I have more to say on Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoft). Yes, I said that yesterday’s post would be the last, but it’s not. Why? Because I started watching RKG’s Retry Dark Souls II/Scholar of the First Sin (the first series they did after starting their own company), which led to me starting my own playthrough. I chose the same starting class they did (knight), and I vowed to follow their path. Which I have, but I quickly remembered that I simply cannot play the game without a ranged option. Yes, they added a bow, but, ah, let’s just say Rory and bows do not get along.
Side note: It’s incredhible that people are still playing this game. When I got to the second bonfire in the Forest of Fallen Giants, there were so many summoning signs! Also, I forgot that you can’t play offline (without a lot of fuss) with this game. Anyway, I summoned Kanye West for
*SPOILERS*
The Last Giant, and that was a lot of fun. Later, I summoned someone for The Pursuer, and I was able to use the ballistas to make quick work of The Pursuer (my summon knew to jump out of the way). Then, in Heide’s Tower of Flame, I summoned a human to do the Old Dragonslayer (I had already killed the dragon along the way), and they died three times before even reaching the boss. I kept running back to summon them without resting first, so by the time we got to the boss, they had all their stuff. They were a sorceror.
This game is pretty generous with NPC summons for boss fights, which is nice, but it’s even nicer to be able to summon humans. More fun, too! I love that there are still people dedicated to this game as with all the other From games.
Back to Elden Ring in general and Shadow of the Erdtree in particular. There were complaints about Elden Ring (and Dark Souls III before it) not being innovative enough. I’m not going to get into that because I’ve written about it before, but my belief is that they were endlessly tweaking their formula and in some games, the tweaks were significant, but not game-changing. Yes, in Bloodborne and Sekiro, they completely changed the combat (notably, my two least-favorite From games), but in Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, and Elden Ring, it was more about polishing and adding things that made life significantly better to an already-existing formula.
It’s tinkering with the engine rather than adding spinning rims. It’s nowhere near as flashy, but it’s much needed.
I have often thought that the more popular FromSoft gets, the less credit they get for what they do. It’s become expected that they will do amazing things. So much so, many people don’t even bat an eye any longer. Or they think that From should be doing more.
Now that I’m playing Scholar of the First Sin again, I’m seeing the really rough spots in the game. Don’t get me wrong. I still like the game much more than most people. However, there are aspects of it that make me cruse like a sailor as I hoon it through areas populated with way too many enemies. This is one way the sequel tried to outdo the original–and took the wrong message from it. It’s something that soulslikes do all the time as well. It’s not the difficulty that makes the games interesting. At least not to me. The difficulty is something I suffer through in order to get to the good parts.
One of the most underrated tweaks of Elden Ring was the addition of a dedicated jump button. There was a jump in Sekiro, but I think that was only in combat. it didn’t matter as much in that game because there wasa grappling hook that you could use to traverse the terrain.
Hvaing a jump button in Elden Ring changed everything. That plus Torrent meant that nothing was off-limits. It didn’t always work the best, but that’s becuase FromSoft is terrible at platforming. There. I said it. And adding a spirit steed to wibbly-wobbly jumping meant I died to gravity more times than I care to admit. But that jump button changed my life. Once Ihad a game with it, it’s really difficult to play the ones that don’t have it.
Another thing From doesn’t get enough credit for is the map in the game. I’ve talked about it before, so I won’t belabor it again. In the DLC, there is a whole new map, and it’s just as thrilling to find the map fragments and slowly unveil the whole map. I will say, though, that it was a bit too intricate, and I had the hardest time finding the last two pieces.
This is more on me than From, though. I know it’s my really shitty sense of direction, but it’s still frustrating and made me sad.
I love this DLC probably the most out of all the From DLCs. It’s by far the, ah, not easiest, but least stressful of the DLCs–well, at least until the final boss. Let’s not talk about that, though, because it’s par the course for From. They always make the last boss of the DLC too fucking difficult. It’s the one time they buy into their own hype. Actually, they usually make the whole DLC nails hard, which they did not do this time (if you get the Scadutree Fragments, of course).
I’m pretyt sure it’s because it’s a more mainstream game this time. Which I have no issues with as I have written before. I want FromSoft to get as much love as possible beacuse they deserve it.
I did not find many of the bosses in the DLC that hard, but it’s mostly because I did so much exploring. I stayed away from the main story until I had done everything else. There is a statement fight with a dragon that everyone loves. Well, maybe not loves, but they surely love the NPC, Igon, who is associated with this dragon. You can reach him (Bayle) quite early on, but I ignored it because I had heard how hard he was. I also fucked up the Dragon Communion Priestess’s questline (also associated with this boss), which I rectified in my second playthrough.
There is an area I hated, but was brilliant. It’s called the Abyssal Woods, and you got there after finishing a catacomb. THis was new, by the way. These two areas being at the end of a separate dungeon/catacomb. FromSoft said that they were going to integrate the dungeons into the environment, which is what this was. I liked that as a tweak, and I hope they continue doing this in the next game.
This DLC was exceptional. It deserved Game of the Year. I’m not made it didn’t get it, but I stand by it being nominated. It’s my favorite game of 2024, and I will certainly be playing it through 2025 as well.