Elden Ring - Tree Sentinel - Review

Tree Sentinel is obviously similar to Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa from Sekiro however this is a Dark Souls focused game so I could apply some old fashion manipulation tactics instead of deflecting for the entire fight. I generally start boss fights by hugging them on the left or right side to see how many I-frames there are and it didn't work well for this fight except for specific moments so I remain distant to respond to the attacks appropriately. I'm not using Torrent because I'm simple not impressed with the limited combat. I'm sure there are bosses still to come that'll absolutely require it's use but for now I rather run and roll. You're going to start seeing me roll through attacks more often now. It takes a lot of time finding those I-frames and I only a have few hours each day to dedicate to playing but I'll definitely explore them more deeply on another playthrough someday. For this entire fight, I relied on two distinct attacks. The first one was a charge swing which after viewing several times revealed that the swing has a set activation and it didn't require my character to be within the range to trigger it. I used that opportunity to use a heavy attack when the horse turns around however I had to be quick because the recovery time was just slow enough for me to get away from other attacks. The second attack was a jump uppercut which had a few outcomes. If there wasn't a second swing then I wouldn't attack, if there was a second swing the I would apply a light attack then if there was second swing with the horse raising up I would use a heavy attack.
I can finally say that I love both the arena and music for this fight. At first I wasn't a fan of the arena but then I realized that it's actually very unique having choices for environments to battle in so that had to grow on me a little bit. I'm still conflicted on the boss not being in a fog containment mainly because when I need to quit and restart, it'll put me exactly where I left the game which can place me right where the boss spawns. I know this is a specific issue that not many players will have so just take it as a nitpick because it can be avoided by just positioning the character away. There's an odd situation with the second phase I need to look further into because the boss disappeared on me a couple of times and I figured it was mainly due to distance but the boss wasn't far away the second time so I'm not sure what happened. It also seems to reset back to phase one due to the shield not being used in attacks afterwards. I'm almost restarted but I was concerned it would happen again and the fight was already going well so I finished it. In the second phase the jump uppercut attack was compromise with the shield so I was required to only attack if the horse raises up after the second swing. I had a lot of fun with this boss and I can't wait to explore the fight even more on future adventures.