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.
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
What they say: DS2 sucks
What they mean: Game is too hard for me
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
