Cricket fan!! I love the game, prob my fav sport. Yea good bats ain't cheap isn't it! I suppose you play often then? I hardly play anymore, but follow it all the time, like the IPL right now. Prefer ODIs and Tests though. The sig is a 1979/80 match between W.I. and NZ, Holding and John Parker. Holding lost his cool after some bad decisions apparently lol.

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1. You need Darkmoonstones to upgrade along the crescent path

2. Well, when you level up, which stats do you focus on? If it's magic heavy, then yea there's an advantage of using a crescent weapon as opposed to the Rapier because the magic damage dealt is greater because of the magic stat. Also the crecent weapons actually provide a boost to your magic stat.

3. Do you parry/riposte alot? I don't, so I usually go for a large shield, like Purple Flame, Large Brushwood or Adjudicator. Mainly Adjudicator because of HP regen. For parrying and stuff, well I'm really not too versed in those types..you can check the wiki

You get the crescent falchion by the first dual wielding katana black skeleton in 4-1. World 4 is also the place to farm darkmoonstones, and it's a real bitch, 'specially the Pure ones.

EDIT: unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever get a WM or PSMove cricket game on NTSC :( If we were on the sub-continent we would have stood a chance..

Whaa? It regens HP? Yeah, I don't parry either, so the small shield is kinda useless.

EDIT: Fighting with Crescent Falcion now. The Adjudicator is too heavy for me at the moment.

Yea sometimes that strength stat can be annoying, sometimes the good stuff requires a high one, but because you're a magician or whatever, you don't focus on it.

It seems completely impossible to get past the Dragon God  :/

Strenth is at 10 and endurance 8. This is most likely the problem right? I have been able to get the the rubble to the left of the dragon on the stairs, but no matter what I do he toasts me then. Ring of Flame resistance was disappointingly obsolete.

It's possible to use soul ray/flame toss to break up that bit of rubble so you'll have a clear path up. You need to be pretty accurate though, facing it straight on with the right camera angle, while in hiding of course. Or you can break it in one hit with a large shield (L2).

Use a bow to line up your shot then just use soul ray/flame toss against the rubble. The dragon god isn't a hard boss. The Flamelurker is far harder IMO

OMG. Do you HAVE ANY IDEA how hard it is for me to aim magic in 3rd person without locking on!? 

I'll try and use a shield once I'm at strenth 15 or so - I still have 4-2 and 5-2 to do before it's really necessary to go there again.

I just bought this game for $20 at Walmart a couple of days ago! (but i'm gonna finish Uncharted 1 & 2 before I play it)

But watching my cousin play and die 10 times during the first mission where you are a half life (or whatever they are called) and have to restart the whole thing again scared me! The game looks effing hard!

I know when I play it I will start on the lowest possible difficulty available

Well as the poster above said, apparently you can use a bow (any one) to get the aim, then switch to soulray or whatever immediately and cast away while not changing your direction or camera angle.

Also, 4-2 is a good place to farm souls to get up to strength 15 fast. Just kill the first reaper you encounter (without killing any of his ghosts), exit, repeat.

Lol, but there's no difficulty levels in this game! You just need to learn the enemy patterns, don't button mash, and keep your shield up at all times ;)