DS2 really felt like a solo DND experience, visting areas so different from each other, really unique experience, the only other game I felt this with was Demon s Souls.
That's legitimately the reason the Sunken City DLC is my favorite of the 3, as it really does feel like a D&D adventure. - Long Forgotten Civilization - Pyramid-based Society - Traps and Puzzles - Poison and Equipment Damage - Competitive Adventurers - Secret Doors with Treasure - A Dragon Fight Capstone
I think one reason for that is the spell variety and the puzzle-like game design. Later souls games went all in for "Make every battle like DS1 Artorias and DS2 Alonne!", but the sheer amount of design creativity and more classic fantasy spells made DeS, DS1, and DS2 much more DnD like and IMO more fun single player experiences.
@@BattleguildEXACTLY. I wish fromsoft would do that sort of stuff more often. You know, entering a hole in the ground and making your way ever deeper to some long lost civilization. I love Bloodborne and like Elden Ring, but since both had lackluster underground content and pretty much just had you elevator your way down, they didn’t scratch that same sort of itch.
Ds2 did a LOT of things wrong, but areas variety is arguably the best in the series. It feels like a classic fantasy tale, and Heide tower remains my favourite FromSoft area to date.
Shoutout to the Sanctum Knights, for wearing some pretty basic armor and just dual wielding falchions, they look surprisingly badass. The priestesses look great too, I love how their designs are reminiscent of Elana’s.
True the Sanctum Knights have some templar esque. look to em since they have similar graves like them and even share similar armor patterns and a belief of guarding something even in death.
After seeing this, I like to think the enhanced undead served as inspiration for the omens in Elden Ring. Covered with horns, with an animal-like body structure (this is more like the misbegotten but both came from the crucible) and animal features such as a tail or horns.
I'm currently playing Dark Souls 1 after Elden Ring, and I definitely plan on playing the other Souls games as well. I'm happy to hear some praise for the second one!
Same! I went into it with really low expectations as well, because I gave it a go a couple of years ago after beating DS3 and just couldn't get used to how clunky the movement felt compared to that one. I recently gave it another go and not only finished, but loved every bit of it! To the point where I'm considering a NG+ run, something I almost never do in souls games :D
I think it was a missed opportunity to not make the overseer itself do anything. how cool would it be if he was the one shooting projectiles or throwing firebombs down at you while you were fighting the big guy hes sitting on
Fun fact: if you parry an attack from a fume sorcerer, they fall in the ground like a normal enemy but keep their legs close together, unlike other enemies whose legs spread out. The same also applies to the desert sorceress. Sorry, Bearer of the Curse, no peeking!
6:32 DS2 enemy design is so funny sometimes, like they really went "hey this sorcerer in a city that pretty much drowned in poison who isn't much more than a walking, decaying corpes at this point? Yeah let's give her a dumptruck of an ass!"
Shrine of Amana was a lesson in patience, Iron Keep was a demonstration of reaction times, the Falcon Knights were an example of what could go wrong, and the DLC was a final exam of everything the game was trying to teach you. Game was fun, wish it had had more polish.
@@DARK-dw2gmThere sure is much strategy when taking one step forward aggroes a knight from the other side of the castle, repeat 15 times. The path to Smelter Demon is a travesty no matter how you look at it, especially in SOFTS.
The bizarre speed and strangely behaving movement animations of several of the humanoid, knight type enemies in DS2 is pretty horrid, tbh. The falcon knights, Great Value Ruin Sentinels, etc. I'm not as sour on DS2 as a lot of people, but those specific enemies violate quite a few laws of Dark Souls, just because their movement and animations are so jank. There's a couple other bad enemies, but those tend to be more isolated and specific, while all of these guys are governed by the same obvious flaws.
Wait am I wrong or does the Enhanced Undead look like a prototype Omen from Elden Ring? A human with draconic traits and horns sprouting all over their body. Gotta love the concepts that carry over in these games
Seeing what the experimental undead look like in detail makes me appreciate Aldia as a character even more. Can't help but wonder what his initial goals were, and what led him to where he is by the end of it.
Aldia's entire goal was to escape the cycles and find a cure for the curse, but diferent from Vendrick, Aldia went down a "the ends justify the means" path. He did so many atrocities, killed, tortured, and experimented on so many that Vendrick literally had to lock Aldia inside his keep, because the king realized his brother went too far. But that didn't care for Aldia. If he managed to achieve his goals in the end, he didn't cared for all the blood he shed or the monsters he created. In the end, Aldia partially achieved his goals. By becoming that tree-head and, apparently, linking himself to the fire , he managed to escape the cycle. But, in the end, it was Vendrick who found a cure for the curse.
@@Ivory5547 neither found a solution, only a stop-gap. Aldia by becoming an ember found a way to evade the curse, by becoming a shapeless being. That, IMO, doesn't sound like a cure to me. Vendrick found out that accumulating great souls would form a barrier that would stop hollowing in its tracks, but that wouldn't cure the undead curse, that would be just a band-aid type thing.
DS2 was my first Souls game and has a special place in my heart. So cool to see the concept art and the detail of the monsters up close without fearing for my life 😅
I had over 300+ hours on it, almost maxed out my main character. I could basically do any build and had achieved platinum (First ever Platinum trophy I had in PS3)
6:14 guys hear me out… please.. Though jokes aside (not really) I went into Dark souls 2 blind, while the start was quite frustrating, I’ll have to admit, the longer I played the more I was enjoying it. There’s so much things in that game that has potential had they been refined more. This game had a lot of potential had it not been rushed.
duuuude! i love silent hills 1, 2, & 4 and often compare them to dark souls i’m also like at least 75% certain miyazaki took inspiration from how silent hill innovated gaming with each title.
I find it strange that despite the Fume Sorcerers being very obviously female, their outfits look different when worn by female players, missing the scarf and hanging sleeve. When worn by male players, the scarf and sleeve is retained. I guess the devs just couldn't resist exposing that cleavage and showing off those curves for players. XD
Today I learned that those Sanctum Priestesses are rather "well equipped" down there. I think I'll go visit Oolacile now, ask those fine people to give me the Gough treatment, too. Heh...
I am so happy that in recent times DS2 is finally getting the praise it deserves You should cover more enemies there's some more really cool designs that are worthy of some recognition
That concept art looked great. Imagine the in game models with modern hardware would be awesome. Hopefully we get a Demon Souls-like remake of this game down the line with some polished up mechanics.
I think we deserve a full on ds2 reboot. Like...they should go to the very start and rework everything. There are genuinely great concepts in ds2. Somewhere in the mess that is ds2, there is a hidden gem. I know it. Its a shame it turned out this way.
Dark souls 2 had the most boss encounters in all the series (if you don't include ER) at a whopping 41 different bosses including the DLC. A remake with upgraded mechanics and visuals would be absolutely incredible.
I'll be honest, I don't have any trouble with fromsoft reusing their assets from previous games and I think it would have been amazing if some of those were reskined in Elden Ring. Like the wall warriors, for example, they would have been a very cool addition in the catacombs and hero's graves (they were reused in sekiro, but in an area were barely anyone will notice them).
@@HallgrimICE In the Sunken Valley, inside the cave where you find the other giant snake. They will pop out of the walls while doing an unblockable thrust that you can counter with mikiri
I personally think HOMM5 designs are better because there is noticeable organisation and the connection between characters is more obvious. Still sucks it's the only game with such badass designs, the next titles were 50 to 50, imo
@@tsula24gig95 HoMM V designs are so good because they're, let's call it, "borrowed" from Warhammer and D&D. But it's okay because AoS also "borrowed" its ghost designs from HoMM V xD
I love how swinging of slamming a Ultra Greatsword really feels like you can barely wield it.. Let alone attack with it. DS2 is amazing in that regard, but also level wise, ambiance wise and story wise. Would really like a remake with darker lightening, more use of the torch and just a graphics upgrade in particular
So barrel boy didn't pan out as well, that's unfortunate cause the art looked dope. Where's the concept art for the naked guy that runs around HUNTSMAN'S COPSE? I bet he's got beefy killer thighs.
@@minespatch I can't deny that their demeaner, and how it was used in one of the DLC's, made them endearing to me. Wouldn't have been the same if they were, what looks like, imps with explosive barrels on their backs. I shiver at the thought.
@@luciusdebeers6176 yes, because it feels worse to play than 1 and everything else that made 1 so special is lacking in 2. yes it improved some parts that are very good but overall its ok. fun for the most part but thats it
Far and away my favorite enemy design in DS2 are the Mastodons. They only appear in a select few locations. In fact there are only 5-6 of them in the entire game. Yet they are incredibly detailed and the concept of fighting a massive elephant clad in golden plate makes them very intimidating foes. I learned just the other day that apparently they have a unique plunging animation if you manage to land on top of one. You can only do this in like, one spot in Doors Of Pharros making it very situational useful, but still such a nice touch. Nothing more satisfying than straddling a giant behemoth with a massive hit to the skull. Also, as evidenced by the Mastodon Greatsword, apparently there was going to be a greatsword variation of them but like many enemy designs they were scrapped and in the final game the greatsword appears in a chest just as a little reference to their formsr existence. The same thing happened with the old knight pike and greatshield, the drakekeepers greataxe and greatshield, and a few more enemies if I recall. Would love to see if their models still survive in the files, though I doubt it.
Great video! I always enjoy a good close-up look at in game models ... i wish more games still included an unlockable bestiary to look at character models like Nioh did.
Some obscure trivia I only recently learned from playing through the King's Field games, the wall warrior concept comes from the Wall Ghost enemy in King's Field 3 (they don't have swords though.) The horse knights in Drangleic Castle also seem to be based on another KF3 enemy called Death Knights. Both are from the final dungeon, I don't think there's a single screenshot of either of them on Google because approximately five living people have beaten the game.
I always felt that Dark Souls 2 was more mystical, more like magic world instead of medieval world. In DS1 and DS3 more enemies are knights, undead knights, drakes, demons, skeletons. Generally speaking typical fantasy/dark fantasy enemies. In DS2 however enemies were much more weird and fairy-tale'ish, like ogres, gnomes, puppets, elephant soldiers, vikings and all of these from this video. This game is very different.
This is probably gonna be an unpopular opinion but i liked the world of DS2 more than DS3. 2 had its own flavour and seems more coherent. 3 felt like an amalgamation of DS1, 2 and Bloodborne. Kinda like a Soulsborne themepark. Gameplay on the other hand is a whole different story.
the world of DS3 is basically just DS1 with extra steps, doesnt help that it focuses almost solely on DS1and mention DS2 in passing like they feel obliged to.
I’m going to be honest I feel like dark souls 2 would have been better received if it was named as a different game but I don’t know if it would have done as well, the story feels like it should belong in a different universe.
DS2 was so bizarre and different that it made me feel that when the lore talked about a shifting, unpredictable world where time just didn't work normally I actually believed it. DS2, despite being 2, makes far more sense to be a world re-made after the Age of Fire ends. 1 and 3 were two parts of the same story, the endless degrading of the world to keep the Age of Fire alive. DS1 shows you the sacrifice you have to make, and 3 shows you that even then, no matter how many times, you can't keep things the way they were. 2 has little connection, both in world and in themes. The DLC has to smash in there talk about linking the fire and the coming age of dark, but your quest is to find the king and then ascend to the throne yourself. But while linking the fire was a grand sacrifice in 1 and a pitiful gesture in 3, taking the throne in 2 is just an empty, hollow thing. You don't light on fire or anything. You just sit down. It's got no ties. In some ways, I think Elden Ring was what they wanted 2 to feel like. A strange journey across a haunting land.
It'd be so nice if it ever got a remake in general. With all the content that was cut, along with some weird world progression, I can only imagine what Dark Souls 2 would be like with a few more years in the oven.
If only we could get the more darker and detailed version shown in the trailers those enemies would look even more amazing, a proof is the area were the Darkstalkers are.
I loved the Dark Souls 2 combat. I haven't even played the "fixed" First Sin version, I have the OG Xbox 360 disc, and after looking at the change log in quite happy, I really enjoy the slow and deliberate methodical combat. It's clunky, it feels heavy, and it feels good! It's good clunky not bad. But I guess if you like to play fast dagger or fast rolling classes that dart around and outspread your enemy it might be too clunky but for heavy melee weapon classes it feels so so good when there's so much weight and gravity behind every single movement.
What causes the clunky feel in DS2 is not the speed of the game itself, but the fact that the lock-on is nerfed to incentivize players to play unlocked. For example: when you're locked-on and you roll, you get up facing the direction you rolled, not the lock on direction. So you go for a punish rolling attack and miss. Tracking for many attacks is also reduced when locked-on. There's a mod for DS2 that changes this, called Player Enhancements, and an overhaul called Seeker of Fire that includes this made by the same guy. Though you can learn to play around this mechanic.
@@Samura1313 who uses lock on other than on range attacks tho lol . never need to lock on with melee only builds. also its not clunky its pvp is best in series. only souls games that aren't clunky are ds2 and ds3 all other pvp feels pretty shit. just people have no idea what makes a game good or bad, ds2 major flaws are because of enemy placement ,weak bosses, and unfair gank fights. its combat its best in the series. whoever thinks it clunky i honestly dont think played the game. ds2 has better pvp than Elden ring by a mile. just because the animations are smoother now doesn't mean the actually combat is.
I'm looking at the designs for the enemies here and I don't recognize a lot of the enemies shown off here, You made me realize that despite me beating the game several times I had always perceived enemies as nothing but an obstacle with a health bar and didn't appreciate the finer details
There's also a couple enemies that only show up on NG+/ascetic, like the weird demon guys on the path to the Lost Sinner, that people may have just not seen, especially if they're governed by bonfires unrelated to bosses.
DS2 is one of the better pieces of proof that Fromsoft's design style is: "A bunch of our artists whip things up then we put it into our games and stitch together the story afterwards!" You can also see this in how much story and narrative changes in other titles shortly before release, but it shows most in DS2 because they had a ton of banger designs that didn't have the planned narrative pieces to put them together the way they wanted. Despite DS2 being half-baked, it was easily my favorite overall DS experience. The narrative just isn't there, but the gameplay HITS.
Dark souls 2 went through extreme development hell and had its first director kicked off for wasting most of its development time. Combine that with a forced graphical and console downgrade from the publishers nearly caused DS2 to get canceled. Its a miracle that the 2nd director was able to get the game released at all in ~9 months from effectively scratch.
@@Warcrafter4 And the craziest thing is that DS2's fundamental RPG systems were the most robust and nuance of the series, too. It really feels like they built a really solid foundation, but then the "building" on top was quickly cobbled together.
The gameplay hits? I will give DS2 praise where it deserves it, but from a gameplay perspective, and especially enemy encounters, we haven't had a more severe miss in the series. Do these enemies look great? Putting aside outdated texture work, yes. Do they feel engaging to fight? Hell no. Boring 3 hit combos on end, wasted dual wielding despite so many enemies having it, ambushes and ganks through the roof, 41 bosses out of which maybe 10 actually stand out from its predecessor and none, and I mean it, none that can match Artorias. We had to wait 2015 Bloodborne to get a mechanically more advanced boss than him. Gameplay is where DS2 tanked the hardest as soon as you move away from the player's perspective (player who isn't safe either with that ridiculous snap point locked movement among other things)
@@markopusic8258 Lmao are you sure you're not confusing it with DS3? I guess not - DS3 didn't even have that many bosses nor did any really stand out besides literally Gael, because that fight jumped the shark so hard. But my god the ganking in DS3... Dual wielding was far from wasted - it had the best system for it until Elden Ring simplified it. The Artorias fanboying is also weird, ngl. DS1 had a lot of cool bosses. So did DS2, but you guys just want Artorias on repeat - one guy in a duel. Lame. He's not mechanically advanced, he just moves quickly and is super edgy. Unique and cool once, but for the love of god did y'all take it too far. Bloodborne was also literally the first game released after DS2, so you didn't have to wait long? Lmfao do you think about any of this in context? DS2 was the last non-spammy Soulsborne game. It has the most mechanical depth as an RPG, and it also had most interconnected world and playthrough variety. Weapon variety, meaningful level design variety, fun ways to challenge yourself, and just more personality. Not to mention it had the best community, easily. The Fromsoftware community took a shit as soon as DS3 came out, and Bloodborne might as well not even have PvP.
Id like to see a DS2 fully realized with an updated enemy design like in the artbooks as well as fixes to level design (namely the elevator that goes up rather than down in earthen peak) and some of the cut content. Yes it might look entirely different but I would be cool to see the teams vision realized
Kind of sad you didn't remove the mask off the fume sorcerer but love this vid! Thanks for showing the head of the barrel carrier, they're so shy in game when I try to screenshot them.
I still mourn what DS2 could have been. All this effort and attention to detail, but it just didn't come together as well as it should have. In Illusory Wall's video on DS2 cut content, you can see how much got cut and crushed along the way. I love DS2, but I really wish we could have seen the game that Fromsoftware wanted it to be.
So True, especially because is the only FS with cut content. No other of theyr game have cut content At all. Ds3 especially never had problems during the work, such a better game eh?
@@AtreyusNinja The only game with "significant" cut content. DS1 had a bunch of cut content (a few bosses, npcs, and level geometry were left on the cutting room floor), but with DS3 there was also far less. I blame the fact that FS was forced to split their attention between DS2 and Bloodborne, it's never a good sign when that happens.
The barrel carrier made me chuckle a bit, lol. Quite different from their concept art. I did not remember the enhanced undead though despite having several hundred hours in SotFS, turns out they were already rare in OG DS2 and even more rare in SotFS.
There's some in that one area with all the cages and the ogre's. I can't think of anywhere else with them though lol. Used to be in the run up to the sinner.
@@smilehd3917 According to the wikis, in DS2 they always spawn in sinner's rise, but in SotFS it takes NG+ to make them appear there. So if you mostly play NG like me, the one caged in Aldia's keep is the only one you will ever encounter.
This all just makes me want to see a Dark Souls 2 remake from the ground up that adds all of these creatures with all the polish from DS3 and Elden Ring.
@@zawarudo8991 Ds2 was my first souls game, and that you play the newer games that way says more about you, if you think ds2 had better movement and combat than the newer ones, thats fine, i was just stating my opinion since i loved the story, the setting of ds2 more than any other ds game, the only thing i have a problem with is the clunkiness, if you dont, thats also okay, your opinion
The dark souls 2 artbook is one of my most precious possessions. I really do love this game. I think it was brilliant for them to veer into "the cycle is infinite so who cares about lore, everything is the same repeating endlessly" because it both frees them from having to live up to dark souls 1's narrative and also allows for batshit enemy design like this without having to meticulously justify it in-universe.
I always felt the enemies and armor design were the high points of DS2. They were varied and interesting and their fighting styles leaned more towards the grounded and weighty instead of the more anime oriented later From games.
enemy and armor design is one of the reason why ds2 is the worst. instead of refined realistic grim dark fantasy we have a random cheap mmorpg circus without any style and consistency and ds2 is the most anime game from soulsborne series
yeah, they used to be down right before the fight with the lost sinner, but got replaced by a flexile sentry in SoTFS. Now you can find one in a cage at Aldia's keep
@@8hiruba No, in SOTFS, they haven't been replaced, but now they only appear in NG+, it ends up being quite difficult to deal with them and flexile sentry at the same time with water beating in your belly xD but it's an interesting challenge
Archdrake Knights/Archdrake Channelers/Aldia/Crypt Sealers/Crypt doors/Dragonriders/Dragon Sanctum Knights/Drakeblood Knights/Executioners Chariot/Flexile Sentry/Ironclad knights/Mastodon Elephant Knights/Pursuer/Hollows/The Rotten/Throne Defender/Throne Watcher/Velstaldt/Vendrick, plus original concept design. The armour/bosses/Enemies/environments and weapons were wonderful, I love the art direction. So many come to mind
Honestly the game and ways to play it are all very good. I really think it just missed a polish phase for more people to love it better with less "what's with this elevator?" and more "going up this elevator!" Having the alternate interactions of torches to change AI behavior or how you see half the game was huge as an experience and made the stretch between bosses more lively in the adventure sense.
I think a fundamental issue the game had was a lot of really meh level and encounter design that lets down a lot of these designs from the impact they could have had. That and often chucking them at you as basic fodder from the get go with pretty basic movesets.
@@TheGrandslam89 My biggest issue with DS2 that prevented me from enjoying was what you stated. Many of the areas, despite pretty aesthetics, were also built like video game levels and not treated as proper areas you'd visit in a immersive fantasy world
My issue with DS3 was that areas between bosses played too easy, then only if you strayed the path did you find a difficulty dynamic in any way. This meant the challenges in going through the game were more linear and you could just play the game running past it all, leveling from bosses only and end up the right level for endgame, and it was easier than playing through it. They also did away with any stupid funny fun things until door shields, and that was anti invader meta, but no exploding ring nor thorns, nor creative weapons. I actually enjoyed DS3's PvP better than running through the levels. There's just nothing stopping a player in the levels besides enemies you can I-frame and finding their way
DS2 is my favorite game from From. It felt deliberate enough where you had to think about your actions and quick enough that you had to be on your toes. I didn’t really like how DS3 and Elden Ring sped up the formula. While both are great games, I rarely had a moment to think and reorient in those games. If DS2 ever does get a remake, I would like them to bring back the darkness mechanic, spruce up the graphics, improve power stance just a bit moveset wise, and make some of the infusions more viable. But other than that, I don’t really want them to change anything. I don’t mind ADP. I leave it at 14.
It felt awful imo. Then again my first game was Demon's, which is faster paced than DkS1 and 2. To me BB and DkS3 felt like a return to the formula. ER is weird since it feels slower but enemies are fast af
Yea dark souls 2 is a bit of a black sheep of the series, I really wish it wasn't rushed as bad as it was, I think it really deserves like a director's cut remake type of thing
I see loads of ambitions and great concepts there. Sonst enemies look like they would fit right into a final fantasy game, others are kinda generic. But damn id totally smash that sanctum sorceress.
@@asherroodcreel640 First of all, it probably smells awful. Id take squishy sounds over crunchy sounds every day. I think i would take parts of her out with me after every...fusion. Id have to clean it after every ram. Maybe the cheeks wouldnt even stretch enough. Maybe i have to go for another hole, then. Or ill make myself one.
I started a couple weeks ago with my first ever playthrough with the SOTFS edition, and i really enjoy a lot of aspects from the game, just finishing up the last DLC rn and then sadly it's over but the armor, enemy designs , and weapons are really awesome!
The problem with the game is in it's execution. The 3d models look really stupid compared the concept art, like something you'd see in warcraft; the lighting ruins the rest of it. The locations felt really random with no rime or reason too. I feel that a remake for DS2 could be really good.
I love the DS2 Enemies. I feel like the problem with some parts of this game is they pair these awesome unique enemy models with some painfully generic. In some ways, DS2 feels more like a "generic" fantasy setting than the other souls games, which I don't mean that as a dig at all. I actually came to appreciate it in later DS2 playthroughs which gave the game a very cozy vibe.
You know its actually insane how toxic the dark souls community has gotten... When i played ds2 years ago i had so much fun with it it became one of my favourite games and i actually made tons of friends playing it... Skip a few years later and the only thing you hear is that the game os trash and if you DARE say its good you will be met with people a mob of angry people saying how wrong you are... And so ds2 earned it's title as a bad dark souls game... Not because it was bad but because of a toxic community
