(I love this animation with all my heart.)
Dark Souls 2 is the ignored middle child of the franchise. A lot of fans hate it, a lot of fans like it but wouldn't call it their favourite, and then there's me.
I really liked Dark Souls 2. Maybe even a little more than Dark Souls 1.
To clarify, I played the Scholar Of The First Sin version on PC. I have no experience with the original build and I'm not going to do a comparison between the SOTFS and the base game, but there are differences that might make or break your experience, however, I think it's strongly recommended you get SOTFS due to the added quality of life changes. Upon release there was also a slight controversy over the lighting engine which was heavily touted in trailer footage but was conspicuously absent in the final product. This does affect one or two aspects of the game and its iterations, but it can be mostly ignored. With that out of the way, let me get to the game.
I wouldn't say I found every moment perfect. There's still plenty of convoluted design and one or two segments that really jump rope with the line between tough and unfair. However, on the whole, Dark Souls 2 is a bit easier than it's predecessor, and the difficulty is a little more constant.
My first thoughts as I booted up the game was that, well, the engine is a little different. It does a decent job of emulating the feel of Dark Souls 1, but there's a little bit less weight to your character. While the instep you do when turning around can make traversing narrower walkways a bit clunky, overall the game still has that deep, satisfying feel. However, the change in engine does show itself in two major ways; Backstabs and Parries/Ripostes are entirely different. Disregard all muscle memory from the first game, because it won't even help you a little bit here. This actually annoyed me a little bit, because unlearning my habits from the previous game didn't come easily. The way these features work mechanically also vary completely. Whereas you only sort of had to be behind an enemy in order to backstab in the first game, In Dark Souls 2, you have to be behind an enemy, facing their back, and then you enter a sort of checkForBackStab state. Your character feels infront of them with the hilt of their sword, and if that connects, regardless of whether the enemy's back is still turned, you perform a backstab. While I assume this balances PvP a great deal, it doesn't much help PvE. It's awkward and sometimes you don't enter the checkForBackStab state, even when you're clearly slashing an enemy in the back. When you parry, you also don't immediately riposte. You have to wait for your enemy to fall on their bums, ask permission from gods on high, and then when everyone's done rolling for a perception check, you are allowed to riposte. It's awkward and doesn't carry the same weight and flow it used to.
For starters, the parry window is no longer solely dictated by the item you use; it's partially tied to the Adaptibility stat, which also adds to how quickly you perform actions like chugging Estus. Endurance, which controlled how high your stamina was and how high your maximum equip load can be, now only adds two points of stamina per level and poise, and the Vitality stat dictates how high your max equip load can be. These changes drastically alter the way you build.
The other major change is the starting amount of Estus. For those not in the know, Estus is essentially your health potion. You can only carry a finite amount, and they replenish at every bonfire (ie, checkpoint). You're only given one Estus flask to start with, but between the Majula and The Forest Of Fallen Giants, you can get back up to 4 in about 20 minutes if you know what you're doing. There's even an Estus shard close to the main Majula bonfire by the well for an easy second flask. To compensate for the lack of Estus, there's a new health item introduced that doesn't replenish at bonfires, called the Life Gem. Now these are interesting because they restore health over time, unlike Estus, Life Gems can also be used while walking. There's a fair amount of tactic involved in choosing when Life Gems or Estus would be safer to use in a fight. And since life gems restore health over time, one could even consume a Life Gem in anticipation of taking damage. Sure, you had humanity in Dark Souls 1 which was easily farmable if you managed to get to The Depths and had a Covetous Serpent Ring, but Life Gems are more easily come across and can be hoarded.
Speaking of farming, some enemies now get tired of being repeatedly stabbed to death and unceremoniously trod off into the distance after one too many respawns. While Dark Souls has always been more about skill mastery than repetitive grinding, if you're 1000 souls away from a level up and there's just some dude that's easy pickings, he'll eventually stop being easy pickings. Yes, some enemies can be farmed out of existence, which alleviates challenge in some areas if you die really often and can be seen as a reward for your persistence, but I've never found this mechanic to be of much use. Truth be told, just before fighting The Lost Sinner there's a particularly annoying enemy placed right next to a bonfire and I make a point of farming him out of existence just so I can do that run in somewhat relative peace.
Death also has the added caveat of removing a percentage of your maximum health until you turn human again. Sure, there's a cap, but it still feels like an unnecessary handicap. It does discourage reckless play, but also means you're always treading on eggshells.
You now also don't have total invincibility when walking through Fog Walls. There's a couple frames in which you are entirely vulnerable and can be interrupted, I suppose to discourage our mad dashes for the boss door. It just adds frustration when you end up having to face a long gauntlet of enemies before a boss, like the Undead Chariot.
Shields are also rather... Discouraged. It takes some time to get to a shield that blocks 100% of physical damage. In Dark Souls 1 that was the norm and sacrificing 100% physical blocking usually meant gaining something of value in return, such as higher stability, or a higher percentage of magic blocking, or in the case of the Grass Crest Shield ie. only shield you should even consider using, faster stamina recovery. In Dark Souls 2, shields are nerfed to encourage other options. For example, the off-hand can be used to carry a torch or a staff or a crossbow instead of being used solely for protecting your face from the pointy bit of the skyscraper cleavers being swung at you. While this does encourage more dynamic builds, it also just means that if you wanted a shield you're usually stuck with the bottom tier trash until you beat The Pursuer and you can wield the mighty Drangleic Shield. The problem is that the Drangleic set is pretty great. In fact, I finished the game with the Drangleic Sword and Drangleic shield and while you might call me uncreative, I didn't find a weapon half worth wielding until the ass end of the game and by then I already invested so much into my current gear I wasn't willing to give it up.
I think that concludes a not-at-all comprehensive list of changes. I'll try to bring up Dark Souls 1 a bit less now.
So the name of the game remains unchanged. You are a person in a fluctuating state of undead, and thou who art undead art chosen. So it's your job to go murder at least four very big and scary dudes, and then do the climb to the last very big, very scary dude. The game has a convoluted way of saying that and it takes a bit of time for you to realise just what it is you're actually supposed to do. However, Dark Souls 2 is a little more clever than I initially gave it credit for. See, you can go murder four very large dudes, or murder enough smaller dudes to get 1 000 000 Soul Memory, which is all the souls you've ever accumulated in that playthrough. By using Bonfire Ascetics, you can also reach this number by respawning bosses (at a New Game Plus difficulty). So progression is pretty open-ended for the first half of the game, and there aren't any unnatural locks like in Dark Souls 1.
You start in the tutorial area which is actually entirely optional, but Snuggly is back so if you want to test your faith in RNGsus for a good drop then you should pay him a visit. From there you go to Majula, the central hub and it's deceptively small. From Majula you can go to The Grave Of Saints, The Forest Of Fallen Giants, The Shaded Woods, Heide's Tower Of Flame and The Gutter. It has two covenants and there's a surprising amount of fun in filling it up with NPCs. Firelink Shrine had this rotating cast of characters that appeared as you progressed, but Majula gains more inhabitants as you clear your way through. While the characters are less memorable this time around, it feels rewarding just to fill up space with people to talk to. Breath of The Wild did this thing where the town's theme would have an instrument added when you brought it a new inhabitant, and I wish Dark Souls 2 did the same. I think Majula's theme is just a little too ambient, but I can always recall the first few notes of the main melody off the top of my head. Most of the music in the game falls into the category of orchestral ambience, more to set a tone and fill silence than anything else. None of it is bad, but nothing is especially memorable. I think the intended order is probably a run from Majula to The Forest to Heide's to No Man's Wharf to The Lost Bastille to Hunstsmans Copse Earthen Peak to Iron Keep to The Shaded Woods to Tseldora to Shrine of Winter and then go through Drangleic Castle and from there go to endgame, but the order of a lot of these can be mixed and matched. I'd be surprised if anyone's playthrough ends up being very similar because there's a fair amount of open endedness, especially in the order in which you do bosses.
And I do have my favourite and least favourite bosses.
I really liked the first encounter with The Pursuer, if only because failing it means that he deems you unworthy to face him just yet, and you have to climb all the way to the top of The Forst Of Fallen Giants to get another shot at him. I like Najka, she's puts up a decent fight, even if she becomes a lot easier once you find the one piece of rubble she can't bury under. I love how the Smelter Demons stabs himself to set his sword on fire in this tantrum because you hit him a bunch. The Undead Chariot is this really cool puzzle where you have to navigate a crowded tunnel with a speeding chariot trying to mow you down, and you have to find something for it to crash into while avoiding constantly respawning skeletons. I love the first Dragon Rider fight because if you don't extend the arena, he can just throw himself off the edge if you bait him correctly and that always makes me laugh. The Duke's Dear Freja is just this creepy spider who I refuse to fight one on one, there are three summon signs you can find because she's just so tough. She's armoured from head to toe and can only be hurt if you stab her between the pincers.
The worst was fighting Mytha, The Baneful Queen for the first time. There's an out of the way pipe you have to set alight in order to set the windmill alight which drains the poison from the arena you fight her in. The fight is a nightmare mess if you don't do this, even with the poison ring. And if you do set the windmill alight, she becomes a total pushover. The Covetous Demon is also... There...? He doesn't do much. He's a blob that honestly is more of a formality than anything else. There's also a bunch of horde boss battles, such as the Royal Rat Vanguard, Prowling Magus And The Congregation, The Skeleton Lords, The Bellfry Gargoyles, all of which I think kind of sucked, although the Bellfry Gargoyles were more enjoyable just for the throwback to Dark Souls 1. I understand that they're testing the skill of crowd control but usually crowd control in Dark Souls amounts to smart aggro. Mages have a couple spells with Area Of Effect but when you play Strength/Dex, it amounts to a question of "can your sword swing in a wide horizontal arc?" and if yes, yay, somewhat easier, if no, boo, sucks for you. Add on the fact that mages have to Lock On to even aim anything and these become just a chore to deal with. Throwing a large group of dudes at me isn't difficulty, it's a dick move and that's beneath you Dark Souls.
Boss weapons are now super accessible. Instead of having to upgrade a thing and check off a myriad of tasks, now there's just some dude selling them. Not just boss souls, boss spells, boss armour, boss souveniers, you name it. Which means there's now an actual choice behind popping a boss soul for the extra change in your wallet or saving it for that Dragon Rider Bow which launches javelins instead of arrows.
The journey from Things Betwixt to Throne of Want was an enjoyable one. Some points sucked, most points didn't but my first save file was the one I beat the game with, and I came back for seconds and thirds. I can't really say that about Dark Souls 1, because I'd so horribly stuffed up my build that I just threw it all away after the Taurus demon, which took me about 3 hours to reach. But then again, all of that experience carried over, so I might be a little biased. But I think I can say that Dark Souls 2 might be a better starting point, even if just for the extra shine. And that's just the thing, isn't it? No one really knows what their opinion on Dark Souls 2 is because it's always being compared to Dark Souls 1 in the back of our minds. I know I liked it and I had fun and I recommend that it should at least be a pitstop on a journey through the Soulsborne games if not a full blown detour.
