Magnificent Set Pieces With No Substance
I heard a lot of things before journeying into Elden’s Rings DLC Shadow of the Erdtree. I heard it was more character focused, the map was the size of the main games, and that it was worth the 40 dollar price tag (while the main game is 60$). I don’t think any of this is true. This review is also a warning to make backups of your save. You should be wary of this DLC, it is full of hackers and they may ruin your entire save and you will have to either risk modding the game or start from scratch. It seems FromSoftware or probably more accurately Bandai Namco don’t care about the hacker problem, once this DLC was released it seems Elden Ring was forgotten about.
Shadow of the Erdtree takes place during your Tarnishes journey to become Elden Lord. After you defeat Lord Mohg you can enter the DLC by touching Miquella’s hand at the Cocoon. There you will meet a new NPC Needle Knight Leda who will journey into The Land of Shadow with you. The Land of Shadow is where the goddess Marika is from and where Miquella (one of Marikas many kids) is currently ditching his body parts and emotions at. Leda is a knight devoted to Miquella, one of his followers and I would argue the main character of this DLC (her and Miquella).
I understand why people said this was more character focused. You have choices but those choices only matter in regards to how many friends you will have to fight with you in the final battle. Shadow of the Erdtree is full of confusing betrayals and a lot of unnecessary NPC deaths so the player can acquire their outfits without murdering them personally. Make sure to visit and talk to NPCs after everything you do because if you don’t it could lead to an ending you didn’t want. You must seek them out and they are not always easy to find.
There are a lot of really cool characters that are half baked. This DLC seems like it’s full of half baked cut content from the main game randomly shoehorned in, without thought to if it fits. I love a good set piece, don’t get me wrong. The giant dead dragon made me go “oooh ahh”. I took a lot of screenshots because “every frame is a painting” and all that but even though the world looked magnificent it was shallow. We didn’t get the “why” and this time I actually read the item descriptions to try to understand because I wanted to understand. I wanted to understand so much of this land but all I had were people speculating on Reddit.
The map was smaller than the main games and this becomes very obvious because when switching over to the DLC map the main game maps aspect ratio is still there. It looked like I was missing the right side and the top of the map until someone told me that I had the whole DLC map filled out. This map has a lot of verticality but not as much as the main games. I tried to use the bumpers to switch to and from the different maps like it said but it broke and I had to use the site of the grace menu. This game is broken like Miquella’s Great Rune.
The leveling up system in the Shadow of the Erdtree is simple. While exploring you come across Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes. Collect enough of them and you can upgrade yourself at the grace sites. Scadutree Blessings upgrade your damage output and negation. Revered Spirit Ash does the same but with summoning spirits and your steed Torrent.
Be wary dear Tarnished, Shadow of the Erdtree is full of hackers. I had the unfortunate circumstance of getting victimized by one of them early on in the DLC when fighting Rellana, Twin Moon Knight. The hacker showed up a lot and I would just have to quickly “exit to desktop” but when I loaded in I was falling off the map infinitely. I luckily managed to get back on my feet but when I beat Rellana I didn’t get a remembrance, in fact I didn’t get any remembrance or item given to me by an NPC anymore. On top of that all my overworld bosses were already defeated so I not only missed out on a lot of interesting boss fights, I also couldn’t summon my husband to my world anymore. There are two ways to solve this problem, make sure you manually backup your save file. If you didn’t think about that ahead of time you might have to start the game over again or mod it. You can find mods to add items and remembrances to your character or you can import someone else’s character and just respec them to what you had before. Be warned Bandai Namco might not like modding and ban you from online play which is ironic because I’m just trying to salvage my game from a hacker that they didn’t seem to notice or care about. Just make sure you backup your save file on your computer!
I would recommend doing this DLC near the end of your Elden Ring playthrough, the ending of Shadow of the Erdtree is anticlimactic. If you liked Elden Ring you will probably like this DLC. If you got hacked and had to find ways to salvage your playthrough you most likely will be like me and very bitter about this DLC. It’s a fun romp through random cut content but that’s really all it is. I don’t think it’s worth your time or money, save yourself the headache.
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