Fácil um dos jogos que mais me deixou dividido. Enquanto eu acho esse jogo horroroso aos olhos, ele compensa muito no emocional, ver o Kiryu criando uma família, arrumando novos amigos e só vivendo como uma pessoa normal é lindo, é até difícil contar quantas vezes esse jogo colocou um sorriso de satisfação no meu rosto, a relação dele com as crianças e a própria relação das crianças entre si é muito bem feita, você realmente sente que ali é um lar muito acolhedor e amoroso. Infelizmente nem tudo são flores quando se trata da história, a conspiração da vez escalou pra um nível praticamente global, mas continua igualmente mal executada, é até difícil falar o quão fds esse jogo é quando se trata disso, acho que se não fosse pelo Mine e as cenas engraçadas do Richardson, eu provavelmente iria odiar tudo relacionado ao resort e a Black monday, a direção das cenas ainda não ajuda muito, muitas cenas que eram pra ser sérias ou impacientes simplesmente ficam engraçadas só, as vezes parece que nem esse jogo ta se levando a sério, tipo, a cena com o Go Hamazaki no final é uma das coisas mais ridículas e sem impacto que eu já vi. Mas acho que a coisa que mais me incomoda na história são alguns momentos de enrolação, tipo tu ter que caçar umas coisas pro cachorro estúpido, ou procurar o rikiya por kamurocho, são desnecessários, e pior que esse jogo sabe enrolar bem, mostrar kamurocho pro Rikiya, jogar beisebol com as crianças, tem várias enrolações bem feitas, mas acaba tendo essas maçãs podres no meio. Na real, Yakuza 3 tem umas coisas que só não precisavam estar lá, tipo as partes de perseguição ou fuga, elas são chatas e não adicionam em nada, além das fodendo mais de 100 subs que esse jogo tem. Só antes de ir pra gameplay, eu gostaria de citar que a morte do Rikiya é paia, Yakuza nunca tentou ter lógica, mas a morte dele é simplesmente inacreditável de ridícula, a cena também tá longe de ser perfeita, eu me emocionei nela mais pela reação do Kiryu do que pela própria morte em si, é triste ver que jogaram um personagem tão bom, pra mim o Rikiya tava facilmente chegando no nível do Nishiki no Yakuza 0. 

Sobre a gameplay ela não é tão ruim, na real é bem boa, os inimigos defendem mais que o normal, mas realmente não é nada que estrague, eu também não gosto muito do sistema de upgrade, mas que se foda sinceramente, o problema mesmo vem nos bosses, eles são foram feitos por um imbecil que não sabe o que se divertir, a maioria é chato pra cacete, defendem muito, não tomam dano, as heat actions dão o equivalente a nada e tem um moveset chato, os únicos dois bosses que eu achei realmente bons são o Joji e o Mine, pq eles são justamente o contrário, o Joji praticamente não defende e de alguma forma as heat actions dão um bom dano no mine. Ao menos quando os adversários não são insuportáveis, tu realmente se diverte bastante com o combate. 

E só pra não deixar passar em branco, a trilha sonora desse jogo é muito boa, não tem exatamente uma música que ficou na minha cabeça, mas em gameplay todas são bem gostosas de ouvir.

Basicamente é isso, teve momentos que eu amei e momentos que eu odiei, mas os que eu amei estão em uma quantidade muito maior. Eu realmente gostaria de fazer parte do grupo que acha esse jogo uma masterpiece, mas vou me contentar em só achar esse jogo melhor que o Kiwami 1.

This is such a hard thing to rate, for one this DLC has some amazing exploration for example, but it also brings in a new heap of issues on top of that.

Let’s first go over my favorite thing about this DLC; the exploration. I love it, you see things in the distance and you just think “the fuck is that? I wanna check it out”, then you grab a map and see so much stuff to do. You’ve gone through an area where you thought you’d explored everything, but there’s an area right next to it that seems inaccessible, so you go back and explore every inch of that area to finally find what you’re looking for and more just to randomly get to like the most beautiful area in the entire game. You see a place on the map you wanna go to so you keep exploring and out of all the places, that one random dungeon actually takes you to a huge mountain area, with 4 bosses and a new quest line, one of the bosses being a huge secret dragon that bursts out wings with lightning. This was the most fun part of the DLC personally.

Next I’d like to talk about the bosses. There are a variety of cool bosses here, some very unique ones like “Metyr, Mother of Fingers” and “Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flame”, but like the base game they also re-use some here in some places. It’s nothing too offensive though, except maybe the Divine Beast Dancing Lion, that should’ve been a one-time boss (now that I think about it they kinda did the same with Godrick in the base game). These bosses are varying in difficulty but the bosses that are really difficult, are REALLY difficult. Which brings me to my biggest issue with this DLC.

This DLC comes with a new mechanic, the Scadutree Blessings. These basically make you take less damage in the DLC and makes you do more damage as well. I’m guessing these were meant to be an incentive to explore, and yeah it really was but in the worst way. The bosses in this DLC are ridiculously strong, they can be very tanky while simultaneously basically two-shotting you, especially in the endgame with Messmer and Radahn. At that point they don’t feel like an incentive, they feel like a necessity. That’s a thing that kinda ruins optional exploration since now it doesn’t feel optional anymore. And it also ruins some of the bosses since if you don’t have enough of them they’re just straight up impossible. And this ties in to my next issue and one which a lot have already said. It feels as if some of these bosses are difficult, just to be difficult. To the point where they’re straight up unfair sometimes. Like with Radahn’s whole second phase and whatnot. I ended the DLC with a Scadutree level of 14, which is a good enough level, but it still felt like the game was clowning on me. But that’s just a minor gripe.

Something positive I wanna point out is how beautiful this DLC is. Each area is absolutely gorgeous and unique, offering new visual aesthetics everywhere you go. The base game was already visually stunning but this just ramps that up to the next level. Although I feel that I gotta at least mention this, even though I don’t give a shit, I did notice that the frame rate dipped in certain places and even in a boss fight (specifically Divine Beast Dancing Lion), also some few pop-ins here and there. But I honestly couldn’t care less, I mean Bloodborne’s still my favorite, which is locked at 30 fps.

All in all this was an absolutely amazing DLC, the ending was a little lackluster, the bosses could’ve been a little more fine-tuned and the new mechanic was a bit meh. But this is what I wanted from the DLC, a huge new amazing area to explore with great bosses, so in the end I’m pretty damn satisfied. In total; I died 168 times to all the bosses combined, the hardest boss easily being “Radahn, Promised Consort of Miquella” with 57 deaths.

9/10

This will serve as a narrative review for Shadow of the Erdtree, and Elden Ring as a whole. I also have much to say on the "game" aspects of the DLC (almost all positive) but I've spent the past two full days of my life thinking about this story, so here goes…

Miyazaki's games are all about human nature to some extent. Demon’s Souls is about the insignificance of human beings, the futility of it all, and how we as people confront this truth in different ways. Dark Souls is about the human need for civilization, the enlightenment and corruption that spawns from society, and how it will inevitably deteriorate, die a slow and painful death, until nothing is left. Bloodborne is about the human desire for knowledge; we will stop at nothing to understand the universe and our place in it, even if it destroys us entirely. Sekiro is about human mortality, and how we foolishly seek to extend our lifespans, no matter if it taints our very being and strips us of our humanity.

I believe Elden Ring symbolizes the lengths at which human beings will go to establish and maintain order - organized religion, genocide, war, and the deifying of people for purposes of worship. In other words, Elden Ring is about godhood, worship, and our existential need for it, even when such a system is self-destructive. I used to think that Elden Ring was instead about humans and their various ideologies; the Shattering War seemed to be a representation of this, a sort of war of ideals. However, Shadow of the Erdtree provides essential context that subverts this notion. Before Marika ascended to godhood, she was a normal person with normal, human motivations of revenge and love. Marika continued to harbor these human qualities as a god, but ultimately could not bear this burden. She gave up; the death of Godwyn, the son she loved, drove her to shatter the Elden Ring. In an attempt to avoid Marika's mistakes, Miquella divests himself of his humanity - he leaves behind his love, his fears, and all connection to his golden lineage. In doing so, Miquella was not subject to human flaws as Marika was. Here lies the problem, though - a god devoid of humanity cannot lead humanity. Sir Ansbach put it best: "Righteous Tarnished… Become our new lord. A lord not for gods...but for men." St. Trina also describes godhood as a prison, and begs you to kill Miquella so that he does not suffer the same fate. Ranni, in her ending, attempts to reconcile the fact that no god is fit to lead by disconnecting divinity from The Lands Between entirely. While this is my favorite ending in the game, I find myself wondering if the people of this broken world would be able to survive without a beacon of hope to look on to.

This is all the more poignant after the revelations told by Count Ymir. The Greater Will, the cosmic entity of which the Golden Order is founded upon, abandoned its people. Without a response by the Greater Will, its child, Metyr, is forced to make best-guess assumptions when establishing and maintaining a dysfunctional Golden Order. Marika and the rest of the world are worshiping an entity that has likely already forgotten about them; they are alone. As people, we are compelled to believe that we have some sort of purpose in the universe; that we were put here for a reason, and that we are special in some way. But the truth is that the universe does not care about us, no matter how hard we may try to find meaning in it all.

Elden Ring is about our need to fill this void, to find some meaning in this cold, dark, empty place. To discover our purpose in life, we will do terrible things to our own species. We will kill indiscriminately in the name of gods we invented. We will enforce ideas of right and wrong as if the universe will budge an inch in response. We will continue this cycle without end, because there is no order.

There never was any hope.
They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start.