DLC roguelite

So I cleared a good part of the DLC up to the second time up to Eirene boss fight. I was extremely surprised we have a roguelite mode in well a soulslike, but I guess Elden Ring also did it.

How it works is that there is an initial linear stage, selected randomly between two different layouts. The enemies are usually the same with the exception of a few rooms that have 2 choices. After this segment, there are a few maps of pseudo open world where the player can choose the order to tackle the enemies. Each zone has a symbol showing the specific rewards they give.

For a roguelite I find that it is surprisingly similar, the only random element is what the game decides to bestow upon the user. I eventually memorised the entire layout. There were a few bosses though they are optional.

For the gameplay… I felt like with RNG on your side the roguelite suddenly becomes zero skill. There were a few runs where I got rewards that only activate after a skilled play (for example parrying giving armor), and I get absolutely destroyed by anyone I can’t fight reliably. On my winning run the stars aligned and I got a special attack that activates with charged attacks, complete with a speed up charging and weapon swapping triggers spells while attacking with spells triggers a follow up, and I nuked everyone so hard that I barely had to dodge anything. I guess this is a function of the roguelite, though it feels a little sad that I am beating these cool new bosses by virtue of being unkillable.

In regards to the other game mode which I am kinda confused about, they introduced a boss rush and boss rematch mode, however some bosses are just kinda missing. Including the final bosses as well as some of the secret bosses in the roguelite mode which I find confusing, I would like to fight them with my regular kit in the future.

For a free DLC it is pretty damn good… but becomes repetitive quickly as I memorise everything. Not that I mind though because the gameplay is relatively fun and I get to try out all the weird weapons I never had a chance to do so in the campaign. This is perhaps the one saving grace (even if I felt like quite a few weapons aren’t present).