Seems like I really am, no one else has said anything! DeS was the same way with the hub and I loved that as well. Ah well!
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LTTP: Dark Souls II. What the hell is this?
- Thread starter Nev
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Seems like I really am, no one else has said anything! DeS was the same way with the hub and I loved that as well. Ah well!
Gormless Noodle
Member
Over the past year I've played the whole series back to back. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Dark Souls 2 is barely even a Souls game indeed. From level design, to the boring bosses, the over talkative and forgettable cast, the clunky combat....the list goes on, it just has so many annoyances. Like it was shock to my system how bad this game was after experiencing the brilliance of DeS, DS and Bloodborne and I honestly went into it with an open mind. I mean I knew it wasn't everyone's favourite, but I did not expect THAT.
Oh well, at any rate you seem to feel the same. It's honestly better to drop it. It never gets any better, just wait for 3 and pray it's good.
Oh well, at any rate you seem to feel the same. It's honestly better to drop it. It never gets any better, just wait for 3 and pray it's good.
No they wouldn't unless you rush in.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
We're going to keep getting "DS2 has dumb problems" threads as DS2 has dumb problems.
Any complaining is better spent getting down on your knees to The Old One that DS3 didn't inherit those dumb problems like I am.
This was a good zone as it was a zone with well-integrated mechanics instead of desperate, inelegant stuff like "10ft tall high poise weathervane knights", "binocular trick-using gangbang enemies" or "kara throwing enemies".
Any complaining is better spent getting down on your knees to The Old One that DS3 didn't inherit those dumb problems like I am.
This was a good zone as it was a zone with well-integrated mechanics instead of desperate, inelegant stuff like "10ft tall high poise weathervane knights", "binocular trick-using gangbang enemies" or "kara throwing enemies".
Marty-esque
Member
But it's like every step you take. How the levels are designed with tiny corridors. Like space it out a bit instead of jamming as many enemies into the tiniest spaces.
Soyongdori
Member
Singleplayer isn't much better, but they fixed a lot of multiplayer pvp things people complained from DS1.
I bought it last week and played about an hour. I want to get into it, but I just can't do it for the life of me. I don't know if it's a bad build or what, but I broke all my weapons on walls, can't find new ones, and progression just feels more frustrating than rewarding like in DS1. I want to push through though because I've heard great things about the 3 DLCs. I may start with a new build tomorrow.
dryuriev7777
Member
I had a lot of fun with Dark Souls II. It works for me because of the wide variety of weapons and movesets along with much easier matchmaking with friends. It doesn't have the fast paced fantastic gameplay of Bloodborne, but I still enjoyed DSII from a gameplay standpoint far more than DSI. I always felt like in the first game that it revolved around circling an enemy to backstab it and an emphasis on armor/shields, while the second game made armor little more than a fashion statement and relied more on learning enemies and taking advantage of openings which I guess I appreciated more.
Of course Dark Souls 1 has far better atmosphere and characters. Also yes the infinite poise enemies are bullshit in DS2.
Of course Dark Souls 1 has far better atmosphere and characters. Also yes the infinite poise enemies are bullshit in DS2.
*High five*
Yup. Blighttown, Valley of Defilement and Nightmare Frontier are the best. No Man's Wharf is by far the best early game area in Dark 2. Rest of that list is super solid as well.
(Though I do have some serious reservations about certain parts of the Iron Crown dlc, gauntlets I find downright unfun unless I change my build/respec specifically for them... and then it's fun.)
imo the game's biggest fault is its beginning. its not like DS1 where you can tackle it in so many ways and the starting areas are kind of lame
the hate has grown a little hyperbolic over the years though. i had a great time with it, it's just hard to get back into. i'd rather just do another playthrough of DS1
VR_RaidenXOF
Member
I feel absolutely confident in this statement:
Dark Souls II is the MGS4 of the Souls franchise.
Dark Souls II is the MGS4 of the Souls franchise.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Welcome to the most fun game in the series! Lean back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride
Triscuitable
Member
I just didn't have as much fun with it as I did Dark Souls. The world of DaS2 has a completely different feel to it than the first game, and that's not in its favor. The environments aren't terribly memorable, and the game is ugly as sin; the original Dark Souls is a far prettier game, as far as art direction and asset quality goes.
InsaneTiger
Member
As usual from greatest to worst:
Demons Souls/Dark Souls then Bloodborne then....................
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.Dark Souls 2
Demons Souls/Dark Souls then Bloodborne then....................
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.Dark Souls 2
DoubleTake
Member
Anytime I see someone suggest "raising ADP" as a fix for DS2 gameplay sucking compared to the others I die a bit inside.
Its as if people dont have an idea(or didnt even read OP's very specific complaints) about the nuisances that go into making a Souls game feel like a Souls game. The things listed in the OP about the gameplay are precisely what make so many think the gameplay is trash, clunky, and tedious.
Annoyingly long recovery times. Not being able to aim rolling attacks. Facing away from the enemy youre locked on to when you roll and having to wait for the character to re-position before you can attack. Drinking Estus like youre savoring the last bit of water on earth. Having to raise a stat to not be clipped by attacks you roll through,while not even getting any visual feedback that youve been hit. I dont care what anyone says, ADP in a moment to moment action game is not good design. This isnt a RTS or percentage based game where raising your evade stat gives you a better chance to be missed, its an Action RPG that requires some level of dexterity and understanding its controls and timings should be a reward not something you can bypass by leveling up stats. Why not let players continually level up ADP until theyre effectively invincible when they press Circle?
All of that stuff just serves to make the bosses feel unforgettable because they had to design them around the player's shitty movement. Whenever someone says Dark Souls 2 improved Souls "gameplay" I have to think they dont know what theyre talking about or are attributing gameplay to something else that isn't the act of fighting enemies.
Roll on April.
DMC2 of the Souls franchise for me.
Its as if people dont have an idea(or didnt even read OP's very specific complaints) about the nuisances that go into making a Souls game feel like a Souls game. The things listed in the OP about the gameplay are precisely what make so many think the gameplay is trash, clunky, and tedious.
Annoyingly long recovery times. Not being able to aim rolling attacks. Facing away from the enemy youre locked on to when you roll and having to wait for the character to re-position before you can attack. Drinking Estus like youre savoring the last bit of water on earth. Having to raise a stat to not be clipped by attacks you roll through,while not even getting any visual feedback that youve been hit. I dont care what anyone says, ADP in a moment to moment action game is not good design. This isnt a RTS or percentage based game where raising your evade stat gives you a better chance to be missed, its an Action RPG that requires some level of dexterity and understanding its controls and timings should be a reward not something you can bypass by leveling up stats. Why not let players continually level up ADP until theyre effectively invincible when they press Circle?
All of that stuff just serves to make the bosses feel unforgettable because they had to design them around the player's shitty movement. Whenever someone says Dark Souls 2 improved Souls "gameplay" I have to think they dont know what theyre talking about or are attributing gameplay to something else that isn't the act of fighting enemies.
Roll on April.
DMC2 of the Souls franchise for me.
Btw I've spilled hundreds of words on this topic already but I'll boil it down to a few bullet points again:
1. Dark Souls 2 feels really weird at first if you've been playing any of the other games immediately beforehand.
2. Dark Souls 2 had a painful dev cycle and there's some problems as a result.
3. Dark Souls 2 has a few odd design choices you may ultimately feel are showstoppers...
4. All that said, if you let go of your expectations and play Dark Souls 2 on its own terms, it's actually a fucking incredibly fun game with occasional wtf moments of annoyance.
I've sunk a couple hundred hours minimum into every SoulsBorne game so far and platinum'ed or 1000/1000'ed all of them, including both vanilla and SOTFS Dark 2. I can talk your ear off about stuff I think was a mistake in Dark 2 but I will also defend it vociferously against hyperbolic claims that its pure garbage or whatever.
Because it's actually mostly quite good, including a few of the best bosses in the series. (Fume Knight and Sir Alonne especially.)
1. Dark Souls 2 feels really weird at first if you've been playing any of the other games immediately beforehand.
2. Dark Souls 2 had a painful dev cycle and there's some problems as a result.
3. Dark Souls 2 has a few odd design choices you may ultimately feel are showstoppers...
4. All that said, if you let go of your expectations and play Dark Souls 2 on its own terms, it's actually a fucking incredibly fun game with occasional wtf moments of annoyance.
I've sunk a couple hundred hours minimum into every SoulsBorne game so far and platinum'ed or 1000/1000'ed all of them, including both vanilla and SOTFS Dark 2. I can talk your ear off about stuff I think was a mistake in Dark 2 but I will also defend it vociferously against hyperbolic claims that its pure garbage or whatever.
Because it's actually mostly quite good, including a few of the best bosses in the series. (Fume Knight and Sir Alonne especially.)
SunBroDave
Member
While undoubtedly the weakest of the Souls games due to having the worst level/world design and lore that relies on DaS1 and can't stand on its own, DaS2 is totally a great game in its own right. Mechanically is certainly more refined than DaS1 and multiplayer was a big step up. In the context of the whole series it really does feel like Dark Souls 1.5 rather than a true sequel, but the DLC areas are the best content in the game and rank among some of the best areas in the entire series imo.
Tevious
Member
I'll agree... to disagree. Dark Souls II is fantastic, especially the DLC. I wasn't a fan of it at first either, but it grew on me.
This idea of From Software being split into two is idiotic. Bloodborne was made by Japan Studios lead by some key FromSoftware guys, while everyone else at FromSoftware was working on Dark Souls 2 and later 3. I think we'll even find that Bloodborne is using the same engine as The Last Guardian, which FromSoftware gets to use in Dark Souls III as part of their deal.
Sword Of Doom
Member
I tried to like it but I just couldn't get into it. I played the scholars version on the ps4. Maybe I should have played the vanilla version. Also, shitty hit boxes and enemies turning like they're on a turntable is really a problem in the game. If the shitty hit boxes are a result of some stat then that's poor game design imo
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Haha I knooow I was like, hey, Frozen Eleum Loyce did it, why can't next-gen game? xDThe biggest crime committed by Cainhurst is the fact you don'l leave footprints in the snow. It makes me sad
Yeah never had any major issues like that either. If anything I'd get swarmed far more easily in BB. Especially chalice dungeons with those swarms of red spiders, or hordes of eleventy rats. >_<
Hah, if you mean the Iron Passage, I didn't count it in Brume Tower really. Nor did I count Frigid Outskirts as part of Frozen Eleum Loyce. That said, I kind of learned to like Frigid Outskirts if I have a very specific build for it (something that stunlocks the horses really, red iron twinblade FTW) in a way, but yeah it's annoying in most cases and not my favourite by any means.
DoubleTake
Member
We've had multiple insiders tell us BB was made entirely by From. Japan Studios provides producers and the like, but the actual game development was all From.
Also the last part of your post...what? Youre making stuff up at this point. Unless you know something we dont?
sssstententen
Member
People are crazy.
2 is great.
Yeah I'm not too fond of Adp or splitting Vit/End into Vit/Vig/End etc. And Soul Memory was such a botched execution.
But man is it a cool game. The Heide knigts, the DLC, the Dark 1 callbacks, the return to form PVP/Co-Op wise, the No Death/No Bonfire rewards, those sweet covenants, the Name Rings.
Really is a fantastic game that gets unreasonable hate. The souls games are my favorite series of all time, but people put Dark 1 on this crazy high pedestal, its insane.
2 is great.
Yeah I'm not too fond of Adp or splitting Vit/End into Vit/Vig/End etc. And Soul Memory was such a botched execution.
But man is it a cool game. The Heide knigts, the DLC, the Dark 1 callbacks, the return to form PVP/Co-Op wise, the No Death/No Bonfire rewards, those sweet covenants, the Name Rings.
Really is a fantastic game that gets unreasonable hate. The souls games are my favorite series of all time, but people put Dark 1 on this crazy high pedestal, its insane.
The game has issues, but 90% of the stuff you mentioned I don't agree with. Packs of enemies? Like what, 2-4 at most? That isn't difficult to deal with, get good. I have 0 idea what people are talking about with the shit hit boxes either. Did anyone post that Pursuer gif yet? All 3 of the Souls games have pretty equivalent hit box issues; I know I didn't have any more trouble in this game than any of the others. (Bloodborne was basically hit box porn though. Hopefully we'll see more of that in DS3.) Not liking some of the bosses is pretty subjective, but random bosses not being difficult isn't exclusive to this game.
I didn't like AGI as a stat either, but pump it until it's 100 ish and forget it. I wasn't thrilled with some of the re-worked enemy placements in Scholar of the First Sin either. Notably Earthen Peak and those ninja-knights in Iron Keep having huge aggro radii. Also, Frigid Outskirts has the dubious honor of being the worst zone in the series in my opinion. Aside from those things, the game is excellent. When you include the DLC, it is as good as any game in the series. Other studios wish their "b-team" was as good.
I didn't like AGI as a stat either, but pump it until it's 100 ish and forget it. I wasn't thrilled with some of the re-worked enemy placements in Scholar of the First Sin either. Notably Earthen Peak and those ninja-knights in Iron Keep having huge aggro radii. Also, Frigid Outskirts has the dubious honor of being the worst zone in the series in my opinion. Aside from those things, the game is excellent. When you include the DLC, it is as good as any game in the series. Other studios wish their "b-team" was as good.
Some people just actually think it's not a very good game. Or, at least, very disappointing. It's not wrong to think that, nor is it hyperbole.
Like, it's just as valid as enjoying the game. You don't have to be annoyed with or exhausted by people saying they dislike it.
Tevious
Member
If insiders said so, then I'm wrong, so never mind then. First I've heard of this. It's just unusual that Japan Studios is credited first. Everyone always just seems to assume that FromSoftware did everything and that they split into two with all the best guys working on Bloodborne when I don't think we know exactly how they were split.
The engine is speculation on my part, since the games look very similar in many ways. Could maybe explain how From has been able to crank out so many games in the last few years too.
It is my least favorite souls game, but it is by no means bad. I discovered what adaptability did late in the game so it soured my early game experience, however once I raised it high enough the game felt great to me. It successfully scratched my itch for more souls, and thats what matters to me.
DoubleTake
Member
Whatever engine the Souls games run on is From's own. Also I fail to see the similarities with TLG and Dark Souls other than being 3rd person.
I would assume JPS is credited first because they're Sony owned and were the ones footing the bill for Bloodborne. We pretty much know that most of the people who worked on Ds1 moved into Bloodborne while a few began prototyping Dark Souls 3 and a bunch of new talent was brought in to work on Dark Souls 2.
Personally I rate ds2 leagues above bloodborne lol.
(I still enjoyed bloodborne, but it's Ng+ sucks compared to ds2, build variety was thrown off a cliff, and some parts of the dlc are the epitome of bullshit mobs)
I also can't really go back to ds1 because your character simply isn't as agile as one from ds2 that has 105 agility.
(I still enjoyed bloodborne, but it's Ng+ sucks compared to ds2, build variety was thrown off a cliff, and some parts of the dlc are the epitome of bullshit mobs)
I also can't really go back to ds1 because your character simply isn't as agile as one from ds2 that has 105 agility.
I bought DS2 PC version day one and couldn't get into it after 14h and then they announced the SotFS version so I just stopped playing entirely until I finally bought the SotFS version a few days ago. I am enjoying it a lot more though it still has a bunch of annoyances. I really hate how this game just throws enemies and ambushes at you. The amount of enemies that come through the door in the area before the ruin sentinels in Lost Bastille is ridiculous. Felt like a clown car.
This makes no sense when only MGS1 & 3 aren't devisive. 4 is in good company.
Augemitbutter
Member
DS II is 2x goty then. pretty fitting, because it's a good game, especially with the kickass dlc
DS II is 2x goty then. pretty fitting, because it's a good game, especially with the kickass dlc
After the likes of Artorias of the Abyss and The Old Hunters, I really find it hard to believe how highly people praise the Dark Souls 2. Its almost as if it being slightly better than the main game makes it used as justification to prove the "good" qualities of Dark Souls 2. I bet if we had Dark Souls 2 DLC for Dark Souls, we would all say how its a step back and not as good as the main game.
I played Dark Souls 2 on PS3 until a certain point (I don't remember until where) and then stopped. I bought the PS4 remaster last year along with Bloodborne, which I played first...once I was done I decided to go play some Dark Souls 2.
Played it for 1 hour and then quit the game, I have tried several times since then but I just don't like it. The game has a boring world, the character looks and moves weird, the encounter design is shit with the game spamming enemies at you and basically it's just not as nice to play.
Played it for 1 hour and then quit the game, I have tried several times since then but I just don't like it. The game has a boring world, the character looks and moves weird, the encounter design is shit with the game spamming enemies at you and basically it's just not as nice to play.
TheCongressman1
Member
I just can't get into it. I try, but it's just not as compelling as the first game. The areas are so much more bland to me. There's a few really interesting ones, but I don't get the same feeling as I did with exploring in DS1. There's a lot of things that bring the game down, but the way the world is arranged has got to be my biggest gripe.
Well it is better than the main game but I agree that its often overstated how good it is. I think they got progressively worse as they came out and Ivory King is a terrible area which is too bad because you get some of the best items in the game there.
DS2 dlc is better than Old Hunters, even more so when you consider its pricing. The 15-20 hours you get with them are up there with the best content of any of the other games.
DS1 gets worse in its last quarter so something like Sunken King would be great. And I bet if Demons Souls came out now people would be whining about literally everything.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Artorias of the Abyss had a recycled area (which people attempt to justify via the "lore", as if that excused it) and a half-baked last dungeon with boring enemies, but you never, ever, ever hear anyone say that because it's a sacred cow.
generic_username
I switched to an alt account to ditch my embarrassing tag so I could be an embarrassing Naughty Dog fanboy in peace. Ask me anything!
To be fair research hall is a more accurate comparison and research hall shits on almost every level from Dark Souls 2.
Old hunters worse of after having the masterfully designed Research hall, shit ton of weapons better than anything in DS2 DLC and having three of the greatest bosses in Ludwig, Orphan and Maria? Yeah no. Ludwig alone beats every single boss in DS2's dlc. It is not in the same league as Old Hunters.
Spikematic
Member
You're entitled to your opinions of course OP, but to me that read like hyperbole and then some. You exaggerated and glorified each and every thing you didn't like personally and unnecessarily attacked the game's devs for designing stuff you didn't seem to like/understand. It almost seems like you started the game knowing you're supposed to hate it and then decided to write that tirade up to sum up your misinformed views.
The only thing that I distinctly disliked about Dark Souls 2 SotFS was the soul memory system. Admittedly, all souls games have had poorly handled multiplayer networking, and at least you can connect in DS2 easily unlike DS1, but no longer being able to engage in certain aspects of pvp because you played too much is frustrating. Maybe it has advantages, it forces you to start over frequently and really learn the game, but it gets annoying after awhile.
I also found Dark Souls to be very scary at times, and always tense, while DS2 is a mixed bag and rarely captures the tension of the first. It still ended up being an all-time favorite.
The game also gets better in the DLC and after you get accustomed to rushing through the first third or so, in some respects it actually has a higher learning curve than DS1 which was more immersive from the very beginning.
I also found Dark Souls to be very scary at times, and always tense, while DS2 is a mixed bag and rarely captures the tension of the first. It still ended up being an all-time favorite.
The game also gets better in the DLC and after you get accustomed to rushing through the first third or so, in some respects it actually has a higher learning curve than DS1 which was more immersive from the very beginning.
Agree with this. I completed it once and have zero desire to play it again. There are a ton of games I'd rather replay than DS2 and I think that's a sign that it's just not a good game.
Psychoward
Banned
or maybe people didn't like it as much as BB and Demons, Dark 1. crazy