Elden Ring DLC Review

I just beat the Elden Ring DLC for the first time and I'm going to give a review of just the DLC. Spoilers obviously.

To start, I just want to say that the main bosses in this DLC were by far the best bosses I've ever played in any game. They were so unbelievably cool and fair and fun, it was genuinely so amazing to fight every single main boss. Except Golden Hippo. My favorites were Midra, Messmer, and Rellana.

Genuinely 10/10 bosses I dont care.

I feel like the DLC rewarded exploration a bit more than the base game because scadutree blessings and revered spirit ash blessings would be hiding in random villages, crevices, caves, altars, or even in enemies. The base game didn't really have anything as important as those blessings, so it's not the base games fault, it's just the mechanics of the DLC that inherently reward exploration more. That being said, I also just got lost in this DLC more. I think the map is more beautiful imo, and has so many beautiful color schemes. the cerulean coast, the ruah ruins, shadow keep, inir-ilim, etc.

10/10 open world and beauty

Same player mechanics as the base game, so I will give them an 8.5/10 as I did before. Clunky rolling and queued up animations. My one flaw with this game.

I like the idea of scadutree and revered spirit ash blessings because it relies on your level much less. This means that it doesn't punish those who aren't very high level or didn't grind runes, which is the case I was in. Because it was so important of an item it genuinely found important when i found one, and I felt seriously rewarded. I also just want to say the weapons in this DLC are fucking amazing. Spear of the Impaler is fucking sick, Rellana's twin blades are cool and unique as hell, Eleonoras Poleblade, greatsword of damnation, radahn's double blades, all so fucking cool with awesome art of wars.

10/10 Game mechanics

I think quests were more self explanatory and less required for key items in this DLC, which I like. I didn't have to look up stuff too much, which could also just be because the DLC is inherently smaller than the base game. Still, I didn't really struggle too hard with quests, and even tho I'm sure I missed a lot, I don't think I missed any key items. (I looked it up). The quests I did complete were pretty cool, progressing the followers of kindly miquella just naturally by finding crosses and coming back to that one guy, and the person by st trina who you fight, and the group who you fight before radahn, I really like it all.

9/10 Quests

I think the story is a bit less easy to understand than the base game. I can't be the only one who found myself confused on a lot of the dialogue with characters in the DLC, like I could not really understand what the hell they were talking about half the time. Not a story game, so once again, I have to rate it for what it tries to do, which is immersion. And it does that very well, as it did the base game. I liked the reason behind Radahns reveal at the end and I liked messmer being the son of Marika.

9.5/10 Story

Some of the enemies were really fucking hard man. Those lion solders and curly light sorcerers in Enir-Ilim, those yellow guys with two swords in Belurat and Midras Manse, man they are hard. But at the end of the day, it is a skill issue, and once I just calmed down and stopped getting so mad I realized the enemies aren't the problem, it's just the way I'm approaching the problem. ASIDE from those curly light sorcerers who would just spam attacks in Enir-Ilim. They can fuck themselves. Unique enemies just like the first game though, like flying giant scorpions? Undead dragons? Giant metal fire giants? The lanterns that kill you if they see you? So fucking cool.

9.9/10 Enemies

Man this game is fucking magical. I have only had half a day without new Elden Ring content and I am already starting to miss it. I didn't realize it while I was playing, but man all I would think about the past few weeks was Elden Ring. This game literally transports you to another world and keeps you so immersed sometimes you don't even notice. I've been going through the hardest point in my entire life, and this game keeps me so immersed in its little world that I rarely thought about the other negative things in my life the past few weeks. Now that it's over, I really do see how much it did for me, and for that I will always be grateful for it.

10/10 Immersion/World building

I really wish I could just give it a 10/10 game and 10/10 DLC but I can't sadly. Sadly I have to be realistic and give critiques. Thats not sarcastic. I dont really care about averaging all my points.

9.9/10 DLC, 10/10 base game+DLC, 9.9/10 base game

It's the closest game to perfection. Almost all of my flaws with the base game and the DLC at first were literally just because I was mad. My god, looking back on it now it was so fucking amazing. Best game of all time. Genuinely life changing. It's gonna suck trying to play any other game now.