Okay...so almost all time between this post and that last post were consumed by Demon's souls, a little bit of sleep, and a little bit of eating.
Man this game is hard.
Man this game is pretty.
Man the minimalist approach to the setting and story telling is GENIUS!
.... but my eyes hurt, and I just played an extra 10 or so hours on a game that pretty much stabbed me in the ear.
I beat it... turned right around on 40% harder mode... and played nonstop for that long.
I...
I keep thinking that if I press x I can read through webpages faster- or I can press o to do a dodge/roll.
Yeah... that's a lot of game.
Alright
so...
...
don't get this game?
Hyperaddictive. Requires 8 hours of your attention at a time, and WILL kill you.
Repeatedly, in new, cheap, creative, magnificent, frustrating, explodey blood ways.
But you do need a PS3 for this one, and a ton of skills and patience will help-
my recommendations?
Roll a royalty class female.
Sure they have the lowest starting level
but they get an MP regen ring (pretty rare)
a max mp+ head item (pretty rare)
and the lowest starting level is a dual edged sword since you get to customize/allocate your points from 0 as opposed to 20 or so, and it gets increasingly more difficult/time consuming to level the higher you get.
Even if you're going to make a non-magic user-
go royalty female.
Having that MP regen item at the start is a great option, and...
magic is the best fucking thing ever.
It kills groups, megabosses, everything (except for a couple things that are just... beastly anyway)
and it keeps you at a safe distance... relatively safe distance from the horrible wriggling, rusty, spiked hell-doom.
Why female?
Because dungeon crawlers and rpgs make it a point to reward you for rolling a chick... I dunno why, just been a thing since DragonQuest.
In this case there's an armlet that gives you extra souls (exp/currency) per kill.
Female exclusive, and I'd definitely wear one if I had the option.
Seriously though
if morrowind, diablo, fallout, NWN, or temple of elemental evil
just WEREN'T your thing
DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME!
It is 100 times more frustrating than any of the above.
You will tread through 8 hours of dungeon, get PUNKED by some asshole megabeast hiding around a corner, and you will go back to 1 of 3 resurrection points in that world with every monster except the bosses completely refreshed.
Yes.
MP regen is a BIG deal in that little endurance run.
Oh
and the wiki is your friend
but it isn't always right
The game starts getting a TON easier for a magic user once you get magic/int stats above 20, and... you don't even need to invest in health or any other stat in your first playthrough
I barely did- and it was overkill. Most hits were instant death since I was in light armor- so doubling my health didn't help THAT much.
Then I said "hey- I want the special item that lets me cast miracles AND spells without switching weapons"
... that was a whore of a sidequest.
And then I researched that if I raised my faith and magic stats evenly and above 40, that I'd basically start getting some crazy mathematical compounded damage because this item factors both stats into every spell- whereas the standard catalysts only factor in MA at a C rating
but MA and FA at C at 40= WIN!
apparently.
So at 40/40/40 Faith/Int/Magic, I had a ton of mp and I hit like a truck with even basic spells.
Then I got some special spell trainers unlocked, and got corresponding items to unlock said special spells... and the game went very suddenly into easy mode.
At a certain point you need high stats AND broke ass spells (or weapons but fuck that noise)
the wiki can get you there... or you could enjoy stumbling in the dark and potentially missing some of the most useful/awesome stuff in the game, like my 1 MP/1 second staff I've got.
That's not a lot... but its the best that there is.
And it took like... 6 hours to get everything to upgrade it to that point.
So after easy mode, and stomping on the proverbial throat of the proverbial sideways barbed metal dicked rapist bastards that inhabit this game-
I get to the "last" boss (you can actually do the bosses in a variable order, but this one is the closest to the "official" boss as you can get- his world has an extra area, optional bosses, a HUGE environment, and he even has a speaking part and a couple other appearances, and he has probably the most backstory) and he's some shockwave sword, lungey, explodey megaskullfucker that is
mostly
immune to magic.
I say mostly because... oh god the rape.
He even stole one of my levels (which at that point was around 50,000 souls) and I was ashamed of myself for even letting him get that close.
But he is a twink, megaboss. And... I threw everything I had at him
for about 13 attempts, got nowhere, so I used one of my megaspells
"Firestorm" it makes jets of fire appear around me in a circle in random streams in about... a 5 foot radius
yeah
I don't LIKE things being close to me, but I read that if you let this guy stab you, and then activate the spell- you could kill him in two hits...
One hit almost killed me.
But I had a megaspell to ressurect me upon death at 50% health
so I figured I'd get hit, hit him, get hit, rez, hit him
I put on every possible magic damage+ item I could find, approached the boss for the umpteenth time, and waited for him to charge- fired off my spell
and dropped him.
...
...
I must've spent hours reading about him, fighting him, GETTING to him over and over again to reclaim my body and get my lost souls back
getting past his trash mobs
only to drop him in ONE spell?
... yeap.
That's this game though
there's a right way and a wrong way to do EVERYTHING.
So
Roll a Royal
Roll a female
Use magic.
Get the Talisman of Beasts.
Get firestorm.
Get megaspells.
Grind magic refresh items/equipment.
Grind levels.
Play for hours
upon
hours
upon hours
upon
hours.
And for every 8 hours you play, be sure to read/watch videos 1.5 hours.
Oh-
and I've tested my build by invading other people's game at a 25% health disadvantage... Magic wins.
Magic wins SO hard against melee characters.
It wasn't even a competition, sure they can almost kill me in two hits- but every meathead retard wears heavy armor, and equips an axe they can only swing twice before getting winded and are unable to dodge or defend.
I killed a guy that had around 2,000 health (at my "soul level"/number of stat upgrades) he looked like a walking suit of armor with a novelty sized giant axe. My health at the time was around 300.
Dropped him in 4 mid level spells at a great distance.
He unplugged his router before I could claim the kill and ressurect myself :/
He was one of many dead melees.
Enjoy.
... you really might want to get your feet wet doing something easier though
like learning latin while doing thumb pushups.