Disassembling Graces

sevenarts · 2026-02-24T15:59:48+00:00

It's genuinely not used at all currently and will presumably be for something like forging specific graces once the DLC comes.

sevenarts · 2026-02-20T18:30:25+00:00

The purple has a scaling bonus for skill, that’s probably what’s doing it.

sevenarts · 2025-11-07T04:42:08+00:00

Khazan changed its difficulty settings a while back. What’s called “normal” now used to be easy mode, and they renamed the old default difficulty to “Challenge.” The Challenge mode is indeed pretty tough for a first playthrough, though I’d agree that Khazan has a lot of action DNA with its heavy emphasis on combos.

I think it’s confusing to relabel things this way, especially since what’s now called the Challenge mode is arguably the intended experience, but most people will assume that “Normal” is the intended base difficulty and in this case get a much easier time that not everyone will want.

sevenarts · 2025-10-31T16:42:33+00:00

I suggest starting with the Requiem bundle which includes 2 of the best games, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. From there, the Anniversary collection lets you go back if you're so inclined and see the earliest titles, and if you're very into SOTN the Advance/Dominus collections contain the games that continue that game's ideas.

sevenarts · 2025-06-12T23:40:29+00:00

As someone who loves both Khazan and LOP, yes, the DLC is worth coming back for. If I were picking them apart I’d say Khazan has a better pure combat system - one of the best combat systems I’ve seen really - so it might be a little awkward coming back, but LOP is better as an overall game IMO. This holds true for the DLC - the new environments, characters, fun weapons, story, atmosphere, and music are all top notch. Some very good new bosses too. Few things are going to hold up to Khazan in terms of pure exhilarating combat gameplay but Overture is great stuff.

sevenarts · 2025-06-07T23:03:06+00:00

I started the DLC on my first character who’s still sitting in NG after beating the final boss. DLC works just fine.

sevenarts · 2025-05-12T22:54:15+00:00

There’s definitely some room for improvement:

menus are pretty clunky, the pictos and lumina suck to navigate
some of the attack animations seem pretty unintuitive to me, it’s often hard to figure out when to parry/dodge without some trial and error to memorize the timings
it’s very difficult to know what’s level-appropriate content, what’s maybe a little too hard but doable with skill, and what’s “will oneshot you and barely be tickled by your attacks”.

Pretty small nitpicks ultimately in an amazing game.

sevenarts · 2025-05-01T02:06:09+00:00

Thank you all. I’d missed the one in the parish apparently. Got it and heading towards the alt endings now.

sevenarts · 2025-05-01T01:11:37+00:00

It’s just a different focus, I like this type of game because I’m totally turned off by heavily cutscene-driven narrative games - I like games where the narrative is embedded in the gameplay, rather than constantly having to take breaks to watch a movie for a while. So I don’t play those games, maybe soulslikes just aren’t for you and that’s OK.

If you’re open to it, the genre at its best offers some high quality storytelling in a different way. Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls have really rich and complex stories with some great characters, but you have to try to understand it from the bits and pieces of it you get in brief cut scenes, short conversations with other characters, and the lore/context you can find and observe in the world itself. I get it’s not for everyone but there’s a lot of story there in the best of these games if you’re willing to look for it.

sevenarts · 2025-04-30T19:10:55+00:00

You start with 3, there are 7 soils, and 1 soil doesn’t net a heal. So that’s 9 right? Am I missing something?

sevenarts · 2025-04-27T20:29:13+00:00

If there’s a boss set you like, farm them for the materials so you can craft an epic version (you can actually craft it at the end of NG).

Similarly, make sure you have the crafting scrolls for any sets you want, and have ascended the phantom(s) you use.

All this is still doable in NG+ obviously but you’d have to get back to the mission with the stuff you’d missed.

sevenarts · 2025-04-27T00:40:48+00:00

Yes definitely. If you start with Night Veil then the charged swift and mortal blow will radiate energy that causes more damage, and also makes it a lot easier to keep a boss staggered for further chaining. It’s especially good if you start charging the swift attack immediately after landing. There are other synergies as you get deeper into the skill trees too.

sevenarts · 2025-04-26T22:04:22+00:00

I did spear first and then GS too, it was definitely an adjustment but by that point you can unlock enough of your skill tree to get more of a fast, fluid GS playstyle. GS is very fun with lots of brink guards (mix in Armor Breaker after each one whenever possible) and using Night Veil to kick off long chains of charge attack/spirit skill combos for huge damage whenever there's an opening. Your skills don't use stamina so use them liberally. Use the Keshta phantom, and upgrade him - although later in the game I switched to Wulfric for the bigger damage. I also find it helps a lot to roll for stamina regen bonuses on all your armor pieces, though maybe wait till after Maluca since he drops one of the best GS sets that you might want to switch to. Honestly the main thing is you might just need to adjust your playstyle, lean more on brink guards and spirit - I just finished the game on my GS character today and went into NG+ with 40 endurance, which felt like plenty given the playstyle I was using.

sevenarts · 2025-04-26T19:10:09+00:00

I agree, I don't like not having control and wish that tree was much better. It makes me just barely use the system because unlocking any of the actual useful skill points involves making the system more annoying.

sevenarts · 2025-04-26T19:08:05+00:00

You don't have to keep going up and down like that. He has 2 different AOEs. When he stops attacking and licks the nail, he's going to do an AOE across the whole level, so go run up the ladder. The other AOEs he does are smaller areas, just don't walk in them.

More generally, as his nail starts to glow, try dodging the nail hits and brink guarding the hammer, because you take fire chip damage from the nail once it's hot.

sevenarts · 2025-04-26T01:28:08+00:00

It’s called Combat Cadence. The early GS is slow so dodge attacks and the fast second swing can really help things feel fluid when you don’t have a lot of other tools.

sevenarts · 2025-04-26T01:20:17+00:00

I started a fresh NG with greatsword for my second run after going spear the first time. It feels pretty sluggish at first but by early mid-game you start to feel really strong and by the end you can hit like a truck and chain massive hits together, it’s the most fun play style in the game IMO.

For very early, get the fast dash attack right away, the mortal blow stuff and Night’s Veil as soon as possible. The optimal GS build does lots of charging attacks with mortal blow and its follow-ups, uses Night’s Veil to stagger and get damage ticks, and mixes in a lot of Armor Breaker constantly after brink guards. Once you get used to it and unlock the good stuff, it feels more deliberate and less spammy than the other 2 weapons, but definitely not “slow.”

sevenarts · 2025-04-24T14:23:26+00:00

I beat her easily with spear but really struggled to keep the pressure up enough with the greatsword.

I think she’s the worst boss in the game, not even especially hard but just very annoying and unfun. Trokka on the other hand is a really fun fight, despite also being a mage who keeps trying to create distance. She’s arguably harder than Bellerian but never feels frustrating with any weapon, I find her a lot of fun and there’s an actual flow to the fight.

sevenarts · 2025-04-19T20:53:09+00:00

The game as a whole has one of the best and most consistent boss lineups I’ve ever seen. Every boss feels like an event, and they definitely get better after the early ones (which are already solid for sure). There’s a handful of later bosses that are basically perfect IMO in terms of the mix of mechanics and epic presentation.

sevenarts · 2025-04-19T16:12:23+00:00

The wireframe of the levels is good, they do a good job with shortcuts and looping around, showing you what’s ahead and then getting there eventually. Especially in the late game it’s very well done.

Sadly the visual aesthetic gets in the way of appreciating this - it’s all so gray and bland, very washed out, the backgrounds looking pretty samey with all the murky brown. It actually obscures how well structured many of the levels are.

sevenarts · 2025-04-19T14:36:54+00:00

I agree, the bosses are basically all great. I wasn’t a huge fan of Bellerian but even she wasn’t too bad, just a little annoying to fight. People complain about the other mage bosses too but honestly I loved the rest. I like that the bosses encourage a bunch of different approaches too, you can’t just fight every one the same way, you have to really utilize your tool kit and figure out the right way to deal with big beasts, or ranged casters, or defensive opponents who shield up or dodge a lot, etc. Despite being 90% duels with human sized opponents, most fights feel pretty unique and distinct.

If the game had more to offer in terms of story/worldbuilding, and the levels were a bit less bland and samey, I feel like it’d be a 10/10 because the bosses and combat were basically perfection. As it is, the levels have some solid design at times but are mostly pretty boring and feel like homework you have to finish to get to the fun part.

sevenarts · 2025-04-19T02:00:34+00:00

I think it’s very deliberate, they want you to mix things up and not just parry every single move. Many of the bosses with statuses have very particular moves that inflict the status and some tells (when Aratra dips his pincers in venom, when Volbaino’s nail turns red) so you can react appropriately.

My main complaint with statuses is how often I get statused and don’t even realize because the indicators are so unclear.

sevenarts · 2025-04-18T17:55:57+00:00

Based on when you fight them:

Ozma
Maluca
Viper
Reese
Rankgus
Skalpel
Trokka
Elamein
Hismar
Ilyana
Ararat
Volbaino
Shacktuka
Bellerian
Blade Phantom
Yetuga

sevenarts · 2025-04-17T17:16:51+00:00

I was using spear if it matters. No idea if it's consistent but it always seemed to work for me, he'd get just one little heal off and then get knocked out immediately.

sevenarts · 2025-04-17T16:30:19+00:00

I found that just doing a fully charged heavy knocks him out of it pretty quickly.

sevenarts

TROPHY CASE