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Dark Souls 2
11 years ago
General
"... Yeah, it's pretty good. *Closing credits start to roll, but are cut off* All right, all right!" Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw, Fallout 3 review.
Let me be frank outright. From Software has done themselves a massive disservice by intentionally linking this game to Dark Souls. As a sequel to Dark Souls, it falls very flat. As a Souls game in general, it's a great addition to the series. All of the charm, magic, and controller-snapping frustration that made Demon's and Dark Souls special is there. But this is no more Dark Souls than Dark was Demon's Souls. The established world canon is tossed out the window in favor of a brand new story, in a brand new country, which might just be Lordran after it's undergone several thousand years of terraforming without any major cultural advancements happening possibly due to everyone suffering from amnesia every few generations (which begs the question of how that differs from being set somewhere else entirely). So the question remains, why a sequel? They could have called it "The Marvelous Adventures of Stabpipes McUndeadguy" and it would have had approximately as much to do with Dark Souls as it does now.
Anyway, let's break this bad boy down.
Story- I'm very lukewarm on DS2's story, because it seems to be more about the lone undead than how fucked the world is and how it go there. I don't care about the undead. He's just a douchewaffle blindly following the advice of some old lady whose face melted off. It's the world's story that deserves telling. There's also a problem with flow. You go to Drangleic to find a cure for being undead (because fuck this "being immortal" shit) and somehow end up attempting to overthrow the monarchy without any transition from one goal to the next. It's also hoisted a lot more than the story in DS1 was, which is something I was concerned about when a direct sequel was announced. DS1's method of storytelling allowed for the player to establish their own involvement in the story canon. DS2, by comparison, forces the player to be simultaneously more and less involved in the story overall. Everyone is always soliloquizing about your motivations, but again, you don't really know how you transition from one goal to the next. You're just kind of being strung along, which is another reason why I prefer the story to be about the world rather than the undead we're controlling.
Gameplay- What do you want? It's a Souls game. There are a couple new weapon types to contend with (my absolute favorite of all being the Twinblades, including among pre-existing weapons) and a new type of magic (Hexes were important enough to get their own spell type but apparently not important enough to get their own kind of catalyst). Ultimately, you have a shield and something to poke your enemies to death with from melee and ranged combat. If you don't figure out a system of which pointy thing works best for you, you'll find yourself being re-purposed as wallpaper quite often. Some changes have occurred. You now lose maximum health every time you die, but can revert from Hollow to Human anywhere if you have the items. There are healing items besides Estus Flasks, so you only start off with 1 and need very rare, often very HIDDEN, items to enhance the number and strength of your flasks. Enemies now die after being killed 15~ times, so you can't grind anywhere for very long. Overall though, it's still a Souls game. If you can play DS1, you can play this.
Bosses- DS2's 31 bosses soundly trumps DS1's 26 (including DLC), but there's considerably less variety. About a dozen of the fights are just with big guys in armor (two of the bosses are, in fact, one fight against a big guy in armor and then later against two of the EXACT SAME big guy in armor). A few of the fights are meant to evoke DS1, too. The Belfry Gargoyles, for example, fight almost exactly the same as the originals, there are just 5 instead of 2 now. Najka is a scorpion lady that fights very similarly to Quelaag. The Royal Rat Authority is a big dog that starts limping when it gets low on health. They don't really get points for copy-pasting so much, but it still presents plenty of challenge and decent enough variety. Though there's nothing as visually engaging as the Gaping Dragon who apparently left an appointment mid open-heart surgery to fight us, but they do get bonus horror points for the giant spider broodmother nesting in a dragon carcass. I couldn't kill that thing fast enough.
Strategy- The Infusion system can't really be quantified alongside DS1's upgrade mechanics. They're considerably different. In absolute fairness, DS2's Infusions are better due to being streamlined and simpler, allowing every weapon to be Infused with (almost) any element (including status effects now!) at any point during its upgrade process. You can infuse catalysts with elements to boost their magic output (Infuse a staff with a Palestone to boost Sorceries or a Darknight stone to enhance Hexes, etc.), and add Infusions to boss and unique weapons. You can Infuse shields to boost that specific defense property. As with before, it's all about finding something that works for you. Because I can shoot people in the face with magic all day, but if you tried to tell me to make a greatsword-toting melee character, I'd be dead 5 times in the first 5 minutes.
Graphics- KINDLY FUCK OFF IF YOU THINK TOP-TIER GRAPHICS ARE THAT IMPORTANT. (The graphics do look better, and they didn't really skimp on gameplay to get it there, so there's that, I guess, if it's THAT fucking important to you.)
Conclusion- Like I said before, if they had called it Something Else Souls (Deadly, Dragon, Dominatrix, etc), it wouldn't draw the ire of being directly connected to Dark Souls and could be more freely judged on its own merits. But they DID connect it to DS, and so are challenging people to hold the games up to be judged together. We'll, however, take it as its own game, and such, it's an amazing addition to to the Souls franchise and shows that From Software still more or less know what they're doing :P
Also there was a point on a big rope bridge suspended miles above the nearest thing resembling ground swaying in the wind where I almost fainted from vertigo, so hooray for immersion, I guess X3
Let me be frank outright. From Software has done themselves a massive disservice by intentionally linking this game to Dark Souls. As a sequel to Dark Souls, it falls very flat. As a Souls game in general, it's a great addition to the series. All of the charm, magic, and controller-snapping frustration that made Demon's and Dark Souls special is there. But this is no more Dark Souls than Dark was Demon's Souls. The established world canon is tossed out the window in favor of a brand new story, in a brand new country, which might just be Lordran after it's undergone several thousand years of terraforming without any major cultural advancements happening possibly due to everyone suffering from amnesia every few generations (which begs the question of how that differs from being set somewhere else entirely). So the question remains, why a sequel? They could have called it "The Marvelous Adventures of Stabpipes McUndeadguy" and it would have had approximately as much to do with Dark Souls as it does now.
Anyway, let's break this bad boy down.
Story- I'm very lukewarm on DS2's story, because it seems to be more about the lone undead than how fucked the world is and how it go there. I don't care about the undead. He's just a douchewaffle blindly following the advice of some old lady whose face melted off. It's the world's story that deserves telling. There's also a problem with flow. You go to Drangleic to find a cure for being undead (because fuck this "being immortal" shit) and somehow end up attempting to overthrow the monarchy without any transition from one goal to the next. It's also hoisted a lot more than the story in DS1 was, which is something I was concerned about when a direct sequel was announced. DS1's method of storytelling allowed for the player to establish their own involvement in the story canon. DS2, by comparison, forces the player to be simultaneously more and less involved in the story overall. Everyone is always soliloquizing about your motivations, but again, you don't really know how you transition from one goal to the next. You're just kind of being strung along, which is another reason why I prefer the story to be about the world rather than the undead we're controlling.
Gameplay- What do you want? It's a Souls game. There are a couple new weapon types to contend with (my absolute favorite of all being the Twinblades, including among pre-existing weapons) and a new type of magic (Hexes were important enough to get their own spell type but apparently not important enough to get their own kind of catalyst). Ultimately, you have a shield and something to poke your enemies to death with from melee and ranged combat. If you don't figure out a system of which pointy thing works best for you, you'll find yourself being re-purposed as wallpaper quite often. Some changes have occurred. You now lose maximum health every time you die, but can revert from Hollow to Human anywhere if you have the items. There are healing items besides Estus Flasks, so you only start off with 1 and need very rare, often very HIDDEN, items to enhance the number and strength of your flasks. Enemies now die after being killed 15~ times, so you can't grind anywhere for very long. Overall though, it's still a Souls game. If you can play DS1, you can play this.
Bosses- DS2's 31 bosses soundly trumps DS1's 26 (including DLC), but there's considerably less variety. About a dozen of the fights are just with big guys in armor (two of the bosses are, in fact, one fight against a big guy in armor and then later against two of the EXACT SAME big guy in armor). A few of the fights are meant to evoke DS1, too. The Belfry Gargoyles, for example, fight almost exactly the same as the originals, there are just 5 instead of 2 now. Najka is a scorpion lady that fights very similarly to Quelaag. The Royal Rat Authority is a big dog that starts limping when it gets low on health. They don't really get points for copy-pasting so much, but it still presents plenty of challenge and decent enough variety. Though there's nothing as visually engaging as the Gaping Dragon who apparently left an appointment mid open-heart surgery to fight us, but they do get bonus horror points for the giant spider broodmother nesting in a dragon carcass. I couldn't kill that thing fast enough.
Strategy- The Infusion system can't really be quantified alongside DS1's upgrade mechanics. They're considerably different. In absolute fairness, DS2's Infusions are better due to being streamlined and simpler, allowing every weapon to be Infused with (almost) any element (including status effects now!) at any point during its upgrade process. You can infuse catalysts with elements to boost their magic output (Infuse a staff with a Palestone to boost Sorceries or a Darknight stone to enhance Hexes, etc.), and add Infusions to boss and unique weapons. You can Infuse shields to boost that specific defense property. As with before, it's all about finding something that works for you. Because I can shoot people in the face with magic all day, but if you tried to tell me to make a greatsword-toting melee character, I'd be dead 5 times in the first 5 minutes.
Graphics- KINDLY FUCK OFF IF YOU THINK TOP-TIER GRAPHICS ARE THAT IMPORTANT. (The graphics do look better, and they didn't really skimp on gameplay to get it there, so there's that, I guess, if it's THAT fucking important to you.)
Conclusion- Like I said before, if they had called it Something Else Souls (Deadly, Dragon, Dominatrix, etc), it wouldn't draw the ire of being directly connected to Dark Souls and could be more freely judged on its own merits. But they DID connect it to DS, and so are challenging people to hold the games up to be judged together. We'll, however, take it as its own game, and such, it's an amazing addition to to the Souls franchise and shows that From Software still more or less know what they're doing :P
Also there was a point on a big rope bridge suspended miles above the nearest thing resembling ground swaying in the wind where I almost fainted from vertigo, so hooray for immersion, I guess X3
