Given my love for the base game, the expansion felt like a foregone conclusion; to no one’s surprise, this expansion is terrific, but I really enjoyed the ways that Shadow of the Erdtree expanded and remixed the base game.

As far as expansions go, Shadow of the Erdtree is meaty, it's easily half the size of the base game - bigger doesn't always been better though. A large criticism of the base game is that a lot of the experience feels superfluous, unneeded fluff to pad the world; I disagree, but I understand the charge. Shadow of the Erdtree feels much more focused in its approach, gone away are all the minor dungeons, replaced by much more elaborate dungeons at the cost of frequency. The exploration loop feels similar but lacks the stops into those repeated crypt or cave dungeons, the result is a leaner experience, but the fat-cutting feels calculated and exact. Given this is an endgame expansion, it falls outside of the typical progression curve, a lot of players will already be full build with maxed out weapons. Incentivizing exploration by offering more robust locations that result in new, shiny weapons and spells is a great solution - and you’re given plenty of materials to upgrade those new toys. As a result, I found the exploration loop to be incredibly compelling, continuing the base game trend of rewarding thoroughness without inundating the experience.

Extrinsic rewards aside, I’d explore this expansion just for the beauty of it. The art direction is unparalleled, you get the sense that you’re constantly playing in a painting. From serene neon flower fields to otherworldly finger-filled craters, Shadow of the Erdtree is a constant feast for the eyes. This is nothing new of course, Elden Ring was absolutely jaw-dropping as well, but it’s worth mentioning that the expansion matches it in variety and direction. That feeling of descending into Siofra River for the first time? This expansion has that in several places, it’s fucking fantastic.

Difficulty, oh boy the difficulty. As with all conversations on difficulty in Souls games, it’s a contentious topic, but more so with this expansion. Shadow of the Erdtree is hard, like real fucking hard, and I reckon many will be put off by the noticeable spike in difficulty. I had just replayed some of the game in preparation for the expansion, so I was fairly warmed up, but I’d wager that there are many hopping back in and proceeding to get their teeth kicked in due to the combined effect of the increased difficulty and their own rustiness. There’s no handholding here, railroading you from fodder enemies up to late-game stuff, no, everything is tough as nails throughout the expansion (especially those fucking birds, fuck the birds). I’m a big fan of what Fromsoft did to solve the problem of varying player power levels with the Scadutree fragment system; it’s a great solution for standardizing difficulty and acts as a great incentive to explore the world. The system does feel absolutely necessary though, I could see a player neglecting this system and having a terrible experience as a result.

Nowhere else is the uptick in difficulty more noticeable than in the bosses, holy shit they’re not for the easily frustrated. Most major bosses, with a few exceptions, are more akin to Malenia than they are to, let’s say, Margit. These are proper endgame bosses with multiple phases and expansive move sets that have long, high damage combos. The margin of error with these encounters is razor thin, windows for attacks or recovery are much smaller, you absolutely need to be locked the fuck in… and I love it for that. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I’ve always loved the escalation with FromSoft expansions, and this just feels like the natural next step for Elden Ring. Nothing ever feels quite as bullshit as Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance, thankfully, but some attacks come damn close. I do want to talk about two standouts for me, both good and bad, so spoiler warning for the next two paragraphs.

First the good - Putrescent Knight, such a fun fight, absolutely loved it. It feels like a simple fight in comparison to some of the other major bosses, but I just found the move set incredibly satisfying to face. The dismount combo he has is just chef’s kiss and I enjoyed the large AOE flame attack that you had to jump over (I just find jump dodges underutilized and therefore interesting). I loved the visuals of the fight, evoking one of my Bloodborne favorites in Orphan of Kos, but on a slime horse, it’s just so fucking peak paired with the score for the fight. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Now, maybe a hot take, I don’t know the consensus since many are still yet to get to this one, but I was very, very disappointed with the final boss, Radahn: The Squeakquel. I have no inherent problem with the reuse of Radahn, but as the swansong to Elden Ring as a whole… it’s lame as hell. Say what you want about Elden Beast (you can now ride Torrent in that fight btw), but I found the whole Radagon/Elden Beast to be the perfect capstone as an encounter; the crumbling god that we all expected and the truly alien god creature underneath. Radahn certainly feels somewhat unexpected, but not in a good way, I would’ve preferred they parallel the base game ending and end it with something a bit strange; I reckon some eldritch creature heavily inspired by angels would’ve absolutely banged. I have no problem including Radahn, but give him the Hoarah Loux treatment, put him as the appetizer to the final encounter. The fight itself is fine, he’s certainly difficult and feels like a proper final boss, but he is a bit spammy and lacked an attack I found satisfying to deal with. His real issue is visual clarity, there is so much going on it’s hard to keep track of attacks and causes significant performance drops during some of his flashier moves. Just very disappointed given the last two DLC final bosses FromSoft has given us, Orphan of Kos and Slave Knight Gael, were absolutely perfect. Also, the boss weapon from this encounter just being two alternate versions of an existing weapon is just so fucking lame.

That negativity aside, I enjoyed this expansion immensely, it was the perfect companion to Elden Ring, and I’d go as far as to say it’s the best expansion FromSoft has put out yet (that feels heretical to say given The Old Hunters, but hey, here we are). An absolute feast, perfectly complimenting and revising the base game - a truly special expansion to punctuate a truly special game.

"The First" as in the first that triggered the whole Lisa series as we know it now.

Definitely a tricky title to talk about and I can't really blame on the developer since it was probably one of his first serious works. The message and the intention is the definitely there, and would ultimately carry a great importance to understand the story as a whole.

It tackles the subject of abuse from the perspective of a little girl called Lisa. It's all presented in an abstract, yet perfectly readable manner. In this kind of stories being subtle is key, as in not treating the players like people that can't understand an indirect approach to story-telling without going to the lengths of being cryptic. Or even worse, not being pretentious is important too. The First walks a thin line between being subtle and blunt, but ultimately all put together with a nice balance between the two striking, a clear contrast between what Lisa wanted to really do in dreams and her constant nightmare.

On the game-y side of things, it doesn't hold as good as The Painful or The Joyful. It's an old RPG Maker 2003 game, they were really popular during Yume Nikki's craze, and games that came soon after as a effective resource to tell stories for amateur game developers, mostly based on their artstic deeds rather than the ones that come from pure raw mechanical ingenuity. The First ain't much different as it just walking and avoiding obstacles on your way to the end, collecting different objects that will unlock new paths to follow. If you're thinking it's just Yume Nikki in disguise, it is inspired by the latter. Some sections, specifically with the Marty spiders are specially evil as it is the only part were it will put your skills to the absolute limits. A huge unnecessary difficulty spike from a gameplay and enjoyment standpoint, that might or not tell us more about Lisa's story in hindsight. Why spiders in particular? They can act fast, are lethal once they put one of their big creepy legs on you leading to a potential poison and leaving a big scar that won't dissapear in a short period of time. And is even worse knowing the spiders have the signature image of Marty's face. In The Painful, we can also envounter this very enemy scattered around in various parts of Olathe but we can be fight him as Brad directly, that very minor detail can give us a small glimpse of what was the overall relationship in the Armstrong family and why Brad isn't here.

Only recommended in case you want to get into the Lisa series and not much as a title of it's own. In The Painful, as soon as we boot it we can see Lisa's outcome out of this neverending nightmare. Watch it on Youtube if the spiders bother you too much, could've rated 1/2 stars higher without them.