DARK SOULS 2: The Search for Solaire's Gold

[Revising Ocelot]

If you've got a Name-Engraved Ring I believe that increases summon ranges. I was 600k SM and got summoned by Ryong using the ring, and he was 950k. Currently I'm 874k and SL 87, but if I dump my sign at the start you might be able to catch it using the ring. When would be a good time?

[A Zarkin' Frood]

I was very disappointed with Dark Souls II at first because the world isn't as interesting and the a lot of the bosses are uninspired in visual and game design. Same is true for quite a few areas that are regular souls fare by now. And whatever intern designed Black Gulch is an idiot. I know people like that area but it can't possibly be for gameplay reasons. Then again, it's still a fantastic game, even though its highs aren't quite as high as those of the first game. The endgame is kind of a let down here too, but there's nothing like Lost Izalith or Crystal Caves here at least. And all tings considered: If this is possible it has to be awesome.

[Ryong]

I see Dark Souls 2 as an improvement in some areas - non-shit physics, better movesets on everything in general, more reliable summons, more variety in builds...

But it does have a generally weaker boss design, a less interconnected world and FUCKING BELFRY LUNA.

[Ramary]

The bell towers are optional areas so I did not mind them too much, with the exception of the boss of luna being the most lazy boss in a game full of lazy bosses. I played bell tower invader for awhile since free chunks that early is an insane reward and had some fun with it.

I finished the game over the weekend, and although I did enjoy it, when you compare it to Demon and Dark Souls the game is just lammmmmmmmmmme. With the exception of the two bosses of Huntsman's Corpse Whamu and his vampire horse from JoJo and THE LORDS OF SKELETONS none of the game's bosses really felt memorable, in fact manly of them blur together because they are all just dudes in armor with a big weapon most of the time (or multiple dudes in armor with a weapon). Speaking of muti dudes, the reliant on hordes in the game itself and certain bosses FUCK YOU AND YOUR TOXIC RATS ROYAL RAT AUTHORITY really made the game feel like such a slog. It did not help that your character feels super weak till about 60% in because of the lower starting stats and the lack of decent gear early on, on top of large titiante+ being far less easy to obtain (sans bell towerin for chunks), in fact it feels almost all the twinkling titaine was place in the post-castle dranglec areas.

While I am on that topic, Dark Souls biggest flaw was its last act, with the 4 big bosses and their areas being less then great compared to the parish, sen's fortress and anor londo. This was the one thing I expected them to fix but amazingly they kept that tradition up. With the exception of Dragon Town USA the game post the 4 great souls is such a slog, the bosses just get worst and worst, one boss is just a normal enemy you fight again in greater numbers IN THE VERY NEXT LEVEL. To top it off, the final boss is so pathetically easy. I know that is kinda a Souls thing at this point, but the other two were meant to be easy because of lore reasons. This person is apparently at full power.

I will say NG+ is way more interesting then it's previous incarnations and overall mutiplayer is way better (although soul memory causes issues) but this game was totally a disappointment to me (still better then most games these days but hey, the feeling is still there).

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Originally Posted by Ramary

This person is apparently at full power.

Well...
Nashandra is a fragment of Manus. The smallest one in fact, furthermore it could be argued that she wants the PC to win in the most hollowed out state possible so he's closer to "Dark" when he sits down on the throne raising the chances of him doing... dark stuff... I guess. Hence all of her attacks inflicting curse.

I have written 10000 paragraphs on why I think Dark Souls II is both better and worse than the first game in some other forum but mostly I agree with what you said.

[Arcanum]

2 handed heavy attacks break poise, regardless of what weapon you're using. The more this knowledge spreads, the more I face people using a weapon with an easy to hit 2H heavy attack. The current offender is the Estoc, since it has a massive range thrust with good tracking. You can't trade hits unless you have a weapon with equally long range, and if you try to roll past the attack to get in range, they recover from their own attack and roll away before you can get off a roll attack with most weapons.

Not to mention you can enchant any weapon, be it infused or a boss weapon, so there's literally no point to not have Crystal Magic Weapon, Lightning Weapon, or Fire Weapon.

Fire Weapon is its own set of ridiculousness, since at 35 int it gives me the same damage as CMW, and fire weapon has 4 charges compared to CMWs 1, and I'm currently debating on if it's even worth keeping my spellsword build or if I should just ditch all my int for more health and stamina and stick with Fire Weapon.


Anyway, with all that bitching aside, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game. There are only three boss fights that I have an issue with (1. Smelter Demon, because he takes hardly any damage and it feels like there's a gimmick to stop him from powering up, but no, it's just a lame fight. 2. Darklurker because you have to use an effigy every time you want to fight it, and trek through one of the Chasms. This one is just a personal dislike though, since he gave me a lot of trouble and I got frustrated and kept fucking up. 3. And the biggest offender is the Ancient Dragon. Massive AoE aerial fireblast that's a one-shot kill. And you can't even get him into a pattern because sometimes he will fly up on the spot and rain fire at that location, other times he will fly up and move forward and then rain fire down. The fight is a combination of pure luck, patience, and even more luck. Not to mention the run to the fight is horse shit, although I did perfect running through all the enemies on the big stairs. Still, I'm never fighting him again. ) And sure while some others are lackluster there's still way more bosses in DkS2 than there were in DkS1, so I can forgive them for the lackluster ones.

[Azisien]

Hurray for PC release!

Too bad the game is just coasting on Dark Souls' success and I haven't really seen a single mote of innovation, the game is so far less dark, the bosses are easier (though some correction for "I am more skilled post-Dark Souls" is warranted), and because of the lighting changes I find the PC version hard to look at it. Like it's actually disgusting. It looks like a game from 2006. And I'm too afraid try out mods because I keep hearing rumours FROM is banning for any modification at all. But there is that huge silver lining because...

ONLINE GOD DAMN WORKS! WOO! Used to take 15-40 minutes to connect with my ample supply of Dark Souls friends for some co-op action. Now it takes 15-40 seconds. Huge, huge, key improvement and the sole reason I will keep on playing it until games I'm more interested in come out.

[greed]

.... all these people down on it, I actually liked it more than the first. I thought that while the highs might not have been as high, the game as a whole was much better and the lows were nowhere near the worst part of DS1 or Demon's. It just seems tighter and more competent.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Just because I have complaints about the game doesn't mean I don't think it's fantastic. However, loving Dark and Demon's Souls to death I'm of course highly critical of anything the game does. Mechanically the game has clearly improved. It's true that it's more consistent in quality than the first game. But it doesn't really have anything that stands out particularly (Like Anor Londo and the fantastic O&S fight, which is among my favorite bosses ever, my favorite one is actually Gwyn, lore, music and challenge-wise. It's not the hardest but a worthy final boss* (If y'all fuckers would just learn to just not use parrys). Neither when it comes to design nor challenge. The game seems to like just throwing higher numbers of enemies at you.
I also get the feeling that they focused too much on making the game harder (I personally think it's easier) But the thing is for me the games have never been about difficulty, neither have they been for the devs or the old lead designer. I have the feeling that they focused on a part of the game that was a side effect from wanting to give you a feeling of hopelessness earlier and made it the main attraction. Well, whatever, marketing has done that ever since Dark Souls and for a lot of people it totally is the one part of the game that is noteworthy. As I said, I think it's easier. The thing is there are a few cheap shots the game pulls. Like ambushes you can't defend yourself against unless you learn to avoid them completely which you can only do on your second attempt because they are basically enemies that attack you as you open doors. There's other stuff too, like one infamous example is the Shrine of Amana: An area that's actually really cool looking and has a great Atmosphere, it was the first time in the game I actually really felt something unique was going on. And honestly, I didn't have a hard time with it because I always carry a ranged weapon of sorts with me but quite a few players really have trouble with this areas because it flat-out favors ranged builds. For the most part going close-range isn't too hard either but there are bits that just flat out punish going in. Y'know, like the rest of the game, only now you're forced to do it. This could have been a fun gimmick to the area but it just goes on for too long. Contrast the Greatbow Silver Knights in Anor Londo which does the same thing. One short bit that gets the point across, people get mad at it but they don't consider it a show stopper and it doesn't force those who play more restrictive builds to change it fundamentally. .

As for the world itself: I'm a little sad the interconnectivity of the first game is gone. But while some argue that being able to warp from the beginning is merely used as a design crutch but I personally see it more as a return to the way Demon's Souls did it which I'm perfectly okay with, although I hope From revisits the more interconnected way to design their world which made it kind of feel like a 3D metroidvania in some later game. I don't think the lack of interconnectivity is laziness, it's a deliberate design choice. They wanted to make Drangleic feel bigger because it's an entire continent. And at that they have succeeded. Sure, some people complain that a few areas technically overlap but people who give a shit about that should just stop looking at map viewers because aside from using one of those you could not hope to tell. Plus the same was true for Dark Souls. Both games used various tricks to make you believe that this is not the case and people only found out once the PC version was out and they could just find ways to look at the maps. What I think is inexcusable though is one particular transition. Of course you know what I'm talking about Earthen Peak to Iron Keep . That is, no argument, just plain lazy. Simply because the solution to would be as simple as making the elevator go down instead of up. Naturally, I was thinking maybe there's a lore reason for that. But learning about the lore of the area made it even clearer that they just wanted to somehow transition from area A to area B but decided not to really bother with it and just throw in a long-ass elevator ride in some area somewhere and it ended up being an upwards elevator ride from a poison windmill with nothing but clear sky above it to an underground lava castle that has sunken into the ground due to its immense weight. A cool setpiece ruined by a lazy transition . It's one thing, but it's really bothering me because both Demon's and Dark Souls had very cohesive world design and while Dark Souls II relies on tunnels and elevators a lot it still felt like one world until that point. Naturally, a majority of players don't give a shit about that because it's just a video game and people who think about stuff in video games are nerds and that's perfectly fine, I'm happy for those who don't care.

Then there's the general progression with a slight sprinkle of lore relevancy. At first you have two paths open. Three if you're willing to shell out some souls. And that's great. As a new character you could reasonably go down all three of those paths. Of course we have no idea why the fuck we're there, even less so than in Dark Souls (because no matter what people say, that game did give you an explicit goal and some direction), which ties nicely into the theme of loss of identity and memory introduced in the intro cinematic as well as the sequence leading to character creation. We get our first goal from an NPC I missed for a while on my first playthrough, wondering if I can only level up after the first area like in Demon's Souls and it's not like I wasn't looking. Anyway, we complete that task we are given get some hint that the Emerals Herald is also the old (fourth) Firekeeper from the intro cinematic who guides cursed ones to Drangleic but we don't really know where to go, well we might if we found some of those mysterious doors. But aside from that we "don't really know why". Which is a phrase we've heard twice in the game at that point. It's kind of a nice touch but makes the endgame feel like there's no direction whatsoever. It would help if the endgame areas were actually good. Aldia's Keep is a straight corridor with big dudes, Dragon Aerie is nice looking but boring as shit gameplay-wise. The only enemies that matter are basically the boss of the previous area, only you fight him three times here. Dragon Shrine is... well people like it so I'm a little reluctant to say it, but neither does it tickle my fancy with its visuals nor does the gameplay part of it. It's just a ton of big dudes with big weapons, like 90% of the bosses of the game. Lastly... the fucking Ancient Memories... a cool idea in theory, but why does it have to be three (four if you count the Dragon Memory) micro areas? We can plainly see that the areas technically connected at certain points but the path is obstructed by rubble. Why not have one big final area in ONE memory without a time limit(say, maybe the one of the Last Giant to give it some significance?) instead of having me go to a completely different area to grab an item just to have access to the boss of that area located in an entirely different micro area (I'm ignoring the Ancient Dragon as a boss of Dragon Shrine here because it's a horrible boss, instead I consider the Giant Lord the boss of Dragon Shrine)

I almost feel bad for highlighting what I perceive has flaws of the game because despite all those complaints I still love the game, have sunken plenty of hours into it and will probably get the PC version as well once it goes on sale.

tl;dr: Snake? SNAKE!? SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by A Zarkin' Frood

tl;dr: Snake? SNAKE!? SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

...What?!?