Ds2 is the only game in my steam library that doesn't support cloud save. Thanks to that I lost my first run where I was near the end. Also coming from dsr the movement felt very soapy if it makes sense. I had the impression that my character is very light but also slide on the ground.
It totally makes sense. It's the black sheep of the franchise for a reason, but I still love it.
It's a good game. It's just unfair to compare it to the masterpieces, that it's siblings are.
Also coming from dsr the movement felt very soapy if it makes sense.
You're feeling the angle snapping. The game tries to wrestle control of your left stick away from you to try to get you to walk at one of 8 specific angles relative to your camera.
It's the sole reason I haven't bothered to grit my teeth through the rest of the game's atrocities.
Edit: somehow I misread "soapy" as "sloppy" lol
DS2 is my favorite of the Souls games. Its got so many diverse locations and build types. I LOVE that its so different from all the other games, it really feels like they put a lot more emphasis on the RPG elements. Its the one that feels most like an adventure to me and its got such a uniquely lonely atmosphere in a different way compared to the others.
I also love how distant it feels from DS1, like you are eons in the future of DS1, and everything from DS1 is just ancient legend. I kind of dont like how DS3 feels so direct as a sequel, and I kind of wished they had taken the distant approach of 2, minus the final boss, who I feel was very appropriate for what he is.
That being said, I do think DS1 is a better gane overall. If I had to rank the games as I enjoyed them, it would be: BB, DS2, DS1, ER, DeS, DS3
I dont get the hype around DS3. I really really dont. The game feels like such a boring slog, and it feels like your options to approach a situation are so limited. I think my biggest issue with DS3 is the roll. In DS1 and DS2, the roll was a tactical tool that you should use in some situations, though general movement could be a better way to avoid damage, or using a sheild, tanking, or dealing enough damage. In DS3, rolling is almost the only way to really avoid damage. Due to the fact so many enemies in 3 have very fast and long combos, it boils a lot of fights down to pure reflexes, which, imo, is kinda boring. I WANT to use my brain and position myself tactically in a fight, avoiding slashes by actually moving out of the way, rather than rely on i-frames.
Now, I am in the vast vast minority of players who play souls games and dislikes DS3. So at the end of the day, DS3 is just not for me. I understand that its considered a great game, but I simply do not like it. Elden Ring, however, I enjoy very much. I think the tactical options of Ashes of war, jumping, and the ease of changing builds makes the game a whole lot more interesting to play. Still too much rolling imo, but at least a super heavy build is very fun and viable!
I havent beaten Sekiro, but I really enjoy it so far! Sorry for the essay!
No apology needed for the essay. I enjoyed reading it!
I feel very similarly about DS2. Playing it feels very rpg-heavy, as if I've been dropped into a tabletop game and am trying to survive. The stats and strategies are varied, and the atmosphere is amazing.
I hope you enjoy Sekiro! It's hard as hell, but is probably my favorite game of all time.
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I agree with the DS3 take. I like it more than DS2 just because DS2 feels so clunky in how it plays but the vibes feel much better.
DS3 is pretty underwhelming when compared to the other games given they each do something unique.
That said, gundyr champion, nameless king, sister friede, and Gael are all unreal fights and might be worth playing through everything just to get to imo
Introduced power stance, has really cool weapons.
Estus wasn't instant though, as far as I remember?
As it should be. The only issue with estus not being instant is enemies input reading and punishing drinking. Which is in every fromsoft game tho
I get your point, but I kind of prefer the instant estus. Just for those times you drink it right before getting hit. I suppose the solution is to not get hit though. Guess I better git gud.
DS2 didn't really base on the estus though. Sure, you could, but lifegems were plenty and they were the ones you used during a fight, but you had to survive it. Also, levelling ADP meant you drunk faster and used items faster. That stat is probably why most people don't enjoy DS2 - they expect to have iframes without levelling an "agility like" stat.
Yeah. I remember before reading the "level ADP" and how much better it got. The life gems were a nice addition. It's probably my favorite DS game.
Hehe, not actual horses, just the stupid reindeer in the peaceful serenity of horsefuck valley (DLC optional area).
BTW, you can despawn them permanently in one go (instead of the usual 12 or 20 or whatever). They spawn only from two or three places so you can just wait their respawn standing still in that general area.
I like to do that.
Especially with the dragons tooth.
Just bonk their stupid shit until no more bonks left to receive.
I hated them so much the first playthrough that I love them now for their memetic value.
I remember cheesing them to an extent with that spear that has the rock at the end, that you have to break off first. If that makes any sense. I'll look into it and update when I'm not working.
Man, is it possible that I missed this? Or has it been too long since my last playthrough?
Better start a new run soon, just in case.
I mean, just bcs of this convo I want to do another run.
The issue is that I do not speedrun or bossrush DS2, it takes me forever to complete a run, to take my time with everyone, appreciate all the cats (there are several more kitties in that same DLC), to contemplate retiring to Majula, pretend to be chased around by those funny pigs there, etc.
That's compared to DS1 and DS3 where it's just a matter of hours, like a todo, with main variation being the build. DS1 & DS3 lore content (for me) is one of those that appreciate, but once known to me I don't feel the need to go though/listen/read it again. Def not every time/every ng.
Tho I tend to save Karla most of the times, just to know she's out (it takes like two minutes to get the key & run to her).
Funny pigs? They turn into a huge hog now. There is nothing funny about those assholes (other than the death counter in Majula ticking up consistently since time immemorial when three little piggies went to market)
Seeing people try to despawn them and get obliterated is never not funny. In Scholar though, the mutation is just mean :D
DS1 has the nostalgia advantage from a time where I rarely ever bought games because I was a kid and money was appropriately tight.
But I'll forever assert that DS2 is my favourite DS. The build system, the fact that stamina allocation matters, that - TPM may recognise this sentiment from another conversation we just had - healing is a tactical choice due to the time it takes to be effective, even the "ganking" was more an exercise in managing multiple opponents to me.
Controversially, I even like the way it reduces your HP slightly when you die. It really gives that feeling of desperation that you're "going hollow" and have to either embrace it or keep restoring your humanity, which fits the theme of the game.
Live's hard and short for us dried prunes. Best not to get hit then. Speaking of:
I'm ambivalent on whether having to level iframes is a good thing. I like the idea of improving your agility like the rest of your abilities. On the other hand, that raises the entry barrier since your dodges have to be more precise at the start of the game, and the idea of using positioning instead of dodging for some attacks isn't intuitive to a lot of people.
Then again, part of the appeal of these games is trying and finding out what works and what doesn't.
God, I had no idea what I was doing with my build the first time I played that game. I don't think I put any levels into ADP. The struggle and confusion was part of the fun for me, but I get that not everyone wants to put up with that.
The best part is it isn't even ADP. It is AGI which was governed by ADP and ATN. And it was really a tight scaling window too: like 96 AGI slashed your iframes and anything past like 102 AGI was imperceptible.
Controversially, I even like the way it reduces your HP slightly when you die. It really gives that feeling of desperation that you’re “going hollow” and have to either embrace it or keep restoring your humanity, which fits the theme of the game.
It's also contrary to one of the most important lessons from the first game: that death doesn't matter. Experimenting is okay. There's nothing to lose. Achieving that calm in ds1 was memorable.
DS2 fucks that up by rather harshly penalizing you for every death.
DS2 will always have a special place in my heart.
After dying 13-15 times to the Fume Knight and giving up in the lone wolf strategy and inviting some strangers to help me to 1 year later replaying the game winning the fight in the first try barely tooking damage was the most exciting gamer moment ever.
The only thing that come closer to me is the final boss in Sekiro.
People be like "Errr, the elevator to the lava castle."
Okay, sorry the game took you somewhere interesting. Go to DS3 if you want the brown village to take you to the brown swamp that leads to the brown catacombs.
The problem isn't that the game took you somewhere interesting. The problem is that the game completely forgoes any geographical consistency by having you take an elevator at the top of an windmill that goes up and you exit inside a lava crater. The brown village with the brown swamp and brown catacombs in DS3 may look visually less interesting but they're at least geographically consistent.
And that example in DS2 isn't the only one, it's just the most blatant one. It's also a significant difference DS2 has over other DS1 and onward titles. Other From titles try to keep the geography of locations consistent. DS3 is an excellent example of that because it doesn't matter what area you're in, if you look into the distance and see something of interest in the distance you can be 99% sure it's a different area you will visit. For instance if I'm not misremembering I'm sure you can see irithyll from the undead settlement. In DS2 if you see something in the distance it might be an area you'll visit but it also might be just something in the distance. For example in the Iron Keep (the lava castle) if you get to the boss area you can see a temple or a village or something of the sorts in the distance, I don't really remember what was in the distance because you never get to visit it anyway. And that's assuming there is something to see in the distance, a lot of the areas in DS2 you can't even see into the distance.
The ability to recognize your surroundings is what made DS1 world interesting. I still have a fond memory from looking into the distance in the Tomb of Giants and recognizing Lost Izalith. I have similar memories for DS3, Sekiro and Elden Ring. I don't have such memories for DS2.
DaS2 is a great game that happens to be in the unfortunate position of being situated in between the game that defined the genre and the game that perfected it.
I hate directional attacking and I can't turn it off in this game.
I have a physical copy of this game, but I don't plan on playing it anytime soon, and that's 100% of the reason why.
Dark Souls 2 is definitely better than the general consensus thinks.
This would be my rating of the souls games. Sekiro > DS1 > Bloodborne > DS2 > DeS > DS3 > Elden Ring
Level design and exploration is the weakest and the bosses start having the Elden Ring issue of damage sponges and animation manipulation, like heal counters and roll catches.
For me a ds3 run just feels very quick and you cannot take as much optional and different routes as in the previous games, it's more linear. But also ds3 bosses are peak, only topped by sekiro, and imo everyone crying about artificial difficulty (e.g. the guy above) has skill issues. Like, demons souls, ds1, ds2 (except the snowy outskirts, fuck that area) are pretty easy to beat in comparison.
I agree on the ds3 bosses. They are phenomunal and the best in the souls movement set. Sekiro is tough to compare it to as that game just plays differently IMO.
I replay all dark souls games and even mods are enjoyable, but I don't bother with other games. I started Bloodborne but it just doesn't hold my interest anymore? I just really like dark souls universe I think.
If you haven't heard of it (probably have, but anyway) try the Archthrones mod for ds3, it's insanely well done with basically a new game on top of the ds3 engine, with new areas, overhauled areas, completely new bosses and bosses with move sets from other souls games.
And yeah I love soulsbourne, rarely anything else scratches that itch, Lies of P and Lords of the Fallen were pretty cool but other than that...
Took everything good about souls games, copy pasted and spread it out so thin to cover an entire open world with no content. Destroying the pacing and exploration of a complex designed world in favour of a flat large plane of repeated enemies and the same dungeon over and over again.
I can go on.
Took everything good about souls games, copy pasted
That's true for all of the games on your list. These games are (and always have been) innovations on each other. The erd tree bosses are improved stray demons, which is an improved asylum demon, which are improved adjudicators. Even if they weren't innovative, the new bosses and mechanics would still more than make up for it IMO.
and spread it out so thin to cover an entire open world ... Destroying the pacing and exploration of a complex designed world
You never found any of the areas that take you off of Torrent and stop being open-world? They're the same as all of the previous games, and there's loads of them.
no content
Did you even make it out of the starting area??? Ever seen a minor erd tree? Or stop one of the roaming carriages with loot? You really didn't find any of the puzzles? Paintings? Notes pointing to things to do? Never found any good loot tucked away in an obscure part of the map? Never found a notable place to get useful crafting materials? Never found the churches, golden seeds, or the physick flask? Never encountered a story invasion? Never encountered a boss roaming in the overworld? Never found an evergaol? You didn't find any NPCs or try to do any quests/miniquests? Not even any merchants? Didn't find any underground open-world areas? Didn't touch any teleporters or dubious chests?
I can go on.
in favour of a flat large plane
Blatantly untrue when you leave the starting area and look literally anywhere.
repeated enemies and the same dungeon over and over again.
The only thing the caves and dungeons have in common are textures. Repeat bosses are definitely a thing though, but repeat enemies... I don't see how that's an issue. They're used in different combinations and contexts that mix things up, and it's no different than any of the other games on the list.
I never like to dismiss someone's criticism of things because they're generally subjective, but so much of what you said is questionable... if not just objectively wrong.
Ok. So stfu about calling reused assets innovation. It’s not. It’s reused old materials because you are strapped for time and are padding the game for release.
I also platinumed the game and can confidently review every aspect having seen and beaten it all.
Go through the main game and dlc and count how many locations are just big flat areas with no items or content. Just fields of padding to wade through. Or a location to grind for the pointless crafting system.
The open world activities that you listed break down to go to place in the open world and fight a dude or pick up an item. It’s all just repackaging the same fucking quest structure. Entirely copy pasted fetch quests that reward you with an item that is most likely not for your build. So on repeat play throughs you just go online to find the gear you need and go straight to the main quest. Or you get another item for upgrading your flask that’s already maxed out. 🙄
The open world is a empty padded space meant to kill time between the only good content in the game “the legacy dungeons”
This entire game world could be cut down by more than half and it still wouldn’t have enough content worth exploring.
Your user name is very apt because you are acting like a huge fanboy simp for clearly a watered down version of a souls game.
I love FromSoftware but I hope they never tackle something this big again and go back to making bespoke game worlds that are intertwined and fun to explore.
I also platinumed the game and can confidently review every aspect having seen and beaten it all.
Me too. And getting hostile doesn't make your claims any less questionable if not demonstrably wrong. I understand the game bent you over its knee and pounded your cheeks but you don't have to make shit up to criticize it. It's really easy:
A lot of the quests and endings STILL practically require a guide and can break if you progress too fast, and that's been an issue since Demon's Souls for crying out loud... The lack of vertical depth on the map often doesn't do a good enough job of telling the player that there is no path to climb from below to obvious points of interest. And why tf aren't our waypoints and map markers unlimited? A handful of bosses read your animations and react like a robot, and it not only breaks immersion but feels cheap to fight against. Idk about on console, but PC had some pretty bad optimization issues in certain areas for several months after release, and the DLC now has the same issue. It's a little frustrating that the FPS is still capped at 60 like their other games. To this day there is still an issue with decorations/foliage over-culling the shading behind them, giving it an ugly glowy effect. The light reflections in things like water are still tied to the camera like in the other games, making it look like you can move light sources with the right stick. It probably should have been more clear that Ria's hug debuffs your HP. Messages and other interactables being too close to each other disables your ability to switch weapons, which is really annoying when you're trying to buff yourself before a boss fight and can't switch to a talisman, and on rare occasions can screw you over in combat. Dismissible notifications like the doors opening in legacy dungeons bizarrely disable your attack buttons, and can screw you over if you happen to be under pursuit or if you forget to dismiss it and walk into a fight. The PVP arena gives you no rewards and there's no incentive to do it rather than invading. When invading, it's way too likely that it'll get canceled by the host walking through a fog wall the moment you load in. They should have fixed that during the DLC pre-patch by removing areas next to a fog wall from the pool, but they didn't. Summon signs will constantly fail when the demand is too high because they don't disappear immediately after another host swipes them from you. Players can hide in places only reachable with Torrent and then invite invasions with the taunter's tongue, which wastes the invader's time and incentivizes hosts to do this by giving them a constant stream of runes while AFK, making it the easiest farming method in the game.
More subjectively: Malenia's life-stealing would have been better paired with almost any other boss, because her waterfowl attack is already hard enough to deal with. Maliketh's burning attacks that lower your HP cap are way too frustrating, and it would've been nice to have an item or a physick tear that could help counter it. The mimic tear is a great idea, but it's wildly unbalanced and makes the other spirits not worth bothering to try. The run-back to the final boss to the grace is unnecessarily long and should have a stake of Marika next to it. Split damage is still somewhat of an issue, so physical damage is still "meta." Bosses that summon other enemies are annoying and feel almost as cheap as DS2's horde fights. The caves and legacy dungeons reusing textures, models, and decor might be narratively consistent and understandable from a developer perspective, but it makes them feel too same-y, and the diversity in layout and challenges to tackle don't do enough to counteract that. They also use the same small pool of enemy types for caves and legacy dungeons, and they could have been improved by expanding that pool. It's way too easy to hide from invaders and waste their time just to gank them after 10 minutes. They blew the spells of their previous games out of the water but in PVP they make it far too easy for hosts to demand invaders to drain their whole stamina bar while they spam spells, all while their partner is chasing them down.
All that and I didn't have to misrepresent the game in ways that can be proven wrong the moment you reach Limgrave.
Thanks! You’re right, I am correct! The game is so shitty and padded.
And resorting to calling the game too difficult as an insult is so passé. This your first souls game so you have to so feverishly defend a watered down experience?
The difference is I didn't have to pull anything out of my ass to criticize the game.
My list of criticisms for DS1 would be even longer, even without making shit up. Yet it's my 4th most played game on Steam with 600+ hours after learning to speedrun it. I'm not simple-minded enough to deem it a bad game with no content after seeing it's not perfect.
I was going to ask why you think it got so much hype, but you're basically describing why I hated BotW.
Did they not add other rpg exploration elements to the game to compensate?
Elden Ring is nothing like botw. The latter being an amazing open world but with literally less than 10 enemies or something, just different colors. Elden ring has a ton of enemies, mechanics, bosses, etc etc. the people in this thread are just mad it’s become a more main stream thing and they have to find another game to play in their mom’s basement.
Dark Souls 2 is mid and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. It’s good that from soft experimented, but there is a reason that they haven’t brought back a lot of the mechanics that people generally didn’t like from that game.
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I love Dark Souls 2 and I don't care what anyone thinks otherwise. It was a joy from start to finish.
100% of the few good ideas DS2 had were utilized better in their other games, and without any of the numerous issues that DS2 introduced.
It takes control away from you by snapping your left stick to angles, they frequently resort to enemy spam and horde bosses, the animations and models are cartoonish compared to any of their other games, thrust attacks can't be aimed up or down far enough to attack small enemies without locking on, a significant portion of the game is trivialized by effectively infinite / spammable heals, iframes are tied to a stat...
It sucks.
FWIW it's not like the game is unplayable or didn't have any good ideas. It's still better than 90% of the other AAA games coming out at the time, I just think it's silly and unproductive to pretend it isn't significantly more flawed than their other games.
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It sucks because the end game scaling is done very poorly. There's nothing fun about killing bosses in 15 seconds without even seeing their moveset
I agree, the final bosses were super easy by the time I reached them. They feel more like story elements for that reason. The "real" final bosses are in the (excellent) DLCs. Most of them felt like an appropriate challenge.