jokes aside, ds2's still the only game to have true powerstancing. Elden ring only brought back the basic l1 attacks, & left hand attacks altogether are limited to neutral attacks only (no sprint/roll/step/jump attacks). Too many no brainer features like that shouldve been mainstays
The game doubles down on ADP being a little more of a melee stat by also making it give Poise. Edit: I also found out quite recently that Endurance gives a little bit of Poise too.
I want to become a writer, Dark Souls has been really influential in my life and right now I'm working in a story about a character who, originally, was born as a Dark Souls 2 character. It just so happens that I sent a tale about her to a contest and I won, right now I'm around the 200 pages mark and I have never been so passionate, so in love with an idea of a character, and it all began with a Dark souls 2 run. I'm telling you this because I see you appreciate the game and it has given you so many good things, you're not alone, this game gave me my best character who will, one day, become the protagonist of a novel.
The dark souls games really inspired my writing as well. I’ve only gotten one book published so far, but I’m working on the rest of the series. Keep working on your dreams man
@@sethlowen2303hello , big book enjoyer here. i would find it incredibly interesting and awesome to read someone’s book that is inspired by their experience with dark souls. if it’s not too much of an ask and there is a published work, could you share a name or the like so i and any others could invest our time in your story?
DS really is peak fantasy. It's only natural that a lot of the works the community has done to expand on the lore or tell such personal stories have been equally as compelling. I'm happy you're finding it such a source of inspiration for your writing
I also believe that the Illusory Ring challenge is the definitive way to experience the game. When you can't use Bonfires, or die, all of a sudden Weapon Durability, Lifegems, patiently approaching encounters, the generous Soul Level curve, generous boss attack telegraphs, the slower pace of combat, and the sheer openness of how you can route through the game up to the Shrine of Winter all make perfect sense. Dark Souls 2 is the most consistent, methodical game out of the trilogy. And the fact that the developers put this challenge into this game specifically means they knew what to accentuate out of what the game has to offer.
Getting both rings always seemed like too much for me, but I've done the no bonfire and I completely agree. All the sudden the durability system and the 99 lifegems make so much sense
I do have two (imo, quite important) counterpoints to your point on Adaptability being similar to other Dark Souls games' poorly-explained mechanics. The first being *those other mechanics weren't as immediately impactful and player-facing as rolling i-frames are.* Nobody will really bat an eye when Gravelords fail to happen in NG worlds, and they'll eventually learn to tune out the weird white circles on the ground in DS1 because they really didn't do much of import to the average player. However, *every single player* of DS2 will roll, and will notice some weirdness with it without knowledge of ADP. Those other mechanics are esoteric not only in form, but in function. Adaptability, on the other hand, is extremely important in function, and therefore should NOT be esoteric in form as it currently is. Had the ADP stat been explained better in the menus, then it likely would have raised less eyebrows overall. The other counterpoint is that other Souls games' poorly-explained mechanics are equally valid areas of critique for just that reason, and shouldn't excuse ADP's poor communication, nor the poor communication of all the games' esoteric mechanics. Nonetheless, I do still love DS2, since I feel like it had the most experimentation out of all of the Souls series titles. Just figured I'd add to the conversation a bit, since I believe it's important to still be critical of even games that you love.
The only issue I have with this is that s aren't essential in DS2 UNLESS you try to play it like Dark Souls. At the time people expecting DS1 bounced off this without exploring the other options, back stepping, much better ranged options etc and most importantly, the oversaturated summon system. This argument only stands if s are absolutely essential and they're not.
@@LucDeTruc let me guess, mid 20's, think DS3 was the best before Elden Ring released, never played DS2, did play DS1 OR Demons Souls remake, probably not both, right?
As much as I love Dark Souls 2. I think ADP being tied to i-frames is dumb. And this is as a person who's doing a no ADP level up run right now to see how bad it is. It's certain not as bad as people make it out to be. Most videos of people getting hit come from the fact that they rolled way too early. However still dumb. Having a better roll shouldn't really be a thing. I think keeping the animation speed up with it is fine.
@@shadquirk607 I agree with this. Side stepping and spacing are far better methods of avoiding damage. Dark Souls 2 rolls are a VERY heavy stamina move. You will dodge twice and maybe get two or three hits in before being completely drained of stamina. Side stepping attacks means that you keep regenerating stamina while also avoiding moves. Also Dark Souls 2 has many directional attacks from bosses where the best option is to roll into them to avoid any lingering hitboxes.
I have my gripes with DS2 (mostly how I cannot evade grab attacks properly and keep falling off the bridge on a way to Chariot) but it is still the only game out of three I replayed more than 3 times (2 in original and 3 in Scholar) like no other in Souls series. Bloodborne might come close second and Elden Ring is its own Elden Beast entirely but DS2 is still the best in mood, tone, colours, even people. DS2 gave us GAVLAN! No other game has Gavlan.
Lol, the best advice i can give for avoiding grab attacks in dark souls 2 is to roll way later than you think you should. People usually get grabbed while in the end of their roll, so if you delay your roll youll find it much easier to avoid attacks. But i love DS2! When compared to its predecessor it isnt as impressive, and its very easy to see that there wasn't much of a "vision" like with the DS1, but it experimented a ton and was quite successful in those experiments! - A password system to play with friends online more consistently - Powerstancing being a beloved mechanic that they sort of released in DS3 with twinblades, Gottards Twinswords, Sister Friedes Scythe, and the Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords and then finally being brought back properly in Elden Ring (Though i think Dark Souls 2's version of allowing you to powerstance different weapon types to be still much better) - An upgrade system for your estus to let you hold more as opposed to kindling - A simpler - more refined upgrade system that allows players to swap out their enchantments on their weapons - Bosses having multiple phases - A guard break mechanic that lets you riposte - Weapons of the same category having unique movesets!!! (why did this have to go away :< ) - Changes to getting boss weapons so you just get the weapon and dont have to rank up a normal weapon to turn it into a boss weapon - Introducing +1, and +2 rings for NG+ - Oh yeah, having actual NG+ content for the player to experience (adding new base game enemies, letting bosses drop new souls) - Bonfire Ascetics letting you NG+ a single bonfire area letting you respawn bosses - Changing jump to Hold O + R3 rather than Hold O + tap O It introduced a ton of mechanics that were kept and loved!
I like ds2 sotfs even more than I like elden ring, and I've played thousands of hours of that. My guess is that many people don't like adventure games, they'd rather have a boss rush game.
Ok soo thats a wiiiild opinion. I love Softs, it’s the first souls game I ever played, but Softs better than elden ring? I dont know mannnnn. 😅 I’ll give credit where it’s due though, Dark Souls 2 incorporated so many experimental ideas that were polished in the later games. Power Stancing, special movesets, build variety. Other unique mechanics like the looking glass knight boss invaders, playing on the dlc without owning the dlc, etc. Dark Souls 2 despite having questionable level design choices also had like some really unique mechanics, like the unfreezing of eleum loyce, the activation of the iron tower, and the hidden pressure plates of the sunken city, burning down the windmill in the earthen peak, and the soul golems in Drangleic castle. Without Dark Souls 2 as the stepping stone, many of these things that came after it would not have been possible.
That is a good reason. It's more an adventure than an action game. Ds1 lent more to combat (as well as better feeling combat) so people who weren't too into the adventure aspect could enjoy. Not sure how I'd scale them but there definitely is a fading of the adventure elements. I hope they reverse it in a future game.
I only play sotfs so the revelation that frigid outskirts and the like were meant to be co-op blew my fucking mind, I mean in hindsight it makes a lot of sense
He also forgot to mention some extra details. They have an increased summoning limit and grant special item drops during coop. Getting summoned to Frigid Outskirts before you get the DLC key is the earliest way to get a Bone Fist.
Found this through your short talking about the movement and how it compares to DS1. Really glad I clicked on the full vid. The intro was way sick! I absolutely loved the camera work! Really nice to see more videos talking about DS2 positively instead of all the rampant negativity. Hopefully the algorithm catches this video and spreads it like wildfire
13:44 I think I know what's going on here, and it's a psychological trick. I'm going to steal this example from an extra credits video, but apparently, during World of Warcraft's development, there was an exp debuff if you play the game for too long. People didn't like this, but instead of changing the mechanic, they changed how it was framed by making the "normal" state now appear as an exp buff, while the former debuff was now framed as the "normal" state. A similar thing is going on with Dark Souls 2 vs 3. Instead of framing the situation as "you lost half of your max HP", they changed nothing about the system, but instead made the half normal and the normal HP "double your HP" because psychologically speaking, people are less frustrated by that for some reason. It doesn't matter if they are both similar; it's that one feels better than the other for silly moneky brain reasons.
They absolutely did change the system. This, imo, is an inaccurate framing of how health works in these two games. In DS3 whatever health you have unembered is your baseline, it's what you start with, it's what you get when you die when embered, which you can only get by consuming embers or beating bosses. I'd wager most players who played through DS3 are probably unembered for most of their playthrough, only popping it for a heal or for extra help in a fight or something. In DS2, what you start with is your baseline, which then gets reduced when you die. You can't really frame the minimum half or your *normal* as your baseline in DS2 because you only reach it after dying 10 times without ever using a human effigy, this is not the same thing at all as DS3's system, where you always have your baseline health minimum as a minimum and then can increase it using an ember.
@jeanmarcmichel5719 You are missing the point that "losing your max HP," psychologically speaking, feels worse than "losing a buff to your health." In Dark Souls 2, your max health is whittled down upon death until you take a human effigy. In Dark Souls 3, instead of framing the embedded state as your "base health" (by showing a grayed-out bar), they instead frame the unembedded state as your "baseline" instead of the debuff like in Dark Souls 2. The specifics are different, there are other things they changed between the systems, but the fact the "embered" state is framed as a buff instead of the "normal" state psychologically feels better.
@@EoteVessels that's not the argument I was countering, yes the framing makes it feel better in DS3 and I agree with that. What I was arguing against was the notion that both systems are essentially the same just framed differently. The specifics make a pretty big difference there.
In fact, whenever you see a proper DS2 video showing the actual hitboxes, you'll see that this game has the best hitboxes fromsoft have made until Sekiro and Elden Ring arrived. Most of the time the player's getting hit by those "bad hitboxes" is just a matter of the player rolling too early and the attack landing even if you think it didn't. Grab attacks? Do I have to start with Gaping dragon insta-grabbing you without any animation? The hitbox just magically appears in one of its hands and you get teleported to it. Or maybe I should speak of Nameless King grabbing attack were he just moves his lance and you get teleported to it even when you're 2 feet away? As Babbbs said, in DS2 when you get grabbed an you felt like it didn't connect, it's just a matter of replaying the video in slow motion to see that you really got hit in your foot with low agility and an early roll. The only problem is that the grab animation doesn't initiate until the roll animation finish, which is not inherently a bad thing considering that this game is from PS3 and clunky animations weren't exactly rare in that generation. Domo3000 has a great video just showing random hitboxes of the game and even some comparisons with DS1 and DS3, you'll laugh when you see that DS3's dagger has the hitbox of a club and it's the same for the player and the mobs... The only reason why nobody's complaining on DS3 horrendous hitboxes is because the game's extremely rewarding with rolls, it's almost like they wanted people to roll spam through the entire game so they didn't have to worry about actually setting good hitboxes and designing bosses that aren't just a mindless spam of non-stopping combos. They gave DS3 a Bloodborne's type of gameplay that rewards the aggression but... In a game where you don't really have the meanings to be that aggressive. Yeah, I like to say bad things about DS3 even though I loved the game, but DS3 babysitters are everywhere and they love to attack any other game of the franchise, so I just do the same qjwineqjkwnesñdfasdf
I have been trying to complete DS2 several times but have gone back to DS3 each time. Now I see it's because I really just have missed these mechanics and have not been understanding the peculiarities of the game. Thanx a lot for this eye-openning video. Hope this time Flume Knight won't be my last boss in the run.
One counterpoint to the adaptability thing you mention (which I'm stealing mostly from noah caldwell-gervais) is that there _is_ actually an implicit problem with the adaptability i-frames mechanic, which is that it doesn't translate narratively in a reasonable way, and therefore doesn't make sense from the player's perspective unless they get outside help. Equip load governs roll distance, and adaptability completely separately governs i-frames, but that division doesn't make any sense from a narrative standpoint. It only makes sense when considered explicitly from the perspective of the game designer trying to not make one stat too powerful. Because that division is so unnatural, it makes the mechanic feel vague and makes it hard for the player to understand what they're even doing when they level it up. This is true even when you divorce DS2 from the context of the other souls games (in other words, it's not just an artifact of the game introducing a new mechanic). This is made worse by the fact that i-frames are not really a mechanic, they're an implementation detail. There's no narrative reason why your roll makes you invincible for a short time. In other words, i-frames are not something the player should ever have to be aware of _at all,_ but making adaptability specifically affect i-frames separately from equip load _forces_ the player to learn about that implementation detail if they want to be effective at the game. That being said, I do think DS2 gets a bad rap because it gets over-compared to the other games, so I'm glad to see the DS2 renaissance blossoming lately on youtube :)
As someone who consistently hits up shrine of Amana in less than 5 hours I can never unsee ds2 as a beautiful flawed maiden of epic proportions absolutely massive, juicy with their own quirks and tricks to learn to make the game truly shine. It has it's issues sometimes it gets nervous and throws to much at you far to quickly, at first you might find them uncomfortable, but given time anyone who decides to dig in deep will be greatly rewarded with a beautiful and grand experience that is entirely self contained to this experience. It's not perfect, but there's nothing else like it.
"ADP isnt communicated to new players" Theres a tool, that you showed you using, that allows you to read what stats do. If they used that to then hover over the AGL stat, like you didnt show for whatever reason, they would see it explains that it governs their rolls effectiveness.
Governs roll effectiveness is as helpful as a stat that tells players it governs weapon effectiveness - it should have said that agility adds i-frames to your rolls
@@nickoliekeyov746 Japanese game translated to english, also the average player that wouldnt know what "invincibility frames" are would be more confused, saying it makes roll dodging more effective is a perfectly fine choice, stop being hate biased and finding poor excuses to discredit the game
dark souls 2 has always had a special place in my heart it was the first dark souls game i played and probably the second game i ever took seriously , it was also the only game from 2014 that could work on my super low end laptop at the time and i used to take it with me everywhere even on family trips since i wasnt the kind of person who liked social interactions or going outside too much , the world of dark souls 2 might have been very depressing but to me at that time it was a shining beacon of hope , no matter how many time i died , no matter how many time i got bum rushed by 8 enemies , i could always prevail . even now whenever i feel down or get the feeling of "thats it" i would remember the time beat dark souls 2 on a family trip screaming out the balcony of a hotel room with joy knowing that if i beat that game then i could beat whatever im up against now.
Based, DS2 was not my first game, Demons souls was, I played them in order and really loved them about equally back then. Coming back to them I realized DS2 is the best aged from just how much of a really good ass video game package it is overall. Demons Souls second, then Dark Souls 1 are all so amazing to replay. From just what all is super viable to the classic Iron Keep bridge dragon fight nights especially on the weekends this game just has so damn much. Its very mechanically rich, like one of those 2000's games that you discover stuff decades after still.
DS2 was the last Souls-Game I picked up, mainly because of it's reputation, but to my surprise I really loved it. It just clicked with me almost immediately. For one I love the vibe of the game. It feels more like an adventure through old kingdoms a little as if someone crossed dark Souls with Uncharted and for some reason it really works for me. The NPCs, the way you discover new and visually completely different areas so frequently really made me feels I was on this fantastic adventure. I also adore the build variety. Out of all the games this one encourages you the most to play around with different builds and weapons, mostly because they are just cool, but also by giving you additional levels and many upgrade materials. It also provides the most creativity with powerstancing and funky cool weapon arts. Also levelling and infusing weapons is so much improved from the previous games it's insane. I made heavy use of the wiki and bonfire ascetics to cobble my build together and I had the most fun character building out of any of the games (Elden Ring included) Even though I haven't mastered the movement system at all I like it a lot more than DS1s. The fact that the jump-button in DS2 is actually functionable and does feel good to use makes it wild to me that they went back to the horrible old jump for 2 more games. Regarding the enemies and areas it never bothered me. I like the more methodical and careful approach to getting though an area and lo and behold the game actually gives you the tool you need to do that, like making bows and crossbows actually viable, so that you can pick away some enemies from afar. Am I the only one that actually likes the Hollowing system in DS2? I never used that ring outside of like the first hour of the game. Other than that I just let my health dwindle until i felt it necessary and useful to use an effegy. And at least the effegy-economy was spot on. I always had just enough to comfortably use the effegys to reverse the hollowing effect. When to use them felt like an interesting choice I had to make when to use them most effectively while managing the amount i had left. I like it a lot more than in DS3, because here it is an actual core mechanic, whereas in DS3 it felt tacked on and also made balancing really weird, because embering gives so much HP. The hitboxes are for the most part fair, but it is an unfortunate combination of the Agility mechanic, the way the game handles grab-animations and how it handles staggers (like you'd often not get staggered at all while taking damage which makes people think the damage was unfair in the first place). I am on the fence when it comes to agility. On one hand it can create interesting build choices, on the other I am generally not a fan of locking core player abilities within the progression system. It makes levelling ADP not really a choice, which is kind of the most interesting thing about levelling up and allocating your stats. At the same time the devs compensated for that with giving the player much more souls, designing bosses/enemy's movesets in a way where strafing and outspacing is totally viable and disincentivizing spamming roll because of the insane amount of stamina it eats. Overall eh, but it is time for people to stop complaining, just level it a little and it's fine. So yeah, overall I really love the game and I am happy, that Fromsoft seem to reintroduce some of the ideas from DS2 instead of just dropping all the good ideas from that game.
Maybe you are the only RU-vidr who explains why and how Dark Souls 2, even RU-vidrs in my own country (Indonesia) really don't like this game because he can't explain it himself like you, you get new subscribers✌️
I really enjoy Dark Souls 2 but these defenses of it are absurd IMO. Any argument to the effect of "that was the intent!" fundamentally misses the point that the intent makes zero difference to the result. On top of that, any argument of what players should and shouldn't be doing in order to enjoy the game is nonsense.
Okay we shouldnt tell the players what they should be doing to enjoy the game. Now we have a player who is playing XCOM and refusing to not only use cover but then he exclusively only takes shots wich got a under 30% chance to hit. The player now calls XCOM the worst game to ever exist and when people point out he plays like a idiot who is setting himself up to lose by refusing to change how he plays he goes and says "I shouldnt be doing that to enjoy the game". Would you take any of this players words seriously or call his IQ to be too low to even understand hypotheticals.
"Any argument of what the players should and shouldn't be doing in order to enjoy the game is nonsense" So, if you have someone playing Battlefield with knife only, they refuse to jump on a vehicle, they refuse to use a firearm, they refuse to use granades, they refuse to use absolutely any tool the game gives them BUT the knife. They found themselves getting killed from 1 mile away everytime they reach open areas, and when people say that they SHOULD be using firearms in their FIRST PERSON SHOOTER, they just say that the game has poor design and the game should be made for people who only wants to use knives and doesn't use any of the 120 different weapons that the devs took years developing just for the people to brutaly ignore them to use the knife. No, every game has a given way for you to play it. You are not intended to play bloodborne with your bare hands, you're not intended to play Sekiro without parrying, you're not intended to play Elden Ring without Torrent, you're not intended to play DS2 rushing everysingle area of the game like a headless chicken. Try any of those options and you're going to get destroyed by the game and you're going to complain about how the game is poorly designed just because you refused to adapt on how the game's intended to be played. If a given area is intended to be played on co-op but you have the option to play it solo, then you HAVE to know that you're taking a high risk because you have a huge handicap from the beginning, the area is supposed to be played with 2-3 players so there will be a proper amount of enemies for those 2-3 players to fight. If you play it solo and get ganked, that's not the game's fault, that's your mistake from trying solo something that's intended to be played in group, if you don't like it, it doesn't mean it's a bad game, it just means that the game is not for you, and that's it
I'll say my point, Manual Lock-on aiming is far too revolutionary, that shit needs two tech guys in a lab teaching it as they point it out how the camera works. It would make a nice menu option to discover, but lock-on locks on for a reason. So you don't whiff attacks via manual controls.
Generally the lock on - aiming your attacks doesnt post too much of an issue because a lot of weapons have horizontal attack patterns, however the mechanic really comes into play when you have weapons with thrusting/vertical attack patterns. Then it feels like its a problem with the game because now you are missing attacks while locking on. Personally i love the ability to attack in a seperate direction where im aiming, i love that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring have the option to disable lock-on auto-aiming your attacks, meaning i can be locked on to the most important enemy while attacking other enemies off-camera. A bit of a seperate rant: Though if Dark Souls 2 has taught me anything, its to not *rely* on the lock-on mechanic. Its a great tool for newer players, or for when you fight enemies 1 on 1, but with larger enemies/bosses or fighting multiple creatures its best to stay not locked on. Too many times i see my friends die because they're fighting multiple enemies but because of lock-on, they're tunnel-visioned on the single enemy.
@coreymeredith4001 The skill curve for lock-on is so odd in that most people I watch try to play these games for the first time will continually forget that they can do it and have a really hard time connecting their attacks. Then they usually start to use it ALL the time and get better but eventually realize how much more you can do without being locked on. I guess it’s kinda like training wheels but not in a condescending way, it can be really helpful for new players and even experienced ones
@@nickoliekeyov746 Yeah i agree completely, it's wierd, but when you master non-locked on combat you have free reign to attack who you want when you want. I was playing some elden ring yesterday with my Str/Fth build and i was trying to snipe enemies using the frenzied flame spell and i could not lock on to the enemy i wanted to in a group, so i just free aimed a fire bomb instead and hit him (that skill came from ds3 pvp)
@@coreymeredith4001 I gotta practice more free aiming projectiles cause I’m still terrible at that lol, haven’t really needed to do it much but I do really like manually aiming with bows and other sniping stuff, I think they’re criminally underutilized in all the games
@@nickoliekeyov746 Manually aiming bows and freeaiming fore bombs are skills you develop in pvp, because locking on makes it super easy for your opponent to know where the firebomb is going to land The classic way to throw a firebomb is to throw it at your feet, because people usually roll towards you when you throw one meaning youll catch them off guard
And you have not even talked about the lore. The characters. The tragedy of lucatiel. Of every poor soul that made its way to drangleic. The game is beautiful and somber. So much has been forgotten. And so much will be forgotten still. What made me fall in love with ds1 was the atmosphere. Just how much is conveyed despite so much being hidden. Ds2 is no where near that. But its a beautiful continuation and it saddens me to no end that ds3 just threw all of it out for a more straightforward but more meta plot. And so much retreading of old ground. Also, I encurage everyone to replay the frigid outskirts with summons. Its genuinely one of my favorite experiences in any fromsoft game.
DS2 made me want to know more about the game world. DS1 was dark spectacle and DS3 met expectations, but DS2 was the only one out of the three that made me curious.
DS2 is my favourite of the series. Has so much more character and personality than ER. I love how you've tackled the problems it has, as well as tried to recontextualise them. Hitbox section is breath of fresh air, but the shopping cart analogy is spot on. DS2 has a quirky sense of humour that does not connect with most people. Those of us who love it know each other.
Fun fact: DS3 fall damage is calculated as if your have Embered health, whether you are Embered or not. So in essence, for fall damage at least, if you aren't Embered you are at 70% max HP, and you are put at 100% max HP if you use an Ember. It is literally semantics, the games (DeS, DS2, DS3) are designed around different amounts of max HP, and people still complain about it. Soulsborne NG+ loops are a good idea, but as so far implemented, they are not nearly enough of a change to be worthwhile... for the most part, and it's not like it's impossible to make NG+ amazing, Fromsoft just hasn't made the choices that would make NG+ amazing. Perhaps they should look to Nier Automata or the Zero Escape Series NG+ experiences, and while Diablo incentivizes replays and extended playing, grinding isn't a thing everyone enjoys... plus DS2 loot stats are static, there's no surprise of finding an armor piece with a bit more defense or a weapon with a modifier that makes it better for a certain infusion.
Something something ADP Souls 2: Scholar of the First Gank Edit: Also, at 5:48 that’s not a hitbox issue, that’s a latency issue 11:32 you have s on backsteps in ds1, they’re just incredibly limited, even with the flip ring. Probably something to do with ADP increasing your backstep s too 15:03 Whataboutism is a logical fallacy just FYI 18:13 Whataboutism is a logical fallacy just FYI 18:48 Well, if we're going off that logic then Belfry Gargoyles and Scorpioness Najka are both repeat bosses because they're copied ideas from DS1 as well, making it 86% Overall, a pretty good video, however, I can’t say that I enjoyed it. I also can’t say that I enjoyed DS2 after having played through it six times.
5:48 look up domo3000 for proper comparisons, I was just prioritizing my own footage as often as I could 11:32 no, you do not. you're right that they're limited. limited to literally 0. darkwood ring or not. 15:03 you're using this to dismiss arguments you don't like, if someone argued the opposite you wouldn't care if it was a whataboutism 18:13 this isn't even relevant in either of these timestamps 18:48 that's a STRETCH. I only included old dragonslayer because it was the same model with the same animations. gargoyles and najka are unique assets with wildly different movesets to their DS1 "counterparts". also "copied ideas" means nothing. elden ring has a fight with gargoyles in the name, and you'd be an idiot to argue thats the same as ds1 gargs. also 86% vs. 48%. my point still stands.
Those why-ds2-sucks videos actually inspired me to play ds2 again! It's funny how people don't know how to approach areas methodically and blame the game for something those people failed to learn. These people don't shoot long range enemies. They just run in with their broadsword, triggering every gank point, and rush to the fog wall and get hit... it's quite hilarious. Though I tried doing that in Elden Ring, and the game became a whole lot easier, which made me respect ds2 a bit more. I'm happy to learn that pvp etiquette is a ds2 thing. I'm proud of our community!
No one who ever goes through the AGILITY = IFRAMES argument every mentions how Attunement also increases Agility. Yes, that's how the mage/cleric with a ton of spells/miracles and 3 ADP rolls through your attacks.
@@BabsOfEao ATN doesn't stack Agility as quickly as ADP, but my end game mages always have minimum 99 Agility purely from ATN, so I have no idea what you're on about.
@@NichtDjkfjvzkt Yeah, i'm aware it's not one for one. But my point, again, was that it ALSO builds Agility and eventually gets you there for mage/cleric builds.
@@dj_daem0n completely agree. You level fast enough in DS2 that by the end I almost always am running some form of a battle mage even on a str or dex build, so I almost never actually up my ADP and can roll just fine
My main problem with the game is that every action your character performs ends with a noticeable pause during which you can't do anything. Swing a sword, wait for another 250ms before you can raise the shield up even though the animation's finished. Because of this, often the best approach is to be the number 2 in turn order during combat. You wait for opponent to finish their combo, then do your attack while they're recovering. Whenever you try to be number 1, you get slapped in the face by opponent's counter, even if you reacted in time and pressed the dodge button, then you see the character perform the queued action after it's already too late. The 1st game and 3rd also have this somewhat, but not to this extent, if your weapon isn't inherently slow then you can play very aggressively as number 1. That said i really like the game's world aesthetics and how the story took a brave new turn compared to DS3. In my mind, DS2 develops the world so much better than DS3 did, it's a crime how DS3 just threw most things into the trash bin like it never existed, leaving only minor references.
Balance is about tuning the level of difficulty to whatever is desired. If anything, giving the bosses generous hitboxes like the player is imbalanced, as the bosses already wield much larger, more damaging weapons. The question to ask is, "Is this fun?" Does it provide good visual feedback? And so forth.
If you’re a true DS enjoyer, then everything ‘different and quirky’ about this game is a feature to be explored and enjoyed. There are new challenges not offered by the other games. As with the other games though, you will have great success with creative problem solving, patience, composure, and resistance to greed. As stated in the video, when you master an aspect of this game then you will come to love it too.
This is such a bad take. It doesn't make you any less of a "true DS enjoyer" to take issues with the game. Being a fan of something does not mean blindly accepting and enjoying all aspects of something.
@@MarioFromMario Without rewatching the video, I don’t think you’re reading my comment in relation to the message of the video. 9 years of this game for me and I love it more as I learn more with each play through. Everyone is in a different stage of discovery and frustration regarding the games, but those who have played them all and still want challenge and variety will often come back to this game for the reasons I laid out above, and beyond.
It's always enjoyable seeing people who really like this game and why, as somebody who came from ds1 and never clicked with it. My main issue was clunkiness. This mostly comes from actions feeling slow and less responsive. Also, I think the movement being in limited directions is still an issue to me even using camera. I play unlocked a lot, and will be trying to move my camera in a different direction. I agree, the repeat bosses are a big isssue in Elden Ring. It's the only major issue I have the game. I sadly was limited in my experience with the multiplayer as not long after starting ds2 I would get horrible horrible ping and my opponents would move maybe once every 30 seconds. Only ever had these issues on ds2. For the general design, it's just a preference but I don't like long boss runs. I played through the game a few months and the boss I struggled with was smelter daemon. The boss run was annoying, which just meant grinding out all the enemies in the area which was very boring. Likewise with the bonefire aesthetic. Redoing an area again afterwards doesn't sound like much fun, and once I'm at an appropriate level for ng+, I'd rather just move on. NG+ changing drops and enemy placement and encounters is very cool. That is the coolest part of DS2, but the bonfire aesthetics isn't interesting to me.
Never really understood the "clunkiness" complaint with DS2. Like, are we just going to forget how jank Demons Souls and DS1 are? Heck even the remake of DeS is kind of clunky imo. To me, it's always seemed like a superfluous claim that only serves to misrepresent the game and turn people away from it. For me, I feel like the rolling and movement system, especially when not locked on, is leagues better in DS2 than the first game.
Only got to play DS2 pvp last year, despite playing it on 360 on release. I really play it as respectfull as possible. Sometimes I get a good match. But others are so sweaty. Like my build is of a hexer for pve and I only use meelee on arena, but sometimes the player is so sweaty (like using a bow on the bridge). Like man, we are on Vanilla, be thankful you had another player to fight. And I lost multiple times to him, only won twice, the last I just left after. Or when I was invaded twice on Belfry Sol and the two jumped on me. I on the other hand let them deal with the enemies when I invade. Like when I was on sl1 and I let this newby heal once because an enemy attacked. I ended it no hit.
PvP is one of the few things this game does best, I'd argue. Definitely experiment with anything and everything, you'd be shocked at just how viable and even fun many options are. Even seemingly worthless spells like "Shockwave" and "Soul Spear Barrage" offer utility that your stronger spells cannot. The opponent keeps dodging your Soul Arrows? Cast Barrage, watch them roll under three of the little pellets and eat the rest. Shockwave, on the other hand, is a wonderful tool to use for inducing panic. It'll pancake people and instantly break through small and some medium shields, and can be free-aimed at your feet to (literally) trip up aggressive players. And that's just base game Sorcery spells. Pyromancy and Hexes offer more, and the DLCs introduce things like Soul Flash. Go wild.
The issue with Adaptability in my opinion is that it demands player investment. As for Ember vs Hollowing, the player feel is important. When you Ember up it feels like an improvement from the base, whereas each subsequent death lowering your health more and more can feel more demoralizing. Also the ring of binding reducing the health lost can feel like a tax on less skilled players. Repeat bosses, I disagree that the co-op areas feel optional in the same way that the optional bosses from Elden Ring do because they have Souls attached to them. Boss runbacks are an issue because of losing souls and just the issue of wanting to rechallenge the boss as soon as you can. Despawning enemies can also feel bad for players that are farming for a specific item or are trying to get strong enough to face a boss. While there is the CoC, it doesn't really communicate what the effects of joining the covenant are and just says that your journey will be harder. Also more than anything else, Dark Souls II fails to explain how it is different from Dark Souls I. It took me years to find it in myself to enjoy DS2 and there are still parts I'd rather not engage in. These are just my thoughts and while I'd like conversation, I do think it might lead to argument. Cheers.
The problem with Adaptability which everyone just ignores is that virtually every player will end up investing in. At least to a specific point, for a similar amount of i-frames as you'd probably have in Dark 1 or Demon's. Which, at this point, the question becomes... why bother? It is literally just going to pad out your level for PvP, or slow your growth early-game for PvE purposes. People don't like being given choices when one is so clearly the best option- otherwise they walk away feeling punished for choosing what they want rather than what they didn't realize was so vital. Do you wanna level up Intelligence so you can use cooler spells sooner? Or maybe Strength so you can finally make use of that giant axe burning a hole in your box... The correct answer is ADP, idiot. Enjoy having terrible rolls for another few levels.
"Repeat bosses, I disagree that the co-op areas feel optional in the same way that the optional bosses from Elden Ring do because they have Souls attached to them." Many optional bosses in Souls games have souls attached to them. Moonlight Butterfly, Oceiros, and Champion Gundyr are examples deom DS1 and DS3 that are fully optional. "Boss runbacks are an issue because of losing souls and just the issue of wanting to rechallenge the boss as soon as you can." This gets to an idea that friction is bad in games when it isnt. Why should the game allow the player to challenge the boss as soon as possible?
@@rslrandy Point One: Yes you are correct. In fact that is part of my point, those optional bosses feel just as important to the game and their areas are not designed as total gauntlets. Ocieros is a bit of a bad example in this regard as you do have to beat him to unlock one of the endings and in order to reach two late game areas. Point Two: Friction is good. But it is something that has to be balanced with player retention. There is a reason that Elden Ring introduced the Stakes of Marika even with lifting a lot of other design elements from DS2. You don't have to reslog through the area again to rechallenge the boss, but you can't change up spells or spend your runes.
This video was refreshingly analytical and sound while defending DS2, but I disagree with some of the conclusions he draws as they disregard the player’s feelings when playing. Embers feel better than humanity, and even if the hit boxes technically aren’t broken that doesn’t make them feel any more fair
The investment is neglectable. Not only is the cost of leveling up smaller than in other souls titles you also don't have to level adp to finish the game.
Saw your essay after watching some youtube shorts. First off, great video! I can admit that Dark Souls 2 (and SOTFS) are likely the weakest games in the Dark Souls triology, but Dark Souls 2 is defintely my favorite Fromsoft game. I love the build variety, story, atmosphere, and the manner unique mechanics it has. Honestly in some ways makes me wish more Dark Souls games were made with the philsophy of DS2.
Throughout playing the game for the first time, I realized that the more patient I was the more I got rewarded. I actually was on the covenant that made the enemy despawn mechanic go away the whole time too and I still had a blast. If you treat the bonfires as like a level and the entire dungeon like a world, it makes a lot more sense in terms of how they scaled the game. It's the patience in DS2 that makes the community dislike it so much cause if you rush through everything the game will punish you... hard. Elden ring's dlc is like this too and now it's getting review bombed for being "too hard" and "difficult just for the sake of being difficult." If people leveled up their scadutree blessings they wouldn't have this problem, and if people were to just kill enemies on runbacks and then try out the bosses in DS2, they wouldn't have as many problems. For some of the really insane bosses in the game too, they increased the difficulty and made the runback smaller or non existent (like burnt ivory king or fume knight) with the exception of sir alonne.
Dark Souls 2 is probably the game I've put the most hours into in any of the DS trilogy. It helps that it's longer than 1 and 3, but there's also way more you can do on every playthrough that encourages replayability.
13:02 "this is one of those games" no, this is a buggy mess of a movement system that could have been decent if it weren't for all the bugs such as direction snapping and makin the player hit in the complete opposite direction they aimed randomly
I know you needed the disclaimer at the beginning but I have over 300 hours in dark souls 2 and don't need anyone to tell me it's shit. I just like hearing people say it. I still appreciate your video even though you like it.
I tried Elden ring (my first souls like) 10 times. Before I started to love it. Took me to ignore how people told me to play it. And just play it how I wanted
It's incredibly how Dark Souls 2 fans can't even name criticism without caking it in apologia. It's really quite hilarious. No, people didn't dislike Adaptability because it's new, they disliked it because it's fundamentally a bad mechanic.
Or defending enemy placement, which was made frustrating on purpose. Im all for taking my time, but that has a limit. And DS2 makes you take your time in all the worst ways, artificially. Of course you are gonna run through enemies after you've been conditioned to enemy placment being obnoxious on purpose XD. If you have any sense that is. Give me a well designed area, with good enemy placement and I'll full clear it every playthrough. Give me whatever DS2 offers, and I'm zooming past almost every time... (Also they chose to remove I frames on the fog gate, after they put all those enemies where they did. Just more artificial difficulty if you ask me.)
Seriously, its not like people were complaining about rally in bloodborne, or posture in sekiro, people don't care that DS2 is different, they care that the mechanics suck and or do not compliment the core gameplay in any meaningful way. DS2 fans are so detached from reality they have to spin a narrative in their head that the detractors are just close minded hate bandwagoners that dont want to learn new gameplay systems when thats blatantly untrue 💀
@@geneallen4711I've stated it before but here's another case of that. Bosses becoming enemies, it makes sense in most cases in the other games especially the first with the demon ruins. Meanwhile chariot horse in castle in DS2. DS1 just does it better, you can't make me think random horse belongs in castle. But I can believe demons existing in their home base. And why are their ruin sentinels in the castle? Never explained, just comes off as them needing something to put in that area.
Yeah, other souls games use enemy placements to tell a story, even Elden Ring uses its repeat bosses with purpose, DS2 uses enemy placements to fill empty space and it shows. Like why are there two extra flexile sentries in Eleum Loyce? The lost bastille I understand, the boat from no mans warf takes you there, but why eleum loyce?? why are they guarding the garrison ward key?? And the second Covetous Demon, why? isnt the whole point of the covetous demon that he ate himself into a bloated monster trying to impress mytha? why did you put a second Jabba in the DLC B-team?????????? What was the point of putting a dragon outside the arena of a DRAGON SLAYER, wouldn't that be more appropriate for the Dragon RIDER? If you didnt have a better spot for the dragon you could atleast swap the arenas for the Slayer and Rider respectively, atleast then the Rider wouldn't be so laughably cheesable that you might wind up doing it by complete accident, Why even is "Ornstein" here? literally none of his items explain this. Atleast DS3 explains why Ornstein came to Arch Dragon Peak and clears up his appearance in Ds1 being an illusion with Smoughs item descriptions Of course they basically admitted through interviews that the game had to have its assets stapled together in development hell after the first director left, essentially confessing that they never had a plan to begin with 🤣
@@celiafrostborn The horse is a construct made by the king, the Chariot's soul item explains that. It makes perfect sense for a golem built by the kind to also exist in the castle where the king resides. This is the exact same reason why you encounter the Bell Gargoyles in Anor Londo as well. This is why I find most DS2 "criticism" to be stupid, it's delivered in the most obnoxious and pretentious ways possible while trying to cushion other games in the series doing the same exact thing in 50 layers of "deep lore bro its great story telling no not when DS2 does it"
I respect your opinion, but dark souls 2 is my least favorite game of all time, and while I wish I can find enjoyment within it, there is far to many things I dislike that keep me from ever going back to that game.
I love when the response is just "Git Gud" when the problems I have with the game are far deeper then that. In fact, I think its on the easier side of what a souls game can be and have beaten the game twice.
14:44 i still think that being penalized for each death sucks in ds2. in ds3, embers feel like a buff to your character, and every subsequent death after losing that buff doesn’t penalize you so much. plus, you get embered after each boss kill which makes it feel more like that extra health was earned. in ds2 you spec into your own health pool only for it to be taken away with each death, and effigies aren’t as common (at least in my current playthrough) as embers are. That being said i’m enjoying the hell out of ds2 rn, videos like these are kinda giving me more fuel to enjoy it
same for me bro, and i started with demon's souls ps3 back in the days, played all FS games, i lived the FS evolution, i tried every pvp and ds2 pvp IS THE BEST EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD IN THESE GAMES. (iron keep fight clubs
really glad someone made a video like this talking about how dark souls 2 isnt the horrible game everyone things it is, and it simply is diffrent in the way you are meant to play it. Coming from a aspiring dark souls 2 enjoyer i really hope you made some people change their views on the game
So i will say this, DS2 was my first souls game. I love it. However, i think it is probably the worst souls title. I say this for a few reasons. I find that a lot of the reasons you showed love to this game are not features warrented or wanted in a souls game. I once read someone saying that it's a great game but a bad souls game, and i wholeheartedly agree. For starters, the ADP was full on a bad choice, and i will die on this hill. The frame rates of my character should not take away from my actual character build. As to why anyone would want this, im not sure. In a souls game, a series with renowned difficulty as a main feature, this was an unnecessary added layer. You said at one point that you shouldn't be running to the bosses, as you're missing part of the point. The exploration, the item gathering, etc. I get that and also understand that they included the enemies' respawn limits to help serve the purpose of helping those out. That limit is somewhere between 12-15 if i recall correctly. That is an absolutely asinine amount, man. It should not take that many attempts to fully explore an area, and that gets made all the more annoying when considering the importance of durability and dying. Both of which can cause enemies in the areas to be at different respawn levels, becoming a pain to track. The idea of exploration mixed with available boss runs was handled way better in later titles such as elden ring. This turns most maps into a slow grind fest as you make your way through those insane 12-15 respawns every area to make it to the boss. Unacceptable, in my opinion. This is more of a personal gripe, but i hold some amount of resentment towards any game that requires me to do a new game plus to get the full experience of it. Some games handle it well, such as nier automata, but DS2 is certainly not a great example of it. I do appreciate that it handled letting you see these things early via the asthetic system, but i think the regular souls games handled this better by just adding a bit more lore there instead of whole new interactions and information tidbits which are integral to the understanding of its lore, one of my personal favorite parts of these games. I also wanna comment on how poorly this game handled the series traditions of looping back to old areas. The giant memories felt like a very poor idea to me as a way to pull you back to old areas and was an incredible disappointment considering the beauty of how they were handled in DS1. In the first game, this truly felt like a great show of how connected the world was and still felt like progress where as DS2 made this feel more like an abrupt slow down of pace and only further fueled my issues with its world layout. I blame this partially on the devleopera making teleportation available from the beginning instead of making it an earned reward, but that's another personal gripe. Souls games have always had multiplayer be a seemless part of the world, and i approve of how they handle it. I still think the idea of creating areas for the soul purpose of encouraging multiplayer to be in bad taste. They may be adding nothing completely new, but one day when the servers no longer maintain good player bases this will leave them with poorly performing AI partners who will attempt to fight everything in their path, looping back to my issues with lacking in efficient boss runs. The hollowing mechanic in DS2 is a beautiful example of a concept that is great on paper, horrible in execution. This is a fantastic execution of the idea behind hollowing. Slowly loosing yourself to the curse, and it's really cool.Thiss issu, however, lies in execution. You mentioned the ring of hollowing to help limit thi, and yes, you're absolutely correct that it helps. That does not, however, make it a good way to handle this. Just like the ADP stat, this is another example of DS2 requiring me to divert parts of my build to help handle or adjust its bad design choices. My build should not need to have itself diminished or made less powerful for the sake of maintaining this. The gank fights this game poses can, for a lot of people, be a horrible turn-off. Both the boss versions and the regular ones within areas. SOTFS then proceeded to double down on that philosophy and add more enemies in sneakier places to surprise players. This one depends on player personality, but I'll admit i found this to be a bad choice when considering the previously mentioned issues of no real boss runs, slow area grinds, durability limits being quite serious, etc. I know. I've said a lot of negative here, but i truly do love DS2. It introduced me to a series that has, by no small means, helped shape me a person. It did many great things for the series. I love its additions of powerstancing, i will stare at some of its environments for hours and bask in their majestic views and ambience, the music is some of my personal favorite (looking at you majula theme), and more. None of this is to say i disliked your video. I actually was really happy to see it. It reminds me how different things can catch the attention and both the love and/or ire of an audience. We both love this game for different reasons, but regardless, it matters. Thanks for defending this classic, my dude. Praise the sun and dont you dare go hollow my friend.
This video is 6 months old already, jeez. I'm replaying DS2 and really enjoying it, and I'm amazed by how many people hate the hollowing system on principle. Like, the dark souls 2 iteration of hollowing is the least punishing version after DS1. It literally works the same as in DS3, except it punishes death way less because you lose health gradually. But because your human health bar is your "default" max health, people hate it because they don't like seeing a greyed out part of their health bar I guess? I don't know. I really enjoy it, because it actually gives you the feeling of getting ground down over time, gradually becoming hollow. Seeing your character rot away. And then that makes actually using the human effigy feel so much more satisfying.
Despite beating the game several times I somehow never noticed the dragon knights bowing, even when I did 1v1 the big knights and they let me pass I somehow ignored it or didn’t notice them or forgot that happened immediately after. That area was one of my least favourite because of all the enemies, but really I’m just super stupid. And those stone knights in heide’s tower, well I just never trusted them and so never settled for fighting that middle guy, always thinking the other two enemies would surround me if I didn’t try and leave quickly
Honestly such an underrated video. You did a great job discussing and analyzing all of the arguments people bring up for why they do and don't like the game and you honestly taught me a bunch of stuff I didn't know about the movement mechanics. Also you deserve way more subs dude, great vid
Pretty sure I remember back step iframing that barrel in undead burg just after the Pine resin in ds1 but has been a long time maybe ive miss remembered it
@@unrefinedmorosis5546There are, however it’s an incredibly small window of opportunity. Something like four s. However backsteps on DS1 also have infinite hyper armor meaning you can trivialize a lot of traps by backstepping through them, such as the barrel in Undead Burg or the ball trap in the Asylum
Lota of unneccesary coping. Dark souls 2 is a good game, but its very flawed, and people are right to criticize it, even when its issues exist in the other souls titles. To point number 1: You literally just handwaved the bad hitboxes as the player misunderstanding them. Even if that were the case, its created a frustrating experience, where you can't trust the games visual cues consistently. A mild annoyance during early game 1v1s, a bigger issue during gank squads, and an even bigger frustration in the DLC boss fights. Every game has imperfect hitboxes(this happens in all the games), but the frequency of Dark Souls 2 bad hitboxes, combined with the way hitboxes are drawn makes for a flawed experience. I mean the footage speaks for itself, even if there is a technical explanation, its still not acceptable. 2. ADP is bad because it creates an inconsistent experience. To most players, they don't understand what it does, and as a result, play a vastly more difficult game than the first Demon or Dark souls. When you do figure it out, it creates the opposite issue where it makes most encounters piss easy. The default should have been base Dark souls, because it was already effective, and gives the players more consistent results with their rolls. This isn't the biggest issue imo, but it basically makes balancing content more tricky for Fromsoft than needed. 3. The movement in Dark souls 2 is not as good as the other souls games. I can't explain it fully, but me moving in Demon Souls, and Dark souls felt good. Like I was in control. And the combat animations were snappy, and allowed you to cancel out making it easier for the players to react. I don't think the 8 directional movement is the core issue in Dark souls 2, because you can just lock off and be fine. But the animations themselves and how much time it takes to recover from said animations creates this boggy feeling. Again, not easy to explain, but I just have more fun controlling my player character playing Demon souls or Dark Souls naturally. Zero Lenny made a great video explaining this visually. 4. Human Effigys are not a big criticism people push about the games. If anything, its lifegems. But on the note of human effigys, they are fine, and I agree with you that its more forgiving than it was in Demon Souls. Now I wasn't the biggest fan of it when it was present in Demon Souls(mainly because 50% is rather discouraging), but it is an intentional design decision, to encourage the player to go to human form and be in online play more often than not. So I'm ok with it in the souls games as its been tweaked in 2 and 3. 5. Dark souls isn't an MMO. Some people will play the content in Co-op and its fine. However, a good sizable amount of people will try to challenge themselves to beat the games in single player. The prior games established a reputation of tough but fair. Nothing about the areas scream tough but fair. Just enemy spam before a boss. I would maybe agree if the bosses were more raidy, but they are all pretty on par with the rest of the games design. If this were the case, there should be variations of these runs. One with friends, maybe with better drops or unique enemies. And then a route thats actually fair and meant to be played singleplayer. Try to defend the Sir Alonne bossrun and tell me that encounter(which is a duel of swords) was designed first as a co op boss. 6. On the point of the foggate, here is the thing. If you want to fight a boss, and let's say its a good boss, the game will probably put a couple enemies in your way as a challenge. If you clear them all out, then run to the foggate, great. If you don't first try the boss though, you will have to repeat that experience. Its fine once or twice, but if you were learning a boss, and found yourself dying to them many times, then at some point you are going to start running past the content. Why would I continue the same challenge when I demonstrate mastery once, or repeatedly? Dark souls 2 alleviates this in a clumsy way, by despawning enemies after kiling them numerous times, but thats still several runs where you have to clear enemies. This isn't the worst thing, but it is a big issue with a few areas. Iron Keep is not a fun run for this reason, especially given how the enemies are laid out. Sir Alonne is the other horrible one, where again, I ask is the intention for you to clear out the entire level, or to make a mad dash to the foggate. I just think at the end of the day, removing fog gate invincibility is just creating artificial difficulty and frustration. A better way to handle this would be to give the player invincibility through the foggate after the first time you enter through it without I-frames. Or maybe just create a shortcut so the player can skip right to that battle in these problem areas. 7. Bonfire ascetics are awesome, but most players don't give a shit about new game plus features, considering they drop the game once they are finished. I'm not into the whole(just put 100 hours into it, it gets better). I want to enjoy my first playthrough. Dark Souls 1 was brilliant for me in the first half, that it made the second half tolerable. There was a lot of content and stuff I didn't see, as well as stuff in New Game plus to try to do, but it wasn't neccesary for me to be hooked. For the souls vets, its a great feature, but it doesn't really do anything to make the first run or impression of the game better. That being said, I'd like to see it return because most players would love the opoortunity to refight certain bosses after their first clear(Nameless king or Gael for example would be even more fun if ascetics were availalble, if at least in a New game plus run). Again, I think if you asked most souls vets, they love ascetics and wish they were a staple. Anyway, I yapped too much. It's just staggering how many Dark Souls 2 essays defending the game, fail to focus on the good, and instead fumble the ball by defending obviously flawed game design.
I love your view here, but that Diablo 2 comparison feels a bit off. Diablo is designed around the loot system people replay content because there's the chance of a rare drop. The content is also easier, not really geared toward challenge. People don't fight the same bosses because they thought those bosses were fun.
The incremental direction when not locked on is still an issue when you want to maintain the same camera angle while changing directions. I naturally play this way while exploring and DS2 feels fucking awkward.
Nope it's simple you just need to hold the left stick and the rightmost face button and move the right stick at the same time to sprint at an off angle. The game gives you all the tools you need to move in any of the directions you just need to be smart enough to figure out how to use them. If a real souls game is complicated and difficult to figure out you can always play one of those other casual baby games like demon souls or dark souls 1 or bloodborne or dark souls 3 or sekiro or elden ring if you really want your precious simpleminded movement options back.
A youtuber from another video said "DS2 is not a bad game. It's just the worst of the Souls Games." This set the perspective very different. It's a good game just not as good as the others. But it's not bad. To me, the beginning was hard, it had me walking to the flame tower first which gave me a very hard time and I kept getting overwhelmed. I started raiding areas until everyone was dead and level up before hitting the boss. Now at Drangleic Castle I feel overpowered since I kill many enemies in one to two swings and the bosses are mostly down in very few times if not one. I was also someone who just wanted to finish the game, so i could move on to DS3. But the more I play the more I notice zhat I'm actually having a good time and having fun. This came as a surprise to me, being influenced in thinking this game is bad. I quite like it by now and many people say the DLCs are the best part of the game. Now I'm looking forward to getting to them 😊
I played through this recently and I was pretty fond of it myself. What I didn't like is alot of the boss fights were kind of a joke with how easy they were. Other issue is the start of the game can be abit frustrating with the amount of enemies thrown at you while only having 1-2 flasks to work with. Aside that the rest of the game was a trip, and I don't get why it gets as much hate as it does.
DS2 did a lot of things well and a lot of other things not so well. It deserves to be the most controversial of the series. I still enjoyed it despite it's flaws and sunk more time into it than DS1 and 3 combined. Not as much as in ER though. But i can see why someone could dislike the game. I hare people who can't just accept that they don't like something and move on with their lives. Some people will not enjoy DS2 and that's perfectly fine. No game is made for everyone. But there's people who just can't accept that something that they don't like can be appealing to others. Looking through RU-vid or god forbid reddit you'll find plenty of dumbasses who made "DS2 sucks" their entire personality. It's just sad honestly.
People were doing the "honorable combat" of 1v1s in multiplayer (regardless of summons) and waiting until their opponent was ready back in the first Dark Souls before II was even announced. It's been a while since I played II, but I'll take your word that NPC enemies also committed to the "honorable combat" thing. Still, that was probably a design choice born from player activity in the first game rather than something meant to condition the players into being more honorable in their own gameplay.
@gimligimlass5509 you may be on to something here, but at the very least that design choice had the added bonus of conditioning players to play correctly. worked on me at least. another counterpoint is that since most of the "honorable enemies" are in sotfs, it may be that the choice was inspired by how people played in the original Ds2 release.
@@BabsOfEao Again, it's been a while since I played II. I own both the original + DLC, and SotFS. I'll take your word that the "honorable" enemies were introduced in SotFS instead of the original release. That said, it really isn't a counterpoint. If that's the case, then it wouldn't mean they were introduced specifically because of II's player base, but because of a trend that had been going on since the first game at least (I can't comment on trends stretching back to Demon's Souls and King's Field). Claiming that it was specifically because of the original II's player base ignores a multi-game precedent at that point. It's sort of like saying a third grader is doing well because of all their work in second grade, instead of all the work they've done since first grade (second included, of course), though I'm sure a better analogy exists. I'm not sure how successful it was at conditioning players to "play right", but it is a nice addition in any game. Assuming it was done in multiple areas since the early game instead of only late game areas like the dragon's areas, it may very well have been successful in conditioning players. That would be cool, but it's hard to confirm that right now without watching a bunch of LPs from around launch.
Honestly pretty much every criticism I've seen of DS2 that isn't lore based is easily refutable and is indicative of people being unable to engage meet the game at its level.
Dark souls 2 will never not be in my heart for how much it consoled me as a kid when I played it. Sure I played dark souls 1 first and I loved it; it’s the reason why I got dark souls 2 but I never really feel that same “itch” of playing any other souls game more than a few times other than ds2. Even now, im still playing it! (Granted Im playing a modded run to spice things up a lil in terms of progression) but the core mechanics stay the same and I believe that’s why I’m so in tune with the game the most. I love almost every mechanic it’s laid on me. Even the hiddens ones i still haven’t noticed b4 leaves me saying “oh thats cool i never knew about that!”
The big thing people tend to leave out is there was no such thing as an established system of s, no 'Dark Souls formula'. I played this in period, I also played Demons Souls on release, and I never had an issue with DS2 because I wasn't expecting the 'classic' FromSoft system, I had no established frame of reference, i wasnt expecting the exact same game as DS2. I honestly belive most of the anti DS2 diacourse comes from people who were really young in period and didnt have depth of gaming experience behind them, or played it later, after playing more souls and soulslikes.
This is the best essay about DS2 that I've seen, and I couldn't agree more on every word you said! The freedom and the fun I've felt while playing this game was above the rest of the Souls. Every area offers the player the chance to use a different approach, various weapon, actually good spells... it's just a journey with entertainment for every taken step. Me and my fiancé literally filled the character creation slots, and needed to create another account to make more. I'm glad we'll see a part 2, there are many great values in DS2 that are lost in the sequel, most important for me the "buff + infusion combo": DS2 it's the ONLY ONE in the franchise in which the player can infuse an already "magic" weapon, and then also buff it with a spell (example: DragonRider Twin blades already has split damage with magic and INT scaling, but you can increase that scaling for your build using a Magic Stone, and then buff the already infused weapon with the Crystallized Magic Weapon spell). It's unbelievable that you can't do it in neither DS3 or ER, it makes you feel far less performative and less optimised. I hope you'll talk about this "little" thing too.
Thank you for making such a great video. It's been interesting just to see the view on Dark Souls 2 change. I remember watching Noah-Caldwell Gervais's video on Dark Souls and having my mind open. It's such an interesting series and the second one is just "the bad one" it's more than that. From gameplay to story. Thanks for making this video!
You just might have influenced me to try DS2 my friend. DS2 was the first souls game I tried and I hated it, but when Bloodborne came out it completely took over my life and I’ve since played/loved every souls game EXCEPT for DS2 and Sekiro (I hate the lack of build variety in Sekiro…). I think I’ll get DS2 to hold me over until Erdtree comes out🔥
23:20 you can see a lot of this in Elden ring too. Way mor ganks sure but it’s always nice to see someone choose not to heal, emote to signal duel start, and make sure to one v one. My favorite invasion was invading a full lobby and having them stand aside and watch while I dueled one of the fingers. Then a hunter popped up and he watched. When I won then I dueled the hunter and they watched. When I beat him then I dueled the next finger, and I won. Then we repeated this until the host, and winning that felt satisfying. It was like a boss rush and there was so much honor that it just was a blast to complete.
I have several hundred hours in DS2, and it was only last year that I learned what ADP does. It never really bothered me because I just learned how to roll with the frames I had. I'm not saying the solution is to just "git gud", I'm just saying that's what I did because I didn't even know there was another option. I think it probably has to do with the fact that I med rolled the entirety of DS1 (Not even knowing there was a fast roll because The knight starting class med rolls from the start of the game and I never had incentive to switch to worse armor) and therefore when switching games, it felt normal to have "Poor" i-frames. I still absolutely love the game, and probably hold it above DS3 and Bloodborne in my heart!
i just watched a video where a dude said you have to kill EVERY enemy to go into ANY fog wall or you will die. are people really willing to lie to make this game sound horrible? blows my mind
DS2 is a fine game, but its defenders are insanely annoying. They'll make the worst fucking arguments known to man and will expect normal people to accept it
It always boils down to them making objective statements like "DS2 is the BEST souls game ever and everyone else is 100% FACTUALLY WRONG" but the second they get even the slightest amount of push back with people poking holes in their logic they always cower behind their subjectivity shield "Well thats just my OPINION man, cant you just let people enjoy things? stop being so negative >:("
And it's always "oh, but DS1/DS3/ER aren't perfect either". Ok, we know? How does that make DS2 better? I really enjoyed playing through DS2 but by the end I was so exhausted that I can't see myself playing it again. I don't think it's a bad game, but it does have some terrible mechanics and design choices that should be addressed.
@@sisterofquelaag It *Is* a bad game and that's FINE. This is the problem most people have, we ALL like terrible things they just can't accept that objectively speaking Dark souls 2 is a bloody mess that's indefensible in most aspects of a "Soulsborne" game.
@@jay6113 I'm more of the opinion that it's a bad souls game but an ok game, although that may be because I just feel bad saying it's a bad game lol. But I get it, there's a reason why I've never wanted to play it again while I've played the others multiple times.
Your video made me reconsider and play it 8 years after I bought it. You explained things to me that I did not know. All of this is because you believed in what you loved and took it to great lengths. I wish I loved the game as much as you do. I missed a lot of fun things. Thank you for clarifying that I did not send $40. Into the abyss
This was an excellent watch! Dark Souls II is also my favorite fromsoft game! No matter what I will always get chills walking into Majula for the first time on a new character!
I played most of DS1 solo because i didn't know about reversing hollowing, I played all of DS3 solo by choice, DS2 is the only game i played with summons because of how fun it is to play with summons
Required dump stats that actively hamper the core gameplay experience if you forego them are in fact bad design Removing directional movement is in fact bad design Framing things as punishments or bonuses is in fact an important aspect of game design Tacked on low effort areas are in fact bad design No single problem in a vacuum is a gamebreaker, but lots and lots(and lots) of little things add up to make the game worse
@nihlmorton7809 ADP is only for consumable use speed. Cast speed a completely different thing, governed by attunement. But attunement also increases Agility! Probably where you're mixed up
I agree that the game is a lot more open ended and experimental with the exploration, but I think you lose the plot a bit when bringing up people's criticisms then going "yeah but other thing". I get you wanna rant a bit about your fav game, but I wouldn't agree with people's criticism and fully focus on what you like if that's what you wanna do. Otherwise it just feels like you bring up a point of genuine criticism that people have and handwave it by saying "but I personally really like it". Other than that, refreshing to see someone so passionate about the game, it's defo not as bad as people make it out to be! A lot of discourse around FromSoft games is way too crystalized and feels like a carricature of itself at this point!
The “extra health” argument is a bit bad faith in my opinion when you don’t even consider 1) the state your character starts in at the beginning of the game. 2) the ways in which you can reach that state. And 3) the state most players will naturally lean into. Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls 2 are arguably on similar ground but one major difference is that upon defeating a boss in DeS the game rewards you with returning your character to their beginning state. DS2 doesn’t do this. DS3 has you start out in an unembered form. This is your base state. When you’re embered it’s like you’re going super saiyan. It’s not health you lost upon your first death it’s bonus health that you gained either through using a consumable or defeating a boss. Pretending that the “hollow” states between DS2 and DS3 are one to one is dishonest. I can die to Iudex Gundry a hundred times and nothing happens to my health. Upon one death to the Last Giant or the Pursuer and I’m already at a disadvantage. Also most people will play these games in a “hollow” state but those two states are very different across the games. In DS1 it’s simply a cosmetic change. In three you power down and lose the spiky golden hair and health bonus, only regaining it upon defeating a boss or using an ember for an out of estus heal and In DeS and DS2 you loose a ring slot. All of this to say that DS3 did it best. Also you’ll never convince me that DS2 doesn’t feel infinitely more clunky than the other souls games. Sorry.
I just started Dark Souls 2 (vanilla), and yeah, it feels very different from other Souls games. I thought you made some interesting points here, and I’m going to keep an open mind as I go through the game. The fact that this game is contentious has always made me more curious about it.
