THE SOULS SERIES HAS HAD A ROUGH TIME TRANSITIONING INTO DARK SOULS 2, BUT
I really love the atmosphere of this one. There's a kind of prevailing sense of dread and unease through the whole game, even more so than the original, and it's probably less due to the muddy textures and more due to the desolate world design and mournful setting. My favorite part of all these games is coming across areas that feel so forgotten in time and cryptic in their existence that you get the impression of being somewhere you don't belong, and DS2 delivers that in spades. The bleakness and hostility of areas like Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt and Aldia's Keep really lets you take in how far the secrets of the kingdom are buried, especially after noticing something is clearly off in your trudge through Drangleic Castle. The sense of engaging directly with this world's dark history is palpable, and so rarely pulled off as effectively as in this game, so full credit where it's due.
It's just a shame that this comes with the cost of having to actually play the fucking thing. I don't know what happened here, but besides the neat additions to rolling and sprinting, everything here feels five times floatier than the last game. Combat is like hitting bags of sand with cardboard. Enemy swings track you to Antarctica and back. Your character sometimes decides to swat a fly to their side instead of hitting the boss in front of them. The hitboxes operate beyond human understanding. Running is more akin to ice skating. The level design and enemy placement takes a massive nosedive until the DLC, and even that has its own gems of shit such as the Frigid Outskirts or most of Old Iron King. I don't even have to mention whatever's going on with ADP or Soul Memory, as it's already been mocked wide and loud enough to be common knowledge. Powerstancing is... neat, I never got that much out of it given the investment required, and while I understand that the main point of praise for this game comes from its build variety and by extension the PvP, the latter has always been something I saw more as an extra feature (or surprise challenge in the case of invaders) for my playthroughs instead of an integral part of the experience. I think gauging the quality of these games exclusively on their PvP is kinda fucking moronic
It's interesting seeing how many ideas were taken from this and given a second run with Elden Ring, and while some were definitely refined, others should've probably stayed in DS2 - primarily cramming a boss fight into every nook and cranny of the game at the cost of making only about 10% of them be memorable at all. There's a LOT to like here - quite literally, this being the largest game in the trilogy - but only if you can get over how flimsy it feels to play and dull to look at.
I really love the atmosphere of this one. There's a kind of prevailing sense of dread and unease through the whole game, even more so than the original, and it's probably less due to the muddy textures and more due to the desolate world design and mournful setting. My favorite part of all these games is coming across areas that feel so forgotten in time and cryptic in their existence that you get the impression of being somewhere you don't belong, and DS2 delivers that in spades. The bleakness and hostility of areas like Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt and Aldia's Keep really lets you take in how far the secrets of the kingdom are buried, especially after noticing something is clearly off in your trudge through Drangleic Castle. The sense of engaging directly with this world's dark history is palpable, and so rarely pulled off as effectively as in this game, so full credit where it's due.
It's just a shame that this comes with the cost of having to actually play the fucking thing. I don't know what happened here, but besides the neat additions to rolling and sprinting, everything here feels five times floatier than the last game. Combat is like hitting bags of sand with cardboard. Enemy swings track you to Antarctica and back. Your character sometimes decides to swat a fly to their side instead of hitting the boss in front of them. The hitboxes operate beyond human understanding. Running is more akin to ice skating. The level design and enemy placement takes a massive nosedive until the DLC, and even that has its own gems of shit such as the Frigid Outskirts or most of Old Iron King. I don't even have to mention whatever's going on with ADP or Soul Memory, as it's already been mocked wide and loud enough to be common knowledge. Powerstancing is... neat, I never got that much out of it given the investment required, and while I understand that the main point of praise for this game comes from its build variety and by extension the PvP, the latter has always been something I saw more as an extra feature (or surprise challenge in the case of invaders) for my playthroughs instead of an integral part of the experience. I think gauging the quality of these games exclusively on their PvP is kinda fucking moronic
It's interesting seeing how many ideas were taken from this and given a second run with Elden Ring, and while some were definitely refined, others should've probably stayed in DS2 - primarily cramming a boss fight into every nook and cranny of the game at the cost of making only about 10% of them be memorable at all. There's a LOT to like here - quite literally, this being the largest game in the trilogy - but only if you can get over how flimsy it feels to play and dull to look at.
MegaDriver69
2 years ago