Well, seeing as how I am just farming trophies now, I guess I'll put up some thoughts here.
Havoc engine still suck, and it has nothing to do with graphics. If one considers the fact that death has such huge ingame consequences, then the engine choice itself is a failure. Collusion problems still persist, so do the hit box problems and instant death polygon voids (haven't seen much of those since 97, ah, the nostalgia). I don't know if they are delusional or just didn't learn, but putting "platform style gaming" in this game with the engine and its mechanics are just asking for annoyance. Demons' Souls' ch 2-2 made a comeback in the Great Hollow, which you are required to traverse to get to Ash Lake. Even if people keep telling me that it's "optional", there is a boss and a covenant down there, and not to mention a quest chain ends there. Even if I ignore all the shiny geckos, getting down there is still a pain.
Anyway, ignoring the control and game mechanics problems that are caused by the engine and can possibly be a deal breaker for some, this game is alright.
The graphics are more polished than before, and the some of the voice overs are quite well done which was surprising. Of course, having one actress portraying several different characters did break the immersion. Some quest glitches are still around even after 1.05 patch. Most of the patches seem to be focused on nerfing a lot of things to make the game more "difficult" for some. As of 1.05, the Forest Hunter covenant, Knight Lautrec, Solaire and Patches glitches still seem to depend on your luck. If you don't want to be hunted online as a sinner, then don't go near the forest unless you are just farming mosses and staying the hell away from the Forest Hunters.
As for the supposed difficulty of the game, well, one shouldn't believe the hype unless one plays it and judges it for one's self. In my experience, the engine and the actual environment will kill you more times than enemies or bosses, in that order. As long as you pay attention to where you are going and pull aggro carefully so you usually end up fighting one on one, then you will be fine. Regular enemies are way more annoying than most bosses, and some quickly spring to mind - magically enhanced undead crystal archers, darkwraith knights (the most annoying move in the game, humanity sucking grab
) , ghosts, engorged zombies, harpies or wheel skeletons just to name a few. Annoying locations will include the usual, such as the aforementioned Great Hollow (a jumping platform game where you can't jump, yea!) , Crystal Cave (invisible walkway? a long trek to the only blue slab in the game while walking in mid air? check and check), and New Londo Ruins (a place made more annoying by its residents, however the map will be easier once you get the key to open the flood gate).
Blight Town wasn't as bad as everyone made out to be, since as long as you enter through the "exit" from the New Londo Ruins' elevator, you can practically backstab everything (and the famous blowdart snipers lose their vantage points). Btw, the graphic slow down is do to the mobs pathfinding calculations, so it has nothing to do with graphics. If the swamp gives you problems, grab the rusted iron ring from the beginning area. The mosquitoes can be eliminated entirely, since they only spawns in pairs of 2 and ends after 4 - 5 waves at each location. Tomb of Giants wasn't that bad either, but that's probably because I picked up the light spell and the enhanced duration ring. The enemies weren't that bad, and even if you are a melee build, you can clear the map using bought pyromancies. You just need to make sure you spend the souls to upgrade the gloves, and buying the bellowing ring off Griggs before he goes so you can get the 20% bonus damage. If you didn't spend any souls on spell slots, then you are out of luck here.
As for the bosses, only 2 gave me trouble, one is the hellkite wyvern and the other is the stray demon. The first one is because on your fire run, you won't have much gear to deal with him when you find him, and the location makes it a difficult fight. I ended up using the pull aggro with arrows and attempt to aim the drake sword at his head on where he might land tactic. Stray demon was a pain because I was sleep deprived and I tried to brute force it, which was stupid and I died like 8 times. I didn't have poise so obviously that wouldn't work seeing he has a lot of staggering attacks. A bit of poise and running behind him plus a few well aimed spells, and voila, dead demon.
Most of the other bosses were fine, since you can call on meat shields( NPCs too, no online required) to pull aggro for you ( on quite a lot of them) and you can just bust out whatever the biggest attack you have and learn to block or roll away from attacks should they come your way.
Anyway, all in all, if you have the patience, I would recommend the game. Given its inherent problems and the glitches/bugs that probably won't be fixed in a new patch, I can't give it a high score. In my pov, probably 6.5/10.
