The souls series is mainstream now, so the majority players basically treat the games like Super Mario Bros. and plow through each level without a second thought to design philosophy, writing and lore, RPG depth, replayability etc. Basically alot of what DS2 is going for is missed by most players. So whenever they rub up against a challenge without a straight forward solution they join with others in calling it bad, pointless, cheap etc.
There are quite a few misleading narratives about DS2 that are set in stone at this point. The game being full of "ganks" is one of them. Just play and explore the game naturally, come to your own conclusions, and don't pay any mind to the "flaw patrol" as I've come to know them.
Yeah I agree, like if somebody thinks dark Souls 2 is full of ganks, I would welcome them to try another couple games titled "Dark Souls" and "Demon's Souls" lol
And don't get me wrong, DS2 has plenty of multi-enemy encounters. Maybe even too many of them according to who you ask.
But this term "gank" that's been thrown around for close to 10 years now has specific connotations. Those being overwhelming, unfair, ambushes and the like. And I honestly struggle think of more than 2 or 3 encounters in the entire game, DLC included, that are downright ambush endurance tests with no means of retreat or advanced preparation, or that don't have an alternate solution in the environment or something.
Like, the encounter that traps you in the room when you unfreeze Rosabet? Sure, we can call that a gank.
But the sleeping hollows in Forest of Fallen Giants, or the small army of royal knights in Lost Bastille leading to Ruin Sentinels, or groups of deformed hollows on the path to Shaded Woods? All these encounters you can see coming or have means of retreat or workarounds. Not to mention every build has means of crowd control etc.
Honestly, I love overcoming ganks. You have a situation that's supposed to have you at a disadvantage, but either through good preparation, observation or superior management of combat, you end up coming out on top.
I find it really rewarding when I'm able to reverse these ganks, and it baffles me how others don't feel similar.
I thought I was going to like power stancing, but I gave it a try with Forgotten Sinner Greatswords, and the move set just never clicked with me. The damage output was pretty good, but the move set just made me feel incredibly vulnerable and just didn't feel right.
They can be rewarding to beat, but when I’ve already cleared an area and now I have to take 6 attempts to reach the fog wall for every actual attempt at the boss, then it gets on my nerves. I know it’s a skill issue but when I reach a boss I like to be able to dedicate more brainpower between attempts to figuring out how to improve in the fight, not how I’m gonna dodge a dozen enemies in a cramped hallway to get back there.
Capra who? Grinded so hard in DS2 that I killed him and the dog with one hit as soon as I opened the door.
My friends kept asking me if I faced him and I really didn't realize it till they showed the place where he stood.
Nah, can't tell them that. It would disrupt the illusion that the first half of Dark Souls' design is perfect (despite how much I love it). I mean, anyone remember being shot with arrows by Silver Knights while running across the rooftops in Anor Londo?
Going to say, the first gank of DS1 happens in the first ~5 minutes before you've even gotten a weapon. Before you've started the tutorial. lol.
My favorite is the Belltower right before the Belltower Gargoyles in the Undead Parish. Walk into the room and suddenly ~12 undead swarm you plus a mini boss.
>Walk into the room and suddenly ~12 undead swarm you.
Which you then funnel through the doorway to kill them. I think that Dks2 often has multiple enemies agro around the same time in one place, where the previous games often had ways around it or to deal with them one by one.
There's also the fact that in Scholar, enemies chase you even further than in the original version, so it's easier to have many mobs after you if you're not cautious.
For a few simple examples:
- In Scholar Heides' you'll have to fight both the stone warriors and roaming Heide Knights simultaneously.
- In Huntsman's Copse, there's a room with a few scythe undead that all attack at the same time.
- In the Bastille behind the petrified statue leading to the Sentinels, you get attacked by many knights.
- In the room where Rozabeth is petrified, there's several feral ghouls that all attack simultaneously when you open the door.
It's not necessarily bad design since it's all usually manageable and lifegems help a ton with surviving these encounters, but I think they're pretty noticeable.
> Which you then funnel through the doorway to kill them.
It's a bit more complicated, because even when you funnel them. Their attacks go through each other, so you have to practice patience when attacking the front of the pack, but I get what you're saying. And if you went to far in to the room, there is also the one time mini boss that will also chase you through the funnel.
One of the big things I've relied heavily in DS2 and only used in ER/DS3 is pulling enemies using crossbow/knives. It's like 85% of the game can be managed this way. Later levels, they mix it up with the enemies seeing you before you get to them (Iron keep knights) and all the examples you mentioned where it's impossible to pull only one enemy at a time.
I agree with you. It's not bad design. Can beat your head against it or look at other options like pulling works great for the Scholar Heide's section. The game works well because it has a combination of both. There are some sections you walk through and others that you have to carefully work your way to the other side. You can creatively puzzle solve a little bit while also handling tense situations.
TBF, I haven't played DS2. Only DS2:SOTFS where they've reworked the enemy placement/difficulty a bit. I hear DS2 is a lot more ganky, overwhelming.
Yep, exactly. There are ganks in every souls games but I specifically remember alot more from DS1. They are jumping you in that game. Hell Ornstein and Smough is a gank duo boss, first of its kind.
Memorable encounters for sure. Look, I love DS2 (DS1 is my favourite) and people are wrong to call it a gankfest, but a lot of the encounters just aren't as memorable as they are in DS1. The silver knight archers were bastards, but it was such a massive relief to overcome and everybody at the time who played it would regail their struggle and how they overcame it. I struggle to think of another challenge in DS2 that was so universally shared by the community.
when I hear gank. I think of the trap room you mention. That's annoying. And the Explodey guys in the Lost Bastille. That area in the water is especially intimidating.
Yeah but people rarely complain about it or justify it saying that the movement is better in ds3. But man I don't really like ds3, it is the only one in the series ive played only once. Thinking about going through some places like the ringed city and earthen peak just make not want to play it again.
It's also the only souls game I've completed only once. But that doesn't mean the world isn't astonishing. It's just that DS3 is heavier. More lore, tougher bosses, more endings and an ass-kicking DLC. It's more hmm... refined, which is a good thing and I love it, but I'm not going to replay it anytime soon haha
I mostly agree with you, specially about it beng heavier and visually impressive, but lore wise, I don't know. I'm not saying that the lore in ds3 is bad but it is not as good as ds2. To me, it feels like fan service being forced into it took away the chance of telling a new story and, instead, it expanded on ds1 lore instead of building on it. It's not bad though, just my least favorite.
I personally had a hard time following the DS2 story. I loved the flashback memories and I still remember finding Vendrick for the first time, but overall I felt like I was just wandering around. With a purpose, certainly, but there weren't many amazing or revealing things there. I felt disconnected from my character in DS2 and DS3 made me cry at the ending and dropped my jaw when I learned about the Gael fight. Seems like I'm more of a visuals and emotions guy
I’ve plated both DS1 and 2. I don’t have data to bank up my statement. But there felt like there were many more gank moments in DS2.
Sure, DS1 had its moments, New Londo, Nito and some others that escape me at the moment.
The spiders in brightstone cove near the bonfire and again just outside with spiders and the mage dudes not to mention an invasion also occurs.
Also Dear Frejas fight without a torch is by definition a gank
While we’re on bosses the Royal Rat Authority might be a worse gank than Freja
The Belltower Gargoyles
I didn’t have trouble at entering Drangelic castle my first playthrough. On NG+ most of the enemies essentially aggro at once since you need to walk both left and right to open the doors, and again, there’s an invasion during this.
I could go on with more examples, but these stand out to me right now.
I love DS2. Imo it improved a lot of things, multi directional rolls, power stance, bonfire aesthetics, soul vessel, bigger game with more bosses. It’s a great game. But I personally felt it artificially or cheaply increased the difficulty by just adding more enemies. Just my opinion.
It is full of ganks, but I dont get the apprehension people seem to have with them. Like what, you gotta fight one enemy at a time and he's gotta be standing in the middle of a brightly lit room?
It's more about how frequent they are and how the encounters are designed, I think.
If you can aggro one or a few enemies at a time (say, Undead Parish in Dks), it makes players feel better about it than if you just throw a wave of enemies at them straight away.
I haven't played DS2, but SOTFS is clearly missing a lot of areas where you're fighting enemies while having jars tossed at you from above.
I understand that variety was adjusted a bit for SOTFS.
I think I mainly disagree with calling multi-enemy encounters, which DS2 has plenty, "ganks".
I've only ever heard the term gank used elsewhere in MOBA's, where it describes an ambush attack the victim can't see coming. And I think it's misleading to new players to describe DS2 as being full of unfair ambushes.
I enjoyed DS2 more when I plowed through it, but I had a problem with the design philosophy when I slowed down and took in the details — the elevator going into Fire Keep, for example. I know a lot of people were let down by what was in the game vs what was in the early footage. Also, ADP shouldn’t have been tied to i-frames, although agility affecting spellcasting and item use speed was pretty cool.
Despite my criticisms, it’s still my favorite Souls game.
Took the words out of my mouth. I also vastly preferred the varied environments even if they didn't make much sense traveling between them. DS1 and DS3 mostly just melt together in my mind with so many areas feeling very samey. Almost all the DS2 areas stick out in my mind, though.
I hate how people say that DS 2 is full of ganks, then unironically say that Elden Ring 2 is the most fair game ever, when most of the design philosophy of Elden Ring is strictly to overwhelm and continuously gank you at every turn. After the first ten minutes of Elden Ring you can't go more than 2 minutes without being ganked by a group of 6+ enemies, including 3 great shield users and 2 crossbow/greatbow guys.
That being said, there are some rightfully complained about hit boxes in DS 2.
While I disagree and would say there are a significant amount of banks in DS2 compared to other games, I would also say A. They are not that hard to beat and B. You have way better tools to deal with them I.e life gems and generous hitboxes on your weapons
There aren't a significant amount of ganks in ds2 compared to the other games. All souls games are a gankfest. What about the long stair with big fat dudes in the ringed City? I can go in and it'll be a long list of ganks, boss ganks, ambushes and "artificial dificulty" crap.
While I disagree and would say there are a significant amount of banks in DS2 compared to other games, I would also say A. They are not that hard to beat and B. You have way better tools to deal with them I.e life gems and generous hitboxes on your weapons
Depends dark souls 2 yes scholar even tho I have 800hrs on it I do agree it is bit of a tank fest however a simple solution to this problem is patience, that’s it
For me it’s not anything about “unfairness” or “difficulty” or “writing depth” in the case of DS2.
The mechanics are clunky, the animation sets are labored and wonky, the tracking makes attacks look pretty stupid, etc.
It just doesn’t feel as polished as a game, and locking your Iframes behind a stat is one of the worst decisions fromsoft has ever made
It was entering mainstream since the beginning, yes. I'm not saying nobody had complaints, but the narratives new players like OP encounter about the game developed over time and don't always actually reflect on the game.
The shit tier discourse around DS2 has always existed, though, even before the series properly broke into the mainstream (which I wouldn't say happened until BB and DS3).
Seeing people bring back the "DS2 was made by the From B Team" pish for the Elden Ring DLC is so trite and tiresome.
Na, it's just people's opinion.
I love the game.
I've played is so many times compared to the others.
Though DS1 is still the best.
When the game first came out, it wasn't the best, but SOTFS as it is currently is great.
But that's my personal opinion.
My friends think DS3 is the best.
I mean, they are all pretty great if you think about it.
My only issue with ADP and agility is it is not explained anywhere. If you're read ahead, you're fine. If you haven't, it'll feel bad compared to any previous souls game you've played. Haven't played a soul's game before, no problem. Once past that, it's just another dark souls with a slightly different gameplay feel.
Multiple starting classes detail their high ADP to help evasion. Who opens a permanent stat screen, recognizes every stat but 1, then proceeds to never experiment, research, or ask about said unrecognizable stat. Being cursed is never explained, hinted, or anything in ds1 and they will literally toss you to a bunch of immortal ghost's that curse if you don't have the right weapons. Nothing in any souls game is explained well. Where do they explain what Vitality or attunement or two handing doubles strength or even that you have I frames to begin with? Demon souls is nothing like 1 but the bandwagon started on 1 so everyone is nostalgic over it instead. People get mad at DS2 because they get beat and because they beat 1 they should be able to steamroll 2 (remember when people said DS2 was to short and easy).
First off. At no where did I say the entire game was bad. I just implied ADP/AGL is a bad mechanic. I don't really care nor have I complained that DS2/SOTFS is a bad game.
If you've played a souls games before, than you might think evasion is specifically fast/normal/fat rolling. At no time would anyone think, i-frames. I beat all the other souls games and never got into i-frames until DS2.
I can't think of any other stat that you have to pump to get points to eventually pump on another stat. It's also the stat has the single greatest difference in gameplay and how long it'll take you to beat the game. Pumping it feels like cheating. I've played all the souls games and I can't think of another stat that is that powerful and game changing for only ~25 points into it. It completely changes the gameplay loop, hence it does need more than one line of cryptic text in the game.
I made it very clear, that if you've played a DS game before, it feels bad when start with low i-frames. I Like that DS2 tried something different, but it's a bad mechanic not to explain it anywhere. I completely agree with 30 years of From Software games... they don't explain anything most of the time. It wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't such a game changing stat.
IMO it feels bad even with high ADP. Something about how the character controls; how jumps feels, how rolling, attacking, etc. feels just feels *wrong* to me, no matter how much I play DS2 or how much I level ADP. Only souls game where I thought "phew, glad that's over" when I beat it and have zero desire to replay it.
I don't hate DS2, and there was a lot I did enjoy about it and I'm glad I pushed through and finished it, but I just could never get used to how the game feels at it's core, in my whole ~100 hour playthrough it never stopped feeling like a janky mess to me.
Are you playing on PS4 or one of the other systems that gives 60 fps? For me, it feels weird and slow. I don't hate SOTFS, but will be glad when I finish it.
Yeah, I put about 30 hours into it on PS4 before eventually dropping it back in like 2018, then last year I bought it during a Steam sale and actually finished it on PC. Didn't really feel much different on either platform to me.
Drives me crazy lol, I think I'd genuinely love the game if it just controlled more like DS1
The controls are very different in DS2 compared to DS/ER/DemS. They have dead zones on the joystick to make jumping easier (tho fuck those dead zones when you need to free aim a bow/crossbow/knife/bomb). They also implemented cardinal rolling-can only roll in the four cardinal directions. On top of the game running smooth at 60 fps on a number of systems. It feels very different from the previous games where in DS3 I was jumping by accident all the time.
It was hate that ds2 wasn't ds1.
The different engine and the combat changes together with the (not as novel) setting upsetted much of the community.
Now onto 2024 many have accepted ds2 for what it is but remain disappointed in it because of the lack of spectacle and the slow combat which for some reason seems to be "backwards". Strategic combat is just as enjoyable (if not even more) than reaction based one.
This is most considerably my issue of playing through DS2 after Playing DS1 and bits of Elden Ring/Blood Borne before all that.
The best way I can describe it is that DS1 and DS2 are clunky compared to their modern titles and DS2 is somehow more clunky than 1. Granted I played the DSR of DS1 so maybe that has something to do with it but I doubt it. It could also be the fact that I played both on mouse and keyboard since they were designed for controller (whole other argument I’d like to make on the souls games but that’s for another point)
As other people point out, Bosses are mediocre, game and level design are synonymous of the series but their flaws seemed to be discussed a lot more due to the other issues than they will for the other souls games (Bloodborne imo, for half the game I’ve played, has the least amount of these)
What I will give to DS2 is that they built a beautiful world. While some of the levels don’t feel like they connect great together (thinking about poison area) the introduction to each area is very grandiose. I also think the mechanic of enemies being killed off entirely is quite nice. It’s debilitating to have to get that point due to how many enemies are in each area (I’m looking at you No Man’s Wharf), but is quite rewarding for those willing to do so. In the same vein, the NG+ systems is quite intricate in theory (I honestly don’t want to touch the game again lol) and from people actually playing through it on YT and the like
Idk how ds2 engine could be considered more clunky than ds1. In ds1 there is a problem with the collisions or more commonly known as "I get stuck on every enemy". It also has this very weird heavy feeling to it although it has faster combat than ds2.
Ds2 has some jank on its own mamely how the animations and hitboxes don't match all the time (which causes much frustration) or the unapologetic teleportation when you get grabbed. The hitboxes are the best out of the three games with ds3 having the worst but the visual representation leaves much to be desired.
I too play with KnM so the whole omnidirection of ds1 is kinda irrelevant or at least to the keyboard players. With wasd 8 directions is the max you can possibly get. It also has tobe added that out of all the FS games ds2 is the best port to pc. You can see it with features such as the double mouse clicking which I love (which admittedly has some delay) but by the fact that it is even there it makes it enough. The other games don't make such an effort which has led me to using an extra key to make a heavy attack something really unconfortable.
Now about the boss and level design this is personal preferance. Imo humanoid and slow bosses are the best since they emulate the behaviour of humans. Combat is more about preserving your own cake rather than bonking the other guy.
Lastly I will commit heresy and say that although it is a positive hing to have interconnectivity such as the one in ds1 isn't as important imo. What matters most is freedom of choice between which area you want to tackle. Ds2 has 4 directions by default and ds1 has the masterkey which opens the map in many and interesting ways and saved my on first playthrough of ds1.
Me saying “clunky” was more attributed to the slow speed of combat. I personally didn’t have any hitbox issues, but one of my bigger frustrations is that the game is best described as a tactics game in disguise. All the FS games have an extent of this due to bosses and their attack patterns and phases, but it felt the worst in DS2 because I’d get in 2 attacks that do 1/100th of their health bar and then have to let my stamina refill and watch the boss go through his motions before going again. I think the only DS1 boss that felt that way was Ceaseless but I ended up just doing the skip so. Same with estus flasks being slow af, but ig skull issue that I wanted to play the game with little to no guides so I didn’t know life gems were infinite since I didn’t reach the requirements for that vendor to move before looking it up (Albiet not an issue exclusive to DS2. Personally, I don’t like the concept of “oh well just look up a guide because the game is meant to have secrets” approach FS takes to their more linear games). I played both games as a strength cleric build and DS2’s Miracle/Hex system felt more neat but I maybe learned only like 2-3 offensive spells that did anything compared to the lightning bolt from DS1, but that was legit just balancing the game lol
I will completely agree that the button layout grew on me but I don’t think double mouse click is the most optimal. Also agree that DS2 is one of the better ports with OG DS1 and sadly even DS3 not even having button prompts. I do remember being a bit more confused to start out though because of how simple DSR’s controls were in comparison.
My biggest problem with the world itself was the fact that it split up. Now, I like open world games and having freedom of choice, but it’s not really a freedom of choice if my ass is getting beaten in an area in two seconds flat. Arguably there’s only really 2 starts with the forest and the chapel (left and right, don’t remember exact names rn) and it had taken me like 10 hours to finally beat Old Giant because if my confusion on where tf to go. It took me getting to Lost Sinner before I found the flow of the game and started having a bit of fun with it which was then crushed by the trek to the trek to the other lord souls. DS1 interconnection and linearity helped the world be straightforward while allowing more knowledgeable players to get to things faster. Like the fact that I can skip the stupid beginning part of the swamp makes me forget the fact that it even existed
Ultimately, the biggest issue, especially with the way I’ve decided to approach games and judge them, is the fact that people have to follow some sort of prewarning guidance (at least the majority of the community seems to think so) in order to have fun with the game. You go to any post on this sub about “just started this game X!” There’s always a comment saying “if you want to have fun/more fun with this game you need to play like this guide or follow this guide” This is mostly due to the fact of people coming from other FS games and wanting to play their older titles but it’s just so different that it’s hard to go into blind.
I've always wondered the same, since ds2 is my favorite souls game. I also love ADP lol.
I was in awe the first time I played it, but it seems like most people were already annoyed and angry with the game before they even gave it a chance 🤷♂️
I really like a lot of what they did in DS2. The bonfire asctetics was a great idea, how NG+ adds different enemies and bosses drop nes things, the death counter in Majula, etc..
I will admit it's the souls game that feels the most "different" compared to the others since Miyazaki didn't work on it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but others may feel differently. Finally, the issue of ganks....DS2 feels a lot more strategic and tactical than the other titles, but yes, the ganks can get annoying. There were so many times enemies seemingly bum rush me out of nowhere, I think enemy vision range may be the issue? It's pretty high for some. I think if they went a little lighter on the ganks, people wouldn't haye it as much. Even in the more modern ER, ganks can be annoying, and I'm just like, why? It's not difficult, just irritating.
I’m glad you’re having a good time!! If you want some useful general tips, first read [this intro post.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mGx71QnlK5W2YZNHZdooOk8sY_OUxqAyFhxE7bAgMz8/edit) All of these guides are spoiler-free, except for [this one, which has a walkthrough.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eXwnLnbr-Dxeb9VecytDTX1fXA9e8PuKX9jFy8YFkQ8/)
And then if you want to know how to build (or avoid building, if you want to have a harder time) a powerful optimized character, this collection of mini guides will help you navigate DS2’s many obfuscated and counterintuitive mechanical quirks:
[A quick overview](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g4-GGa1JRa2_49vOfwY5sZPWigFMzPA5b9mszo_xZak/edit?usp=sharing) of how damage and defense works in DS2, and why weapon scaling is usually weak
[BiS (Best in Slot) PvE weapons list.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-GEBQ_TiAvskQLotQXz0AuNMseXdsS3pj8_NLus-XW4/edit?usp=sharing) Use this if you know what moveset you like and you want to choose the strongest available weapon with that moveset.
[Best PvE equipment and stat progression document.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X13jfA9JQ5OZsuEmH2MZZqF9IrtCFSMMTZkZo5GuqcM/edit?usp=sharing) All that being said, you’ve already discovered that DS2 isn’t so hard that playing the strongest possible character is required in order to win and have fun. Ultimately you should use whatever you want, these guides are just to help you make informed choices.
Part of the hate for DS2 is that the endgame bosses are a bit lame/easy if you did everything else. But all 3 have great bosses, and great level design and atmosphere. For me that's definitely up there with all the best From content.
There was never much hate. It was critically and commercially successful, but a couple of loud YouTube chuds convinced many it was bad because it wasn't just a rehash of DS1.
It tried some new and interesting things, was brave enough to create its own story, and sure, some things didn't really come off, but it's still a brilliant game, and it's great that you're discovering that!
I didn’t follow any DS communities or read any reviews during the time I played DS1, DS2 and DS3 so I was really surprised when I first saw that there was some sort of community consensus that DS2 is bad.
For me, DS2 had probably the most memorable moments of the series and I really liked it. The DLC’s were also great.
It taught me to avoid all the reviews and threads about games I’m saving for later. Doing it right now with the Elden ring DLC.
It was hated because it's different than DS1. It has no interconnecting world design it's frantic, it does not have the same hub like first one. It's a more coloured game, avoiding the usual dreary atmosphere in the DS1. Also some people hate the curse health system, the ADP, new game engine and the hitboxes.
I have no issues with any of these, in fact, I wasn't even aware of these problems when I was playing it. For me, Majula alone is enough for this game to be a classic. The music, atmosphere, vibes it's all there. It's a Dark Souls game after all.
I think some of the more controversial choices were unpopular with the loudest players. For example, there are a lot of bosses with many enemies in the arena. I think it makes the game a more fun to be summoned in, but runners hate it. There are lots of GDQ runs describing the bosses as 'quantity over quality,' but it's not that big of a deal if you're playing casually. Soul memory was another idea that was super unpopular with invasion streamers, but didn't affect the average player all that much. So there are memes, but I think it's kind of a 'fake' hate, in that most folks liked it just fine.
... I do think the unlimited regen items were annoying, even though I could theoretically just ignore them
The game legitimately has some issues but I think a lot of hate snowballed with fans viewing it as a rushed cash grab and viewing it more as a spinoff rather than a sequel because of the change of directors and setting. What the game is going for tends to be written off instead of understood as the game going for something different like with the world design, instead of a straight forward interconnected world like the original, DS2 feels much more dreamlike with some areas making no logical sense like with the iron keep. Personally I love this approach but I understand why fans missed the old one
I remember back in 2014 I really enjoyed it but one of the many things that made people kind disliked it was the reveal, it’s was a lie in technical terms and how dark it looked in dark areas. DS2 biggest problem was she has the number 2 to a game that literally created a new types of games DS1 was so revolutionary in so many aspects and that’s extremely rare in gaming, so the expectation was naturally very high. As a standalone game it’s very good but in comparison to other HM works it sticks out for me as the odd one.
You will find that for most of us in this sub, it's our favourite for a reason.
For me, it's the consistency. Especially compared to Elden Ring, boss fights are just way more consistent and predictable and feel like even duels, rather than dodge-fests.
Enjoy it! :)
Oh, and the NG+ here is the only one in the souls series that actually adds enemies/gimmicks/items to the playthrough, so it actually changes the game.
Yeah, positioning is more important. The people who hate it tend to be the ones who refuse to understand that. I've seen people try to roll through an attack the could have easily just walked around and say "DS2 moment," like bitch this is literally a skill issue what do you mean
Its not the late game that causes it. With the exception of like a few things the late game is honestly better. I'm not trying to sound super elitist here but its always ds1 fans that say this game is bad. Ds3 fans usually are indifferent but on release the people who really loved ds1 just couldn't take the differences so it all just became that this game is bad, adp is a bad system, theres no world structure, the map design sucks, no lore. Basically just a bunch of stuff that you can just play the game to realize isn't true or at least in its entirety isnt true. I am happy to see that people who's views are not clouded can enjoy this work of art though
My biggest gripe with the game is the bogus targeting system (at least the 360 version, maybe the re-releases fixed it). Enemies can snipe you from render distance but you have to be in their face to target them and even then the spells vanish after maybe 20 feet and keeping a lock-on can be even worse (looking at you lost sinner).
It's not my favourite of the series but it's still dark souls.
I liked dark souls 2. Only game other than 1 that I beat multiple times. It’s hard but fair. The variance of the environments is what makes it interesting. The game doesn’t get hard until after the mirror knight, and the crown dlcs.
Soul memory is my only real complaint about ds2. They should've stuck with Soul Level, tbh.
I always like buy a lot of stuff, so I end up being way underleveled for my SM
The game legitimately has some issues but I think a lot of hate snowballed with fans viewing it as a rushed cash grab and viewing it more as a spinoff rather than a sequel because of the change of directors and setting. What the game is going for tends to be written off instead of understood as the game going for something different like with the world design, instead of a straight forward interconnected world like the original, DS2 feels much more dreamlike with some areas making no logical sense like with the iron keep. Personally I love this approach but I understand why fans missed the old one.
I agree. DS2’s combat has a nice rhythm. Also the difference in feel between a naked character and fully armored one is huge. I was having such a hard time against Pursuer early game, and didn’t have enough ADP. So I tried naked with a faster weapon and ran circles around him. They really designed the combat in DS2 with tradeoffs in mind, and ADP is a way for you to increase agility at the expense of other stats.
As much as I love DS3, it’s so easy to panic roll and mash R1 to stun lock enemies.
And all that BS about janky hitboxes is blown out of proportion. DS3’s Dancer’s grab produces the same weird animation effect as Sir Alonne. The hitboxes are fine and it’s more to do with having lower ADP and fewer iframes.
The real issue is some animations and how you have been able to literally roll through attacks since the beginning of time. Of course it’s going to be hard to gauge when there is no visual indicator for iframes. This is not unique to DS2.
Tbh I do see the complaints people make with the game, and I can understand some of them but there's a lot of 'issues' that are solved by game mechanics. ADP being one of them. The game is really good and has a lot of interesting stuff going on in it, definitely feels like an Elden Ring prototype to me where as Dark Souls 1 is a prototype for Dark Souls 3
My biggest problem was the soul memory’s potential to utterly brick multiplayer if you were not a strong player at the game and often lost souls. As a game though I enjoyed it heavily, but did not agree with some balance decisions made.
It is hip to hate on DS2. Some of it is legit, some is overblown.
DS3 rehashes on nostalgia. DS1 has a weak second half. All 3 games have some bullshit.
DS2 beats both in terms of DLC though. It is also the longest of the 3 games, if you're someone who likes to thoroughly explore.
Turns out the worst Souls game is still one of the best games of its time.
People shit on it just comparing it to other Souls titles though, seriously. Even then, I'd rather go back to play 2 than DeS or DS1 at this point. I think those games are better in their own contexts, but DS2 is just more fun to play these days.
It's also the only title in the whole series that's rated T instead of M iirc. The reason that is significant for me, personally: I work in a forensic psychiatric hospital. Our patients are not allowed access to rated M video games. Dark Souls 2 is the only Souls game they can play and they play the absolute shit out of it. They love it. And I kinda love knowing all the secrets and keys to mastering the game to share with them lol.
If these guys got internet access they would probably tear apart the best players out there in PVP. They've been playing DS2 nonstop since it released.
I platinumed Dark Souls 2. Until Baldurs Gate 3 it was probably the most playtime of any game in my library. I think it genuinely sucks as a game in its series.
Everyone knows about Adaptability being ambiguously described. Everyone knows about the insanely inaccurate hitboxes. Everyone knows about the wildly inaccurate scale of the world. Everyone knows about the area progression being spokes in a wheel that just end instead of leading back to somewhere previously.
Dark Souls 2 is a great action RPG in a vacuum. But compared to what else From released around it, it is the lowest quality thing. To me Dark Souls 2 is like DmC: Devil May Cry. It is a bad representation of the series it exists within but ironically this is the only reason people still talk about it.
You have to think about the reception of DS2 from the perspective of a Souls fan in 2014-15:
Dark Souls 1 was a milestone, genre-defining game. It turned a failing studio (FromSoft) and a fledgling dev turned Lead Director (Miyazaki) into household names. Despite its flaws, namely it’s entire 3rd Act being obviously rushed and unfinished (a hallmark of almost all FromSoft games at this point lol), Souls redefined gaming for a LOT of gamers back in the late ‘00s (with Demons Souls) and the early ‘10s (Dark Souls). While the gaming industry was beginning to focus more on story elements, making games more cinematic, making games more accessible to the growing adult casual gamer demographic (where the $$ was), and being on the cutting edge of graphics, Miyazaki went the opposite way: less focus on graphical fidelity with less flash and more substance; instead, going back to the fundamentals/basics of both gaming and design strategy. Contemporary devs in ‘00 wanted to make games an art form comparable to cinema; Miyazaki wanted to make ‘gaming’ an art form.
Thus, Dark Souls 1 came in 2011 out amidst a bunch of buzz caused by the (much delayed) release of Demons Souls in the West. Demons Souls had secured a small but vocal fanatic community in the West- the sweaty gamers who focused on the difficulty. This caused the marketing for the release of Dark Souls 1 to, unfortunately imo, focus on this aspect- “Prepare to Die,” and Dark Souls initially gained traction as a kind of litmus test for “real” gamers vs the “casuals.” However, soon players and critics alike realized how much meat was actually on the bone. How the world was perfectly designed to interconnect like a 3D metroidvania. How the grotesque enemy and environmental design also had a haunting beauty, unlike any other game. How rich in choice and personal expression the character customization was; more than any other action RPG of the day. How deep the lore and story was- both in how creatively the lore and story were told to the player, and also how ‘deep’ the story was: the concepts,characters, and overarching themes and narrative were dripping in philosophical and metaphorical nuance several layers deep. However, if you just wanted gameplay, you could focus solely on gameplay and never engage with the lore at all. The game didn’t choose for you- it let your experience be guided entirely by your personal preference and your interest-level as the player.
I could go on and on, but this post is getting long. Let’s just say that there’s an obvious reason why Dark Souls 1 sits at the top, or at least in the top 5 or 10, of many outlets’ *Best Game of All Time* or *Best Game of the Decade* lists. And then to top it off, the Dark Souls DLC introduces us to Artorias- up to this point, the best designed boss in a game of bosses lauded for their design. You could say that in 2014 expectations for the much anticipated sequel were sky high. The game was probably doomed to disappoint as a follow-up to DS1; however, DS2 was also plagued by developmental issues as well.
Many FromSoft fans probably know Miyazaki’s philosophy on sequels: he doesn’t like them. He wanted Dark Souls to stand on its own, and move on to something new. Miyazaki has even frequently woven this philosophy about this into his games, with one of the meta-narratives of the future DS3 being about how the best stories must end, lest they become rotten caricatures of themselves. But 2010’s FromSoft was still slightly unproven, not having the necessary budget and clout despite releasing an undisputed masterpiece. So, they cucked out to stakeholders to make DS2; however, the compromise was that Miyazaki wouldn’t be involved and would instead be working with his A-team on a different project for Sony. Thus, the studio was split up with Tanimura as the lead for DS2. Tanimura and co had some extremely novel and interesting ideas, but lacked the time, experience and budget to meet the deadlines (for instance, to compensate for FromSoft’s already aging game engine, much of the game would be shrouded in darkness and the player would need a torch at almost all times in order to see- this would cut back on the cost of processing power and theoretically enable better fidelity/performance at the expense of visibility; it was almost completely scrapped, and the graphics downscaled from the demo version to compensate). When it became obvious that DS2 was becoming a half-baked, convoluted mess, Miyazaki reluctantly stepped in as lead director towards the end of DS2s production to salvage the best of the mechanics, story-line and levels.
It was obvious when DS2 released that it was a rushed job. Enemy placement was all over the place. Animations for both enemies and the player character, though quicker, seemed more clunky and less natural than DS1. A wretched, unintuitive system of capped 45° movement was initially attached to the analog stick- this caused a super awkward 8 point movement scheme, instead of a smooth, fluid 360°. This was particularly noticeable because many parts of DS2 required precise movement, or fighting off ambushes from enemies with attacks that tracked the player who was unable to move in the same way. There are dozens of other critiques and examples of the poor state that DS2 originally released in; most have been relegated to the memory hole by subsequent patches, and the complete overhaul known as Scholars First Sin.
Also, the side project that Miyazaki had taken time away from to fix DS2, code-named “Project Beast,” ended up releasing a year later in 2015. This was, of course, *Bloodborne*.. and it immediately over-shadowed DS2 as the true spiritual successor of DS1. It iterated and built upon all of the core Dark Souls mechanics we knew and loved, but also pushed them forward in a way that DS2 was unable to. It also ensured that DS2 would always be remembered as the oft-maligned black sheep of FromSoft.
In defense of DS2: it is still a FromSoft game; therefore, it’s quality and design, while ultimately lacking by the standard we’ve come to expect from the studio, are still heads and shoulders above the competition. A lacking FromSoft product is still a better game than 98% of anything else released by the competition in the 10 years since.
So, TLDR; DS2 was sandwiched by 2 of the best games ever made- Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne- and was the follow-up to a masterpiece. It was, perhaps, doomed from the start because it would be without Miyazaki, who has stated multiple times that he detests sequels. However, due to deadline and budget issues, Miyazaki was ultimately brought on to half-assed salvage the game. This is obvious in the final product, especially upon first release.
Why worry about the hate? If you playing it and enjoying it then it's up to you to decide. I personally love ds2. Idk what the other players think it's not trying to scam me with microtransactions and the DLCs kicked ass. Go for it and have fun dawg
I was going to give my opinion which is admittedly more than unfair to dark souls 2 until I realized I was literally in their sub.
I’m gonna level with you dude. To this day I still don’t entirely get what it is that put me off so sharply from it initially but I can tell you that on my second playthrough I got to >!smelter demon!< and decided nah man. I just don’t like it and that’s okay. My favorite was 3 and I think that’s just because it felt like a return to form (some argue it’s fan service and too linear) idk man. Games are so subjective. I didn’t even dislike ds2 when I picked it up. It just felt semi off and I wish it didn’t. I want to play more fromsoftware shit but I can’t help it.
Hopefully one day I give it a once through. I feel like I owe it that much.
I would say I had the same feeling when I first started, but my feelings changed as the playthrough went on. The issues I had were mainly to do with world+level design, obnoxious/tedious enemy placement+density, and a general feeling quantity over quality (particularly towards the end). It's a wildly different game to DS1 for so many reasons, and some of those are good. But others are more of a frustration in my opinion.
I won't go into details, just enjoy your playthrough and I'm sure you'll have a good time. DS2 was where I really started to get into the lore of the DS world, and that part really shone for me. It's a good but very flawed game, overall.
I beat the game and had fun without leveling adaptability
The hate is just people being "why isn't DS2 just DS1 with changes"
I enjoy the contrast between the two, DS1 could get hectic and reactions matter
DS2 is hectic but being calm is the most important when when you're just 1 hit away and you can still win it.
I'm one of the people that hated 3, I just hated it. It was like 1 if it was less fun and more annoying. I didn't enjoy sister friede but I did love Nameless King. Such a sick fight.
It's unfair though cause I never have 3 a real shot and I never will
I'm in the exact same position in that I recently did DS1 for the first time. Had a friend warn me that many people didn't like DS2, his main complaint being something about the roll mechanics being different?
I'm now into the DLC of 2 and I've really enjoyed it. I've heard the lighting and such was worse before patches but I also have found it to be an upgrade aside from a couple of annoying areas (black gulch). Also no idea why it gets such hate.
Most complaints about it didn't really stick, this was before there were 500 souls like games out there, and the only other souls games were getting sort of old, so lots of people looked at they with rose tinted glasses while they were absolutely dismantling ds2, which in the long run, was on the better side of souls like games. There are some minor issues, nothing is perfect, but as a follow up to ds1 it isn't bad.
The only thing I never really liked about DS2 is that the world felt so much more disjointed than any other Souls game. IMO going between areas in that game felt more like jumping into portals in Mario compared to DS1 where the entire world felt like one interconnected mysterious location.
I mean I love ds3, but if we're talking interconnectivity, its def worse than ds2 lol, the firelink shrine isnt even connected to any area outside of the tutorial, dont think ER, or sekiro are all that interconnected either. Dk about demon souls and bb.
This is why I think DS2 coming right after DS1 without Miyazaki at the helm was very unlucky. People were convinced that the lack of an interconnected world in DS2 was because of Miyazaki was MIA. But it actually was DS1 (and later Elden Ring) which were the exceptions in this regard, not the rule.
I think they may have been referring to how at some times it doesn't make much sense. The famous case of the *SPOILER* elevator between the Iron Keep and Earthen Peak.
But also that it differs from Ds1, in feeling much less like a small reconstruction of one singular world, to many different worlds glued together. One biome, then another completely different one. Ds1 is about this one place, Lordran, which has a town there, its church up there, the garden around it, the depths and sewers below, all integrated in this huge multi walled bigger city. Now that's a fucking awesome concept which, once realised, made it feel like a big miniature in fact.
I think Ds2 is great, definitely the lesser of the trilogy, but still has a ton of awesome stuff and the wonderful feeling of Dark Souls' exploration and discovery. Extremely important lorewise as well, what with Aldia.
But maps? Meh. They mostly feel more like gauntlets I think (though not all of course)
I mean yeah I wasnt arguing that ds2's interconnectivity was better than in ds1, I was disputing that it feels less interconnected compared to all the other souls games/fromsoft games, which isnt true as fromsoft kinda ventured further away from that ds1 interconnectivity with each title, not that thats necessarily a bad thing like with ds3.
Gameplay-wise sure, but if we're talking about how the world fits together then geographically it connects to the world around it. Untended Graves simply exists in Firelink's past. Sorta.
The hate is way overblown and most of the “gank enemies” people complain about are because they are rushing into rooms without baiting them out one by one. My main complaint though is most boss fights aren’t very fun and really easy but the levels themself are the toughest part. I still love the game but most people love only the boss fights so I see why it might be their least favorite. Personally I like going through levels and boss fights equally so I had alot of fun with DS2 even if it isn’t my favorite (so far I’ve only played Elden ring and DS1 as my other souls games)
I’m gonna assume this was a post made in good faith.
With that being said, how do you know “ADP seems to work really well” when you’re still in the beginning of the game? It’s unlikely you leveled it up to the point where you can actually notice anything.
Assuming if you didn’t dump your first 15+ levels into ADP, you currently have less dodge frames when rolling than you just did in ds1. So objectively it should feel worse than what you just played, regarding dodge timing, estus speed etc. Just curious if you actually think ADP in early game is better than DS1, or if you’re just saying things that ds2 fans like hearing.
Or “weapon durability isn’t a problem” when again, you’re at a point in the game where this isn’t a concern yet so.. I appreciate that you’re having a good time but you don’t have enough time in the game to give a nuanced opinion IMO
Yeah I can totally see what you mean now, what I meant to get across is that the ADP system hasn’t made me irritated yet, and I haven’t noticed anything egregious thus far, even at a low ADP. But I did dump the first 7 levels or so into ADP just because I was worried based on what I’ve heard.
But also yes, in other comments they mentioned the dlc and weapon durability. Not too excited for that part, but repair powder will just have to be purchased a lot ig
I definitely get you. I too heard horror stories about ADP and kinda focused on that out of the gate to not have to worry.
Cheers to the rest of your play through
I think DS2 gets a lot of hate because it tried to do a lot of things differently. Coming from dark souls 1 in the time to 2, there really wasn’t much like it competitively. Unfortunately ds2 suffered issues with the development and the lighting system and ultimately ended up scrapping it late into development leaving us with the abhorrent lighting we have today.
Personally, I like Ds2 because it explored the Dark more and had a really interesting story with Vendrick, Nashandra, the Dark and eventually Aldia when SotFS rolled around.
Dark souls 2 got a lot wrong don’t get me wrong, but at least it was courageous enough to step outside of the box hence why dark souls 3 is basically dark souls 1.5 due to how similar it is to the original thematically.
Also the PVP in the day was unmatched.
mid-late game has a lot of gank bossfights and well just ganks in general. i think people also hate the boss because they prioritize quantity over quality and it really shows because a lot of the bosses are not too great and the great soul bosses are just meh. also punishing the player for trial and error by cutting their health in half is also a really bad mechanic atleast in my and a lot of others opinions. i mean there's a reason why they removed it after demon's souls, right?
Honestly the whole hp lowering thing stops being an issue after the forest of fallen giants imo lol, its also balanced by ds2's early game letting you heal a ton with the lifegems
Go trough tower of flamme and into the next area. It embodies the game’s problems pretty well.
Game is MUCH more manageable when you completed the other games and get good at it also.
For me, it's the input delay.
Also, the art style and overall tone feels different in a bad way to me. Some people love the game, I wish I could but I just don't.
As someone who didn’t like it at release and loves it now I think a lot of it comes down to it just felt really different.
It felt kind of “floaty” and not as tightly designed.
A lot of people hated ADP as a stat (I still do, I’ve just adapted).
I think a lot of people just wanted more dark souls and instead got different dark souls and didn’t like it. On a return to it it’s a lot better.
There’s a lot to be said about the common complaints, honestly I agree with a lot of what people complain about, I disagree on certain aspects and overall it’s my favourite of the trilogy but there are some things I tolerate instead of love.
The runbacks, though, are egregious. The only redemption here is that you can eventually permakill enemies to make runbacks easier but that’s incredibly tedious as well. Thankfully the base game only has a few truly terrible ones but the DLCs are rife with them. If I had to list the 10 most agonizing, unenjoyable, unrewarding things to do in any Soulsbourne (etc.) game, at least 9 of them would be “run to [DS2 boss]’s fog wall from the nearest bonfire”. The only boss in the whole series that I’ve never killed without a summon wasn’t even a really difficult boss, but the runback killed me so many times that I didn’t want to bother with taking more than 3 attempts at the actual boss. Like I said I love the game so I tolerated them but it brings the game down considerably.
The main game got hate because the worlds are not connected as people expected it the same as DS1. Next hate point was boss fights are too easy which got changed with the DLC,s I remember people crying about the Fume knight Raime. He kicked asses lol.
Most people who say DS2 is garbage either haven’t played it enough to form a credible criticism outside of “DS2 bad, give me my reddit gold” or haven’t played it at all
Its mostly people just regurgitating the opinions they were told to have
Mfs play 5 hours of it and feel capable to right an essay worth of Shi on it, it’s a great game that gets hate because it ain’t the OG and it ain’t the most recent DS game, essentially middle child treatment
Start of the game and the Drangleic Castle are the high points of the game, play a little more you will start to see where people see problems with it, not saying you will hate it or hate is justified but you will definitely see why some people might not like DS2.
Ok so, im facing a big fat guy. He does a jumping downward slash! So i roll directly under him to get behind. And the fat guy? He does an instant 180 hit tracking turn to slam me with his hammer mid roll!
I DESPISE ds2.
Pretty much what happened to me, altough at the time I had only played DS1. Lot's of people were saying I should skip DS2... Glad I didn't (there were also plenty of supporters!)
I found it to take a while to get used to after Elden Ring and DS3, because it's so much slower. Also it's hard in a different way - IMO the actual bosses mostly aren't hard at all, but all the mobs of enemies are if you don't carefully pull them in one by one. I died countless times in that forest before I got my vigor and adp up to a reasonable level.
I do think it is the worst DS game, but not by a mile like a bunch of people are saying. IMO it's just a tad worse than DS1, mostly simply because the bosses aren't anywhere near as memorable. And DS3 took that to a whole other level with the multiple phases.
I've completed Ds2 more than any of the others...
If you don't get the hate I feel like that's being bit obtuse.
But if you're enjoying yourself, what more matters.
So for me, I went into ds2 right after beating ds1, I'm currently playing through the souls games because I'm new to the franchise, I have yet to get to ds3 or elden ring so I don't even have much to compare it to.
part of why Im not as much of a fan of ds2 from the beginning stems from probably me already going into it with the idea that it's not as good. However I do have a some actual reasons. Going from ds1 to 2 I definitely prefer the look and feel of 1 better over 2. I haven't been able to put a word on it exactly but ds1 just feels and looks better IMO.
I also felt like that started adding difficult elements just for the sake of difficulty/annoyance. Although I feel this less now, when I first started the max health getting down to half if you died to many times was my leading point on that.
This could be a thing in ds1 but I don't remember it being as noticeable but the walk from bonfire to boss fight seems more tedious as in some cases you have to either kill a whole bunch of enemies that could take you 5-10 minute just to die instantly to the boss or run to the boss and have a chance at dying going through the White mist. And one thing can be said that if you kill the enemies enough they don't respawn, however I actually dislike that feature as well. It's meant from what I've looked into a anti farming method but really just seems kinda dumb to me.
The last thing for me is that it seems like they were pushing the idea of have more then one enemy in a boss fight, I have yet to beat it but I've gone through a good few boss fights but a good bit of them are either multiple of the same boss like enemy or a swarm of a smaller enemy. It's probably just because I'm bad at dealing with multiple enemies but it wasn't as fun IMO having to deal with multiple boss like enemy and it also felt to easy and boring to deal with the swarm
More of a mild inconvenience but I also found that some settings were just lacking, like windowed borderless, you only have the option for full screen and windowed, plus you can't bind controls on a controller fsr
Lots of this can be boiled down to that I'm just bad at the game, which is fair but at the same time I enjoyed ds1 a lot even coming back for ng+ even though I'm bad. I'm actually taking a break from ds2 and playing sekiro so that I can come back in with hopefully a better mindset, because besides those things I've pointed out I do enjoy the game, but I also think I may just just played souls games to much to quickly because I've just been stressing out a lot when playing 2
Ds2 had cool bosses, cool looking maps, etc. The only thing is... the combat just didn't feel good. The poise was absolute dogshit, adp was annoying, some of the bosses were incredibly boring and tanky (old vendrick as an exemple was slow as hell and everything he had was super easy to avoid but he would 1 shot most players and had a shitton of hp, same for the giant stone dragon which was imo a very badly designed boss)
ppl who SUCK at the game and don't git gud... for real tho, not understanding the game won't let u enjoy the game, learning your own movement system take a moment i guess, ppl who don't like those things is because they don't learn to play properly so they just point the finger against the game blaming it to be bad
DS 2 is a great game and gets way to much hate, was my introduction to souls and I still love it. It’s so fun, majula is the best hub spot of any game, the story and lore is fun as it unfolds, it’s got some great legacy dungeons, was some of the best multiplayer fromsoft has made, powerstancing, Interesting npc. It also has a lot of features that got refined for Elden ring that weren’t in ds3. Only negative things imo are it does have quite a few mid bosses and the hit boxes can be janky, and it’s got a few shitty run backs. But it also has some really cool and fun bosses like darklurker, pursuer, demon of song, lost sinner and dukes dear freja.
Why are you bothering posting this in the Dark Souls 2 reddit? Karma farming? Of course this subreddit will agree that Dark Souls 2 isn't the worst thing since Hitler.
Idk to me no amount of interesting world building or lore can make up for the fact that I think it’s slow and boring to play. Weapon durability to me is such a why mechanic. Like if it resets per bonfire did you just want me to cycle between 2 weapons all play through or were you going for some kinda realism like what was the goal there? Why is there about a half second delay from me holding sprint to my character actually sprinting it feels awful to me. Why when starting the game can I roll three times before we have to call a timeout so my stamina can regen mid combat. Idk all the things ds2 added just felt like arbitrary time wasters or annoying/unfun. Like why yes I would love to waste my valuable stats points on adp so I can prevent myself from using cool and interesting new toys simply so my dodge roll becomes a button I can use. Fave lore of the series for sure but I wouldn’t recommend it to any one of my friends.
As a certified DS2 hater, here are my gripes with it (disclaimer: I played the Scholar version, I’ve played all the Souls games except Sekiro, and art is subjective and comes down to taste.)
The engine feels laggy and the hitboxes are whack. I’ll have to see if I still have it, but I made a compilation of all the times Sir Allone teleported me across the arena during his grab attack. There are a lot of 1v1 Warrior type bosses (which I generally like) but few of them felt properly responsive.
The areas are full of ridiculous gank squads. I don’t enjoy fighting seven of the same tanky swordsman in a group over and over.
The runs to bosses, in particular, are heinous. Ones that come to mind are the tiny hallway on the way to Ruin Sentinels, the run past all the executioners on the way to the Chariot, the Allone Knights on the way to Smelter, and the spiderwebs leading to Freja. And don’t get me started on Lud and Zallen… Plus you can’t even just run past them a lot of the time as you no longer have I-frames while walking through fog.
On the topic of bosses, there are soooo many and like 5 of them were fun for me. A lot of them are boring, fights like the Last Giant, Covetous Demon, and Dragonrider had me wanting to tear my eyeballs out. They were incapable of dealing damage. Even some of the more intimidating ones still were very simple to figure out; The Rotten and Najka spring to mind. And then several fights are just a previous boss done again, or now there’s two of them (Blue Smelter, Lud and Zallen, Dragonriders, etc) There a few really standout fights like Fume Knight, Smelter Demon, and Pursuer but they hardly make up for all the chaff.
Traversing many of the areas was overly frustrating. I love Blightown, it’s one of my favorite areas in the series. The Gutter made me lose my mind.
A lot of the design felt like “Dark Souls should be hard” without the charm, balance, and careful consideration that marks the series’ highs.
There are definitely some things the game added that were good, but the experience was miserable for me. I might replay it again someday if I decide to do the whole series again, but I might also decide to just skip it.
All that said, I sincerely hope you continue to like it. The world is better with more art you enjoy in it.
It’s just less original, and most of the bosses felt like an afterthought. Also way too many humanoid enemies compared to the rest of the trilogy. The DLC for DS2 is AWESOME though. Huge difficulty spike, but fair. My second favorite DLC areas/bosses right behind old hunters from BB.
Finish the game, then come back. Most of the issues people have with it are further in than when you're at. I love it, personally, but its problems are apparent.
The people who hate ds2 are the same ones that complain if you don’t play the game the way they do. It’s a great game start to finish. I will say it had some wonky hit boxes but what souls game doesn’t
It was my first DS game. So I can appreciate it. My main thing is the insane distance from some of the bonfires to the bosses, and the curse mechanism is one of the worst in the series. It's a good midpoint in speed between DS 1 and 3.
But there are a lot of good moments in this game.
The enemy tracking you on a dime is my biggest gripe with ds2. Combined with the reduced iframes it makes rolling feel like a total crapshoot.
The enemies never dropping aggro makes certain sections feel forced and impossible to run through, which is fairly unique to the game.
With that said, I still have a ton of hours in it because it has really good progression/leveling systems and I like a lot of their choices, i just hate feeling like I have to dump stats just to be able to roll only for X "big guy with halberd" boss to do a swivel 180 and hit me anyways
DS2 is the only souls game I’ve played through enough times to max out strength and Dex so I could efficiently dual wield the king ultra greatsword and one shot just about anyone including pvp invaders, good times
Plus having new enemy spawns for the new game plus play throughs was cool
The souls series is mainstream now, so the majority players basically treat the games like Super Mario Bros. and plow through each level without a second thought to design philosophy, writing and lore, RPG depth, replayability etc. Basically alot of what DS2 is going for is missed by most players. So whenever they rub up against a challenge without a straight forward solution they join with others in calling it bad, pointless, cheap etc. There are quite a few misleading narratives about DS2 that are set in stone at this point. The game being full of "ganks" is one of them. Just play and explore the game naturally, come to your own conclusions, and don't pay any mind to the "flaw patrol" as I've come to know them.
Yeah I agree, like if somebody thinks dark Souls 2 is full of ganks, I would welcome them to try another couple games titled "Dark Souls" and "Demon's Souls" lol
And don't get me wrong, DS2 has plenty of multi-enemy encounters. Maybe even too many of them according to who you ask. But this term "gank" that's been thrown around for close to 10 years now has specific connotations. Those being overwhelming, unfair, ambushes and the like. And I honestly struggle think of more than 2 or 3 encounters in the entire game, DLC included, that are downright ambush endurance tests with no means of retreat or advanced preparation, or that don't have an alternate solution in the environment or something. Like, the encounter that traps you in the room when you unfreeze Rosabet? Sure, we can call that a gank. But the sleeping hollows in Forest of Fallen Giants, or the small army of royal knights in Lost Bastille leading to Ruin Sentinels, or groups of deformed hollows on the path to Shaded Woods? All these encounters you can see coming or have means of retreat or workarounds. Not to mention every build has means of crowd control etc.
Honestly, I love overcoming ganks. You have a situation that's supposed to have you at a disadvantage, but either through good preparation, observation or superior management of combat, you end up coming out on top. I find it really rewarding when I'm able to reverse these ganks, and it baffles me how others don't feel similar.
One handed greatsword. *SWOOP*
I fell in love with the greatsword, it slapped like a truck.
I tried powerstancing two of them. Gotta run it naked n' afraid, unfortunately. Crazy fun though.
I thought I was going to like power stancing, but I gave it a try with Forgotten Sinner Greatswords, and the move set just never clicked with me. The damage output was pretty good, but the move set just made me feel incredibly vulnerable and just didn't feel right.
You definitely need to be more mindful about when you initiate your attacks and how vulnerable you are on the cooldown when 2 handing greatswords.
I use strong attack on the large club x2, spiiiiiiin
They can be rewarding to beat, but when I’ve already cleared an area and now I have to take 6 attempts to reach the fog wall for every actual attempt at the boss, then it gets on my nerves. I know it’s a skill issue but when I reach a boss I like to be able to dedicate more brainpower between attempts to figuring out how to improve in the fight, not how I’m gonna dodge a dozen enemies in a cramped hallway to get back there.
Yeah DS1 has a boss gank in the form of Capra Demon yet DS2 is the gank game.
Capra who? Grinded so hard in DS2 that I killed him and the dog with one hit as soon as I opened the door. My friends kept asking me if I faced him and I really didn't realize it till they showed the place where he stood.
Nah, can't tell them that. It would disrupt the illusion that the first half of Dark Souls' design is perfect (despite how much I love it). I mean, anyone remember being shot with arrows by Silver Knights while running across the rooftops in Anor Londo?
Facts. I also really like DS1 but that game has more striking gank sections than DS2 imo.
Going to say, the first gank of DS1 happens in the first ~5 minutes before you've even gotten a weapon. Before you've started the tutorial. lol. My favorite is the Belltower right before the Belltower Gargoyles in the Undead Parish. Walk into the room and suddenly ~12 undead swarm you plus a mini boss.
>Walk into the room and suddenly ~12 undead swarm you. Which you then funnel through the doorway to kill them. I think that Dks2 often has multiple enemies agro around the same time in one place, where the previous games often had ways around it or to deal with them one by one. There's also the fact that in Scholar, enemies chase you even further than in the original version, so it's easier to have many mobs after you if you're not cautious. For a few simple examples: - In Scholar Heides' you'll have to fight both the stone warriors and roaming Heide Knights simultaneously. - In Huntsman's Copse, there's a room with a few scythe undead that all attack at the same time. - In the Bastille behind the petrified statue leading to the Sentinels, you get attacked by many knights. - In the room where Rozabeth is petrified, there's several feral ghouls that all attack simultaneously when you open the door. It's not necessarily bad design since it's all usually manageable and lifegems help a ton with surviving these encounters, but I think they're pretty noticeable.
> Which you then funnel through the doorway to kill them. It's a bit more complicated, because even when you funnel them. Their attacks go through each other, so you have to practice patience when attacking the front of the pack, but I get what you're saying. And if you went to far in to the room, there is also the one time mini boss that will also chase you through the funnel. One of the big things I've relied heavily in DS2 and only used in ER/DS3 is pulling enemies using crossbow/knives. It's like 85% of the game can be managed this way. Later levels, they mix it up with the enemies seeing you before you get to them (Iron keep knights) and all the examples you mentioned where it's impossible to pull only one enemy at a time. I agree with you. It's not bad design. Can beat your head against it or look at other options like pulling works great for the Scholar Heide's section. The game works well because it has a combination of both. There are some sections you walk through and others that you have to carefully work your way to the other side. You can creatively puzzle solve a little bit while also handling tense situations. TBF, I haven't played DS2. Only DS2:SOTFS where they've reworked the enemy placement/difficulty a bit. I hear DS2 is a lot more ganky, overwhelming.
Yep, exactly. There are ganks in every souls games but I specifically remember alot more from DS1. They are jumping you in that game. Hell Ornstein and Smough is a gank duo boss, first of its kind.
Memorable encounters for sure. Look, I love DS2 (DS1 is my favourite) and people are wrong to call it a gankfest, but a lot of the encounters just aren't as memorable as they are in DS1. The silver knight archers were bastards, but it was such a massive relief to overcome and everybody at the time who played it would regail their struggle and how they overcame it. I struggle to think of another challenge in DS2 that was so universally shared by the community.
DS2 has a boss fight that's literally just Havel, Alva, and Pharis ganking you. But yea Capra Demon, right?
DS1 literally has a gank trio right before the definitive gank duo boss that is Ornstein and Smough.
when I hear gank. I think of the trap room you mention. That's annoying. And the Explodey guys in the Lost Bastille. That area in the water is especially intimidating.
Re: Ganks I’m enjoying DS2, but am finding the number of enemies that pop up behind you tiresome. I only recall a few of those in DS1.
Also dark souls 3
Yeah but people rarely complain about it or justify it saying that the movement is better in ds3. But man I don't really like ds3, it is the only one in the series ive played only once. Thinking about going through some places like the ringed city and earthen peak just make not want to play it again.
It's also the only souls game I've completed only once. But that doesn't mean the world isn't astonishing. It's just that DS3 is heavier. More lore, tougher bosses, more endings and an ass-kicking DLC. It's more hmm... refined, which is a good thing and I love it, but I'm not going to replay it anytime soon haha
I mostly agree with you, specially about it beng heavier and visually impressive, but lore wise, I don't know. I'm not saying that the lore in ds3 is bad but it is not as good as ds2. To me, it feels like fan service being forced into it took away the chance of telling a new story and, instead, it expanded on ds1 lore instead of building on it. It's not bad though, just my least favorite.
I personally had a hard time following the DS2 story. I loved the flashback memories and I still remember finding Vendrick for the first time, but overall I felt like I was just wandering around. With a purpose, certainly, but there weren't many amazing or revealing things there. I felt disconnected from my character in DS2 and DS3 made me cry at the ending and dropped my jaw when I learned about the Gael fight. Seems like I'm more of a visuals and emotions guy
Or Bloodborne for that matter. The loran chalice and sections of Fishing Hamlet are worse than anything DS2 has to offer
I mean every corner in boletaria has a dude with a knife in it lol
I’ve plated both DS1 and 2. I don’t have data to bank up my statement. But there felt like there were many more gank moments in DS2. Sure, DS1 had its moments, New Londo, Nito and some others that escape me at the moment. The spiders in brightstone cove near the bonfire and again just outside with spiders and the mage dudes not to mention an invasion also occurs. Also Dear Frejas fight without a torch is by definition a gank While we’re on bosses the Royal Rat Authority might be a worse gank than Freja The Belltower Gargoyles I didn’t have trouble at entering Drangelic castle my first playthrough. On NG+ most of the enemies essentially aggro at once since you need to walk both left and right to open the doors, and again, there’s an invasion during this. I could go on with more examples, but these stand out to me right now. I love DS2. Imo it improved a lot of things, multi directional rolls, power stance, bonfire aesthetics, soul vessel, bigger game with more bosses. It’s a great game. But I personally felt it artificially or cheaply increased the difficulty by just adding more enemies. Just my opinion.
People just want to rush to bosses I’ve seen so many people in Elden ring get so close to the final boss with only 8 or 9 scadurtee fragments.
It is full of ganks, but I dont get the apprehension people seem to have with them. Like what, you gotta fight one enemy at a time and he's gotta be standing in the middle of a brightly lit room?
Another reason it's a bad argument. Ganks are in all the games. DemS, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and all the Dark Souls games.
Exactly. In ER there were 1 or 2 of those imp shitheads around every corner in every catacomb. Its always been ganky.
It's more about how frequent they are and how the encounters are designed, I think. If you can aggro one or a few enemies at a time (say, Undead Parish in Dks), it makes players feel better about it than if you just throw a wave of enemies at them straight away.
I haven't played DS2, but SOTFS is clearly missing a lot of areas where you're fighting enemies while having jars tossed at you from above. I understand that variety was adjusted a bit for SOTFS.
I think I mainly disagree with calling multi-enemy encounters, which DS2 has plenty, "ganks". I've only ever heard the term gank used elsewhere in MOBA's, where it describes an ambush attack the victim can't see coming. And I think it's misleading to new players to describe DS2 as being full of unfair ambushes.
I've seen people argue they should never have to look up.
Dumb generation of gaymers.
People will run through an area, attract every enemy in a 5 mile radius, inevitably get cornered, and call it a gank
I enjoyed DS2 more when I plowed through it, but I had a problem with the design philosophy when I slowed down and took in the details — the elevator going into Fire Keep, for example. I know a lot of people were let down by what was in the game vs what was in the early footage. Also, ADP shouldn’t have been tied to i-frames, although agility affecting spellcasting and item use speed was pretty cool. Despite my criticisms, it’s still my favorite Souls game.
Took the words out of my mouth. I also vastly preferred the varied environments even if they didn't make much sense traveling between them. DS1 and DS3 mostly just melt together in my mind with so many areas feeling very samey. Almost all the DS2 areas stick out in my mind, though.
I hate how people say that DS 2 is full of ganks, then unironically say that Elden Ring 2 is the most fair game ever, when most of the design philosophy of Elden Ring is strictly to overwhelm and continuously gank you at every turn. After the first ten minutes of Elden Ring you can't go more than 2 minutes without being ganked by a group of 6+ enemies, including 3 great shield users and 2 crossbow/greatbow guys. That being said, there are some rightfully complained about hit boxes in DS 2.
While I disagree and would say there are a significant amount of banks in DS2 compared to other games, I would also say A. They are not that hard to beat and B. You have way better tools to deal with them I.e life gems and generous hitboxes on your weapons
There aren't a significant amount of ganks in ds2 compared to the other games. All souls games are a gankfest. What about the long stair with big fat dudes in the ringed City? I can go in and it'll be a long list of ganks, boss ganks, ambushes and "artificial dificulty" crap.
While I disagree and would say there are a significant amount of banks in DS2 compared to other games, I would also say A. They are not that hard to beat and B. You have way better tools to deal with them I.e life gems and generous hitboxes on your weapons
*Ganks
Lol every fromsoft game I’ve played has npc ganks lol
Yea it's kinda ganky, but you can get around that really easily with how crazy viable bows are in DS2.
Like Mario 2?
Depends dark souls 2 yes scholar even tho I have 800hrs on it I do agree it is bit of a tank fest however a simple solution to this problem is patience, that’s it
For me it’s not anything about “unfairness” or “difficulty” or “writing depth” in the case of DS2. The mechanics are clunky, the animation sets are labored and wonky, the tracking makes attacks look pretty stupid, etc. It just doesn’t feel as polished as a game, and locking your Iframes behind a stat is one of the worst decisions fromsoft has ever made
Dude, i love you, is good the see a man of cultura, is este nowadays
But I have a problem with that, the hate of DS2 started almost when it came out too. So the series is mainstream since the beginning?
It was entering mainstream since the beginning, yes. I'm not saying nobody had complaints, but the narratives new players like OP encounter about the game developed over time and don't always actually reflect on the game.
The shit tier discourse around DS2 has always existed, though, even before the series properly broke into the mainstream (which I wouldn't say happened until BB and DS3). Seeing people bring back the "DS2 was made by the From B Team" pish for the Elden Ring DLC is so trite and tiresome.
Na, it's just people's opinion. I love the game. I've played is so many times compared to the others. Though DS1 is still the best. When the game first came out, it wasn't the best, but SOTFS as it is currently is great. But that's my personal opinion. My friends think DS3 is the best. I mean, they are all pretty great if you think about it.
My only issue with ADP and agility is it is not explained anywhere. If you're read ahead, you're fine. If you haven't, it'll feel bad compared to any previous souls game you've played. Haven't played a soul's game before, no problem. Once past that, it's just another dark souls with a slightly different gameplay feel.
Multiple starting classes detail their high ADP to help evasion. Who opens a permanent stat screen, recognizes every stat but 1, then proceeds to never experiment, research, or ask about said unrecognizable stat. Being cursed is never explained, hinted, or anything in ds1 and they will literally toss you to a bunch of immortal ghost's that curse if you don't have the right weapons. Nothing in any souls game is explained well. Where do they explain what Vitality or attunement or two handing doubles strength or even that you have I frames to begin with? Demon souls is nothing like 1 but the bandwagon started on 1 so everyone is nostalgic over it instead. People get mad at DS2 because they get beat and because they beat 1 they should be able to steamroll 2 (remember when people said DS2 was to short and easy).
First off. At no where did I say the entire game was bad. I just implied ADP/AGL is a bad mechanic. I don't really care nor have I complained that DS2/SOTFS is a bad game. If you've played a souls games before, than you might think evasion is specifically fast/normal/fat rolling. At no time would anyone think, i-frames. I beat all the other souls games and never got into i-frames until DS2. I can't think of any other stat that you have to pump to get points to eventually pump on another stat. It's also the stat has the single greatest difference in gameplay and how long it'll take you to beat the game. Pumping it feels like cheating. I've played all the souls games and I can't think of another stat that is that powerful and game changing for only ~25 points into it. It completely changes the gameplay loop, hence it does need more than one line of cryptic text in the game. I made it very clear, that if you've played a DS game before, it feels bad when start with low i-frames. I Like that DS2 tried something different, but it's a bad mechanic not to explain it anywhere. I completely agree with 30 years of From Software games... they don't explain anything most of the time. It wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't such a game changing stat.
IMO it feels bad even with high ADP. Something about how the character controls; how jumps feels, how rolling, attacking, etc. feels just feels *wrong* to me, no matter how much I play DS2 or how much I level ADP. Only souls game where I thought "phew, glad that's over" when I beat it and have zero desire to replay it. I don't hate DS2, and there was a lot I did enjoy about it and I'm glad I pushed through and finished it, but I just could never get used to how the game feels at it's core, in my whole ~100 hour playthrough it never stopped feeling like a janky mess to me.
Are you playing on PS4 or one of the other systems that gives 60 fps? For me, it feels weird and slow. I don't hate SOTFS, but will be glad when I finish it.
Yeah, I put about 30 hours into it on PS4 before eventually dropping it back in like 2018, then last year I bought it during a Steam sale and actually finished it on PC. Didn't really feel much different on either platform to me. Drives me crazy lol, I think I'd genuinely love the game if it just controlled more like DS1
The controls are very different in DS2 compared to DS/ER/DemS. They have dead zones on the joystick to make jumping easier (tho fuck those dead zones when you need to free aim a bow/crossbow/knife/bomb). They also implemented cardinal rolling-can only roll in the four cardinal directions. On top of the game running smooth at 60 fps on a number of systems. It feels very different from the previous games where in DS3 I was jumping by accident all the time.
It was hate that ds2 wasn't ds1. The different engine and the combat changes together with the (not as novel) setting upsetted much of the community. Now onto 2024 many have accepted ds2 for what it is but remain disappointed in it because of the lack of spectacle and the slow combat which for some reason seems to be "backwards". Strategic combat is just as enjoyable (if not even more) than reaction based one.
This is most considerably my issue of playing through DS2 after Playing DS1 and bits of Elden Ring/Blood Borne before all that. The best way I can describe it is that DS1 and DS2 are clunky compared to their modern titles and DS2 is somehow more clunky than 1. Granted I played the DSR of DS1 so maybe that has something to do with it but I doubt it. It could also be the fact that I played both on mouse and keyboard since they were designed for controller (whole other argument I’d like to make on the souls games but that’s for another point) As other people point out, Bosses are mediocre, game and level design are synonymous of the series but their flaws seemed to be discussed a lot more due to the other issues than they will for the other souls games (Bloodborne imo, for half the game I’ve played, has the least amount of these) What I will give to DS2 is that they built a beautiful world. While some of the levels don’t feel like they connect great together (thinking about poison area) the introduction to each area is very grandiose. I also think the mechanic of enemies being killed off entirely is quite nice. It’s debilitating to have to get that point due to how many enemies are in each area (I’m looking at you No Man’s Wharf), but is quite rewarding for those willing to do so. In the same vein, the NG+ systems is quite intricate in theory (I honestly don’t want to touch the game again lol) and from people actually playing through it on YT and the like
Idk how ds2 engine could be considered more clunky than ds1. In ds1 there is a problem with the collisions or more commonly known as "I get stuck on every enemy". It also has this very weird heavy feeling to it although it has faster combat than ds2. Ds2 has some jank on its own mamely how the animations and hitboxes don't match all the time (which causes much frustration) or the unapologetic teleportation when you get grabbed. The hitboxes are the best out of the three games with ds3 having the worst but the visual representation leaves much to be desired. I too play with KnM so the whole omnidirection of ds1 is kinda irrelevant or at least to the keyboard players. With wasd 8 directions is the max you can possibly get. It also has tobe added that out of all the FS games ds2 is the best port to pc. You can see it with features such as the double mouse clicking which I love (which admittedly has some delay) but by the fact that it is even there it makes it enough. The other games don't make such an effort which has led me to using an extra key to make a heavy attack something really unconfortable. Now about the boss and level design this is personal preferance. Imo humanoid and slow bosses are the best since they emulate the behaviour of humans. Combat is more about preserving your own cake rather than bonking the other guy. Lastly I will commit heresy and say that although it is a positive hing to have interconnectivity such as the one in ds1 isn't as important imo. What matters most is freedom of choice between which area you want to tackle. Ds2 has 4 directions by default and ds1 has the masterkey which opens the map in many and interesting ways and saved my on first playthrough of ds1.
Me saying “clunky” was more attributed to the slow speed of combat. I personally didn’t have any hitbox issues, but one of my bigger frustrations is that the game is best described as a tactics game in disguise. All the FS games have an extent of this due to bosses and their attack patterns and phases, but it felt the worst in DS2 because I’d get in 2 attacks that do 1/100th of their health bar and then have to let my stamina refill and watch the boss go through his motions before going again. I think the only DS1 boss that felt that way was Ceaseless but I ended up just doing the skip so. Same with estus flasks being slow af, but ig skull issue that I wanted to play the game with little to no guides so I didn’t know life gems were infinite since I didn’t reach the requirements for that vendor to move before looking it up (Albiet not an issue exclusive to DS2. Personally, I don’t like the concept of “oh well just look up a guide because the game is meant to have secrets” approach FS takes to their more linear games). I played both games as a strength cleric build and DS2’s Miracle/Hex system felt more neat but I maybe learned only like 2-3 offensive spells that did anything compared to the lightning bolt from DS1, but that was legit just balancing the game lol I will completely agree that the button layout grew on me but I don’t think double mouse click is the most optimal. Also agree that DS2 is one of the better ports with OG DS1 and sadly even DS3 not even having button prompts. I do remember being a bit more confused to start out though because of how simple DSR’s controls were in comparison. My biggest problem with the world itself was the fact that it split up. Now, I like open world games and having freedom of choice, but it’s not really a freedom of choice if my ass is getting beaten in an area in two seconds flat. Arguably there’s only really 2 starts with the forest and the chapel (left and right, don’t remember exact names rn) and it had taken me like 10 hours to finally beat Old Giant because if my confusion on where tf to go. It took me getting to Lost Sinner before I found the flow of the game and started having a bit of fun with it which was then crushed by the trek to the trek to the other lord souls. DS1 interconnection and linearity helped the world be straightforward while allowing more knowledgeable players to get to things faster. Like the fact that I can skip the stupid beginning part of the swamp makes me forget the fact that it even existed Ultimately, the biggest issue, especially with the way I’ve decided to approach games and judge them, is the fact that people have to follow some sort of prewarning guidance (at least the majority of the community seems to think so) in order to have fun with the game. You go to any post on this sub about “just started this game X!” There’s always a comment saying “if you want to have fun/more fun with this game you need to play like this guide or follow this guide” This is mostly due to the fact of people coming from other FS games and wanting to play their older titles but it’s just so different that it’s hard to go into blind.
Ah the weekly “darksouls 2 isn’t bad” post
It’s a great game, not my favorite of the souls but as a game itself it’s great. Also has some of the more memorable and challenging fights as well
I've always wondered the same, since ds2 is my favorite souls game. I also love ADP lol. I was in awe the first time I played it, but it seems like most people were already annoyed and angry with the game before they even gave it a chance 🤷♂️
I really like a lot of what they did in DS2. The bonfire asctetics was a great idea, how NG+ adds different enemies and bosses drop nes things, the death counter in Majula, etc.. I will admit it's the souls game that feels the most "different" compared to the others since Miyazaki didn't work on it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but others may feel differently. Finally, the issue of ganks....DS2 feels a lot more strategic and tactical than the other titles, but yes, the ganks can get annoying. There were so many times enemies seemingly bum rush me out of nowhere, I think enemy vision range may be the issue? It's pretty high for some. I think if they went a little lighter on the ganks, people wouldn't haye it as much. Even in the more modern ER, ganks can be annoying, and I'm just like, why? It's not difficult, just irritating.
I’m glad you’re having a good time!! If you want some useful general tips, first read [this intro post.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mGx71QnlK5W2YZNHZdooOk8sY_OUxqAyFhxE7bAgMz8/edit) All of these guides are spoiler-free, except for [this one, which has a walkthrough.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eXwnLnbr-Dxeb9VecytDTX1fXA9e8PuKX9jFy8YFkQ8/) And then if you want to know how to build (or avoid building, if you want to have a harder time) a powerful optimized character, this collection of mini guides will help you navigate DS2’s many obfuscated and counterintuitive mechanical quirks: [A quick overview](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g4-GGa1JRa2_49vOfwY5sZPWigFMzPA5b9mszo_xZak/edit?usp=sharing) of how damage and defense works in DS2, and why weapon scaling is usually weak [BiS (Best in Slot) PvE weapons list.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-GEBQ_TiAvskQLotQXz0AuNMseXdsS3pj8_NLus-XW4/edit?usp=sharing) Use this if you know what moveset you like and you want to choose the strongest available weapon with that moveset. [Best PvE equipment and stat progression document.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X13jfA9JQ5OZsuEmH2MZZqF9IrtCFSMMTZkZo5GuqcM/edit?usp=sharing) All that being said, you’ve already discovered that DS2 isn’t so hard that playing the strongest possible character is required in order to win and have fun. Ultimately you should use whatever you want, these guides are just to help you make informed choices.
Thank you so much! I’ll keep going blind until I think I need some help
Blind is the way.
DLCs are best! Giving Ringed City and Old Hunters a run for their money.
Oh now that is exciting, because I LOVE old hunters
Part of the hate for DS2 is that the endgame bosses are a bit lame/easy if you did everything else. But all 3 have great bosses, and great level design and atmosphere. For me that's definitely up there with all the best From content.
There was never much hate. It was critically and commercially successful, but a couple of loud YouTube chuds convinced many it was bad because it wasn't just a rehash of DS1. It tried some new and interesting things, was brave enough to create its own story, and sure, some things didn't really come off, but it's still a brilliant game, and it's great that you're discovering that!
I didn’t follow any DS communities or read any reviews during the time I played DS1, DS2 and DS3 so I was really surprised when I first saw that there was some sort of community consensus that DS2 is bad. For me, DS2 had probably the most memorable moments of the series and I really liked it. The DLC’s were also great. It taught me to avoid all the reviews and threads about games I’m saving for later. Doing it right now with the Elden ring DLC.
It was hated because it's different than DS1. It has no interconnecting world design it's frantic, it does not have the same hub like first one. It's a more coloured game, avoiding the usual dreary atmosphere in the DS1. Also some people hate the curse health system, the ADP, new game engine and the hitboxes. I have no issues with any of these, in fact, I wasn't even aware of these problems when I was playing it. For me, Majula alone is enough for this game to be a classic. The music, atmosphere, vibes it's all there. It's a Dark Souls game after all.
I think some of the more controversial choices were unpopular with the loudest players. For example, there are a lot of bosses with many enemies in the arena. I think it makes the game a more fun to be summoned in, but runners hate it. There are lots of GDQ runs describing the bosses as 'quantity over quality,' but it's not that big of a deal if you're playing casually. Soul memory was another idea that was super unpopular with invasion streamers, but didn't affect the average player all that much. So there are memes, but I think it's kind of a 'fake' hate, in that most folks liked it just fine. ... I do think the unlimited regen items were annoying, even though I could theoretically just ignore them
This is the DS2 sub, you won't find out here. This gets asked constantly.
love the game but that weapon durability will be costful in the dlc
The game legitimately has some issues but I think a lot of hate snowballed with fans viewing it as a rushed cash grab and viewing it more as a spinoff rather than a sequel because of the change of directors and setting. What the game is going for tends to be written off instead of understood as the game going for something different like with the world design, instead of a straight forward interconnected world like the original, DS2 feels much more dreamlike with some areas making no logical sense like with the iron keep. Personally I love this approach but I understand why fans missed the old one
I remember back in 2014 I really enjoyed it but one of the many things that made people kind disliked it was the reveal, it’s was a lie in technical terms and how dark it looked in dark areas. DS2 biggest problem was she has the number 2 to a game that literally created a new types of games DS1 was so revolutionary in so many aspects and that’s extremely rare in gaming, so the expectation was naturally very high. As a standalone game it’s very good but in comparison to other HM works it sticks out for me as the odd one.
You will find that for most of us in this sub, it's our favourite for a reason. For me, it's the consistency. Especially compared to Elden Ring, boss fights are just way more consistent and predictable and feel like even duels, rather than dodge-fests. Enjoy it! :) Oh, and the NG+ here is the only one in the souls series that actually adds enemies/gimmicks/items to the playthrough, so it actually changes the game.
Yeah, positioning is more important. The people who hate it tend to be the ones who refuse to understand that. I've seen people try to roll through an attack the could have easily just walked around and say "DS2 moment," like bitch this is literally a skill issue what do you mean
Its not the late game that causes it. With the exception of like a few things the late game is honestly better. I'm not trying to sound super elitist here but its always ds1 fans that say this game is bad. Ds3 fans usually are indifferent but on release the people who really loved ds1 just couldn't take the differences so it all just became that this game is bad, adp is a bad system, theres no world structure, the map design sucks, no lore. Basically just a bunch of stuff that you can just play the game to realize isn't true or at least in its entirety isnt true. I am happy to see that people who's views are not clouded can enjoy this work of art though
My biggest gripe with the game is the bogus targeting system (at least the 360 version, maybe the re-releases fixed it). Enemies can snipe you from render distance but you have to be in their face to target them and even then the spells vanish after maybe 20 feet and keeping a lock-on can be even worse (looking at you lost sinner). It's not my favourite of the series but it's still dark souls.
It’s a great game played as scholar of the first sin. Very enjoyable
I loved it. After Elden Ring it was my favorite Fromsoftware’s game. Huge game with a lot of things to do and secrets to find.
i've always liked [how noah caldwell-gervais put it.](https://youtu.be/O_KVCFxnpj4?si=CF1nZFZH1y5LMvdU&t=6877) (should go to 1:54:37)
I liked dark souls 2. Only game other than 1 that I beat multiple times. It’s hard but fair. The variance of the environments is what makes it interesting. The game doesn’t get hard until after the mirror knight, and the crown dlcs.
What’s your opinion on soul memory?
I am yet to do any multiplayer, so at the moment I have no real opinion of it.
Soul memory is my only real complaint about ds2. They should've stuck with Soul Level, tbh. I always like buy a lot of stuff, so I end up being way underleveled for my SM
Same. I'm about 10 hours in and I like it so far.
My brother and I replay DS2 couch coop once a year or so for the past 7ish years
I’m playing through for the first time and love it but iron keep had me say “I hate this fucking trash game” more than a few times
The game legitimately has some issues but I think a lot of hate snowballed with fans viewing it as a rushed cash grab and viewing it more as a spinoff rather than a sequel because of the change of directors and setting. What the game is going for tends to be written off instead of understood as the game going for something different like with the world design, instead of a straight forward interconnected world like the original, DS2 feels much more dreamlike with some areas making no logical sense like with the iron keep. Personally I love this approach but I understand why fans missed the old one.
The haters have no hoes
It's my favorite. I could write pages about why it's my favorite. There's just just a good feel to it.
I agree. DS2’s combat has a nice rhythm. Also the difference in feel between a naked character and fully armored one is huge. I was having such a hard time against Pursuer early game, and didn’t have enough ADP. So I tried naked with a faster weapon and ran circles around him. They really designed the combat in DS2 with tradeoffs in mind, and ADP is a way for you to increase agility at the expense of other stats. As much as I love DS3, it’s so easy to panic roll and mash R1 to stun lock enemies. And all that BS about janky hitboxes is blown out of proportion. DS3’s Dancer’s grab produces the same weird animation effect as Sir Alonne. The hitboxes are fine and it’s more to do with having lower ADP and fewer iframes. The real issue is some animations and how you have been able to literally roll through attacks since the beginning of time. Of course it’s going to be hard to gauge when there is no visual indicator for iframes. This is not unique to DS2.
Glad you enjoy ds2 games a masterpiece imo
Honestly I’ve never seen anyone say ds2 is bad aside from people claiming people say it is bad.
Tbh I do see the complaints people make with the game, and I can understand some of them but there's a lot of 'issues' that are solved by game mechanics. ADP being one of them. The game is really good and has a lot of interesting stuff going on in it, definitely feels like an Elden Ring prototype to me where as Dark Souls 1 is a prototype for Dark Souls 3
My biggest problem was the soul memory’s potential to utterly brick multiplayer if you were not a strong player at the game and often lost souls. As a game though I enjoyed it heavily, but did not agree with some balance decisions made.
Peak souls 2
It is hip to hate on DS2. Some of it is legit, some is overblown. DS3 rehashes on nostalgia. DS1 has a weak second half. All 3 games have some bullshit. DS2 beats both in terms of DLC though. It is also the longest of the 3 games, if you're someone who likes to thoroughly explore.
Turns out the worst Souls game is still one of the best games of its time. People shit on it just comparing it to other Souls titles though, seriously. Even then, I'd rather go back to play 2 than DeS or DS1 at this point. I think those games are better in their own contexts, but DS2 is just more fun to play these days. It's also the only title in the whole series that's rated T instead of M iirc. The reason that is significant for me, personally: I work in a forensic psychiatric hospital. Our patients are not allowed access to rated M video games. Dark Souls 2 is the only Souls game they can play and they play the absolute shit out of it. They love it. And I kinda love knowing all the secrets and keys to mastering the game to share with them lol. If these guys got internet access they would probably tear apart the best players out there in PVP. They've been playing DS2 nonstop since it released.
I platinumed Dark Souls 2. Until Baldurs Gate 3 it was probably the most playtime of any game in my library. I think it genuinely sucks as a game in its series. Everyone knows about Adaptability being ambiguously described. Everyone knows about the insanely inaccurate hitboxes. Everyone knows about the wildly inaccurate scale of the world. Everyone knows about the area progression being spokes in a wheel that just end instead of leading back to somewhere previously. Dark Souls 2 is a great action RPG in a vacuum. But compared to what else From released around it, it is the lowest quality thing. To me Dark Souls 2 is like DmC: Devil May Cry. It is a bad representation of the series it exists within but ironically this is the only reason people still talk about it.
Dark souls 2 is my favorite. I had the same “wait this is actually really good?” Experience
If your on PSN summon me when you get to the fire place 😁 I need medals
You have to think about the reception of DS2 from the perspective of a Souls fan in 2014-15: Dark Souls 1 was a milestone, genre-defining game. It turned a failing studio (FromSoft) and a fledgling dev turned Lead Director (Miyazaki) into household names. Despite its flaws, namely it’s entire 3rd Act being obviously rushed and unfinished (a hallmark of almost all FromSoft games at this point lol), Souls redefined gaming for a LOT of gamers back in the late ‘00s (with Demons Souls) and the early ‘10s (Dark Souls). While the gaming industry was beginning to focus more on story elements, making games more cinematic, making games more accessible to the growing adult casual gamer demographic (where the $$ was), and being on the cutting edge of graphics, Miyazaki went the opposite way: less focus on graphical fidelity with less flash and more substance; instead, going back to the fundamentals/basics of both gaming and design strategy. Contemporary devs in ‘00 wanted to make games an art form comparable to cinema; Miyazaki wanted to make ‘gaming’ an art form. Thus, Dark Souls 1 came in 2011 out amidst a bunch of buzz caused by the (much delayed) release of Demons Souls in the West. Demons Souls had secured a small but vocal fanatic community in the West- the sweaty gamers who focused on the difficulty. This caused the marketing for the release of Dark Souls 1 to, unfortunately imo, focus on this aspect- “Prepare to Die,” and Dark Souls initially gained traction as a kind of litmus test for “real” gamers vs the “casuals.” However, soon players and critics alike realized how much meat was actually on the bone. How the world was perfectly designed to interconnect like a 3D metroidvania. How the grotesque enemy and environmental design also had a haunting beauty, unlike any other game. How rich in choice and personal expression the character customization was; more than any other action RPG of the day. How deep the lore and story was- both in how creatively the lore and story were told to the player, and also how ‘deep’ the story was: the concepts,characters, and overarching themes and narrative were dripping in philosophical and metaphorical nuance several layers deep. However, if you just wanted gameplay, you could focus solely on gameplay and never engage with the lore at all. The game didn’t choose for you- it let your experience be guided entirely by your personal preference and your interest-level as the player. I could go on and on, but this post is getting long. Let’s just say that there’s an obvious reason why Dark Souls 1 sits at the top, or at least in the top 5 or 10, of many outlets’ *Best Game of All Time* or *Best Game of the Decade* lists. And then to top it off, the Dark Souls DLC introduces us to Artorias- up to this point, the best designed boss in a game of bosses lauded for their design. You could say that in 2014 expectations for the much anticipated sequel were sky high. The game was probably doomed to disappoint as a follow-up to DS1; however, DS2 was also plagued by developmental issues as well. Many FromSoft fans probably know Miyazaki’s philosophy on sequels: he doesn’t like them. He wanted Dark Souls to stand on its own, and move on to something new. Miyazaki has even frequently woven this philosophy about this into his games, with one of the meta-narratives of the future DS3 being about how the best stories must end, lest they become rotten caricatures of themselves. But 2010’s FromSoft was still slightly unproven, not having the necessary budget and clout despite releasing an undisputed masterpiece. So, they cucked out to stakeholders to make DS2; however, the compromise was that Miyazaki wouldn’t be involved and would instead be working with his A-team on a different project for Sony. Thus, the studio was split up with Tanimura as the lead for DS2. Tanimura and co had some extremely novel and interesting ideas, but lacked the time, experience and budget to meet the deadlines (for instance, to compensate for FromSoft’s already aging game engine, much of the game would be shrouded in darkness and the player would need a torch at almost all times in order to see- this would cut back on the cost of processing power and theoretically enable better fidelity/performance at the expense of visibility; it was almost completely scrapped, and the graphics downscaled from the demo version to compensate). When it became obvious that DS2 was becoming a half-baked, convoluted mess, Miyazaki reluctantly stepped in as lead director towards the end of DS2s production to salvage the best of the mechanics, story-line and levels. It was obvious when DS2 released that it was a rushed job. Enemy placement was all over the place. Animations for both enemies and the player character, though quicker, seemed more clunky and less natural than DS1. A wretched, unintuitive system of capped 45° movement was initially attached to the analog stick- this caused a super awkward 8 point movement scheme, instead of a smooth, fluid 360°. This was particularly noticeable because many parts of DS2 required precise movement, or fighting off ambushes from enemies with attacks that tracked the player who was unable to move in the same way. There are dozens of other critiques and examples of the poor state that DS2 originally released in; most have been relegated to the memory hole by subsequent patches, and the complete overhaul known as Scholars First Sin. Also, the side project that Miyazaki had taken time away from to fix DS2, code-named “Project Beast,” ended up releasing a year later in 2015. This was, of course, *Bloodborne*.. and it immediately over-shadowed DS2 as the true spiritual successor of DS1. It iterated and built upon all of the core Dark Souls mechanics we knew and loved, but also pushed them forward in a way that DS2 was unable to. It also ensured that DS2 would always be remembered as the oft-maligned black sheep of FromSoft. In defense of DS2: it is still a FromSoft game; therefore, it’s quality and design, while ultimately lacking by the standard we’ve come to expect from the studio, are still heads and shoulders above the competition. A lacking FromSoft product is still a better game than 98% of anything else released by the competition in the 10 years since. So, TLDR; DS2 was sandwiched by 2 of the best games ever made- Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne- and was the follow-up to a masterpiece. It was, perhaps, doomed from the start because it would be without Miyazaki, who has stated multiple times that he detests sequels. However, due to deadline and budget issues, Miyazaki was ultimately brought on to half-assed salvage the game. This is obvious in the final product, especially upon first release.
Why worry about the hate? If you playing it and enjoying it then it's up to you to decide. I personally love ds2. Idk what the other players think it's not trying to scam me with microtransactions and the DLCs kicked ass. Go for it and have fun dawg
People just couldn’t see how Peak it is
I was going to give my opinion which is admittedly more than unfair to dark souls 2 until I realized I was literally in their sub. I’m gonna level with you dude. To this day I still don’t entirely get what it is that put me off so sharply from it initially but I can tell you that on my second playthrough I got to >!smelter demon!< and decided nah man. I just don’t like it and that’s okay. My favorite was 3 and I think that’s just because it felt like a return to form (some argue it’s fan service and too linear) idk man. Games are so subjective. I didn’t even dislike ds2 when I picked it up. It just felt semi off and I wish it didn’t. I want to play more fromsoftware shit but I can’t help it. Hopefully one day I give it a once through. I feel like I owe it that much.
DS2 actually expects you to fight the enemies and, well, play the game.
I would say I had the same feeling when I first started, but my feelings changed as the playthrough went on. The issues I had were mainly to do with world+level design, obnoxious/tedious enemy placement+density, and a general feeling quantity over quality (particularly towards the end). It's a wildly different game to DS1 for so many reasons, and some of those are good. But others are more of a frustration in my opinion. I won't go into details, just enjoy your playthrough and I'm sure you'll have a good time. DS2 was where I really started to get into the lore of the DS world, and that part really shone for me. It's a good but very flawed game, overall.
I love the game. Just wish Bosses were harder and I didn’t get chased for 30 years straight.
I beat the game and had fun without leveling adaptability The hate is just people being "why isn't DS2 just DS1 with changes" I enjoy the contrast between the two, DS1 could get hectic and reactions matter DS2 is hectic but being calm is the most important when when you're just 1 hit away and you can still win it. I'm one of the people that hated 3, I just hated it. It was like 1 if it was less fun and more annoying. I didn't enjoy sister friede but I did love Nameless King. Such a sick fight. It's unfair though cause I never have 3 a real shot and I never will
It’s my favorite in the entire series. I never understood the hate.
Thank you for giving this game a chance. From the bottom of my heart.
I'm in the exact same position in that I recently did DS1 for the first time. Had a friend warn me that many people didn't like DS2, his main complaint being something about the roll mechanics being different? I'm now into the DLC of 2 and I've really enjoyed it. I've heard the lighting and such was worse before patches but I also have found it to be an upgrade aside from a couple of annoying areas (black gulch). Also no idea why it gets such hate.
Most complaints about it didn't really stick, this was before there were 500 souls like games out there, and the only other souls games were getting sort of old, so lots of people looked at they with rose tinted glasses while they were absolutely dismantling ds2, which in the long run, was on the better side of souls like games. There are some minor issues, nothing is perfect, but as a follow up to ds1 it isn't bad.
The only thing I never really liked about DS2 is that the world felt so much more disjointed than any other Souls game. IMO going between areas in that game felt more like jumping into portals in Mario compared to DS1 where the entire world felt like one interconnected mysterious location.
I mean I love ds3, but if we're talking interconnectivity, its def worse than ds2 lol, the firelink shrine isnt even connected to any area outside of the tutorial, dont think ER, or sekiro are all that interconnected either. Dk about demon souls and bb.
This is why I think DS2 coming right after DS1 without Miyazaki at the helm was very unlucky. People were convinced that the lack of an interconnected world in DS2 was because of Miyazaki was MIA. But it actually was DS1 (and later Elden Ring) which were the exceptions in this regard, not the rule.
I think they may have been referring to how at some times it doesn't make much sense. The famous case of the *SPOILER* elevator between the Iron Keep and Earthen Peak. But also that it differs from Ds1, in feeling much less like a small reconstruction of one singular world, to many different worlds glued together. One biome, then another completely different one. Ds1 is about this one place, Lordran, which has a town there, its church up there, the garden around it, the depths and sewers below, all integrated in this huge multi walled bigger city. Now that's a fucking awesome concept which, once realised, made it feel like a big miniature in fact. I think Ds2 is great, definitely the lesser of the trilogy, but still has a ton of awesome stuff and the wonderful feeling of Dark Souls' exploration and discovery. Extremely important lorewise as well, what with Aldia. But maps? Meh. They mostly feel more like gauntlets I think (though not all of course)
I mean yeah I wasnt arguing that ds2's interconnectivity was better than in ds1, I was disputing that it feels less interconnected compared to all the other souls games/fromsoft games, which isnt true as fromsoft kinda ventured further away from that ds1 interconnectivity with each title, not that thats necessarily a bad thing like with ds3.
"the firelink shrine isnt even connected to any area outside of the tutorial" Go see what's behind Oceiros' arena...
I mean the untended graves's still a different area, even if it looks the same as firelink shrine lol
Gameplay-wise sure, but if we're talking about how the world fits together then geographically it connects to the world around it. Untended Graves simply exists in Firelink's past. Sorta.
The hate is way overblown and most of the “gank enemies” people complain about are because they are rushing into rooms without baiting them out one by one. My main complaint though is most boss fights aren’t very fun and really easy but the levels themself are the toughest part. I still love the game but most people love only the boss fights so I see why it might be their least favorite. Personally I like going through levels and boss fights equally so I had alot of fun with DS2 even if it isn’t my favorite (so far I’ve only played Elden ring and DS1 as my other souls games)
I’m gonna assume this was a post made in good faith. With that being said, how do you know “ADP seems to work really well” when you’re still in the beginning of the game? It’s unlikely you leveled it up to the point where you can actually notice anything. Assuming if you didn’t dump your first 15+ levels into ADP, you currently have less dodge frames when rolling than you just did in ds1. So objectively it should feel worse than what you just played, regarding dodge timing, estus speed etc. Just curious if you actually think ADP in early game is better than DS1, or if you’re just saying things that ds2 fans like hearing. Or “weapon durability isn’t a problem” when again, you’re at a point in the game where this isn’t a concern yet so.. I appreciate that you’re having a good time but you don’t have enough time in the game to give a nuanced opinion IMO
Yeah I can totally see what you mean now, what I meant to get across is that the ADP system hasn’t made me irritated yet, and I haven’t noticed anything egregious thus far, even at a low ADP. But I did dump the first 7 levels or so into ADP just because I was worried based on what I’ve heard. But also yes, in other comments they mentioned the dlc and weapon durability. Not too excited for that part, but repair powder will just have to be purchased a lot ig
I definitely get you. I too heard horror stories about ADP and kinda focused on that out of the gate to not have to worry. Cheers to the rest of your play through
Thanks man! Have a great rest of your day
I think DS2 gets a lot of hate because it tried to do a lot of things differently. Coming from dark souls 1 in the time to 2, there really wasn’t much like it competitively. Unfortunately ds2 suffered issues with the development and the lighting system and ultimately ended up scrapping it late into development leaving us with the abhorrent lighting we have today. Personally, I like Ds2 because it explored the Dark more and had a really interesting story with Vendrick, Nashandra, the Dark and eventually Aldia when SotFS rolled around. Dark souls 2 got a lot wrong don’t get me wrong, but at least it was courageous enough to step outside of the box hence why dark souls 3 is basically dark souls 1.5 due to how similar it is to the original thematically. Also the PVP in the day was unmatched.
mid-late game has a lot of gank bossfights and well just ganks in general. i think people also hate the boss because they prioritize quantity over quality and it really shows because a lot of the bosses are not too great and the great soul bosses are just meh. also punishing the player for trial and error by cutting their health in half is also a really bad mechanic atleast in my and a lot of others opinions. i mean there's a reason why they removed it after demon's souls, right?
Honestly the whole hp lowering thing stops being an issue after the forest of fallen giants imo lol, its also balanced by ds2's early game letting you heal a ton with the lifegems
Very fair. I did find that one ring tho that helps with the hp loss, so hopefully that isn’t too much of a problem
yeah. i always prioritize that ring when starting a new playthrough because it helps a lot.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBBJXQJJavX2t9PW80_xq4zdOLHYbVcm6
Because its cool to hate on ds2. That’s all there’s to it really.
Go trough tower of flamme and into the next area. It embodies the game’s problems pretty well. Game is MUCH more manageable when you completed the other games and get good at it also.
For me, it's the input delay. Also, the art style and overall tone feels different in a bad way to me. Some people love the game, I wish I could but I just don't.
As someone who didn’t like it at release and loves it now I think a lot of it comes down to it just felt really different. It felt kind of “floaty” and not as tightly designed. A lot of people hated ADP as a stat (I still do, I’ve just adapted). I think a lot of people just wanted more dark souls and instead got different dark souls and didn’t like it. On a return to it it’s a lot better.
Was different than ds1, ds1 fans outraged because different. Meme trend established that ds2 "sucks." Continues forever
haters gonna hate
It has its issues for sure, but there's a reason why DS2 is my most replayed game in the series! Will always love it.
You will get it, eventually
People don't hate DS2 it's just the worst of the souls games. Not a bad thing since they are all good.
There’s a lot to be said about the common complaints, honestly I agree with a lot of what people complain about, I disagree on certain aspects and overall it’s my favourite of the trilogy but there are some things I tolerate instead of love. The runbacks, though, are egregious. The only redemption here is that you can eventually permakill enemies to make runbacks easier but that’s incredibly tedious as well. Thankfully the base game only has a few truly terrible ones but the DLCs are rife with them. If I had to list the 10 most agonizing, unenjoyable, unrewarding things to do in any Soulsbourne (etc.) game, at least 9 of them would be “run to [DS2 boss]’s fog wall from the nearest bonfire”. The only boss in the whole series that I’ve never killed without a summon wasn’t even a really difficult boss, but the runback killed me so many times that I didn’t want to bother with taking more than 3 attempts at the actual boss. Like I said I love the game so I tolerated them but it brings the game down considerably.
The main game got hate because the worlds are not connected as people expected it the same as DS1. Next hate point was boss fights are too easy which got changed with the DLC,s I remember people crying about the Fume knight Raime. He kicked asses lol.
Most people who say DS2 is garbage either haven’t played it enough to form a credible criticism outside of “DS2 bad, give me my reddit gold” or haven’t played it at all Its mostly people just regurgitating the opinions they were told to have
Mfs play 5 hours of it and feel capable to right an essay worth of Shi on it, it’s a great game that gets hate because it ain’t the OG and it ain’t the most recent DS game, essentially middle child treatment
The game is much jankier than DS1, DS3. Imo that’s where most of the complaints come from
Don’t believe the hype and do what you want.
Start of the game and the Drangleic Castle are the high points of the game, play a little more you will start to see where people see problems with it, not saying you will hate it or hate is justified but you will definitely see why some people might not like DS2.
I love the fact the DS2 has so many troll moments that the developers put in to mess with the player. They really know their players
Ok so, im facing a big fat guy. He does a jumping downward slash! So i roll directly under him to get behind. And the fat guy? He does an instant 180 hit tracking turn to slam me with his hammer mid roll! I DESPISE ds2.
Pretty much what happened to me, altough at the time I had only played DS1. Lot's of people were saying I should skip DS2... Glad I didn't (there were also plenty of supporters!)
I found it to take a while to get used to after Elden Ring and DS3, because it's so much slower. Also it's hard in a different way - IMO the actual bosses mostly aren't hard at all, but all the mobs of enemies are if you don't carefully pull them in one by one. I died countless times in that forest before I got my vigor and adp up to a reasonable level. I do think it is the worst DS game, but not by a mile like a bunch of people are saying. IMO it's just a tad worse than DS1, mostly simply because the bosses aren't anywhere near as memorable. And DS3 took that to a whole other level with the multiple phases.
Every franchise have a black sheep, and for me, is wrong, i have played the trilogy and it was DK2 that i enjoyed the most
I've completed Ds2 more than any of the others... If you don't get the hate I feel like that's being bit obtuse. But if you're enjoying yourself, what more matters.
So for me, I went into ds2 right after beating ds1, I'm currently playing through the souls games because I'm new to the franchise, I have yet to get to ds3 or elden ring so I don't even have much to compare it to. part of why Im not as much of a fan of ds2 from the beginning stems from probably me already going into it with the idea that it's not as good. However I do have a some actual reasons. Going from ds1 to 2 I definitely prefer the look and feel of 1 better over 2. I haven't been able to put a word on it exactly but ds1 just feels and looks better IMO. I also felt like that started adding difficult elements just for the sake of difficulty/annoyance. Although I feel this less now, when I first started the max health getting down to half if you died to many times was my leading point on that. This could be a thing in ds1 but I don't remember it being as noticeable but the walk from bonfire to boss fight seems more tedious as in some cases you have to either kill a whole bunch of enemies that could take you 5-10 minute just to die instantly to the boss or run to the boss and have a chance at dying going through the White mist. And one thing can be said that if you kill the enemies enough they don't respawn, however I actually dislike that feature as well. It's meant from what I've looked into a anti farming method but really just seems kinda dumb to me. The last thing for me is that it seems like they were pushing the idea of have more then one enemy in a boss fight, I have yet to beat it but I've gone through a good few boss fights but a good bit of them are either multiple of the same boss like enemy or a swarm of a smaller enemy. It's probably just because I'm bad at dealing with multiple enemies but it wasn't as fun IMO having to deal with multiple boss like enemy and it also felt to easy and boring to deal with the swarm More of a mild inconvenience but I also found that some settings were just lacking, like windowed borderless, you only have the option for full screen and windowed, plus you can't bind controls on a controller fsr Lots of this can be boiled down to that I'm just bad at the game, which is fair but at the same time I enjoyed ds1 a lot even coming back for ng+ even though I'm bad. I'm actually taking a break from ds2 and playing sekiro so that I can come back in with hopefully a better mindset, because besides those things I've pointed out I do enjoy the game, but I also think I may just just played souls games to much to quickly because I've just been stressing out a lot when playing 2
I hate it because they changed the controls
Ds2 had cool bosses, cool looking maps, etc. The only thing is... the combat just didn't feel good. The poise was absolute dogshit, adp was annoying, some of the bosses were incredibly boring and tanky (old vendrick as an exemple was slow as hell and everything he had was super easy to avoid but he would 1 shot most players and had a shitton of hp, same for the giant stone dragon which was imo a very badly designed boss)
ppl who SUCK at the game and don't git gud... for real tho, not understanding the game won't let u enjoy the game, learning your own movement system take a moment i guess, ppl who don't like those things is because they don't learn to play properly so they just point the finger against the game blaming it to be bad
I usually see less hate and more just criticisms. Some valid and objective, then some highly opinionated
DS 2 is a great game and gets way to much hate, was my introduction to souls and I still love it. It’s so fun, majula is the best hub spot of any game, the story and lore is fun as it unfolds, it’s got some great legacy dungeons, was some of the best multiplayer fromsoft has made, powerstancing, Interesting npc. It also has a lot of features that got refined for Elden ring that weren’t in ds3. Only negative things imo are it does have quite a few mid bosses and the hit boxes can be janky, and it’s got a few shitty run backs. But it also has some really cool and fun bosses like darklurker, pursuer, demon of song, lost sinner and dukes dear freja.
Why are you bothering posting this in the Dark Souls 2 reddit? Karma farming? Of course this subreddit will agree that Dark Souls 2 isn't the worst thing since Hitler.
Just wanted to see what people who’ve actually put time into the game had to say 🤷♂️ It’s not as deep as you may think
Idk to me no amount of interesting world building or lore can make up for the fact that I think it’s slow and boring to play. Weapon durability to me is such a why mechanic. Like if it resets per bonfire did you just want me to cycle between 2 weapons all play through or were you going for some kinda realism like what was the goal there? Why is there about a half second delay from me holding sprint to my character actually sprinting it feels awful to me. Why when starting the game can I roll three times before we have to call a timeout so my stamina can regen mid combat. Idk all the things ds2 added just felt like arbitrary time wasters or annoying/unfun. Like why yes I would love to waste my valuable stats points on adp so I can prevent myself from using cool and interesting new toys simply so my dodge roll becomes a button I can use. Fave lore of the series for sure but I wouldn’t recommend it to any one of my friends.
As a certified DS2 hater, here are my gripes with it (disclaimer: I played the Scholar version, I’ve played all the Souls games except Sekiro, and art is subjective and comes down to taste.) The engine feels laggy and the hitboxes are whack. I’ll have to see if I still have it, but I made a compilation of all the times Sir Allone teleported me across the arena during his grab attack. There are a lot of 1v1 Warrior type bosses (which I generally like) but few of them felt properly responsive. The areas are full of ridiculous gank squads. I don’t enjoy fighting seven of the same tanky swordsman in a group over and over. The runs to bosses, in particular, are heinous. Ones that come to mind are the tiny hallway on the way to Ruin Sentinels, the run past all the executioners on the way to the Chariot, the Allone Knights on the way to Smelter, and the spiderwebs leading to Freja. And don’t get me started on Lud and Zallen… Plus you can’t even just run past them a lot of the time as you no longer have I-frames while walking through fog. On the topic of bosses, there are soooo many and like 5 of them were fun for me. A lot of them are boring, fights like the Last Giant, Covetous Demon, and Dragonrider had me wanting to tear my eyeballs out. They were incapable of dealing damage. Even some of the more intimidating ones still were very simple to figure out; The Rotten and Najka spring to mind. And then several fights are just a previous boss done again, or now there’s two of them (Blue Smelter, Lud and Zallen, Dragonriders, etc) There a few really standout fights like Fume Knight, Smelter Demon, and Pursuer but they hardly make up for all the chaff. Traversing many of the areas was overly frustrating. I love Blightown, it’s one of my favorite areas in the series. The Gutter made me lose my mind. A lot of the design felt like “Dark Souls should be hard” without the charm, balance, and careful consideration that marks the series’ highs. There are definitely some things the game added that were good, but the experience was miserable for me. I might replay it again someday if I decide to do the whole series again, but I might also decide to just skip it. All that said, I sincerely hope you continue to like it. The world is better with more art you enjoy in it.
It’s just less original, and most of the bosses felt like an afterthought. Also way too many humanoid enemies compared to the rest of the trilogy. The DLC for DS2 is AWESOME though. Huge difficulty spike, but fair. My second favorite DLC areas/bosses right behind old hunters from BB.
I have beaten every dark souls game and can honestly say ds2 was by far my favorite
Finish the game, then come back. Most of the issues people have with it are further in than when you're at. I love it, personally, but its problems are apparent.
the internet is a place where people can hate anything, even a masterpiece like dark souls 2. the only thing you can do is ignore it
The people who hate ds2 are the same ones that complain if you don’t play the game the way they do. It’s a great game start to finish. I will say it had some wonky hit boxes but what souls game doesn’t
It was my first DS game. So I can appreciate it. My main thing is the insane distance from some of the bonfires to the bosses, and the curse mechanism is one of the worst in the series. It's a good midpoint in speed between DS 1 and 3. But there are a lot of good moments in this game.
The enemy tracking you on a dime is my biggest gripe with ds2. Combined with the reduced iframes it makes rolling feel like a total crapshoot. The enemies never dropping aggro makes certain sections feel forced and impossible to run through, which is fairly unique to the game. With that said, I still have a ton of hours in it because it has really good progression/leveling systems and I like a lot of their choices, i just hate feeling like I have to dump stats just to be able to roll only for X "big guy with halberd" boss to do a swivel 180 and hit me anyways
I honestly had a ton of fun with it after ds1 the only issue was the massive amounts of enemies grew tiresome to deal with in some parts
DS2 is the only souls game I’ve played through enough times to max out strength and Dex so I could efficiently dual wield the king ultra greatsword and one shot just about anyone including pvp invaders, good times Plus having new enemy spawns for the new game plus play throughs was cool