Oh, I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to finish this game before February 28. I completed the first part of the Valley of Defilement after a few annoying run-throughs. I was surprised to learn that the area boss Leechmonger actually has a healing move if you fail to attack it for a while, something you don't see too often from bosses in this series. I'm now in the much longer and significantly more hostile second area where even the Warding spell can't stop me from getting two-shotted by the Meat Cleaver Black Phantom and Giant Depraved Ones.

If you're wondering why this place is so awful, let me explain. The first section is like the first part of Blighttown where you're in dilapidated buildings hoisted above a swamp, and your goal is to reach the bottom safely. This part has ambushes galore, with enemies that can play dead and not be hit with attacks until they activate, and they even hide around corners or hay stacks, so it's easy to walk into a room thinking you'll only have to face two enemies to discover there are six of them instead. While the regular enemies don't have much in health, they make up for it with high attack power, and by the second stage when all the enemies get a boost, the regular cannon fodder enemies can two-shot you unless you've been pouring ridiculous amounts of points into Vitality. The structures have several trap holes like the Gutter in DS2, but whereas the enemies in that area tend to be dumbfounded for a few seconds when you come crashing down, the enemies here swarm you. There are also major bridges with no railings over a pit that are usually guarded by the tanky and hard hitting Giant Depraved Ones. So it's a slow process getting in as you have to be extra careful going into any new place and constantly checking your flank in case you missed a "corpse" trying to ambush you. Did I mention the brown and red color palette of the area blends perfectly with the enemies?

The second area is significantly worse. It's pretty much the second part of Blighttown where you're in the main swamp. You start out on the rim, and the actual area to the boss is not far from where you start but, you can't access it at first as the norm. So you take the rim into the swamp. The swamp, as tradition, prevents you from running, dodging, and significantly slows you down while also poising you if you linger in there too long. Where this gets a little bulltrout is that these restrictions only apply to you. All of the enemies in the area move swiftly in the swamp, including the Black Phantom wandering around. You leave rim to enter the swamp properly and begin "island hopping" to discover the swamp is separated by a poorly made wall, so in order to get past it, you take the islands to sides, usually guarded by several Giant Depraved Ones, which I'll remind you have a boost in all their stats in this area and unlike the Boulder throwing monsters in Blighttown, these guys have an insanely huge aggro zone and love to pursue you if they see you.

What's unique to the Valley of Defilement is that it's raining mud, which significantly hinders your visibility and makes the Thief Ring a bit useless since you'll now have to be in an enemies aggro range before you can finally see them past the muck. An interesting thing this also does is screw with your perception. The muck carefully hides the Black Phantom since the red doesn't come out as much so you won't notice her until she's nearly upon you, and there are several places where you'll spot a normal enemy, fire an arrow to aggro it close to you, only to discover to your horror, that it's actually a Giant Depraved One and the area uses some simple optical illusions to make you misjudge this. Once you get past the swamp, and to the other side of the area, you're back in a similar situation as the first stage, where you're walking through a "living area" that is swarming with enemies ready to ambush you but now we've added magic users into the mix, and it's only in this part where you'll find the shortcut leading back to the beginning of the stage. So yeah,. it's not a fun place at all. Throw in the fact it has a ton of really good gear and special weapons like the Sword of Moonlight in the outlier areas of the map, as well as the fact the enemies in this area drop next to nothing in terms of souls despite their increased difficulty, and you have a very unpleasant place to slog through. The only two saving graces besides the great loot is that all the bosses of the area are extremely easy, and the jellyfish monsters that swarm you in the swamp are one of the rare normal enemies that disappear forever after being killed until a new NG+ Cycle.

So yeah, it's going to be a few nights before I reach the boss of this area.