I started DS 2 as soon as the PC version hit. I was pumped. I wanted to love this game, I was ready to get my mind blown. And I started playing and I ran through the game, combing every nook and crany of it for boses and items and finished NG then went to NG+ and did the same, I even powerleveled most of the covenants.
And at first I was having a blast. But as I played ... well ... it jsut stoped. I just realised I was booting the game out of duty, a religious duty to the Souls series to get everything in everygame. And I went through it one more time with a notebook and pen on the side, writing down my every thought as I took the game in without the fan glases on. And a deep deep sadness setled on me ... this was bad ... bad bad bad bad bad ...
Don't get me wrong: the bad of DS 2 is still leagues above 90% of the games that come out these days, but fuck me, that just makes me sader. For the pole I put up I fall in the "really want to love this game but just can't". It IS bad. From areas to bosses, to even the bloody story ... when they removed Miazaky they removed the Soul of the Souls series ... and what we have now is a generic, above average game with a Souls decal slapped on.
Let me get this straight: I have nothing against Miazaky for choosing to move on, I respect the man for not doing the same thing over and over. But by the same token, when Miazaky left, they should have come out and say: NO MORE DARK SOULS. You can't take something so heavily influenced by that one man and give it to some new guys and expect them to obtain the same results ... hell even expect them to at least get the same feeling. And while we are here: I like this game. I really do. But I just can't stop beeing sad at the stupid missed oportunities, bad design, lackluster lore and downright broken promises.
So without further beating around the bush, I will try to talk about what I found to be the worst aspects of DS 2 and how they could be improved from my point of view and I invite everyone to do the same. (oh and this will be a LONG post, be warned)
1) Map design
So we have Demon's Souls, where from a sanctuary outside space and time we travel to 5 lands taken by the fog: An underground empire, a once beatifull capital, a mountain lair of pagan worship, a tower of sadism, and a marsh of decay. All beatifully rendered and atmospheric. Kind of fragmentary considering those are all parts of one mai nkingdom, but nvm. Then we have Dark Souls: this game had an open-world that managed to retatin the atmospheric qualitites of deamon's while giving us a feeling of grandeur.
And then we have Dark Souls 2 ... where to start ... ok. First: open-world this is not. This is just as fragmentary as Demon's Soul: 1 hub, 4 paths, one of which splits into 3 at one point. No interconnected areas, no feel of several provinces and kingdoms that we trek. just 4 coridors with nice skyboxes. They really dropped the ball hard with this ... and the only thing I can say to fix it is this: make the world feel like one, with multiple paths, engaging area design and architecture ... not this bullshit.
2) The skyboxes don't even make sense ... and the coridors aren't even consistent ...
So most of you probably went to Heide's right? And then you go in a cave under the ocean floor and emerge in a harbour built in the side of a cliff ... whaaaaat? Heide had no place beeing there ... the Wharf needed to be accesible from Majula and maybe make it act like a hub for travelling to lads beyond Drangleic ... like the Bastille or the ruins of Heide. Actualy, while Bastile is actualy an area I enjoyed, almost all other areas feel rushed and underwhelming. Make Majula like the ruins of a central trading post/town of Drangleic, with No Man's Wharf the main trade harbour of Drangleic now overrun with pirates (areas would need to be bigger and actualy more like those in DS 1). And once the ship in the Wharf is ours we can navigate to the Bastille to hunt the Lost Sinner. But what if there are other lands beyond Drangleic? What if out at sea lie the ruins of a once mighty kingdom that also sought the secrets of souls, and in our quest in King Vendrick's footsteps we must travel to the sunken kingdom of Heide? Where you get the chance to do the ancient guardian warriors as well as maybe a sunken ruins type area with aquatic threats ... but also a Lighthouse/library type tower with flame based threats ... maybe we even get to fight a Kraken on our ship? I'm just saying ... beeing lazy and saying consoles can't handle it doesn;t excuse you ... there's a PC market and you can make the areas big and good looking and just give the consoles shit graphics to compensate.
Then we have the whole Iron King Coridor ... my god, does that ENTIRE AREA SUCK (give or take a chariot and maybe smelter if you are mele). First off: IT looks like shit with no connectivity between areas. Earthen Rise to Iron Keep is the worst offender in this aspect (lonely tower of dirt -> vertical elevator into thin air -> Volcano caldera ... fuck you From)but the entire area feels designed with the ass rather than the brain. The feel of it was ment to evoke a fallen kingdom ... well make it feel like that: make us enter from Majula into Harvest Valley and make that area look like a decayed poisoned farmland/marsh with maybe pits of flame in certain places ... make it feel like the rural area of a fallen kingdom. Then we move up to a looming volcano and begin our ascent into the Earthen Peak: A love fortress built into the mountain side guarding the only accesway into the Iron Keep and the Domain of the Old Iron King. This place is the home of the jelous and twisted Mytha, wife of the Old Iron King. We best her and move on into the Caldera proper: we walk of patches of solid lava, while rivers of the stuff flow around us and cracks in the earth let us see the lava below. And we aproach the imposing Iron Keep rising in the middle of a lake of lava. We cannot enter it though, we need to descend from it's entrance down another snaler path into a crater that holds what looks like a forest: Huntsman Corpse and the hunting groud where the Old Iron King hunted undead. We move through it and best the skeleton lords guarding it. My ideea of these guys would be them wandering around the forest with their retinue and each holding part of the key to the Undead Purgatory, the old iron king's "hunting cabin"/torture dungeon for undead if you will. We get the key to the Iron Keep there, then we can finaly enter it and best the king for his soul. And while we talked about Bastille and Iron Keep let's talk a little about the Bellfry Tower's shall we? Why are those areas in the game? Lore says they were used by the prince of Venn and the princess of Aken to comunicate/meet with eachother. So how about you actualy give us a point to go in those areas ... like maybe we can teleport between the two at the very least, or you can uncover more lore, or maybe they are home to some secret items/souls/bosses. Maybe all those things. That way the Bellbros can actualy have a job and players actualy have a reson to go in those areas ... and you can make another loop here with this pathway and the one of Lost Bastille
Now how about that whole domain of The Rotten? Once more, they dropped the ball hard on this one ... Grave of Saints is a quaint little area with some nice challenge and decor, plus a neat PvP mechanic to boot. The only problem is you can just skip it ... and that is just lame. Make it important, it's the grave of fucking saits god damn it! Give it a reason to exist! And no, rat lair does not count! Some expansiveness wouldn't hurt either, like a small Undead Crypt. Make it feel less like a corridor. And after that you descend into the dreaded Gutter ...
Let me take a moment to tell something to all of you, and to From software in particular: areas that are difficult to navigate are challenging and fun. We love those areas, we live for them. Wether it's precarious terrain, hazzards, enemies or any combination of, we love it. BUT a pitch black area where you can't see anything beyond torch range and what you can see is twigs, brown dirt and shit driping on the walls acompanied by generic easy to beat enemies and really easy to handle platforms with 1 jump needed in the entire level is just lazy, boring, a chore, not a challenge, fucking boring busy-work. I though the same of Tomb of Giants, but at least that had some fucking nice scenery to be found beyond the blackness ... and some unique enemies and nice platforming. Gutter has nothing ... the Gutter is exactly what you see on the walls of that place: shit dripping from the game onto your computer screen. It's not scary, it's not hard to navigate (for fucks sake I ran through Gutter without a Torch in 2 maybe 3 minutes with none of the useless enemies trying coming even remotly close to stoping or harming me), it doesn't even have a fucking bossfight ...
Nuke the Gutter from orbit I say. Remake that area from the ground up. honestly ... make it what it's name sugests: an underground shanty town, filled with poison and the failed experiments of Lord Aldia, a refuge for the discarded and forgoten, ripe with pestilence, decay and all things foul. AND FOR FUCKS SAKE DON'T TRY TO HIDE YOUR LAZYNESS BY TAKING OUT THE LIGHTS. Low/flickering/unreliable light=atmospheric, creepy and tense. No light at all=boring and lame. And give the area a boss for the sun's sake ... give it a horid abomination born in Lord Aldia's labs. You made the Gaping Dragon, I'm sure you can come up with something intimidating. And after we pass through the Gutter and witness it's decay we arive at the Black Gulch ... another area that needs a nuke in the face. When I first got through this area and saw the boss clip for the Rotten I actualy yelled out "What?! Was that it?!". This is where lazyness hit critical mass ... this area does not deserve to be in a Souls game. This should have been the lair of a great old one ... a lair of death and decay. Fucking DO SOMETHING with this are. Anything would be better than just another fucking pitch black area with green shit all over the place but the same boring brown and grey lack of identity. Make it ... IDK, I really want ideas here. I was thinking a gigantic lake of filth we have to navigate to the center of where the Rotten has his "court", in reality the decayed and filthy ruins of a keep/fort/anything. OR maybe make it so the arena of the Rotten is actualy alive: as in we fight in a throne room of corpses and they extend their hands to try and grab you. That would also make the fight alot easier (as oposed to lame out of nowhere fires in a area that has NOTHING TO DO WITH FIRE). Again maybe both these things.
Now ... Duke's Dear Freja and her deal ... what the fuck is that? Guys who made this game you wanted to paralel Seath right? As in a beeing so possesed of his obsesion for imortality that he abandons any rules and taboos and does horid unspeakable things in his madness. You know, like a certain friend of Vendrick who owns a mansion where horid things happen and experiments are beeing done on the living and dead alike. I think he was called Seath, I mean Aldia. Yeah Lord Aldia. So let me get this straight From: you make a guy that is word for word what Seath was for Gwin and paralel his story almost perfectly ... and the you stick a giant spider out of fucking nowhere with fuck all lore existing about her and give her the soul of Seath? WHAT THE FUCK? How about this From: how about Tsedora is Aldia's land (even let Freja there as a failed experiment) that we acces after crosing the shaded woods (at this point this will be a third major hub type area so the world will start feeling more like a world instead of a corridor). The Doors of Pharos ... I never really got that area, though remake it as an optional area that we keep hearing legends of great treasure/powerfull magic/secrets and sudenly every adventurer from here to Boletaria will want to visit it. A Magnificent flame to draw the moths into the jaws of the Ratbros. And after Tseldora and maybe the detour through the Doors of Pharos we arive at Aldia's castle and we move through his labs and finaly confront the mad and oddly extactic Aldia.
And about the Dragon Shrine and Dragon Aerie? Well, aren't the Dragon Riders Vendrick's elite and personal guard? Would it not make more sense for them and their main method of transportation (the Drakes) be closer to Vendrick's residence? Have them on top of a mountain near Drangleic Castle. Either accesible from the Shaded woods like now (but without the missplaced Aldia Castle) or from the Castle itself as yet another branching path. Also this an oportunity for a loop with the Dragon Aerie accesible from both Aldia's new location and Drangleic castle (Or maybe aldia has a path directly to the Dragon Shrine itself), just something.
And let's talk Drangleic castle ... ever since Boletaria Palace, From has been taking the idea of seat of an empire to lamer and lamer depths with every game. DOn;t get me wrong: I like Drangleic castle (wish we could explore more), but neither it nor Anor Londo can even hope to lift a candle to the massive palace complex of Boletaria. Which made sense and was a blast to explore and was full of personality and charm. Anor Londo had it's views and it's nice multy-level apeal along with a hopefull atmosphere brough on by the illusion of perpetual sunlight (the biggest rack in gaming helps too). Drangleic Castle feels like a generic european estate ... Neuschwanstein in videogame form. It ain't bad, just generic.
So what did I leave out in areas? Oh right: Amana, Crypt and Forest of Fallen Giants. WEll these areas are ok for the most part. The too linear complaint can be aplied to them too, but I like how they look and feel for the most part and all they need is some extra complexity and focus. Amana is the weakest IMO ... they wanted to go for a serene shrine to bring the undead peace and it's ok. But it just needs to be tighter and more like a place of rest defiled by invaders. Crypt needs to be less linear and more massive and complex (HEY FROM SOFTWARE? WANT A FREE TIP FOR A DANGEROUS AREA THAT CHALENGES THE PLAYERS? MAKE A FUCKING MAZE). If you ever visit a crypt IRL (a really old crypt from medieval times) you will see you can actualy get lost in one). And the FoFG? Eh it's ok.
3) Lore
My biggest problem here is not that the lore is ambigous or leaves details out. My problem with the lore here is that ... it just doesn't do anything! Either it does nothing or it's non-existant. Ambiguity (DS) is one thing that is actualy nice if you enjoy it. Obscurity for the sake of apearing deep and meaningfull is a load of bullshit (DS 2).
Unless we get a character going "Hey remember that thing you totaly played in Lordran? Oh well it's a distant legend from a faraway land, except it's totaly not we are referencing it constantly because nostalgia dolars." all we get is wasted oportunity after wasted oportunity.
The two lovers of Aken and Venn ... all we know is they existed and made the Bell's and the Bell Keepers. So we go to the Bells and ring them ... aaaaand nothing. We learn nothing, achieve nothing ...
The Rotten taking in all that is unwanted in Lordran, when I heard that I went ahed and stocked up on suplies thinking I will face all maner of abominations and freaks ... instead I get one shot hollows and 2 shot dogs, plus giant phalic wall things ... LAME.
Aldia and Vendrick's quest for understanding the undead curse and beating it. "Our Lord made magnificent findings on souls" ... ummm yeah. Like what? The Golems? Neah, those were built using whatever he stole from the giants (we still know not what that is). So what DID he discover? Maybe that souls taste minty fresh ...
Aldia and his quest for imortality through the secrets of ancient dragons. It LOOKS like he succeded, but then again maybe that ancient dragon was allways there, one of the few survivors of gwins campaign. Maybe it's Aldia himself. Maybe it's a rat Aldia transformed through accident into a dragon. There is nothing here ...
DS gives us hints to it's lore and put's it to use in the game and story (like in the Artorias DLC to name the most obvious example). It uses it to create a living breathing world. DS 2 just through some vague obscure shit at you pretending it's deep and interesting ...
I may have missed things but honestly when you bore me so much with pointless bullshit, you hve failed.
They way to fix the lore ... that is a bit beyond me. I guess all I can say here is make it matter ... make the lore you actualy bothered to write instead of steal from DS actualy matter to the story, instead of it beeing a decal for the DS 1 retread theme park.
4)Foes
Ok, so the fluff of DS 2 has problems ... but hey, Demon's wasn't the most complex plot in the world (though it had some deep and emotional moments). If the crunch is good, one can overlook flaws in the fluff department.
Sadly I must say ... this game is piss easy. In 3 complete playthroughs of DS 2 I died 10 times. 8 times I missed a jump cause the controls are still shit for jumping. 1 time a boss cheapshoted me (the cheap ass rats in Tomb of Saints and their insta petrify bum rush. One firestorm later though ...). The last kill is the only one I consider legit: when freja first ambushed me on the cliff and caught me completly off guard and threw me off the cliff with a stomp. Note: I discounted PvP deaths here.
This game is too easy. The boses are either jokes or cheap pne trick ponnies that can get one ONCE at most (with minor exceptions) and can be cheesed way to simply. And when they are not blatantly stolen from previous soul games they are just lame. And the standard foes ... none of them is actualy a threat to you (not like the Black Knights and/or demons). They only become worthy of atention when they gank on you ... but you can easily bait them one by one and take them out that way. Plus in NG+ most standard enemies are at most a 3 shot from a particular weapon I like, and 1 shoted by any serious boss weapon. I had to resort to handicaping myself (like imposing rules like "no armor" or "only greatbow" for particular areas) in order to feeling challenged.
Fixing this is quite easy ... make the enemies actualy hard and the boses unique and engaging. Just get the guys who made the DS boses they can do it ... unless we are talking about the same guys in which case aparently Miyazaki was way more important to the project than anyone else.
5) PvP
Why From? Why must you be stupid and give into the japaneese curse of grinding? Why did you make this game so fucking grind-tastic to get certain items? Paradoxaly a game like DS where enemies allways respawned had verry few grinders. But in DS 2 where enemies are jokes and grinding is so easy is it any shock everyone grinds? And when I try to go into pvp and all I see is 838-ers with full Havel's and mundane (the holy grail of grinding scrubs with 0 skill) santier's spears, is it any wonder I chose to play the game offline and hack the PvP covenants to see their rewards? I hope they fixed this or that the scrubs went away and actualy decent people started to play like DS is ment to be played, as a duel of skill and wits.
But for me it's too late. I removed DS 2 from my computer today. I still have DS instaled and Gwin better whatch his sorry ass because I'm coming for him for the tenth time (finay reached 838 by normal playthroughs in DS not grind). And my old PS3 still has a disk with Demon's Souls laying around which I tend to boot up every now and then (or at partyes when I want to make a so called hardcore gamer of today shit his pants). But DS 2 ... I have a feeling this is not a game that will return to my HDD. And all I am left with is an empty void ... I WANT TO LOVE THIS GAME. I WANT TO SING IT PRAISE. I want to go out in front of my idiot cousin who is even now buying the latest twatellfield or modern borefare and slap him in the face with a DS 2 game box and tell him "THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE A SEQUEL AND AN AWESOME GAME FOR ACTUAL GAMERS" like I did with DS. But I can't. I just can't. This game broke me as a gamer ... it broke my heart to see the most dreaded disease ever, sequel syndrome, take over such majestic creature as Dark Souls.
And don't get me wrong ... even in it's curent state, this game is actualy alot better than what we usualy see. But to be one step above the shit still doesn't help with the stench or the sight of it ... and in the cracks of DS 2 I see the same ocean of shit that floods the gaming industry of today. I hope if there is ever is a DS 3 or Demon's Souls 2 or whatever that they get back Miyazaki, because else they should not make another one.
But that's just my opinion ... maybe some of you agree, maybe you felt diferently. I'm curious to see what people here think.
And at first I was having a blast. But as I played ... well ... it jsut stoped. I just realised I was booting the game out of duty, a religious duty to the Souls series to get everything in everygame. And I went through it one more time with a notebook and pen on the side, writing down my every thought as I took the game in without the fan glases on. And a deep deep sadness setled on me ... this was bad ... bad bad bad bad bad ...
Don't get me wrong: the bad of DS 2 is still leagues above 90% of the games that come out these days, but fuck me, that just makes me sader. For the pole I put up I fall in the "really want to love this game but just can't". It IS bad. From areas to bosses, to even the bloody story ... when they removed Miazaky they removed the Soul of the Souls series ... and what we have now is a generic, above average game with a Souls decal slapped on.
Let me get this straight: I have nothing against Miazaky for choosing to move on, I respect the man for not doing the same thing over and over. But by the same token, when Miazaky left, they should have come out and say: NO MORE DARK SOULS. You can't take something so heavily influenced by that one man and give it to some new guys and expect them to obtain the same results ... hell even expect them to at least get the same feeling. And while we are here: I like this game. I really do. But I just can't stop beeing sad at the stupid missed oportunities, bad design, lackluster lore and downright broken promises.
So without further beating around the bush, I will try to talk about what I found to be the worst aspects of DS 2 and how they could be improved from my point of view and I invite everyone to do the same. (oh and this will be a LONG post, be warned)
1) Map design
So we have Demon's Souls, where from a sanctuary outside space and time we travel to 5 lands taken by the fog: An underground empire, a once beatifull capital, a mountain lair of pagan worship, a tower of sadism, and a marsh of decay. All beatifully rendered and atmospheric. Kind of fragmentary considering those are all parts of one mai nkingdom, but nvm. Then we have Dark Souls: this game had an open-world that managed to retatin the atmospheric qualitites of deamon's while giving us a feeling of grandeur.
And then we have Dark Souls 2 ... where to start ... ok. First: open-world this is not. This is just as fragmentary as Demon's Soul: 1 hub, 4 paths, one of which splits into 3 at one point. No interconnected areas, no feel of several provinces and kingdoms that we trek. just 4 coridors with nice skyboxes. They really dropped the ball hard with this ... and the only thing I can say to fix it is this: make the world feel like one, with multiple paths, engaging area design and architecture ... not this bullshit.
2) The skyboxes don't even make sense ... and the coridors aren't even consistent ...
So most of you probably went to Heide's right? And then you go in a cave under the ocean floor and emerge in a harbour built in the side of a cliff ... whaaaaat? Heide had no place beeing there ... the Wharf needed to be accesible from Majula and maybe make it act like a hub for travelling to lads beyond Drangleic ... like the Bastille or the ruins of Heide. Actualy, while Bastile is actualy an area I enjoyed, almost all other areas feel rushed and underwhelming. Make Majula like the ruins of a central trading post/town of Drangleic, with No Man's Wharf the main trade harbour of Drangleic now overrun with pirates (areas would need to be bigger and actualy more like those in DS 1). And once the ship in the Wharf is ours we can navigate to the Bastille to hunt the Lost Sinner. But what if there are other lands beyond Drangleic? What if out at sea lie the ruins of a once mighty kingdom that also sought the secrets of souls, and in our quest in King Vendrick's footsteps we must travel to the sunken kingdom of Heide? Where you get the chance to do the ancient guardian warriors as well as maybe a sunken ruins type area with aquatic threats ... but also a Lighthouse/library type tower with flame based threats ... maybe we even get to fight a Kraken on our ship? I'm just saying ... beeing lazy and saying consoles can't handle it doesn;t excuse you ... there's a PC market and you can make the areas big and good looking and just give the consoles shit graphics to compensate.
Then we have the whole Iron King Coridor ... my god, does that ENTIRE AREA SUCK (give or take a chariot and maybe smelter if you are mele). First off: IT looks like shit with no connectivity between areas. Earthen Rise to Iron Keep is the worst offender in this aspect (lonely tower of dirt -> vertical elevator into thin air -> Volcano caldera ... fuck you From)but the entire area feels designed with the ass rather than the brain. The feel of it was ment to evoke a fallen kingdom ... well make it feel like that: make us enter from Majula into Harvest Valley and make that area look like a decayed poisoned farmland/marsh with maybe pits of flame in certain places ... make it feel like the rural area of a fallen kingdom. Then we move up to a looming volcano and begin our ascent into the Earthen Peak: A love fortress built into the mountain side guarding the only accesway into the Iron Keep and the Domain of the Old Iron King. This place is the home of the jelous and twisted Mytha, wife of the Old Iron King. We best her and move on into the Caldera proper: we walk of patches of solid lava, while rivers of the stuff flow around us and cracks in the earth let us see the lava below. And we aproach the imposing Iron Keep rising in the middle of a lake of lava. We cannot enter it though, we need to descend from it's entrance down another snaler path into a crater that holds what looks like a forest: Huntsman Corpse and the hunting groud where the Old Iron King hunted undead. We move through it and best the skeleton lords guarding it. My ideea of these guys would be them wandering around the forest with their retinue and each holding part of the key to the Undead Purgatory, the old iron king's "hunting cabin"/torture dungeon for undead if you will. We get the key to the Iron Keep there, then we can finaly enter it and best the king for his soul. And while we talked about Bastille and Iron Keep let's talk a little about the Bellfry Tower's shall we? Why are those areas in the game? Lore says they were used by the prince of Venn and the princess of Aken to comunicate/meet with eachother. So how about you actualy give us a point to go in those areas ... like maybe we can teleport between the two at the very least, or you can uncover more lore, or maybe they are home to some secret items/souls/bosses. Maybe all those things. That way the Bellbros can actualy have a job and players actualy have a reson to go in those areas ... and you can make another loop here with this pathway and the one of Lost Bastille
Now how about that whole domain of The Rotten? Once more, they dropped the ball hard on this one ... Grave of Saints is a quaint little area with some nice challenge and decor, plus a neat PvP mechanic to boot. The only problem is you can just skip it ... and that is just lame. Make it important, it's the grave of fucking saits god damn it! Give it a reason to exist! And no, rat lair does not count! Some expansiveness wouldn't hurt either, like a small Undead Crypt. Make it feel less like a corridor. And after that you descend into the dreaded Gutter ...
Let me take a moment to tell something to all of you, and to From software in particular: areas that are difficult to navigate are challenging and fun. We love those areas, we live for them. Wether it's precarious terrain, hazzards, enemies or any combination of, we love it. BUT a pitch black area where you can't see anything beyond torch range and what you can see is twigs, brown dirt and shit driping on the walls acompanied by generic easy to beat enemies and really easy to handle platforms with 1 jump needed in the entire level is just lazy, boring, a chore, not a challenge, fucking boring busy-work. I though the same of Tomb of Giants, but at least that had some fucking nice scenery to be found beyond the blackness ... and some unique enemies and nice platforming. Gutter has nothing ... the Gutter is exactly what you see on the walls of that place: shit dripping from the game onto your computer screen. It's not scary, it's not hard to navigate (for fucks sake I ran through Gutter without a Torch in 2 maybe 3 minutes with none of the useless enemies trying coming even remotly close to stoping or harming me), it doesn't even have a fucking bossfight ...
Nuke the Gutter from orbit I say. Remake that area from the ground up. honestly ... make it what it's name sugests: an underground shanty town, filled with poison and the failed experiments of Lord Aldia, a refuge for the discarded and forgoten, ripe with pestilence, decay and all things foul. AND FOR FUCKS SAKE DON'T TRY TO HIDE YOUR LAZYNESS BY TAKING OUT THE LIGHTS. Low/flickering/unreliable light=atmospheric, creepy and tense. No light at all=boring and lame. And give the area a boss for the sun's sake ... give it a horid abomination born in Lord Aldia's labs. You made the Gaping Dragon, I'm sure you can come up with something intimidating. And after we pass through the Gutter and witness it's decay we arive at the Black Gulch ... another area that needs a nuke in the face. When I first got through this area and saw the boss clip for the Rotten I actualy yelled out "What?! Was that it?!". This is where lazyness hit critical mass ... this area does not deserve to be in a Souls game. This should have been the lair of a great old one ... a lair of death and decay. Fucking DO SOMETHING with this are. Anything would be better than just another fucking pitch black area with green shit all over the place but the same boring brown and grey lack of identity. Make it ... IDK, I really want ideas here. I was thinking a gigantic lake of filth we have to navigate to the center of where the Rotten has his "court", in reality the decayed and filthy ruins of a keep/fort/anything. OR maybe make it so the arena of the Rotten is actualy alive: as in we fight in a throne room of corpses and they extend their hands to try and grab you. That would also make the fight alot easier (as oposed to lame out of nowhere fires in a area that has NOTHING TO DO WITH FIRE). Again maybe both these things.
Now ... Duke's Dear Freja and her deal ... what the fuck is that? Guys who made this game you wanted to paralel Seath right? As in a beeing so possesed of his obsesion for imortality that he abandons any rules and taboos and does horid unspeakable things in his madness. You know, like a certain friend of Vendrick who owns a mansion where horid things happen and experiments are beeing done on the living and dead alike. I think he was called Seath, I mean Aldia. Yeah Lord Aldia. So let me get this straight From: you make a guy that is word for word what Seath was for Gwin and paralel his story almost perfectly ... and the you stick a giant spider out of fucking nowhere with fuck all lore existing about her and give her the soul of Seath? WHAT THE FUCK? How about this From: how about Tsedora is Aldia's land (even let Freja there as a failed experiment) that we acces after crosing the shaded woods (at this point this will be a third major hub type area so the world will start feeling more like a world instead of a corridor). The Doors of Pharos ... I never really got that area, though remake it as an optional area that we keep hearing legends of great treasure/powerfull magic/secrets and sudenly every adventurer from here to Boletaria will want to visit it. A Magnificent flame to draw the moths into the jaws of the Ratbros. And after Tseldora and maybe the detour through the Doors of Pharos we arive at Aldia's castle and we move through his labs and finaly confront the mad and oddly extactic Aldia.
And about the Dragon Shrine and Dragon Aerie? Well, aren't the Dragon Riders Vendrick's elite and personal guard? Would it not make more sense for them and their main method of transportation (the Drakes) be closer to Vendrick's residence? Have them on top of a mountain near Drangleic Castle. Either accesible from the Shaded woods like now (but without the missplaced Aldia Castle) or from the Castle itself as yet another branching path. Also this an oportunity for a loop with the Dragon Aerie accesible from both Aldia's new location and Drangleic castle (Or maybe aldia has a path directly to the Dragon Shrine itself), just something.
And let's talk Drangleic castle ... ever since Boletaria Palace, From has been taking the idea of seat of an empire to lamer and lamer depths with every game. DOn;t get me wrong: I like Drangleic castle (wish we could explore more), but neither it nor Anor Londo can even hope to lift a candle to the massive palace complex of Boletaria. Which made sense and was a blast to explore and was full of personality and charm. Anor Londo had it's views and it's nice multy-level apeal along with a hopefull atmosphere brough on by the illusion of perpetual sunlight (the biggest rack in gaming helps too). Drangleic Castle feels like a generic european estate ... Neuschwanstein in videogame form. It ain't bad, just generic.
So what did I leave out in areas? Oh right: Amana, Crypt and Forest of Fallen Giants. WEll these areas are ok for the most part. The too linear complaint can be aplied to them too, but I like how they look and feel for the most part and all they need is some extra complexity and focus. Amana is the weakest IMO ... they wanted to go for a serene shrine to bring the undead peace and it's ok. But it just needs to be tighter and more like a place of rest defiled by invaders. Crypt needs to be less linear and more massive and complex (HEY FROM SOFTWARE? WANT A FREE TIP FOR A DANGEROUS AREA THAT CHALENGES THE PLAYERS? MAKE A FUCKING MAZE). If you ever visit a crypt IRL (a really old crypt from medieval times) you will see you can actualy get lost in one). And the FoFG? Eh it's ok.
3) Lore
My biggest problem here is not that the lore is ambigous or leaves details out. My problem with the lore here is that ... it just doesn't do anything! Either it does nothing or it's non-existant. Ambiguity (DS) is one thing that is actualy nice if you enjoy it. Obscurity for the sake of apearing deep and meaningfull is a load of bullshit (DS 2).
Unless we get a character going "Hey remember that thing you totaly played in Lordran? Oh well it's a distant legend from a faraway land, except it's totaly not we are referencing it constantly because nostalgia dolars." all we get is wasted oportunity after wasted oportunity.
The two lovers of Aken and Venn ... all we know is they existed and made the Bell's and the Bell Keepers. So we go to the Bells and ring them ... aaaaand nothing. We learn nothing, achieve nothing ...
The Rotten taking in all that is unwanted in Lordran, when I heard that I went ahed and stocked up on suplies thinking I will face all maner of abominations and freaks ... instead I get one shot hollows and 2 shot dogs, plus giant phalic wall things ... LAME.
Aldia and Vendrick's quest for understanding the undead curse and beating it. "Our Lord made magnificent findings on souls" ... ummm yeah. Like what? The Golems? Neah, those were built using whatever he stole from the giants (we still know not what that is). So what DID he discover? Maybe that souls taste minty fresh ...
Aldia and his quest for imortality through the secrets of ancient dragons. It LOOKS like he succeded, but then again maybe that ancient dragon was allways there, one of the few survivors of gwins campaign. Maybe it's Aldia himself. Maybe it's a rat Aldia transformed through accident into a dragon. There is nothing here ...
DS gives us hints to it's lore and put's it to use in the game and story (like in the Artorias DLC to name the most obvious example). It uses it to create a living breathing world. DS 2 just through some vague obscure shit at you pretending it's deep and interesting ...
I may have missed things but honestly when you bore me so much with pointless bullshit, you hve failed.
They way to fix the lore ... that is a bit beyond me. I guess all I can say here is make it matter ... make the lore you actualy bothered to write instead of steal from DS actualy matter to the story, instead of it beeing a decal for the DS 1 retread theme park.
4)Foes
Ok, so the fluff of DS 2 has problems ... but hey, Demon's wasn't the most complex plot in the world (though it had some deep and emotional moments). If the crunch is good, one can overlook flaws in the fluff department.
Sadly I must say ... this game is piss easy. In 3 complete playthroughs of DS 2 I died 10 times. 8 times I missed a jump cause the controls are still shit for jumping. 1 time a boss cheapshoted me (the cheap ass rats in Tomb of Saints and their insta petrify bum rush. One firestorm later though ...). The last kill is the only one I consider legit: when freja first ambushed me on the cliff and caught me completly off guard and threw me off the cliff with a stomp. Note: I discounted PvP deaths here.
This game is too easy. The boses are either jokes or cheap pne trick ponnies that can get one ONCE at most (with minor exceptions) and can be cheesed way to simply. And when they are not blatantly stolen from previous soul games they are just lame. And the standard foes ... none of them is actualy a threat to you (not like the Black Knights and/or demons). They only become worthy of atention when they gank on you ... but you can easily bait them one by one and take them out that way. Plus in NG+ most standard enemies are at most a 3 shot from a particular weapon I like, and 1 shoted by any serious boss weapon. I had to resort to handicaping myself (like imposing rules like "no armor" or "only greatbow" for particular areas) in order to feeling challenged.
Fixing this is quite easy ... make the enemies actualy hard and the boses unique and engaging. Just get the guys who made the DS boses they can do it ... unless we are talking about the same guys in which case aparently Miyazaki was way more important to the project than anyone else.
5) PvP
Why From? Why must you be stupid and give into the japaneese curse of grinding? Why did you make this game so fucking grind-tastic to get certain items? Paradoxaly a game like DS where enemies allways respawned had verry few grinders. But in DS 2 where enemies are jokes and grinding is so easy is it any shock everyone grinds? And when I try to go into pvp and all I see is 838-ers with full Havel's and mundane (the holy grail of grinding scrubs with 0 skill) santier's spears, is it any wonder I chose to play the game offline and hack the PvP covenants to see their rewards? I hope they fixed this or that the scrubs went away and actualy decent people started to play like DS is ment to be played, as a duel of skill and wits.
But for me it's too late. I removed DS 2 from my computer today. I still have DS instaled and Gwin better whatch his sorry ass because I'm coming for him for the tenth time (finay reached 838 by normal playthroughs in DS not grind). And my old PS3 still has a disk with Demon's Souls laying around which I tend to boot up every now and then (or at partyes when I want to make a so called hardcore gamer of today shit his pants). But DS 2 ... I have a feeling this is not a game that will return to my HDD. And all I am left with is an empty void ... I WANT TO LOVE THIS GAME. I WANT TO SING IT PRAISE. I want to go out in front of my idiot cousin who is even now buying the latest twatellfield or modern borefare and slap him in the face with a DS 2 game box and tell him "THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE A SEQUEL AND AN AWESOME GAME FOR ACTUAL GAMERS" like I did with DS. But I can't. I just can't. This game broke me as a gamer ... it broke my heart to see the most dreaded disease ever, sequel syndrome, take over such majestic creature as Dark Souls.
And don't get me wrong ... even in it's curent state, this game is actualy alot better than what we usualy see. But to be one step above the shit still doesn't help with the stench or the sight of it ... and in the cracks of DS 2 I see the same ocean of shit that floods the gaming industry of today. I hope if there is ever is a DS 3 or Demon's Souls 2 or whatever that they get back Miyazaki, because else they should not make another one.
But that's just my opinion ... maybe some of you agree, maybe you felt diferently. I'm curious to see what people here think.
