Poll: Dark Souls 2 - How a series looses it's charm

[IFS]

I've had a somewhat similar though not quite as harsh experience with the game, I'm currently feeling pretty burned out on it (with one game in NG++ and another where I did a cosplay run of the lost sinner, together totaling about 170 hours of playtime) and my general opinion is that while its a really good game its not that great a successor to Dark Souls. There are a number of improvements especially in regards to the PVP, but there are also a lot of changes that I have mixed feelings about and some I even outright dislike. It definitely has inferior world and level design compared to the previous games in the series, and enemy and boss design is fairly lacking as well. It is harder imo than Dark Souls or Demon's Souls, but that's more because they throw lots of enemies at you all (or do other nasty tricks like the homing magic bolts in the Cove and Shrine) at once more often than the previous games ever did, which does make it harder but not really any more interesting. The lore does have a few interesting points but outside of those failed to hold my attention like the previous two games (I actually went into the game intending to write a journal of my travels and piece lore together in it, but I gave up on it shortly after finishing the Bastile) and the rich atmosphere the series is known for isn't there in most areas. Some areas especially that I want to like just don't have enough going for them, like the undead crypt where I was interested in gradually seeing how the parties of adventurers who set themselves against it fell and became its guardians, but the area is really short and has about one difficult area where it just drops you in a room with a dozen pyromancers.

Overall I do like the game a lot and certainly got my moneys worth from it, and I may at some point go back to it (especially if I can convince some friends to pick it up for coop) but its easily the weakest of the Souls series for me, and in many ways a disappointment. On the plus side Project Beast seems exciting to me, since its Miyazaki's (apologies if I misspelled his name) next project and Dark Souls originally was titled Project Dark so it may be another game in the souls vein, so if nothing else I've got that to look forward to.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

On the thorny issue of Amana as a pure mele: YOU MUST HAVE SOME BLOODY DEXTERITY ... at worst just use a shortbow and replicate the skyrim: gets shot with arrow, looks around for 2 seconds proceeds to stand there saying it was nothing trick from long range on every single one of the casters. It works. Amana is cake, especialy if you have lighning arrows.

If you use a bow it's no longer PURE MELEE. Dark Souls 2 is the first game in the Souls series to force me to go ranged for a area, even if i don't want to.

However what I ment when I said this game is a joke in the dificulty department was that compared to Dark the first and Demon's boses and enemies in this game are easy.

Demon's Souls bosses were much easier than both Dark Souls games with the exception of maybe Maneaters, Flamelurker and False King. Dark Souls 2 has a lot of easy bosses as well, but then there are those where it throws an army of up to 6 bosses at you or Pursuer, who barely leaves you time to heal after you get hit, not to mention all the oneshot kills.

And someone said verry few healing items at start and no instant regen ... DS 1 didn;t have instant regen either, but DS 1 only had the Estus which were worth a crap. Considering in DS 2 in the first are you go from majula (forest) you find a merchant with an infinite suply of lifegems, I would not say this game has few healing items. Oh, and you don't start with 1 estus. In majula you can find a estus shard and get 2 estus right from the start. When you return from the forest you get another estus shard in majula and you also have the one from the forest you have a grand total of 4 estus after one area. 1 easy to beat joke boss fight area. Considering an estus can heal ALOT of health, especialy when you also hunt down Sublime Bonedust ... yeah. DS 2 has, IMO, way to many ways to heal yourself. Honestly a Faith build can have heal miracles, 3 tyes of lifegems, estus, rouge water, monastery charms, divine blessings, elizabeth mushrooms, 2 types of smooth and silky stones, Crimson Water and dragon charms ... yeah. Also Warmth pyromancy if he is a faith intel hybrid. AND some of those on the list offer instant hp recovery (the silky stones, waters, charms, some miracles) and that the divine blessing is an instant full hp cures all status effects wonder ... healing is DS 2 is piss easy.

Most of what you are mentioning are items you only get in as you proceed further in the game. I was talking of the start of the game. Unlike Dark Souls 1 it's entirely possible to run past the Estus flasks too, i only found their npc after beating pursuer. The stones are much weaker and are only useful as an emergency heal if you manage to run away long enough, thanks to the slow regeneration.

Yes, later you get much more ways to heal yourself, but even they are limited in their nature since DaS2 does everything to stop you from farming

6 boses at once? huh? The most you get is 3 in the Ruin Sentinel fight and even then you can basicaly take them one at a time by waiting on the first platform and if your dps is high enough. Else the top number of boses you face at one time is 2: dual pursuers in throne room behind Wellanger in NG+, dual Dragonriders in Drangleic Castle, Watcher&Defender, Darklurker and Darklurker clone. 3 for the Ruin Sentinels (and 5 if you are dumb enough in one particular area of Drangleic Castle and open all the doors at once but that isn't a boss fight and you can easily skip it or do them one at a time). The ONLY bosses in DS 2 that actualy are you vs many are these: Skeleton Lords, where every skeleton is basicaly a one shot and the lords are 3 shots, plus in the time they take to come down from the thrones and before their retinue starts attacking you can easily cream one or 2 of them; Magus and Congregation, where every undead on the congregation is a one shot pile of shambling slow flesh on the floor that has 0 chances to hit you if you just move through the arena, the 2 healers are 3 shots and insta staggers, the magus can take a few hits, but when you get to him he is alone and he is again instantly staggered, plus you have Bernhart to help out; Belfry Gargoyles: 8 of the DS 1 Gargoyles teamed up on you. 2 ways to do the fight: either you dps them as they spawn and will face 2 at a time at most, or you let the maximum of 4 that spawn at once activate and then play the Benny Hill music as the piles of rock trip over eachother and interupt eachother's attacks trying to get to you. Oh and if you didn't know: you can dodge or block every single hit of the pursuer with a 100% phis block shield ... just block everything, roll the blue blade and he can't do shit. As for the one-shots: not hard, cheap. And about every one shot boss can be cheesed (Ancient Dragon is more like the Hellkite of the first game: intimidating to look at, but piss easy to kill: go hit him till the fight stars, then ancient fether out to avoid that cheap bullshit one shot he allways does when you first attack him (or just shake your ass at him with Gower's Ring on, or quit and reload), come back through the fog gate and he will be standing on his legs in the center platform and imediatly do a cone breath at you: run to the side and towards his legs and start hacking, avoiding stomps. Whe he flies up run towards his tail, then when he lads dodge the punny cone breath and keep hacking the legs. Voila: he can't touch you and he will be dead in a matter of minutes)

As for the bow in amana no longer pure mele: Ok, I'll play: get a 100% magic block shield. Problem solved. Or just ... roll when the magic missle gets close? Honestly I expected amana to be on the level of Sen's Fortress the way I heard people bitchiing about it ... it is not even close. It felt more like a stroll through Seath's bathroom ... easy and relaxing. All I had to do was just keep r2 preeses and just spin towards the missles as i advanced util the casters were in staby distance. In fact most of the time in this game I simply held r2 and moved forward, ocasionaly r1-ing when something was in staby distance of my rulers sword (previously drangleic sword) and later moonlight sword.

wait: you mean to tell me that you never spoke with the herald in majula when you first played? Because if you do speak to her she tells you to bring her estus shards so she can give you more estus (literaly one of the first things she says after handing you the estus flask). And you never saw she can upgrade your stats, until you beat the pursuer? It bogles my mind how you can say you missed the Estus NPC until you beat the pursuer when she is the first fucking NPC you see in Majula, gives you your first Estus, tells you she can upgrade it, tells you lore and what each char in majula does and has a menu where the options are: Level up, Strenghten Estus Flask, Talk and Leave. This isn't on the game beeing hard, it's on you beeing blind. And estus in this game is fucking insane with how much it can heal and how fast (there is a reason PvP sucks beyond the grinding scrubs with full havelss and santier's plus dual avelyns and that is the fact the estus heals WAY to much HP and you can use it in the fucking arena). And while in majula you can get the Twin Dragoncrest Greatshield from the armored with 95% phis block that makes Forest a fucking joke area.

 

[lapan]

snip

I meant the Gargoyles with 6 bosses at once. I never personally left them alive long enough to get more than 3, so i didnt know that they have a 4 at once limit.

Regarding Amana: Their aggro range is so big you usually get up to 3 to target you at once. While i attacked one of them usually at least one of the others got a shot in at me. Water slowing you down everywhere and said area in front of the foggate didn't help either.

I first ran past the Herald entirely and didnt notice her. When i arrived at the pursuer and still didnt have estus or a way to level i backtracked and searched Majula until i finally found her. I'm not the only one who this happened to either, i had to remind a friend to go back and get his estus roughly at last giant.

Maybe you had less problems with the game or are better at it than me, but for me personally it still felt overall harder than either of the other Souls games.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

So far I'm enjoying this one more than the first. That's mostly because I played both on PC and DS2 is a substantially better port than the first one (horrific that one). In fact, I couldn't play the first one for long because the controls were just too bad.

Although I'm only somewhat in the process of getting *into* the second game, I'll also echo the critique that it's a slugfest at first, that goes for DS1 too.

Also, the difficulty is somewhat artificial. The first hours of the game were hard sure, but now that I've got some equipment I'm pretty much roflstomping everything. It's still much harder than most games, but not anywhere near true super hard skill-based games (I'm looking at platformers like Cloudbuilt).
But who knows, perhaps the game will suddenly start faceplanting me again, I haven't finished it by a long shot.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Note that From is not averse to patching games later. Dark Souls had quite a few balance patches to cut down on OP builds.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

I love Dark Souls in general.

Plusses and Minusses:

Yes, I felt more immersed with some of the NPCs in DS1, but on the other hand it's nice to see Majula getting somehow populated again. They could have made the stories a bit clearer though...or simply: "more of it".

Covenants weren't that interesting in DS1 (to me at least), they are much better in DS2. But still some the stuff like being a Blue Sentinel doesn't really work the way it should. But I am sure they will get that even better with the next one.

I always play some kind of mage and it is kinda "better" to use stamina to cast, otherwise it's just too easy as it was in DS1. And how they implemented dark magic as hexes in DS2 is nice. Let alone the fluff of ringing Chimes for some hexes and all miracles is so AWESOME in my oppinion. It really now has a divine flavor to it.

Some of the bosses feel quite copied from old ones but then again there is only so much you can do there. I am not as excited by most of the bosses as in DS1 but then again the reason for that could be, that it is simply DS2 and therefore not as "new" to me as when I played the first one.

 

[Coruptin]

Let's talk about how soul memory is killing PvP or how there is no incentive to invade making three of the covenants functionally obsolete.

Hahahaha you rekt us good from ;-;

 

[michael87cn]

DS2... yeah its odd. I like the combat system better. Backstabs, parry etc. are much harder to pull off, so PvP should be more fun. But the level design and the lore feel kinda meh. The enemies are all really cool and fun to fight though, and I enjoyed all of the boss fights. It's fun going through the game as melee, then archer, then magic and finding different ways to take down the bosses.

However, one major problem for me is the online seems to have simply broken on me. On launch week, I saw plenty of summon signs, (never got invaded once, though...) and enjoyed some jolly cooperation. However, several days later? No summons signs appeared for me, no matter how many new characters I made. I even tried putting down my own summon signs to work on sunbro covenant but couldn't get summoned no matter where I put it down. I'm not sure why but online just doesn't work anymore. I connect to the server fine, I can see phantoms walking around and such, but I played through the game like 7 times since launch and I never got invaded once, and I never got summoned for anything I tried to, (and I tried many times) and I never saw anymore summon signs. It sucks because I was hoping to get to fight off invaders...

People told me it gets fixed in Ng+ but I made it to NG++++ and still had this problem. I wasn't in the covenant of champions, I didn't burn anything at a bonfire to disable online, and I had allow cross region on.

 

[joest01]

I agree that the atmosphere and story is lacking and I am thoroughly pissed off they didn't take the pvp to the next level (i.e. I want to set up my own covenant, allowing and disallowing gear, set up rules, arenas etc.) but man from a pure gameplay perspective this one is just better, much better, than the previous games.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

This 50min YT vid [http://youtu.be/UScsme8didI] says it all:

[youtube]UScsme8didI[/youtube]

I voted Betrayal, btw. As Matthewmatosis explains, it feels like a game made by people who didn't understand what made Dark Souls work so well (or feel so unique).

But, ultimately, it's all subjective. I adored Dark Souls - and abandoned its sequel.

 

[Skin]

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were a labor of love. The amount of detail that went into everything is mind blowing. Having gone back to DkS, I was in awe at how much detail went into many of the animations that simply wasn't there in DkS2.

DkS2 is an inferior title for sure. It's bland and boring. It didn't improve on much at all, the only things it really did improve upon were just for convenience, but even then there are glaring omissions. I really have to rack my brain to try and think where DkS2 improved upon DkS and I really would like to see some responses as to what people think was improved in the second game (apart from the framerate).

Honestly, I don't think I will play Dark Souls 2 for a long time. The MatthewMatosis critique is spot on and I think there are still alot of points he missed. The biggest point I agree with him on is how they wanted to recreate a Miyazaki game, but also make a new game, and it ended up being a mess. They should have stuck with the tried and true formula, or done something completely new in which case my criticisms wouldn't be as severe. They wanted to eat their cake and have it too.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Truth be told...I'm enjoying DS2 a lot more than DS1. I have a love-hate relationship with the original Dark Souls (never played Demons'), but since the "love" part was entirely for the combat, which I find vastly improved in DS2, it's not much of a comparison. For the rest, all DS1 had was a bunch of mostly-unimpressive environments (except Ash Lake), painful exploration, a load of backstory in place of actual plot, no anchoring characterization, a bunch of NPCs off having adventures of their own that you barely interact with, and a lack of context so powerful it managed to irrevocably shatter my immersion halfway through. I only mustered the will to finish the game out of pure stubbornness, because something that difficult would not defeat me. And the cherry on top was that the DLC, which by reputation would have solved most of my issues, had such an unintuitive method of access that even the wiki couldn't tell me how to reach it.

The weird thing is, DS2 doesn't necessarily improve much on that, but the little it did made all the difference. Suddenly, I know what I'm doing and why from the very start, so I don't have to read a paragraph-by-paragraph world guide through the item descriptions and pretend they have something to do with me. I have NPCs I like and who won't necessarily wind up as shaggy dog stories where I euthanize them in the end (though admittedly, I wish I had another non-summon recurring character like Siegmeyer). I have an area whose design I really like (Majula), and a reason and method to visit there often. The death mechanic is more unforgiving, but in a way that makes it feel like a story, rather than just a gameplay anti-grinding tool. The mechanics in general, I would describe as "more forgiving," which I see as unambiguously positive (especially regarding leveling, the suddenly intuitive weapon upgrades, and the option of respeccing).

Now granted, I've not completed the game yet (got impatient to try new things, so I'm currently running three characters at once...and unlike DS1, when I did the same thing, I'm finding them all equally fun). Maybe once I get all four greater souls, the game will start to suck. Given some of the things I've heard, though, I seriously doubt it. More likely I'm going to continue feeling like I'm actually part of the world, rather than just, as Yahtzee put it, "some fuck with a halberd" (yes, I realize he had the opposite opinion; the wording still works). I wouldn't call this GotY material, but my minor issues aren't preventing me from enjoying it a lot.

 

[lassiie]

I am sure someone has mentioned it, but honestly, how does anyone expect Dark Souls to be difficult ever again. I never played Demons Souls and Dark Souls was my introduction to the series. It kicked my ass. I started playing and quit that game at least 3 times before I figured it out. It is honestly not a hard game. Nor was Dark Souls 2. The hard part of the game is learning a new mentality on how to approach situations. As a gaming population we have become used to being SOOOOO overpowered in games that for most games you can run through every area without once contemplating how many enemies they are, what type of enemies they are, how much area you have to fight in, whether or not you can dodge and on and on and on. Dark Souls was the first game that made me take every encounter seriously. After that, the game became easy. Dark Souls 2 is ridiculously easy because I learned everything I needed from the first. I honestly don't know how people expect to be challenged again by the Souls series unless they completely change the mechanics.

One more thing, another reason Dark Souls was hard was because you had to figure out every stat yourself. I got 3/4 of the way through my first play through before I even realized what Poise was. Now everything is explained in Dark Souls 2, which isn't a bad thing, its just one less thing you have to figure out yourself.

Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 are each good on their own merits. I personally have been having a blast with Dark Souls 2 experimenting with all the boss weapons. Compared to Dark Souls where it was basically MLGS/Katana for 95% of the people. The variety of weapons in Dark Souls 2 is a treat.

 

[joest01]

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were a labor of love. The amount of detail that went into everything is mind blowing. Having gone back to DkS, I was in awe at how much detail went into many of the animations that simply wasn't there in DkS2.

DkS2 is an inferior title for sure. It's bland and boring. It didn't improve on much at all, the only things it really did improve upon were just for convenience, but even then there are glaring omissions. I really have to rack my brain to try and think where DkS2 improved upon DkS and I really would like to see some responses as to what people think was improved in the second game (apart from the framerate).

Honestly, I don't think I will play Dark Souls 2 for a long time. The MatthewMatosis critique is spot on and I think there are still alot of points he missed. The biggest point I agree with him on is how they wanted to recreate a Miyazaki game, but also make a new game, and it ended up being a mess. They should have stuck with the tried and true formula, or done something completely new in which case my criticisms wouldn't be as severe. They wanted to eat their cake and have it too.

The MatthewMethdosis critique is a nitpicky rant by somebody who can't deal with the game. He cant handle the congregation or dual dragonriders? Please... Those are easy not only by Souls standards.

I said above that the lore and atmosphere in DsK2 is lacking. And the pvp is an opportunity missed. But honestly, both applies mostly in comparison to Demon's. Dark souls pvp was crap and the story and levels of the second half were completely dialed in. Outside of O&S there was not a single memorable boss in DkS1.

The reviewer has obviously never played Demons anyways, since the consequence of going hollow weren't gradual there. You lost half your health. Period. Unless you wear the ring. Like in DkS2.

The "hit boxes" are an issue. But mostly on overhead attacks. Notably Velstadt, Rotten and the turtles. In most other cases it is more a combination of laser like tracking and limited i-frames. The latter can be fixed by pumping ADP. After getting ADP to 20 you will find that the mechanics in DkS2 are are more refined than in the previous games.

And dual wielding is back and much improved.

And btw most of the weapons are very good. So pumping an early weapon is by no means a waste. You can go through the game with the clubs from the hag.

So, like I said. Lore and story wise it is lacking. But so was Dark1. This is actually more consistent and actually gets more interesting towards the end, when the story all comes together. Compared to Demon's it's aDan Brown Novel vs Demons Hemingway. But at heart the Souls games are about gameplay. And thats where this one is just really really good.

If you time your rolls that is Holding your shield up will not get you through this one.

 

[WWmelb]

I voted "really like, have some issues" but it's closer to "love it, despite the issues" Same with Demon's and Dark Souls 1.

I do feel i need to call bullshit on your claim that on your first play through you only died twice in the whole game to enemies. Once to the rat boss, and once to Freja on the cliff face, which is new game plus

I call bullshit on that unless you played through the entire game with a walkthrough/guide or skipped a LOT of optional stuff, though you claim to have gone through it all absolutely thoroughly, which leads me to believe that if your claim of two deaths for the entirety of NG and NG+ is true, then you must have read a lot of guide material and watched a lot of walkthrough vids before or during your own play through, in which case it all being a piece of cake is really your own fault.

And yes, i know you said you weren't counting invaders.

For example, i don't think i could believe anyone who said they one shot the Ancient Dragon without having studied a LOT of videos on the fight first. Even if they summoned help.

I also don't believe many people would have one shot Vendrick without reading guides first, and learning about the giant souls. Yeah the fight is pretty easy and his moves are easy to dodge, but yeah, if you fight him as soon as you get to him, with at most ONE giant soul, i honestly doubt it. I survived for the durability of three weapons on him on my first attempt, hitting him for around 8 damage at a time... I dunno, just seems doubtful that you pulled it off. Maybe you were lucky and didn't attack him straight away... and lucked out going back after you had obtained the giant souls.

One other part i find hard to believe that many, if any people pulled off on the first try, given that you said you explored thoroughly, is the 4 fat scythe wielder ambush in Harvest Valley. Maybe you did, but it's unlikely.

All up, i just generally call bullshit on your claim of 2 deaths only from the game, and 8 from missing jumps. There aren't even that many difficult jumps to make in the game from my memory. Only two that i can think of that were remotely tricky. The one if you want to get the Token of Fidelity in huntsman's copse early, and the one on the pillar in iron keep. Both of which are easy if you do them at the right time, but yeah, 8 deaths from bad jumping? That's a lot dude lol

Anyways, i appreciate that at least you have played the games, no i wasn't left with the wonder that i had from Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, yes i found it overall a little easier but i attribute that to the countless hours of training i had on the previous two games, but i honestly believe you MAY be stretching them truths just a little bit.

Regardless of flaws, it is a finely crafted game and is a hell of a lot of fun.

 

[Piorn]

Went to the top of a windmill, took the elevator up, arrived in a lava castle. Story of my life.

But really the gameplay is still solid and the game is great, wonky geography aside.

 

[joest01]

3) Lore

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.

I call BS on this too. There is nothing here that doesn't apply to the previous games too. Of course you die to the squid casters in Demon's when you first meet them. Then you learn them and they become easy. Of course you die to your first black knight in Dark1, then you know what youre up against and bam, easy. I cannot believe that even the most careful explorer doesn't die to the exploding mummies in DkS2 at least once. Likely way more. Or the dragons in The Aerie before you learn their patterns.

And the mace knights in the Shrine? Or the guys in the golden armor on the stairs? Way tougher than anything in Dark1. Sorry.

I guess you can easy mode a lot of the game using hexes and flame swather (though this has been fixed now I believe). But do me a favor, uninstall the DkS1 fixes from your drive, start the game over, hold a strong weapon in your right hand and the crystal shield in your left and behold how easy that game was to cheese. Even O&S are a joke with it.

Speaking of. They were the only fun boss in that game. The DLC fixed that. But DkS2 actually has much better bosses than 1. How they are easier to you I will never understand. And that you didn't die to sinner in NG+ pre fix is unlikely. Or maybe the PC version comes with nerfed ng+ sinner and sentry and buffed NPCs? But even the gargoyles on ng+ put up a fight. unlike Dark 1.

Anyhoo, I share some of your sentiments. But they drown in the poison of your random ranting.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

3) Lore

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.

I call BS on this too. There is nothing here that doesn't apply to the previous games too. Of course you die to the squid casters in Demon's when you first meet them. Then you learn them and they become easy. Of course you die to your first black knight in Dark1, then you know what youre up against and bam, easy. I cannot believe that even the most careful explorer doesn't die to the exploding mummies in DkS2 at least once. Likely way more. Or the dragons in The Aerie before you learn their patterns.

And the mace knights in the Shrine? Or the guys in the golden armor on the stairs? Way tougher than anything in Dark1. Sorry.

I guess you can easy mode a lot of the game using hexes and flame swather (though this has been fixed now I believe). But do me a favor, uninstall the DkS1 fixes from your drive, start the game over, hold a strong weapon in your right hand and the crystal shield in your left and behold how easy that game was to cheese. Even O&S are a joke with it.

Speaking of. They were the only fun boss in that game. The DLC fixed that. But DkS2 actually has much better bosses than 1. How they are easier to you I will never understand. And that you didn't die to sinner in NG+ pre fix is unlikely. Or maybe the PC version comes with nerfed ng+ sinner and sentry and buffed NPCs? But even the gargoyles on ng+ put up a fight. unlike Dark 1.

Anyhoo, I share some of your sentiments. But they drown in the poison of your random ranting.

Well you probably didn't read my post entirely or my opinions made you angry (happens alot with people) but I specificaly said this wasn't a rant and more an opinion piece inviting discusion. With that said allow me to tackle your points one by one and explain how DS 1 was way harder to beat than DS 2.

About the squid casters and Black Knights: sure, you die once and know what you are up against, HOWEVER the squids and the Black Knights still remain powerfull enemies that need a certain level of skill and effort to beat. Is it worth bringing up the Titanite and Capra Demons in DS 1? Of course I knew what they were about after I got killed the first time. And then I came back and they stil lwere hard and took effort to beat. By contrast:

The mumies: how can you die to something that is a one hit kill? Or that you can simply dodge roll when they dive you and take 0 dmg? In gutter they can tae you off the bridge, but you just run back to the platform when you see them coming because they spawn in front of you and not behind like an ambush.

The Aerie dragons: except you allready know their patters: they are carbon copies of Guardian Dragon, a boss you had to defeat to get to the Aerie ... and the Guardian Dragon is cake coming from Red&Blue, Hellkite, Undead and Kalameet.

By mace kngihts I asume you mean the large hulking Drakekeepers in Dragon Shrine: Old Knights remix: 100 phys block shield if mele, if range they are so slow and easy to kite they will never even come close to you.

Golden Kngiht on stairs ... this one got me confused. If Syan Knights ... really dude? they are weak as crap, easy to dodge dudes in armor with no real unique abilities. What is so hard? IF the guys in Dragon Shrine at the end of then stairs: I can see your point as they can easily stagger and stun lock you: however they bounce back of a great shield, and are just as easily to stagger as you are to them. So just grab a gratshield&spear/rapier and you can cruise through Dragon Shrine. For ranged: they seem to be vulnerable to lighning alot, and you can just use a normal shield to parry stun them when they get close.

I wasn't talking about fun boses, I was talking about hard. Fun can even be a boss you can just camp in corner and he can;t hit you but you can rape him (Old Iron King) because you can laugh at it's incompetence. I was talking specificaly about hard and unique boss fights like Gaping Dragon, O&S, The Four Kings, Bed of Chaos, Old Hero, Dragon God, Dark Sun Gwindolin, etc. The only fight I still remember from DS 2 is the Darklurker because that was the only one that consistently wouldn't just let me cruise control through it. Lost Sinner ng+? what the phantoms? 1-you can light the room so tracking works, 2-sinner is still easy to block 3- get red eye ring and let lucatiel kill the phantoms, if solo just kill them yourself. They never throw any imposible to dodge attacks and they have big downtimes between casts.

The Gargoyles are hard if they are 2 or 3, trip over eachother and can;t finish their moves if you let 4 spawn and then AOE them to oblivion (caster strategy) and can be dps-es down as they spawn so you only have 1 at a time (mele and range). For mele builds I found the Drakewing Ultra Greatsword's 2 handed R2 ruins boses like crazy if both blade and projectile connect.

like I said: I found this game to be way to easy to beat even after 3 complete playthroughs through it as a pure mele character who got a bow in his second playthrough (Dragonslayer Greatbow for the record). But if all else fails you this game's biggest gripe with me is the ease with which you can get to level 838 ... just farm Memory of Jeigh (the one with the Giant Lord can't emember the proper name) with ascetics and in about 12 hours tops you will be lvl 838 with 99 in every stat and then the game is just a joke ... did this after NG++ and then finaly uninstaled the game

 

[joest01]

3) Lore

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.

I call BS on this too. There is nothing here that doesn't apply to the previous games too. Of course you die to the squid casters in Demon's when you first meet them. Then you learn them and they become easy. Of course you die to your first black knight in Dark1, then you know what youre up against and bam, easy. I cannot believe that even the most careful explorer doesn't die to the exploding mummies in DkS2 at least once. Likely way more. Or the dragons in The Aerie before you learn their patterns.

And the mace knights in the Shrine? Or the guys in the golden armor on the stairs? Way tougher than anything in Dark1. Sorry.

I guess you can easy mode a lot of the game using hexes and flame swather (though this has been fixed now I believe). But do me a favor, uninstall the DkS1 fixes from your drive, start the game over, hold a strong weapon in your right hand and the crystal shield in your left and behold how easy that game was to cheese. Even O&S are a joke with it.

Speaking of. They were the only fun boss in that game. The DLC fixed that. But DkS2 actually has much better bosses than 1. How they are easier to you I will never understand. And that you didn't die to sinner in NG+ pre fix is unlikely. Or maybe the PC version comes with nerfed ng+ sinner and sentry and buffed NPCs? But even the gargoyles on ng+ put up a fight. unlike Dark 1.

Anyhoo, I share some of your sentiments. But they drown in the poison of your random ranting.

Well you probably didn't read my post entirely or my opinions made you angry (happens alot with people) but I specificaly said this wasn't a rant and more an opinion piece inviting discusion. With that said allow me to tackle your points one by one and explain how DS 1 was way harder to beat than DS 2.

About the squid casters and Black Knights: sure, you die once and know what you are up against, HOWEVER the squids and the Black Knights still remain powerfull enemies that need a certain level of skill and effort to beat. Is it worth bringing up the Titanite and Capra Demons in DS 1? Of course I knew what they were about after I got killed the first time. And then I came back and they stil lwere hard and took effort to beat. By contrast:

The mumies: how can you die to something that is a one hit kill? Or that you can simply dodge roll when they dive you and take 0 dmg? In gutter they can tae you off the bridge, but you just run back to the platform when you see them coming because they spawn in front of you and not behind like an ambush.

The Aerie dragons: except you allready know their patters: they are carbon copies of Guardian Dragon, a boss you had to defeat to get to the Aerie ... and the Guardian Dragon is cake coming from Red&Blue, Hellkite, Undead and Kalameet.

By mace kngihts I asume you mean the large hulking Drakekeepers in Dragon Shrine: Old Knights remix: 100 phys block shield if mele, if range they are so slow and easy to kite they will never even come close to you.

Golden Kngiht on stairs ... this one got me confused. If Syan Knights ... really dude? they are weak as crap, easy to dodge dudes in armor with no real unique abilities. What is so hard? IF the guys in Dragon Shrine at the end of then stairs: I can see your point as they can easily stagger and stun lock you: however they bounce back of a great shield, and are just as easily to stagger as you are to them. So just grab a gratshield&spear/rapier and you can cruise through Dragon Shrine. For ranged: they seem to be vulnerable to lighning alot, and you can just use a normal shield to parry stun them when they get close.

I wasn't talking about fun boses, I was talking about hard. Fun can even be a boss you can just camp in corner and he can;t hit you but you can rape him (Old Iron King) because you can laugh at it's incompetence. I was talking specificaly about hard and unique boss fights like Gaping Dragon, O&S, The Four Kings, Bed of Chaos, Old Hero, Dragon God, Dark Sun Gwindolin, etc. The only fight I still remember from DS 2 is the Darklurker because that was the only one that consistently wouldn't just let me cruise control through it. Lost Sinner ng+? what the phantoms? 1-you can light the room so tracking works, 2-sinner is still easy to block 3- get red eye ring and let lucatiel kill the phantoms, if solo just kill them yourself. They never throw any imposible to dodge attacks and they have big downtimes between casts.

The Gargoyles are hard if they are 2 or 3, trip over eachother and can;t finish their moves if you let 4 spawn and then AOE them to oblivion (caster strategy) and can be dps-es down as they spawn so you only have 1 at a time (mele and range). For mele builds I found the Drakewing Ultra Greatsword's 2 handed R2 ruins boses like crazy if both blade and projectile connect.

like I said: I found this game to be way to easy to beat even after 3 complete playthroughs through it as a pure mele character who got a bow in his second playthrough (Dragonslayer Greatbow for the record). But if all else fails you this game's biggest gripe with me is the ease with which you can get to level 838 ... just farm Memory of Jeigh (the one with the Giant Lord can't emember the proper name) with ascetics and in about 12 hours tops you will be lvl 838 with 99 in every stat and then the game is just a joke ... did this after NG++ and then finaly uninstaled the game

I don't know how to react to this. The Capra and Titan demons are more on old knight level than anything in the dragon shrine. The 'sploding dudes are one hit kills but the levels are designed with that in mind. You will be on a bridge and have one in front and one behind you. You will have them come out of rooms left and right if you don't search and clear them first (sinners basement). But yea, of course it isn't hard once you know the level and how to handle yourself.

Check the Mathewhathisface critique for a guy who makes plenty of points about how the game is more difficult than dsk1.

Me? I actually thought the bosses in Dks1 were too easy. Outside of O&S I don't remember one ever giving me trouble (until the DLC, those were nice!!). I am much more challenged and entertained by the Dks2 bosses. Velstadt, Mirror knight with actual pvp'ers jumping out the shield. Orenstein 2. Even the friggen pursuer would kill every DkS1 boss in his sleep.

The one thing I can give you is that the mechanics are so much improved that for a technical player it becomes much easier to dominate. Which to me is the very definition of a well designed difficult game. Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, DmC are all able to raise the difficulty levels to such insane heights because they are balanced and fine tuned so well.

DkS2 is not quite in that league but its hella closer than the previous games.

That said, yes, a last giant should have some dignity and not look like from a cheap italian horror flick. And a rat shouldnt look like a dog. I agree that the atmosphere and design lacking. But enemy movesets and gameplay are far from it.

p.s. have you even tried the champions cov. Perhaps you mention in your post. But if you beat the throne duo on your first try while in that cov. Heck if you can melee a mace knight going in blind on your first try I will change my avatar to don knotts.

edit: since you mention melee and ranged. I run full melee but I am not beyond using a bow when I need to. No shield. They have always become useless in later playthroughs. In this game I actually think they are useless from the start. and the fact that you seem to think you can tank a mace knight with a shield has me think you either power leveled or we are playing different games.

 

[Pipotchi]

I died most on Darklurker, must have taken 15 goes on that bloody thing. everything else was fine compared to that. I also died a bunch with those scythe guys on the road to the undead Purgatory.

Still enjoyed it immensely though, took me 80 hours and 6 weeks for first playthough with no guides.wikis etc. Missed a few bits but got most of it. Just clearing up now.

Although I agree the Geography is mad