Liurnia turned out to be a pretty easy area with no difficult enemies of note, though I also ended up having to clear Siofra River since I accidentally skipped it earlier. Which turned out to be a fortunate occurrence since there are some pretty nasty ancestral spirits infesting that area. Anyway, after clearing everything but the Divine Tower and southwestern plateau (both of which are tied to a later quest) I was level 63 (Vig 19, End 25, Str 12, Dex 31, Fai 15, Arc 20) and still using the Reduvia/Great Knife combo (+3 and +11 at the time).
Next up was Caelid, which is a noticeable spike in difficulty. Quite a number of nasty enemies here. The stand-outs being the Crystalian trio in Sellia Hideaway (which I decided to skip since they don’t drop anything useful to me and I had no good summons that did strike damage) and Black Blade Kindred in front of the Bestial Sanctum (had to ultimately use Skeletal Militiamen +4 as a semi-renewable decoy). Apparently Radahn was much harder in earlier versions of the game, but as of v1.03.2 at least his difficulty is roughly on par with the two previous Grand Rune holders.
At the time of his defeat I was level 87 (Vig 31, End 25, Str 12, Dex 43, Fai 15, Arc 20) with: Reduvia +6, Great Knife +15, Eleonora’s Poleblade +5, & Nightrider Flail +12. Since then I’ve cleared the few remaining Caelid areas (besides those Crystalians) and have started exploring Nokron.
While I don’t dislike the game at this point, it as yet hasn’t done anything to change my initial impression. So… it’s okayish as something to intermittently play while taking breaks to do other stuff.