Ds2 is better than Elden Ring.
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.
What they say: DS2 sucks
What they mean: Game is too hard for me
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Wait why do people hate Elden ring? For context I’ve only played 3/4 of DS1 and 1/2 of DS2.
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.
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?
