Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Spoilercast - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Mike, Andy, and GameSpot's Tamoor Hussain get into the weeds about each and every detail in FromSoft's latest. Follow Tamoor and see all the cool things he is doing here https://x.com/tamoorh Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Shadow of the Erdtree Spoilercast - Diving Into More Lore! - SuperChats - Big Boss Tier List! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody, and welcome to your kind of funny games cast for Tuesday, July 2nd, 2020. I'm your show host today filling in for a birthday boy, blessing out of E.O.A. Jr. A little under the weather today for his birthday. So I've been asked to fill in for today's episode, but today I'll be your host. Souls like Mike. That's right. Today I gathered the crew, the Eld and Lords to talk all things, Shadow of the Earth.

It is the official kind of funny games. Shadow of the Erd Tree spoiler cast. So if you haven't beat the game or if you don't want spoilers, here it is at the top of the show because today's episode, we're going deep. We're getting underneath the shadow, the tree, and we're talking all about it. So that is your heads up.

But of course, joining me today is my man, Andy Cortez. Andy, how are you? Hello, Mike. How's it going? We beat the game last night. We're Eldon Lords now together. You did. Come on.

We did. We did, yeah. Yes. But we also had help from D.C. Hard Rocker. Shout out. Shout out. I officially beat the game. Tomorrow is in the building as well.

It wouldn't be Eldering without our boy tomorrow. Tam, how are you today? It's great to see you as always. How do you feel about me and Andy becoming Eldon Lords together? You know what? I always expected it of Andy. And I hoped that you would become Eldon Lord. Thank you.

And I'm glad that you got there. I never doubted you. I just hoped that you would stick with it. And you know what? I was right to never doubt you because you are Eldon Lord. Sat in the desk. You sat in that big drum. Thank you, Tam.

You know, it took me close to 200 hours. As many of you know, I experienced all of Eldon Ring. Co-op with my best friends, Andy and Kevin A. Sex. I want to give them a whole lot of love. But when you play the true co-op, the way that From Soft built it, not the seamless co-op, you have to actually beat every single boss X amount of time. depending on how big your party is. So we had to beat all of the bosses three times.

Thankfully, in the DLC, we only played just the two of us. So we only need to beat them twice every single time. But a lot of that time was replaying bosses that a lot of people would just kind of won and done and move on. It was a lot of stress. A lot of stress out there. But I'm glad we got it done. Very, very happy about it.

I think the biggest thing before we get into the show is, like, the one thing about when you share the co-op worlds together is, You know, when Andy comes into my world, his flasks are kind of cut in half, right? So it's like Andy's not playing at his peak performance. And then vice versa. When I go into Andy's world, Andy might be at his strongest, but now I'm at, you know, a much weaker stance with probably two health potions and maybe, you know, four magic flas. So it's always fun to get into the back and forth of which team is going to be stronger

when we head into it, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Guys, let's have some fun. I'm ready to talk about it. I'm ready to spoil everything. but before that, of course, I have to remember, I have to remind you that today, this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games

live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with that kind of funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live, and, of course, get your daily exclusive Gregway. So go check that out. For a chance to be part of the show, don't forget to submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go.

I'll be reading and grabbing them. So if you're in the YouTube super chat, if you're watching live on Twitch, get involved with those super chats and also on the Twitch chat. We'll pull those. We want to hear your thoughts on, of course, Eldon Ring's Shadow of the Erd Tree

since this is a spoiler cast. Tell us what bosses kicked your butt. What were your favorite weapons, locations, anything in that world? We want to hear from you. of course some housekeeping for you. Kind of Funny Games is an 11 person small business. That's all about live talk shows today.

You already gotten Resident Evil 9 discussion on Kind of Funny Games Daily, available right now on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services. And then after this, we will jump in to launch day for First Descendant on stream with myself, Andy and Joey. So you can check that out on Twitch and on YouTube. And of course, if you remember today's Gregway, which will be all about the unbearable weight of Greg's massive celebrity. Oh, God.

Wow. Wow. What a special one right there. Thanks for making our dreams reality to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining. Thank you so much for your support. Today we're brought to you by Nvidia G-Force and BetterHelp, but we'll tell you all about that in just a little bit.

For now, let's start the show with topic of the show. Tots. Today's topic of the show is simple. Eldon Rings, Shadow of the Erd Tree, spoiler cast. We're getting into the lore, the bosses, the locations, the best weapons, NPCs and quests. We're talking about it all. Everything's on the table.

So there's your final one right there. Oh, that was a dog barking. I thought it was like Roger laughing at me or something. Apologized for listening and watching out there. You're about to get really mad at Roger out there. Guys, let's just jump right into it. I guess we start off with the lore. Really, you guys can take me anywhere you want.

I'll moderate, I'll fill in. But you guys are the Eldon Lords along with Barrett here. So, you know, we followed kind to Mickelah, the steps all around Shadow of the Earth Tree. What do you think of the journey, Andy? And can you believe that final boss? I really, really enjoyed. Yeah, again, full spoilers here. Everybody click off if you don't want anything spoiled for you.

I've still been having comments in my YouTube comments being like, hey, can you not put that person in the thumbnail and you know watch out for future spoilers so everybody click away if you don't want anything spoiled um i really really dug and enjoyed the way that the story kind of progressed again um i think this is the most direct a from soft story has felt or in at least a souls kind of elven ring game i think securo was uh one of the other sort of analogs where i could point to and say it is very pointed and very directed and directive like you are going from, you know, phase one of the story, you're going into like the second arc and the third arc. And I feel like this one was very, very different because we weren't just

uncovering history. We were following other NPCs, which felt like we were talking to all the time. We were always hanging out with these NPCs, figuring out what the sort of threads and what the discoveries were being uncovered. I thought that shit was really, really cool. And I loved the way it all, I love the way those reveals happened. It felt like we were watching a season of television.

And I was very shocked by how by how linear the story kind of felt in that way. Again, you may talk to an NPC, get a really, really important story thread, and then go to bumble fuck wherever for about 20 hours

and explore. And then you kind of get reminded about that story thread 20 hours later, but I still really, really enjoyed the way it all happened. And yeah, the fact that, um, kindly Mickelah, not so kind. And Moog, you know, we apologize, Moog. We had a lot of bad opinions about you, Moog. You know, you didn't deserve all the hate. Uh, more, more and more evidence sort of, you know, bubbled up to the surface, Mike. And we realize Moog, not a, not a total creep, just a little bit of a freak, but kindly Mickla had had Moog under a little bit of a spell some plants tam what did you think not a Moe glester yeah yeah not a Moe glester that's what they were saying yeah um yeah i think i agree a lot with what

andy said it is a more linear story than we are perhaps used to but i don't think it's sacrificed as much of what from software is known for in terms of how they approach storytelling um i i feel like it's a The linearity is a necessity of the story that's being told in that you are hot on the heels of Mikkela. You're trying to find what he's up to. And because of that, you're kind of following almost a linear path where you kind of need to hit these specific points in the story and have it be clear what is happening to a degree. Those, those Mikola's runes where, you know, every new one is divesting something of, he's divesting something of himself. It's kind of that approach.

And having the kind of crew alongside you of Tarnished was an interesting new way to approach it. You don't really have that element in any other games. You never have like companions to a degree who are all aiming towards the same goal for various different reasons coming at it from different perspectives. So I thought that was really, really interesting.

I enjoyed that element of it. And then obviously they turn it upside down when there's a certain moment in the game. where a kind of spell is shattered and everyone kind of goes a bit haywire and you realize what's going on. So I think it was definitely a more linear story, but I thought Sekiro's story was linear and very simple,

almost plain. Like there wasn't much subtext to it. There was a little bit, but not much of it. This just felt like an iteration on that way. It was similarly linear, but there's nuance there. And there's a lot of layers to the different characters. and most importantly, it kind of re-contextualizes and reframes the original Eldon Ring and provides some really important answers without completely removing the mystique behind some of

the core concepts behind the world and some of the motivations behind key characters. I almost felt like I was watching Saw 2. You know what I mean? Like, it's all happening in real time right now. And like I somewhat expected, even though I knew it probably wasn't going to happen because I know FromSoft generally doesn't tell stories in that way, but I thought we were going to get like a, oh, Mikla did this way earlier, but just kidding, it's actually happening all right now. I thought we're going to have like, are these two separate timelines?

No, Mikala was just here five minutes ago, bro. I thought we're going to have a reveal like that. But again, yeah, I agree that Sekiro's story is more, more basic in terms of not having all of these different nuances regarding different characters and settings and stuff like that. But I was just really impressed and surprise that this story was as direct as it was. I thought it was very, very shocking to have a story that felt like it was all happening in real time because it kind of was, you know? You know, I like to comment from Hero of Time in the chat right over there on Twitch because I think you guys have done a great job talking about the initial thoughts and then

Tam has kind of hidden some things. But Tam, can you give me the full summary of what happened in your eyes on the DLC. I'd love to let's just start diving in deep, right? Let's get into it because this is spoiler cast. Tell me what you experienced where you took away from this lore-wise on this one. Yeah, I mean, I'm bound to make a couple of mistakes here and there, but I apologize to that.

The communities out there. If you want like a more in-depth kind of discussion of the law, I would hit up the Vartis, the Rattaskas, the Kualags, those kind of folks on YouTube. They have more in-depth stuff. But the basic story is the story of Mikala to a degree, but also Mesmer and Marica and your place within it. This is the Shadow Lanz is thought of where to be where the golden order and the earth tree was born. And so you get a lot of understanding of why that happened and why Marika did what she did.

effectively she from a race of people called the Newman's who are in the game they're called shamans I believe you go to the Shaman village I believe there's some sort of discussion around the mistranslation

or the misinterpretation of what shamans because in the Western world we think of sharmans as like magic users where I believe in the Japanese version the Numen's in the Japanese version

the word they use is actually like shrine maidens which are traditionally thought of as being kind of able to talk to and be the vassals of gods effectively. So that is what Marica was. Unfortunately, there's a race of people, a group of people called the horn scent that are kind of they're new to the world of Eldon Ring.

We've heard references through them, through the Crucible, which in the original game, you'll see a lot of enemies like the Crucible Knights or people using aspects of the Crucible. I guess the omens, which are like horn-based, like Margaret and Mogg, they are versions of the Crucible. The Crucible is a primordial version of the Urtree. So it's what was there before the Urtree. and those people were little freaks.

They were doing some wild shit, including stuffing people into jars, like killing them and stuffing people into jars. That was crazy. That's wild. Yeah, the video that Vati did recently kind of, and even some of the stuff that Quayla has talked about, the tooth whip.

You find an item that's a whip made out of teeth. and the teeth are very rotten and super gross. And when they are, they're essentially whipping these shaman to the point where their, their body is getting all like scarred and pussy and gross, you know. Pussy is just a very, very shocking word to kind of use on a podcast. But when their bodies are all thrown into the jars, because their flesh is super disfigured, it's all kind of melding together with other, with other shamans inside of these jars.

Yeah. The shaman are effectively used as the glue to bring all of the shite that they throw in there, the other people together. So in the jail areas where you're fighting those weird looking blobs of mass, if you look real close at them, Barrett, you can even use that screenshot that you just showed. There's, if you look at the front of them, there's their faces on them. Those are the faces of Marica's people. Those are the other shaman, the other Newman, and they basically, the horn scent basically massacred them and used them as material for this kind of telling them

that they're going to reach a level of priesthood or something like that. The sainthood, sorry, by doing this. So her people were effectively just treated like shit and killed. And so the reason she kind of, that is one big part of her motivation is kind of revenge. She is obviously noticeably upset that her people have basically been hunted to extinction. The indication is she's the last one because she, if you go to the Shaman village, you find the one minor tree, which is created by America. And the story, the description says that she put it there.

it heals you when you're close to it, but she put it there knowing there was no one left to heal. So her people are gone. And she effectively led a crusade. But what she did was she got her kid to do the dirty work. So Mesmer is the firstborn of Marica. I believe it's Gaius, Gaius' remembrance that reveals that Mesmer is older brother to Radan.

So technically he's the firstborn. He is He, they call him the impaler, obviously, and he's fire aligned, he's a fire Pokemon. And he basically waged war on her behalf. He was also infected by an out of God in the same way that Micola has been, or has an ailment in the same way that Mikala has eternal youth.

Melania's got the rot. Yeah. He was infected. I've got the three-point shooting skills, you know. These are all curses we live with. The curses, yeah, you hate it. He was basically infected by the abyssal serpent, which there's not much known about. It's not the same serpent as Rikards.

That's a different serpent. And it's one of the reasons why serpents are treated as, like, blasphemous in the lands between because it's a representation of everything that Mesmo was and all the stuff that was down there. Shout out, shout out Vati for that reason. recent video, Mike, because there's, you know, that second phase mesmer, right? Starts transforming, shedding, the snake is shedding the skin, pulls the eyeball out, breaks it. Yep. That eyeball was placed there by America to kind of stop the abyssal serpent from within his body

from escaping because she knew that like, you know, this dude's already a hateful, like, insane human being. If I don't kind of quell that power, this guy is going to go like apes shit on everybody. He is a bit of a lunatic, but he wasn't like hateful

in a way that it typically is. Like he was willing to do anything for his mother. Like he was willing to do whatever. He was a mama's boy, basically. And he sacrificed a lot. He basically was like everything that

would make her look bad, he took it upon himself. So she could remain pure and her like order would be untarnished by any actions that needed to happen for it to be established. So he's basically like channel all the hate you have towards America and the golden order towards me. I am the target for this. And he killed every, all the he enslaved and killed and basically crushed the, the crucible and the horncent as revenge. and that allowed Marica to ascend to godhood and divinity using the gate at the top of the tower that you fought the final boss in and then that's when she bounced to the lands between

and where the golden order and the earth tree was set up but she also hid away the shadow lands land of shadow as partly because of shame you know she can't really have a pure order if you know that it was, you know, built on blood and death. So that's part of that. And then the shadow, land of shadow just became kind of like, it's, I think of it as the drain. If you think of the, uh, a tree as the tap, uh, the shadow tree,

the shadow tree, the skydoo tree, as people mistakenly call it, is the drain. So when anything dies or is gross, it goes down the drain to the land of shadows. That's where Micklett knew he had to go. Yeah. So that's why he, he, uh, His whole plan was, I'm going to go down there. That's where the gate of divinity is. That's where my brother is.

And I'm going to use that to become a god. So that's kind of like the story of Shadow of the Earth tree effectively. But it does intersect with the original game's story. Specifically, we find out why Melania fought Radan. And it was basically Mikhailis set it up. So he wanted, when he became a god, he wanted Radan to be his consort. Consor is another word that is like weirdly used. People, the Japanese side is like, they don't think of console.

They use a word, they liken it more to king. So console in our world, in the Western world, we think, are they shagging? Yeah. They're having sex. They're getting sexy. were there. It's not that kind of thing, according to people who are on the Japanese side. It's kind of like a god needs

a representative to be their king. And Mikala wanted his brother Radan to be that, because in his prime, he was super powerful and like he showed compassion, apparently. Which is refutable because he is driven by war.

So it kind of hints at what Mikala's interpretation of compassion and goodness could be slightly skewed. And we saw Radan's prime. Yeah. And so the thing that is summoned, Eddie, and so the idea was he wanted to,

Radan to be his consort when he ascends to godhood. And the final cut scene that you see after you beat him where it's like, Lord, brother, I'm going to become a god. If you, you know, keep your end of the vow, etc., etc. That's Mikola side of it. We never get to hear Rodan's side of it. we're never told whether he agreed to the vow or not.

It's just kind of assumed that it happened. I personally don't believe he would agree to that vow. I believe that he is not the kind of person to be enslaved or have his charmed by that. And also, like, he wants endless war. But the flip side of that is maybe there's a promise that when it happens, he will get the best fight of his life because, you know, the tarnished will be there. But I think that what happened was for him to become the consort,

he needs to die and go to the land of shadow, where the gate is and where Mekla is. And because he was basically the most powerful being in the lands between, Mikala decided to send his sister, Melania, who's the other most fearsome warrior in the lands between, to fight and kill Radan, so he would be sent to the land of shadow where the plan could be action.

But obviously, Radan's not going down like a chump. He fought back, and it was looking like he was going to win. That's when Melania allowed herself to bloom and use the scarlet rock. And since the early days, in that cutscene, you can see Melania whispers something to Radan. And that's always been a secret. Like, no one's ever known what it was until now. Yeah.

It's free real estate. Until now where I believe the word is, oh, promise, consul, Michaela awaits thee. So effectively, Mikhaila sent his sister to kill Radan, so he would be able to move to the Land of Shadow and become his console. But it didn't completely happen.

Like, he basically got Scarlet Rock and then was just hanging around. Radon still had that dog in him. Yeah, he still had that dog in him. He's like, I'm eating all the people on this battlefield. That's where the tarnish comes in. And that is why you have to kill Redan to get to the DLC. That's why he threw the festival of like, you all, like, I need to be put out of my misery.

Somebody's got to get me. So do this, please. Yeah. I mean, the festival is put on by his, by Jaron, I believe his name was. It's unclear whether Jaron knew this was going to happen. I think Jirin came from a more, more of a place of compassion. I think Jaron was just an events planner. Yeah, and he was like, this homeboy needs to wrap it up.

Can someone kick him out the club? Yeah. It was like when the Mazz were trying to retire Dirk Novitsky, Mike, where they were just like, we got, hey, we're putting on your retirement ceremony. He was like, oh, I wasn't ready yet. They're like, nah, man, you can't walk. You go. Yeah, so that is what Mekler did.

The other part of the plan is, so Mekylla was trying to make his own HALC tree, as to be a place for, you know, in opposition to the Erd tree, for the misfits and crucible people. But he was torn out of that and taken, kidnapped by his brother, Moog. And that's why everyone called him a Mooglester, because he was in Moguin Palace being like, hey, me and Mikala, I'm going to be his consort, and we will lead a new dynasty called Moguin.

Everyone was like, this guy's a little creep. What we didn't know is Mikola's great ruin, his ability is the ability to effectively steal the hearts of people and charm them. Put you under a spell, Mike. Yeah, he can control them. And he had done that to Moog so that he could go to the land of shadow.

That was his entry point. And also, the tarnished kills Moog, and then Mikala takes the body to use as a vessel for Radan. So when the soul is put back into a body, it's Moog's body that is inside. So Moog got done real dirty. And taking advantage of pretty much.

Yeah, take an advantage of. And the various tarnish that you find on the way, like Ansbach, for example, he is one of Moog's disciples. Ani B. Mike. Yeah. That was my guy. Yeah. He was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. And he figured it out inside the library area of, is it, where is the library again?

It's in the shadow key. You help him figure that out, too. Yeah. So you help him figure out. The shadow keep is also a. interesting because it shows the library area specifically shows that mesmer also has like preserved a lot of the culture of the horn scent that he's killed so that's why he's not entirely a maniac he's not killing for the sake of killing he's doing something that he feels necessary but he's also aware of the fact that

there's value to these people so he's preserving their culture at the same time but that's where Ansbach figures out what's going on. And, you know, you have Needle Knight letter on the other side who's like blindly loyal to Micler and there's Tholier, I think her name was. Yeah, T'Alié.

Yeah, so as part of Mickelor shedding. Useless on the battlefield, by the way. Useless on the battlefield. You're just farting green smoke, poison, it's useless. The whole thing of like Mickelah divesting him, parts of himself is what he needed to do he believed to become a god and at one point he divests certain things like his love

to reach that the necessary point where he can become a god and when he divests his love I believe the the understanding is what he's doing is he's divesting another part of himself everyone in this game seems to have a second half if you know what I mean like Radigan and Marica are the same person for Mikala Michaela Michaela's other half is St. Trina who is like this

known for sleep and that kind of stuff so in divesting his love he pushes out St. Trina and effectively becomes committed and emotionlessly ready to

transition into Godhood at the end of Pride Month too is so fucked up dude like yeah it's fucked up you can't be doing that but that is effectively

where you meet St. Trina, and if you speak, Tholier is obsessed with St. Trina has been for the longest time. Tiole is on the same path as you, up until that point where, remember when you enter the shadow keep, the ruin breaks,

and it tells you, like, somewhere a great ruin has broken and a charm has been lifted. That is when everyone snapbacks to reality. Whoops, there goes gravity. Really quick, to talk about that, just for a second to bring up Andy's point

and just like how cool the story is told. Like that was a moment that really felt like, hey, all of this shit is happening right now, you know? Yeah, yeah. I just love that little. You're not uncovering history. It was like, we are hot on the heels of all this shit happening. Yeah, exactly. And then it's even cooler when you find, I assume it's the great ruin you find when you fight a big flower boy way up north, which is fucking cool as shit.

Yeah, so you recover part of Mikala's great ruin, which you can use in the fight. if you get grabbed by Radan and you use that I think it lets you overpower Mikala when he's trying to steal your heart I never got that great room by the way in both playthrus

in both playthus never found it yeah you get a piece of it I think but if you don't do that your tarnish will kneel on one knee and basically give himself or give themselves over to Mikula yeah so when you obviously when Mike and I were going to the boss fight

I knew that whenever you'd get your hearts, whenever you'd get hugs twice and, you know, micklow whispers in your ear, kind of licks your ear a little bit. It's just really excited in a way. ASMR. Yeah. But when he does that, the first time you were debuffed essentially in a game mechanic way. And then there is that great ruin that you could take that debuff off. But if he grabs you again, Mike, we all knew that like you die.

But the coolest thing is that when you get grabbed the second time, it doesn't just say you died like usual. It says heart stolen. And I was like, whoa, that's a wheel. And then you kneel into Mickelah. And then you get that as an emo, and it's really cool. That's it. So you didn't fight the Shadow Tree Avatar up north, up north before that fight, then, Andy? Oh, we did.

Yeah. Oh, so we had the debuff. That's the Mikola's ruin. It's like this half-destrored ruin. It's not fully formed. Gotcha. And he even says, like, it doesn't really have any power left except being able to not be charmed. You know what?

Yeah, somebody in the chat did say, you have that item, Andy. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so that is, so St. Trina is the other part. If you go to St. Trina and, you know, drink from drink or do or whatever, it kills you. If you do it a couple times, you start to hear what St. Trina is saying. And St. Trina is just like, you've got to stop this. You cannot let Mickle get to Godhood. You need to kill Mekylla. Mekylla. Godhood would be Mekyllis Prison. Some of the best line reading, by the way. Like, the line reading there reminds me of your love and infatuation for German's line reading in Bloodborn. Like, hearing St. Trina in that moment, who was Mikula's other half, but still their own, you know, being essentially being like, you have to stop him from doing this. He's going to be trapped here. Like, you cannot let him as end to a God. You need to kill Mikala.

It is such a great fucking line read by the, by the way. that actor. Yeah. And then Mica or St. Trina has a point because if you think about America's Ascension to Godhood basically trapped her, like it became a prison for her as well and the only way she could see a way out was to destroy

the Eldon Ring and shatter it. But yeah, so that happens and then what are the other intricacies of it that are important? So yeah. I also wanted to bring up just like the the fandom in some of these

characters that you talk about how T.O. Le, a person with the mask, with the, you know, with the poison farts or whatever, totally sucks on the battlefield. Such a fanboy of, of Micula. And I love how we also meet an NPC named Quiline, who was just the biggest messmer fanboy

and wants to get it. He's essentially like a fan of like an athlete. Like, I want to buy LeBron's shoes or whatever. He's like, I want to have the same sort of spear that Mesmer has or whatever. I love whenever from Soff and Miyazaki and the crew can include just characters that can be memed on for an eternity. Because it's so funny of like how much that they simp for these people. Yeah. And there are characters like Rilana, for example, is the sister of Rinala.

And she chose to abandon her family and they, you know, the carrion royalty and follow. Mesmer into battle and aligned with him. So there's a lot of people who believe that Mesmer was on the right side of history as well. Yeah, I love that story turn. Like I love that we're going into this DLC thinking, well, Mesmer and Merica burned all these horn scent people to a crisp. They just destroy this whole civilization.

How fucked up of them. And then we learned about what the horn scent were doing with the shamans and putting people in jars. And that's why America's getting her revenge. and it's like, oh shit, and there's that great line by Leta when she's talking to you. And she's like, essentially saying like the internet meal, like, look, the hornet were no angels. Like she was basically using that of like, they were just, they happened to be on the losing side of a war. And that's just like, that was such an awesome little reveal and line read there. Yeah.

There's more to the story as well with like the whole like ruins of Ra, which is another like intricacy to the story that is a lot of people have told. about to some degree or another it's like another it could be like a whole like um Thumarian ruin style thing where it's like oh they found some shit down there oh it's weird and wacky um but the the kind of like the nuance is still there in that you know mickler wanted to usher in an age of like compassion and gentleness and make the world are more like nicer place but we don't really know what that means like every all the evidence shows that Mikkel is going to do that, but in the worst way possible, where become a god and then use your ability to charm others to basically subjugate everyone

into being non, you know, threatening to each other. And is that an order that you really want to live in? And throwing away the best parts of you that, like, made people like you in the first place and trust you in the first place, yeah. Exactly. And as the tarnished, you, you are, your goal always is. to maintain the status quo because the new state as the old and lord. So when you appear, your your objective is to shut this shit down.

It doesn't matter what anyone's telling you. So when Michael is like, you know, you've been through this, you should be on our side. He's appealing to like, is falling on deaf ears because the new order is you as Eldon Lord as consort to whatever version of Marica remains under the whatever, you know, order that you've establish whether it's, you know, the frenzy or whether you sustain the golden order, whatever it may be. But that is effectively the story. There's like a bunch of intricacies there as well that we haven't got into, you know,

there's the potentates and what they're up to and how they're involved in creating the jars and Mesmer's whole like, there's Mesmer tried to fix them as well. There's like evidence that he tried to undo what the Horncent were doing to America's people and wasn't successful and that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of intricacies that help make Mesmer more sympathetic as a character, help justify what Marica did, and cast shadows and aspersions and doubt in what Mikler is trying to do, as well as make whether Radan was interested or like on board with this a little more dubious. so it's a

it's a typically from soft layered unclear but fascinating story I think we had some other dope ones too of course the dragons we had bail the dragon right and we got to learn a little bit more about yeah come on and of course Plaxico and what happened over there

Blercgge yeah wicked like me and Andy playing that and going well this is Plaxico Mike we fought that and then we go and see bail and it's like oh no bail was the one who bit that guy's head off and he did some stuff and it's like oh and he's got no wings but then he grows his wings and you're like

this is amazing what a boss fine but we'll get some more of that Mike after a word from our sponsors this episode is brought to you by our very good friends over at Nvidia G-Force kind of funny and Nvidia G-Force have been working together for almost four years now

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We just had Tam run us through the lore and kind of the story throughout this DLC. But I want to touch a little bit more on any sort of lore, NPCs, any fun quests with Barron and Andy before we jump into the Super Chats. and then we're going to talk about all those awesome boss fights that we had. Andy, of course, I tried to get to it before the ads, but we got to talk about the finger guy. I need to know all about that because I thought that was some of the coolest parts of the maps. That first reveal, seeing the area of the big valley with all the fingers coming out,

and then, of course, blowing the horn, going back over to the cathedral and talking to Amir? Amir? Was that the name, Tam? Amir? Yeah, Amir is the NPC that starts you on the quest that ends with you. meeting the mother of fingers met her. What a cool vibe. What's going? What was he up to? What were they up to? What were they doing over there? I mean, I enjoyed the way that it was kind of

paced out. I loved talking to him and then seeing him in the graveyard talking about like, oh yeah, my dead kid out there. And then he's calling the baby hand in his lap the same name. And you're like, wait, what the fuck is happening here right now? all of that just you know it was confusing and it was weird as hell

and it ended in a really awesome boss fight and also I think maybe the more disappointing area of the game for me because I loved those ruins I loved them visually not a whole lot happening there

nothing going on in there I was hoping for a little bit more than just to like get to that essentially game mechanics wise go to that item, use that horn and blow into that horn, go back to Emir and get some spells. Like, that's kind of what it meant gameplay-wise. I was expecting maybe a big boss fight there of some sort.

But I think those areas, while visually super sick to look at, a little bit less active than I would have preferred. Yeah, I mean, the Amir quest, I think, for me, it serves the same kind of function as the rom-the-vacu-vacier spider stuff. from Bloodbourne, where it's a major law reveal. We learned that, you know, ROM is kind of the ballwork or the, the, once you take ROM out, the real shit starts popping off. And in a similar way where META sends you to these locations,

you may send you to these locations that culminates in a meeting with a boss, that boss is quite significant because you learned that it was the first, kind of vassal or the first thing that was sent down by the greater will to the lands between the land of shadow and is the mother of all the two fingers and those little finger creepers but the more important thing is Yemir is constantly telling you like hey you realize all this shit is broken right like this fundamentally this is all broken and that's because uh the the connection between the two fingers and by extension, METI to the greater will, the elder, the outer god that is kind of running all this stuff, severed a long time ago.

So the greater will hasn't been talking to anyone in the lands between for a really long time. So when you're in the main game and the finger readers are like looking at the two fingers and it's like communicating, it's actually communicating with METI. the boss that you fight at the end of that quest. And Mita is working on just information from ages ago when it last spoke to the greater will. It hasn't got updated info. So it's just like, oh, I guess do this.

And everyone's like, okay, cool. So that's when you learned that, oh, actually, all of this is built on outdated, potentially erroneous information. And so that's why that area is impactful from a law. perspective and I think it has it needs to be quite arresting in that if there was for me if there was too much activity going on in that area I think I would be like why did no one figure this out like how did no one understand this in the same way that ROM is just in a lake and you jump down and it's just empty no one's no one's really looking at it a master willem knows but you go to that area it's

like deserted there's weird shit going on these ruins they're forgotten and then you're the person who figures out, oh, this is what's going on here. Because if there was like a civilization, then people, they would have like worshipped it and then eventually someone would have realized, oh, something's going on here. So it being slightly empty works for me. But I appreciate that the gameplay opportunities that a mostly empty area presents is not significant. Yeah, the, I thought what was super fascinating about it is something that's completely skivable

and something that you can completely not discover. So in my first play-through, I didn't do any of that. And that's why playing co-op with Mike, it was such a cool, neat experience to have all that fresh and having those moments of this storyline that just kind of kept on developing and developing, and it was just really, really neat the way it kind of paced out. I loved all of that.

I loved talking to Yolan, who was the lady there with the cool armor. Oh, cool armor. A lot of cool NPCs in this game. that sort of, you know, help kind of facilitate what these main NPCs are doing and kind of help further their story. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed all of that, all of that sequencing. I just, again, wish that that was a bit more going on there. Doing the emote to open up the throne. I really liked that emot for using this of like doing an emote in front of something would then engage another mechanic and open it up.

I thought that was really cool on a couple occasions. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's jump into some super chats then And then we'll get moving From the Uncharted Wolf Right? And it says, Were you guys surprised by Mesmer's character?

I assumed he was a brutal villain pre-launch But reading his lore Made me learn how tragic he really is. I think based on Their advertising Like in a similar way to where More of the casual audience That will not read a whole lot of discreet

but we'll mainly just watch lore videos like myself. I'd say I'm more hardcore than like the casual, but definitely not the person that's reading every item description. I, um, in the same way that you watch that trailer and go, mess with no way he's going to be the final boss. Oh, see, I thought he was the big baddie.

Oh, yeah. Like, this guy's not the big baddie? What's the deal? Mechanically and storytelling wise, it felt like those trailers were like, this is a red herring. Like, he is not like this big, bad villain as like the, you know,

the shot of him. leading his army to like burn down all of those people. Yeah, you knew that there was more there. And while watching that trailer, you also just kind of get the hint that I don't think that they would blow their load and show what the final boss would be

in this trailer anyway. So I'm not super surprised, but I am very happy that I'm not surprised by it. I am happy that there is more nuance there instead of just being, I'm an evil person for being evil's sake. David Sort writes in and says, Are you disappointed we got very little to do with Molina.

Melania? Melina. Melina, thank you. I personally, yeah. I mean, yeah, same. I mean, like, not really, yes and no. We get, we get some explanation for who she is. It's hinted that she is the younger sister of Mesmer.

And is like, I think it says like Mesmer saw a vision of fire, like his, like his sister, younger sister, Mesmer saw a vision of fire. and Melina is the person who has mentions a vision of fire previously and obviously she sets herself on fire to burn the earth tree. The thing that people wanted was there's a belief that Melina is also the Glomide Queen, who is referenced in the original game as being like leader or the godskin apostles and is like the original like avatar of death in the world of Eldon Ring. and there's pretty much no reference or confirmation of that. It's just one of those loose ends that I'm actually okay with as a loose end. I feel like they did enough.

Like when she, if you get the flame of frenzy ending, and when you're starting down that path, she meets you at one of the sites of grace outside the room would be three fingers in it. And it's like, hey, it seems like the paperclip in Microsoft Word. It's like, hey, it looks like you're trying to figure out. what the flame of frenzy is. Maybe don't fucking do that. And she's basically like, if you go down this path, I will hunt you for the rest of your life and kill you.

And if you do it, you commit to it at the end of the game. You get to see a cutscene where she opens the other eye, and it's gloom colored, which means that she's probably the gloom-eyed queen. So there's enough there for people to like make that jump and make that connection and it be valid. It's just there's no further elaboration on it. But I think that the work that people have done to connect the dots and put together how what could have happened with the Glomide Queen stuff is enough. I don't think they need to overstate it and make it obvious in that way.

It also remains, that's how you make these stories feel kind of timeless or be the kindling that keeps the fire of discussion going for many, many years to come. You leave some loose ends for people to tie together. That's fair. I just like the implication of her and Mesmer being siblings, and I would have liked, I don't know, just like a little bit more. I'm just surprised we had nothing. Yeah, same.

You know. Bobby Joe writes in and says, were you all surprised that we didn't fight Mikula out of the egg? I could have lost a lot of money betting on that being the final boss. No. Yeah. I didn't feel that way. Okay.

Based on all the ways that Mikkel has been depicted as just being like quite youthful young, I guess you could have, I mean, the boss fight that did happen was pretty much exactly how they did the, uh, the twin brothers from Dark Souls 3, where one of them was like this meek beleaguered, um, uh, character figure and the other brother was the big ones, you know, the big damage dealer and he, Lorien gets on Lothorix back and you fight them both. It's just basically the same thing. So I didn't expect, um, to fight me. I thought there might be a chance, because the interest. thing about it is like the way that we see mickler depicted as this young almost frail eternally youthful child and then you go to mogwain palace and we're led to believe that hand is mickler and it's giant and you're like what the fuck is going on so i did think that oh maybe there's a chance that we fight my my understanding is like the hand is like that because of um the the haelic tree the holy tree whatever we want to call it process growing within the tree yeah he's growing within the tree so i thought

maybe we will fight a halic tree version of Mikala. A very giant baby. Yeah, I didn't expect much of that. But it didn't actually, when it didn't materialize, I wasn't too fuss about it. I think it would have also kind of diminished the gravitas of Mikala if you fought Mikala immediately or at any point. It's kind of like in Berserk, which is obviously a big inspiration for all of stuff. Guts doesn't immediately fight Griffith.

like you, Griffith does some really heinous shit, but is always out of reach. And you get to see the implications and the impact of what Griffith does on the world is what your guts and, you know, his crew are forced to face. I feel like if he fought Griffith immediately, you're in a situation where either the hero has to get his cheeks clapped or has to kill this big bad immediately or do some damage. So I feel like it's a lose, lose situation in that scenario. it's more impactful with Mickelah just being like in the back and you know no one gets to fight a god

you get to fight the emissary of the god just picking up on that with the conversation around the final boss because I've been seeing conversation which where people are finally kind of getting to Redan and Radan and Mikkelah like how do you guys feel about Redan coming back because I personally really liked it

especially of like if you do the Onsbach stuff earlier you kind of start to put together of like, oh, oh, we're going to fight like a weird redone Moog bonster thing. I thought he was going to look more fucked up than he did. But I personally thought that stuff was really cool. What would you all think about that? I was kind of blown away about it and would have never expected that to where the story was going. I thought it was so fucking cool to have those moments in the shadow keep in that library and having

Ansbach being like, I think they're going to like, it's kind of messed up. Like we're looking for Moog's body. we don't know where it is, but I think Mikkelos trying to use Moog's body for something. And it's having all of those little story threads kind of pop up. All of that stuff was just so cool and so well done to me. I would have never expected it. And I love that, like, I don't think anybody predicted that this is where the story was going. I know that the big questions leading into the DLC here were, wait, why do we have to kill Rodan and Moog?

It totally makes sense now, obviously. But those were the big questions leading to the deal with. into it like that makes no sense why would we have to do that and obviously it's makes all the sense in the world now. Moe felt like a good kind of like all right well that's obviously mickle's egg so you have to kill Moe to get to the egg kind of thing yeah the redone one was the big question the Rodon one was a big question especially with his fight with millennia right so yeah yeah i mean that's cool the understanding the the thinking was like oh you need him to uh stop holding the stars back so you can progress fate and like that stuff can

unravel in the way that it needs to but it turns out it was way more important i think it i did not expect rodan to come back though when it did happen i was like this makes perfect sense because at the time micola was in the lands between radon was i think the most powerful figure in there godwin godwin's gone yeah yeah um and like he he obviously idolized the first elven lord who is known for being the most powerful and with like horilu out there gone godfrey or whatever you want to call him um he radan was the most powerful figure so it makes sense that he would be like if i'm going to get someone who's going to be powerful i'm going to pick my brother um as to be my console also it makes perfect sense where mickler's kind of shitty uses the strength of other people and manipulates them to do his bidding so

it made perfect sense that he wouldn't step into the fight he would bring out someone else he used his sister. He used his brother, Mogue, and he's still using his brother. So it makes perfect sense that he would try and use his other brother to get where he needs to. He is manipulative. He's a gas lighter. He's like egotistical. He's a nausea sense in everywhere. Yeah. He is 100% cancelable. He had a Twitter account. It would be closed right now. He's getting banned off Twitch. He's getting banned off YouTube. He's getting banned off YouTube. He's not even getting a kick contract. He's going to come back with a YouTube apology video with a ukulele. Let's jump into our final super chat from Mara, who writes in and says,

justice for the dung eater, the man was just trying to spread the blessing of the horn scent. It was only the seedbed curse because the golden order's views of are on the crucible. And she, and Mara puts the word curse in quotes because everybody saw it as a curse, but not the dung eater or any of the horn scent. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the dung eat is a really interesting. I mean, like, he was, his whole thing was like, he wanted to corrupt everything because he wanted to like, you know, make everything gross and shit. So I wouldn't say that he was super chill or anything

like that. He does say, I'm going to violate everybody's dead bodies. I don't think I can ever be like chill with anyone who's like, I'm going to shit in your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of dude. Um, it is, yeah. I, I wish there was more to do with him around, but I felt like he's also, He makes a big impact in the time that he does have, and overusing him would have been a bit weird. Shout to everyone who wrote in with those super chats. Thank you for your support. And don't forget, you can continue to super chat.

We'll have one more super chat section at the end of the show. But guys, let's jump in to the bosses. So I got a fun tier list for us where we're going to rank the 11 big baddies. But before we jump into the 11 big baddies, I thought we'd just go around the table. Give me some of your favorites, whether they be the big bads, or maybe some offshoot ones. I think of the guy with no t-shirts

that was running around with the Wolverine Clause. I thought that was pretty funny to see. I love the golden hippopotamus. That's my favorite out there. I also love that giant grizzly bear. I really thought there was going to be like a grizzly bear family inside of the big mausoleum where the finger man was. I was hoping for that,

but, you know, not a little too much on that one. One of my favorites that probably would not ever get listed anywhere because I thought it was just like a really easy boss fight would be Romina Saint of the Bud and only because I've never seen colors and color profiles used like that in a from software game and I loved how in this DLC you get the extremes of everything where whenever something is poison it's kind of a green but then there's like the extra extra poison in this game and it is like the most saturated green you've ever seen whenever you're enemies, whenever you have

any spells that are sleep related it's kind of like a lavender look but then in the DLC you have eternal sleep and it is the most saturated purple we've ever seen and in this game in the DLC we have the next version of rot and we're used to rot being red but this shit is pink as all fuck. It is the most

neon pink you've ever seen and I've never seen from software use colors like that it looks so awesome so cool and just having this weird amalgam of um romina mixed with centipede and scorpion it was horrible to look at but it was cool as shit and i just really enjoyed the arena and the look of everything around it tam do you have some favorites and then i'm going to go to bear it um i really liked midra a lot of uh frenzied flame but i think that whole area was really cool the little man so cool um i think that it's like one the most gross and painful-looking things

from software has made that sword that fans out and he has to like rip it out of himself. I always thought the frenzied flame stuff was so cool as well whether you're using it or like just be going up against it so I really enjoyed that boss fight from a like stylistic aesthetic and narrative perspective but then I think it's probably my favorite cutscene of the whole game.

Just his introduction. Yeah, I think I enjoyed fighting mesmer a lot Just when the snake stuff starts happening I've got a soft spot for snakes I don't I'm very scared I saw your post earlier today I were like look at us We don't talk enough about how cute a snake is It's so cute that little cute snake

But even in Bloodbourne like you had the Mudera's whistle which I thought was one of the coolest thing Where you blow it and a snake just appears From underground and eats your enemy I thought that was the coolest shit as well And one of my favorite Naruto characters are Rocha Maru I'm just very snake like aligned

so suspicious of me but I like Nudra a lot I like fighting Mesmer though it's fun Mesmer is a great boss fight yeah Bear give me a couple that you liked um I would I want to shout up

my favorite moment in a boss fight is bail when he brings his wings up in that second phase and like the music really starts to kick in I think that's like that will always stand out so like every big second phase fight always feels epic but I think the introduction of Bail's second phase

is honestly I think the coolest moment in the entirety of Eldon Ring. I think for like story-wise, I really like the fight against Leda and how different that can be for people depending on like what things you've done. It's usually Leda and then what's his name? The guy who like punches and kicks and shit.

Dane. Dane. Dane. And then like some people. One of Mike's four. friends got to set up with them. In the review period, like some people had Horncent in that group. I had, oh, who's the woman who was in the library?

Freya. Freya, like, and that stuff was cool of, like, what different things you did, what led to that final fight, all that stuff. And it was like, it felt a little bit tragic, right? Even though it was all under Michael's Spell, it felt like this crew had come together for, like, a reason. And there might have been a moment where they were all, like, companions. and to see like this arena where it's like possibly four or five of you like all fighting each other and stuff.

It was like, this feels tragic because it feels the most impactful of like the meddling of gods and what it does to people. And again, what you're talking about earlier, Andy, of like a lot of this feeling like it's happening in real time. Like we get to see that fall out in front of our eyes throughout the DLC, which I really, really love. and I think honestly just like mechanically I think the mesmer fight I had the most fun with for sure so

man that that group fight absolute nightner my second time around my first time around letta had killed when we were reviewing it leta had killed horncent she was already very untrusting of horncent so he died she killed him

he was not in that fight and I had accidentally killed one of the forger bugs, which then led to Moore wanting to fight me. So I had to kill more. So neither of them were in that final fight. And I got there to that final fight many, many, many hours later, washed them all, just rinsed them in about one try. That's crazy.

This time around, had not done any of that. Horncent was still alive, had not killed more. So that final fight comes, and it is like, holy, shit, this shit is so hard. What, like, and I, it was mainly Horncense's attack style and fighting style that really threw off the whole dynamic for me, where he was just kind of, that one shot black skull that hits you, I'd have full health fighting somebody, a black skull just slowly moving towards him, boom, dead.

And I, one shots me. Oh, I don't even remember that move. So the funny thing is like, yeah, in my original playthrough, it was, Leda was starting to be untrustful after Michael's room was broke. and then I chose to not like throw out anybody or something like that and then eventually she was just like

oh I think it's Horncent and then after a bit she was like you know what I trust Horncent like so Laida didn't kill Horncent I had to kill Horncent on the way to let's see it was the In the library? No on the way to the

what we were just talking about Romina he's in that like whole palace of rot. Oh, wild. And he fights you literally like right before her sight of grace. So I had fought him on the way there and then had continued the Ansbach, Freya kind of back and forth. And then Freya was the one who came into that final fight.

So that's interesting. The second play through, Mike, you had a. Yeah, I had a solid three on three fight. No, well, I would not. Freya, unfortunately, just died in the library because I never moved her. Well, no. I mean, you, in the library, you had the moment where you had to choose. Oh, yeah.

I thought that was really cool too. Because I never got that my first play. We were mid-game and I had, that was when Leda was like, hey, I'm getting untrustworthy of people. And then all of a sudden we were back in the library and I had to choose that or Ani B. And I chose Onsbach. And I was like, Andy, you choose the other side, see what happens if you get this.

And so we fought and that kind of determined the sides for us. And then when we went into the fight, it was like, oh, there is clear battle lines now of like, that's my team versus your team. we had a solid three on three and because I never moved Freya at the end I got everybody's gear and then I went back to the library and Freya's dead body was there so I took her. Oh shit.

Yeah, I didn't have that fight the first time I totally forgot about that because that's where like Ansbach is standing in the library right? Yeah, like the golden one or the red one I totally forgot about that. But in my first play-through I had given him and Freya enough information to where they both left the library and we're like see you later, we'll see you know.

But I got that in my first playthrough as well. But I never even had the option to fight them in that library where you pick a side. I never had that option pop up. That's why I was very, very surprised by that. And then I, yeah, I believe you chose Ansbach. I chose Leda and I had to kill Onzbach. So Anzbach was no longer summonable for me for the rest of the game. Yeah, and Onsbach was waiting for me at the final fight.

Remember it was Hansbach and Tolier? Tolié, yeah. So what's interesting is my final two people. Ansbach was summonable there for you, right? the first time around Anzbach is waiting at the bottom of that staircase and he's just kind of leaning up against the wall and he's like

you need me bro I got you dog and so he's like I'm not looking forward to this fight but I'll be there for you. It is so wild the way that like from one play through to the next how wildly different all of the summons and different sides that you're taking. So wait you can summon

Osbach and Celia at the end yeah Mike could for my fight I could break both for that man which was cool and the first time around when I played it for review I never even saw TLIA. Never met him. I had met him, but I didn't know what to do. Like, I didn't know what the quest line and what it needed me to do for all that.

I want to give a couple shoutouts really quick. Just some other bosses as I scroll through the website that we have. The Deathrite Bird, I just loved the way they looked. I thought that was really fun going up there. Right above the Surreliant Coast was like the cool red-flowered area. And that's when we fought that bird. I thought that was really fun in there. Another redo from, you know, we've seen.

plenty of death ride version. The furnished column. Of course, shout out to those columns all around. You got to give them love. That was a lot of fun to light one up. You and I. We reignited one. It stood up.

We got to go into that back area, which was really, really cool. And then being able to fight them throughout the open world or throw giant pots into them and do massive damage. I thought that was pretty wicked.

I mean, man, oh man, there's so many great ones here that I loved. I thought this was really awesome. And yeah, there was some reused guys. but I think they all fit well. There were some new ones where I was like,

oh, that's cool and interesting. So I liked a lot of the enemies we faced. Let's get to the tier list and let's talk about the Big 11 because I think that's pretty fun. Of course, shout out to tiermaker.com. Found a little list of the Shadow of the Ertree bosses for a tier list maker. Over here, we will have the top.

Favorites, fantastic, great, good, mid. If you guys want to do that, we do that. You know what I mean? I think on the other one, Barrett, It has S-A-B-C-D, but it has everybody in their mama on the second one. So we'll do S-A-B-C-D for the tier list right there. And we'll just grab the Big 11. It also has the names of them all.

But, guys, let's start from the top. I'll take you for the first one, the Divine Beast, the Dancing Lion. Where do we fall on the Dancing Lion? And did you like it? Did you not? What did you think of the Deaths line? I love that I would give Dancing Lion probably in, I'm somewhere in like the A range.

Yeah. Okay. I think it's a good, like especially where the DLC points you to like that being your first big, big fight. I think it's a really good big fight for the DLC to set the tone. I like the different phases of wind, lightning, ice. I thought that was really cool. I actually preferred the second dancing line fights. I think that arena was a little bit cooler of a look and a vibe.

And I also liked the music. Maybe I just listened to it a little bit harder, but I felt like the music. was going off. The whole vibe in the second one was way better than the first one. It fucking summons those fucking, uh, was it death root, deathlight fuckers. I hated that. It was so cool. All right.

So let's go around. Tam, what do you think? Uh, I think the, uh, the dancing lines, uh, an A, I think. Okay. I actually might think of it as a B. I think like the, the fact that there's two of them is what makes it a little more B to me. Um,

you get extra points for the creativity for me for like it being two dudes in a dancing lion suit. And when you have a cutscene, when you have your own dedicated cutscene, that's extra points for me as well. Yeah, yeah. And it was horrifying to look at. The thing that I was a little annoyed by,

not annoyed, but like I was hoping it would have worked out was there's that one NPC who is like hidden away and will. Grand Am? Yeah, she's like curse you and all this kind of stuff. And I'm pretty sure it's her who's like saying

the spell that brings it back to life. Yeah. Yeah, and I was like, maybe if I kill the MPC, it will impact the boss fight. As far as I can tell, nothing happens. Barrett, where do you fall on the dancing line? A, B, C, D. What do you go? I would go be, I agree with Tim's point of, like, using him and again later, I think lessens the impact over all looking back. I still think it's a really great starting point for the DLC

in terms of big bosses. Okay, I like that. I'm going to go B as well. I really like that I get the mask though. So put that one out of B. It's so ridiculously big though. The next is so cool. Rilana.

Thank you. Rilana, twin moon night. Where do we fall on this one, Andy Cortez? This is an A for me. Even though there's no cut scene. I see a great comment in chat saying, From Holy Snike, he says, Rulana not getting a cutscene is a travesty. I agree.

I wish Rulana had a cutscene. But I also wish from Soft did a lot of things differently, production-wise. Like, why the fuck is the intro to Eldon Ring the whole video game, an animatic and not a CG sort of intro like, you know, Dark Souls was and all that? I think Rolano should have had a cutscene. I loved the fighting style. I loved the combat. I loved the phase two suddenly igniting both of these twin blade swords. Um, fantastic move set.

Unpredictable at times. Just like unrelenting. I think it's like such a sick ass boss fight. She's so cool. Tam. Yeah, I agree. I'm an A with Rulana. I also like the weapon you get from her, like the, uh, the twin blade.

This is, it's really fun. Having like the, uh, moon slice thing and also the fire column. Oh. It's clutch. It's good. to run around and kill little scrub enemies with. Did you find yourself battling within, like between going like, should I just get either my intellect or my faith to the minimum and have the other one more

powerful? Yeah. Did you find yourself like having trouble balancing both of those? Because that's how I always felt with sort of night and flame. I was, I was, I didn't really change, I just happened to be ready for it. Okay. So I, my main stat was arcane. So I was arcane strength build.

And it just so happened that it worked out to work with me. So I took it for what it is. It's like not super powerful, but it's just fun. I like that. Barrett, where do we fall? Yeah, I would go A as well. I like the rhythm of the fight, the attack patterns, the jumping with the moon and all that stuff. Like there's just something rhythmically of going back and forth with Rolanda that I really enjoy.

And then, yeah, the weapon that you get from her I use for a majority of, of the rest of the DLC. So, yeah, I think she's A tier. I will agree with both or all three of you. I'm going to go A as well. I loved the igniting of the two swords. I thought that's super wicked cool. Especially when you play co-op.

I'm always looking for bosses that will close the gap on me and my co-op partner, of course, with Andy of like, oh, me and Andy are playing who will take the agro. But I love a good boss that will always keep us on our toes and, like, quickly turn and be like, know you're the priority now and make you kind of shriek up really quick and run away. I think she's got that closing speed, which is awesome. So give it an A on that one. Up next, Commander Gaius. Tam will start with you.

What did you think about the big commander on the bore? I really dislike Gaius. It's kind of an annoying boss fight. Tam, I'm ready to hold hands with you on this one. I didn't even fucking remember that this guy was a major fight. Yeah, I think he's probably a D. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of it the problem I have is like great law But as great as far as like bosses on

Mounts go like it's a far far cry from Gilbu and Sekiro and that's like my bar like Gilboos are such a fun boss fight This dickhead's just like constantly on your ass with gravity magic it reminds me of fighting the Armid Boar from Dark Souls 1 it's not a good time Like it's just annoying. It's a bit of a pest. And that's how it felt to me. I feel like he's a D for me. And in terms of other like mounted bosses,

like you have the Prudcressant Knight who is like a way more interesting mounted boss because it doesn't quite feel like a mounted kind of boss fight. It feels unique. Yeah, that boss was sick. Guys just like if guys kind of feels like a rinse and repeat of was it the guy who's like right at the beginning of the game. Andy. Tree Sentinel?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's got some tree sentinel-ish moves. I give him a C. This is one boss that I, as I was talking about, you know, we all have the bosses that you hear everybody shuggled with and suddenly you did

really great against them. And we all have the bosses that you took hours and hours and you hear that a lot of people had much easier times against. A lot of that is like just builds and matchups and stuff. Guys, I had no. issues with. I just kind of wish he was, I wish he was overall cooler. But I, I, once I kind of got down the move set and he has that like five move flurry, I really enjoyed the, the speed and the skill that it took to dodge all of those little moves. He does like a lot of swipes and the

boar's head is moving. Um, I don't hate this guy as much as everybody else does. Yeah, for me, I got the Sekiro vibes, Tam, like you said, I thought it was really cool stepping into his arena. where you walk through the gates and you see this beautiful new area that you haven't explored yet, and you're like, oh man, it's always exciting to go somewhere new. And it kind of had that fall foliage and had some trees, some high grass. And then he comes whipping out of nowhere on the bore. I thought it was like a really cool opening. And then some of his moves where he's flying and he has the gravity magic like we see with Redan.

Like it was cool callbacks. He is relentless. I love that you get a bunch of, you know, shadow tree fragments afterwards, the skadoos, you know. so he pays off well, but I'll agree with all of you. I'll give him a D as well. And so let's move on to the next one there. Number eight, the shadow tree avatar or the Skadu Tree Avatar. This, I'll start off one of my favorite bosses.

I'm a big sunflower guy, and I loved seeing this sunflower tree running around after us. It reminded me of the, of course, Eldon Tree. What do we call those guys? Erd Tree avatars. The Erd Tree Avatars really brought. me back to that one. I loved the charge attack of where it would fly after you or you kill it once and then it would come back to life a second and third time. I thought this was a wild fight, especially in a really kind of rotted and gross swampy area. This one was cool to me.

I'm going to give this one a solid B for me. I'd give this a C. I'm close to a B only because of the setting and the environment that it's in. I love the walk-up. I love how it's. I love how but there's just this thing off in the distance that you know it's probably going to be a boss. You know something's going to come to life and some shit's going to kind of surprise you. But I just kind of, I really enjoyed that walkup and the scenery and the setting of it all. The move set, surprisingly not awful. Like I expected this boss fight, especially with it having its three phases. I expected this to be a lot more annoying.

It wasn't. The arena is too and like how big the attacks can be. Like it was, to me it felt like a less annoying Eldon D. beast. Yeah, I'd give this a, I'd give this a C, but it's close to a B for me. Barrett? I would personally give this an A. I love the design of the, the avatar. I love just how freaky and weird it moves around when it's doing those big attacks. I really love the music for it. I think the lore is interesting because this is where you get Mikala's ruin. So I just like, I don't know if there's anything specifically over. of like why Mickelah came here to let go of that, but I think there's something interesting there that I'm into.

Yeah, I don't know. I really like this one, so I would give it an A, but I would concede to a B. Tam, you get to decide where's this one going? I think B, I like to design more than I like fighting it. I have a thing with bosses that disappear and reappear if I'm really annoying. But I love the idea of,

of a fucking evil sunflower boss. So I would say a B. Give it a B. I also appreciate when you took it down. People in the chat were like, Andy, now go credit really quick before it comes back. I thought that was always fun. It takes off like 25% of the hell for the next phase. Let's go to the next one, the Putecant Knight. Bear, you talked about this one earlier.

And I really love what you brought up about how this is a mounted enemy. But it uses the mount so differently of getting off the mountain. The mounts flying at you. he's coming at you. It was really dope. So, Bear, you start us off. Oh, man, this is tough. Yeah, I would give this...

I would give this a B. I think the move sets really cool. The reason I'm thinking B is this because I haven't thought too much about him since I've fought him. To me, it's more of, like, when you discover that St. Trina's down there, you're like, holy shit.

But I just liked it because I'm not huge into mounted fights, but this one, like, this one was well done, in my opinion, and things got weird and freaky, and it's designed. It's just kind of fucked up, which I enjoy. Yeah, this would be a, this would be like a surefire C for me, but I give it extra points for, I love the look of this whole arena.

I love the gigantic drop down into the arena, like just taking this leap of faith off of a statue or off of like this mounted piece of a boat that you're just diving down into the abyss. All of that lead up was so damn cool. I don't think the move set was cool enough nor do I think the music

or the ambiance was cool enough, but I love the design of him. Just had a weird looking body with this half dead horse that isn't even real. I couldn't even begin to explain what the hell it even was. I would,

I think I would lean towards a, Sam, where did he fall? Yeah, I think I'd be a C as well. It remind me, it looked a lot like often of cause, which was a bonus for it. But yeah, similar reasons to Andy, I think a C is, I do enjoy fighting it that much. Again, I feel like the camera was sometimes a little unwieldy, but it didn't take, it took me like one second to figure out, oh, I just need to approach it this way. it was a fun fight

but I think it looked cooler than it actually played. Agreed. Okay. Let's give it to see there, Barrett, and we'll move on to the next one. We got a fun one coming up here. Mesmer, the impaler. Tam, where do we fall on the big snake man? I would put it at an S.

I feel like... S. S. That's for snake. The thing I like about it is the scale of the fight ramps up pretty significantly. You start off with, you know, you're fighting a dude, humanoid and then when the snakes get involved you're like he's turning into a snake and like coming down

and exploding and then you fight a little version of him and it's a very very high energy high kind of like demands on skill and timing boss fight that I really enjoy it and also like I said snakes and fire good good combo downloading the moose set for this one I don't think I've ever felt cooler than me and Mike having those co-op moments where I was like this is the stuff of legends right here like everybody clip this out this movement

if you want to know how to beat him, just fucking watch what I did the last minute. I love the skill involved. I love the setting. Again, extra points, even more extra points for the video intro for getting that cutscene for both faces. Mid-fight cutscene with the eyeball.

Just super sick, man. All the lore, everything about this is just S-S-S. Barrett? Yeah, I would say S, the music as well, because it sounds like a weird, haunted version of like the main elder. ring theme, which I think is like a good use of the fake out of like you think this is at the end. If you've, if you're fighting him before you get to Romana or like kind of figure out like

what the rest of the game is leading to. I think it's really well done. Easy yes. Yeah. I'm right there with you guys. I love the weapon. I love when he catches you and all of a sudden lights you on fire. I love the snake coming down and biting on you coming out from the ground.

Coming from the side of the arena. I love the five snakes where I'd be screaming. Andy, Andy survived while I'm just kind of standing in the corner. It was an incredible fight. And this is someone I thought was going to be the final boss. I was surprised of like, oh, we're fighting him early. But it was so much fun and absolutely brutal. This was an incredible fight.

David Short says the grab was so brutal. Man, he was one tab and Mike so many times with the grab. We would feel so much confidence after a run. And then suddenly, oh, all right. See you later. We'll let me back out right now as you're being grabbed. Up next. Romina, Saint of the Bud.

Andy, you spoke very highly about this one. Tell me, where are you going to rank? I mean, overall, for a boss fight, I would still put this kind of low. I just really enjoyed the visuals and the look of the enemy. Like the, when I say design, I'm just purely talking about aesthetic design.

I don't think it did anything wild mechanically or like game design-wise that would really, really rank it super high for me. I would probably put it I'm gonna put it at a B just because I love the visuals of it and it was like the only boss

that when we were reviewing it that I have one timed Okay it was the only one Tam where do you fall The problem I have with this one is I destroyed this boss so fast I barely got to see any of it I just like rocked in there I was like oh it's dead

You are killed I think after all the other stresses that I had endured doing like my no-summon thing. I was like, you know what? Thank you for being easy. It's like when you watch a shitty in-review movie. And we're like, oh, thank God that was an hour and 20 minutes. You know what I mean?

Fair? I do like the way that it kind of reminds me of bosses from the earlier Dark Souls games. Yes, yes. Like Quela and like characters from there. So I feel like it endears me to that a bit more just because, you know, humanoid school. But it also reminds me of those goddamn pest enemies

The weird ones That I've got the fucking sniper web shot Oh yeah insane So I both I hate the worst enemy ever created by Fromm software Every time I see him I'm like oh here we go again So I would put Romina Probably a C

Okay Barrett I would put Romina to C But like definitively above Um You trust in it Yeah, putrescent night, like the high of the C tier. Interesting.

Yeah, Ramina for me is an A. I actually really love the design of centipede meets scorpion and the humanoid in the middle. Like Andy brought up, I loved the arena and the color pop that you really don't see in any of this world that we ever play. I was just going to bring up. The butterfly move for me was like so cool to see on the screen. It really brings it up. I thought it was a lot of fun. So, yeah, let's meet the middle.

Yeah, we'll put it a B. I like that. Nice in the B. Up next, we only have four left, so we'll tear through him and have some fun. It's Bale the Dread. Bail! Barrett, start us off with the Big Dragon Man. This one fucking kicks ass.

I think this is another S tier. He's really hard. It's him and Redan that gave me the most trouble in this DLC, but he's such a satisfying fucking fight. The music goes crazy. The visuals are insane. Even the buildup to Bail is so fucking good

as sending that entire mountain. So I think I think I think Bail's got to be a D. Yeah. I agree. I think Bail is an S.

Everything Barrett mentions including that second phase. It kind of, it was like, it was theater. Like you were, you were watching,

you were watching a play on stage and just kind of getting all of the acts and it was just really, really awesome progression. And the chat brings up to summon. Of course, you can summon homeboy out there

who is ready to fight. I couldn't, I didn't. do that quest line, so I never got him. But I've heard good things, fun things. Tam, where do you fall on bail the dread? That's an easy S. Bail is the one that, like, I fought him.

And I was like, oh, this is going to be fun. So I'm going to leave it for later to have something to come back to after I've written my review. So I enjoyed bail a lot. Yeah, we all agree on the S then as well. Awesome production. Beautiful arena, walking up the top of the peak, fighting all those dragons. So badass. The storyline of,

what bail is and what he has done is like really cool. I'm all about that fights. Yeah, that was badass. Yeah, chat pointing out, like, look at his neck and being like, oh, shit, that's, that's the third missing head from Plaxico Burris, Placidus. Wild stuff. Number three, Midra, the frenzied flame. This is a, this is like so close to an S for me.

I'm going to, I'm just, say, fuck it. I give it an S. That seems amazing. I just love the production of it all. I do think that some of the mechanics may bring it down to like an A, because I just think some of the moves were annoying and felt unfair enough, but all of the other stuff that I just look for in video games to like wow me visually, I'll make it stay in the S category for me.

Yeah, this is Ness tier for me. I thought the cutscene was badass. I thought the lead up through the manor was really awesome and through the swamps up to them. I think the weapon that you get is super sick if you use the down ability on someone and puts it through. Someone's head and impaled them. Shout out to Melissa with a Y yesterday in the chat because we decided to actually beat the game after we beat the DLC. And Melissa said, Andy, you're about to fight Gideon.

Use MEDRA's weapon on Gideon. And, man, it was just me just spam it left trigger, just diving into the head, expanding that golden ability. it was hilarious. We just spanned him with him. And a lot of dope moves. A lot of moves that will go all the way across the map and chase you down and get up on you. A great stab and grab as well.

So I like this one. Tam, where do you fall? I think it's nice. The weapon you get out of it, the actual the theming of it, the fight itself, and the fact that it's another kind of opportunity to get more information about the frenzied flame.

I love it from like pretty much all perspectives. I love when we made up lore about it too. We made up lore you and I. Oh, do we? Yeah, remember his daughter went off until the swamp got lost. Oh, yeah. It's because we found the torch. We found, yeah.

Yeah, I agree this is a nest year. The only downside I have is like when you're going back, like this one took me maybe like somewhere like five tries. I didn't love that I had to beat the regular dude every time. Like, just get me into the fight. but he was easy enough that it was like it wasn't like I was spending hours of like fuck just get me out of this first phase

but when you were annoyed he would get a hit in it's like oh god damn it there's goes a flask but then it showed me that fucking sick ass cutscene and I'm in Mike's game and I only have eight flasks and that is I think the only time or the only fight in this DLC where I let that cutscene play every single fucking time that's so cool

up next we have two bosses left to rank here Mitra the mother of mother of fingers. Mejor gets an A for me. Okay. I think just all the lead up towards it and the boss arena visually, not only going underground for the first time, but then getting to the actual part where you enter the arena,

both of those, like, both of the scenery there were just so, so, like, mesmerizing to look at. I would give this an A, because I don't think that the move set was particularly awesome, but visually it was just a very stunning boss fight. I had that really cool orb though, remember that Andy? Orb. When it like someone said yeah, that's too. It's very cool.

Yeah. I also like I said earlier, I think the law revelation is pretty big. I mean, and also like evoking Rom the Vacuous fighter is always going to get a point from me. But yeah, in terms of it being a weird dude that from software has created again, is pretty high on the weird, weird dude list that From Software has made. And it's like, what the hell is? It's some sort of like weird finger horse thing. But yeah, I enjoyed that.

I like the ambience of it and the vibe of it a lot. I think that's a A for me. Okay. Barrett? Yeah, I would also put this as an A. And I would also like consider the like fights that you do right after it, kind of a part of it. Oh, good call.

It's all like back to back to back. and I really liked that in the design of like you fight the first kind of protector of matter or whatever and then you fight matter and then you fight emir and then you fight emir's guard. I really loved that sequence just in general. But then, yeah, the metter fight itself, I thought. I would put it at an A. I like that.

I'll go along with you guys. I love the design. This is one of those designs where I go, oh, they weren't really freaky blood-borne status on that one to me. so I liked that a lot. All right, guys, the final one. It's Redan and Mickelah. Where are we falling on this fight?

This gets a B for me. Wow. Wow. I think visually, all of the stuff that I've already mentioned that makes me love boss fights, the cut scenes, all of the lore,

the creativity with the getting hugged and all that. Yeah. I just think that second phase is, so unfair in a lot of moments. Like, the first phase, fantastic. And I loved even showing the second phase to Barrett recently, him being like, what the fuck are all of these moves?

Yeah, they added moves in the update. A lot changed. A lot changed from when we reviewed it to when the game came out. And not only does the world get darker every time, which I love, but and that's not to say that the first version of him was easier.

Like, I don't, it's just like different movesets. It's just different movies to get used to, yeah. But I think a lot of them just feel really, really unfair at times to the point where, like, the first phase, difficult enough, but very manageable. And I wish that the second phase leaned a bit more towards, like, the very, like, still manageable portion where, again, the only way I could beat him was by summoning my mimic tier. and we'll see how that goes the next time

when I fight him doing it on my no summons run but yeah it was like two hours in I'm like I'm struggling against this and then Barrett's like I took me nine hours and like holy shit what if I just bust out my mimic tier and it took me 30 minutes and that felt like it really trivialized the fight Tam I would say in A I again I need to go back to him play again

just because it was another one of those situations where unlike most people I had a I did it on my third try it took me like 15 minutes and but because of that I didn't get to see a lot of um what he can do what they can do because I was just like rushed down I'm just going to get this done as quickly as possible um but I enjoyed what I did see of him like getting to I thought it was a really cool moment like getting to fight radan in his prime is pretty pretty awesome and then having that whole like the law come together in one moment where it's like oh this is what it was all

he was all building up to this he was trying to make this happen so because of that I think it's an A for me I want to go back and and play it again and see what else they've done to him as a fight so yeah

I'll probably put it in A I'll go before good music good music very good music you're right I'm going to give it an A on my side. It is the big bad. I thought they did a really great job on that one. The first phase was so much fun to watch Andy work on the parries and get the rhythm down and start to parry him.

And then I would use, whether it be Night Comet or the Rocks to try to break his poise down. And like the work that we did to get through phase one. And when we really captured phase one and when to phase two was so much fun. Face 2. And I mean, the video into phase 2 was awesome, right? And then also, man, there's some move. that I hated, but I love seeing on screen, right? Like, the giant golden circle that would explode, that's a cheap move, right?

Like, it is very difficult to get out of that circle a lot of the time. I probably got hit by it eight out of ten times, which I didn't like. I think it's just a little too big of a radius. But I did love, man, seeing his gravity magic when he would go up in the sky and he would shoot four of them at him, just like Melania used to. But then on the fifth one, he might look at someone else and go after them with some of the baddest and coolest stuff you could see on a screen. And the

arena was awesome. I loved being up at the top there looking down on everything. So I'm going to give it an A for me. Barrett, you get to close us out. Where does Radon and Mickelafall? I think it goes A. I know this is one that like people are very like, you know, split

about with the, in terms of difficulty. And I am on the end of, it took me nine fucking hours to beat him. And I've gotten to him again on my, uh, Journey 3 play through and he's just as tough and I've seen the new Moveset and it's fucking crazy. But yeah, I think just the vibes, the lore, even the movesets I think are just like so fucking fun and like

downloading him not as satisfying I would say as a mesmer or bail but still very like I can get this, I can understand this. It reminds me a lot of Melania but if Melania was taking a drug enhancing you know, more than you know so. A little too much visual clutter. I think that's part of it for me.

A lot of the moves will get lead into the golden spires up there. It's just a lot going on all the time. Part one felt more downloadable because it felt easier to read. And once the holy stuff gets introduced where he's using holy gravity and blood. Yeah. When those spells are kind of taking up a lot of your screen and it's hard to see what he's doing behind. Plus me and the golden movie.

Oh my God. Mike's shooting a gigantic orb of. every single time. I'm like, I can't see what he's doing, so I don't know how to parry him because I've just, I got a blinding light of beam in my face. Guys, this has been an absolute blast. Thank you to everyone that is tuned in and watched. That is our kind of funny tier list for the 11 big baddies of Shadow of the Erd Tree. We're going to close out the spoiler cast with one final super chat, a quick one and easy one. CJ writes in and says, how do you guys feel about not having trophies for this DLC?

Does that matter to any of you, trophy hunters, or your thoughts on? not having trophies. It doesn't matter to me. All right. I'm not the person asking about that. My bad. I was personally

really bummed about it because I wanted trophies proving that I was not the first, but definitely one of the first people to fight these bosses and beat them. And I will never believe you. I know. It's fucked up.

It's really fucked up, you know. Thank you to Barrett, Andy, and Tam for joining me here at the desk today to talk all things, Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Urtree. This has been your kind of funny games cast for July 2nd, It's a big spoiler cast.

So if you beat the games, you got friends playing the game and they want to talk more about it. Hey, tell them to tune and listen because we would truly appreciate that. Until then, we're out of here. We'll see you back here tomorrow for more fun. Of course, if you're watching live, you can catch us streaming the first descendant on Twitch and on YouTube right after this. If you're listening and watching, thank you for your support. We'll see you on the next one.

Goodbye.