Recent reviews by areyoutheregoditsmephil?

I'm a bit perplexed. Shadow of the Erdtree has some of the most beautiful locations I've ever seen in a Fromsoft game and quite possibly any game. However at the same time, the choice to move forward with a damage mitigation and dealing gate in the dlc is extremely weird and doesn't really feel like it fits. Especially when finding fragments plateaus and certain bosses keep you from aquiring enough to feel like you're progressing.
I am in the minority apparently and felt like the base game was absolutely fine with the difficulty. I don't mind a challenge and I don't mind dying to bosses. What I do mind is being punished for making one mistake and getting hit three times and not dying. For me, this feels like it was directed and targeted to a small, minority audience that does speed runs and boss challenges. This contradicts Miyazaki's vision for Elden Ring to reach a broader audience and it's going to alienate a lot of players.
The decision to not add any new achievements is extremely odd as well. I don't really understand it, but it feels like this dlc must have gone through development hell and they didn't have time for achievements. Overall you get an extreme amount of value out of Erdtree and it shouldn't be passed up on but I would advise waiting for a balance patch as this absolutely has to happen.

*****USER BAN WARNING****

This game is severally broken at the moment on PC and crashes repeatedly. I purchased the game today and have had over twenty crashes in the campaign. Continuous times through this, Activision has asked me to verify the integrity of my files to which I have. Finally, after another verification of my files I relaunched to a notice that I was permanently banned from all MW2 servers. I didn't even get to try out multiplayer. Absolutely pass on this at the moment as you will lose your money and patience.

DO NOT BUY THIS.

So I'm a huge Souls fan so it comes to no surprise that I would play this game. But what did come to my surprise is how much this game would shock and amaze me. It has everything a Souls game should have down to the perfect formula and adds on to it with it's own twisted beautiful design and narrative. The enemies never feel stale and never leave you wishing what could have been. The level design takes everything from Souls games and turns it up to 11. If you had any reservations about buying this game just know it's the most $60.00 game I've ever spent $34.99 on and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Hellpoint will go down as my favorite off Souls game.