I decided to make a new guy to try switchglaive. It’s a neat weapon, but the most interesting thing to me is how obviously my skills have improved. Went through almost the whole first area and only died twice, killed Gozuki with no help and no deaths.
Oh, and the Phantom yokai burst counter sucks so bad.
Damn, this game is sadistic. Hit, I don’t know, the fourth story mission? When the snake ladies get introduced. So many tough enemies, and I’m sneaking around trying to find my way when I see a corrupted shrine, but to clear it there’s a yoki, a nure-onna and just for fun one of those annoying firebomb gakis, all in a very small area that’s also filled with poison water. Fuuuuuck. There may have even been other things in there, I couldn’t tell because I was so frantically trying to not die (I failed).
Oh, is that the one in the flooded caves? That is a really cool level, one of my favorites.
Yeah, with the snake statues.
I was starting to think I had reached the limit of my ability with Yatsu-no-Kami. Same old story, though, as in all these sorts of games: throw your head into the wall until the patterns start to manifest themselves. I think this boss has very few safely punishable moves. The dangerous bit is waiting out the yokai realm phases, of which there were I think five or six when I finally wore him down. Ugh.
Imo this was the hardest boss in the game for when you face it. The reward is worth it, though less so now that they nerfed it a bit. That Yokai spell you get is very strong.
I don’t really understand how the soul core attunement limit works. It doesn’t seem as straightforward as higher level core = higher attunement cost because I have a couple cores that take less attunement despite being higher level than some others. Is there any rhyme or reason to it? Guess I’ll swap out the Karasu Tengu one for this one.
Oh, and like, I think I fought and eventually killed and NPC revenant? Like, one that was put in by the designers I mean. It was named Oda Nobuhide and its name was red. Is that a thing? I know there are a couple of benevolent graves put in by the devs.
Also in the mission where you fight the Tengu (I think? all running together now) I found a revenant grave that said he’d been killed by Saito Dosan. But Dosan wasn’t in the mission? Weird.
Oh, and I was almost certainly overleveled because I spent a lot of time farming odachi revenants hoping to get an odachi to help me fight those little arms (I never got one).
The level of the core is independent of the ability or attunement cost. It just affects the minor stat boost you get from equipping it. You can get higher level cores of the same ability (and you will) plus fusing them can level them up.
Ok, what is the deal with Soul Match? It never seems to offer any upgrade, so it seems pointless.
Oof, I agree with @forgeforsaken, definitely the hardest boss I’ve faced so far. I remember feeling like I lucked through it when I finally pulled it off.
It has two uses:
Also, to successfully upgrade a weapon or armor piece’s level, you usually need an item of equal or higher quality to use as the material eg. If your weapon is Exotic (purple), the material should be also at least an Exotic weapon with the higher level you want to match.
IIRC there’s a discount for matching the same kinds of weapons & armor piece (eg. Sword with Sword, headpiece with headpiece) and further with the specific type of weapon or armor- though you’d usually only want to do that if you couldn’t Temper the higher level weapon with the special effects & abilities you desire after several attempts.
When Tempering, you might need to roll a slot with a undesired effect for the desired effect to then become available in that slot on the next roll. Tempering also requires Umbracite, and the higher qualities of this material are rewards for completing the daily Twilight missions.
Wait, the Twilight missions are daily? Wow.
Back to Soul Matching, I think it’s generally most cost-effective to match with an item 5-10 levels above when available, below (4 or lower) or beyond (11 & above) which the cost inflates on a per level basis, and/or the net effect of the upgrade is negligible.
Soul matching is most useful after you’ve spent time tempering your weapon and just want to boost the base stats. Those are both mechanics you can ignore in your first playthrough.
Twilight missions rotate each day. I think there are 10 of them. Another thing you can probably skip. They are hard enough that even I get frustrated by them sometimes.
I didn’t realize they were rotated, so I’ve been getting my checkmarks on them.
Oh lord, I just noticed that what I thought were twilight missions in fact were simple sub-missions and I have not yet done a twilight. This game has so much going on.
Took a little break but have been dipping back in. It’s frustrating how often it feels like Cheap Shit: the Game, though. Broken rhythm attack sequences that start off exactly like a different attack sequence but have an extra move added on the end after a pause, so you think you’re safe but you’re not. Very fast attacks with absolutely no tell beforehand. Probably most frustrating of all is the grapple moves that have insane tracking and can’t be blocked, which are not usually a problem in open areas, but then sometimes they force you to fight in close quarters and ugh.
No, that’s this game.
Same developer.
This is every interesting action game. What kind of cheap shit am I willing to put up with to feel like a badass when I completely overcome it? Nothing in Ninja Gaiden 2.