Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (Game DLC) Review

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12.12PM. I'm in bed and listening to my spouse and a dear friend talk, life carrying on as it does and thinking to myself; am I allowed to not like something quite as much as others are?

 

Of course I am. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is a good DLC. It's also not quite as good as I'd like. And saying that feels like I'm doing something wrong, even as I sit here living my life among others doing the same. But holding an opinion for reasons I find are 'wrong' is something I've had a little experience over the years, passionately grounding myself in something I might love and finding others feel strongly the other way. And in this case, Shadow of the Erdtree to me, fails to ever be as good as the original experience of Elden Ring. And that may be because it is an experience crouched in difficulty.

 

Elden Ring and Shadow are both game and DLC crouched in the 'Souls' series of games and as such, are games that make difficulty kind of the core tenant; defeat a superior and difficult foe to make the achievement of winning higher. Elden Ring took a step toward making this process a little easier, not with a method that I might have preferred such as an easy mode, but with an approach I still appreciated; a large open world with easier areas that levelling and exploring benefit you to do. Elden Ring I rate higher as an experience as while difficult and there are sections that are borderline inexcusably difficult, taking lessons from other Souls games that don't quite work as well here, it was still an amazing experience to share with family and friends, learning and exploring and finding more and surmounting those odds.

 

Which takes us back to the PM, to Shadow and my struggle. It's not even that much lower. It's not an experience I abjectly regret. But Shadow is where as has been expressed through interviews I've finally gotten a chance to read, the difficulty level has been shifted to a degree the designers have seen how much they can get away with. Built around a separate and rather clever, if not exactly well implemented separate levelling system for yourself and your summons. It's been a game I've had some fun with, with some neat designs and fun bosses on occasion. But as I've approached its end game, it kind of fell apart.

 

There was a clear middle point where that three and a half star experience I'm thinking of was happening; a memory of exploring this new land, fighting a few bosses where that DLC levelling mattered and finding a few new things that caught my eye, seeing my character spinning around with elegant swords. But the start and the end, crashed down upon me, forcing me to have to use methods I hadn't internalized to win but also suffering from either blistering speeds which left me unable to do much in the way of fun or killing me so fast, it made me wonder the purpose of these levelling systems in the first place. It simply didn't satisfy me; there was one 'wow I did it' early in the game and then after that, I never really had a high of beating any of these bosses. The finale of the game being more 'thank fuck that's over' rather than joy and triumph over finishing it. 

 

It's a little in the afternoon, finishing writing this. And much like the shadow cast by the tree, I'm in the shade of my enjoyment of Elden Ring, wondering what it could've done better. Maybe an easy mode.

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