LogFAQs > #967405741

I don't have enough strength to equip the Butcher Knife, so I can't experiment with that just yet. Also I don't think I've said but I'm wearing the crimson gear now and the gargoyle helm, seems to be the best balance of stuff without making me too slow.

To kick things off today I go to the two obviously not main quest areas- the forest door leads me to some ghost knight that is tough and some more tree monsters that catch me off guard because they apparently have more HP than normal here. I quickly die and decide to leave this for another time. My adventure to Undead Burg is more fruitful, as after a long but pretty harmless battle I receive Havel's Ring, which increases my equip capacity! Now I'm fast! Weeee! This also drops me out at Darkroot Basin, huh. I'm not gonna try the golems or dragon hydra thing again though, instead I'm itching to go through that open gate and see what awaits me.

Remember how I said the game had taken a step down in difficulty post-Gargoyles? Yeah, well, forget I said that. Sen's Fortress is a bitch and a half. Not even a step into the new area and I trigger a trap, and two snake warriors (?!) come charging at me. That's the theme of this area, nothing ever lets up and the game is out to trick me at every opportunity. For the first time the game features platforming challenges in addition to combat ones, and man it doesn't even ease you into things. The first swinging blades already have me being rushed along by a reptile zapping me from above, and there's another snake waiting on the boardwalk. There's boulders and traps galore here, it takes me some time to get used to things.

After a while I decide the easiest course of action is to run past most of the enemies here and let them kill themselves on the blades, or try to trigger the traps so they get hit instead of me (for some reason they don't trigger the traps themselves by walking on them). This doesn't always work but it saves me a lot of bother and I get used to their patterns. After a while I figure I'm getting the hang of this place, and then a treasure chest comes to life and swallows me whole. ...What?! I didn't know there were fake treasure chests in this game! Now I'm gonna be nervous every time I come across one :( On another attempt I try to fight it, but evidently it can still instakill by grabbing me. A fake treasure chest with creepy long legs, this is like the dark version of Kid Icarus Uprising's Mimicutie. Though I guess this came first.

I do manage to avoid the next trick on my first go, thanks to a noticeable bloodstain on the rising platform. Then I reach the room controlling the boulders, and this ends up being the sneakiest trap of all. I swear, I turn the boulder to face the room I went past at the start, watch it go crashing down a few times, then decide to walk back over one of the other paths I already went to see if I missed something. Then I get crushed by a boulder coming down that path! Was it time rigged, does it just reset itself, does the game just want me dead?! Argh!

There's some more platforming challenges past that and at this point nothing is fazing me, I somehow get myself into the zone and get through the next segment without worry (at one point I fire bolts at one of the projectile reptiles until it falls off its platform so I can get across the narrow bridge). Then we're outside, and this is a whole new open terrain with some new (and some old) enemies. Man this is an impressive area. It takes me a while to realise where the explosions are coming from, there's a giant ogre hurling explosive boulders at us from above (of course). I make my way across and up a few times- there's a few side paths here that seem to go nowhere and a large empty looking back section guarded by one of those big knights- and eventually reach what is obviously a boss gate.

Now here, I'm afraid, I must reveal my shame to you all. I'm really liking this area, painful as it may be, but after spending so long getting up here I really really don't want to have to do the whole fortress again, and I'm sure that I've missed a bonfire and that the game wouldn't want me to go through all that every time I attempt the boss. So I go to discord and ask b8chat if anyone knows if there's a bonfire in this location, and sure enough I'm directed to an answer (thanks, Emerald). I feel guilty that I betrayed myself by cheating like this, but the urge was too strong. Now, to teach me a lesson, I can't actually find the bonfire and die in the process of looking >_> Serves me right!

A bit later I manage to get back up to the top, and this time I follow the instructions I was kindly given and discover the bonfire. Now how in the hell was I supposed to figure this one out myself?! It requires dropping off the side of the castle to the bonfire platform below, but it's not as if I had time for sightseeing while fleeing the explosive boulders! I'm hoping the trickster aspect of today's session is unique to Sen's Fortress and not something to expect from the entire game going forward >_> But as said, despite the initial 'oh come on' aspect of some of the deaths, I do quite enjoy this area and all its intricacies, and on a clean run it doesn't actually take very long to get to the top. I attempt the Iron Golem just the once and immediately die, so that'll have to wait for another day. I apologise to you all for cheating and looking up the bonfire, but honestly I doubt I would have ever found that myself if I didn't know it was there!