Maybe you forgot about underwater exploration, found some through that.

The prayer bead before the monk in the house was the only one I can recall in that area that I would consider really well hidden. I got the water mechanic and found one under the water shortly before that. I did feel pretty special finding that bead though.

I'm one bead away from 17 vitality now. I ended up playing a bit more and went back to ashina castle and collected most of the idols a second time. I fought a pretty tough mini-boss to get a bead at the great serpent shrine. He was tough as balls and I managed to get super lucky on my third attempt and he ended up doing the same moves multiple times in a row letting me posture break him.

I also fought the underwater headless. But when I go through an area I fully explore every possible part of the zones, walking along the edges of pretty much every path to look around for things. I've probably missed some stuff, but I have beaten every mini boss up until this point, and that's where a lot of my beads have come from. My achilles heel is that I have a bad memory, so I oftentimes forget to backtrack to areas when there is something I can't collect right away. Hoping to finish the game with all the beads, but we'll see.

Edit: Is there a way to check playtime? I have quite a lot of playtime due to how much I explore, and some of the trickiest fights have been with those mid-bosses. The three story pagoda mid-boss and lady butterfly are by far the fights I spent the most time on though.

Ahhh, Saturday night. Sekiro plus a 14-piece order of bone-in bbq chicken wings from Dominos. Doesn't get much better than this.

No, not yet I haven't. But that's going to be pretty much the next place for me to go. I did see some enemy through the gate at the bottom of the castle which I'm going to look into first, and then make my way to the top. Might not be until tomorrow though. And holy crap you can stealth him? I swear I walked in stealthed but he was aware of me before I could get close. And no, I base my victory on pure luck, and I heard the garage door start to open in the middle of the fight and I knew my wife had arrived with our dinner, so it was a now or never (later) fight.

Edit: You replied while I was in the middle of my edit, so I dunno if you saw my last bit.

Just click on load game, you can see your play time there, didn't even know I'm at 39hrs now, 15mins shy of 40hrs.

So i just beat the

, this was the easiest boss fight I have encountered. Not including the

don't really consider them as Bosses.

Spoiler!

I thought I lost my touch after two days rest.

I will say, do not watch any speed runs especially this guy distortion2.  Under an hour for the whole game and hitting just about every boss.  Not only that but some of the toughest ones he breezes through.  Makes me feel very old.

Oh, cool! My playtime is at 66 hours; probably 55 or so legit hours, the rest afk as is the case with John. I played a bit more tonight and beat Great Shinobi Owl (that was the boss I ended up getting). I made it to the final area of the game (as denoted by an achievement I acquired for visiting all areas) and then I faced Corrupted Monk. After a few tries I had this odd behavior where the boss allowed me to deathblow him in the middle of his shadow phase, otherwise I may not have won the fight. I got another vitality upgrade putting me at 17, with 10 attack power now.

That boss was a girl? :O

Six hours?...I´m not going to have the patience for that...no boss in any Dark Souls game and Bloodborne took me that long but I can see it easily happening here.We´re not getting any younger and this game in many situations demands lightning fast reflexes in a way that DS and BB could only dream of.

Its on the list....this Mountain of a backlog I got