The Undead Curse and the Narrative Thrust *Dark Souls 2 Spoilers*

[HeroKing89]

I've been thinking about this subject for the last week or so and it really came to ahead once Yahtzee posted his Extra Punctuation on the subject of Dark Souls 2's Videogameyness. He mentions in the video that the undead curse seemed like a dropped plot thread. To those not in the know, Dark Souls 2 starts off with the vague idea that you should be trying to seek out a way to cure the pesky curse that is afflicting you. Actually that's not true at all.

While yes, the undead curse gets brought up at the start of the game, the main narrative thrust isn't actually trying to find a cure because, well, you can't. It's made painfully obvious early on that the curse is something you can't get rid of and that in reality, you don't even know why your there to begin with, only that you will be "drawn in like a moth to a flame"

The main theme of Dark Souls 2 is reincarnation, that is to say that which has happened in the past must therefore repeat itself time and time again. There is a sense of terrible fatalism about Dark Souls 2 that even by passed the fatalism of Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 1 was pretty fatalistic.

Let's look at some examples. You have to search out 4 Great Souls in order to help cleanse the land and go chat up King Venderic. So the obvious allusions here are to the 4 Lord Souls you needed to capture in Dark Souls 1 and the game goes so far as to actually give you the remnants of the original Lord Souls in NG+ or using Bonfire Ascetics. The other allusion is the King Venderic, who also gained acclaim by conquering 4 Great Lords.

The other major example is the undead curse. The undead curse is essentially a double red herring, first used to sucker you into the plot by teasing that there may be some way to escape the terrible fate and then blindsiding you with how pointless it all comes across but that turns out to be a ruse because the pointlessness of that plot thread IS the purpose. Now my favourite part of the game is King Venderic, everything about him was hyped up as some uber badass but it was starting to look obvious that things were not going to end well with him. When you finally get to the end the Queen says that he is a little bit farther down in the Undead Crypt. Sounds promising right? Well lo and behold the great king has lost his mind and gone hollow. Why is this important?

What gives this scene it's emotional charge (other then the feeling of closeness brought on by hearing about him a countless number of times) is the inescapable fact that you are looking at a direct reflection of yourself in the future. This is how the story will end, you could save the world or let it decay faster and you will always invariably end up just a pathetic husk as the once great king. That is the sobering affect Venderic and the Undead Curse has even as you become King at the very end.

This all goes on to the fatalistic notion of reincarnation that the game tries to convey. It's funny in a way because it almost feels like the game is in on the joke as if to say "every New Game+ you do, you're just fighting yourself at the end."

At first the game seemed inferior to Dark Souls 1's overall lore and I still feel that way but I think that Dark Soul's 2 journey is much more personal and gets interwoven so well in the overall lore of the game that it's hard not to love it. I think that is where a lot of fans get tripped up on. For once the lore takes a back seat to the character arc that the game wants you to experience.

 

[blackdwarf]

DS II give some hints that people who enter Drangleic, forget who they are and why they went to to the place in the first place. Prime example is the map dude. He clearly states that he has forgotten why he came here, but does remember his fondness of maps. Looking in back at, I can accept this plotpoint, but taken at face value, it just seems weird. Why would you start your narrative with a certain goal and then change that goal without saying it. The moment you enter Drangleic, everyone assumes, including your character, that you are there to take the throne. That is my main issue with the plot. Although I am fine with the actual plot of DS II, I would preferred another star.

 

[DarkishFriend]

My main problem is DS2 wanted to do the show not tell approach but it didn't do that well. I got through Drangelic Castle and suddenly the Emerald Herald starts name dropping people and I'm just sitting there thinking "You act if I know what these things are."

I still don't understand what the Throne of Want is, it's purpose or why everyone wants it. I wouldn't have ever known who Nashandra was if I didn't have the guide. The last section, forced backtraking yay!, really threw me off. Giant memories and an ancient dragon that are an enigma, but not in a good way. It's not like the truth is shrouded behind lies and deceit from the characters within the story, it simply doesn't exist.

Nassy used you to obviously get the throne but there isn't some true intention you can glean from item descriptions or analyzing dialogue, it simply doesn't exist.

To me, personally, the game started going downhill after the Undead Crypt at an astonishing fast pace. If your theme works then the game hits the end of his, I guess story, when you find Vendrick. Boom, allusions to Gwyn and the 4 Lord Souls are done and now all that is left is an underdeveloped boss fight that isn't even that hard.

Finding Vendrick was pretty cool and probably the highlight of the game's central plot and theme, likewise with Gwyn, but DS2 paced it so fucking wrong. When you get to Gwyn it is literally the last boss and even though throughout the game you've had these hints that something else is going on here but you walk into the fog wall and no cutscene or anything. A very obviously crazy hollow Gwyn just rushes to attack you and the badass OST starts playing.

Vendrick nor Nassy have that climatic peak like Gwyn because during the boss fight you'll realize what, as the Chosen Undead, you goal is and what that means you'll have to do. You can either light the fire and become just like Gwyn again or walk away and possibly doom the world.

I also had previous knowledge of lore from DS1, I already know the Undead Curse is something that is simply inescapable, so long that light exists, so shall dark. So long that death exists, so shall undeath. So when I get to where I guess the game intends to drop that on, I already know. Hell I feel like I would more likely want to be the dark lord because of the idea dropped from Darkstalker Kaathe that the Age of Dark is the age of Humanity.

 

[King Billi]

Hmm...

Vendrick?
Gwyn?
Allant?

Seen one withered husk of a once mighty king seen them all I suppose.

Although I have to admit that I kinda presumed Vendrick was meant to be the player character from Dark Souls 1 since he supposedly accomplished the same deeds as you did in that game?

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

My issues with the plot are many.

It starts out great enough until you get to Majula. Then the Emerald Herald (Shanalotte, we never get to know anything more than her name really) basically says "Hey, you here for the open King position? Great, here is your complimentary juice box. Go kill the old king so we can make this legal. Oh and you probably want to seek out souls. Big ones. Ta!"

You pretty much wander aimlessly anywhere you can, kill what you find, and head to the shrine of Winter (if anyone tells you about it, or wtf its for other than a convenient plot gating device idk) and you get to the castle.

There you meet the Queen, seems like someone should have mentioned her before you are standing right in front of her. Wellagor does but thats like literally 15 minutes prior.

Her actions, motivations, or really anything about her are never really revealed.

The only reason we know she is a fragment of Manus at all is because of prior knowledge of the previous game and speculation.

MUCH of the lore and plot of DS2 relies implicitly on having knowledge of the previous game and its lore. Because 99% of the lore and plot of DS2 is merely allusions and references to DS1. It is essentially a point for point retread of the plot of the first only lacking in every way the former's quality and key players.

Instead of finding our way into the land of Lords (gods essentually) and crossing them off your hit list you are presented with some random chick in an iron mask, a legion knock off, a giant spider (and random petrified dragon above it), and a flamelurker knock off.

Mytha? I would have loved a bit more on her other than the few stray bits of info Gilligan imparts. The lost sinner? Yeah other than she is punishing herself for trying to light the first flame (or something like that) there is nothing to go on. You wouldn't even know she was female if her soul and Shalquior didn't tell you.

The Rotten? Nada. Iron King? His castle burned down and fell into the swamp...I mean lava.

They are a FAR cry from Nito, The Witch of Izalith, and Seathe the Scaleless. The four kings of New Londo sure beat the giant spider lorewise. Her deal is "the Duke was fond of spiders."

The Dark itself is barely explained in DS2. Its just there.

Same with the bonfires. Same with Estus.

The locations are mostly devoid of any meaning. You aren't traversing the library of a mad dragon. You aren't walking through the city where the King of Sunlight held court. You aren't beset upon by the ghosts of a city sacrificed to contain the Dark, and then by the things that lurk beneath the water...

No, you simply end up in places. Harvest valley, what is its story? Just a quarry, willed with poison.

Earthen peak? Giant windmill seemingly located on the side of an active volcano. Its chief function seems to be the creation of poison.

The gutter? Well that is basically a Blight Town/Valley of Defilement analogue but in reality its just a large dark cave with a few plank towers. Black gulch is just what I assume to be the tail end of a much larger and more interesting level that was scrapped. So they decided to just fill it with troll statues and a few hidden ledges and call it good.

Much like the grave of saints, or the doors of Pharros, or Aldias's keep. They feel like level ideas that were barely fleshed out.

They may be better than the damn lava field in DS1 but not by much.

So we go through the Shrine of Amana, which is honestly the most interesting and well designed (aside from the former aimbot mages) areas in the game. Its beautiful, the music is perfect and the boss is one of my favorites in the game aesthetically.

WHY its beneath the castle, we don't know. The Milfanito know nothing of the world outside...but assuredly people would have come and gone plenty of times bringing bodies to the crypt right? It seems like a real hassle to drag bodies through that place just to get to the crypt. Kinda feels like the shrine was supposed to be somewhere ELSE, and got put between the castle and the crypt for ...reasons.

The crypt is far shorter and easier than the one in DS1. We beat Velstadt, and you can actually kill Vendrick then and there since his defense is normal the first time you see him fyi. No giant souls needed. All you need to do is literally hump the back of his left leg and he cannot hit you. At all.

The Emerald Herald (stalker much?) says to head east. Vague much?

You get to Aldia's keep where Lucatiel's plot wraps up. She gets more characterization than ANY other character in the freaking game really. Which isn't saying much.

You defeat the dragon (which might be Vendricks brother Aldia after his experiments on dragons and souls worked) and Shanalotte says the Ancient Dragon is waiting for you. Also that her manifestation is the one that drew you here.

Does that merely mean that her earlier appearances were just illusions that still managed to provode you with Estus flasks?

Or was the old woman in the prologue her manifestation and not just the 4th firekeeper?

Considering that the lore of firekeepers states that they are never to meet, aren't really human but filled with infinite humanity sprites under the shell of their skin...idk wtf to think about the ones in DS2 tbh.

You fight your way to the dragon, past many other dragons, none of which should exist without a more detailed reason than...because.

The dragon shrine, was it built by Aldia? What is already there with the petrified egg and he built his keep beside it?

Did he create the dragons in an attempt to become one? As he created Shanalotte? Because he wanted immortality?

Did he merely read legends of Seathe and Pricilla and think "we have the technology to make half dragon waifus so why not?"

A.D. does the mind meld thing and hands you the Ashen Mist heart. He doesn't provide anything by way of exposition, or even wtf this thing is for or where to go.

If you aren't being very diligent you will have NO IDEA wtf the giant's have to do with ANYTHING. If you took Wellagor out of the game the plot would be non existent.

Considering he is pretty transparent and easily overlooked as the thrones are a dead end, and he must be talked to many times to finally say something relevant I would imagine many players never find out about the Giants, Nashandra, Vendrick, and the Golems.

Even so, its not like there is much more than "they met, she said the giants had something and he took it, they be mad about it" the end.

You read a guide, or happen to find out through dumb luck due to there being nothing but a dead giant on the other side of the last King door, that the Ashen Mist Heart lets you go into their memories. Huzzah!

You kill the Giant Lord, and that somehow changes the past literally so that YOU really were the one that killed him seeing as he gets pretty pissed to see you when he tears off his own arm and beats you with it in the present.

Thus you have the Giant's Kinship, because nothing endears you to a dead race of giants than killing their leader via Inception.

This allows you to activate the Golems somehow, so they can become a bridge to the Throne of Want. Which is the THIRD throne room in this fucking castle by my count.

Nashandra takes issue with you sitting on the throne, even though she is the one that told you to go find Vendrick and fuck off earlier. Apparently this demonic fragment of primordial man, this avatar of avarice, that yearns for the light and fire it can never have...never bothered to come down there and sit on that throne in that however many centuries.

She apparently did fuck all aside from sit on the loftiest of the 3 thrones in Drangleic castle telling a stream of hopeful monarchs to bugger off to the Undead Crypt after her husband.

When she is defeated, you get to sit on a stone chair in a tiny room, the doors close, and you get one final message from EH telling you that its pointless as the cycle will repeat endlessly.

Oh and something about linking the fires, and its your choice blah blah blah. Except that you HAVE no choice. No serpents beguile you. No npcs that you actually give a fuck about interact with you along the way and ultimately go hollow etc.

The journey is bland, the plot is a barebones rehash, and in the end...I can only imagine what the plot MIGHT have been.

Those masked guys in the early trailers seemed interesting. I assume they are early ideas for the Manikins, or Brotherhood of Blood members. Or they could have been central to the ACTUAL plot they game was going to have before they said "fuck it lets just do the same thing as the last game but with less lore, blander characters, and less details for them to find. They seem to enjoy making up their own ideas, so lets keep it simple. But lets also rely on the established lore of the first game to smooth over anything that would otherwise make no sense at all."

 

[HeroKing89]

Oh man, where to start...

DS II give some hints that people who enter Drangleic, forget who they are and why they went to to the place in the first place. Prime example is the map dude. He clearly states that he has forgotten why he came here, but does remember his fondness of maps. Looking in back at, I can accept this plotpoint, but taken at face value, it just seems weird. Why would you start your narrative with a certain goal and then change that goal without saying it. The moment you enter Drangleic, everyone assumes, including your character, that you are there to take the throne. That is my main issue with the plot. Although I am fine with the actual plot of DS II, I would preferred another star.

Except you don't have a goal at the start. Everyone starts off saying, "well it looks like your cursed and there is nothing to be done about that. Hey how about you go meet King Venderic and see why everything is so shitty right now?" Right about the time you get to the castle and meet Venderic is when the Emerald Herald comes out and says "Hey ya know since the King has gone hollow, how about you go claim the throne *hint hint* *nudge nudge*." Hell even the basic question of "why doesn't the MC just set up shop in Maluja and not subject himself to everything?" is answered by the simple fact that he's going to go hollow if he isn't out getting souls.

It's kind of ingenious in a way because each part of the cycle fuels the others. You are Undead and you go to a jacked up place in order to collect souls (drawn in subconsciously). You collect the souls and all is well as you are now king. You go hollow and the kingdom decays. More undead show up. Rinse and Repeat.

My main problem is DS2 wanted to do the show not tell approach but it didn't do that well. I got through Drangelic Castle and suddenly the Emerald Herald starts name dropping people and I'm just sitting there thinking "You act if I know what these things are."

I still don't understand what the Throne of Want is, it's purpose or why everyone wants it. I wouldn't have ever known who Nashandra was if I didn't have the guide. The last section, forced backtraking yay!, really threw me off. Giant memories and an ancient dragon that are an enigma, but not in a good way. It's not like the truth is shrouded behind lies and deceit from the characters within the story, it simply doesn't exist.

Nassy used you to obviously get the throne but there isn't some true intention you can glean from item descriptions or analyzing dialogue, it simply doesn't exist.

You aren't suppose to know who anybody is. I mean part of the mystery is filling in the blanks and there are some filled in info that you are really over thinking like in regards to Giant Memories and the Ancient Dragons. Those characters just are, the Dragon is responsible for the Herald and your quest and the Giant Memories are just a way to an end (and to show you the past war between giants and people). As for the Throne of Want, I believe the area is the Kilin of the First Flame but lets leave speculation aside for now. What we do know is that the Throne of Want grants some great power. Nashandra can use it to bring in the dark while the protagonist can apparently use it to light the bonfires some how. It's pretty simple really

[quoteTo me, personally, the game started going downhill after the Undead Crypt at an astonishing fast pace. If your theme works then the game hits the end of his, I guess story, when you find Vendrick. Boom, allusions to Gwyn and the 4 Lord Souls are done and now all that is left is an underdeveloped boss fight that isn't even that hard.[/quote]

The story's Climax is meeting Venderic and everything else is pretty much the Falling Action
.

Vendrick nor Nassy have that climatic peak like Gwyn because during the boss fight you'll realize what, as the Chosen Undead, you goal is and what that means you'll have to do. You can either light the fire and become just like Gwyn again or walk away and possibly doom the world.

I disagree, fighting Gwyn was more of a surprise then anything considering the game leads you to believe he is dead. True you gleam what it means to light the bonfire and that makes the final choice a lot more powerful but it doesn't feel like a stronger bond. If anything it's more like a sideways movement because each one is trying to tell you something different. Dark Souls 1 is trying to make the final choice a powerful one. You don't need a lengthy cutscene to explain whats going to happen next but each choice is still powerful in their own right. Where as Dark Souls 2 wants you to feel the inescapable dread that no matter what you choose to do after this, there is still the inescapable fact that you will go hollow.

 

[HeroKing89]

My issues with the plot are many.

It starts out great enough until you get to Majula. Then the Emerald Herald (Shanalotte, we never get to know anything more than her name really) basically says "Hey, you here for the open King position? Great, here is your complimentary juice box. Go kill the old king so we can make this legal. Oh and you probably want to seek out souls. Big ones. Ta!"

You pretty much wander aimlessly anywhere you can, kill what you find, and head to the shrine of Winter (if anyone tells you about it, or wtf its for other than a convenient plot gating device idk) and you get to the castle.

There you meet the Queen, seems like someone should have mentioned her before you are standing right in front of her. Wellagor does but thats like literally 15 minutes prior.

Her actions, motivations, or really anything about her are never really revealed.

The only reason we know she is a fragment of Manus at all is because of prior knowledge of the previous game and speculation.

Wat? Her motivation is to bring about the Age of Dark, she wants to do so because she is a fragment of Manus. You don't need to speculate or have prior knowledge of the game to know this as its all layed out in descriptions or dialogue. Except for the Manus part, the game just says something along the lines of "Great Creator of the Abyss" or something to that affect. Adding a name doesn't really add much except for the people who played the original.

MUCH of the lore and plot of DS2 relies implicitly on having knowledge of the previous game and its lore. Because 99% of the lore and plot of DS2 is merely allusions and references to DS1. It is essentially a point for point retread of the plot of the first only lacking in every way the former's quality and key players.

Instead of finding our way into the land of Lords (gods essentually) and crossing them off your hit list you are presented with some random chick in an iron mask, a legion knock off, a giant spider (and random petrified dragon above it), and a flamelurker knock off.

Mytha? I would have loved a bit more on her other than the few stray bits of info Gilligan imparts. The lost sinner? Yeah other than she is punishing herself for trying to light the first flame (or something like that) there is nothing to go on. You wouldn't even know she was female if her soul and Shalquior didn't tell you.

The Rotten? Nada. Iron King? His castle burned down and fell into the swamp...I mean lava.

They are a FAR cry from Nito, The Witch of Izalith, and Seathe the Scaleless. The four kings of New Londo sure beat the giant spider lorewise. Her deal is "the Duke was fond of spiders."

Don't be disingenuous. A lot of the Great Souls get explanations that rival the Lords of Dark Souls 1. Duke Dear's Freja still gets tons of discussions on what exactly is going on with it. The Old Iron King has a ton of back story regarding the wife he married and the mistress he took on and how his arrogance cause the ultimate awakening of the Smelter Demon and brought about his own transformation. The only ones who don't get a lot of lore about them is The Rotten and The Lost Sinner and the Lost Sinner gets quite a bit as well, just not nearly so much. Almost none of the plot requires Dark Souls 1 and even if it did, I think the title "Dark Souls 2" aught to give a hint that you play the first game in a series first as if to suggest that a game shouldn't build upon what it's predecessor starts.

You also aren't giving Dark Souls 2 nearly enough credit as far as originality is concerned. Dark Souls 1 was ultimately about the big choice at the end, save the world or destroy it. Dark Souls 2 was about what that choice really meant. That is to say it meant nothing at all. It is the inevitable dread that comes with living in a dying world and knowing that it one day will end and the only solace that we might be able to take away from it is that one day that new world will come to an end as well as all things cycle ad infinitum

The Dark itself is barely explained in DS2. Its just there.

Same with the bonfires. Same with Estus.

None of this needs to be explained. Hell even Dark Souls 1 didn't explain how lighting the bonfires will save the world. Estus weren't explained in Dark Souls 1 either. Seriously the most you get there is a quip about how warm it is and an undead's favourite drink and most importantly The Dark is not explained in Dark Souls 1 either. It is merely the by product of the world decaying and slowly slipping into it. I don't know what exactly you expected but it seems to me that your desires weren't in line with the story and comes across more as wishful thinking then anything.

The locations are mostly devoid of any meaning. You aren't traversing the library of a mad dragon. You aren't walking through the city where the King of Sunlight held court. You aren't beset upon by the ghosts of a city sacrificed to contain the Dark, and then by the things that lurk beneath the water...

No, you simply end up in places. Harvest valley, what is its story? Just a quarry, willed with poison.

Earthen peak? Giant windmill seemingly located on the side of an active volcano. Its chief function seems to be the creation of poison.

The gutter? Well that is basically a Blight Town/Valley of Defilement analogue but in reality its just a large dark cave with a few plank towers. Black gulch is just what I assume to be the tail end of a much larger and more interesting level that was scrapped. So they decided to just fill it with troll statues and a few hidden ledges and call it good.

Much like the grave of saints, or the doors of Pharros, or Aldias's keep. They feel like level ideas that were barely fleshed out.

They may be better than the damn lava field in DS1 but not by much.

Ok you are so waaaaaaaay off base it isn't even funny anymore. There is plenty of lore about the areas. Earthen Peak was the seat of power for the Iron King's Queen. Remember, you fight her at the end of the level. She was the medusa like lady. It became jacked up do to the influence of the demons that started to come out after the Smelter Demon started to jack things up. I'm not going to go through every single one of them like how Aldia's Keep was owned by Venderic's brother and how he had quite a fondness for giants and other oddities. Hell, even the lava field had a reason to be there, it was caused when the Witch of Izaleth's Flame went haywire

WHY its beneath the castle, we don't know. The Milfanito know nothing of the world outside...but assuredly people would have come and gone plenty of times bringing bodies to the crypt right? It seems like a real hassle to drag bodies through that place just to get to the crypt. Kinda feels like the shrine was supposed to be somewhere ELSE, and got put between the castle and the crypt for ...reasons.

The crypt is far shorter and easier than the one in DS1. We beat Velstadt, and you can actually kill Vendrick then and there since his defense is normal the first time you see him fyi. No giant souls needed. All you need to do is literally hump the back of his left leg and he cannot hit you. At all.

Who cares? Why is Izaleth even farther underground then the Tomb of the Giants? Is it right next to Ash Lake or is it closer to New Londo Ruins? If you worry about why things are where you will never get anywhere in either game. The positons or locations aren't the important thing. The PlACE itself is the important thing.

Does that merely mean that her earlier appearances were just illusions that still managed to provode you with Estus flasks?

Or was the old woman in the prologue her manifestation and not just the 4th firekeeper?

Considering that the lore of firekeepers states that they are never to meet, aren't really human but filled with infinite humanity sprites under the shell of their skin...idk wtf to think about the ones in DS2 tbh.

Not sure what your talking about but, Old Lady In the Beginning = Last Firekeeper = Emerald Herald. All of them are the same person.

You fight your way to the dragon, past many other dragons, none of which should exist without a more detailed reason than...because.

The dragon shrine, was it built by Aldia? What is already there with the petrified egg and he built his keep beside it?

Did he create the dragons in an attempt to become one? As he created Shanalotte? Because he wanted immortality?

Did he merely read legends of Seathe and Pricilla and think "we have the technology to make half dragon waifus so why not?"

A.D. does the mind meld thing and hands you the Ashen Mist heart. He doesn't provide anything by way of exposition, or even wtf this thing is for or where to go.

If you aren't being very diligent you will have NO IDEA wtf the giant's have to do with ANYTHING. If you took Wellagor out of the game the plot would be non existent.

Not everything needs an explanation. This is just wishful thinking which is how this entire post really reads to me. I wanted X, got Y and now I'm unhappy. Well sometimes that's just the way it works. Doesn't make it bad, just not what you wanted.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'm just curious as to what the Throne of Want was. Can anyone explain that to me and why it was important that I sit on it? I just beat the game today and have a decent grasp on the situation, but I'm not sure why I needed to sit on the throne. The Kingdom is already toast, so what did I accomplish exactly?

 

[sXeth]

Except you don't have a goal at the start. Everyone starts off saying, "well it looks like your cursed and there is nothing to be done about that. Hey how about you go meet King Venderic and see why everything is so shitty right now?" Right about the time you get to the castle and meet Venderic is when the Emerald Herald comes out and says "Hey ya know since the King has gone hollow, how about you go claim the throne *hint hint* *nudge nudge*." Hell even the basic question of "why doesn't the MC just set up shop in Maluja and not subject himself to everything?" is answered by the simple fact that he's going to go hollow if he isn't out getting souls.

Its either the second or third sentence, before you get the Estus flask or the levelup option, out of the Heralds mouth the first time you talk to her she immediately says "You're the next monarch". Its one of the more confusing bits of the intro, since she does an almost immediate 180 on it and starts suggesting Vendrick could cure you or something cause he knows the nature of souls.

Although thats still a better impetus then that whole "Oh no, you'll go Hollow without souls" thing they keep trying to throw in, considering you lose your souls however much you want, for however long you want, with no repercussions whatsoever. If it weren't for the occasional paygate to turn a room or drop a ladder, you never even need souls at all if you were doing one of those fists-only challenge things. If you do the whole Dark path thing, its even preferable to "go Hollow", so much as the game mechanics bother supporting such a notion.

 

[lapan]

DeS and DaSs intro explained the story and main characters well and gave you something to feel strongly about.

DaS2 intro explains nothing and feels like they took it from an earlier draft of the game and just ran with it

 

[The Random Critic]

snip

When you are at your hollowest(?) you're half hollow, not full.

There is only one way, and the game only subtle hinted it(that or my imagination is doing more work here) that you can go full hollow

Alot of the lore Dark souls is base on how the player/fan-base would interpret it. (at least more then most story driven video games)

Still though, the placement of the areas is a bit wonky, and it feels like stuff aren't as well planned out as the first Dark souls. That and there is no primal serpent, but I'll be honest here, it's mostly because of the lack of serpent do I find this game the utmost unsatisfying

 

[MrDumpkins]

SNIP

I agree with basically everything you said. While I think the locations and pacing of the game was fine, the story just doesn't feel as deep this time around. It seems like they really wanted to keep the spirit of Dark Souls minimalist approach and were scared at giving too much info.