Really bad taste for them to use a black guy instead of a Japanese guy as a lead.  Otherwise, pretty good.

 

Tons of Elden Ring DLC leaks- they finally answer the key mysteries of the game, concluding it.

 

The mystery of who Melina is revealed, and it makes more sense than any of the fan theories over the past 2 yrs.  And it's a freaking obvious twist.

Elden Ring DLC is coming out today- supposedly it's quite long

Hidetaka Miyazaki On Bringing Elden Ring To A Close And The Future Of From Software - GameSpot

 

My first impressions from peaking through the full DLC playthrough is that the expansion is very intricately designed and has more great bosses- however it's missing something.  Elden Ring had a pretty good story tying everything together with great characters, and a homebase in the roundtable hold.  It had a huge sense of mystery too like the other FROMSOFT games.  It also did stuff that was different than DS3 but it also re-used tons of assets.

 

In the expansion the Tarnished does not have a homebase it seems?  And the only characters are a couple of NPCs that say a few sentences.   There is almost no sign of previous friendly Elden characters.

 

Even though the game is impressive the whole franchise is starting to get routine again- I think we may be completely spoiled by what FROMSOFT has accomplished. The environmental design, while intricate are missing unifying themes (this was an issue in a lot of the Elden Ring maps too).

 

The more Souls-type games they create, the harder it'll be to create something new.

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The Messmir boss, which is highly touted by their marketing, is well made but not an epically replayable boss like Malenia Blade of Miquella.

 

Cowboy, one of the biggest experts on souls on youtube is getting beaten by a mini-boss in the first half hour lol.  Overall this expansion is much harder than the base game.

 

All the other youtubers are not playing the game honestly and using the summon tear gimmick to get NPCs to help them so they can spam content quickly...

 

What's surprising about this DLC is that after 2 yrs of massive global fandom (lore speculation, fan art etc), fans of elden ring don't really get real closure- there is almost no story outside of NPC comments.

 

 

So far the biggest lore bomb is the Marika reveal- The Shaman Village. It is a very minimal and small area but it reveals Marika's origin.

 

The Miquella storyline is OK.  It could have been great.  The biggest problem with it is that FROM decided to include almost no cutscenes and trim it down to the bare minimum.  Fans don't like it for the most part.

This is great though.  the writing for the granny is really good and Shakespearean 

 

Finished the lore for the Elden Ring DLC.  It's about 1.5 hours of content- really bare bones but also very well written and conceived like the OG.  Good voice acting too.

 

It is surely disappointing to loremasters that have been obsessed with this game for at least 1 yr to end up getting this much ending.

 

I think that the lack of lore also effected set pieces and maps in the game.  While tons of work were put into designing them, without compelling lore to bind the areas into themes they end up looking very elaborate but meandering at times.

 

On the other hand the bosses and enemies of the game are some of the best FROM ever made and the best in gaming period- most developers do the opposite- too much (crap or mediocre) story and not enough quality in the gameplay.

 

Now this trailer makes sense:

Spoiler

1. Marika leaves her village and ascends to Godhood with the help of the Fingers-  There is a Gate created out of piles of dead bodies in some sort of ritual.  Marika pulls some goo out a pile of flesh, and this goo turns into her Rune/shard of the Elden Ring, ascending her to Godhood.

 

2.  Messemir is ordered by Marika to genocide the Hornsent in revenge of Marika's destroyed hometown

 

3.  Miquella leaves the Lands Between and travels in the shadow, abandoning pieces of himself (St. Triquella, his spirit and body) in order to ascend to Godhood and challenge the old order.

 

4.  Trailer is narrated by Lady Leda, the most loyal follower of Miquella and their gang, which will fracture one by one in the DLC

 

 

This boss is one of the best knight/duel bosses FROM has ever made

 

 map of elden ring

 

 dark souls 1