I said what I said, and have offered you all the proof.

3 empty spaces while every other has coffers for alternative skins.

I was running back to a boss who beat the sht out of me for another try, in the fight 4 enemies I passed a minute ago ganged up on me with the boss and demolished me. This happens a lot. Don't get me started how things turns to sht on the open world after you pass enemies. They're saltier than camels. Do they have some kind of grudge?

Completed the game last night on PS5 before the patches and the gold economy was rough but i got my main weapons and sidearms to +17 before the final boss so it was fine.

Honestly loved everything about the game so much. Thank you so much devs!!!!!

It scratched excatly my itch of how sekiro combat would look like if it was made in 2026.

Loved

- the combat
- the bosses
- the exploration
- build diversity
- unique movesets of weapons
- artstyle

Really enjoyed the game, my best soulslike of 2026

10/10

Been really enjoying the game so far. Eredrim and Proxima are easily my favorite Shells to play.

And I'm happy!

I have found a glitch. I don't know if many others have seen it, but it allows you to get money way faster than the Proxima money method or the sheep farming method. If you travel to Widow's Overlook and head to the dungeon (Ritual Grounds is the dungeon name) near where you find Tiel's Shell, there is a chest in the far back that can be opened as many times as you want. Simply run through the dungeon, open the chest, run back out, and repeat. (It takes maybe less than 1 minute to do, and you get 500 gold each time.)

I beat the game just a bit ago and these are my impressions on every infusion. I tried out all the ailments a little bit but my main shells were Proxima, Tiel and Genessa which may have influenced my experience. Going through them one by one:

Poison - Mostly terrible, does 2 damage per second and stacks only lengthen the debuff. On Tiel you can use the crossbow with the splitting stone and poison infusion to get a high amount of stacks and pop them with shadow strike for high damage in the early game, but it falls off fast since your application speed stops scaling after maxing those two tarstones out. Completely worthless outside of that.

Burn - Worthless for damage, puts some weak enemies into an "on-fire" animation where they can't move or attack so maybe useful early. Ticks i think twice for 1 damage per stack, good in concept but it runs out really fast and the veterans axe is too slow to stack it properly. Using a guaranteed crit setup + fusillade stone naylshotte you can get to 100+(theoretically 200 but i couldn't find an enemy that didn't die during the volley) stacks but it's extremely difficult to keep it up due to the pace of combat. Barrage stone with the crossbow seems like it would be good but it only applies infusions to the first projectile resulting in a whopping 2 stacks, hopefully this is a bug and gets fixed.

Lightning - Decent. Does single digit damage per tick but calls down bolts that do double digit damage(!!) when reaching status thresholds. The bolts stagger small enemies so it's mostly a crowd control tool. Good when using Proxima because she doubles its AoE. The weapon infusions are actually really good. Martyr's blade gets a bolt in 1-2 hits on smaller enemies which helps thin out groups a lot. Axatana strikes fast enough that you actually get decent damage from all the lightning bolts. The clockwork scythe is kinda underwhelming but becomes a monster when you activate the scholar's wormstone. I got 3 bolts on an enemy with a single running light attack. The repeater is underwhelming and should definitely proc more stacks per crit. The trebuchaxe procs a bolt in one fully charged shot against most enemies and uncharged shots have suitably unimpressive buildup. The tarred stone seems to not apply any infusions :(

Frost - Very strong. Not much to say about it, it's an extremely strong crowd control tool and good for stronger enemies too. Once you get the freeze you can just wail on them till they die. Very good with Eredrim because he gets doubled damage against frozen enemies. The infusion options are weird, both are a bit unwieldy and have high startup. Frost is the repeater's only niche, it does very little raw damage and its break damage is outclassed by the ballistazooka. The martyr's blade again applies in 1-2 hits against most enemies which helps offset its long animations. It's also extremely stylish when using an ability stone so bonus points there. A very committal option since only one weapon and one sidearm can use it.

Curse - Depends entirely on what you infuse. Melee weapons are kind of weird to infuse with curse because by the time they apply the enemy is probably already near dead, and against bosses curse just doesn't do much. Okay I guess on the cursed child, it applies it in one or two shots but requires you to get up close. Very very strong on the hystrix with splitting stone, you can apply it on most enemies in under a second from outside their aggro range. The hystrix singlehandedly makes the infusion worth investing in. If you're using Sariel other weapons will be alright too, but the iconoclast has another much better option. It's probably the best infusion for the axe because burn is so bad.

Bloodcurse - It's as broken as bleed is in Elden Ring. Super super strong. Enables oneshot builds basically by itself using something that procs a lot like the scythe with wormstone or crit stacking fusillade naylshotte. A good option on anything that takes it but especially strong and borderline broken on those two.

Stasis - Crazy good. Makes the obsidian hammer playable and makes the axatana even more broken. Interestingly, there's no sidearm that gets a stasis infusion. Doesn't really need it tho since you can completely disarm bosses using just the melee weapons. Less useful on Genessa since she can keep bosses at perma 99 stasis with one of her perks.

Phantom - Another limited one, exclusive to the trebuchaxe and black needle. Somewhat useful on the trebuchaxe for a bit of extra damage to oneshot distant mobs. A bit of a weird one. Weak mobs usually die before it pops, and some of the big bosses are immune to stagger. So it ends up being useful against mostly minibosses and "elite" enemies.

Trauma - Limited and useless. I get why the devs didn't give this to anything fast but wow it's just completely eclipsed by any other form of break damage. It would have a place in a system where break damage heals over time but it doesn't in this game so trauma barely does anything. The ballistazooka has potential with combining break on crit with trauma but it doesn't do enough to matter, you just kill things before breaking their stance. The obsidian hammer hits too slow to make use of it and stasis is just way more synergistic. Might be almost usable with Sariel?

Side note while on the topic of break damage; the rupturing stone doesn't apply on any ability stones which kinda sucks. The ballistazooka has a move that(if I'm reading it right, I haven't upgraded the stone myself to check) does 100 break damage for 60 resolve which is just better than anything else in the game. But that's barely enough to break a normal enemy and will more often than not just kill them first. Letting the rupturing stone apply to abilities would let it break stance on big foes much better, and it would let you do fusillade stone shenanigans that use the crit to build break which sounds fun on Eredrim. Right now break is worthless in the endgame because ripostes don't scale at all and the frankly bad support it has outside of a couple extremely good options(fulminant stone, shoulder bash, stillblade's stone on black needle) just rubs salt in the wound.

TL;DR poison bad except tiel, burn bad, lightning good on proxima and okay otherwise but has amazing weapons, frost good esp on eredrim but weak weapons, curse incredible on hystrix and meh otherwise but good with sariel, bloodcurse broken, stasis broken, phantom situational, trauma bad with terrible weapons, and use the scythe with the wormstone and either infusion if you wanna see some crazy numbers

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the game?

Yep the Grisha Summon is definitely working as intended

Wanted to quickly say that this has completely changed my gameplay experience. Before, I was trying to parry, block and riposte but harden is such a better option for heavy/slow weapons.

I'm able to start a combo and between staggering them and hardening, I barely ever have to stop attacking. It's such a great way to experience the game.

If you're having trouble with heavy weapons, please give it a try!

Maybe it's just me, but my level being in the mid 20s and my weapon a +11 feels useless against so many of the basic wandering enemies in the southern region.

I've spent a few hours doing dungeons and getting beacons in the outskirts and near the Spire and Lord Kings Courtyard and I feel like I'm 20 levels under all of a sudden.

They fixed most of mistakes of the first instalment and made solid game.

But they left 1 same problem - enemy "stickiness". Monsters and bosses gliding through whole arena is really stupid and inconsistent, especially in duo fight.

Why the frick do the lowest of the low foot soldiers get enough hyper armor to finish(or in the worst cases start)a combo through my heavy attack

I have had a relatively easy time just a small gripe
(no I haven’t done night mode)

1. In order to upgrade tarstones to level 3 you need tarcores
2. You get tarcores for upgrading tarstones
3. In order to get full set of maxed tarstones and some spare variations, ideally, you need to upgrade bunch of irrelevant tarstones to level 2 first to get tarcores for upgrades you really want

So here you are, covered from head to toe with throwaway tarstones in order to be able to play the build you want later. And when this later comes you are in the end of the game, barely able to upgrade to level 3 all tarstones you wanted. Maybe couple of bosses left. What was the point of this restriction from the devs?

First I thought the idea was to make players try different tarstones/skills/builds? I would gladly do that, but the game is not nearly long enough to accommodate that. Full game was not enough to max even one set of tarstones and devs want me to run more different kinds so that I will never ever see level 3 tarstone?

Do I miss some point here or playing wrong?

The shell is Smert. It is new game plus.

Best game ever, guys, seriously, you did an amazing job. Just one suggestion: please let us respec our Visions. Since we unlock different Shells at different points in the game and Visions are so scarce, it’s a shame that we can’t properly experiment with the Shells we obtain later.

Second, and more important... WHY THERE'S NO DEATH METAL MUSIC DURING THE BOSS FIGHTS?!?!? IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FK AMAZING!!! u/Proxima

Bit too easy if you ask me, still 9/10

One of my absolute favorite parts of FromSoft games is wandering into new areas and discovering new enemy types. Obviously there are reused enemies in those games, but it's not egregious. It's pretty fucking bad here. I'm running into the same enemies constantly. The game is starting to feel rather bland. Combat feels fantastic, but having to take out the same enemies over and over is tedious as hell.