Oz

Something happened which created an opening for me to proceed somewhere I could not before. I went down that direction thinking it would be a mini dungeon or something. I am probably 4 hours down that way and still have not found the end of the area.

Somehow they are missing something Witcher 2 and 3 had. I guess it is the gameplay which is so bad (particularly early on) Preparing for and killing the griffin was fun in multiple runs due to the fact you could play it in somewhat different ways. The heist kinda goes one way and it is kind of bad in dialogue with utter shit gameplay. If there were multiple ways it could go it would be fun to do multiple times. Or if you could really find different things in the bd on multiple runs. edit: also the game was so long by the time you finished it you almost had nostalgia for the beginning parts. This is kinda short.

It’s particularly bad when replayed. I enjoyed the story on the first go. It kills the pace of the game on subsequent playthroughs.

I watched the anime thinking it would make me feel like playing the game again. Instead, I am just resentful that the IP was not picked up by atlus.

I had a long shitty session yesterday. I should have probably stopped a couple of hours before I did. Having done caleid and charged the rune in the tower I thought I’d just turn in a quest at volcano manor. But then I discovered an illusory wall and my night took a turn for the worse. Got very tilted with this body positive chap who made me wish I had not started this. I should have tried today with a fresh head. Instead I had progressively worse attempts until I eventually got lucky. I wish I was a few levels higher for this. I need to go do something else. I am not going to finish this castle at this level. Can I come back and do this later or will I get locked out if I visit the tree? Here’s a vid of what happened.

@MardiganX there is pop in even on a monster pc at max settings. The game has some technical issues. The frame rate stability is bad even on performance mode on PS5. On pc it slows downs and speeds up randomly. But it is equally a technical marvel when you consider how much landscape and how many enemies are visible from a million miles away.

Because you mentioned shields I would give more importance to endurance than @Curtis suggested. Rolling takes only a little bit but if you are wanting to tank the hits with the shield you do want to put a bit on that. My endurance is higher than my vigor at the moment and I am loving how much my shield can absorb. With magic I would look at the requirements of what you think you want to use and pick a couple of low level spells to put enough point to be able to use them. One important fact is that if it is an attack spell or incantation and you only have the minimum requirement they will actually do very little damage and be useless anyway. The game really wants you to pick a specialty. I have put a few points on faith and have focussed on having spells that boost me instead such as increasing magic protection or curing poison, or maybe spells that enchant your weapon.

I would say put points in vitality, stamina and strength/dexterity. Pick dexterity if you like to hit faster and strength if you like to hit harder and slower. You will eventually find weapons you want to lean into and upgrade. When you have those check how they scale. You need points on the thing that makes the weapon damage scale while occasionally continuing to increase health and stamina so they are not left behind. This game is significantly more forgiving than any other souls game in that you will be able to change your specs multiple times after you decide what you like using through hours of experience and experimenting. You will need a bit of mind if you want to summon or use more special attacks.

Here’s what happened at the tournament with some narrative stuff at the end in a heart warming wolf to wolf conversation.

That’s what she said

I did that boss. There were half a million people there and summons signs at the actual fight. Wolf face was particularly brave. Jar guy had good goes and bad goes. Everyone else lasted two seconds. It was on the easy side but incredibly messy. half the time I could not even see what was going on. It is not my favourite gameplay wise but defo a spectacular and very different. Points for effort and creativity again.

Leeeeeeroy!

I got the following notable people there. I am happy with this crew but I think I am missing two others.