DO NOT BUY Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC - VERY Disappointing [h5GbFB5zTso]

Recently I finished the Shadow of the

Erdtree DLC for Elden Ring, and as an avid

fan of Elden Ring, I knew I just had to

play the DLC. Unfortunately, after

finishing it, I have found it to be kind

of bland, boring, and slightly lacking in

luster. The DLC doesn't fix any of the

problems that the base game had, so if you

had some things in the base game that you

didn't like, then you're going to find

those things in the DLC. So for example,

the slow, sluggish gameplay is still in

the DLC, and the way that when you die

from a boss you've got to start all the

way back at the Site of Grace run all the

way back to the boss to restart the fight.

Things like that are still in the DLC, so

they've made zero attempt to try and fix

some of the problems that were found in

the base game of Elden Ring. So if you

wanted improvements, then you're not going

to find any in this DLC. I found the new

bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree to be kind

of boring and bland and extremely easy to

defeat. Only took me maybe an hour or 2 to

defeat most of the bosses. And then when I

finished the final boss, Radahn, I was

like, is that it? That's the end of the

game? Seriously, how is it going to end

like this? I feel like I've only just

There's 2 types of bosses. You've got

these really big bosses like the dragon

bosses, Bale the Dread and the Dancing

Lion, and they're really annoying to fight

because they're so big. And when you're

trying to lock onto them, the camera just

flips out and starts spinning like crazy

all over the place. And they do these

really annoying movements. Like Bale the

Dread, trying to hit him in the head was

such a pain in the backside because his

head would keep swaying around and he

would constantly spam attacks. And you

only have this small window of opportunity

to be able to land a hit, a few hits on

his head before he starts moving all over

the place again. It was so frustrating.

Repeating. That's what most of the bosses

are like in the game. And then the other

types of bosses are the more humanoid

bosses, the smaller humanoid form bosses,

which I think are more fun and more

enjoyable to fight. But they just do the

same kind of pattern where they do some

swipes or they do a thrust or they do like

this massive AOE explosion after they jump

into the air and land back on the ground.

It's all just like that, the same old

stuff that you've seen before in Elden

Ring, the base game. I didn't really find

many of the boss fights in the Shadow of

the Erdtree DLC to be very enjoyable.

They're very frustrating, and there were

several bosses where if you die and you

had to restart the boss fights, you had to

go through this lengthy intro process.

For example, there's this one boss called

Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flames, in Midra's

Manse, or Mancy, that big house in the

Abyssal Woods. The old guy, he starts off

as an old man on the floor, and you've got

to whack him, and he's pretty easy to

beat. And then he transforms into the big

demonic monster boss. But every time you

die to the boss, you gotta start from the

beginning and kill the old man, and then

skip the cutscene, and then see all the

intro animation again. It's really

annoying. There's another boss where

before you start the fight, you have to

jump off a ledge and do this really long

drop into a cave, and it takes like 5

seconds to watch your character dropping

until it hits the floor, and then the boss

fight starts. But if you die, you got to

respawn, jump off the ledge again, watch

your character fall for like 5 or 10

seconds, and you'll do that over and over

again until you finally beat the boss. It

was just really annoying. There was a lot

of hype about the new weapon types in

Shadow of the Erdtree, but I feel like all

the new weapons in the game, all the new

weapon types, they were kind of boring and

not really that interesting. There's all

these new weapons that drop from the

bosses as remembrances, but I never used

any of the boss drop weapons because

there's 2 weapons— basically one weapon

that was really overpowered called the

Bloodfiend Arm, and you get this from some

random trash mob that you can basically

one-shot kill. And I ended up using the

Bloodfiend Arm for basically 90% of the

game because it's so powerful and it's so

good. But that makes it so that you don't

really want to use any of the other

weapons. There's loads of really cool

weapons in the game, but because they're

just kind of rubbish in comparison to the

Bloodfiend Arm, you never really want to

use it. And when you get stuck and you

want to cheese something because you're

frustrated, you always end up going back

to the Bloodfiend Arm. I just don't know

why they made one weapon that drops from a

really rubbish mob— not like an

interesting boss or mini-boss or anything,

it's just this one random weapon that

looks like a massive chicken wing— why did

they make this one weapon so insanely good

and then all the other weapons kind of

suck and are rubbish? And then you've got

the Dry Leaf Arts, the kung fu martial

arts fighting style that people are really

excited about. I didn't really find the

Dry Leaf Arts to be very interesting.

There's loads of fisting, boxing kind of

fighting styles and weapons that already

in the base game of Elden Ring, like the

spiked gloves and the spiked ball metal

gloves and the iron ball gloves and all

the claw weapons. There was loads of

fisting, clawing kind of fighting. Elden

Ring already had loads of these weapons

anyway, so it wasn't really something new.

I don't know why everyone made such a big

fuss about the Dry Leaf Arts. The only

interesting thing about the Dry Leaf Arts

was the Ashes of War, the Palm Blast, was

pretty overpowered and it did a lot of

damage and it knocks back enemies. So when

I wanted to cheese stuff like those

mausoleum minibosses that work quite hard.

I would just spam Palm Blast at them over

and over again, and it would do insane

damage, and it would just knock them down.

And whilst they're knocked down, I'll

charge up another Palm Blast, and as soon

as they get up, I release a new Palm

Blast. They get knocked down again. They

can't even get up. They can't even do

anything. I guess it's nice that Palm

Blast was there to help me when I wanted

to cheese things and I got frustrated, I

got stuck, but I don't think there should

be one ability that just lets you defeat

stuff by spamming it over and over again,

and they can't even get back up to fight

back at you. I thought Elden Ring is

supposed to be a difficult and challenging

game, but I didn't feel challenged at all

when you've got all these cheese tactics

that are built into the game with things

like Palm Blast, the Blood Fiend Arm.

Heavy attack charged up does so much

damage and it triggers blood loss every

single time after just one charged up

heavy attack, which would also do insane

amounts of damage and stagger and knock

bosses down after a few hits. The game was

so damn easy. I thought Souls games are

supposed to be hard, but this wasn't hard

at all. Actually, the hardest thing was

leveling up all the stupid weapons because

there's so many new weapons in the game

and obviously you have to level them up as

high as you can, usually 20 25, or 24 if

you don't have the Somber Ancient Smithing

Stone, whatever it's called. You can

probably get most weapons up to level 24

because you probably don't have the

Ancient Somber Stone to get it to 25. So

you had to get it to at least 24 for the

new weapon to actually do any damage,

because if it's level 1, it's not gonna do

any damage. So you had to level up all

these new weapons, which needed hundreds

and hundreds of stupid smithing stones. I

really hate the weapon leveling system in

Elden Ring. I think it's so unnecessary,

and you have to do it in order to do any

good damage with the new weapons. You need

all these smithing stones. They're not

hard to get, they're just annoying to get

because you either have to go farm them or

you get the Bell Bearing and hand that in

to the old woman at the Roundtable, and

then you buy the smithing stones off her.

But then you need millions and millions of

runes to buy all of the necessary smithing

stones and also pay the smithing person

monster thing to upgrade all of the

weapons. So I had to keep going to that

farming spot, you know, the rune farming

spot where there's a bunch of these little

short fat guys sleeping King and you get

that golden sword, the Sacred Sword—

Sacred Relic Sword, I think it's called.

You do the Golden Holy Wave and you just

press that once and it sends out this

massive wave of holy damage and just kills

everything in front of you. And then you

get like 80,000 runes in one hit and you

go back to Site of Grace, reset it, do it

again. I did that for like an hour to get

a couple million. I think I grinded and

farmed 10 million runes to buy all the

smithing stones and get all the upgrades

so I can upgrade every single weapon I got

from the new DLC. And it took such a long

time, it was such a chore. It wasn't fun.

It wasn't challenging. What is the point

of it? It's just a waste of fucking time.

And then you have the verticality of the

maps in the open world in the Shadow of

the Erdtree. And everyone keeps going on

about how Elden Ring has the best

verticality in any open world game. And I

don't know what they're talking about.

The verticality of the maps is really

annoying. So you've got really high

mountain ranges and really deep ravines.

Trying to figure out how to get to the top

of a mountain range or how to get to the

bottom of this lower part of the map was

really frustrating and annoying because

you can't just jump down, you die from

gravity. You can't just climb up the

mountain, you gotta find the secret

passageway or the secret steps or the

secret ramp that goes down to the lower

area. It's not like Zelda where you can

just jump off the edge with a parachute

and glide down or climb up the mountain

surface. You can't do that in Elden Ring,

and it just made it really frustrating to

traverse around the map. And then for the

final boss, it's just the same character,

the same guy from the base game. General

Radahn, the big massive giant that rides

the tiny donkey, is somehow back in the

DLC, but this time he's not got a massive

giant and he doesn't have a tiny donkey.

Okay, he's got a different moveset and he

looks a bit different. He looks more human

now for some reason. I don't understand

why he's in the Elden Ring DLC after we

already killed him in the base game. How

did he come back? It wasn't even explained

in the story, at least I don't know

because I skipped all the cutscenes

because the story didn't make any sense

and it was really boring. It's all about

Miquella, who is this boy or man who

looks like a woman that has really long

hair. I thought it was a woman. I was

really confused at first, but I don't

understand the story at all. And you fight

Radahn again. He's the final boss in the

Elden Ring DLC, but he looks different and

he does different things. But he was a

really annoying boss to fight. He just

spams non-stop endless AOE and all these

melee combos, and it's nearly impossible

to dodge everything. So you just have to

end up going for a super tanky build, get

a massive shield, and just don't even

bother dodging or rolling and just block

and tank through all of his attacks, and

then do like counterattacks and heavy

attacks to stagger him. That's how I

cheesed Radahn in the end. I just gave up

trying to actually fight him, and I just

put on my heaviest armor, heaviest tanking

talismans, biggest shield, and I just

tanked him. I just stood there and I took

all of his attacks, and it felt kind of

cheap. So yeah, I was kind of disappointed

that the final boss is just the same boss

from the base game, Radahn, again.

And after you beat him, you get a tiny

little cutscene that's probably not even

20 seconds, and that's it. You can't even

like end the game, roll credits. You're

just left there in the arena that you beat

him in, and I guess you just go back into

the world and finish things that you

didn't finish yet, or go back to the base

game to finish the final boss in the base

game to start a new game, to start an NG+,

and then you're done basically. The Elden

Ring DLC just didn't really feel very

complete to me. It felt very big but also

kind of empty at the same time and kind of

bland. I would give it a 6.2 out of 10.

Don't really feel like it was worth buying

or worth all of the fuss, and the amount

of time you had to wait for the DLC was 2

years, and I finished it in 2 weeks.