I must now declare Dark Souls 2?a great game!

Thoughtful_Salt

New member
Mar 29, 2012
333
0
0
Having not played the first game, and having heard that this sequel was a mediocre experience in comparison, I jumped in and expected such.

C'mon guys, it's better than anyone gives it credit for. The sheer wonder and triumphs of this foreboding world trump any other game world i've ever encountered. The combat system, while it has a few nagging issues (like a finicky lock on system or or attacks that fling you back for no reason at all) is fluid and fair. I've also gone through stretches of the game where i cursed the developers, and then found myself fist pumping when finding some obscure treasure due to some humorous hints left on the ground.

What do you think about the game?

Do people slag it off just because it's not as original as the first game was? (in execution, not ideas wise)
 

blackdwarf

New member
Jun 7, 2010
606
0
0
It is a good game, but a disappointing sequel IMO. some aspects have improved, like gear and combat, but the meat of the game: Level design, enemy placement, bosses and more have taken some serious steps back. The big point of DS I was that it was hard but fair, but in the sequel if feel they made stuff tedious and hard just for the sake of being hard. Enemies are mostly placed in groups, which makes it hard to actually punish missed attacks. Once you go in to attack, an other enemy start poking you, so you have to hold back. This makes battles long and tedious and this barely happened in DS I. Sure, there were groups, but they were placed in such way that you weren't overrun when they charged you. There was always a delay in the actual contact you made with them, so you had some time to take the first one out, before fighting the second. In DS II they seem to designed to charge at the same time and fight you at the same time.

Another aspect that has been broken is the level design. In the previous souls games levels always looped back to earlier places with shortcuts. This made discovery worth it, and you felt you made progress in the area itself, because you could skip certain parts of the area. Because of the new feature in DS II where you can always teleport to all bonfires, they ruined this concept that was great in the earlier games. Sure, they got rid of the travel time, which can be considered a plus, but that also takes away the reason to have shortcuts and thus that sense of progression in shortening that travel time. They did try to add some shortcuts, but they are pretty useless. For example the shortcut in Huntsman's Copse, a tree next to the second Bonfire that can be pushed to make a bridge, is a shortcut from a bonfire to another bonfire. which is useless, because I can teleport much faster with the same starting point and destination.

Bosses are also pretty sub-par. Half of the bosses I can barely remember. This is either because their designs are so dull (Big dude with armor, how cool) or because they are criminally easy. It happened more than once that I choose to go in a new boss fight, because I felt that mobs were more dangerous than a boss, and that the boss fight was done in one try. Sure, the Smelter demon gave me some hard time, but that was one of the few exceptions that truly felt like a boss fight.

These and more are some of the aspects that made me disappointed in the game. Sure, the game is still much better than the average release, but in context of the other Souls games, this one severely of lesser quality.
 

Liquidprid3

New member
Jan 24, 2014
237
0
0
I started playing the game about a week ago, and I'm almost finished, and this is definitely not as good as the first game. It's not a terrible game, in fact it's a good game, but it is a very disappointing sequel. I only jumped on the Dark Souls parade in January, but I have all the achievements and put hundreds of hours into it. I'm currently borrowing DS 2 from a friend, since I heard and saw that it was a bit disappointing. My main gripes are that the game isn't very creative, the level design is shit, and the game is built around being hard. DARK SOULS was difficult but fair, and there were very very few cheap deaths. In Dark Souls 2 I've been killed by traps dozens of times, ones I couldn't even see coming. That isn't fun. Not to mention every boss being either ridiculously easy, or unfairly hard. This is because of poor hit detection, hard to predict attacks, and high damaging attacks. There are many improvements I enjoy, and I can see they listened to the fans, but there are far too many flaws to make it a great game. I haven't finished it yet, but I'll probably be done like tomorrow or something. It's still a fun game, but it's far more unforgiving in all the wrong ways. A game shouldn't be designed around being hard. DARK SOULS was hard because it made the game feel more real and adventurous. Observant and skillful players were the ones who prevailed (or the players that said they didn't use a walkthrough and have the Drake Sword.)

Also, why the fuck did they make magic even more OP? Like seriously, the fuck?
 

Skin

New member
Dec 28, 2011
491
0
0
I really wonder how this game would be received if it didn't have the "Souls" label so conveniently slapped onto it. I honestly find it very hard to find any redeeming features, especially when compared to its predecessors.

Lets go through the list shall we? Bad story, boring characters, many forgettable locations, awful level design and progression, bad combat and a boring cast of enemies.

It all cumulates to become at best a very mediocre 3rd person dungeon crawler with limited online abilities or at worst just an utter abortion of a video game. It seems to me that not only were they not able to go through with their initial vision of the game, but they also made so many terrible design choices and tried to make a rush for a quick buck while the "A team" were working under Miyazaki for Bloodborne.

I see almost no redeeming qualities in this game. The only improvements that were made were simply for convenience (climbing ladders faster, popping multiple souls at a time, etc). I just don't see where the improvements are really.
 

raeior

New member
Oct 18, 2013
214
0
0
I agree with the previous posters. It's a good game but weak as a sequel. My main gripe is the move away from the interconnected levels. That gave such a great organic feel to DS1. The harvest valley, earthen peak, iron keep connection in DS2 is especially ridiculous in this regard. Although the way to the dragon aerie doesn't make much more sense either. I liked the levels themselves though. I would have loved to see more of harvest valley especially because I found the setting pretty cool. Also Heide's Tower of Flame....I want to go inside that thing not just pass by it!

The other problem is that it is a bit cheap on the item design etc. because so much of it is just "DS1 item" with "according to an old legend this item..." attached.

Boss design..well I didn't mind it that much. The difficulty fluctuated wildly between someone like the Pursuer and the dragon boss in Aldia's Keep but the bosses themselves were designed fine in my opinion. Although I'm missing a "crazy" boss like the Gaping Dragon in DS2.

Liquidprid3 said:
DARK SOULS was difficult but fair, and there were very very few cheap deaths. In Dark Souls 2 I've been killed by traps dozens of times, ones I couldn't even see coming. That isn't fun.
Do you have an example for this? Because I think Sen's Fortress alone was a lot worse than anything DS2 throws at you in regard to "unfairness".
 

NeutralDrow

New member
Mar 23, 2009
9,097
0
0
I liked it much better than the first game. Having finished it, I can officially say the only thing that disappointed me vs. the sequel was the ending...and I don't know if that's because Dark Souls' ending (the one I got, that is) was better, or if it was just such a relief to find some part of that game that actually involved me.
 

42

Australian Justice
Jan 30, 2010
697
0
0
Bosses get more challenging in New Game + it actually gets harder, and im more scared on my seond playthrough then i was the first
 

PrimitiveJudge

New member
Aug 14, 2012
368
0
0
42 said:
Bosses get more challenging in New Game + it actually gets harder, and im more scared on my seond playthrough then i was the first
I agree, The Lost Sinner and the Sentry boss in No Man's Wharf scared the fuck out of me on NG+, that seriously was not cool man. lol
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
4,419
0
0
Also for those who are pissed off with the PvP aspect, youll be pleased to hear that Avelyn, Santiers Spear, Wrath of the Gods and Great Resonant Soul all got nerfed in the 1.06 calibrations.
 

DarkishFriend

New member
Sep 19, 2011
265
0
0
Liquidprid3 said:
but I have all the achievements
How does one get all the achievements for DkS1 anymore? After doing all of trophies for DkS2 I looked and you'd have max like 3 online covenants.
 

IFS

New member
Mar 5, 2012
1,776
0
0
The game is pretty great, its just a bit disappointing compared to the previous entries in the series. For me its mostly that it has far less atmosphere and world cohesion than Dark Souls though there are other details to complain about. It does make a number of small improvements but doesn't quite stick the landing presentation wise. Still I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it and I hope you take the time to look up the previous games as they are well worth playing.

DarkishFriend said:
Liquidprid3 said:
but I have all the achievements
How does one get all the achievements for DkS1 anymore? After doing all of trophies for DkS2 I looked and you'd have max like 3 online covenants.
In DS1 all the covenants, even the online ones, can be ranked up in offline. For all you increase rank by handing in items which can be grinded from certain enemies (harpies for souvenirs of reprisal (Darkmoon blades), Basilisks for Eyes of Death (gravelords), sunlight maggots for sunlight medals (warriors of sun) and I think the valley drakes for dragon scales (dragon covenant)).

gigastar said:
Also for those who are pissed off with the PvP aspect, youll be pleased to hear that Avelyn, Santiers Spear, Wrath of the Gods and Great Resonant Soul all got nerfed in the 1.06 calibrations.
Awesome news, the spells I could avoid most of the time but those two weapons were just awful to go up against. I do like how the animation for WotG looks like a heal animation at first though, since it lets you bait in uncautious/unobservant players.

raeior said:
Liquidprid3 said:
DARK SOULS was difficult but fair, and there were very very few cheap deaths. In Dark Souls 2 I've been killed by traps dozens of times, ones I couldn't even see coming. That isn't fun.
Do you have an example for this? Because I think Sen's Fortress alone was a lot worse than anything DS2 throws at you in regard to "unfairness".
The second wall ogre in Aldia's keep is unavoidable as far as I can tell (after 4 playthroughs counting various levels of NG+), with no hints as to its existence until it strikes and no way to avoid it when it strikes. The poison spitters in the gulch are also annoyingly difficult to deal with as they are just plastered everywhere. Neither has killed me (though Navlaan appearing behind that ogre and blasting me with spells through it did once) but they aren't fair either. Sen's fortress on the other hand gave plenty of warning signs of its traps and if you were careful they weren't hard to avoid, in fact the only part of Sen's fort that I dislike is the tar pit full of Titanite demons and that's only because I hate fighting those things.
 

Souplex

Souplex Killsplosion Awesomegasm
Jul 29, 2008
10,312
0
0
The people who played Dark Souls 1 don't think that 2 is a bad game, it will simply never measure up against 1.
 

Drops a Sweet Katana

Folded 1000x for her pleasure
May 27, 2009
897
0
0
Who said it was a bad game? The prevailing opinion is that, while it's a good game, it doesn't hold a candle to the original, being inferior in almost all design aspects. Rolling was pretty much screwed by tying it to a stat rather than equip load. Most enemy encounters are group encounters or designed in such a way to prevent singling out enemies, taking away the strength of Dark Souls' combat system, that being planning, patience and reading an opponent's strikes. Compounding this are the changes made to parrying which make it nigh impossible to use in most circumstances. Having to wait a second or two after parrying before riposting makes it useless when dealing with groups, as those 1 - 2 seconds usually end up with you having to deal with the other enemies in the group.
 

Sleepy Sol

New member
Feb 15, 2011
1,831
0
0
The people calling it bad or horrible are exaggerating quite a bit.

It improves on some areas and regresses in others. Personally, I'd say it's just as good as the first game, but it could have been a good bit better.
 

MrRaggaedeman

New member
Nov 18, 2009
58
0
0
While I agree that the first Dark Souls is superior to its successor, I still really really like Dark Souls 2. Sure it has some major flaws compared to Dark Souls but there are also a great deal of improvements. Many of them are little things for the sake of convenience but there are also some major one.
The biggest change are the fighting mechanics. Dark Souls 2 is a lot more fluid and has a faster pacing then it's predecessors. There are more groups of enemies but the mechanics are also more fitting to fight multiple enemies at once.
Not only is dual wielding greatly improved, but you can also equip more weapons to fit the situation. Not to mention how freaking useful the throwing knives are.
There are a lot of options to face groups of enemies due to switch from (mostly) shield&sword to a more aggressive fighting style.
Besides, it's been a while since I played Demons Souls but I remember that a large part of the game had always groups of enemies and then you had fighting mechanics that were even clunkier then Dark Souls. I don't really understand why people are so upset about groups of enemies.

I think for most people it comes down to their first Souls game. I played Dark Souls first and shortly after that Demons Souls because a lot of people said that it was superior in any way. In the end I was a bit dissapointed by Demons Souls, but it is still a superb game that I'd like to play now that I finished Dark Souls 2 for the forth time. (Sadly I can't since my ps3 died during my second playthrough of dark Souls 2)

I guess no game can be a better Souls experience for me than Dark Souls. It just came at the right time and brought me something that I missed for quite a long time and every other Souls(or souls-esque) game is just that. Just another Souls game. A game I love and can play for hours upon hours but none can catch the same experience that Dark Souls gave me.
 

White Lightning

New member
Feb 9, 2012
797
0
0
I don't think anyone says it's a bad game, it's just not as good as the first one. Which is a genuine complaint considering the point of a sequel is to improve on the original.

Hopefully project beast or bloodborne or what ever it's called will deliver, and from what I've seen it should.
 

endnuen

New member
Sep 20, 2010
533
0
0
I find it a better game than the first one in many aspects.
A few places it has taken a step back, but not in any serious manner, it's more of a bad design choice. Looking at the Emerald Herald and Ancient Dragon here. I like that a fair few of the "bosses", are just big guys in big armors, gives more a feel of a world not too empty of people.
 

seaweed

New member
May 19, 2014
38
0
0
It's better than a lot of games but going from the first game to this one was a huge disappointment. It only got worse and worse the longer I played it. So many stupid design decisions that would have never been there if Miyazaki was on board. When I was playing through the game I must have yelled out "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING" like 30+ times. I'm not even exaggerating. This game made me mad as hell. When I repeatedly saw amateurish stuff like the transition from Earthen Peak to Iron Keep or the useless shortcut before the bonfire in Huntsman's Copse it broke my heart.

I felt engaged by the game but simultaneously very annoyed by its mechanics and design choices. The gameplay doesn't feel anywhere near as fair, the world is a theme-park ride that makes no logical sense and their interpretation of the lore is like bad fanfiction. The bosses are crap, the overdone enemy tracking is crap, the encounters seem to be focused on quantity over quality which even extends to the way the boss fights are designed. Rather than give the enemies a wider movepool they simply increase the number of them, for almost every fight in the game. IT'S DULL. There's no reason to ever go back to areas you've been before because the exploration has been heavily neutered. The NPCs are lifeless and are just there to help you, the player, despite them having their own goals they should be working towards - But they don't. They sit in Majula the whole game with their heads up their asses. It feels like the entire world revolves around you in this game. I felt immersed in the game for the first couple hours and then it took a sledgehammer to that immersion repeatedly to the point where it never recovered.

I don't think I'm ever going to go through it again.

This sounds overdramatic, but really, for every step forward, they took two or three steps back with this game and screwed up so many things that should have been totally basic. It's not as bad as it could have been but I'm still totally butthurt about the game and the new season pass nonsense doesn't help. Playing it made me realize all too clear that Dark Souls never needed a sequel at all. This game adds nothing interesting to the series besides a couple conveniences like sprinting up ladders or consuming many souls at once.


All the interesting lore is taken from the first game, everything new is a conscious retread of what's already there. The ending of the game highlights this pretty well. Doing the same thing for a sequel can be good, but this just rehashes all the familiar plot beats and even basically outright says
that the four main bosses are the ones from the first game and Nashandra is Manus.
I'm just left thinking, okay that would be cool if there was any subtext or meaning to it but it's just there. What do the designers want me to think about? What does it add to the overall experience? Why is Ornstein there? Oh, because he was in the first game. There's no logical in-universe explanation to it, it's just fanwank. Gargoyles? First game. Solaire's covenant? Because people liked it in the first game. If Dark Souls 2 had come out maybe 5 years after the first, I could take it as a nostalgic kind of homage to DS1, but in reality the first game JUST came out. It's still very fresh in all our minds. It's like if a comedian told the exact same joke twice in a row with slightly different wording the second time. It wouldn't make you laugh, it wouldn't be effective.

In the game's favour, it has a ridiculous amount of content and the graphics and framerate are excellent, but to me those are some of the only things it has going for it. Bloodborne is probably going to eat this game for breakfast when it comes out. I think if Dark Souls 2's game engine was truly better and more fair, Bloodborne wouldn't still be using DS1's engine.
 

Xdeser2

New member
Aug 11, 2012
465
0
0
I personally liked the second game far more than the first. It's much more accessible, but it doesn't lose any of the punishing difficulty than the first, and It actually punishes you MORE for dying. Learning enemy placement and move sets is far more important if your health bar is what's at stake.

I didn't really care that the level design was changed, the first game had good level design, so does the second, its only different. The combat has been greatly improved, Warping between bonfires is far better than having to backtrack through half of the game until you got the lord vessel, I just relay enjoy the game.
 

JagermanXcell

New member
Oct 1, 2012
1,098
0
0
Caramel Frappe said:
Apart from that, the bosses are alright ... and the game's ending is ok. Nothing on par with the first Dark Souls, but if you're into PvP, more variety in weapons/mechanics, far better balance between users and magic, along with great servers... yes it destroys the DS 1 mechanics in that regard plus a lot of bugs/lag has been fixed too in DS 2.
Ageed, mechanically the combat in Dks2 is better BUT... BUT the "1 step forward, steps back" tradition Dks2 has on it's resume is still blatant the PVP.
A lot of the things recently patched weren't out of balancing purpose, but to please those who pointed out the more broken weapons/spells and such in the PVP. The B team seems to be more lenient towards bugs in general, especially when you consider they only half way patched the game, yet are willing to shove out DLC before fixing the glaring issues killin the PVP.
This isn't balancing, it's lazy, and it's definitely a major turn off for those who play Dks2's PVP for more than 10+ hours.
Also f*** the ending... it ruins the canon and cops out major by saying "oh lol NG+ is the ending forever".

OT: It's good, don't get me wrong. It's just not GREAT like it should have been, too much bad design choices that go against the original artistic vision. I can go on with why but I already breath down Dks2's neck enough, I'd rather be optomistic for Bloodborne than remain cynical and disappointed with B Team Souls 2.