I beat Smelter Demon my first try no problem, though I did summon the NPC near him.
I'm still really liking the game, just beat Looking Glass Knight. There's been a few sticking points, I thought the area in Iron Keep with the square platforms was utter bullshit until I figured out you can flip them over and instantly kill any enemies on them.
That's been kind of a theme, typically if something seems extremely hard there's a way to make things easier. Sometimes the solutions are ridiculously obscure though, the first being burning the windmill before Mytha to get rid of the poison in her area. How in the hell is anyone supposed to figure that out?
There's a few pretty boneheaded decisions in the game too. I had heard of the entrance to Iron Keep before so I vaguely knew there was something off about it, but I was not prepared for just how stupid that is. It doesn't affect gameplay so I guess in the grand scheme of things it isn't a huge deal, but man, going from Dark Soul's inter-connected zones to that shit is really disappointing. For those who don't know, at one point you come to a windmill on a hill that you fight through. After beating the boss you get into an elevator which takes you UP from this:
into this:
How did no one stop this? It seems like it'd be so easy to just make the elevator go DOWN too and make it a successor to the areas under Blighttown in DS1.
Anyway, like I said, I'm having fun. I'm sort of surprised how easy it is, Looking Glass Knight is the first boss to kill me in awhile. Iron King did get me twice but it's because I stupidly rolled into a lava pit and instantly died. I have been using NPC summons a lot, which I actually never did in DS1, but the bosses here feel like you need some help. DS1 bosses always felt doable, like "OK, now that I know how to dodge that attack I get how to beat this", but in 2 soloing bosses like the spider just feels like a hassle. You have to play it way too safe for it to be any fun, especially after playing Bloodborne.
I'm wearing heavy armor but I'm thinking about using a Soul Vessel to re-roll a mage build. I sort of stupidly put a ton of points into increasing my weight limit so I can equip a shield in one hand, and an Old Knight Halberd and axe in the other. The OKH breaks really easy so I like having a weapon in slot 2 for easy access to something durable, but it's not very efficient. Also I hear armor doesn't make a ton of difference to the damage you take anyway, plus I use a shield. Kind of late to mix it up, but oh well.
