A "blah blah" entry just means I don't have any pretense of presenting something intellectual or useful, and am just going to talk about playing a game. And right now, that's Dark Souls 2, which so far has held up quite well. I've gotten the first special soul, and am through 9 locations of about 30. I've been playing it semi-blind, only looking up walkthroughs for a suggestion of how to go through the areas (I needed this because I hit a tough boss and wasn't sure if I was supposed to be able to beat him yet, or if I was expected to go back later-- the answer was I was supposed to fight him later, but there's a trick to beating him that makes it moot), and to see what I missed in the area. Unlike the first game, I feel like I'm doing well getting through the regular stage areas and finding things, and only hitting brick walls when it comes to bosses-- even playing pretty aggressively (two-handed Fire sword).
Like the previous game, the "easy" way to get through the game isn't a min-max strategy where you're awesome at one thing and incompetent at the rest, but rather you buff every skill enough to be versatile enough to adapt to challenges. I've got a few wasted points in DEX right now, but I've mostly made sure to have enough strength to have a high-poise shield, enough weight capacity for heavy armor, enough intelligence to cast a high-powered ranged attack, and enough stamina and health to allow for a slip-up here and there without dying in one hit (usually). I've also been more aggressive with leveling, willing to go back to level up often, use all my random found soul items right away to gain levels, etc. So far, there's been lots of challenges, but the game feels more... if not easy, then "comfortable" than the previous two. And that's despite having two boss fights early one where you're fighting multiple enemies at once. A good shield is way easier, and safer, to use than trying to dodge your way through boss fights, at least for the last three I've fought.
The whole "finite respawns" is less of an issue so far than I thought it would be-- there's been a couple of boss runs where I was glad I didn't have to rekill certain enemies to make it to a fight, but usually in a boss run I'm literally running past everything to get there anyway, so it's a bit moot. I'm also slightly cautious about "wasting" respawns, since souls are (more) finite in this game if there really is a limit on respawns. Also, it looks like several items are New Game+ only (there's some wiggle room there with certain techniques), and I could see myself replaying this one a bit after the first go-through... depending on how hard it gets.
Oh, and there's lots of secrets-- some are basic tricky secret doors, others are major boss-changers (there's at least one boss I accidentally fought in "hard mode," fortunately it was still one of the easier fight bosses for me, but still...). There's also been at least one item I missed because you have to do something tricky and get the item the first try, without dying... oh well.
The big question is-- will I be playing more of this tonight, or will Atelier Escha and Logy be too tempting? Both are very much the sort I get in to pretty deep-- as in, hard to get to bed before midnight because of a "just one more thing" element. I'll prolly keep with Dark Souls until I get frustrated with whatever its version of Blighttown or New Londro will be.
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