Had a very interesting evening last night.

So I made it to the Maneaters, and holy hell are people not kidding that they are a bit more of a handful on NG+. They are far more tanky, and even with Warding cast on, they can still pack a punch if some of their moves land. The real challenge for me is that their better defenses means this fight drags on more, and if don't take out their tails ASAP, they can pelt me with Homing Soul Rays that can effectively one-shot me. The other issue is simply the arena. I think two of my deaths have simply been me falling off the bridge where the battle takes place trying to maneuver around them. So I'm hoping a change in weapons will give me the DPS needed to trivialize the fight and I'll likely be doing the Fog Gate cheat cause dealing with two of them at the same time is a bit of a nightmare.

On the brightside, I was finally summoned for the Old Monk fight and even managed to destroy my poor opponent whom I caught off guard to get a backstab in and then my Crescent Scimitar's natural Bleed effect made him have to heal too often which left him open for me to finish him. So I was able to win the only item in the game you have to earn through the Online component, meaning I'm not shut out of eventually turning this file into a perfect game down the road if I wanted. I was honestly so floored this happened that I'm still pretty excited cause I absolutely suck at PvP in these games.

Now that the one last box needed to be checked for this game has been done, I'm feeling a bit better about maybe moving onto Dark Souls III soon.