Despite its title this can't help be feel like as much a sequel to Demon's Souls. Partly this is down to the structure of the game, a central hub area branching off into a few different independent linear routes that you can tackle in any order you want before the game ultimately culminates in you finding and killing the monarchy of this land.

Partly this is down to the almost reckless creativity on display. If Dark Souls took the things from Demon's Souls that really worked and cut away the bits that arguably didn't, Dark Souls 2 has not a care in the world instead saying lets fuck around and find out. This was very much to my frustration in my first playthrough, but returning to this game a year later a lot of the things that previously frustrated me are honestly just endearing. As rough edges go, I think there's a lot of charm and personality to these ones.

Returning to this game in a post-Elden Ring world was also a lot of fun to me. People disparagingly compare that game to Dark Souls 2 occasionally, but I feel like playing Elden Ring taught me a lot about how to enjoy playing Dark Souls 2. It turns out a lot of the parts of Dark Souls 2 that are decried as being unfair are actually much more reasonable when you take advantage of all the tools the game gives you. This playthrough I abandoned my usual approach of just two-handing the chonkiest sword I could find all by my lonesome to instead play an extremely-multiclass build (turns out the excessive number of levels DS2 hands you are perfect for enabling you to dabble in everything) with summons alongside me and I actually had just a great time.

That's not to say there aren't some problems with the game even outside of the notorious Dark Souls 2 weirdness, and the last portion of my run was honestly a bit exhausting; I think the pile of dlc the game has is both very overhyped, and kind of excessive considering how gargantuan the base game already is. That said, somehow, I sit here a convert. Despite all its problems Dark Souls 2 is actually a rather delightful oddity.

I don't even know how to begin writing about Dark Souls II. The game seems to me to be categorically a mess, with moments of brilliance and excitement mixed among moments of frustrating design much worse than anything in the original Dark Souls.

I will say that my average enjoyment for the game was quite a bit higher than the score I'm giving it indicates, but the low-points are so low that I struggle to imagine playing through the game again from the beginning. Heidi's Tower of Flame, Harvest Valley, Earthen Peak, Black Gulch, Shrine of Amana, the Giant memories, Frigid Outskirts, and a significant portion of Brume Tower were all just broadly not enjoyable or even very frustrating. Dark Souls 2 logic also serves as a big annoyance throughout (how to unlock Huntsman's Copse, burning down the windmill that is made of metal at the point where you light it aflame, how to unlock Castle Drangleic's front doors, and everything to do with unlocking the final boss, all required some amount of direction to be given to me in a way I never struggled with in the first game).

None of this is helped by Dark Souls 2's attitude towards worldbuilding. The original Dark Souls is certainly not without its faults (largely contained within the Lord Souls content thankfully), but it builds up a lot of forgiveness from me because the world is so immersive, so genuinely exciting to see the ways it all starts to link together both in a physical sense and a lore and worldbuilding sense. The world of Dark Souls 2 is more chaotic, with an active and intentional disregard for physical reality as it seeks to show a world in disarray, space contorting in the same way that time did in the first game. I don't outright dislike this, and in fact think it's really cool that Dark Souls 2 decided to take things in a very different direction, but the reduced sense of immersion that comes with this makes the low-points a lot harder to shrug off for me.

Of note, Dark Souls 2 alters a bunch of systems and mechanics from the first game. I'm totally fine with this in the abstract, each game exists as its own entity and doesn't really owe anything to what came before it, but some of these changes did land very poorly with me. Ever-reducing health total that needs to be undone with the usage of human effigies, enemies permanently de-spawning from the world after you've killed them a certain number of times, the adaptability stat, and a greater emphasis on resource management and finite supplies, are all extremely well-meaning changes that make sense but feel kind of awful in practice. I do think people often ignore the things Dark Souls 2 does right though; jump attacks are much better than they used to be, back-stabbing and endurance are both thankfully nerfed, there's a greater emphasis on making two-handed play appealing and de-emphasis on shields and blocking, dual-wielding weapons and power stance are awesome additions, you're given a better level of control over the rpg-aspects of your character, and every single change made to how estus functions (other than it being tied to your adaptability stat, which is clearly bad) was great! People talk about the systems and design in DS2 as if they're a strict downgrade, but I think of it more as a side-step; handling some things worse, but also some things quite a bit better.

And gosh the highlights here are so good. Eleum Loyce ranks up there with the very best content in the original Dark Souls. No-man's Wharf was another big highlight, though there are a few different places that are going to linger with me. Dark Souls 2 also just has a great eye for memorable set-pieces; my personal favourite was the ogre chasing you in Aldia's Keep, it clumsily releasing other creatures from their cages one-by-one as you dash away down the hallway.

I might never return to this game because of its low-points, but its high-points are going to stick with me much longer than for any other game I could say that for. Dark Souls 2 is such a mess, but also such a fascinating mess.