The REAL Reason People Like And Dislike Dark Souls 2 

THANK YOU to everyone who watched my last video and this one means alot to read all your comments, please feel free to comment anything, questions or theories. I try to answer to everyone.... no joke last video took me about 3 or 4 hours to answer everyone but im not gonna stop so if you do comment I will probably comment back, thanks again!!

The one about the Dragonrider boss is the opposite. There are multiple switches that raise the floor and Increase the size of the boss room only if you switch them.

I think the main pro in Dark Souls 2 is the way it delves into the undead curse. Lucatiel's dialogue and in-game story beautifully reflects the hollowing concept in the saga, and they deepen this even more because of her existential crisis. Also, Aldia has one of the deepest dialogues and most philosophical dilemmas in all of Dark Souls

The Pharros Lockstones don't replace false walls, there are actually quite a few false walls in Dark Souls 2. You just don't hit them anymore, you have to rub your face along walls and mash the use button.

One other thing that really bothered me is how Aldia was so poorly represented in DS2 and not even mentioned in DS3, man you hear his voice and his conversations and you realize how mad he is at Gwin, besides the amazing voice.

I feel like Vendrick should be higher but I understand why he’s there. It’s supposed to be a completely underwhelming and disappointing fight because the man you heard about is long gone and what remains is an empty shell of the person he once was.

About the pool, the water heals, gives a temporary fire resistance boost(good for the smelter demon), and cures poison, the poison pool becomes a regular one if you burn the windmill And the place with a bunch of Pharos things to unlock is part of the rat covenant, those are traps, since the covenant is based on summoning players to your world and trying to kill them with the traps and mobs(if you are on the rat covenant the enemies don't attack you).

Lucatiel's quest being centered around a doomed knight aware of her impending and ongoing degradation being unable to stop it, but having a moment where she hands you the one item that staves off hollowing, completely unaware of what it is or what it does is some of the best bleak story telling these games have to offer and I will die on that hill. I'll always remember you, Lucatiel.

Bonfire Ascetic areas DO NOT reset. It maintains it's NG+ status into further journeys. IE- you make area +2 in ng, decide to proceed to Journey 2, now that area is +3

The Alice in Wonderland idea is interesting because that's also present in Dark Souls 1 too. Alvina's design (and the cats in darkroot woods) are 100% influenced by Cheshire cat

Absolutely agree. The side characters in DS2 have a special place in my heart. They’re not world breaking or absolutely extraordinary to the outer workings of the world. And that’s perfectly fine. They’re not meant to. However, that doesn’t stop them from having very interesting concepts and interactions. Vengarl and Lucatiel are some of my favorites. And Vengarl is just a head!

I’ve said it a million times. DS2 is my favorite original Souls game to play solo, while DS3 is my favorite to play co-op. There is something so surreal about DS2 which is so cool. Also I always interpreted the Iron Keep thing to be a result of the curse and hollowing. Many of the transitions are weird, with the Iron Keep being most extreme. I think your character is losing large chunks of his/her memory which is why the connections between areas are so jarring and I personally love it. Also I don’t know if you know, there are plenty of normal illusory walls in this game along side the pharros doors. You just have to press “A” on them instead or hit/roll them.

What I like about DS2 the most is the way it feels like those old school dungeon party crawlers I grew up with. The level design, the fantasy magical world and the way it would make no sense in real life. All the gimmicks that weapons, enemies and bosses have. Mysterious sense of exploration. And yes, even all the junk. The devs really must have been inspired by fromsoft's older titles like Kingsfield (Which I played).

I think the reason why it’s nice and sunny on one side, and midnight and rainy on the other side of the Drangleic castle tunnel is because you actually are going there for hours. Yes, the tunnel is short, but that is just a technical limitation, where the developer didn’t want to include loading screens and break the immersion. Many distances are exaggerated in DS2, from Majula you can see Heide’s tower of flame and the castle at the end of the forest of giants. They clearly are quite far away, but you get to them just through a tunnel. Same is done in DS1 with the Duke’s archives. The building is on a very large hill, but you get there only through a short tunnel and an elevator. DS2 gets a lot of hate because in DS1, despite the rendering limitations, you can still see the areas you would expect, even though they are only a low poly version placed there by the developers. In DS2, areas usually only have a generic skybox. I recommend watching Illusory Wall’s video on the world of Dark souls. I also think the direction of elevator to Iron Keep has been confirmed as a mistake by the developers.

The random greatsword swings might be a setting. If I remember correctly, you can activate a manual aiming option for big weapons. It was designed to help hit fast enemies by leading your swing.

From someone who has played the both DS2 releases, they made some of the areas a lot darker in the SOTFS version. In the original release the torch wasn't that usefull. They also made the spiders ignore you, if you had torch out in SOTFS.

Saw someone up top mention Aldia. Dude...Aldia seriously has some of the most profound dialogue in the entire franchise. King Vendrick in the dream too. Those instances of dialogue and voice acting alone are enough to keep me coming back time and time again just to hear them.

Albo what I think DS2 improved on is the characters you meet on your journey and how they develop. The perfect example of this is Lucatiel which you first encounter almost at the beginning, talking to you and throughout the game you can see her slowly losing control and forgetting who she really is. If done correctly you get awarded with an achievement, her whole set and a sad ending to her story.

You have to raise agility for faster animations. You chug estus faster, use items faster and you get more s on your rolls Adaptability and to a lesser degree attunement raise agility There are way more branches than statues, once you know where they are it gets easier. There are a bunch behind the statue chick along that path

5:25 There it is, the windup animation bug. This can happen with any enemy at random. During an SL1 run I got to see Elana do a rave dance move before instantly swiping me to death. I've also seen a clip of Aava doing a full on spin before a swipe, and Pursuer doing... a bunch of weird rolls before landing a grab attack on the player before the sword even moved over to them. Was wild.

The movement is geared towards the combat, which punishes you for panicked decisions, and rewards you for methodical strategy. Similarly, if you use great weapons, you can actually aim them with your left stick, even when locked on, which is actually amazing (especially for pvp). It means that, when you experienced the weapons having a "mind of their own", you where probably inadvertently pushing the left stick in whatever direction the weapon ended up swinging towards.

That pool of water in Iron Keep gives you the option to greatly reduce the damage Smelter Demon does (Being wet greatly increases Fire defense). Super handy to be able to reduce Smeltie's damage by 25% in the final phase (when he's doing pure Fire damage. The pool in Earther peak heals you. A nice little touch. The lockstones in the rat covenant areas are for you to use against invaders -- once you join the Rat covenant the buggers you free won't attack you. But will attack players you pull in. So yeah, for a pure PvE player they're just a way to sucker you out of lockstones.

People don't realize that dark souls 2's enemy placement was originally very good. It was Sotfs that ruined it. I first played it on the 360 and there, the dlc didn't change the enemy placements. I really liked your criticism to be honest. Edit: I never gave the intro a second tought. This is the first time that a "it was just a dream" theory ever made sense to me.

I think the invasions are to help alleviate the impact of the hollowing curse. Everytime you kill one you get an effigy, so by constantly invading you get opportunities to undo the max hp loss mechanic

i like dark souls 2 its one of my top 2 and it was one of the most painful and excruciating game i played and still i love it

Fun Fact: The original plot of the game was going to revolve around time travel, and one of the remaining things pointing to that is a child version of the Emerald Herald is credited in the end credits

The Branch in the tutorial area is Scholar of the First Sin only thing, I think they made it because of the new pursuer spawn there or maybe to lock the genderbender coffin. Tbh Scholar did a lot of weird stuff to the game, it improved the bosses by removing some bullshit, but screwed up some areas.

I agree that there were many invaders in ds2 but since they always dropped humanity I was actually glad to fight them because I knew I get rewarded with an important item. Especially for beginners the amount of invaders/humanity could be very helpful. I also like the idea that most of humanity could be obtained by fighting and not just by searching around the whole map. And it also makes total sense that you get humanity from invaders.

The Whirlpool in the initial cutscene is a LITERAL TIME PORTAL. You travel back in time when Drangleic still existed. I can confidently say that this is not a theory but a fact, i would like to bring up all the motivation for this but i don't have the time and english is not my first language.

No, I don't agree with you. DS2 ISN'T the worst in the trilogy, that's 3. (Not an objective opinion, I know, I just don't care much for 3 and will defend 2 until my dying day)

Doylist viewpoint: the map is a mess because a bunch was produced, then hacked up and repurposed when the team pivoted. Watson isn't viewpoint: it's totally a dream/memory type deal. The areas are linked the way they are because they are the important bits. The BoC travels to Iron Keep after Harvest Valley, but the journey in between is skipped so we just see the transition. And it was raining when they reached Drangleic Castle so that's what we get.

I'm pretty sure DS2 is the only DS game where you can 2 hand a single caestus and double hand smack bosses to death. I haven't seen anyone else use this tactic, but I swear it does more damage than powerstancing 2 caestuses (caesti?). I don't know if it's the attack speed, or the damage output, or the stamina consumption, but for some reason, 2 handing a single caestus seemed like it wrecked bosses extremely quickly. Also, dragon bone fist jumpkick, artorias sword left handed special attack, that one fist weapon that lets you do the street fighter blast move, the red iron twinblade, the weapons in DS2 are freaking incredible. The gradual hollowing was a great addition. I also loved that on the first playthrough, you could never predict what the next area would be. There was huge variety in the level design. Doors of Pharos, the area leading to the giant spider boss with the broken kings Field fountain leading into it, aldeas keep, dragon shrine, the forbidden woods, the poison area, iron keep, lost Bastille, no man's wharf, etc. The level design is incredible. The fact that it is sometimes nonsensical in it's layout makes it more memorable. I actually enjoyed going up the elevator to iron keep. The unexpected nature of it keeps you on your toes. I seriously think that if ds1 fans didn't know that Miyazaki didn't direct it before it came out, it would have gotten a lot better reception than it initially did. I delayed buying it until a couple of years after it came out because of all the fan backlash, but once I finally played it, it ended up being one of my favorite souls games. I've been playing from soft games since kings field on the psx. I loved demons souls, loved dark souls, loved Bloodborne and ds3, but I remember DS2 more fondly than any of those. DS2 did a lot more good than bad, and most of the criticisms can be accurately applied to any souls game...

This game has some problems but in my opinion this might be one of the most important games I've ever played it introduced me to the souls games which were some of the first games I ever played that felt like they were made with a soul.All the souls games are good and it's a shame people don't try to play this one because of rumors

Petrified Statues was another infurating change they made in SotFS which was not a problem in the original

18:25 using the stone to activate the pool will allow you to walk on the lava floor at the ground level , which has some chests and loot.

The actual reason the layout doesn't make sense is because they patched it together in the final stages of development. That's the dev's own words. Dark Souls 2 had a troubled development, and they had many problems, one of which was figuring out how the different areas connect together. Tanimura took over after the game was nearly scrapped if I recall correctly, and he taped together what was already made for the game, one of which was the already built areas being glued together in the way they did.

Now as for the random summons that you don’t recognize, I like them. They are supposed to be other undead in the world just like you on the same quest but existing in other times or same time or same world as you. Your not some big important figure, and hardly anyone knows you exist because you’re just another undead trying to do the same as all the rest, break your curse. So those random npc summons represent other undead/players and the builds they might have. So if your playing offline or there aren’t any player summons, you still got them.

They don't hate it because of adaptability and soul memory. They hate it because they couldn't comprehend how to use any of it.

To add on to your point at 11:00, the reflection in the water is drangleic castle Also, one thing I didn't realize until my 3rd playthrough is that illusory walls do actually exist. You just have to actually interact with them to find them instead of hitting them. This was especially embarassing for me because I spent 20 minutes hitting a wall for an item I needed even though all I had to do was press x. The point about npcs being random people is actually awesome. It is an objective fact that summoning some guy named Bradley to help you fight god makes your game better.

A lot of the summons are supposed to immitate playing with other people for those that dont or cant play online Funny thing about one you can summon in the spot where you burn the windmill is he will go over to it and point at it to kinda hint that its destroyable, i figured i had to do something to it coz i knew i wasnt online so i knew that the summons was clearly trying to communicate something The water pools that the pharaoh stones make can be used to wash sludge and whatnot off you to prevent poison buildup and being wet from any water gives you a buff for 5 minutes that slightly improves fire resistance and if i recall correctly slightly lowers lightning resistance I think this video is an overall fair critique of the game, i definitely agree with most of your views on it When I talk about ds2 with people i tend to say its not as good as 1 and 3 but its still better than most other games that are considered "souls likes" and definitely worth at least one playthrough

Also, actually as far as I understood the story... in DS2, it's not really a dream, it's more like a transit, a state in between life and death, because literally every character we meet in the game is either a monster or an undead... We never really meet a regular human. Actually you can kind of confirm this in Majula when you start the game, they say multiple times, that people come to this place to search something and then get lose because of the hollowing, in fact the way you traverse through the game and the things people say to you feel more like you are going through a Purging processes in this game when you character was going to die and, you are trying to not go hollow which will take your should, meaning you are completely dead. Now this last part is just something I assume is like that, it's never confirmed, but the first part is true, NPC's in majula say multiple times that you are in transit, as far as I remember the specific time this happened was from the handmaiden at the start when you make your characters if you talk to her... She says something like: "This place is a transit between Drangleic and the outer world" or something like that

Great video, but you got the dragon rider fight mixed up. If you flip the switch, it raises the platforms. If you don't, it keeps em lowered.

Oh boy, this comment got longer than expected... here we go: Great video! I agree with pretty much all of your points. I personally have enjoyed Dark Souls 2 for more than a few runs, but just a few nitpicks on your points: - You have the Dragonrider switches backwards. Pulling the levers makes the boss arena bigger - Bonfire Ascetics can pretty much be used an infinite amount of times. The bonfire will NOT reset in the next NG Cycle - Dual Wielding started in DS2 pretty much because of the power stance system (Which is great!). Now you get a unique moveset that uses both weapons and not just the left or right. This also returned in Elden Ring, after DS3 only had a few selected dedicated powerstance weapons. - Weapon variety was also somewhat given in Dark souls 1, but yes, having more weapons is great for replayablity "Last time, I was a sword and board knight, now I want to use a nimble rapier!" But you are right, the fashion souls of dark souls 2 is on point. There even was a fan made website dedicated for this. - The bosses may not be reused multiple times, but a common gripe with the ds2 bosses is, that they FEEL similar (as in "Guy with a sword and maybe a shield") - I personally think, the whole "The map layout is as it is because it's a dream" is more of an afterthought to try to explain the weird level transitions (like the elevator up to Iron Keep) and not the intended lore. The only credible source I will accept for the dream theory is Vaati :D - The "mind of their own" for weapons is a "feature" of Ultra Great Weapons. You can change the direction mid swing. So, if you are already trying to dodge, while the animation is still running, you will miss. This can be disabled in the options, if I remember correctly... - There are fake walls in DS2, too, apart from the lockstone ones. But you have to "use" the wall instead of rolling or attacking it... Reminds me of Elden Ring: when I found my first illusionary wall I thought "Wait... I'm halfway through the game, this can't be the first fake wall in the whole game?!" Man... The NPC invasions, I want to emphasize, how bad they are: The NPC invaders DO NOT follow the same rules as normal PvP Invaders! To avoid online PvP, just stay hollow. Forlorn? He does not give damn about your hollow-ness... And those invaders are way tankier than normal PvP, too. Sharon in you clip has at least 3000hp by the looks of it. A normal player will max out at around 2000hp with 99 points pumped into vigor. 2500hp with EVERY STAT set to 99... One thing, that is also an anoying design choice: The ending credits are unskippable. I mostly did coop runs with a buddy. And each time, when the last boss was killed in the world of the first one, the whole run came to a complete stop for nearly 10 minutes because of this. EVERY. TIME. (not in NG+, tho. Yay?)

The Pharros Lockstones are used a lot by the rat covenant. In this covenant you summon enemy players into your world, when they are in the rat areas. This is why Doors of Pharros has poison pools filling up with the lockstones, or doors opening with enemies behind them. They will help you deal with the invader, since your world's enemies fight the enemy player in the rat covenant. Don't know if this changes your opinion on the Lockstones at all, but I wanted to mention it since you couldn't play online. I hope you also didn't miss the non-pharros illusory walls ;) P.S.The random pools heal you

Having Fume Knight not be in S Tier is a crime And the dragon is a piece of shit put him in F lol The entire fight is running circles

1. I call bullxit on the titanite thing with Dark Souls 1. You can either buy of farm any type of titanite in that game. Hell, you can outright buy an unlimited amount of Twinkling Titanite from the Giant Blacksmith. So no, you don't have to wait until your next playthrough to try a different weapon. 2. Disagree on the NPC gravestones. If you kill an NPC, they should be gone for this playthrough and you should live with the consequences of your action. 3. Yes, your weapon changes direction because you are holding a direction of a left stick. 4. Pharros Stones: The pool of water actually heals you. The locations with many Pharros Locks belong to the Rat Covenant, and using a keystone activates traps. You failed a spot check.

When you were talking about the Pharo's lockstones I had the impression you think there are no illusion walls in DS2. There are but they are some kind of contraption that open pressing A or X. Some walls are important. Also there is at least one you can break, and three in Brune tower that open with the barrel explosion, and other two in base game. But this is the kind of thing you find on videos about all the secrets.

I will never forget the first time I've seen the king completely naked, with broken spirit walking in circles alone in the catacombs for the eternity, then later seeing the queen and realizing what a woman can do in a mf's life. It's a very powerful message.

12:43 its big and empty because thats one of the places aldia can appear You can do the 4 main bosses in any order, but aldia will always spawn at the primal bonfire of the last one.

18:58 talking about pharros lockstones "there's a reason why they didn't come back" Oh, but they did. What do you think the swordstone keys were in Elden Ring? They're just a visually different pharros lockstone. They're also done in both better and worse ways, because in ER sometimes you need 2 to open something and the game won't tell you, you have to physically look at the statue to see. But on the other hand, you'll pretty much always find something useful past a sword key fog gate in ER. A lot of the points in this video are also problems with the scholar edition of DS2, not the original. The countless invasions, the random never-heard of summons etc. weren't in the original if I remember right, they were put in the scholar edition as a way to help people so there would be more NPC summons for bosses if you hadn't advanced NPC questlines. However, they needed to balance it out with invaders (not the best choice of balance method but eh). Personally, DS2 is my favourite in the trilogy, because it feels so different and unique, and the build diversity and amount of viable weapons feels so much better than the other 2, I don't think I've used the same weapon/build more than once in DS2 whereas I usually feel I have to go for something reliable in DS1 and DS3.

I really like your first video on dark souls 2 .I like this game a lot it's my first souls game and right now i'm playing dark souls 1 .So i don't think it is a bad game at all

I liked Dark Souls 2 because it was a really good game. I disliked it because I had to defend it's honor from the hatred spewed out by realllllly stupid people. Like...miraculously idiotic. If DS 3, ER, and BB didn't exist...these same people would call it the best game ever made. How does it go from 'best game ever' to a 'horrible game?' Stupidity.

TBH the only problem I had with ds2 was the blue smelter demon and his run. Game was mesmerizing and had an amazing sound track and in my opinion the prettiest zones. Majula and Dangleic are beautiful.

12:36 “Empty Rooms”. Totally agree. I can put a friendly spin on just about any complaint someone makes, but not that. But that’s less an intentional design decision, and more a development deadline/resources one. tl;dr The director, Yui Tanimura, is actually a replacement, halfway through, and was told to finish within the same deadline, which left its mark all over the final product. “Empty rooms” is clearly a time constraint problem. Take a look at the Forest of Fallen Giants. It’s beautifully filled out. And it’s not alone. Your idea that the world is a dream, is like my personal favorite theory about the map design; they’re retrofits. It’s said the original director wanted Drangleic to be a world of different timelines. The huge differences between nearby locales was because they are hundreds or thousands of years apart. Another pet theory is that your mind is so shattered and forgetful, that you simply don’t remember the long journey you actually took to get from one area to the next. Unfortunately, it’s been pointed out to me time and time again, that in interviews post game release, the dev team admitted that they had to go with the map from the original director, because there simply wasn’t time for revisions or redesigns. However, I am willfully ignorant, and enjoy the game with my favorite theory in mind.

The pools of the lockstones are healing. The branches are basically just keys to get items or unlock paths, like Stonesword Keys in Elden Ring except you don't get 20 of them for every imp door. The invaders I honestly found cool with how you had invaders come back to build your own narrative with them, with one even spawning after an event and another letting you get their armour if you kill them enough times. I also never had issue with the hitboxes or the weapon aiming or even movement. It's slow, sure, but I just adapted to the pacing of it. Tho I don't know which game you started with as I'd imagine it's harder to adapt if you began in DS3, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring. As for the summons, I don't know how I feel about them but I get what the designers were going for, which was basically to have NPCs that felt like real players who you could summon, and their sorta random weird aspects in build and behavior is made to reflect that. Also, on the boss part, honestly, the bosses are the least important part of most of these games. They act as big fun challenges, however, the main part of at least the first three souls games (Demon's Souls, DS1, and DS2) are the areas, and I think that really elevates their overall quality. You might spend 20-30 minutes on a boss and that's if it takes several tries, but one sizable area can be hours of content by itself. I'mma end with one last hot take. While DS1 will always be my favorite souls game, DS2 is absolutely the most well made, not in all areas, DS1 has better world design and DS3 has better bosses, but DS2 has best mechanics, best areas overall (yes, there are some that are bad), best DLCs without contest, best fashion, best build variety, best enemy diversity, and I could probably go on and on. There is a reason this game layed the groundwork for so much of what we see in the later games from upgrading your estus, to diversity in builds, to infusing weapons, to even just having four accessory slots. A lot of people underrate DS2, honestly, mostly because they don't get it, they want it to be like DS3 with its speed and bosses, or they don't get how to fight more than one enemy, or they run past everything and then complain about being sniped from something they could've just fuckin killed. But if you really wanna enjoy DS2, enjoy it as DS2, a slower game focusing on build variety, exploration, dealing with several enemies at once, and taking your time to get through it. Doing that will make it a hell of a lot better for you.

The reasons why I love DS 2 and why it is my favorite in trilogy: -Non-linearity. You could choose which path you want, which great soul you beat the first you want, it gives you freedom at the start, DS 1 gave it after Lord Vassel and DS 3 is mostly lineer. -Weapon variety. Every weapon is viable in the game. There are so many unique weapons and even normal ones are fun to use. Power stance is especially makes combat fun. DS 3's removing power stance is big misstep. -Fashion souls. Armor variety is incredible. You could put weirdest shit but it still looks fun. Of course some armors have special effects and more preferable but you still can use others. -Covenants. Their placements are well structured. You could easily join them. In other ones you could screw up and wait for NG+, some placements are atrocious. Why heirs of Sun is late game covenant in DS 3? The only late game covenant in DS 2 is Dragon Remnants and it is a pvp duel covenant, it is understandable that covenant need more experience. -NPCs. They are fun and colorful characters and their stories and quests are good. DS 1 npcs are depressing as hell, DS 3's npc stories are kinda lame and tried to became like DS 1. In DS 2, Lucatiel's story is amazing, Benhart's quest is another good journey and if you try being dick it puunishes you, Pate and Creighton's feud is uniqe and amazing. -Build variety. That's the most powerful part of the game. You could make whatever built you want and all of them are viable, it kinda ties with weapon and armor variety. I did different builds in this game and still has so many build ideas. Here is the character I created and beat the game: Basic strength character for first walkthrough Pure Faith built Katana wielding dex character with intelligence buff support Pure Hexer built Fist weapon only built Whip only built (Belmont from Castlevenia cosplay) Shield only built (can't belive how fun using shield as weapon) There is still, pure sorcerer, bow only, crossbow only, pure poison and spear only builds in my mind. -And lastly PVP. It still has best PVP in the trilogy. PVP is incredibly fun. People love its build variety and love combat. Duels are so much enjoyable.

Personally I always liked the empty areas. Back in the day I had a job to go through and evaluate dilapidated houses ..and the feeling of those areas is very similar. Just an eerie nothingness. It's why I always loved 2 the most. The exploration was just a poignant feeling thing.

people just need to accept that ds2 has its own identity. it doesnt need to be similar to its previous games.

I wanna add some more reasons to like this game, the details in mechanics. The perfect example is the wet status, when u go in water or is being rained on you gain fire resistance, but lose lightning resistance. There are things I learn about this game to this day. I have played all 3 dark souls and love all 3 in their own right but 2 is special imo. When I play it I get the feeling that it has the most love out of all the dark souls but it didn't have enough time. Of course there are parts i hate and will be the first to jump on those problems but there are many things i feel like is blown out of proportion the biggest example is the hitboxes. While there are some bad hitboxes most "examples" of bad one people bring up just aren't. The best example of this is the pursuer grab hitbox. That "bad hitbox" isn't what people think it is, its a animation override issue. You will actually get hit during the roll animation but the grab wont override the roll so it will wait till after it is done. This happens in all soul games but its the most obvious in 2 because of how long the roll animation is. However the game isn't perfect and i know that ie the soul memory mechanic I HATE with a burning passion. Some areas I hate and think is just bad design, some bosses are just there as a milestone in the playthrough more then a boss not to mention the horrible run ups some times, the abundance of enemies in small areas. I can keep going but you get the idea. Most of the problems in ds2 are in the other games its just because people don't like the game that it become more obvious because of that. dark souls 1 has a few terrible hitboxes but we don't talk about that. Dark souls 1 reuses assets more then ds2 imo. Ds3 I would say is just a love letter to the fans then a original game but that's a different story and isn't necessarily bad but it is something i personally don't like. All in all I think ds2 just got the short end of the stick but is still amazing and something that could of been the best in the series but just fell short because of lack of time.

11:15 Yui Tanimura took over dark souls 2's development and turned a mismanaged game into a complete one, and he did it all within the timespan of about a year. Bloodborne, dark souls 2, and dark souls 3 were at one point in time were in development concurrently, so the possibility of overlap in ideas was not only possible but very likely. In fact, the Emerald Herald from the pre-menu intro cutscene (yes that old lady) was telling our character the story of drangleic, which by that point was implied a near forgotten kingdom, thus recontextualizing the events of the game as an old story. What was she using to tell her story? Well, there is an item that allows you to delve into the dreams of others. It is called the Ashen mist heart. TL;DR Dark souls 2 timecrunched within a year, took influences from its sister projects.

I played DS2 about 7 years ago and I almost forgot the tedious NPC invaders. Some of them had at least some character and they literally troll you but why get invaded by the freaking Forlorn like 6 separate times.

Saying DS1 has no variety because you only play with the greatsword but that DS2 allows other weapons that are fun..... Is really a poor comment tbh

18:00. There's still illusory walls separate from the lockstones. You just don't hit them in DS2. You have to hit X or the equivalent to it on other platforms/controllers

In defence of fragrant branches of Yore: it is true, of course, that at some point in the game one needs to make a decision which statue one wants to resurrect. Normally I have fewer branches of Yore in my inventory than I have paths blocked by one of the statues. If I am not mistaken, the first branch can be bought from Melentia (for a ridiculous amount of Souls, of course) and a second free one can be picked up in the No-Man's Wharf. But there are many places to use them, like in the Things Betwixt, in Majula to free Rosabeth, two (or more ?) times in the Lost Bastille (one to free Straid, a very useful merchant (also unlocks a bonfire)), etc. But: is this a bad game design? In my opinion it is not, because it gives one the feeling that my choices actually can alter the progression in the game. By using a branch on one statue instead of another one I could lock me out of important upgrade materials or other useful items (like Estus shards (-> Things Betwixt or Heide's Tower after boss fight). So I have to think carefully where I want to use them. Of course, in my first playthrough I did not know what's behind each statue and so I just used them where I thought I could make some progress (I think I rescued Rosabeth with my first branch). In the end it turns out that there will always be enough branches in the game to take a look behind each statue. And it is kind of a satisfying feeling to have unlocked all the places at the end of the game which were once blocked by the stone statues.

To me there is not enough good to ignore the bad, everything just feels unfinished

Effigy was cool mechanic too, you can burn it in bonfire and get rid of invasions. It gives same effect as killing boss of location but more than that you can remove it in bonfire menu and be able to fight in any area you like.

The dreamlike quality to the opening is what made the weird impossible environment placements believable. It's so dream like that going below the water to find a port then going from that port on a ghost ship to a bastille at sea level completely believable. You got a great open world in the 1st game why not go the other direction and have fun. I know a good bit is cut content and time constraints but I never had an issue the surprise makes it fun. I don't think it's a dream since 3 has many things from 2 in it but it could be you're further along in the history of the world that the convergence seen in ds3 but not at the tail end so isn't as extreme. The fire keeps the fabric of reality in check and prolonging it past its expiration date bends reality more and more.

I wanna comment on two points! 1. movement, it's probably one of my favorite parts about ds2, it's extremely infuriating if you try to play it like ds1 or god forbid ds3. but the slow paced defensive playstyle always felt so rewarding, each attack, each estus sip, everything I planned before the boss even made an opening. awesome! 2 Bosses. nah, don't even compare them to ds1. Ds2 is forever going to be my favorite souls game, even above elden ring, but Bosses are just not as much of a highlight as in any other souls game. they're either extremely easy, abusable or uninteresting to praise them. with a few exceptions (blue smelter

About the NPCs, if it's true that there's some bunch that you don't met AT ALL (Boyd, O'harra, the other hunter dude with the claws and so on) there's another bunch that you actually met and talk to them (Benhart, the dude with the fake moonlight sword, Lucatiel, Vengarl, the dude that's decapitated and he gives you his helmet for talking a while with him, even some that you can miss completly like Tark the scorpion, you'll have to wear the ring that allows you to hear the voice of the enemy in order to talk with him, he can be summoned in the battle with Najka as he ask you to defeat her, and if you do and later defeat Freja's creator (The hollow dude after the spider) he gaves you the second dragon ring) I mean, i'm sure i may be leaving some of them behind, but you have your fair share of known characters that helps and unknown characters that helps, in the DLC however I think it's worse because none of them actually you meet or talk to them in any way, but that's another story. Good insight video overall, 2 is my favorite of the bunch along with Bloodborne for so many things that I could discuss for hours.

To speak about the dream theory. I think it goes back to the beginning of ds2 programing where time traveling was planed to be a major component of the game. In the opening cutscene and in some areas you can imagine what fromsoft planed to do. In my opinion its sad that they took it out of the final game. But i also like the idea of living in a dream world because of the hollowing effect. So much unused potential there. :D

what bothers me the most is that dark souls 2 takes place after ds3 in a era where even gwyn is a forgotten lord of light based on the black knight weapon descriptions

Currently playing DS2 for the first time, I thought the weapon having a mind of its own was a rapier problem, I didn't know it happened with other weapons too, very annoying indeed

I really liked it, although I think Alicia's Theory is quite crazy... We need to clarify something about Drangleic Castle. Within the game files, the map we had in the final game called Drangleic Castle has a particular ID... Initiated by: m20. m20 is the ID used for maps that take place in the past, like "Memory of the Giants" or "Dragon Memories"... So we can maybe think that the design of Drangleic Castle that we finally had was the remains of pieces from the map of the castle from the past... Although clearly, Drangleic Castle is actually located in the present in terms of Lore! It's interesting to think about these mechanics of time travel. We know of several locations where we should have had a "past" version.

Holy shit it just occurred to me that the ruins in DS2's opening cutscene might be what's left of Firelink Shrine

When DS lore junkies explain stuff that devs didn't have time to finish...

Greatswords and I think a few other heavy weapons have a “free aim swing” system where even when locked on you can aim the swing off the lock-in to deal with large crowds based on the direction you are aiming your character. So that said, forward and neutral hit straight ahead. As for movement, ds 2 runs on a 8 point direction system like a compas rather than the 360 degree swivel that ds 1 and 3 have. Love the vid mate

I think most of ds2 is more memories than dreams, perhaps we’re not going through a dream when entering iron keep but rather the memories of the old iron king. Perhaps the opening is a reference to alice in wonderland, however I believe it’s supposed to symbolize us reliving the memories of an undead that did all of the things we did?

About the Alice in Wonderland Theory which was very good, the opening where BOTC falls into whirlpool was very convincing, but DS2 had really bad immersion when transitioning to a new area, for example; You can see Forest of Fallen Giants, Heide's (correct me if I'm wrong) and Drangleic Castle from Majula and Majula from Heide's and it seems far away but all it takes is a minute of walking to get there.

dark souls 2 is like your new gf/bf after you had a rough broke up. your ex was super perfect to the point that you can't even enjoy and appreciate your new relationship. heal yourself first, and then look at it with fresh perspective and you gonna see what you missed from dark souls 2. it's beautiful on its own way (dark souls 1 still better)

Oh wow, my comment made that much of an impact? 😊 Yeah, my name is pronounced 'shy-ming-long.'

Things like infinite upgrade materials, changing stats and bringing back dead npcs make the experience more dull to me. I love that Dark Souls made me responsible for the decisions I make, it felt like the game trusted me to actually play the game and learn from my mistakes. There's no real choices to make, when you can go back and dodge resposinsibility.

I love DS2. I played it after DS1 and had seen a lot of negative comments about it. I really wondered why, they did something different than DS1 and I thought it was great. It's not perfect, but the dreamy atmosphere is something really rare that I like. Just played DS3 which is close to perfection in execution but DS2 has a special place in my heart.

I think the main reason people dislike it... Is because it's not directed by the Ghibli man.

pharos doors did come back in elden ring as keystones, also do you know the pharos stones are not used for secret walls???

The lockstones which fill up a pool of water heal you whilst you are in the water.

I think the foggy gate in DS2 should come back. It's the worst thing in my opinion that you can skip everything with spamming rolls in DS3 and Elden Ring. After you get used to the maps in NG plus, the game turns into the runner game, every level quickly loses its meaning of existence.

“Drangleic is a dream” NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! So that means we went through “Dream Drop Distance” TWICE in Soulsborne😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 Yharnam and Drangleic

Playing ds2 at the moment and honestly it’s underrated

I played entirely with the greatsword and it does have a mind of its own. It makes my blood boil.

I never played the original trilogy and my first from software game was elden ring and i fell in love with the dark soul type of game and i dont know if i should play dark soul 1 and 2 or just 1 and 3

Bro that blood moon is in all of the games and usually tied to a dream state and now I’m thinking all of the Dark Souls games, Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring could be apart of one universe but multiple dreams

Honestly the Drangleic Dream theory makes too much sense to me. But let me add an extra little thought to that: What if every time you go into a memory that is your character leaving the dream to enter a real event in the history of Drangleic. So the dream is shaped by the memories that are that are shaped by you The Character

Royal rat Authority on C?? Bro you gonna get stabbed on the street for that. Personally, I actually liked the Chariot boss fight... Because I don't know if you know this, but there is actually 3 ways to kill the boss. I actually on my first playthrough used a bow and arrow, you can shoot him as he is charging past your, 2-3 hits each circle, and then when he reaches 25% or 20%.... He actually missed the landing on the Jump at the end, and the chariot falls down... you suddenly notice that the boss isn't coming at all, and when you go to check what's happening, the horse is literally just barely holding on on the ledge of the jump, so you just Gently tap him and he falls and dies... I've rarely ever hear people talk about this mechanic, I feel like that alone should bump the fight into C tier

I got to your dream theory and i think that we are playing in the pass and that the fire keepers gave you your memory of your pass

You can bonfire ascetic an area infinite times and it doesn't reset at any point, doing an actual ng+ will still push it further one more time. It says when you use it "what is done cannot be undone".

DARK SOULS❤

Honestly, not too sold on the dream/Alice in wonderland theory. Just as "it was all just a dream/in your head" is a commonly despised trope for storytelling as it feels like a cop-out instead of creating a logical and consistent story, the same can be (in my opinion) said for game design. Now, that's not to say it never had potential to begin with. DS2 has very dreamlike, almost nostalgic graphics. I feel as if the game could've benefited greatly from heavily leaning into the dream aspect and making it a key point. Just imagine how cool it'd be to have a game depict the process of hollowing through the mind of the person experiencing it, things progressively getting more nonsensical and memories being wiped

Ok, so, this is pure speculation. But to support the theory of a dream, when you talked about the introduction of DS2, you can see brightbugs in the tree. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are only two other times you visually see brightbugs. The first one in Amana when the Milfanito make the abominations sleep, and the second time when you enter giants/Vendrick memory. So what if brightbugs are linked to entering memories or dreams ? There is nothing official that support this theory, but I like its poetry 🤔.

Oh geez ! ❤️ Edit : The ONLY thing that bothers me in Dark Souls II is the directional movement. That's it. Masterpiece. Also I played it last after 1 and 3 and it's my favorite one. Just sayin'

The thing that I hate about Dark Souls 2 is the way the physics got screwed with. Destructable objects just fall straight down when you roll through them, and the enemies stop being physics objects after they complete their fall. Rolling through shit and dragging bodies off a cliff is half the fun. Also I loved the Halberd in DS1, it sucks in DS2.