36:45 "Of those 4 bosses we've beaten so far, only one of them featured fury moves..."
That is not true.
I don't remember if the Aligator had a fury move, but Markiona has at least one.
When she goes to her face 2.
And the 2 faces overseer has a couple of them

15:55 It sounds like you're going out of your way to ruin the game for yourself. At times, you impose arbitrary rules upon yourself (not leveling health), then you turn the difficulty down low to explore and learn bosses. Nothing wrong with playing the game either way, but you shouldn't let enjoyment take a back seat for the sake of playing the game more efficiently.

I don't do challenge runs myself, but if I did, it wouldn't be on my first playthrough

I have to disagre,  the dlc was amazing and easily worth the 40 quid price point, my main gripe with the dlc was the amomut of weapons and legion arms offered being way to low. However the bosses easily carry the dlc to a high point, arrlechino is a masterclass of difficulty and has the right to join the s tier bosses in the souls series.

I didnt even think of the golden hippo, i thought it was some variation of the Aligator elite enemy from Dark Souls 3 when you enter Irithyl

I generally agree with most takes on this channel, so I'm surprised to see this. I could say "just level health" like everyone else, but what I find interesting about your thesis—disregarding the obsession with weapon-breaking—is that you notice a dearth of fury attacks. That's a very good point, which I didn't notice while playing this. I can agree that the evidence points to some sort of confusion on the designers' part as to what direction the combat system should be developed in – on NG+, one notices that the bow completely trivialises certain base-game encounters, which implies that was not considered or deemed unimportant.
   Despite the ridiculously overtuned enemies in the first area and the abject failure that was the Tyrannical Predator, I found the rest to be more or less excellent. MarKINOna and ArleKINO put most of the Elden Ring material to shame. Markiona is an O&S tier fight (if not better; forgive me Miyazaki) on amphetamines, and Arlecchino is almost Isshin-tier, and I think Isshin is probably the best boss From have ever made.
   I'd say the story is the worst part of the DLC, as is the lack of enemy variety. It's odd that most of the new enemies are mining robots used in a single level, and that the vast majority of enemies you find are reskins. Yeah, the base game made a lot of (good) use of reskins, but c'mon, man.

   A few more points, as if anyone cares:
   *Bosses:* Played the DLC on release week, so no idea whether it was rebalanced later. Wouldn't say Véronique is the best DLC fight, not at all; she's a decent fight suffering from an oversized health pool and a botched attempt at having emotional impact. Markiona is a brilliant fight; I think it's one of the cleanest, most engaging fights in the entire game, on par with Laxasia or Nameless. Seems to me that your frustration with the DLC up until that point made you not appreciate the fight, whereas for me it rekindled my enjoyment, which had been whittled down by the zoo area and the alligator. Not sure why you found her to lack flow and rhythm; the string turning red lets you know when to switch lock-on (you sometimes don't even need to do that, you can just intuit when to parry the puppet without looking at it), and the "unfair" unannounced follow-up balls Markiona uses after the puppet strikes feel like a proper hit below the belt that you need to learn to anticipate.
   I do like your idea about giving Markiona a breakable weapon that would remove the puppet from the fight when destroyed. That would have been neat.
   Re Arlecchino: he's Isshin. Phase 1 is Genichiro—you even mention an input read, which I didn't notice; this means it's a good and unobtrusive input read—and you can take him down in 45 seconds flat, which then brings you to the real boss with a completely different moveset. Very cinematic indeed. I appreciate your points regarding the messiness of the opening move, and personally I'm really not a fan of the lingering AoE that manifests out of nowhere. Still, to me Arlecchino exemplifies what one wants to see in an endgame fight: some moves you should deflect, some moves you should dodge, some moves you should avoid. You seem to like weapon breaking very much; I personally consider it a fun little gimmick that I never pay much attention to (and never pick the quartz upgrades for). I agree with what I presume was your point though, that like jumping in Elden Ring, the game should have made more of an effort to lean into all of its unique mechanics, including weapon breaking. Fair, fair, but the vid just makes it sound like weapon breaking is the sole factor by which you decide whether you like a boss, which I wouldn't agree with.
   Perhaps this can explain the increased prevalence of dodgeable moves here—though I don't necessarily agree that's the case—as a result of a desire to make dodging more useful.
   *Story:* Bit of a tangent here, but I didn't like the story. Maybe I missed the DEEP LORE, but things didn't seem to make any sense at all. "The zoo burnt down long ago", but the petrification disease is already in full swing? The carcass zombies, which we see develop in the base game and which Gemini is surprised to see, are already fully developed?
   When we get to the hotel, Gemini says "this must have been before the grand opening", but the base game leads us to believe Antonia has owned the hotel for a very, very long time? Why is there a massive alchemist facility under the hotel? Isn't the Relic of Trismegistus supposed to be there, as well as the growing structure of Kroud? (The "order of Kroud report" item says it's been documented to have been there 600 years ago...) How did the alchemist facility vanish in the number of years between the DLC and the base game?
   On the Isle of Alchemists beach, we see a vision of Lea back when Romeo and Carlo were kids. This must have happened at least 5 years before the events of the DLC (generous estimate: if Carlo was 10 in the vision and became her apprentice and died at 15, which is still too young; even our current appearance is older than that), yet Lea looks 25 in the DLC; did she become the Legendary Stalker when she was 20? What's worse, Carlo must have been dead for at least a while, as Lea doesn't immediately recognise us when she sees us – I never wore a mask on my character.
   But then, if Romeo gets turned into the King by Geppeto at the end of the DLC, then the puppet frenzy must be imminent, so the base game must take place shortly after the DLC, so we're back at square one, and "the zoo burnt down long ago" and the state of the hotel don't make any sense at all. Unless Krat's been in a state of puppet frenzy for years before we actually start the base game, which is ridiculous; based on the entire base game, it seems like the puppet frenzy has started only a few days ago at most. The blind woman with the baby puppet wouldn't be thinking "everyone should be in City Hall" if anarchy's been reigning for years.
   It's all just dumb... but maybe I missed the 3 item descriptions that fit together, probably gotta wait for youtubers to analyse the corner of some texture somewhere and explain it all to me.

A note on weapon breaks. Markiona will be stunned for a long while if you break the puppets weapon. Veronique loses her ability to use some of her fire moves. Two faced overseer beyond reducing damage and range also removes some attacks (im not 100% sure on this one). Lummachio im not to sure what it effects. Arrlechino's first phase the weapon breaks are as far as I know just mini stuns on top of the normal benefits. In phase two he loses a lot of damage and ability to apply break.

I’m super casual. Bought the game with the dlc without seeing anything about the game except that it was “souls like” or whatever. Loved the main game and the dlc. I can confirm that this game and dlc was made for me. So I’m probably disagreeing with 70% of your takes but I fully understand where you’re coming from! Anyway, loved the video thanks for making it!

Our approaches are very different. I'm more of an exploration+meta+dex scrub and prefer to take my time in the overworld, always looking to get an edge while finishing even the most enjoyable of fights asap before I run out of steam. Of which I don't have much. I'm always on my last legs due to skill issues, always barely keep it together, and I learn slowly. But I'm persistent and I love the challenge my ineptitude provides. Your perspective on the trifecta of progression/exploration/combat is almost a polar opposite of mine but I still love to hear it since you express yourself so precisely it's a treat to listen.

I haven't played the DLC yet. (Too many games, and I keep playing Street Fighter.) But I think I disagree with pretty much every opinion on this channel, so I think I'll probably love Overture lmao.

I finished this yesterday on legendarystalker, 33 points into health when i finished the dlc. I thjnk the zoo portion of the game was probably has the hardest hitting enemies in the whole dlc. I didn’t find the dlc as hard as everyone has been saying it was. A few of the later bosses were very rough though. I'm someone who tries to dodge first and parry if i have to. So i never focused on breaking weapons.

I seem to remember Tyrannical Predator and the Overseer having Fury moves, but I could be mistaken

I totally respect that youre not enjoying the DLC, that's a matter of personal taste. But I think your take on the new difficulty options is unnecessary and unfair to the developers.

Saying they added difficulty settings because "they didn’t want to take the time to balance their DLC" feels like a pretty strong assumption. You argue that the game always had difficulty options like summons and leveling stats like health but i can tell you that for a player like my girlfriend both of these options wouldn't work out at all. Summons heavely change how a boss fight plays out and don't only change the difficulty. Only having boss agro for about 50% of the time isn't the same as taking less damage and dealing more. Additionally you can't use them outside of bossfights. Leveling health will also defenitely not safe my girlfriend. The difficulty slider is the perfect option for her to also enjoy the game and its DLC.

The simple truth is that they wanted the DLC to be a lot harder than the base game and they were expecting most players who start it to have decent health stats at that point. Thats why enemies deal so much damage.

Giving players more control over how they engage with the game doesn't take away from anyone else's experience, and I think the devs deserve more credit for trying to be more inclusive, not less.

Think about it. Do you like that people say your video is just ragebait? Thats just an assumption about your intentions and im sure youre not a fan of it. Youre doing the exact same with the developer though...

I’ll be back to watch when I’ve finished King 👑

I was very pleased with OVERTURE overall. I enjoyed pretty much every part of it apart from the Freeze dogs. Super-Shotgun Legion Arm was dope.

It wasn’t perfect, but unlike SotE, I wasn’t relieved when it was over.

This video just doesn’t make sense. You explain the balance issue with the amount of damage you take saying you’ve been getting one shootted but your low health. You’re also in the dlc content that’s suppose to be the hardest in the game so I don’t know why you would expect you to get get away with that. Also I don’t know what your weir obsession with furry attacks and breaking weapons. Breaking weapons is a cool mechanic but tbh it dose t happen in most fights and usually it isn’t a drastic change to the actual fight with the few exception like laxxiaxa and verniqoue with laxxixia going straight to her second phase and Verniqoue removing her burn. With furry attacks it isn’t ass one rewarding and as fun as sekerio  attack (forgot what they were called). Another you mention was the difficulty which your view on the difficulty is honestly kinda poor. For a while I agree with these souls game have a difficultly but with no slider but that so called difficulty which is summons, throwable, ect completely tribulizes that whole fight and you don’t have to learn its moveset. This difficulty slider still allows you to learn the fight just without it be as demanding as legendary stalker.  Another thing the consumable is used when your close to winning the fight and need an extra bump like it’s. It rocket science and no that upgrade system is not like the system in Elden ring because it’s not needed nor as powerful as scadutree fragments. I think you need to change your point of views of these games because here it’s negatively effecting your time. You believe getting more health is playing on easy mode and that’s stupid you are simply making the game harder for your self and you couldn’t handle it. You couldn’t handle your own challenge and blame the game balance for your own challenge. And the dlc is always above end game level so why are you not using the same logic here. Now for the finial boss I agree with you on first phase being bad until I learned it. Those insane combos aren’t to heard to learn and parry and have a rhythm to it. You also don’t ever mention how often he explodes giving you a chance to heal. And two I’ve no hit his first phase just by parrying it’s not hard and you can heal you just need to learn how two and when. Also is input reading is readable his eyes glow which means you can also force at certain times. Tbh this is a skills issue and for someone who brags about beating the base game without healing it’s quote pathetic to see you not properly learn the first phase

Can't agree with lots of your points, but overall great video.
Some of the flaws in design and mechanics i didn't end up caring all that much because i was more invested in the amazing story and lore this dlc has, but that's just my opinion.

I like this DLC so far. I love the new weapons and some bosses (venique and anguished guardian). Even the DLC bosses that aren’t mentioned are better than most of the base game’s bosses to me.

The only thing that I don’t like is how fast attacks from enemies do a lot of damage (25% damage at 43 vitality) compared to slow attacks (50%). I thought fast attacks would do 12.5% and slow do 50%.

Some optional things I would like to see done is:
1. Having clearer telegraphs on enemies (looking at you: 2-faced overseer with your weapon sliding on the ground and then doing an uppercut).
2. Allow resets of weapon upgrades
3. More weapon attacks and the current mobile weapons have more movement (slow and big handles push you forward or backward, booster glaive pushes you more forwards, dancer blade pushes you more backwards).

This a beautiful DLC. Rosaura a pleasant surprise. Lea, too. I was wondering why the 'memories' on the way to the final 3 boss in regular story make NO sense. And the DLC provide the answers. Carlo and Romeo and Lea. It kinda emotional, see locket with those 3 in better times. Also. The photo of them playing music. I find that if people cannot get into story, it not on gaming company to issue apology, it on gamer to put in the hours and SEE what they've been given, in term of fantasy world to discover. Even 'Khazan' have great story, and they kinda apologize by saying it 'hardcore action.' Korean game, gonna have story. You can't proceed through a game, and not be touched, unless you no like playing video game, but have nothing better to do. A lot of us are older and we didn't have time for video games at like 23-37 year old and we made time for games and fantasy exploration.

Just to point out, Two Faced Overseer doesn’t drop any boss ergo. The claws you were talking about was from Markiona’s boss ergo

I've also felt quite weird regarding the damage of the enemies in the dlc. Initially I've played lies of p on game pass and bought the game on steam when the dlc came out so I went into new game instead of new game plus 4 or 5. Even at launch some bosses like Simon were quite overwhelming and afterwards nerfed but in overture I felt like each mob was kind of a mini boss and the bosses themselves were way easier than traversing the map.

I didn't quite think about it until you mentioned it but we indeed face a lot of stalkers in this DLC. I was quite pleased with the DLC overall but some points indeed felt quite rushed, if not even mismanaged by the direction the dlc took later on. Most disappointed I was by the fact that we are doing so much into the DLC and yet there are barely a few changes in the base game (a letter from Antonia, another from the reporter, a few lines from Arllechino and some new words from Lea during the memory sequence on the beach). I would have loved to see some kind of changed ending depending on finishing the dlc and some sidequest there.

On another note, I think the Lumacchio fight is horrendous as even the backstabs are not consistent since you have to get to a pretty specific angle to stab him and he's going on a neverending combo over and over again, or this might be just me hating it