Honestly I'm a huge fromsoftware fan but these games are not for everyone so it's shocking how well they score for me. Honestly it seems reviewers to like to appease the popular  fan bases online.

Can someone explain how he is doing so much damage and tanking so many hits, I litterally can't do 1 fifth of this damage to a normal mob nor take close to that damage, builds still seem to have purpose outside of scadutree fragments... 

I suppose that unlike reviewers a lot of players might also be a bit burnt out/out of patience after replaying the entire game, so there's that to take into account review-wise. So maybe things will calm down a little after a while (and more consistent strategies for the new bosses).

Or maybe not. While replaying ER despite being one of my favorite games I can't shake out the feeling, after seeing trailers for Wukong, Phantom Blade, etc. that if someone, someday, gets actual good gameplay right while reasonably mimicking From's level design - they'll just eat their lunch and walk away with it. Playing a game like 2009 Demon's Souls won't cut the mustard forever.

I think summons are much more important in the DLC, I'm certainly not good enough to beat some of these bosses without them. Took down two bosses, both took well over 10 tries each, even with summons. I'm at Level 7 right now, and my Ashes are level 6, it really makes a difference. Oh; and don't use the NPC summons, the bosses health balloon to crazy amounts and they still die rather quickly.

I beat her today. Quite enjoyable boss. I decided to beat her 1v1. Summons or mimic tear would make it too easy. I am not good at this game at all, so it still took many deaths, but I was having fun each time.

A big issue is that reviewers frequently pick the games they review.

So if you really love Souls games, you're going to pick Elden Ring, and since you love Souls games, you'll rate it highly. 

They can never get it right though, Mortal shell got the gameplay down, improved on the animations quite a bit even but other games just can't get the secret sauce. There's something more than the level design in DS games and base ER that makes it great and hard to quantify, right down to the atmosphere and ambience and itemization. Only From Soft can do that. Pity they get carried away with the git gud shit at times after they get praised and can't help but shoot themselves in the foot but people asked for it this time, they said Elden Ring was too easy, we got what the try hards wanted and not what the 99% of the rest of us wanted... just more Elden Ring. 

You ARE good at the game though. Simply by beating this boss you've proven you are good at the game and if you beat it solo all the better. 

Wait, the NPC summons is why I was doing chip damage then? I feel slightly less disappointed in myself. What's the highest level you can get to with Scadutree and ashes before Rellana?

I'd say Lies of P is a better game than at least Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 2 (subjective, of course).

Nioh, maybe, in terms of gameplay, but the levels are horrible.