games

I've "finished" it (beat all the main bosses, anyway), and I'd say it's mostly solid with hiccups here and there. 7 or 8 out of 10. I'm not a fan of the new scadutree blessing mechanic (an increase to damage and resistances that you level by collecting rare items in the world), because unlike golden seeds, where you could end up with 6-8 extra, there are only exactly enough to get you to the max blessing level, and because your build is probably already complete, manyside activities won't help you make any progress towards the harder fights. Some of the items you need for the blessing are also in weird places; typically you get one (or maybe two at a time), but then there are just five in the room after one of the harder bosses that could really have gone somewhere else.

In terms of exploration: I think it's a little too big, and while the verticality is a fun idea, it wore thin after a while. Legacy dungeons are great. There are two new dungeon types with a few of each, which are both fun. Some of the dungeon types from the base game make appearances, but they're usually a lot longer (there are catacombs with 3 elevators, for instance). Fuck the Abyss. New weapon types seem neat but I'm not using them because they're not ultra greatswords.

In terms of bosses: I genuinely don't know how a dedicated caster could do most of the fights solo. They range from extremely aggro and difficult to 500% aggro and nightmarish, but also are generally an interesting spectacle and fun... with the exception of the final boss who is the ultimate difficulty spike and by far the hardest boss in the game (and probably any fromsoft game). It doesn't help that it also attacks your framerate directly. For comparison: every other boss took me 5 tries at most (many first try!), while the final boss took around 50.

Edit: forgot to mention, performance is dogshit. Also, playtime was a little under 30 hours, itself a little under half of my first base game playthrough which was around 70 hours.