Actually, the reason I found it sad was a combination of the music and the way Sif just kinda limps after you and such when near death. At that point, it's obvious you're going to win and there's no real threat posed by the boss whatsoever, but you're still going to kill it. Just kinda bums me out, and it does so without any dialogue or need for verbal storytelling.

If you join the forest covenant and kill 5 human players in the forest (wear the cat covenant ring until Alvina summons you to invade a player), when you talk to Alvina she will tell you to go kill Sif. After that, when Sif starts limping, you apparently have the choice to let her run away (though this breaks the your covenant with Alvina).

But yeah, once Sif starts limping it suddenly kicks in that the music has been really sad all along.

Speaking of bosses though, fuck the Four Kings on NG+. Regular Four Kings was just a dps battle, hoping you could deal more damage than they could before the next King arrived. But on NG+ you can die in 2-3 hits from a single King. I even tried using the Crystal Ring Shield to no avail, but I think I need a stronger weapon to get the most out of the shield's damage scaling.

In other news, the multiplayer is still all kinds of broken, but not for the standard "oh no the servers suck" reason. First off there are a lot of players using the Stone Greatsword's AoE slowdown effect (hit R2 while 2-handing it) combined with Crystal Magic Weapon, which causes the slowdown to hurt you as well, and kills you within a second. Then you have the pivot-casters and pivot-stabbers, which allows a player to instantly cast a spell, or backstab you while facing you head-on. And on top of that, both the Forest Covenant and the Gravelord Covenant are broken. I've heard a few stories of max-level players fighting people at level 20 in the forest (on that note, people are max level thanks to an easy-to-perform soul exploit that I won't describe here). As for the Gravelord, I heard that it doesn't make the affected players' worlds harder, or at least it doesn't summon any black phantom enemies into their world as was originally advertised.

I never saw her limp because I fought her by running around under her. So IF she started slowing down that just meant she didn't get to run away from my stabs I guess.

Ah that explains it. I hear she also falls over from some of her swings too.

Rang the second bell am currently working my way through Sen's Fortress got to this area with giant's throwing bombs and died.

Still loving the game, fuck the narrow beams with lightning throwers though.

Got to tomb of giants. Hate everything forever.

Update: Realized Crystal Ring Shield could one shot almost everything in ToG from outside their detection range.

Not so bad now.

This needed to be shared.
 

Been playing bits over the last week. It seems easier than Demon's Souls to me. Aside from the boss fights, which are much harder. The fight against the Gaping Dragon got really intense after I ran out healing stuff. Most boss fights in Demon's Souls could be won by spamming Soul Rays, the only really difficult boss was the Flamelurker. And the Maneaters if you weren't careful. The Gargoyle fight, on the other hand, I could only win without grinding because I summoned a NPC.

The open world with its interconnected areas and the occasional unlockable shortcut give it a Metroidvania feel, only in 3D. Which I like.

Occasionally I can even connect, despite my shitty connection. It would rock If I could play with some of you, but that's not how the game works, though, I appreciate it for that. It's more of a singleplayer game that allows you to enter other player's sessions under certain circumstances.

So yeah, I like that game. Got me hooked more than Demon's Souls so far, which I played a little once every few weeks till I was finished.