Only took me 2 years but woop woop I finished this gruelling behemoth.

Dark Souls II feels undoubtedly the bleakest of the Souls games, with bigger portions of dull, decrepit ruins and crestfallen NPCs. Its lore and narrative are equally as dense and simultaneously unimportant to the gameplay - sure it wasn't a speedrun, but by the time my conquest - of blood, sweat and tears grinding boss after boss, rows and rows of soldiers and monsters that murdered me over and over - by the time all that started coming to a close, I had, all but drained of awe and wonder, forgotten what I was even fighting for. In all fairness, that could be in the best spirit of the Souls-genre, maybe Dark Souls II is thus the most Dark Souls game of them all. Nevertheless it's certainly the most frustrating.

Incoherent rambling aside, it's hard to ignore plentiful moments of beauty and intrigue, notably the memories of the Giants, the nightmarish Black Gulch, the sparkly Shrine of Amana, Majula (vibes), that scorpion chick, the list goes on.

For the most part, it can be as exhilarating as it is frustrating, and is still a first class game, despite the lack of Miyazaki's magic touch. It's certainly FromSoftware's black sheep. In fact, sheep don't get much blacker than this, otherwise they would probably feature as a boss.

As much as I wish I could love this game, the frustration I can't overcome stems from my feeling that this game does not respect my time. You can spend nearly ten hours building up a handful of characters, max their gear, stack them with good perks and minor flaws, send them into battle in one dungeon, for them to be absolutely devastated by bullshit rng. I love the way the game looks, I am actually satisfied with its level of difficulty. It's the lack of recovery that makes this game unappealing to me. The game will infuriate you, but if you have the stones to overcome what should be a level of rage never before seen, you might just be able to beat this game and claim whatever unimportant bragging rights you think you deserve.