Lies of P

Full sequel conformed, according to some random’s reading of a Korean developer post. Had to, I guess. Actually be rude not to.

FlexibleFeline Your Greek is so much better than my -non existent- Hungarian, I'm sure!!!

Champion Victor down at first attempt, having the P-Organ upgrade to allow two uses of the wishstone really helps in keeping the specter alive and a constant agro pest for the boss.

I've really found my groove now with my bone saw/dancer handle combo and since King of Puppets have made quick progress. Sure there's another wall coming soon though.

You need to do a charged attack when they are staggered, you'll then down then and get the chance to do massive damage by hitting attack in the red circle that appears by them.

The game rewards perfect parries the most, but I've also been getting away with dodging most of the time.

I've beaten the Mad Donkey but the mechanics don't feel right, the windows for everything feel way off. Feels like I'm stumbling through the game more than anything. Perfect parries don't even open up a safe attack window, it's wild. Enemies just do not stop attacking it's relentless

I finally managed to get a good run at this yesterday. I’ve just killed the third boss, I think, the Furnace robot and I think this is probably where the game starts.

‘Easier’ is probably the wrong word but it takes too long to give you more gear and abilities and it’s only by this point did I feel I had enough stat points and weapons for a build to start taking shape. I’ve got half a dozen swords now and 19, health, stamina and whatever they call skill so I can finally give and take hits.

So, yeah, I would give it until you get to the factory before deciding to bin it. It didn’t grab me at first either but I’m really enjoying it now, constant fast travel to the hotel excepted.

What they've done with the weapons is a stroke of genius, the way you can choose how a handle changes your blade moveset, reach, and scaling. I'm still finding new favourite builds - last night I finally got round to spending time with the Bone Cutting Saw Blade and the Dancers curved sword handle. This might be the one...

I have upgraded this combo to +8 and am finding it so satisfying. Loads more cooler looking weapons, and some of the boss weapons seem very good, but I'm hooked on my dancing bone saw blade

Early on I was loving the charged attack from the boost glaive handle as it allowed me to gain ground on the enemies very quickly, as you say, the way weapons work is excellent - adds a great level of depth pissing around with weapon combos.

One other thing to keep in mind about perfect parties is that it quietly builds up the enemies stagger gauge quite a bit too, so you can get them back into that white health bar, stagger ready state faster. Definitely the way to go, the benefits are so clear but it's undoubtedly tough. I've had to learn the hard way what attacks I can perfect guard consistently and depend on those, while dodging other attacks. Takes practice tho i.e.dying and trying again and again

Finally got time to finish this today. I'd been struggling on Nameless Puppet for a while - that 2nd phase is Malenia levels of pain - then beat him without realising I was close, must have had shock stacked up, I was just whaling away because I was about to die and he just dropped.

Brilliant game all around. Beautiful atmosphere, a good but fair challenge, and loads of little quality of life touches that even From could learn from.

Strong game of the year challenger for me, and - after that end credits scene - excited to see what direction they'll take the sequel.

I’m really enjoying this. I beat king of puppets at the weekend and have been making decent progress every time I snatch a few hours.

I dunno what the difficulty was like pre-patch but it seems spot on now.

Its optimal but you can build around being absolutely cack handed, like me. There is a shield arm you can hide behind, some dodge buffs and buffs to the rally mechanic that mean you can (so far) give it best endeavours rather than relying on it.

In NG+ or whatever, I think it would be necessary and you would have learned timings by then but I never fight anything for long enough to get their patterns down so just kind of wing it. Every enemy has at least one move that is a long wind up and a sudden stab that I just cant track.

From what I remember it was just a nerf to the first form's health, was taking longer than you would like getting to the second phase.

Parrying is pretty tight, but the benefits on doing it are worth it. Negates all damage, inflicts stagger damage on the enemy and will put them them in a stagger state quicker and depending on the enemy can even break their weapon. Even if you block an attack, you still have grey health which you can regain if you go on the offensive, Bloodborne style. Feels like it was meant to be prioritised in this way from the get go judging by the pre release demo, but after feedback they've tuned it so the dodge is quite reliable and gets better if you choose to upgrade. I'm no parry master but rely on it when it's just finding the attacks you know you can deal with. I've got by with that, dodging and running away, so like any Souls game really.