On October 25th, the first batch of extra content was released for the gaming hell/paradise that is Dark Souls 3. As I mentioned in my last review, I am always eager to pick up the newest FromSoft game/DLC, so of course I had to buy this the day it came out, and as with the original game I am going to run you guys through 3 critiquing stages: Difficulty, Gameplay, and Multiplayer. Let's game.
I will let the masochist in me speak first on how much I adored the challenges that were thrown at me in this DLC. Starting off with large packs of wolves taking turns trying to rip me to shreds, along with their leader having a few occasional standoffs with me, I thought they would give me the hardest challenge of all the enemies in the DLC, but (thankfully), I was wrong. The larger viking-like enemies posed a threat to me as there was a section where you must trudge through an open valley full of these enemies toward a tower. Sound easy? Not when there are two of these vikings shooting explosive arrows at you from the tower you are trying to reach. Even when you do reach the tower you must fight 2-3 other vikings before you even make it to the top to fight these two. Now, the next part only showed difficult prior to knowing about them. I was making my way through one of the plentiful snow trails, when all of a sudden, I was picked up and brutally killed. By what? By a tree. If you are not ready for these enemies disguised as trees they will indeed do very, very crude things to you. Now I suppose I shall talk about the two bosses that exist throughout the DLC. As you may have remembered, I spoke of a leader wolf. Yep, he's back. In this fight you will fight against "Champion's Gravetender" and "Gravetender Greatwolf." At least he has a name, right? The gravetender himself is merely like fighting any other human NPC, and lacks difficulty. However, it is when you get him down to around half health, the greatwolf is summoned. During my fight with him, I managed to kill him before the wolf even took a shot at me, making it simple. As for the wolf, he tends to have almost an identical moveset as he did when you fought him the few times prior. He has at most, an additional two attacks, but most of them are telegraphed and easy to avoid. Now, the second boss however, I was unable to defeat without the help of an NPC Summon. Sister Friede appears as a harmless, but important NPC throughout the DLC. But now, she wants to cut your head off. This is the first three stage boss fight the souls series has ever included. This caught many (myself included) off guard when facing her and getting past her second stage for the first time. The only real difficulty about her fight however, is the long, intensive combos, much like the Dancer boss from the main game. All in all, this DLC had its rough spots, but I was able to clear it in a reasonable amount of time. Difficulty? 7.2/10.
Don't let the slightly low difficulty steer you away from this DLC. Wow was it beautiful. The snowy landscape was breathtaking and all the textures and colors were constantly blowing my mind. The story line of Friede and her father was a very interesting one as well. Dark Souls story line is nowhere near the easiest to follow, but I must say this DLC had one that was a little easier for it's casual players to follow as well as its die hard fans. The added weapons were absolutely spectacular as well. There were quite a few, but I'll go into detail about the one that I now consistently use. That weapon is the "Milwood Greataxe." I saw it had decent strength scaling and since my main character is a strength build, I thought I would give it a chance since I have been using the butcher's knife my entire first one and a half playthroughs. After upgrading it to max, and infusing it with a heavy gem, it became my new favorite weapon entirely. Not only does it offer this greataxe, but it also offers quite a few dexterity-scaling weapons as well. Overall, the gameplay of this DLC and items in it were immaculate. Rating? 9.4/10. (The only drawback being how short it was.)
Now, before the DLC came out, I was not planning on doing a multiplayer section for the review of this game, but after I saw what was introduced in it, I couldn't pass it up. In this DLC, Fromsoft included a Dark Souls arena-like mode. In this mode you can square off in a 1 on 1, a 2 on 2, or even a free for all. This has changed the multiplayer of Dark Souls and thrown in a whole other aspect entirely. I would have never saw it coming if I had not seen it first hand. Now, don't think you can grab the game and the DLC and it will be ready for you go into already. To gain access to it you first must beat the first boss in the DLC, and you will acquire an item that must be taken to the shrine bonfire to use. My only complaint as of now is that I have only managed to play on one arena map. It is unknown if there or more that you must unlock, or if they will come along with the future DLC that is left. This was a great DLC add-on. Multiplayer? 9.7/10
An incredible first add-on, to an incredible series-ending game. It's sad to see such a great game go, but at least we have one more DLC waiting for us down the road.
Overall: 8.76/10
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