As incredible as the world design is in this game, I must say I think this DLC just went too far with the difficulty for me. I thought Malenia was already excessive and not enjoyable. But this has become just too hectic, lacking the elegance and methodical dance that carried the game until DS3, and reached its peak in Sekiro. The base game already had some questionable balancing issues, but this time, they really went too far in my opinion. It's fine to make optional bosses a challenge, like Midir, and Malenia. But here, it's not the case.
Too many bosses have insane combos that fill the screen with effects, in which they move insanely fast, and the camera turns into a nightmare. Yes, you can figure out eventually how to beat anything, obviously, there's people that beat Mario Kaizo.
SPOILER:
But I think this is where the game has effectively become too alienating, though people seem to be loving it. In particular, Rellana and Mesmer, I think, are simply excessive early DLC bosses. I know Rellana is optional, but Messmer is just too hard. You often can't tell the animation of the attack he is loading in phase 1 because the fire covers him. He has an air combo that ends in an AOE that requires essentially luck to avoid, since the arena is not particularly large, and neither rolling nor jumping nor running nor blocking are feasible. And the second phase is impossible to follow. I know I can use a mimic tear, summon, and so on, but it shouldn't be necessary.
I am sorry to say, but despite the high praise I think From just has fallen on a trap of trying to outdo themselves with difficulty, and the result is every boss kills you in a few hits, have insanely long combos, speed, resist stagger, input read, and are tanky with insane HP pools. Malenia was at least easy to stagger and the arena was very large to give you room to find openings to heal and recoup. And Rellana and Messmer are simply bad design.
