There's Something Wrong With Shadow of the Erdtree

I like it

i agree entirely with literally every point this review makes, this dlc has left a bad taste in my mouth

Skill issue

10/10 legendary bait

The wild thing is, despite all valid criticisms, I am more invested in Shadow of the Erdtree than any other game I’ve played this year

Always something to bitch about. Bye!

Great review, I've got a lot to say

One, I really appreciate the fact that despite being someone who is clearly not a casual and is good enough at these games to no-hit every boss, you still critique the artificial difficulty and how it specifically detracts from the casual experience. Lends a lot of credence to your review being objective overall.

Two, and this is a weird one, I agree with practically every point you made but for some reason I just... enjoyed the DLC a lot more than you did. At least on my first go around. I did do a new game plus playthrough, and decided to fight every remembrance boss again, and the absolute slog that was that experience was pretty awful. Midra was easily the worst aspect of that slog, unlike you I actually really enjoyed that boss and its lore, but holy shit was getting to him again mind-numbingly difficult and boring. Not only is everything leading to it exhausting, but the Abyssal Woods are the worst part of the game hands down. I can understand disabling Torrent at least for the winter lantern section to mandate the stealth, but the whole area? And I'm glad I finally found someone who also hated the aesthetics, everything online talking about how scary the atmosphere was just didn't click for me, though admittedly it was the one part of the DLC I had to spoil for myself because of how hidden the path was so I already knew who Midra was going into it, partially ruining that pretty cool cutscene.

Messmer must've been designed by another team because that fight is inhumanly good. I literally blitzed my way towards him directly after Rellana so I was way underleveled for it making it extremely challenging and fun for me. Sorry you didn't get that experience. As for the other Remembrances, while I fully agree that most of them don't deserve the title, I do wholeheartedly disagree that making them minibosses and cloning them would've been a good solution. You might be the first reviewer I've seen who actually enjoyed all the overworld duplicate bosses lol, boss reuse is probably my single biggest problem with base Elden Ring and while I don't like these bosses being elevated to remembrance status, I'll take it over them being duped.

Overall, I can't quite say why I had a better time with it than you did, I think maybe just things lined up a little better for me level-wise, but yeah, agree with basically everything else in this video.

I slogged through the entire dlc and then got Radahn to phase 2 about 10 times and gave up. It's a waste of my time and I completely agree with you. The amount of non developer intended ways to cou ter stuff in this game is just too much to the point where 90% of this game becomes an abuse of AI limitations rather than actual fun and rewarding gameplay.

People who defend ER and SotET to the death are mindless drones who only use difficulty as their defining metric.

It’s so sad 😞..
I don’t wanna start with PVP..

My head 🤯

Camera wouldn't have been as much of an issue if we simply had the ability to strafe without a lock (I can manage camera with a mouse fine enough, as long as a boss doesn't teleport behind me too much... which they often do). As it is, unlocked movement means dealing with limited character turn-rate/running inertia which often become unmanageable.

Also, you are too dismissive of AC6.I find it was really good and innovative with it's combat, even if limited in scale.

Well.. Almost an hour of my time wasted listening to a rant

It's a boring DLC

This guy doesn't even know shit about the lore but still talks shit about it, there is literally an item description saying "Spirits can't be killed but even the flame of frenzy can burn them and kill them", and you somehow think that it doesn't make sense that Torrent is scared? Bro, wtf

Edit: "And he is called MIDra for a reason, he is a glorified mini-boss". The worst fucking take I've heard in my entire life, Midra is tier S+ and one of the best bosses, wtf are you talking about???

Damn, those downvotes. I found your assessment of the base game to be a little too favourable (though I do like ER more than DS3, despite everything), but hats off for calling it like you see it, and not trying to shill.
The "new lore" sounds like last-minute retcons and bullshit. I doubt there's a B-team factor to blame here. Miyazaki has fallen.
I guess we'll have to wait for the Lies of P DLC to show us what a real DLC should look like... it better not disappoint.

tbh radahn is very dodgeable you just need to practice

The roll catch can be dodge pretty easly yes, you just need to understand when he does it, thats the hard part, you can roll with the first attack toward the other blade and dodge both at the same time, or dodge arround him toward the first blade and roll back, orr do a normal backstep for the first and roll the second , as for melania there is a far simple way to dodge it that was intended, run back for the first 4 bursts and the last 2 roll toward her, done, no exploits, no 360s headshot bullshit, is it frustrating? Yes but i feel frustrated by any boss since i have 30 vigor and die from 2 hits, thats another ting, peoples want to make the game harder for themselfs and cant take it, the game is not perfect but i done my first playtrough armourless with no shields it was pretty nightmarish when i started to use parrys everyting became more fun, when i dont die from 2 hits, is more fun, when i try tings out is more fun, honestly my real grudge with the dlc is the dancing lion, it can be avoided that the camera dont fuck you up but is extra work, the fire golens, the lack of cutscenes at times and well other tings abaut exploration at times, aside that i liked every boss, i think they upped the choreography and music with this dlc wich i liked alot but it feels incomplete story wise, like there is someting else to be done, maybe it will make sense in the long run or they just got lost in the lore

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 iframes is the downward slash. It's supposed to cut iframes 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.

I think the way you fought rellana was completely self imposed, tbh. You can fight a lot of fromsoft bosses like that, and come out with the exact same complaint, even if they have gap closers. I feel like a lot of these complaints were kinda similar to the ones people had when the game came out. "Margit has rollcatches and wont stop attacking!" That kind of thing. Anyway, no disagreements on radahn. The camera, the soypoint bait presentation, the goofy action figure movements, the fact that all you can do is roll and run away, all of it was super disappointing as a final boss after gael and midir in ds3, and to me it exposed that a lot of people don't care about boss design in these games, as long as it's hard.

good video. But hey, Armored Core 6 is awesome.

I definitely feel that especially after rushing 6 characters through in in 9 days I felt very disappointed with plenty of the bosses designs

TBH. The bosses are easier than I expected. That was the big disappointment. Except for the Dragon Dancer, everything feela
Like I’ve seen it before.

Skill issue

The DLC missed the mark for me too, in a similar way. Exploration was a chore instead of something I delighted in doing. It's like they took the JA to heart, to many dungons, too much boss reuse and went with it.

I like the concept of the scadu tree blessing but think it'd have been better served to have divyed it up with Armor upgrades to buff defense, shadow realm only weapon levels (35 and 15) to buff offense. It's too simplisitic now.

One thing I disagree with is I like the bosses, I think artificial difficulty is found in the early games, where simplistic bosses were made more difficult by the run backs. I thought the Radahn fight was great to master. I see the issue with the 1 move, but it doesn't matter to me as much because my skill level tops out at deathless runs, so no hit isn't something I concern myself with.

I agree with you 💯. I played elden ring because I really loved the game and the world, and it was hard to put down. I play shadow to justify the 40 I spent on it. I play the dlc in short bursts and turn it off to play other games.

I’ve never wanted to disagree more, but I couldn’t find anything to disagree on.

Bro hot takes for click baiting.

Haven't watched the whole vid yet. My issue with the DLC is it's pretty much still Elden Ring. It's still extremely fun but I was waiting for something to hook me and it felt like I was doing the exact same thing I did 2 years ago 90% of the time. I just didn't have the patience for most of the bosses and exploration.

Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty as a comparison felt really fresh vs the vanilla version of Cyberpunk. But maybe it's helped by the fact that they reworked the entire stat system which changed a huge chunk of the experience

it took me months to beat radiant absolute radiance, so by this guys logic hollow knight is also a garbage game, also there are not cheap tricks or exploits you can use there, the only way to do it is with your raw skill alone, in elden ring thats not the case, you can cheese your way through anything.

Saying that armored core looks like it required low effort is so fucking embarrassing it s actually insane 😂

The worst thing to happen to souls games is for them to gain so much traction that casuals play it. You and people who share this opinion about SOTE truly do not understand from soft design and it's sad.

L lmaoooo
mentioning hard tracking on final boss thrusts, then saying messmer is fine, when he has a goofy hard tracking thrust.
hating so many bosses but thinking romina is good, WILD.
I don't get why so many people suck at fighting divine beast, it's a very cool design but for some reason you just keep calling everything lazy or clunky.
Mad because bad

With the waterfowl problem
I think the intended way to dodge it is to outrun the first charge and dodge through the second and third. She has a cooldown before she can use it again so the general strategy would be to keep more passive approach while keeping your distance to dodge waterfowl (because up close it is indeed "undodgeable") and then go in with the damage while she is on cooldown. Making a mental time limit in order to return to being passive. Malenia herself supports this by being passive as well.
Phase 2 however throws this nice balance out of the window by removing the cooldown of waterfowl meaning she can do it whenever and Malenia herself is now always chasing you instead of slow walking around, meaning keeping the "intended" distance is nigh impossible.

Consort Radahn shows a similar where boss mechanics seems to work against each other. First phase is tense with Radahn's assault being very agressive. Lot of his attacks require precise timings with follow-up roll right after your initial roll. If you don't roll instantly again, the second attack will hit you. His rock sling attacks provides a nice breathing room for a few seconds as Radahn naturally distances himself before closing in with lion's claw or the gravity spin, both easily punishable attacks. In a way he feels like a Dark Souls 3 boss with great attack intensitity but simply good roll timing will get you where you need to be for punish. Overall I think first phase is well designed. Except yes, that double slash in cross slash is absolutely stupid it's impossible to dodge consistently. I had to result to blocking it because it is pretty much guaranteed to hit you.
Now phase 2 once again just breaks this because the light beams can stagger you making you unable to dodge for a second. The same second that is crucial to dodge the attacks. Which gives him pretty much guaranteed hits on you. Now, you can avoid them by hugging his legs (sorta bad camera) but the light beams spawns so close that getting hit pushes you into them, gets you staggered, attack hits you. One mistake and you are pretty much locked into his combo and promptly executed.
Some problem as Malenia but more prevalent. One mechanic pushes against the other in a way that is designed to screw you over.

80% of this is just negativity my man

The whole DLC felt like a spin off to me. Like they weren't allowed to use 3/4 of the canon due to licensing or something.

You can dodge roll water fountain. Git gud.

I very much enjoyed the DLC, and the only times I've had any real problems with it are when people keep bitching about the difficulty. Negativity is contagious.

While I agree with (not everything but) a lot of what you say about SotE, the "B team" theory is both very lazy and very lame, and what you say about Armored Core is outright shitty, dumb and disrespectful considering both the quality of the game, From Soft's history with that beloved franchise that literally saved them from closure, and Armored Core's relevance as a video game series. The first episodes were masterfully crafted and brought a lot to video games. Maybe giant mech games aren't your thing but acting like it's just some low quality side product made out of greed is seriously outlandish.

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.

Well, for me it's strange to see complains on a difficulty of DLC and praise to oroginal game at the same video. "Artificial difficulty" in DLC is direct continuation of the original design. Elden Ring was already extremely wierd in difficulty department, bosses already was crancked up, there was already disconnect between boss design and "fun" way to play. People who was comfortable the most in original game was braindead noobs spamming meta ashes (they looked online) and actual tryhards who perceive games mostly, like speedrunners - challenge you need to learn via repetition and then execute to a perfection. This bizzare situation alone should ring a whole bunch of bells... but it didn't.
All you describing as "bad" in DLC is a consequence of people being blind to a problems with original game. And considering sales of DLC, AND how much people try to shut down any critisizm to the dlc, we can't expect something different in the future.

P.S Got to the end. I got it! You can't belive From did it. You have an illusion base game was very-very good and balanced, and you honestly asking "do we belive people who designed Margit was able to produce DLC bosses?"... Obviously yes. Margit is a brilliant example with problems in original design. Back then they already thought it was a good idea to give tutorial boss sorta 50\50 setup with his glowing dagger, and even more, place this sorta setup in the punish window. Sure, damage was small, and it wasn't a problem to learn how to deal with it, and overall it wasn't an issue for a skilled player, but the fact they even think this was a good idea is very telling. Either they had no idea what they were doing, or they actually wanted to scare new players off from being agressive with punishes. There is no third option here, and both of this is pretty bad.
And if they wanted to condition new players to be more passive, to scare them, it would be very logical to imagine they wanted "ordinary player" to clear up EVERYTHING in limgrave before Margit, and them comeback and traide hits with him. Coz players should be SCARED of every boss coz promotion materal tells everyone how hard and SCARY this game is.
This mindset is the reason why DLC how it is. No B-team, nor a mistake, it's just how From makes games now.

I find it very bizarre to LOVE elden ring and outright hate the dlc. The dlc doesn't execute the base game better, it amplifies the base game: where it was good now it's amazing, like builds and exploration, and where it was bad now it's horrible. But my point is that loving that much the base game and not coming to terms with the dlc flaws is just strange.

Also on the note of dodging in unconventional ways... good. Finally it's not a roll fest, and it took me years to come to this conclusion. The base game is lenient, only bosses would rarely force you to utilize all the mechanics, but still i didn't realize how many attacks you could actually jump. I think having a fresh mindset would help

i approve this message

Skill issue: the movie

I came to the same conclusion that something was wrong when I was relegated to using a Torch Golem as a basketball hoop to kill it.

When they compared it to the Old Hunters, I was expecting a lot. Like maybe a reused, upgraded, optional boss like Laurence, but with a spectacular finisher like Orphan. They just did the Laurence thing with Radahn, and then ended it. Very unsatisfying.

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

a random nobody saying to Miyazaki: you should not been a creative director of this project 🤣

You can attack rellana a lot mid combo, and you can strafe around her attacks and attack her mid combo, she is mechanically far better than you make her out to be.