I'm a little torn on the mechanics. On the one hand, I actually found it cool to pop back in to the Hotel and harvest some coins that are tied IRL time progression. It wasn't a chore and felt natural to check out every now and then. And it's actually a nice reference to the original novel where the cat and the fox trick Pinocchio into planting his gold coins for an alleged gold coin tree and stealing them in the process.
On the other hand, the cube did kind of feel underwhelming from a gameplay perspective and didn't have anything to do with the story, really. Most of the effects were exclusive to the Specter too and didn't feel as substantial as the different grindstones.
Overall, I don't mind them, but you could cut them from the game and I wouldn't mind, probably
So, after 132 hours I've done it all. Plat and maxed out all stats. I could upgrade all weapons to the max but can't be bothered.I had a blast. Beautiful game. One of the best soulslikes I've played. Doesn't beat elden ring for but it's up there.Nice bosses, Laxasia and NP where pretty hard for me the first two playthroughs, even as a dark souls veteran.I had only had two glitches. One in an elevator, the other in the area with all the big balls rolling down at you. For 132 hours that's pretty good result, I'd say.Putting this away now and looking forward to the DLC.
I'm on my NG+ rerun and am about to finish the game. Throughout this playthrough, I have been more liberate with using the Specter for "annoying" boss fights or bosses where it would have taken me too long to beat them whilst actively hindering my enjoyment - it was awesome!
Some select boss fights feel a lot better with a summon, the Rabbit Gang fights especially since they feel like a true backalley brawl, and it just takes the edge off some really difficult fights for me.
Now, I arrived at (spoiler for the second to last boss in the game) Laxasia on this rerun. I kept trying the fight probably a dozen times yesterday evening and couldn't get her at all: the damage scaling is absurd, the weapons I was using didn't click with me too much, and even with the help of