It’s looking increasingly unlikely that I will be able to work on NG+ any time soon, so I want to go ahead and summarize my thoughts on Dark Souls 2 after one playthrough. This post will have location names, so if you count those as spoilers, consider yourself warned.
First, and most importantly, the Souls formula continues to work well. Combat is tense, exploration is rewarding, and the wealth of stats and tools to play with had me engaged from start to finish. It’s a fun game.
I mention that up front because discussing particular features and mechanics necessarily involves comparisons to the previous games, and such comparisons do not always flatter Dark Souls 2.
The most significant changes from Dark Souls, in my view, are the following:
• Hub-and-spoke world layout.
• Estus + Lifegem healing mechanic
• Bonfire Ascetics
• Diminishing HP cap.
• Hollow invasions.
Of these five changes, only the introduction of bonfire ascetics strikes me as an unqualified success. The risk/reward proposition for boosting enemies in exchange for more souls and rare items gives players something new to think about. Just as important, it takes nothing away from the formula that has made Souls successful thus far. I suppose there is some relationship between enemy respawn limits and bonfire ascetics, but the respawn limit is so high (and so obviously designed to help struggling players) that I don’t count it as significant change, and I don’t blame that change on bonfire ascetics.
Lifegems, by contrast, break apart a perfectly elegant mechanic from Dark Souls for the relatively small gain of asking players to think about which healing item best fits their circumstances. By midway through the game, the difference is too small to matter.
Hollow invasions are a needless frustration for players who prefer not to risk invasions. I can understand the directors’ belief that invasions and co-op are part of the Dark Souls experience, but if this thread is representative, hollow invasions are more likely to drive people offline than to bring them into the invasion game. A feature like the Blue Sentinels/Way of Blue relationship is far more promising, in my opinion (even if that promise seems to go unrealized in NG mode). The remaining justification for hollow invasions is to reduce players’ incentive to stay in hollow form throughout the game, but diminishing HP caps already take care of that. I think it is counterproductive to have both features.
Finally, the hub-and-spoke world design is probably a lot easier for From’s map designers, but it’s a pure loss from the players’ perspective. The cohesive, organic structure of Dark Souls’s world generated a sense of progress as you moved from one area to the next. Most first time players would descend from the Undead Parish to the Depths and eventually to the gate to Blighttown. The artistic high point of Dark Souls (and a technical low point) was that slow, downward journey through the nightmare favela, seeing ruins and giant trees in the distance and finding yourself at last in a poison swamp far, far away from Firelink (or so it seemed). And one of the great pleasures in Dark Souls was discovering shortcuts and comprehending the relationship between the different areas. All that is lost in Dark Souls 2. It’s not a calamity (just as it wasn’t in Demon’s Souls), but it does make the game less fun.
And that brings me to some more general topics.
Level Design: Dark Souls 2 is more consistent than Dark Souls but rarely as memorable. Too many levels are over before you’ve even had time to fear what’s ahead. This is especially problematic toward the end of the game, when the levels should act as a final, dramatic test of the player’s skills. The game peaks too soon with the Drangleic Castle-Shrine of Amana-Undead Crypt sequence. In that respect, unfortunately, it is much like its predecessor. I also remember fewer, uniquely problematic enemies like the Mindflayers in Demon’s Souls or the cats, giants, or black knights in Dark Souls, but perhaps I am being ungenerous. I felt like I spent half the game dealing with the same diving hollows.
Graphics: If I call the visuals a mixed bag, I should also confess that the game looks plenty good to me. The art direction remains generally strong. Some areas are stunning (e.g. Shrine of Amana); some areas are not (e.g. Harvest Valley, Shaded Woods). There’s a lot more attractive armor than before. Monster design is a bit less memorable, but then, it’s hard to top Capra and the Gaping Dragon. The graphics are technically all over the place. The biggest hole is obviously the lighting. I’m not interested in comparing the final game to earlier demos or evaluating From’s conduct. The bottom line is that many areas are boring visually because they lack proper lighting. I hope From does better next time.
Story/Lore: It may yet have hidden depths, but Dark Souls 2 seems to trade its predecessors’ gothic obscurity for stupidity. The core plot makes little sense, and the writers’ attempts to be elliptical come off as strained. I still love the idea of world-building through environmental design and item descriptions, but if this is how From is going to do it, I think they could stand to be more creative with the slight narrative thrust they do have.
Covenants: I’ve written this before, but I was disappointed that covenants barely evolved from the previous game. I think deeper integration with the lore and the game world would make for more interesting covenants and enhance From’s ability to build story content without traditional narrative devices. I was also disappointed that almost all the covenants are straight retreads of the covenants from Dark Souls. There are more ways of interacting with other players and the game world. Given the torch mechanic, how about one covenant that tries to light torches in the Undead Crypt, and another covenant that tries to stop them? I also think it would be neat if the battles between antagonistic covenants could influence something like world tendency, so that all players would have a stake in the outcome (and any prolonged spell of dominance would inspire players to join the other side in order to reverse world tendency and access unique items/events), but that's just a pet idea I'll be flogging around here.
Overall, it’s my least favorite Souls game but still likely to be one of my favorite games I play this year. Things could have gone much worse.
