Completed Harvest Valley and Earthen Peak, as well as beat Duke's Dear Freyja netting me my third Old One's Soul and letting me be one more soul away from accessing the end game areas.

The Medusa chick was surprisingly more difficult than I thought. I almost beat her my first try but got greedy and killed for my trouble. Sadly, I ended up losing the souls I had obtained due to an accidental poisoning, though I was likely not going to get them back anyway because I was invaded and I do terrible at PVP. I did eventually defeat her and reached the Iron Keep. Took one look at the Lava Land before me and had flashbacks of Stonefang Mines and Lost Izalith and decided I would deal with Tsedora instead.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm arachnophobic? Yeah, not a pleasant place, but I found Orifex's shop where I can get BOSS WEAPONS! Though is it me or does it seem like a majority of the Boss Weapons are spears and halberds? Frankly, I've not been too impressed with many of them besides my Dragonrider Bow, but now that I have a Compact Bow, I may switch it out since the stamina drain from using the boss one is pretty steep for a bow. For now, I'm sticking to my Heide Sword, though I may begin experimenting with Dual-Wielding if it has a power stance.

Fought the spider and conquered it after a few attempts, I'm really starting to get annoyed with all these bosses with minions or partners. It's like the devs heard everyone complain about the Capra Demon and O&S fights so much that they decided to make the majority of the bosses like them.

I need to go back and explore the rest of Tsedora since I have what I'm hoping is the key needed for the area, and I also have a few places I still wish to explore. I also got to see the conclusion of the Pate/Creighton Feud and sided with the murderous maniac.

I've also acquired the last two merchants for Majula, which is nice. Gives it that nice Nexus vibe from Demon's Souls except I feel only the starting characters in the area have any real personality with the exception of Swindling Gilligan. I'm starting to feel the complaint about the characters in this entry. While Pate and Creighton were great, and I liked Vengal (sp?) as well, a lot of the characters just kind of feel "meh". I mean I wasn't a huge fan of the characters in DS1 as well, but at least they all had some interesting narrative to follow like the Clerics and Big Hat Logan.

With that said, I'm digging Drangleic. It has an interesting Eldritch vibe to it that was lacking in DS1. The fact the layout of the world doesn't make sense, due partially to the game kind of getting retooled halfway through development, actually adds to the more horror aspects of the region. The lore is pretty good, not as cohesive as DS1 and Demon's Souls, but we are talking about a region where hundreds of kingdoms have risen and fallen over the centuries, so the lore kind of being all over the place due to it applying to different kingdoms is interesting. It's also amusing since we're seeing how far ahead in time everything is that all of the events of DS1 are now myth, but it's also neat how the four Old Ones are hinted to be reincarnations of the four main "antagonists" from DS1 as well with the clever shout outs to them. Tsedora really gives off the vibe of a derelict Duke's Archive and the dead dragon in the area was a nice touch as well.

I'm going to go talk to Manscorpion Tark, cause I've been told he has new dialogue once you beat the Duke's Pet, and I may check the wiki real fast to see what other places I can use the Branches of Yore for cause despite being a pain in my ass in terms of progressing the game due to never finding any of them, I'm now swimming in them and the Trap Keys as well. Also, I rejoined Solaire's Covenant, which made me happy cause while I don't necessarily get the hype surrounding the man, I do like him for being so out of place in the series.

Iron Keep is next. Also, is it me, or are the secondary bosses in some areas a bit... on the easy side? I mean Covetous Demon was kind of a joke despite it's object of affection giving me a hard time with her range and poison. Similarly, the one against the Lich looking dude and his followers was pretty laughable and felt more like an annoying mob fight, as opposed to weapon breaking Freyja and it's death-wielding spider children. I'm curious to know if the Iron Keep is also going to give me two boss fights with one being pathetically easy and the other being a pain in my ass?

I'm thinking of dabbling in the DLC areas once I've completed Dragon Aire and Aldia's Keep, since I've read somewhere they are some of the most challenging late game areas and feel they will get me prepared for the DLC.

So what is everyone's favorite weapon in this game? Boss weapons? Hardest boss for you? Easiest? Favorite NPC?