Recent reviews by r4k

Good fun, both solo and with friends.

Pros:
+ 14 weapon types, each with different movesets and numerous subtypes - really allows you to customize way you fight
+ tons of gear with different perks - great for people who love working on their characters and builds
+ different types of quests (hunting, capturing, arena, timed events and special events)
+ lots of background humor and puns
+ CATS - have I already mention that half of this world is sentient cats using tools?

Cons:
- random grind. Endgame stuff depends on RNG so you have to grind hard to get it

In short: go buy it and start hunting. Now!

Finished DLC and decided to sum things up in non-spoiler way. Perhaps it will be helpful for people who cannot decide if they want DLC or not.

First, some positives:

- General impressions. I liked atmosphere of new areas. Visuals, sounds, whole message it sends you - each "level" is distinct, wraps around some theme already known from game, but twists it and adds different flavor.

- Enemies are numerous, and picked in such way to force you being active, to make you run and fight which makes maps quite intensive. Sure, after some time you will know the area good enough to know where you can stop or what you need to clear to slow the pace, but initially it is very active.

- Difficulty is high. DLC is designed to be very brutal - there are at least few moments where you are going to die a lot.. until you figure out how to eliminate deadly element. And I am not talking just about boss-fights, but also about maps/normal enemies. It sometimes takes a bit of courage (OK, sometimes more than a bit!) to try something and discover it as a solution to the problem.. which again matches the pro-active theme of DLC.

- Nod to veterans. Many things (boss-fights included) will make you feel nostalgic and smile a little when you recognize themes or moves from previous titles. Definitely good move for a final content of the series.

- Some nice changes increasing "quality of life". NPC invaders will be there even if you aren't embered (nod to people who like playing offline, or have died in "wrong" moment). At least one NPC invader will be there even if area-boss is killed (very good change, making it easier for completionists). Bonfire shortcuts are well placed (I'd say borrowing from DS1 approach), rewarding you for map exploration.

- Ton of items (weapons/armors/rings/spells) to be find. Some in non-obvious ways. Armors and weapons are nicely modeled, so also good thing for fashion souls :) Rings are very strong and definitely useful - however it is worth to mention that they are just stronger versions of what we already know from base game (no new Ring effects)

Now, I'd like to move to things I've liked less:

- To make boss-fights "harder" devs decided to practically skip weakness/resistance mechanics (or, made resistances high enough to give such feeling). Normally you'd fight a boss and by trial and error find that it is weak to lightning or dark or whatever. In my playthrough I've tried dark/fire/lightning/magic damage on 3 of the bosses.. and 2 of 3 had weakness of perhaps 5% more per hit? Also, there is at least one boss that made me feel like his attacks were to be riposted.. but noone I was talking to wasn't able to land a parry. General message of the boss-fight was (for me at least): don't try to be smart, just Git Gud. Don't get me wrong - I wasn't expecting gimnicky bosses like Wolnir or Wyvern - but it would be nice if picking right strategy rewarded you with significant damage increase. Also at least one boss fight is - at least in my opinion - terrible for casters. I had to re-spec for it, and with melee-build done it in third approach, while as caster I've tried to beat it at least 15 times.

- Weapons and armors are.. not what I've expected. Definitely there are at least three weapons I like, but I am also disappointed about more than one. Either they are "wrong" class (for example, there is a straight sword that begs to be a greatsword class!), or they have strange requirements (weapon that by design seem to be for pyro build has high physical stat requirement), or needs to be used via weapon art to make it shine - rendering non WA part bad. Definitely will try to find uses for all of them, but for now a bit sad.

- It is easy to miss some things. Two "quests" have point where you can go by, just stating "OK, I guess there is nothing else to do with it". At least one area can discourage you and make you just run through it - making you rather brute-force than being smart. But, on the other hand, that is a general thing about DarkSouls at all - it is easy to miss things :)
In general - DLC feels good. Definitely a nice "good bye" designed the way it should be, bringing lots of memories and smiles. Definitely a difficulty challenge - making you feel that you worked your way through DLC instead of breezing through it.

In general.. 7.5/10. Worth having, but also remember you might not like some things about it.