What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Pack in the threaded cane playthrough and restart with the cleavah.
Beastie boy down within fifteen minutes.
Amazing what confidence from horizontal attacks and sheer fucking indignation can achieve.

This was my experience with the cane, too. In a Souls setting, it'd be a rare example of an amazing whip weapon, but in BB where the health rally system is a huge part of the game? The other two starter weapons outclass it. I'd argue the axe is even better than the saw, with the polearm transformation boasting all of the best polearm attack hitboxes, but you don't get to use a firearm in its transformed state, so you may prefer to be able to play with parrying.

[XoPachi]

Is that a "I can't extract any more from this" kind of last day, or a "done with its shit" last day?

"Done with this shit".

I like the fighting. The story quests are fun lengthy endeavors requiring you to carve your own path around danger and the game not being afraid to put crazy shit that will body you if you are not trekking carefully is pretty cool. That story mission in that dense forest area was so exciting. It's clear there's a decent bit of build depth and variety. And I like the general art direction. It's like a mix of PSO2 and a Platinum Games title. I would love to enjoy this game.

But Jesus H. Christ, the pacing. There's so much goddamn errand boy shit even for a modern RPG and I find it's not at all evenly spread out. So much stretched out back and forth. Even with the fast travel (which I already believe to be a bandaid mechanic indicative of bad flow or world design). So much talking and talking and talking.
EVERYTHING is steeply level gated. They introduce or hand so much to you only to go "woops you actually can't interact with this for another hmm...6 hours." The most heavily advertised and core gimmick is something you don't get for 30 hours and you have to do a bunch of chores to even get it once you finally reach the level requirements because???? I got the airship in FF6 sooner and that's not even that game's selling point!
To just advance the game, you have to do hours of side content. Not at your discretion because you feel like you need additional resources to survive, but because most of it doesn't reward you with enough to reach the next level threshold to continue the game in a reasonable time. So you have to do absolutely every little monotonous fetch quest. Make sure you're picking up all the billions of who-gives-a-shits littering the map. All for the game to tell you that you need something extra. Like it's never satisfied. I haven't played a game this bad about this in a while.

I thought raising towers and hunting objective markers was egregious in Ubisoft games but, this might just be among the worst of it! That's what most of your time consists of. Planting and switching around stupid, passive little probes to get little pieces of a map that looks wild but as usual for these kind of games, doesn't have that much going on. The game is like filing paper work. I just don't fucking care anymore.

[Daytime Waitress]

Crikey, Xo - you sound utterly fed up with it.
Here's hoping your lament will serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of dipping a toe in; and that your next endeavour will bring you more joy!

As for the rest of you, thanks for the encouragement, advice and well wishes.
Just reached the preacher man and am completely besotted - yet to put him in the ground, but the amount of variation in how you can approach the fight; the way you can use the terrain; the option to utilise the gimmick item or not: it's so densely packed into this one battle and I'm a little bit mystified as to why it wasn't the opening boss fight because it's just... perfect.
And you don't have goat_orgasm.wav going off in your ear every 0.75 seconds

Pack in the threaded cane playthrough and restart with the cleavah.
Beastie boy down within fifteen minutes.
Amazing what confidence from horizontal attacks and sheer fucking indignation can achieve.

Though perhaps hold on upgrading the saw until you've rummaged around a bit. There are all sorts of interesting things lying around in Yharny

Legit disappointed that I didn't read this earlier.
Still enjoying the cleaver, but now that I've seen how the utterly ridiculous Kirkhammer can body the cinder-block wielding chappies, I am pining for that foundation-stone-on-a-stick.

[Steven]

Discussing my disappointment in the PS5's existence led to me semi-randomly playing Unicorn Overlord. I dropped this game last year because both work and Reverse Collapse got in the way.

Playing it again now, I find that the game's low difficulty is pretty disappointing, especially after the ruthlessly vicious Reverse Collapse required me to use everything in my brain to come up with creative uses for my highly limited resources and only half a dozen or less units just to barely survive. With Unicorn Overlord, you can effortlessly steamroll everything on the highest non-unlockable difficulty without much preparation at all. This game is way too easy, almost to the point of brainlessness, but it's still kind of fun. Maybe the highest difficulty fixes this game, but I don't have it unlocked yet. Still not sure how I feel about the game's mechanics and stuff, but it's fine, I guess.

I've been going around the map clearing out all of the enemies and all of that, and not bothering to progress the story until there is nothing optional left, mostly because I feel like I'd miss something, important or otherwise, if I didn't do it this way. I feel like this is probably why the game seems so easy. Maybe it's harder if you only do story stuff and skip the rest. Not a fault of the game, but the right analog stick on my PS5 controller is starting to drift and it causes the camera to rapidly shift left and then recenter itself on the world map. How joyous.

Also kind of sort of but not really played/playing SMT V Vengeance, although I'm not really sure why.

[Mero]

As well as playing Daybreak 2 (which I've nearly finished) I've been revisiting Manic Miner for the first time in decades. So far I've reached stage 14 (Transmat Landing Bay), which I think is one of trickiest stages. Back in the day I never got past the 5th screen, so at least I've beaten that.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I gave Atomfall a peek on gamepass, and while on one hand, those who call it "Stalker UK" aren't exactly wrong, on the other, unlike Stalker it doesn't seem obsessed with killing the living shit out you as often as possible.

When I encountered the first person out in the wild, I was kind of shocked to hear them say "Look, I don't want any trouble". rather than screaming at me in Ukrainian while firing an automatic weapon upon first laying eyes on me.

[guigui]

I'm playing NeoLemmix on PC.

This is basically a Lemmings engine in which you can play all the oldies games from the series : Lemmings, Oh No More Lemmings, XMas Lemmings, Genesis Lemmings, PSP Lemmings, and so on, as well as create your on custom levels and share them with the community.
Needs some tweaking to play correctly and understand how it works, but official site and forums are quite documented. What I read on the forum has the same niche feeling than here, love.
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?board=9.0
https://www.neolemmix.com/

After spending a really good time in my childhood with Genesis Lemmings, this game became very special to me and stays at the top of my list of puzzle games (along with Portal later). I did play about all iterations that came out after and stayed true to the original ; and NeoLemmix has all of them in a single package along with marvelous QoL improvment like frame by frame control of time, fast forward, easy selection of one lemmings in a large groupe, zoom in and out, and much more.

Unfortunately no one seems to care to create a new Lemmings game nowadays. And this is where the community comes in. The levels created by users, at least the ones I tried for now, are plain awesome. Quality, fun, real hard sometimes, makes you think out of the box like in the good ol'days. Where I had a great time clearing Genesis Lemmings and its 180 levels, now I do have like 2000s of levels waiting for me. Overwhelming but feels good too.

TLDR ; play NeoLemmix if you like to save them green thingies.

[it290]

I'm playing Blasphemous 2 after having rinsed the first game earlier this week. I bounced off of the original game hard when I first got it a few years ago—the game gives you a choice of three areas to tackle initially, and suggests that you go to the hardest one first. I thought the whole game was gonna be bullshit like that, but after picking it up again recently and gritting my teeth through that first section, the rest of the game is by and large much more forgiving once you get powered up a little. I think it might be my favorite Metroidvania, now.

The second game, so far, is not leaving a good impression. It ditches the gothic horror cutscenes from the first one and replaces them with a much more anime-esque art style, tones down the gore, has overall weaker art direction, and adds a bunch of superfluous things like extra weapons and a skill tree. I get that they probably felt they had to go bigger, but this stuff just slows the game down, especially having to frequently switch weapons to utilize the various movement tech in the game.

All that would be somewhat forgivable, but the level design so far also includes lots of kamikaze enemies, some of which literally pop up out of nowhere with no warning, and many timed sections where you have to platform perfectly to get through a door before it closes or else redo the section. What kind of crazy person thinks those things are fun?

Anyone else who played both games care to chime in? Does the game get much better later or is it all like this?

[TransatlanticFoe]

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Whose stupid idea was it to only have one affinity/story quest at a time? Accept one of these and you can't accept another until it's done. I'm currently waiting for mineral generation RNG to give me the items I need to complete an affinity quest - during which I can't progress the story or start another affinity quest on the side. You can, at least, accept generic missions from the main board and "green marker" side quests - but I've done all of those and have been wandering around for hours, beating stuff up and installing beacons (even chaining up the ones that can generate the thing I need).... yet still I still need two of these fucking minerals.

I'm now overlevelled for the next story quest as a result Why on earth make a quest dependent on simply waiting until an RNG lands favourably, and then restrict what you can do until that happens?! It's really taken the shine off what's been largely enjoyable up to this point.

[XoPachi]

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Whose stupid idea was it to only have one affinity/story quest at a time? Accept one of these and you can't accept another until it's done. I'm currently waiting for mineral generation RNG to give me the items I need to complete an affinity quest - during which I can't progress the story or start another affinity quest on the side. You can, at least, accept generic missions from the main board and "green marker" side quests - but I've done all of those and have been wandering around for hours, beating stuff up and installing beacons (even chaining up the ones that can generate the thing I need).... yet still I still need two of these fucking minerals.

I'm now overlevelled for the next story quest as a result :roll: Why on earth make a quest dependent on simply waiting until an RNG lands favourably, and then restrict what you can do until that happens?! It's really taken the shine off what's been largely enjoyable up to this point.

I was just complaining about this game and it's really bad pacing. lol
You have more patience than me. I got sick of it and dropped it.

[ryu]

Yeah the pacing in Xenoblade X is the worst. I really liked the game for most of its aspects but there is a reason I didn't even consider purchasing the Switch port.

[Marc]

Nobody played the House of the Dead 2 Demo yet? It looks absolutely amazing, captures the look of the original incredibly. Sounds is OK, though the re-recorded voices take a bit of adjusting.

Sadly, it's all for naught, because all of these types of game fucking suck without the gun. Back to Xbox HotD3&2 it is.

[Daytime Waitress]

Finally getting into a comfy rhythm with Bloodborne.
Initially raged against the lack of estus refills on death, but have since come to appreciate how re-acquiring mats can be kind of cosy, and allow you to perfect tactics against earlier foes/entire previous areas.
At least, that's the perspective I try to maintain when I just really want to get into the head-vs.-brickwall rhythm of a boss fight.
Sally Skinblanket and her poison form slowed me up for a good while, but parry windows are a mile wide in this 'un.
Just hit Hemwick Lane and am positively delighted to see here the origin of one of my fave ER mobs: the Giggle Girls.

Speaking of heading back to earlier areas, though:
Was confidently switch-blading everything across Central Yharnam when I trotted through Paul Gascoigne's arena and...

Spoiler

Am I just fucked out of that questline (that I didn't know I was in) until NG+?

[BIL]

Hemwick is magical. One of my favourite From locales ever. You're right, I never considered the likeness to Happy Festival Towne!

A good habit early on, I found, was to bank any excess Echoes after levelling into Blood Vials, from the Messenger shop. They'll add up eventually.

Once you've got a decent Blood Vial stock, I found a similar tack for Bullets handy; every time you warp into an area, hit [up] to stock five Blood Bullets, then heal. While the loss of one vial stings a bit, those five free slugs will send any fresh ammo pickups straight to the war chest back home.

Both of these might be quirks of my own approach, but I tend to share them, as I did ok with the inventory system. Admittedly though, BB was my first SoulsBorneRing, so I really didn't know what I was missing re: Estus.

Speaking of heading back to earlier areas, though:
Was confidently switch-blading everything across Central Yharnam when I trotted through Paul Gascoigne's arena and...

Spoiler

Am I just fucked out of that questline (that I didn't know I was in) until NG+?

Hmm, depends on what occurred in ye olde Tomb of Oedon.

Spoiler

-If Henryk (yellow hoonter, Gaz's father-in-law) killed Eileen, that's it for her questline. :[

-If Eileen is the survivor, her questline continues.

-If you flee the ongoing battle (or avoid the Tomb altogether, as Eileen demanded outside the chapel), her quest continues, but in a starkly differing manner.

Basically, you need to ensure Eileen survives Henryk in order to continue her questline. Whether that's by assisting her in the battle, or simply avoiding it altogether, so that it occurs "off camera."

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Initially raged against the lack of estus refills on death

Sekiro takes kind of an inbetween approach. Health is not a limited resource aside from special consumables but the game's equivalent of bullets are and you have to farm or buy them, which means repeated boss attempts may cause you to run out and need to farm.

It actually works a bit better in Bloodborne in that you can go level up and find different weapons that may work better. In Sekiro, you have one main weapon for the whole game, and your subweapons are much more limited. Your skills that replace RPG stat building generally are handy to raise, and it's much harder if you've done no investing in them, but it's simply not possible to RPG your way through the game by creating an overpowered build that can destroy the game, nothing really allows for it, so you gotta treat it much more like a character action game and learn the fights patiently. At one point I got sick of farming for the consumable to use subweapons and just learned to fight several bosses purely with your free abilities.

[it290]

After spending some more time with Blasphemous 2 I've warmed up to it quite a bit. The movement ability you get with the rapier in particular is quite fun, and the enemy design in later areas isn't nearly as egregious at the beginning. The map is huge and there are tons of alternate paths to take. I think the first game is still superior, but this one isn't bad at all.

[ryu]

After spending some more time with Blasphemous 2 I've warmed up to it quite a bit. The movement ability you get with the rapier in particular is quite fun, and the enemy design in later areas isn't nearly as egregious at the beginning. The map is huge and there are tons of alternate paths to take. I think the first game is still superior, but this one isn't bad at all.

That's how I felt about it. It's much easier and honestly that fits the Metroidvania formula better. Backtracking through the tougher sections was kind of a chore in the first one. The problem is, the brutal difficulty also gave the first one its identity in the Metroidvania genre so the second game feels somewhat generic.

Make sure to play unpatched if possible because the only real challenge was the second to last boss that got nerfed in an update I think.

[Daytime Waitress]

[/quote]

Hemwick is magical. One of my favourite From locales ever. You're right, I never considered the likeness to Happy Festival Towne!

The latter will always stick with me because I was a little burned out on ER by the point that I reached one of the outlying windmills (this game is still fucking going?!).
I sauntered up to the ladies dancing about and got legit chills when I realised how much fun they were having whilst roasting corpses.
However many hours into the damned game, levelled to buggery, and the aesthetics of those low-level peasants and that scene stopped me dead in my tracks - masterfully played, From.

Both of these might be quirks of my own approach, but I tend to share them, as I did ok with the inventory system.

That's what I've been coalescing towards, so very happy to hear it has parallels with someone who has fuck knows how many hours logged!

Spoiler

-If Henryk (yellow hoonter, Gaz's father-in-law) killed Eileen, that's it for her questline. :[

It was even dumber than that:

Spoiler

I got poise-wasted by Henny and Crow Lady jumped in as my corpse wilted.
I ran back and she went down just as I rounded the corner, so he was at bugger-all health...

Spoiler

and I still bottled it :c

THIRD TIME and I just picked up my eggs and left because the fucker was back to full health and I'm a'scared

Sekiro takes kind of an inbetween approach. Health is not a limited resource aside from special consumables but the game's equivalent of bullets are and you have to farm or buy them, which means repeated boss attempts may cause you to run out and need to farm...

At one point I got sick of farming for the consumable to use subweapons and just learned to fight several bosses purely with your free abilities.

Yeah, I had to take that tack with Suzie Skinblanket for my own sanity - it's demoralising enough to get repeatedly railed by a From boss, I don't want to have deal with book-keeping just for the privilege of doing it again.

Sekiro is probably further down my From list than I'd like: I really do dig the (to borrow a phrase from BIL) necro-feudal aesthetic, but combat is just one aspect of their games that I enjoy, and with it being so front and centre, I'm still in two minds about it.

Like you said, but: if you approach it with a different mindset, you'll feel better about it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Like you said, but: if you approach [Sekiro] with a different mindset, you'll feel better about it.

Yeah, I can understand it scaring off longtime Souls vets because of it ditching RPG character building, and having combat that requires a very different approach, but I appreciate it as a From styled character action game, closer to something like Devil May Cry, Tenchu, or God Hand in terms of combat precision, while still having the vast expanses and exploration that From is now known for. It's a tricky game to get into because your tools feel quite limited (you really don't get many shots, particularly early on or when using the tools that take 3 emblems) and you can only equip one special technique at a time which feels very limiting to me. The rhythm involved in blocking and attacking is quite fun I think, but the game is very heavily built around that, and going from games with a wide variety of weapons and spells that can be experimented with heavily to a single primary weapon with a defense oriented moveset is definitely not going to mesh with everyone.

[Lemnear]

I don't want to open a whole topic but...what do you think of Lost Soul Aside?

[Stevens]

Bloodborne

If you're ever looking for jolly co op - a hunter is never alone.

I also missed Return to Yharnam this year..

[Daytime Waitress]

Bloodborne

If you're ever looking for jolly co op - a hunter is never alone.

I also missed Return to Yharnam this year..

I do appreciate the offer, mate, but I only just got the PS4 from a buddy and I'm doing my darnedest to not connect the fucking thing to the Internet.
For one, it's not the way I like to enjoy From's games.

Spoiler

Elden Rang being the exception because a couple of mates and I started co-op runs together right out the gate.

Spoiler

And we'll finish it one of these days.

Spoiler

When we're not 40 year-old blokes trying to coordinate irl schedules for a video game :c

And for another, I'm just over the ballache of having to sign-up for and connect to every bloody thing on the planet.

As for Return to Yharnam: I'm sure if a bunch of others are doing runs at the same time, it can be a grand communal experience.
But if you've missed the boat and are still itching for a playthrough, plenty of folks here would be happy to hear tell of your exploits at any time.

Spoiler

It's me.
I'm plenty of folks.
Get cracking

I'm just about to clear out the Nightmare Frontier proper after having unlatched the shortcut and spied the boss door, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Classic "interesting new vibe to a place, but just wishing there was a bit more to it".
Though on the whole I am appreciating the smaller, denser, more claustrophobic environments here - and there's certainly nothing like the blue-balling Stormveil gave me for the rest of ER.
But yeah, being more thorough with the frontier is higher on my list of priorities than doing that runback to take a second swipe at The One Reborn, or making any kind of progress with the chalices.

Spoiler

ngl, club/sickle giant got me stalled.
I know what I gotta do, and I keep bottling it.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Sadly, it's all for naught, because all of these types of game fucking suck without the gun. Back to Xbox HotD3&2 it is.

I tried to approach these with the mindset of 'well, just think of it as a rail shooter' but it doesn't change the fact that they're not, nor are they very enjoyable to play as such.

That said, even though people have tried to explain it to me several times -- and I still don't fully grasp it because I'm stupid -- there's a part of me that just doesn't accept the whole "you know that thing that worked so well in 1995? We can't possibly reproduce it 30 years later. Technology is so different" thing. Shouldn't a method been devised that works better than thirty years ago? I can't seem to make peace with the fact that dragging cross-hairs around the screen like a mouse pointer is the best we can do now.

(then again, I watched a presentation on Nintendo moving heaven and earth to make a joy-con into a mouse and asked "why didn't they just put a track ball on the joy-con?" and people seemed to think it was the most impossibly dumb suggestion ever, for reasons I still don't understand. So what do I know?)

[vol.2]

Shouldn't a method been devised that works better than thirty years ago? I can't seem to make peace with the fact that dragging cross-hairs around the screen like a mouse pointer is the best we can do now.

Hahaha. Yeah, it's definitely one of those head-scratchers.

If they actually wanted to reduce the latency, they could provide us with a wire between the console and the gun like the old light guns had, and that would basically solve it (in combination with 120Hz, or even better 240 to smooth out the polling).

So they could do it. They totally could, if it was perceived as a priority. But it's not clearly.

[Stevens]

Bloodborne.

But yeah, being more thorough with the frontier is higher on my list of priorities than doing that runback to take a second swipe at The One Reborn

All good hunter! The NF seems to be a polarizing area. I for one love it, but can understand why some don't care for it. There are lots of nooks to discover. Out of curiosity is this your first run through BB? If so will you be doing the DLC?

Was bummed about missing RTY this year, but life gets in the way sometimes. There are always people to co op with though. The Hunter's Bell discord is very active.

Best!

[sumdumgoy]

x

[Daytime Waitress]

All good hunter! The NF seems to be a polarizing area. I for one love it, but can understand why some don't care for it. There are lots of nooks to discover.

It was lovely to be out in the daylight; the ethereal ship masts billowing in the distance sold it; and it was just refreshing after the lecture hall being a bit of a(n admittedly very spoopy) broom closet what occasionally slowed to 5FPS.

Helps, I guess, that I thoroughly enjoyed the Amy G fight.
Thought her sheer size and the corresponding camera Parkinsons would get on my tits, but I came away from it feeling like it solidly encapsulated the story up until then.
You started out pounding the streets, cleaving human and humanoid bodies, and simply marinating in blood and very physical violence.
And piece by piece you were given peeks behind the curtain of cosmic - not just supernatural - entities pulling the strings.
But with this fight you faced it head on.
No space for finesse, despite the occasional gunshot or head laser.
Just the immovable aberration from beyond the stars pitted against the unstoppable avatar of primal bloodshed that is the hoonter: wailing on and tearing heaving great chunks out of each other in a desperate, visceral, knock-down-drag-out bludgeoning match of attrition.

Spoiler

Her out Godricking Godrick by tearing off her own arm and beating you with it was metal af

The One Reborn could have been similar, because the adds were a smart/fun addition, but his insistence on casting everything from the sky/top of the screen means he can go neck himself

Out of curiosity is this your first run through BB? If so will you be doing the DLC?

Yes, and very much so. What is the trigger I have to avoid jumping straight into NG+? As in, the specific point of no return? I'd be wary of searching for such info out in the wikiverse, but I know the From frens of the farm will have my back

[Stevens]

Yes, and very much so. What is the trigger I have to avoid jumping straight into NG+? As in, the specific point of no return? I'd be wary of searching for such info out in the wikiverse, but I know the From frens of the farm will have my back

Hmm...You killed Amy. There is another area that you can access from the lecture hall. When you finish that area I would strongly suggest you access the dlc immediately.

If memory serves suggested level for the dlc is

Spoiler

around 75 - 90

. I've done it as low as

Spoiler

40

. Once.

Yharnam also holds an awesome secret that almost everyone misses on their first trip. Me included.

[BIL]

What is the trigger I have to avoid jumping straight into NG+? As in, the specific point of no return? I'd be wary of searching for such info out in the wikiverse, but I know the From frens of the farm will have my back

Avoid the locked garden in Hunter's Dream - the one behind the gate, at the end of the tutorial message path - and you'll be fine. Technically the NG+ trigger is behind several further interactions; you can run around in there to your heart's content, as long as you don't prompt attention.

Agreed with Stevens. If you've taken down Ammy and One Reborn, that's an excellent point to break off for the DLC, before returning for the base game. The Doll has a couple small but interesting comments on your DLC exploits, which IIRC she won't make if you've cleared a certain Loft in the base. I think that was a hint from From. Not the end of the world if you've passed this point already, just cool little details in a game full of such. There's always NG+.

As with every Miyazaki title from Dark Souls onward, the DLC is considerably tougher than the base game. If you feel under-levelled, but don't want to continue progressing the base game, the Chalices might be a good alternative. Knocking over a couple will buff you up, plus there's unique content in there worth seeing.

About the Lecture Building, specifically its second floor; it's worth investigating each room carefully for messages. (all in plain sight; no illusory wall tomfoolery in this august institution!) There are

# Of Endings

three

endings in total, and these messages sketch out the path to one of them.

First message location

Lecture Building 2F | Lecture Theatre Balcony

Contents

Master Willem was right. Evolution without courage will be the ruin of our race.

---

The other three

Second message location

Lecture Building 2F | Room after Lecture Theatre Balcony

Contents

Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones.

-

Third message location

Lecture Building 2F | Room by Door To Outside

Contents

The nameless moon presence beckoned by Laurence and his associates. Paleblood.

-

Fourth message location

Lecture Building 2F | Room by Door To Outside

Contents

Three third cords.

Ah man, such an auld woody vibe. Old leather n' furniture wax. *sniff sniff* Or maybe despair!

(ta, Bloodborne Wiki!)

Happy hoonting!

[Daytime Waitress]

Thanks, gents!

Avoid the locked garden in Hunter's Dream - the one behind the gate, at the end of the tutorial message path - and you'll be fine. Technically the NG+ trigger is behind several further interactions; you can run around in there to your heart's content, as long as you don't prompt attention.

All good as long as it doesn't interrupt accessorising with the little ones.

The Doll has a couple small but interesting comments on your DLC exploits, which IIRC she won't make if you've cleared a certain Loft in the base.

Wonderful timing - I just accessed the shortcut in the loft after hacking up that insolent fuck Edgar.

Spoiler

I'll grant him the first kill fair, but the next two were total assists from the spiders

Spoiler

Who I didn't know were still on my arse

Spoiler

Both times

As with every Miyazaki title from Dark Souls onward, the DLC is considerably tougher than the base game. If you feel under-levelled, but don't want to continue progressing the base game, the Chalices might be a good alternative. Knocking over a couple will buff you up, plus there's unique content in there worth seeing.

I don't actually mind what I've seen of the chalices so far, but I'm still brickwalled at the club/sickle giant because I have a case of the dumb.
Roasted both Amy G and Gutschucker and still got my arse handed to me by him, yet again :c

it's worth investigating each room carefully for messages.

I'm being relatively thorough, but there's bound to be stuff that I've overlooked.

I did find those messages, though, and the reference to

Spoiler

the three

But I'm kind of worried that, in time-honoured tradition, whacking NPCs might have locked me out of stuff.

Little things like

Spoiler

Offing Iosefka as soon as I returned to the clinic via the back door.

No matter, as I already have a laundry list of stuff I want to attempt on NG+/a second NG