I have many fantastic memories of playing this game. The gameplay, the atmosphere. the lore. Beating the Clearic beast for the first time, ascending to the top of the nightmare, visiting the Orphanage, or even more gripping the Research Hall, getting beat up by Orphan.

But you know what? The best thing about this game is that it helped me at a point in my live when I needed it. I was not in a great place and I thought ‘Why not play that game you bought for 20€ years ago?’. It gave a piece of media to really immerse myself in for a bit.

La Creature by Azul Crescent (link to the source)

When I encountered Markiona I also immediately thought of that post :)

Visually Markiona is fantastic, one of my favorites. A magi-tech puppeteer who fights with an angel puppet? Awesome! The fight? I didn’t have time to mechanically evaluate her. I beat her on the 3rd or 4th try simply by whaling on her and defelcting/blocking when the light effects suggested it. My damgage output and defenses where simply to high. If you go at the earliest chance to the DLC, she is probably a lot harder. I don’t even know if the puppet is completely or only partially dependent on her in the fight. After I beat the game I’m going to rematch Markiona and the Oversser in the reamtch feature to get a proper feel for her.

My build is super boring (;´∀｀) I only experimented at the beginning a bit: I chose the Strength Motivity starting class and I’m still using the Greatsword of Fate. After acquiring a couple of weapons I tried out a couple of different grips and choose the Krat Police Baton. I don’t know how exactly the assemble meachinc even functions. I should probably read up on it before I do another run. But for my first I didn’t want to look up anything about making a good build in LoP. I mostly leveled Health and Stamina and so much Capacity. I was always wearing the best armor parts. Back to the weapon: I have played through 99% of the game with Greatsword of Fate + Baton Grip; I love the quick downwards chop of the charge attack. It was my main source of damage for the majority of the game. Good damage, good stagger damage. My character still looks like a starting chracter with the starting sword and I’m even still wearing the white starting shirt. I now have enough materials to upgrade a dozen weapons but I have fused with my current weapon. This is probably like someone beating Elden Ring with the basic Club :)

Since I now have a bit more of a feeling for deflecting rather than only parrying after Lies of P, I’m going to give Sekiro a more proper try again. However, it won’t be my next game immediately after Lies of P.

I was in a Kaomoji mood after a recent post in c/comics (^_-)

The Gender Changing Coffin in Dark Souls 2

Love your artwork :) Wolf is satisfied, but he does not smile (¬`‸´¬)

I need to get Sekiro a proper tried again. I only played a single 2.5 hours play session and it didn’t realy click for me that time.

My fav’ is also spider Patches. It’s mostly because he was the first Patches I encountered. I like the way he moves, there is something eery about the head on the spiders body in movement.

Heh heh heh heh…Oh Amygdala, oh Amygdala… Have mercy on the poor bastard…Hah hah hah!

My favorite voice line from Bloodborne’s Patche’s. It’s mostly William Vanderpuye pronunciation.

Bloodborne’s Patche’s also breaks the space-time continuum: if you kill him in the Lecture Building, he is still waiting on the wall in the Nightmare Frontier to push you of the cliff, even though he is already dead.

I’m finishing up Lies of P DLC. I just got the “Last Battle” pop-up. So I’m looking around if I have missed anything in the DLC (probably not much; I was quite thorough).

Also, damn, Anguished Guardian is such a fun Soulsborne boss; very fun giant boss; cool design. The rythm of the fight kinda reminded me of Bayle. Probably my favorite boss of the dlc until now. Maybe the final boss will be better???

I think you copy-pasted the wrong TAZ article. There is nothing in this article about an opinion poll of Israelis.

Didn’t they change the plot for the adaptation especially in the third one? I think, I might have read something about that…

If they changed things, why didn’t they improve stuff or make some world-building, characterization or dialogue make sense?

I think I lost some brain cells watching those movies. But I was weirdly enterntained, not exactly ‘with’ more like entertained ‘at’ (can you actually say that?).

And it got only worse with each movie; why did I keep watching?

Source of the comic

Here are the kaomoji for easy copy and paste.

(￣^￣)ゞ
(ㅅ´ ˘ `)
(;´∀｀)
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Maybe Malenia on my first playthrough of Elden Ring? That victory took me forever the first time.

Attempt wise? Consort Radahn RL1 on my first RL1 run took the most attempts. I was experimenting with a lot of strategies and he can kill you so fast even in Phase 1 and in Phase 2 the splash damage that doesn’t really matter on a level run is just brutal at RL1. My buff-stacking strategy gave me the win eventually and on my second RL1 run I beat Consort Radahn in far fewer attempts with that strategy.

I’ll be playing the Lies of P DLC. I’m having lots of fun :)

They really stepped up their game when it came to designing the environments. Also they probably spent a good deal of time going to natural history museums and botanical gardens on the companies credit card.

I just beat the Overseer and did the crocodile side quest. Now on to the Ruins (?).

What if Metyr never came to the Lands Between?

Would the Elden Ring/Elden Beast still have come to the Lands Between?
Remembrance of the Mother of Fingers and Elden Stars descriptions suggests that Metyr came first. But nothing suggests that the Elden Ring still wouldn’t have come. Also unclear is when Metyr actually started influencing things. Did she already influence things when Placidusax was supposedly Elden Lord? She did definitely influence things when Marika ascended to godhood and then became the vessel for the Elden Ring. Would Marika have been such a genocidal tyrant without Metyrs influence? Would she have been even worse? Or would she not have been a god at all? Would there have been a different Order than the Golden Order? Or would there have been no Order at all, the Greater Will entirely absent from the Lands Between?

I did not really have time to appreciate it. I summoned Alidoro with the Trumpet, he gave me, and we ganked him. This was the first time I ever summoned in LoP, but he gave me a custom summoning item and I wanted to see what the real Alidoro is made of.
I’m probably going to fight the Overseer in the Boss Rematch feature after I beat the DLC.

Auto-Wall Recovery

has nothing to do with derendering obstacles/walls. It rotates your camera away from walls, when it thinks the camera has hit a wall.
Or, to put it more simply, it makes you think your right stick has stick-drift, when it doesn’t.

The hardest boss in the LoP DLC for me yet. The Crocodile? No, the camera in this fight. The Croc immediately pushes you to the side of the small arena and then you only see his belly.

PS: Please no spoilers; I just beat the Overseer.

There are a couple of Fingercreepers outside of the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds in Leyndell: If you go north from the Lower Capital Church grace (this is where you get Lionel’s Set and the Deathbed Dress), there is a small one and later a couple more with some rats and a larger Fingercreeper guarding a Lost Ashes of War.

Is Darkroot Depths part of Leyndell? Map Menu says no… I say yes! You are literally right under the Erdtree with Godwyn’s Corpse.
Also fun fact according to the map menu the Shunning-Grounds are part of Leyndell.

Another fun fact: the Fingercreeper buried before the Dung-Eater is guaranteed to drop at least one Somber Smithing Stone [7] – this is one of the earliest you can get.

Simon >Manus<, whose above the Abyss… Okay, super obvious when you put it like that. I totally missed that. Viewing the fight through that lense reveals all the other details you listed.

Yeah, I can definitely see Maria in the Namless Puppet fight: The Scissor weapon and the Rakuyo, both splitting in Phase 2. Also in Phase 2 the red glow around the weapon. Also, yeah, some of the acrobatics are kinda reminisced of her.
If those two thematically fit together… I don’t know. I need think more deeply on the story of Lies of P after the DLC anyway. You can definitely make them fit together with the puppet parallels, but I don’t know if this actually meant to appear that way.
One quick tought: Maria’s has agency still in protecting the secrets. Nameless Puppet only ever had, if it had agency at all, hatred as it’s driving force at least according to an item description (I think the boss amulet). So I think you can make the story connections around the characters, but not between those two characters specifically. Maybe, I don’t, I need to think about more.

Anyway, thanks for the story insights and this Lies of P disussion as a whole :)

Thanks :)

Answers:

1.) Damn, did I miss FS homage elements? Nameless Puppet reminded me, based on the arena and the stance and the flips, a bit of Artorias. Simon looks a bit like Morgott in his initial presentation. I’m thinking about his mid-battle cutscene, but that reminded me of that Michelangelo painting, only here it’s not Adam touching God but Simon reaching out to his own divinity, pretty egocentric but on point.

2.) Not entirely. You don’t have a magic system or similar and Perfect Guard seems to be what you want to do in most situations. And also though it has many different weapons you can’t access them immediately. In other Fromsoft titles you can make a beeline directly to your choosen weapon. For example, I once fought Elemer of the Briar as my first Boss in Elden Ring to get his sword. In Lies of P you have to go follow the linear path until you can pick the stuff up. BUT I haven’t seriously tried many of these weapons even early game ones and I haven’t really tried item spamming or the Legion Arms. I don’t think a build centered on items would be that fun (I don’t know how viable that even is.). Legions Arms seemed a bit dull and underutilized, but I just picked up a DLC Legion Arm where you throw disc blade – very fun.
It probably impacts replayability for me, but on the whole my game knowledge is a bit lacking and even with what I know now I’m probably going to replay it a bit. The promo weapon you get at the beginning with the parry dodge looks quite interesting.

3.) The last 3 Bosses were each uniquely, extremely good. It might be because I’m riding still a bit on a high, but Nameless Puppet might be my favorite. Presentation, difficulty, and the satisfaction you especially get from this fight were quite special. Cutting of halve of their head and their strings and then the craziness that ensues. Oh also the music, it puts you immediatly on edge the moment you cross the threshold onto the arena and keeps you in the fight as it ramps up.
Other than that? I have a soft-spot for Scrapped Watchman. His presentation is decent but nothing to write home about. It’s still the early game and we’re still ramping up. But this fight made me fall in love with this game: standing in front of a giant boss and just taking his attacks. He has long attack chains that are easy to completly deflect, delayed attacks that are slightly harder to deflect, which also force you to move in phase 2, Fatal Attacks which give you a big attack window when you successfully defelct them. Oh, and he has a grab attack that’s not bullshit, this should immediately disqualify him from being a Souls Boss XD. I know he is just a trainings boss and the stuff he teaches is there more extreme in other bosses, but dammit he’s a very good training boss. I fought him in the boss rematch feature at difficulty 3 where he has a lot more health, and yes I’m enjoing his fight even more when he can actually take abuse.

Sorry for the long ramble :)
Also I thought Lemmy has numbered markdown lists; hmm it does according the docs, but I only get unnumbered lists.

I finished the game last night! Simon was easier than expected. Does he have lower HP than I expected or is it simply because of his large openings? Great visuals in Phase 2!

And then I made a mistake, since he wasn’t the final Boss I just thought I’d look what awaits afterwards. Yeah… after having told Geppetto to fuck himself. Nameless Puppet took me apart. Phase 2 is so brutal. Great unerving theme for the fight. I had to beat phase 1 near flawlessly and then use up nearly all my heals in phase 2. Damn that was satisfying. But it did cost me a couple of hours I should have been sleeping.

I also just purchased and installed the DLC.

I’d loved to answer some questions about my playthrough. I’m probably going to write a rambling “review” that I’m going to post here after I’ve beaten the DLC.