueness is key, the minor dungeons (Catacombs, Caves, Mines, Temple Locations with a basement) are a bit too copy/paste. I'd prefer if all of these were as unique as their legacy dungeons. There's one other minor gripe I have and that's with the final boss, the effects on his phase 2 could be tuned down a bit to make it more visible, keep the hitboxes, moves, timing, damage the same...just make sure I can see what's happening.

Finally a good review on the poor balance of the game, hope you get more subscribers cause you make way better nuanced points than the dudes with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. too many people defending this game just say get a different build, use a summons, level your Scadutree, without even recognizing the real points being made. These types of games really belong in a smaller scale, I really loved Lies of P and it made the flaws of Elden Ring’s scale more obvious. Also the progression is the base game is way better because the leveling system and weapon upgrades kind of leads a path and a better sense of progression. It’s really kind of hard to know what your Scadutree level should be, it’s more arbitrary than leveling and a lot of stuff will kill you so fast it just makes me unsure where I should be at.

Me personally i haven't played elden ring for sometime now. Other than getting lost a lot i really enjoy exploring blind and doing puzzle in catacombs. I think it because i already have my build so if i pick up something new cool but i don't really care about the loot haha.

Tbh I kept waiting for the DLC's equivalent of Stormveil, or Leyendell, or Raya Lucaria, or even Volcano Manor. And I was a little dissapointed. The Shadow Keep was the only one that matched my expectations. But to be fair, maybe more dev time went to other open world encounters. I also need to validate your thoughts on how empty the world felt. I think they had too much world and not enough "stuff" to fill it. And I think people hear that and react viscerally because they hate the thought of the opposite -that being less world and therefore less Elden Ring. I can't tell you how many times I'd be checking a nook or a rooftop or an overhang absolutely convinced they'd hidden something here. You know the bits im talking about. Those folds in the geography that they use to obfuscate hidden goodies... but then itd just be empty. I found myself much less frequently getting off my horse and forcing myself to check "just in case" but already prepared to be dissapointed. I explored because I had to. Not because I was enjoying it. Which is the complete opposite I felt in the base game. To be clear it still had adjacent issues like everything being a crafting material lol I think the scadufragments were... necessary but they could have been implemented so much better. One issue is that I'm never sure what areas my character is leveled for and which it isnt. Is this boss hard because he's hard? Or because I'm not properly leveled? Like i probably spent more time stuck on Messmer then was necessary for this reason. But this is a double edged sword. On the one hand it can make progression feel wonky and annoying but on the other hand it does incentivize "exploring and coming back later" which seemed to be a theme of the base game as well. You could also view it as a dynamically adaptive difficulty. You can try a boss, fail, explore and level up, and then return again as many times as you need. Which sounds good in theory but didnt feel great in my experience. For a better player maybe they only need to come back once, and for a worse player maybe they'll have to go off an explore several times. Kinda miserable imo. But that brings me to my next issue. And that's how artificial it made the DLC feel. Arbitrary numbers I needed to get up before I can do this next thing. Whereas the base game maintained a sense of vague meandering towards the next legacy dungeon. Exploring wasnt just a fun thing to do but an absolute necessity. Everyone keeps comparing them to "rune levels" but I think they're much more comparable to smithing stones. Levels have always been a "difficulty buffer" whereas smithing stones were essentially the progression system. And that's just it. The base game did it better. But I'll get to that. My biggest issue is that they're singular little items in the middle of a vast open world. Of course you're going to miss a few... or several. Hell, some are held by random dudes holding pots. At least one was a pot hanging off a cliff that you can shoot! Anyway, Relanna is probably the first boss where you REALLY need them. Its very easy to explore what feels like a sufficient amount, reach her underleveled, and wonder why she's so hard. And also where to even proceed to look for more. So much of this could have been resolved by having a tiered system like the smithing stones. This means you can have MORE fragments in an area than the player actually needs without over-leveling them. Like smithing stones you can miss a few but still find enough. It also makes the exploration feel less arbitrary. You can explore 50/60/70% of an area rather than feeling compelled to check every square inch. Having a tiered system would also mean you're at least vaguely somewhat aware of what you're leveled for and what you arent. It seems to me that they were trying to facilitate a sort of DS1-esque interconnected world. And actually thats one of the first things I noticed playing the DLC is how reminiscent it is of DS1. I'll edit more thoughts in if I have time.

I think this is an interesting perspective and I do agree with a lot of it. Especially when it comes to the damage that bosses do. And I've generally seen 4 ways to defeat bosses. 1) Have a ridiculous damage build that gives bosses no time to really make you deal with their mechanics. 2) Have a ridiculous tank build that allows you to ignore the mechanics. 3) Have someone else do it for you (multiplayer/spirits) 4) Actually fight the bosses. The problem with 4 is as you said, you mess up once, and you're dead. And it's very easy to mess up because the bosses are full of "gotcha" attacks that have a cheesy unnatural delay in them to punish rolling/parrying. Inconsistent combo endings making it difficult to see when you can actually punish the boss. Instant input reading. Etc etc. I don't dislike the open world thought, since it allows one to get to many of the weapons without having to defeat the bosses, allowing you to actually build a character with those weapons quite early on. I think what these games could use is a normal New Game+ that allows you to restart the game keeping most of your stuff without being forced into a higher difficulty. It would be especially useful if you could choose what to keep so people can do silly challenge runs at different levels without having to farm levels or play for half of the game because that's the earliest point to get the challenge item.

Such a fantastic review. Really, really well done friend.

You highlighted lion and rellana as standout fights, so I watched your first try videos, and I'm now even less enthusiastic with sote/ER in general with how unbalanced it is. Compared to me, you were doing insane damage in these fights and did them first try, but weren't you ultimately robbed of an even better experience. Those are supposed to be the standout moments, but they ended so fast. And your reward? It immediately spit you back out to wander the empty open world. I think you don't ever want to win on your first try, so I hold back with my build a bit in these games (maybe that was a mistake this time). If you fight these two bosses with low damage, I think you'll find they are absolutely awful and tedious, with hardly any openings, at least for my build, a 50% chance to jump back after a combo to cancel a punish window, and so on. All I do in these fights is watch the boss dance around until it does one of the few punishable attacks. About balance, you called putrescent knight ferocious, but that's actually the only boss I beat first try. Perhaps he's weak to holy damage which my build is heavy on, and I also had a lot of fragments at that point. Again, I don't see the value in having these extremely different experiences brought on by the open world and weird item balance. I just don't think this open world stuff really works in a souls game and I think this dlc was a great opportunity for a more linear outing. I thought messmer and midra were incredible fights, right up there with their best from the past, because they actually have a lot of openings you eventually figure out, some even in the middle of their strings, and they hit that sweet spot of 15-30 tries to defeat. Like in the base game I have never died a single time to either version of Loretta, so even though she seems like a nice enough fight, it's just not satisfying enough to win on your first try, and so that's when I think something isn't hard "enough." This is why I also try to hold back a bit, and of course not use stuff like spirit ashes. I completely agree about the exploration. We didn't need these fragments. People were already going to explore exactly as much or as little as they wanted to. It was self regulating and perfect. But now I feel compelled to roomba over every inch of land in the game. And once you start doing that, you start seeing how empty it really is, and it is beyond tedious. I won't be replaying these, not even the base game. It's just too big, empty, and a chore to get to the parts I care about. My last whine about balance, you highlighted two dual blades in the video, rellana's and rannah's. Yet I think if you actually used these, you would have a completely awful time in this game, because it increasingly seems to be designed around shields. I don't know why the final boss has this 1-2-cross slash attack that you can't fully roll through. It only exists to punish people who cannot block, especially on phase 2. If you can block, it's just another thing you see and keep holding L1, roll the final bit, and get a big punish.

Appreciate the review. A lot of thought was put into this clearly. I agree with some of your points, but I think most of what you try to impart here stems from how far you are distanced from the average player. Overall Elden Ring is designed, intentionally or not (probably not), more around the "casual" enjoyer. Those that go in, play the game once or twice and then move on. The large open areas convey exactly what you already mentioned: the ability to be impose awe, but also to be able to explore everything on the horizon. For me personally, as someone who is a more "casual" enjoyer of FS's works (played everything and completed all bosses, but most just once) this worked really well and I think ER might stand as one of the most grandiose games I have ever played. Secondly, the open-world aspect is somewhat justified through allowing players to tackle things at their own pace. You don't run into a boss three dozen times over like you do in previous titles - you just go *somewhere else*. Again, this is primarily beneficial to those casual players. I don't think bluntly stating that ER prefers quantity over quality is a fair criticism in that regard. It has many issues for sure, and I do agree they need to learn how to handle their worlds better content wise however. I do agree with FS's strange obsession of adding intermediate padding to boss-fights. It's the one thing I just don't see the appeal of. I've also never heard anyone explain it to me convincingly. The Putrescent Knight is a good example. It's just annoying for the sake of being so with the unnecessary intro. The ability to replay bosses would have also been appreciated. When it comes to "I like bosses that surprise me"; I think this is again you just being so far removed from 99% of the playerbase. You are so intimately familiar with the game you enjoy it kind of "bullshitting" its way into defeating you. For most people this isn't fun (I actually made a video on this in the past, I think FS's bosses are in fact so obtuse many of the attacks are mechanics in their own right). Struggling really hard to keep the patterns down and finally getting a boss to 20% hp just to be instant-killed by some random particles is demotivating. As the game targets a wide audience it can't just cater to being "flashy and surprising" solely.

There were quite a few issues I had with the camera on certain bosses. I also dislike some of the cheap tricks they used to arbitrarily lift the difficulty (adding mobs, blight, or not allowing you to auto-lock on different parts of the body for larger bosses). I was on the fence until I fought Messmer, the final boss of the jagged peak, and the final boss of the game. Those three were demanding but so worth it. The final boss of Jagged Peak was so memorable- and is up for me with Owl and Ishinn as all-timers. I appreciate your criticisms.

I'm glad that there are others that recognize the flaws of ER. Its a great game compared to others, but compared to FromSoft previous works i think it falls short. My most memorable moments in the game werent open world "postcard zones", but those closed out castles and caves with intricate design and interconnectivity. If we were to cut off the fat out of ER, I bet we would have the best open world game ever, however it would be only 40% in scale of what it is now and i dont think that is wrong. In a world where quantity is dominating heavily, quality will shine, but we reached the point where it just doesnt pay off to make quality, thats why FromSoft was one of the few remaining studios that didnt go "mainstream" until now. But after reading many other comments, i decided to leave mine short and will say that to anyone interested in the topic of quality vs quantity, the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a must read on the topic and might shine light on why we have this opinion on the game.

I really don’t know what to make of this DLC, I loved the majority of the (unique) bosses, but the world really feels underbaked. Not only are there MASSIVE areas in open world with nothing of value in them, but I found that even the legacy dungeons didn’t really have the same quality as either the base game, or any previous Souls games. I stayed up all night to beat the DLC the day it came out. Since then I’ve been running around trying to find what I’ve missed. As I’ve explored more, I’ve found that there really isn’t much to explore. The world is nice to look at, but its design has all the same pitfalls as the base game and then some. I’m hoping they add patches where they sprinkle some more items around the world, because once you beat the bosses, there really isn’t anything to do.

Main issue isn’t empty world, base game has a lot more empty spaces. The thing with the base game is that there aren’t many vertical design. So it’s easy to tell that you’re making progress and going somewhere. Don’t forget when Elden ring came out it face the same criticism that the world is empty 😂. What about now how did it all of a sudden turn into “the base game isn’t empty.” There’s about 100 weapon plus 42 or 40 spells to find in SoTE. 10 remembrance boss that aren’t even far from each other. Give it sometime once you know where all the Scadu tree fragments are and what’s important and not important. The feeling of emptiness would be gone like the base game.

Bloodborne is probably my favourite From Soft world, unbelievably tight and well paced for the content. I hope they go back to a game style like that next time.

18:45 I haven't played the DLC yet, but I agree with what you say at this point. I loved my first Elden Ring playthrough when it came out, but that's pretty much the only full run I have done of the game and it's not because I don't like it enough to replay, it's just because it's too long imo. I got about halfway in with a magic build and just recently started a fresh char for the DLC because I normally like to start over when going for DLC in Souls games. The thing is, with only being able to play a couple of hours a day, it will take a long ass time and honestly so far I'm enjoying coming back to the game, but I don't even know if in the next few weeks i'll just say screw it and load up my 160lv char and go to the DLC because I might not feel like going through the whole base game first. And sure, I know I could skip a ton of content and just do the requirements to go to the DLC, but it would still involve some grind to be prepared and imo I don't really like skipping too much stuff in these types of games. This is probably my major gripe with the game, but it's a double-edged sword as in it was mindblowing at launch and first playthrough the size of the game and how much you had to uncover, but then it becomes too tedious to go through on further playthroughs

I really enjoy the DLC when I'm not constantly running around exploring the tedious and redundant map. I normally go around the perimeter of each location and then zig-zag across the area to try to thoroughly explore it so I dont miss any items. I can't really help but to do this cause I am the gamer that doesnt want to miss anything at all, but my playstyle is making this such a drag. Maybe I am slightly to blame but I do believe the exploration in this DLC could have been better designed.

One thing I don't see anybody mention is where the hell is the rune arcs? All that space to put loot and all we can get is a bunch of low level smithing stuff

Man its crazy to hear you say so many of the things I was trying to explain to a buddy about why I'm not enjoying the DLC. You actually managed to make it make sense tho great video. Also I would say keep playing it got better for me the further I got in. I think a bit of my issue was a feeling of I've done this so many times before, I kinda just want to explore and see all the new stuff. then I realized there wasn't as much as I would have wanted. Idk I'm torn maybe more time will make it more clear for me.

I beat it in 4 days, almost 100% completion (impossible on blind playthrough). After waiting 2 years, i think my expectations were too high, but also i have too many irl things on my mind that i feel takes me out of the experience, the main goal of playing the dlc for me was beating it as fast as possible so i could get back to regular programming lmao. I also missed ansbachs quest dialogue which is PIVOTAL for the lore going into the final boss experience for the first time. The areas did feel emptyish and the areas overall didnt impress me that much, especially rauh ruins, enir ilim is nice but we already had leyndell as an endgame area so it kind of feels like the same thing again. Another thing, i couldnt see shit half the time, i have real life night time blindness and if im not wearing my glasses while playing the game i just cant see shit lmao. Now heres the pros: the dlc felt DIFFERENT. Honestly it felt more like dark souls for a lot of it than elden ring lol it gave off those vibes. The level design was more intricate and intentional which is an upgrade from the base game, but of course without as much to do that aspect falls short. The bosses themselves were great, but i was left wanting more for lore wise. We'll never get other outer got avatar fights, or other people mentioned in lore like rosus usher of death, gloam eyed queen and others, not to mention the places we'll never go to like the badlands, land of reeds, eochaid, and the helphen. But the biggest one was throwing away the castle sol/eclipse story potential. I KNOW godwyns soul is dead which is why miquella couldnt revive him, but then why even elude in the base game that hes trying to revive him. The eclipse was how he could have brought him back. It would have added the same layer if tragic downfall that is with rhadan/miquella except it would have been even more tragic. The purest noblest demigod who never got a chance to rest, still would never rest as he becomes miquella's puppet instead. It should have been godwyn not rhadan

Rare, level headed, reasonable discussion about the DLC

You deserve more subscribers dude, keep grinding

I believe the point of this dlc was to insentivise exploration before i did shadow keep i did most other mini dungeons and bosses and got a plus 12 blessing. If you found nothing in the overworld you must have overlooked many areas i would recomend looking at tye wiki map it gave me a funner experience

I agree with most of these takes. I was really underleveled and had frustrating fun with the Lion and Rellana then I explored and had frustrating fun with Putrescent Knight and Commander Gaius and then all of a sudden Messmer was a joke and took waaay too much damage to be engaging he died so quick I had to do nothing for a while to see his moves, and I realized the Scadutree fragment system was the worst element in the whole DLC with the jokingly horrid exploration rewards at times. I would still say I spent my money well and that feeling I got discovering Cerulean Coast, The seal on the fissure and fighting the Divine Beast Dancing Lion was great. I'm just tired of the get good gang acting like it's a flawless masterpiece, especially since most of them are using summons and sorceries and skipping what I view as the essence of the game. Overcoming the intense challenges the boss fights present to you through commitment, not going to a grace and artificially nerfing enemies with scadutree fragments rather than the level system that felt like progressing your character with the spoils of war(runes) you earned from fighting.

I overall loved the dlc although my problems with the game are just as prevalent here, i actually didnt mind the open areas and thought the landscapes were incredible. my biggest problem is that you can explore too much of the map without having access gated by encounters. I understand this is a core design intention although for a player who has always min maxxed my playthroughs and who enjoys that aspect so much of these games ive always found it extremely hard to feel like im at the balanced level for the encounters. an example in the base game is on my first playthrough i went through stormveil castle and loved it only to find liurnia and was amazed althoygh after finding you can run around thr side of the castle it immediately ruined stormveil for me entirely since i usually min max my characyers it makes me feel inclined to explore a whole new reigion before actually "playing the game" and this same problem i have with the game is so much more intense with being able to explore all of the altus plateau and mt gelmir before really doing any real boss fights turns the game into a gps horse riding simulator. I was so excited o fight relanna and gain access to the scadu altus although that was all stripped away once i found the spirit spring to the fort of reprimand and gained access to the region early. sekiro is my favourite game from has ever made and id say its mainly because even with this same approach i play these games in the entire game felt perfectly balanced even with doing all the side content which in elden ring feels like if i fight too many optional bosses the main encounters will feel much much too easy. I understand this is mainly an issue with my playstyle and this isnt an issue for evryone. I just love the idea of open regions gated behind legacy dungeons but skipping them and having access to most open areas from the get go just destroys th pacing of the game for me. This is also coming from someone who loves challenge runs and sequence breaking the other games such as ds1 with sgs and other skips found across the series, the difference being when you skip ahead in those games the encounters become more challenging because your undderlevveled instead of thr skipping enabling you to become overpoweredd trivialising everything that comes before. lmk your thoughts im interested to hear what poeple thiknk about this take. Also ive always thought id enjoy elden ring much more if the stormveril side road to liurnia just didnt exist.

I agree that the maps much more empty but the dungeons and content you experience are much better than the base game. I would still like there to be some more filler content to make the map more dense tho and the field bosses are especially bad for some reason(either npc battle or a copy and pasted boss from the dlc or the base game). Half the appeal for exploration for me was figuring out the map like a massive puzzle, like one massive dark souls level and the amount of content that is easily miscible (like the abyssal woods being hidden behind an illusory wall in a dungeon then in a coffin then riding down a river and platforming on gravestones then jumping of a cliff to discover a dark catacomb that goes all the way down to a unique boss.) which really makes the moments of discovery hit much harder. Level balancing is pretty shit tho

I think you contradict yourself when you say that they didnt focus on quality over quantity. The DLC has less stuff to do but everytime I find somthing its much more unique then in the base game. All the dungeons in the base game got very repetitive. Every area in the DLC feels much more unique and impressive. Putting more stuff in the overworld to have more busy stuff to do would be a focus on quantity. Another Problem comes with the gear the game already gave you. What is the game to give you? You already have a lot of Items. The new weapons have cool moveset and I wanted to play them all. The basegame though had many weapons with similar moverset. Evertime i got a new weapon i wanted to try it. But I heard the Complaint of emptiness a couple of times so I am not saying its not valid. it just comes down to preference.

tbh after being so hyped for the dlc my first playthrough felt off, i was like this is really good but compared to the base game and after 2 years felt like it was worse than the base game, the exploration was really fun to me but most of the areas of the dlc felt empty, celurian cost was beautifull but felt like a nice looking piece of empty space

They should just add a mode that lets you replay bosses whenever you want, like in Sekiro

Yup, pretty much nailed it. On my first playthrough of the DLC, the empty world and poor rewards didn't bother me too much personally due to novelty. On repeat playthroughs however, the DLC and the base game tend to feel like filling out a grocery list of items/weapons/spells/etc. so I can get to fighting the cool bosses. The base game's MANY reused catacomb dungeons are the most striking example of how ridiculous the asset reuse is. When I was in the flooded part of the Shadow Keep and saw something moving around in the water, I was ecstatic to fight an aquatic boss. Color me surprised when it's another fucking ulcerated tree spirit. A lot of this is an unfortunate consequence of designing an open world game, as creating exciting content for every nook and cranny you find is unrealistic in terms of both budget and time. That's why I agree that they should focus on a more streamlined experience in the future. The obvious intent with the egregious balance was for you to explore and find as many scadutree blessings as possible so that the experience is similar regardless of what level you start at. The problem with this is that you still have to equip defensive talismans and level vigor to 60 regardless of your blessing level or build if you want to don't want to get 1-3 shot by bosses. It's either that or using one of the (currently) overpowered weapons/strategies to nullify the challenge of bosses (shields, bloodfiend's arm, etc.). Just like the base game on release, the poor balancing often funnels players into using the strongest stuff rather than what they would have most fun with. For me, the highlight of the DLC was (beyond the novelty of it) the presentation, story, and bosses. Everything else was either okay or at worst frustrating. I did not enjoy traipsing around for 10 minutes for another goddamn cookbook.

Liked and followed within the first 2 minutes because of what you said about the fandom's inconsideration of any form of criticism whatsoever and however valid it is, simply rebutting with " git gud " . It's pathetic.

The long carride analogy you stated @10:40 is resonating with me. Funnily enough, I felt it´s zenith at the Ancient Ruins of Rauh. I played with my brother over discord and we bascially bumrushed through the whole map with torrent, because we wanted to fight the next boss rather than exploring this beautiful but really empty place. I think FromSoftware's approach with "less is more" and "show don´t tell" is better suited for enclosed spaces rather than open world, in my opinion and I hope their next game will be again in a small scale world. That´s coming from a dude who finished the DLC and liked it for the most part.

For context, Elden Ring was my first From Software game in 2022 and I fell in love with it. I then beated Dark Souls 1 and Sekiro and I don't think you make good arguments. You complain that it is an empty open world when there is massive massive lore items everywhere you find your way. New weapons, new enemies. The smiting stones aren't there just to fill up the world for no reasons, its to have a chance to try those new weapons and not only that, they give you specific items to beat specific bosses. I have been playing this DLC for more than 40 hours, not by dying consistently by bosses, but by exploring it all. It's not a new game plus, but I could still die with one shot and Im still making it out and surviving. I may have struggled with one or two bosses, but I have so far beated all the major ones (Spoiler: I still have not burnt the tree thing because I keep exploring more and more). I completely hate your point of: Quantity over quality, which is false. Its both, theres quality and quantity. People are blinded by how wonderfully designed the bosses are and how replayable they are, it's like to perfect is to much. In short: Elden Ring as a whole and the DLC were made to be delicately played by looking at every details, to be enjoyed with careful and slowly. You can fucking run it all through and fuck yourself over multiple time in just 10 hours, but it will be hard and for fucking crying out loud ITS END GAME CONTENT. It was specifically made for normal fans to enjoy the lore and details and fans like you to have a difficult time. So please take your time, there is no shame in slowing things down and enjoying

Agreed 100%. Great vid bro. I do hope you give it another try sometime in the future cause the boss right after where you are is S tier

I do feel empty sometimes ):

I like how he used a strength build on rellana and dancing lion because with my old build which was just a normal ass milady build because I liked the way it looked and played. I got so fed up with it and just stacked up poise and strength and put on a colossal weapon and first tried them. As cool of a spectacle they were to fight I just didn't enjoy them as bosses. Dancing lion is just too big and needs either a bigger arena or they desperately need to pull the camera back like how they do in sekiro whenever you fight something big. I spent more time looking into the bosses than I did fighting them and a lot of the bosses are just waiting. Waiting for the 17 combo attack to end or waiting for their 4 different chain they can go into get thrown out or waiting for their dodge to come out so I can chase them down. All in all this kinda just makes me want to play sekiro. I think the souls combat really peaked with sekiro and looking at a lot of the boss designs it just feels like they were designed with the deflect combat in mind for half of their kits and dark souls for the other half of their kit. Maybe im just rambling on a topic I don't know too much about since im not a game designer but the empty open world of the DLC and the fast paced patience test that is the bosses just arent any fun for me. I loved exploring the DLC areas for the other games but I'm just really struggling to get through the areas in this DLC. Edit: A great example of an empty area are the blue and red flower area. Blue area all there really is is a copy pasted dragon and a cave that takes you to an island to fight a NPC boss. while you get a cool weapon and armor there after that the area is pretty much useless besides the vista and wall of light. The red flower area only has a fire giant thing, death bird, hippo, and one cave. When I reached the end of those part I was left with the feeling of "that's it?" I spent maybe an hour and a half just riding torrent around trying to find some kind of secret and all I found was some random items and some copy pasted bosses. Love the beastman samurai though that guy was cool even if he was a copy paste of a dungeon boss.

Loved the main unique boss designs. But the map annoyed me mostly due to it being 90% black spirit peasants, quickly stopped caring to kill my way through the level designs when its the same shit I have been fighting for 100 hours beforehand. I agree with your review, and good on you for actually saying it, cos most people refuse to see the flaws of it for some reason.

I respect your opinion, though I disagree. I really enjoyed DLC. Had a lot of fun with it and hope you find more joy in it

Finished the dlc and I gotta say it pretty disappointing it’s definitely worse than the base game. The exploration almost punishes you by wasting your time by giving you a cookbook or smithing stone. The bosses are overturned. Fromsoftware is known for making hard but fair games. I think they hyper fixated on the “hard” part. But the difficulty to me felt very cheap unless you find fragments the bosses can 1 shot you and if you get caught in a combo it’s GGs. They also added so many aoe attacks so even if you do dodge perfectly you’re still gonna get hit. The camera was horrible to. There’s too much shit going on look at any dlc boss and compare to malenia and its night and day with all the shit going in the dlc. I think malenia is the golden standard for what a true “hard” boss is and the dlc bosses are just cheap and annoying and honestly miserable. I do gotta say that the design and the overall aesthetic of the game is beautiful definitely the only upgrade from the base game. Overall I feel like the dlc is a cheap copy of the base game which is still good thing. a copy of a masterpiece is still a good thing but for me its a 7/10 it’s just more elden ring they didnt fix any of the problems the base game had and only amplified them I think this is the end of the dark souls formula they can’t go any further. remember you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

Good video

The only solution i see is to let from cook up a game for 10 years😂

I think From should keep making Open World games. Even if we have a lot of them, the majority is just half baked and are copies of genshin that do everything they can for you to buy things in app. For a good time the only real open world game was Minecraft. After Zelda BOTW (not a full open world but man the story and gameplay was good) released we got some more, but until some tima that was it, then we got Genshin that has a good open world with good story and then Elden Ring. That's the only top open world games today (at least in my opinion). I don't mind if from cooks another open world game if it has the potential to be better than Elden Ring. Well hope you understand what I'm saying, I just woke up and just watched part of the video (but still wanted to comment).

I dont agree, but i still enjoyed the video so thanks :)

You need motivation to explore an open world? Go play fallout 76 or skyrim.. I finisher the dlc with a strenght character found plenty of weapons.. you can find solitude greatsword and savage lion's claw right in the beginning then you find New enemies New armor don't really see your point here...

The open world just sucks. Did so in the main game and it's the same in the DLC. Let's hope From Software goes back to their old world design philosophy.

What I don't really understand how you think the dlc is empty, while the base game is not. The dlc has something to see around literally every corner and because of that it made made me want to fully explore it, while compared to the base game which had tons of areas in Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, Mountaintops of the Giants that had quite literally nothing to do, no bosses to fight, no cool scenery to look at, no ruin to explore, just empty. In those areas all you could do is just exist. I could give examples, but this comment is already too long. EDIT: My point is that the dlc is the exact same in terms of rewards as the base and it believe it is wrong to call more empty than the base game when it's literally just the base game but more compact and all those smithing stones are really useful for people like me who wanted to switch to new dlc weapons and if you explore you get a lot of them stones.

Playing the DLC felt like replaying Elden ring. All weaknesses of being an open world were very noticeable and the way the upgrade system works was really not a great idea.

I agree that the DLC feels a bit empty and desolate at times. I remarked as such to my friends. I also agree that the loot reward for exploration seems a bit out of balance with the sheer amount of emptiness you’re traversing through between hotspots of activity. I am also terribly disappointed with several aspects of the lore that feel tremendously lazy and retconned when compared with aspects of the base game that were changed. I was sure we would find out something more about Marika that caused her to do the things she’s done, but instead she’s just another angry woman who was a victim and then uses power to destroy everything and everyone because a woman can’t be a victim and also come into power without destroying everything and everyone. I also feel like the vilification of Miquella who did so much to help the downtrodden, etc… is horrifically distasteful. Everyone wants to believe Ansbach’s propaganda? Just because he says “Miquella, pure and radiant, he wields love to Shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying.” Sure there is. Someone who invaded your village and chops up your family to make pots out of them or feeds them to a giant snake god or commits genocide after genocide with a war longer flame thrower or is addicted to war and battle and kills for sport or brings on a night of eternal darkness and emptiness after a thousand year voyage into dark, doubt and loneliness, etc etc etc etc All of that being said I can appreciate a critique of the game. But I do think it’s not quite as bad as you’re saying in my opinion and it just makes the DLC. Bit tedious and requiring frequent breaks.

The map feels great and urge3s me to explore every nook and cranny. I disagree,

either u do a fulll rev or u dont, this is half baked