Just finished How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses that Ran this Country

Funny stuff, I'd recommend it. The author is a writer from Cracked and the tone throughout is pretty similar to Cracked articles.

I finally finished everything - took me 68 hours or so… (this includes getting all the words which is honestly the longest part but not quite as frustrating as getting all coins as in Pirate Warriors 1... but the randomness factor can still be ugh).
Was fun though, I enjoyed the game overall though kind of disappointed in some of the lame move sets of some bosses.

! Seriously Aokiji, what have they done to you…?

Kind of miss Unlimited Adventure now - I remember bosses being more challenging in that one.

Never got to play the Cruise games… so this was fun to play an adventure game with an updated roster anyways. Some things felt like a step backwards, not a huge fan of the Batmanesque dodge/counter mechanic. I definitely prefer dodging as it is done in Pirate Warriors 2

^ FYI, the later boss quests are like that too.

My tip for evading Whitebeard's special is to save your own and use it when he uses his for the short invulnerability period. I can never get the dodge down right either and tend to do it by luck. Funny thing - Ace sucker punched me during Whitebeard's special which knocked me out of the blast radius saving my life lol

Also Ace's special used to be the one that always got me… he and Buggy tend to unleash their specials the moment I'm standing next to them. But I've learned to read Ace better and run the hell away from him when I see him jump to the middle.

@PorkyMinch:

On a second note. Someone met Smoker? I sure didn't yet. I read on the web it's a random encounter but I wonder if there's some way to increase the chances to find him or the random town fights.

If you're still looking for Smoker see below:

! He and Tashigi show up after the 8th town brawl in town - which should be versus the marines. It's just a boring QTE event so nothing special and not worth it unless you're after the trophy for all characters seen.
! The 8th time is not certain but it's a number that shows up a lot on gamefaqs and was my personal 8th town brawl as well. To get the town brawls you have to idle/wander town for 20-30 minutes then will see black smoke appear. Go to the smoke to start the brawl. Talking / visiting shops pauses the timer I believe. I just went around balloon hunting and shouting morning to people when I did it - also exploration for crates/chests. Otherwise just leave the game on in town while you're off to cook dinner or whatever.

https://twitter.com/new_aaa_games

So San Diego was pretty much on fire for the last couple days. With triple digit heat and extreme drought its been a prime example of conditions for fire season.

http://www.cbs8.com/story/25516618/live-stream-3-fires-across-san-diego-county
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/15/us/san-diego-wildfire/

About 8 or so wildfires were burning simultaneously. I took a picture of the one in Carlsbad as we evacuated at work.
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This article has a map showing all the fires:
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/may/14/crews-battle-brush-fire-along-i-5-near-oceanside/

@CCC:

That was actually kind of me, tonight. :P

NG+ spoiler

! I died to the Sinner twice while fighting with Lucatiel and other real-life phantoms. Just from sloppiness and panicking when Lucatiel was taking too much damage. Finally succeeded on the third try by just resolving to be a total tank (red-eye ring, of course) while Lucatiel and my buddy did all the damage on both the Sinner and the two pyros that show up.
! I honestly don't know how I could possibly win that fight (pure melee) without the help of a real person. Let alone keep Lucatiel alive.
! Going to attempt the Rotten and Flexile with Lucatiel tomorrow.

Late reply here but finally did the Lucatiel and Benhart quests myself (Also on NG+) and yeah… that fight was frustrating.

! I had to resort to using another human player for both that and Flexile Sentry. Though I think Flexile I could have made it work solo with Lucatiel if I didn;'t have the red eye but I was afraid of her dying since I've heard the quest glitching for a lot of people. But with the red eye - oh holy crap having two ninjas AND the boss all wailing on you is scary. I actually somehow survived after getting stun-locked into a corner. I just held onto my shield for dear life while Lucatiel and the player phantom managed to relieve me.
! Lost Sinner on the other hand there was really no winning with just myself and Lucatiel. Without the red eye ring she would die pretty quickly. With it, having to dodge both pyromancers and the boss was too tricky. I almost managed once since Lucatiel managed to distract a pyromancer for me. Then she decided to go after Lost Sinner instead putting all the pressure back on me and I died…
Having another player finally solved it.
! Benhart was extremely frustrating on Lost Giant (apparently Throne Watcher and Defender doesn't count for his quest? Cause when I defeated them as my third boss he didn't give me anything). Half the time he died due to the bombardment or the rolling building. I'd hang back to try and keep his AI from charging ahead but nope. He loves to charge. When I finally won without him dying it was because he spent the first half of the memory glitching out at the fog gate. He only finally headed toward the boss after I already whittled him down to 3/4 hp. So was able to finish him off quickly while Benhart drew his attention. I even had the red eye ring and the guy still was the one tanking, heh.

On Fashion Souls - I've changed my looks since I last answered. I really love the appearance of the Drangleic knights so I've adopted Syan armor for the gold armor + white cape. Then Arms/Legs I either stick with Syan as well or go for King's Boots/Gloves or Veldast (sp - the large gold knight boss before Vendrick). Head I like to use a brigand hood. Kind of reminds me of Orlandu from Final Fantasy Tactics but with golden armor.

Then sometimes (when want a slight boost to cast speed) I will go for a black/gold color scheme of Black Hood (Straid's hood) and Veldast (sp) for the rest. Gotta admit Straid's whole set is pretty darn nice looking. I like Lucatiel's set as well though doesn't really fit my character.

I'm still slow and wrapping up missing stuff I missed before I head to NG+ (some rings and spells). But after a couple rings I think its about time to head to NG+. And thanks for the note on getting the covenant spells DarthAsthma, those and the NG+ ones are the only ones I am missing now. I did finally beat the optional bosses (except I didn't even try the one atop Dragon Shrine since just getting there is annoying in itself). I also kinda want to try a new character with a different build at the same time. My STR/Faith knight is probably more than ready for NG+ though with a Lightning Defender Greatsword + 5 and a Lightning Dragon Chime and tons of Great Lightning Spears and 4 Sunlight Spears. Noticed a ton of bosses have lightning weakness this game.

Also this video was awesome (NG+ Castle Drangleic spoilers) - I was wondering why I saw so many bloodstains in that area in NG lol.

!

@DarthAsthma:

Have people here played around with the boss weapons? I've been especially looking at faith(lightning weapons) and the defender greatsword did the best for me.(Faith:50,Str:20,Dex:20)
I also looked at the Moonlight greatsword which I'm not a fan of. Not sure if there are any standouts in there. I've only traded I think 6 weapons so far despite owning almost all souls 2 times.

Also does someone know how to open the gate at the rise of the dead bonfire(up the stairs)?

Been rushing through NG+ like a madman and boy is it long. I'm not sure if I have it in me to instantly start the NG++ for the last spells. Probably need a break. All in all I have to say NG+ is definitely tons more interesting than it was the previous games.
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Oh my god... Dark Souls you're the best. Holy crap I just found the best armor. xD

! http://i.imgur.com/hrOsBbLl.jpgSorry for the bad image quality I don't have capture equipment for my ps3.

Late reply here since I been playing the game but yeah Defender Greatsword seems to be the best faith weapons when infused with lightning thanks to the S in lightning at +5. Haven't seen anything better myself but it's good and also saves me a slot from using Sunlight Blade since the two-handed L2 is pretty much its own version of Sunlight Blade. I then use a Sun Sword +10 (no infusion) as a back up weapon when I need something speedy and physical. Been working for me so far. I managed to beat NG and am now going through the optional bosses I skipped:

! Vendrick caught me off guard and pretty much one hit killed me. I think it's late since I keep mistiming my rolls and getting myself killed. Will aim for him again tomorrow. Otherwise I need to go through the Chasm of Old. Last time I went the NPCs killed me and I got frustrated at wasting humanities so decided to leave to endgame. Feel more confident I can take them now that I've upgraded both weapons and miracles. Back then I was still using Drangleic and regular lightning spear.

Also grats on the platinum. I missed the NPC quests you had to summon since I was pretty much hollow the entire time except for when coop rarely turned me human. Oh well, a reason to do another playthrough I guess. But I actually feel more like replaying Demon Souls for some reason….
I had a question for the all miracles/hexes/spells/pyromancies trophies. I know there were some ridiculous ones like Wrath of Gods having an insane amount of rank up required as a covenant reward. Are all such spells available by other means through bosses in NG+ or such? Which spells are these and what bosses?
Sunlight spear doesn't matter - I have like 60 medals from all the cooping haha.

I hear CCC on the frustrating hosts that rush into death though. It's about 50-50 between good hosts and the impatient imo.