- 27 hours played
It felt great to be back in Elden Ring. I adore this game but it was a one time playthrough. A very special playthrough yet I find the game is so vast that the idea of starting from scratch scares me. An expansion is the perfect reason to dive back in.
This is more Elden Ring. Shadow of the Erdtree is not going to convince you to love it if the base game wasn’t for you. What I got here was just more Elden goodness, new bosses, weapons and weird yet wonderful locations to explore. The art direction here is sublime. These places are just beautiful to behold. Often I would stop what I was doing and select the Sit down emote. Just leave my character there chilling whilst I myself relaxed and took in the majestic view. They also seemed to just go crazy with the colours in this dlc and each place had a vibe. The royal blue of the flowers in Cerulean coast. The yellow sky of Scadu Atlus. The red unwelcoming atmosphere of the Jagged peaks along with heavy lightning. Despite everywhere being close together each region of the map offered something different whilst fitting together cohesively. I also loved the verticality of the new map. This place was vast but it extended both up and down, as well as off into the horizon. It tantalisingly teased me, offering me a view of an explorable location yet not offering up a super obvious way of reaching it. The legacy dungeons were also great. Massive, twisting and packed full of content, bosses to fight and items to find. Shadowkeep especially, man that place was chefs kiss. This dlc also managed to blow my mind again just like the base game, when I exited a small side dungeon to find out I had exited onto a new unrevealed part of the map.
The main draw of these games for me is the boss experience and despite outcry online I adored these bosses. They are tough and they hit very hard but that’s the usual Fromsoft experience. Pretty much every boss has multi chain combos and very small openings for damage but they are very doable. The community seems to be lacking patience, calling for nerfs already when the dlc has only been out a week. Some bosses have attacks that seem wholly bullshit but when you spend a little time learning them, you realise Messmers multi thrust jumping spear attack can be entirely negated by dodging once into the spear thrust. Roll towards him. When you figure that out the fight goes from bullshit to a glorious dance and he no longer seems unfair. I’m not saying all these bosses are perfectly balanced because it wouldn’t be a Fromsoft experience if it was, but they are beatable and I think the nerfs were too quick to come.
Progression has changed here. For some reason I see a massive outcry online about this as well. Scadu tree fragments have been introduced and these are needed to level up attack damage and negation. As well as that of your spirit summons. Your base game level won’t help you much in the dlc as enemy scaling goes wholly off of this new system. I think people came into this expansion expecting to slap these enemies silly. When they got slapped they didn’t like it. The developers have so much to balance in this game. They have to consider every weapon or dual weapons, pieces of armour, 4 talismans, items used for buffs, Ashes of war and spirit summons. The best way to balance all of that variety in builds is to offer a flat buff to stats. These new items that increase your level can be found throughout the world through exploration. It’s an incentive to stick your nose in every nook and cranny of this gorgeous world. This system also offered a feeling of progression in the dlc. I entered this dlc at level 234. I need over 400,000 runes to increase my character one level. So instead of levelling up a small handful of times throughout the experience, I progressed 20 levels and it felt good. It’s always a satisfying feeling when your damage increases as you level up.
So I adored the visuals, bosses and general exploration of this expansion. Was there anything I wasn’t a fan of? Only two things and they affected my enjoyment very little hence the score. I sometimes thought despite how big these new areas were, outside of the first two areas there wasn’t much to explore. Some big chunks of the map were not hiding any ruins, dungeons or caves. Some big chunks would maybe just have a boss or a weapon to pick up. One area in particular offered new gameplay in the form of a forced stealth section but despite how massive that area was, outside of a boss there was nothing of note down there. Powerpyx claims there is 104 sites of grace in the dlc and on a blind playthrough I managed to find 96. So I didn’t miss much of this dlc. And like I said some of it felt big yet a little empty. I also wasn’t a fan of the repeated use of bosses from the base game. Fromsoft loves to do that but it doesn’t do it for me. I’ve beaten them once, don’t make me do it again and again.
Overall though this was a fantastic addition to an already amazing game. And the two pieces of content together just make this all timer even greater.
It felt great to be back in Elden Ring. I adore this game but it was a one time playthrough. A very special playthrough yet I find the game is so vast that the idea of starting from scratch scares me. An expansion is the perfect reason to dive back in.
This is more Elden Ring. Shadow of the Erdtree is not going to convince you to love it if the base game wasn’t for you. What I got here was just more Elden goodness, new bosses, weapons and weird yet wonderful locations to explore. The art direction here is sublime. These places are just beautiful to behold. Often I would stop what I was doing and select the Sit down emote. Just leave my character there chilling whilst I myself relaxed and took in the majestic view. They also seemed to just go crazy with the colours in this dlc and each place had a vibe. The royal blue of the flowers in Cerulean coast. The yellow sky of Scadu Atlus. The red unwelcoming atmosphere of the Jagged peaks along with heavy lightning. Despite everywhere being close together each region of the map offered something different whilst fitting together cohesively. I also loved the verticality of the new map. This place was vast but it extended both up and down, as well as off into the horizon. It tantalisingly teased me, offering me a view of an explorable location yet not offering up a super obvious way of reaching it. The legacy dungeons were also great. Massive, twisting and packed full of content, bosses to fight and items to find. Shadowkeep especially, man that place was chefs kiss. This dlc also managed to blow my mind again just like the base game, when I exited a small side dungeon to find out I had exited onto a new unrevealed part of the map.
The main draw of these games for me is the boss experience and despite outcry online I adored these bosses. They are tough and they hit very hard but that’s the usual Fromsoft experience. Pretty much every boss has multi chain combos and very small openings for damage but they are very doable. The community seems to be lacking patience, calling for nerfs already when the dlc has only been out a week. Some bosses have attacks that seem wholly bullshit but when you spend a little time learning them, you realise Messmers multi thrust jumping spear attack can be entirely negated by dodging once into the spear thrust. Roll towards him. When you figure that out the fight goes from bullshit to a glorious dance and he no longer seems unfair. I’m not saying all these bosses are perfectly balanced because it wouldn’t be a Fromsoft experience if it was, but they are beatable and I think the nerfs were too quick to come.
Progression has changed here. For some reason I see a massive outcry online about this as well. Scadu tree fragments have been introduced and these are needed to level up attack damage and negation. As well as that of your spirit summons. Your base game level won’t help you much in the dlc as enemy scaling goes wholly off of this new system. I think people came into this expansion expecting to slap these enemies silly. When they got slapped they didn’t like it. The developers have so much to balance in this game. They have to consider every weapon or dual weapons, pieces of armour, 4 talismans, items used for buffs, Ashes of war and spirit summons. The best way to balance all of that variety in builds is to offer a flat buff to stats. These new items that increase your level can be found throughout the world through exploration. It’s an incentive to stick your nose in every nook and cranny of this gorgeous world. This system also offered a feeling of progression in the dlc. I entered this dlc at level 234. I need over 400,000 runes to increase my character one level. So instead of levelling up a small handful of times throughout the experience, I progressed 20 levels and it felt good. It’s always a satisfying feeling when your damage increases as you level up.
So I adored the visuals, bosses and general exploration of this expansion. Was there anything I wasn’t a fan of? Only two things and they affected my enjoyment very little hence the score. I sometimes thought despite how big these new areas were, outside of the first two areas there wasn’t much to explore. Some big chunks of the map were not hiding any ruins, dungeons or caves. Some big chunks would maybe just have a boss or a weapon to pick up. One area in particular offered new gameplay in the form of a forced stealth section but despite how massive that area was, outside of a boss there was nothing of note down there. Powerpyx claims there is 104 sites of grace in the dlc and on a blind playthrough I managed to find 96. So I didn’t miss much of this dlc. And like I said some of it felt big yet a little empty. I also wasn’t a fan of the repeated use of bosses from the base game. Fromsoft loves to do that but it doesn’t do it for me. I’ve beaten them once, don’t make me do it again and again.
Overall though this was a fantastic addition to an already amazing game. And the two pieces of content together just make this all timer even greater.