I fucking did it. I beat Malenia. Roughly 30 attempts, many of the early ones ending pretty quick as I got familiar with where my openings were. I can finally say that I'm marginally better than the average game journalist. Under the cut is gonna be me talking about my thoughts on the boss, so read it if you want to, I guess.
I definitely agree that she's the hardest solo boss in the game, and out of all of FromSoft's Souls-style games I've played, (all but Bloodborne) she gave me the most trouble of any solo boss so far. Her speed is brutal, she deals a lot of damage, and combined with her healing with every hit that lands she puts a lot of pressure on you. Her waterfowl dance is obviously the worst offender in this regard, being borderline impossible to dodge if she uses it while you're nearby. Even with the most perfect dodging I could manage, I got hit at least once, and that was with a talisman that increased my rolling i-frames. Phase 2 wasn't too much harder. She gets much more aggressive, and her openings change a little, but it was nothing I couldnt manage once I had gotten used to it. Inflicting Scarlet Rot certainly wasnt the most fun addition, but only a small number of her attacks actually cause build-up and they're relatively easy to avoid, so I found that it mostly wasn't an issue.
She was definitely doable, as long as I knew my openings, dodged correctly, didn't get greedy, and kept trying, but I feel like she was pushing the limit at where I consider a boss to be fair and balanced. Sometimes there are bosses that I just take issue with in these games, because they're almost TOO fast. If a given enemy or boss exceeds the speed at which the player can properly avoid their attacks or read their movements, it crosses the line from challenging to unfair. And while most of her attacks were fine, I felt there were certain moments where she crossed that line and an attack had hit me before I even knew she was doing that attack. It did make the fight a bit more frustrating than most, honestly. Not enough to make me give up, but enough to make it mildly annoying at times.
Overall, while I do have some complaints about her fight, it was pretty fun. Possibly the most challenging and rewarding boss fight I've faced in a long while, and a nice close to my playthrough as the final Rememberance in my collection.
BLACK CAT HAS A GIRLFRIEND !!!!!!!!!!!! SHE HAS A GIRLFRIEND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE'RE WINNIGNG SO FUCKING HARD CHAT LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WE FUCKIN DID IT BROS LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
i love her smile so much it’s unreal
anyway yeah LycoReco episode 3 was kino all around in every way. Dope worldbuilding, great character moments and something of a like, end/new beginning character arc for Takina we’ve got going on now which is hype, and a dope as all fuck action sequence that even included Takina getting to punch someone square in the face as revenge for when that happened to her in episode 1. Fucking awesome. Love this show so much it’s so good lol.