Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Review - A Remarkable Finale

[@SaintKines]

Nothing wrong with difficulty, map or level design or amount of content. My complaints are the lack of weapons that mattered to me and I found the story and lore mid. Overall I still think the DLC is incredible. People are really overlooking the fact that Fromsoft really made an entire new game for a DLC. And its a game of the year level game. If I was Fromsoft I'd probably be disgusted by the amount of bitching. I'm not saying you cant criticize the game, I do, I'm just saying peoples expectations overall seem to be ridiculous with Fromsoft.

[@justhair17]

Lore is great tbh. Only thing is, most dlc weapons are that great and there are very few options to the new weapon classed

[@JohnDoe-zx7cq]

I was wondering why torrent kept dying so fast lol, forgot he was a spirit summon and I never leveled that up

[@justhair17]

Reverent spirit ashes and scadutree blessings are a must imo.

[@knuckleheadwestwind3585]

I think the changes in boss design were completely necessary. So many legacy players described DS3 as being easier than the preceding games, which I would say flat out isn’t true. I would say that the players got better at the games, and so it got easier in that sense. Had From Soft kept the boss design the same, I think most online critics would complain that the fights are too easy and a retread of the previous games, but then proceeded to actually complain when they had to change their strategy. If you want a more simple back and forth, BB, DS3 and the earlier games still exist. I think most people online who don’t love the Elden Ring boss changes rationalize it by calling it unfair, which is why most of the community defends it by claiming the bosses are fair.

[@mikedelia7535]

How are you riding around with 80 vigor, unmaxed sacred tears, and using the Elden beast sword. Madness

[@manjiimortal]

Pretty good and even-handed review you did here, as the DLC manages to be something great indeed. On the topic of difficulty, I made an effort to explore the map before going into dungeons, so I never found the game to be extremely difficult, as I managed to first-try most of the remembrance bosses (of which I've beaten 8, as well as the boss that gives a Heart rather than a remembrance), but I'm now stuck at the Final Boss, with a Blessing of 19, having upgraded it from 16, which I used to explore the final dungeon, as well as beat several of the major bosses. The final boss is just relentless, super mobile and aggressive, deals a lot of damage, has some very long combos, and things get wacky on its second phase, and it has an attack I still haven't figured how to dodge! I find the final to be a major difficulty spike when compared with everything that came before.

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

JUMP some attacks you need to just jump XD

[@-Roche-]

​@jorgecarvajal5385 poor advice for that boss. The attacks that people are struggling with aren't solved with jumping at all

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

@@-Roche- first of all he didnt say wich attack, you are assuming its the same attack another people have problem but could be any of the combo yes for stadistic proably is the same but could be any, and i didnt mention wich attack is i just say some attack can be dodge jumping plz improve your reading comprehension

[@-Roche-]

@@jorgecarvajal5385 stop being wrong, you're irritating me. The final boss only has one attack that jumping can be useful for, yet rolling is STILL the better option there. Please stop commenting

[@apharys8921]

Big aoes you can run from. Most of the second phase multi-attacks can be easily blocked, idk how you would dodge those there's just so much and I can't see what's going on anyway, each one is like a flash bang on the screen lol. The grab has been extremely difficult for me to avoid for some reason but there is an item for that.

[@Charsept]

The max flask upgrade is +12, not 10. You played the DLC with suboptimal sips 👀

[@GodWarsX]

lol "suboptimal sips" love that

[@justhair17]

Runed matter a lot tho. I was almost RL200 when beating the final boss and it helped a lot. I could get up to 60 vigor, 40+ endurance and a lot of damage stats. Keep in mind scadutree blessing only give you a multiplier to your AR and resistances, meaning you stats matter a lot

[@allandm]

Loved the DLC, my only issue with it is the same issue I have with the base game though. It's very unclear how you're supposed to dodge some attacks, the aoes are also obnoxious and make it hard to see what's going on.

[@ProphetofGermaine]

You can also jump !! Some moves actually make you think out the normal dodge. It’s what separates it from earlier souls. It wants you to incorporate other aspects of movement

[@allandm]

@@ProphetofGermaine yes, but then again it's very unclear what you can and can't jump. Which is why I love sekiro, every attack is incredibly clear on how to avoid it. Elden Rings difficulty comes from not knowing what to do (just try one of the options and hope it works).

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

for matter of factt some attack need to be jump not roll XD, as veteran souls player that shit still today take me for suprise, some attack are unavoible unless you jump

[@best_mate456]

Like the BS waterfowl

[@jarlwhiterun7478]

Agreed. The AOE attacks are like a laser light show, with 20 fps frame drops making it almost Kimpossible to react accordingly.

[@sherman614]

I think the complaint about the level up system is silly, to me anyway. I guess it just depends on what you enjoy about the game. The idea that you should get Scadutree fragments should only be obtained by defeating bosses defeat the purpose of them to me. The point of them is to not only help scale your character accurately, but also promotes exploration, which is what I love! I had no problem with the tree fragment upgrade system. If I had a problem with a boss, instead of having to respec my entire character and change my build, I just needed to explore the lands more and come back later, just like the base game.

[@os6829]

With 75-80 bosses, if you're exploring, you're fighting them. It's basically impossible to do any meaningful exploring without running into a boss.

[@Philpot1992]

​@@os6829thats the base game

[@Frozenkex]

Why do you need to "promote exploration". Does the exploration suck without the fragments there? Then it sucks.

[@Philpot1992]

@@Frozenkex it's the developer who intended it this way. Once you get to a point where you don't like what the developer does, may as well just move on to a game you do like.

[@Frozenkex]

@@Philpot1992 Do you tell this to everyone who has any criticism? fanboy moment.

[@sunnyta1990]

I think the boss movesets are more or less balanced around the more extreme end of the possible power players can have. Most DLC weapons are insanely powerful to match though. The people complaining are probably restricting themselves from OP weapon skills and spirit summons, which means they're going to have to get used to the extreme tracking, projectiles and long combos. Nothing in the DLC is as bad as Waterfowl though (final boss aside) so imo its totally doable.

[@rzbOwO]

After Shadow of the Erdtree, Elden Ring has gotten extremely close to dethroning Breath of The Wild as my favorite game ever. Time will tell if it will age as well as zelda did for me, but this was an unforgettable experience. I played it with no summons and i had no major problems beating it without spirits, i hated seeing all those negative steam reviews because it was not my experience at all! There's so many builds to the game, bleed, scarlet rot, i just held 2 big katanas they added and it made the game very manageable for me personally. I started with Dark Souls 2 and i much prefer the newer style, it can feel slow and a bit boring to go back, when i played Dark Souls Remastered for the first time, i remember feeling like the optimal strategy for beating a duo boss was to just keep your distance, wait for attack, dodge away, stab a bunch and repeat. Where as in Elden Ring i feel like i truly have to master the boss fight if i am to beat it, consistently staying up in the bosses face all fight long without losing focus because 1 string of attacks can ruin a run. I know there are negatives to this approach and i don't claim it is "better game design" or correct or anything, but as far as preference goes, i absolutely love these new bosses! The one that took me the longest was Rellana with over 3 hours of attempts.

[@mattnsg13]

for me the dlc is better than the base game, but i really didn't like the second phase of the final boss

[@banius03]

My main problem with the bosses is the dodge, Dodge, Dodge, maybe jump, Dodge, attack (maybe) or heal instead of attacking. Get to second stage, a new move, powerful as heck, die. Repeat the process. On Radar phase 2, I just said to myself, "I can beat him, anyone can, as long as you fight him enough... But I just don't want to..." I also don't like when get good comes into play and then I see everyone sporting the same builds... Either a lot of people got the same.idea for a build or someone watched a KZbin vid.

[@burn1none]

Good video, not sure I agree with the part about bosses though. Only one I think is way overtuned is the final boss. With respect to those struggling I’d argue that’s supposed to be the point and you shouldn’t first try every boss just like most players didn’t first try every boss in all the souls games. The dlc is new and people don’t have guides up on how to fight them so I’d argue it’s more an issue of people having to learn on their own through trial and error instead of being able to walk into a boss prepared for every single attack and equipped with the perfect defensive setup. It’s literally the nature of a new dlc to be unknown to the community but I’d wager the only boss truly in contention for unfair is the final boss and maybe even after some time passes I’ll change my outlook on that. Literally every other boss has tells, they wind up, and are generally following a pattern that is learnable. Time will show the dlc isn’t that hard. The one thing I wholly agree with is there should’ve been a couple extra fragments laying around so as not to punish those who didn’t scour the entire landscape with a notepad of where they found everything.

[@boshua1220]

I love the dlc, except for the final boss (only phase 2). The difficulty was not an issue until that point, even phase 1 of the final boss. I beat him twice on 2 different builds I had pre dlc, (a strength/faith build, and a dex/arcane build) just by the skin of my teeth so let me just say this. I should not be losing over half of my health to a single attack at 60+ vigor, max scadutree fragments, dragoncrest great shield, holy braid, opaline hard-tear, heavy armor, and golden vow. This was already an issue in the endgame in the base game, now it’s even worse. I’m not referring to the attack he starts with at phase 2 in particular, I know you’re supposed to run and that one isn’t a problem for me, but several of them, in both phases, especially phase 2, feel damn near impossible to dodge, or are inconsistent at best. And some of those combos are absurd especially with the teleport gap closing spam. And I definitely don’t think I should have to be respeccing my entire build into either a great shield tank build, or a glass cannon just for it to be fair (I did not respec when I beat him, either time). Or having to stack defensive talismans over offensive ones just to do next to no damage for the sake of survival. And even then, you’re basically at the mercy of RNG with the move set in my experience. The amount of videos coming out about builds that “cheese” the final boss should be something to note as well. I wasn’t on NG+ at all, characters were both around level 200, and this is the first time I’ve actually genuinely meant it when I said a boss in one of these games was bullshit. It’s not hard for a good reason, it’s hard because it’s an endurance run/battle of attrition, and it just isn’t fun. Literally everything else in the dlc is pretty solid imo but that final boss really ruins it for me.

[@zacheryburgett1602]

I found Messemer to be fantastic and didn’t really dislike Rellana or Dancing Lion even though I normally would have? But at the moment I’m finally going around the review channels and venting about the final boss. Just beat it a second ago. I can’t think of a worse boss they’ve ever made and I can’t find anything fun about the experience. I don’t understand how anyone could have enjoyed that experience.

[@boshua1220]

@@zacheryburgett1602 I agree Messmer was the highlight for me. I like most of the other bosses too, except Gaius. I don’t think he’s as bad as some people say, but he is definitely annoying and I understand the sentiment. And yes, the final boss is ridiculous. If you have to cheese him or use a broken build to level the playing field then the boss is broken, simple as that. And I know Malenia, or even Freide for that matter were nowhere near as awful.

[@rodynneyolyvver7959]

Excellent video, man. I've been in your channel sinde the review of the base game and was waiting for this one. I hope you make a spoiler video talking at least of the main bosses of the dlc... And of course discussing kind Miquella and the final boss specially.

[@richardjamesIII]

I hope our expectations are subverted once again and we get a Godwyn sequel in the future. Radahn at his prime was an absolute legend. Imagine Godwyn! He kind of got the shaft in the DLC.

[@trevormccarron4451]

i’m genuinely curious what the reception is in japan. something tells me they’re less likely to whine about bosses they haven’t tried to learn yet over there

[@ElBoyoElectronico]

Loved the DLC!! The exploration was really amazing and I also enjoyed the NPC questlines this time, as they felt more straightforward. I was not a fan of the long chain attack combos of the bosses and their constant aoe effects, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying the game. It felt like they brought back some of the cool verticality of DS1.

[@Moss_and_Such]

Time to put this baby to rest for awhile. It’s been a great two and a half years of playing it on and off. Will pick it back up when the eventual next soulsy game from FS gets announced.

[@soulsbourishjunky6046]

I like the exploration, I'm backtracking now and loving it.

[@brentontariocanada7935]

Sekiro is my favorite combat in a video game! Lies of p , I also loved .

[@guillaumeinjjuz1744]

Mine was bloodborne. I started with BB and had a hard time on DS3 and elden ring not being able to dash and relying on dodge rolls only

[@Charsept]

I had the opposite experience. I started with bloodborne but clicked with ds3 and ER way more. BB was too fast and aggressive to me.

[@VictorIV0310]

It was never in doubt!

[@jfranks1295]

The scadutree fragments scale. After level 12/13 the rewards are literally a fraction of the levels before. The increase I attack power from 6-7 is 7%. The difference between 19-20 is 0.25% increase. That’s 1/28 of the increase in attack power. I think that’s why they weren’t worried about redundancy.

[@alejohp8725]

‘Iron things out’ How? By taking away the awesome new magic? Removing spirit ashes? Making weapon skills useless like in DS3? How about jumping and on-demand, no cooldown jump attacks? Fast stamina recovery? Guard counters? The difficult is what it is to maintain a 10 attempt boss while giving the player all these tools. This discourse is, in my opinion, a complaint from all players that want nothing but a ‘roll and hack’ playstyle. I don’t want to go back to dark souls with the next release. I can just play dark souls if that’s the case.

[@ahmz1404]

Good review

[@TheGravityShifter]

I didn't have too much trouble with most of the bosses either, but I agree that something must be done to better balance it. All of them being aggressive as they are makes them feel rather cookie-cutter too, despite each one being unique. I'm not asking for Micolash Levels of passive, but it would be nice for them to truly Iron Out these fights, as you have said. Literally my only complaint about the DLC. Doesn't take away how cool and memorable the Bosses are though I will say.

[@frankorellana3406]

Not just FromSoft, but every gaming studio should aim for the lords of the fallen approach. It's an okay game and though it'll never be a soulsborne game, they listened to their audience and their games are incredible.

[@Typher_]

You beat Radahn in under 10 attempts at lvl 13?!?! Dude you are fucking cracked

[@justhair17]

The DLC is absolutely amazing, tho the final boss is ridiculously overtuned

[@Frozenkex]

The reason critics of difficulty get the "git gud" and "skill issue" line, is because when they try to describe why it is more difficult they say a bunch of nonsense and make objectively inaccurate statements. Such as yourself. The dlc bosses are really not much different from bosses in base game, and you can absolutely counterattack after or even during their combos. And it is during those openings that you can also easily heal. And you keep showing footage of yourself with mimic and gameplay that is unflattering to yourself, while i had no such issues even though i didnt use any spirit ashes, nor anything op. You say people want dance, and that's true, but i cant judge that from your footage, i dont see you doing any dance really. And when that's how you feel about the game i feel like your glazing of the game in the end is forced. LIke "hey i actually really like it guys, believe me", when you said very little of substance about the lore or story, which was in fact very underwhelming. Like your generic comments like "intriguing new characters,... lots of stuff" is as vague as the storytelling itself. Witcher 3 has that, not Elden Ring.

[@knavenformed9436]

Coming from Dark Souls I just don't like how big the difference between co-op and solo is in Elden Ring Playing hot potato with aggro has always been a way to make the games easier to get free hits in, but in Elden Ring there are so many combo attacks you can cut in half with splitting aggro mid combo Sure there's the viewpoint that you have much more "endboss" level threats while you go through the game, but at the same time having to deal with some 6 hit combos to get one in yourself feels bad when at best online you'd not even see those attack strings on bosses like Mohg

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

sr alone, fume knight and artorias XDD, have nearly the same thing in their respective game for ds1 and 2 the speed its slow and arthoria its a boos nearly with the speed of one in DS3,

[@knavenformed9436]

@@jorgecarvajal5385 While those are DLC superbosses as well, you're leaving out quite a lot of easy DLC bosses from the same games Elana and Sinh are not that hard Maria is very easy as a DLC boss and you can learn Ludwig in a couple of tries Friede comes down to learning multiple phases, but once down she's not a full on mixup master Also Fume Knight is not that hard either.

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

@@knavenformed9436 thats the thing for me frieda was ultra easy just a knife for watch her when is invisible, the one who give me 75 trys at lvl 38 was the dancer i thing i was a little underlevel but at the last try was like dancing, i didnt spend estus do a nearly perfect run after 75 trys i thing she just hit me 1 time and was a panic roll XDDD, until i learn was so easy just stay in the back cheeks XDD, sience dancer of boreal valley i love the dancing bosses, sadly im play on pc then not bloodborne for me, on ER i thing just the god of all rng spaming of combos and infinite starmina of rahdagon give me aloot of trys the first time

[@probablyabot7024]

Ive never understood any of the conplaints about performance, ive pretty much finished played this entire dlc on an Xbox series S and have not noticed ANY performance issues

[@braynaguilar8567]

I only ever noticed some dips during the Radagon fight when he did massive AOEs. Otherwise, it always ran well.

[@demiusdan3997]

Nice one ! SUBSCRIBED !

[@Terron29]

Great dlc. 2 big issues it has imo is its frequent enemy reuse from base game (booooo) and mostly shit rewards for exploration. Skadutree fragments are great as are the weapons and talismans but WAY too many cookbooks/craft materials /smithing stones which you can buy infinite amounts by the time you reach dlc anyway

[@internethistorytrash7464]

Honestly the difficulty has become a meme, the bosses are playing other game and the mechanics for the player are very limited, it seems they learned nothing from Sekiro which basically if the enemy can do something new the player should be able to counter it(example: the lightning counter was insane, I thought "I can do that?!"). I don't care anymore for Elden Ring and use the most broken stuff I can find, its indeed an end of an era for good & bad.

[@SkinnyCharlie1]

Hey man, I liked the video. Slight bit of constructive criticism. I think its a practice that has been adopted by nearly every reviewer/video essay youtube channel, but I just get so fatigued at the amount of context being provided at the beginning of the video. I truly do want to know what you think of the DLC, but I just don't really care all that much about how many viewers were watching the DLC reveal trailer, or the history of the souls games or how many people bought the game. For someone like me, I've seen a hundred different channels talk about this to death. IMO i would prefer you just cut the first 3 mins of the video and just jump into the content that's actually in the DLC.

[@petwisk2012]

I that find most of the bosses aewsome have to admit something, you go fight them with movment and combat mobility of a souls player, a little faster than demons souls a little more mobile and ninble, but still a souls hero, but most if not all the bosses move like they're fighting Dante,Vergil, cereza or even Sora, they move like you could go from a hyper fast combo to a dodge or a perfect parry on a button press, malenia could be a pretty simple secret fight in KH2 and nobody would bet an eye but because our mobility is so "limited" in souls games she gets the Hardest Boss ever label, after sekiro i thought that they would finally make a full action game but with souls world design and dificulty but they are still insisting in the souls formula for the player moveset but the bosses are already full action... Rodin The infinite one still harder tho

[@JahIthBer]

Play the ps4 version on the ps5 it’s a locked 60

[@jorgecarvajal5385]

i love how you dont even metion RE3 REmake XDD nobody like that game XDDDD

[@Jackraiden500]

Personally i'm disappointed in the DLC. It's scope is huge for A DLC. However, Many of the zones on the map are empty and or have hardly anything in them. The new weapon types are great, it would just have been nice if we could have had more variety with them. Instead most of the new gear is old weapon types. The bosses are generally fine and as an average joe player I had little difficulty when I utilized the tools given. With３exceptions, those being the first death knight boss you are likely to run in to, the putrescent knight (the only saving grace is It's weakness to holy and lightning) and the final boss, which I realized I couldn't be arsed with so I spammed rolling thunder at his feet till he flopped like A fish (rest in pepperoni rolling thunder we hardly knew ye). Add to that, most of the loot you find are crafting materials or cookbooks (and those cookbooks give 2 things if lucky and 1 at frequent worst). It's clear they spammed scadutree fragments all over the place because they realized they didn't have enough compelling loot and needed to fill space. Also the weapons from the final boss? really fromsoft? the spell is unique and fantastic against anything not holy resistant but the weapons? you weren't satisfied with reusing bosses 24/7 so you reused and copied A weapon twice from the base game, slapped A flashy skill on them that don't even seem very good, and called it A day? lazy AF.

[@tomas60952]

go play shadow of the colossus, it will make you understand why there are empty spaces.

[@Jackraiden500]

@@tomas60952 Played it long ago. Still doesn't justify it.

[@tomas60952]

@@Jackraiden500 for me it have enough content... People just wanna nitpick and cry about it.

[@Jackraiden500]

@@tomas60952 It has A decent amount of content that's not in question. But it doesn't make sense to have several areas of the map be nearly or completely empty. And I fail to see how that's A nit pick.

[@tomas60952]

@@Jackraiden500 it makes sense lore wise..... the map its 3 times bigger than blood borne and have twice the content.... i can promise you youll like it a lot more in a couple of month when you replay it.... i understand that it had too much hype, but its still one of the best content fromsoft have ever made. It will grow on you.

[@HahahMamaman]

DLC was pretty underwhelming. Probably a 6/10

[@Banbro88]

It was mid.

[@jarlwhiterun7478]

Your life is

[@SaintKines]

Compared to what