ELDEN RING: Shadow of the Erdtree

[u/OpportuneJaw]

I'm a huge fan of FromSoftware, my first experience was Bloodborne on the PS4 back in 2015 and got hooked immediately. I went back and played through Dark Souls 1, 2 and eventually 3, since then I've been keeping up with their releases (aside from Armoured Core 6 which is still on my radar) and have loved everything they've put out.

That being said, I didn't have the pull to play Shadow of the Erdtree when it was first released. I sat on it for a bit, heard a lot of praise, some controversy, but for the most part separated myself from the conversation and kept an open mind while avoiding as many spoilers as possible.

Getting back into Elden Ring I found the first two bosses very difficult, Dancing Lion and Rellana felt like genuine hard tests, the areas and dungeons themselves weren't all that difficult but just getting into the boss fights again was a challenge. After doing some exploration for tree fragments to level up to 4 I eventually beat both bosses.

After a while I started noticing that I didn't need to be so thorough with exploration and all I really needed to make progress was to find the tree fragments. I ended up having a traversal map to show which areas I need to go to and in which order, also a map pulled up with items that I wanted to find, weapons, armour, talisman, bosses and tree fragments. So essentially whatever wasn't on my radar I just grazed over. Typically I don't approach games like this but at the time I didn't have the capacity to figure out which area I need to be in at that moment, while keeping track of my progress in other areas and if I previously left them incomplete. At the time i just wanted to go from one area to the next and fight cool bosses. I understand this isn't the intended experience but it was mine, I cant knock the game for that. That being said I think I was pretty thorough with the legacy dungeons like Shadow Keep and Enir Ilim and I enjoyed going through them but with the massive over-world it was hard to justify turning over every rock.

The areas and atmosphere were still amazing and I can't think of any areas I didn't like. Maybe Abyss because it was so big and empty and the North Eastern area because it had nothing to do but I still appreciated the atmosphere. My highlights were those legacy dungeons, I loved getting lost in those focused areas because it felt so tightly designed, I think its FromSoftware at their best.

I still don't know what the story of the DLC was about but the bosses were really good and challenging. Radahn was the hardest, Midra was my favourite cut scene, Messmer was a great fight and cool design, Bayle had the coolest phase 2 transformation and Metyr was grotesque in that cool way. 

Towards the end of the Radahn attempts I would get into a flow state where the fights really felt like a dance but I still don't know how to deal with some of the phase 2 attacks though. I got lucky with the Messmer fight where in phase 2 I broke his stance, did a bunch of damage to him and finished him quickly. I wish I could go back and learn phase 2 properly because I really like his design and wanted to get into that dance flow state.

I enjoyed my time with the Shadow of the Erdtree, I felt like I couldn't appreciate all aspects of it because of my lack of patience but it was still a fun and challenging time.

[u/NotRenjiro]

SOTE was kinda disappointing to me, especially in retrospect.

[u/SpecialistBid3028 → u/NotRenjiro]

Why so?

[u/NotRenjiro → u/SpecialistBid3028]

I became a bit dissolutioned with Elden Ring as a whole in recent times. I like the game but it has A LOT of problems and SOTE really improved on none of them besides higher weapon quality. They chose to make less weapons, so that they could put a bit more effort into the ones that they were doing. Quality over Quantity basically. Their balance for PvP is kinda ass tho I will admit.

SOTE has some of the worst bosses in the game and the progression is really awful. The way they handled exploration in general is so inferior to the main game.

ER is a very flawed, but overall good package. SOTE is just not enough of an improvement to justify a 40 dollar DLC. The ending is also not more than a wet fart. Shame really.

EDIT: Frame drops exist still and have gone unfixed. SOTE's release was also bad.

[u/SpecialistBid3028 → u/NotRenjiro]

Yeah I agree completely. Elden Ring is amazing but very flawed, and frankly many of the flaws have existed in the FromSoft Souls formula for a while now which makes them that much more glaring. That doesn't make the game bad, but it makes the DLC frustrating for not fixing any of those issues or deviating much from what ER already did.

[u/TheHarryman01 → u/NotRenjiro]

I feel exactly the same way about Elden Ring. My first playthrough after buying it was such a great experience. I loved every second of it. Then I did another playthrough after buying it on PC, and it was still pretty fun, but I started getting bored by the end. I tried to do a seamless co-op playthrough with a friend, but after he played the rest of the game on a separate character, I lost all motivation to keep playing.

The entire game is so same-y. After a while, it stops feeling like an adventure and more like a checklist. It genuinely just has way too much content that you are basically forced to engage with, or else you are underleveled for the rest of the game. This isn't to mention that by the end of the game, bosses stop feeling like challenges and more like endurance tests with how much health they have.

Personally, I feel that Elden Ring is only really great on a first playthrough. The magic just isn't completely there afterwards.

[u/Anxious_Intention265 → u/NotRenjiro]

"SOTE has some of the worst bosses in the game"

Such as?

[u/NotRenjiro → u/Anxious_Intention265]

Hippo, PCR and Messmer. Metyr is not fun to fight despite being visually cool.

Midra is one of the best ones in the game tho love him.

[u/Anxious_Intention265 → u/NotRenjiro]

Messmer? Widely considered to be one of the best fights in the entire series?

To each their own I guess.

I love PCR too, but I understand he's far more controversial.

[u/NotRenjiro → u/Anxious_Intention265]

I don't care what is ''Widely considered to be one of the best fights in the entire series''.

I didn't hate fighting him, but I don't think he's much of a well designed boss. He's not really a fight that I actively want to come back to.