Finally found the first boss I don’t like: Twin Gargoyles
I can handle one, I can handle the other, but the fact that the one I’m not stuck in melee with is constantly spamming a long-range breath AoE that both poisons and does unblockable damage to me is ridiculous. The first time I’ve felt genuinely frustrated in this game so far, I think. I was hoping I could block or do something to otherwise mitigate it, but nope. Just have to run.
It does open up the one breathing to rear attacks, which you can make use of if you summon a spirit ash when the second one shows up, but everything but the jellyfish dies too fast to be of any use, and the jellyfish doesn’t survive that much longer.
I don’t mind repeating a boss fight over and over - I did for Godrick and enjoyed it - but this one is trying my patience. Gonna see if I can get lucky with a summon and do it that way. Edit: Friend helped me out with BEAM
I hate this boss fight too. Took me and my coworkers two days of practice to clear this fight for all of us who wanted it cleared. Easier to defeat than Rahdan only because it’s good for duos and trios and you can egg each other on. The internet is also filled with colorblind people who say they cannot beat it because of the poison being nearly invisible. Super frustrating!!
i finished this game yesterday, then when triggering the final cutscene the game crashed. loaded up again and my last save was 15-20hrs earlier. seems to be some issue with xbox just stopping autosaves at some point, and i’d been using rest mode so hadn’t quit to main menu in a few days.
so it put me basically back to the start of mountaintops, i didn’t redo haligtree (i got the achievement as evidence of beating malenia), and it ended up being pretty fun rushing through everything from there to the end again in <90 minutes at 30 levels lower than i did it originally.
After quite a few hours I just realised Rune Arcs are like DS3 Embers and that somehow I gained the ability of having any AoW on my weapons with whatever scaling I wish at the time. I.E. a str AoW with Keen scaling.
Can finally use Square Off skill with dex scaling.
i beat Radahn. it was my least-favorite fight so far, only because of all the bs you need to go through every time at the start of the fight. having to go through a whole thing before i can even land a hit is a real easy way to make my blood pressure go up.
anyway, i don’t really feel like the game signaled to me where i’m supposed to go, other than the old guy at the roundtable telling me to go to the capital (which he was saying before Radahn), so i guess that is where i’m supposed to go
I actually one shot the gargoyles, presumably because I was just too high level. in general I find the bigger bosses the easiest, because they actually give you time to press buttons if you can stick near them, whereas most human sized bosses or tough enemies chain combo and poise through everything
Yeah this seems like the exact sort of game that is best done in bits and chunks spread over weeks or even months. It’s a giant adventure. There should be a feeling of true time passing from beginning to end rather than smearing the experience in a concentrated 1-2 weeks. I cant think of a single huge RPG/adventure game that benefitted from being binged. People are super fond of Ocarina of Time partially because they played it as a kid after school for 1-2 hours at a time without a guide and it took them months to beat. Modern gamer instincts hurt the actual gaming experience.
I’ve played about 25 hours since it came out and I feel like I’m going too fast. I’m skimming through this thread, trying not to be spoiled but also trying not to be left behind in some of the discussion since I know by the time I finish everyone will have likely moved on. Glad I saw im not the only one taking their time.
too much hand muscle memory shit I have to retain to get through them for me to be able to just put a souls game on pause and come back to later or go through it leisurely like
The first enemies from Caria manor might be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. What a total nightmare. Great job From
Anyone knows what makes skeleton summon buddies die for good? I’ve had them both last entire boss battles by reanimating constantly and immediately die without reanimating at all
i think it’s just if they take a hit before they recover. i enjoy the meta game it creates of having to hold aggro yourself till they’'re back in business.
I entered Volcano Manor last night. What a fun area. This is the second time I’ve come across a place with a bunch of talking NPCs. It’s an interesting contrast after not talking to any characters for hours. The festival thing was like that as well. It’s as if the game suddenly decides to have more of an explicit narrative.
Before that, I went though the Shaded Castle. That part took me a while in part because I assumed the boss I beat was a miniboss and there was another area to find. So I retraced my steps for a while (and did find a few additional spots). But at least I gained a few levels, right? No, I kept getting impatient and dying. Those guys who throw glitter are relentless.
My general approach to this game:
Collect enough souls to gain a level.
Try to see just a little more before returning to a bonfire, so not to lose progress in the area.
Die.
Get distracted by something new on my way back to retrieve my souls and die again.
I was right now gonna come here to say:
Caria Manor: TENSE.
just cleared the entry garden out of enemies and I’m already wanting to run and not come back ever again.
Argg the fingers D=.
About the skeletons I think they are just supposed to be there. I had a fight with one of those shadow bosses with very little HP, and it had like 4 or 5 skeletons around.
Tried ti kill some twice but they kept coming back, so I decided to power through since I’m dual wielding straight sword, making wide, fast, and very powerful attacks.
The boss died in about 4 or 5 swings, and the skeletons just died with it.
That dungeon however had necromancer style skeletons. They have a black flame effect on them, hard to see, and you have to find and kill the black flame holding dude. They just die after you kill the dude. Haven’t tried holy attacks, that worked on DS1
I only just noticed today that skeletons won’t even try to resurrect if you kill them with holy damage. Blade of Order is a regular spell of mine so I’m surprised I never attacked skeletons with it.
This game strikes me as undecided on whether it wants to be binged or not. On the pro-binge side, this game is rather demanding on memory, which could start to fade given long enough breaks. Of the piles of junk in your inventory, or of sidepaths you didn’t follow and meant to get back to.
It also tends to unlock huge areas all at once that take hours to fully explore, without providing very clear “I’ve done enough for today” cues. Even beating a shardbearer immediately unlocks a new task “find the tower that activates this Great Rune”, which strikes me as classic “just one more little thing” game design.
I really appreciate how much they leaned into platforming now that there’s a jump button, this game feels like Super Souls World sometimes. By now I cheer whenever I find a dungeon with those horse statues because I know there’s some bullshit coming