Welcome to my week-long review of Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). This might be the last post in the series, but then again, it might not be. In the last post, I ended by talking about how I have accessed the DLC yet again. I could have done it sooner, but I am a tad bit compulsive and had to do certain things in the main storyline, despite them not being necessary to access the DLC.
*SPOILER WARNING*
I never did Nepheli Loux’s storyline on this character, so I wanted to set that up. And I was curious as to why Hyetta didn’t show up where she was supposed to (outside Godrick’s castle once you defeat him, I thought). Since I was doing things in a weird way, I had skipped Godrick and did Rennala first. I thought maybe you had to kill Godrick to get her, so I did that. For funsies. And to see if that got Hyetta where she needed to be.
Nope. It did not. So, of course, I Googled it.
Before I tell you what you need to do, I have to tell you about another NPC, Irina. You meet her outside Castle Morne, and then she is brutally slaughtered. Presumably, by the Misbegotten who are rioting in Castle Morne (of which Irina’s father is the castellan). One of their cleavers is found by Irina’s dead body. There are a few other steps, but that’s the main bit.
I went back to where Hyetta was supposed to be, and, lo and behold, she was there! It seems the theory that the two of them are the same person is real! They have the same character model and the same voice actor. And both can’t see. The theory is that Hyetta is a reincarnation of Irina. But, and hear me out, what if Hyetta killed Irina and took over her body? It’s as good a theory as the other one in the bleak world of Elden Ring. Anyway, Hyetta is back and where she needs to be.
In the DLC, the NPC questlines are both the highlight and the lowlight. I think that it’s too tightly knit and it’s too easy to miss things. Again, that might just be me, but it was really frustrating to feel like I fucked things up completely and could not do all the NPC quests on my first playthrough. My first character is always my favorite, regardless of how trash the character is. Yes, I do everything wrong in building the character, but they are MY trash character, damn it.
I have several characters in Elden Ring, of course. And, like my mythical children, I love them all for–no, you know what? No. I don’t. I love my first character the best. I love my strength character second best. The others are all fair-to-middling. That’s just the way it goes. This is one reason I didn’t have children.
Let’s talk about the difficulty of the DLC. This was something that was very controversial when the DLC came out. Miyazaki made it clear that they were pushing the ceiling of difficulty with the DLC. Every fucking time there’s something new from FromSoft, we have to have this fucking discussion. And it’s very tiring. I mean, there is a discussion to be had, but it’s not the binary one that dominates the fandom. ‘Git gud’ versus ‘easy mode’. I will say that I found it bitterly entertaining that many of the ‘git gud’ crowd were the ones whining about the DLC being too hard.
There are two reasons for that. One, they refuse to use summons. Ever. At all. Which, as I’ve said many times, is a legit way to play the game. However, you can’t really complain about the game being too hard if you refuse to use a significant tool in the game. I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again. FromSoft is allowed to change how they do their games. They are not wedded to making their bosses soloable. They just aren’t. They have no obligation to do so, and I wish the content creators would get it through their thick heads.
It’s like a fan of a music group that is a decade old. The fans keep moaning about the old stuff while the music group experiments with new things. I used to listen to VNV Nation right before they let out a new album that went in a drastically different direction. They got so many complaints about the new music, they put out a statement that said, in essence, that while they appreciated all their fans, they were not going to put out the same old music. They said that if the fans really liked that music, there were plenty of albums they could still listen to. I really admired them for saying that, and I think it’s something fans need to be aware of. Especially in this era of parasocial relationships. It’s so much easier to connect with other fans these days and to get responses from the creators, depending on how big they are and how online they are.
FromSoft is not a team to talk directly to their fans. They don’t reply to tweets and whatnot except in general. When everyone was complaining about the difficulty of the DLC, they tweeted out, “Find more Scadutree Fragments.” or maybe that was Bandai Namco. Anyway, thanks. That’s such a big help.
My biggest girpes about the DLC in a nutshell: Last boss with all the visual confusion just irritates me. I think if that was all cut out, I wouldn’t be as mad about it. In fact, I would be happy about it. I don’t think not being able to see is a great part of a boss fight, and I’ll stand by that. The NPC questlines are easy to miss, but again, that might be me. Too many cut-and-paste field bosses that werre tired in the base game, to be honest. That’s along with the platforming that makes me sigh; the magical pixel of health an enemy has after I attack them, and other things like that that are prominent in the base games as well.
The best parts of the DLC: the environments, the level design, the music, and the NPCs. Yes, even though I fucked up their questlines, I really liked most of them when I met them. And on my second playthrough. I love the feeling of uncertainty and fear that I only get in a FromSoft game the first time through. And I love how much it brings out the passion in the From fans.
I have more to say, but I’ll save it for tomorrow. Probably my last post in the series.