Perfect parries are pretty easy one swords and shield men, the spear guys are next to impossible for me but once you get a few down it's easy to get them the majority of the time. I leave one last sword guy alive and perfect parry him until my resolve has filled cause the standoff window on hard in act 3 is brutally tight. 

@OP, I spent my last two hour session cleaning the last bit of the first two maps up and the game really looses its charm when you start using the map and fast travel. I wish they had added a multiple waypoint system where you can cue things up. I can see why Journalists would have thought this game to be generic if they were using the map contstantly, the games begs to be played as if there is no map at all and I've past the 90 hour mark with 50% trophy completion so to say I was going at a slow pace is an understatement but so glad that 90% of the time I stuck out traversal using smoke trails, foxes and birds as it made this game something really special as an open world game. I'm going straight back to playing it visually and fuck it, if it takes me another twenty hours to clear the last region, so be it.

If you go ghost heavily in the early game you get more thunder storms and less of the amazing weather that brings out the visuals. in the later game these become more frequent anyway but having no thunder storms in the first two acts for me was something I woudn't want to lose cause it made the game so serene and BoTW like in exploration. I think you can offset it a bit by balancing it with some Samurai fighting but I'm not entirely sure. Trust me though, you won't wanna do stealth once you feel the combat in this game, it's like Sekiros long lost brother who loves to party. 

I think so, the stealth streamers i've seen is nothing but Thunder storms so I looked it up and the devs said it was the case but no matter what you do you'll get more thunder as the game progresses thematically and indeed, the map is filled just perfectly, not too much and not to little with perfect spacing but what does make it feel a little cluttered is the random fights, you can ignore them but then again it feeds back into the exploritory excellence with prisoners giving you information on side quests. I do suggest you take just a bit of organic exploration to get a feel of what they were going for before you finish though, look for dark smoke clouds for mongol camps, the bigger they are the more occupied, flocks of birds for Haikus and white smoke trails for side quests and you'll know about all the rest. It's so good and also effective I wish they'd have done away with the map entirely. As for the parries, just fill your resolve up fully and leave one last sword guy to practice on and wait for the last split second before his sword hits, no tapping L1 or you'll void it and once you get it a few times you'll get it consistently after that, I reckon they put in a small slow down on the animation just before it hits to alleviate input lag or maybe to make it easier. EDIT: Or perhaps that's the charm I'm using, there is one to make perfect parries easier so I'd suggest finding the shrine for that one, it's one I've always equipped.

I'm not sure, It kicks up the wind but I've not notice it change the weather but sure the weather changes so frequently it'd be hard to notice and I've a suspicion that they some how skip nights in the day night cycle and add in more days or somehow cut them out by reseting the time of day after the completion of a mission or icon. 

I made a video for you to illustrate where in the attack telgraph to tap parry. Watch it at half speed, the first three are normal parries then the three after that are perfect parries. You can also get hit and get a perfect parry on the second attack if it's a combo chain if you're patient.

That's hard mode btw with the charm on, it's about 75% into the attack animation of a swing but some other attacks you basically have to wait for the tip of their sword to be touching you and don't bother with spear guys, the window is so tight it's not worth getting the damage.

I think so, the stealth streamers i've seen is nothing but Thunder storms so I looked it up and the devs said it was the case but no matter what you do you'll get more thunder as the game progresses thematically and indeed, the map is filled just perfectly, not too much and not to little with perfect spacing but what does make it feel a little cluttered is the random fights, you can ignore them but then again it feeds back into the exploritory excellence with prisoners giving you information on side quests. I do suggest you take just a bit of organic exploration to get a feel of what they were going for before you finish though, look for dark smoke clouds for mongol camps, the bigger they are the more occupied, flocks of birds for Haikus and white smoke trails for side quests and you'll know about all the rest. It's so good and also effective I wish they'd have done away with the map entirely. As for the parries, just fill your resolve up fully and leave one last sword guy to practice on and wait for the last split second before his sword hits, no tapping L1 or you'll void it and once you get it a few times you'll get it consistently after that, I reckon they put in a small slow down on the animation just before it hits to alleviate input lag or maybe to make it easier. EDIT: Or perhaps that's the charm I'm using, there is one to make perfect parries easier so I'd suggest finding the shrine for that one, it's one I've always equipped.

Nice video. I wish the timing was the same across all difficulties though, because it throws off my muscle memory when it changes.
I don't mind a tight window (I play fighting games) but just as long as it's consistent.

I played a lot on Normal, and I played a lot on Hard, and now I'm contemplating the hardest difficulty they just added. Maybe not permanently but I'll probably try to switch to it when things are going too easily.

Oh those things you find at cemeteries? Well that's a cool bonus. I'll be sure to get them all.

What'a ya mean? I know the map like the back of my hand, I can traverse now by sight (Well, at least the first two areas, I'm working on the third slowly) because of the wind system and how well the map is laid out visually and the foliage colour. Is there something I've missed? I've basically done everything except for half the small side tales and a few of the enemy camps north of the endless forest.