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[Gorillaz]

Please save us, Miyazaki. The world needs a Demon's Souls 2.

Not done yet, just made it to Iron Keep but I'm hoping he does come back for Demon Souls 2, it will be interesting if it really is in the works

 

[Farooq]

Royal Rat Authority is one of the best bosses I have encountered in the game.Also I thought Doors looked beautiful visually.

To me, that boss fight was like a shittier version of Sif. Did not like it all.

Speaking of boss fights, I have yet to have the feeling I had when I faced O&S or Artorias (DLC I know). I don't think I have ever enjoyed a boss fight more than those two.

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

I think I like the online in Demon's Souls better.

Since you could use that to restore your humanity leading to both sides getting a very useful benefit for summoning (host = boss defeated, phantom = humanity).

Other than for soul farming or boss scouting there's not much use for me to put down my sign. I guess there's the covenant stuff but I'm not planning on messing with any of that.

 

[Dresden]

There's a boss that I really enjoyed, but he's optional and hidden away so most players won't even find him.

Spoiler

I'll always love you, Darklurker.

 

[Prototype]

Are Bell Tower invasions going slow for anyone else? I'm at SL97. Is it better to be at a lower level?

went to Bell tower last night at SL137 and was constantly getting invaded. I think people are correct in assuming the general SL for pvp will be higher in this game due to more stat reqs for equips and the new stats to level.


edit:
@Dresden

There's a boss that I really enjoyed, but he's optional and hidden away so most players won't even find him.

Spoiler

I'll always love you, Darklurker.

that's part of the

Spoiler

dark pilgrims

line of quests isn't it? I haven't run into that one yet, but accidentally read some stuff about it. I'm guess you can't unlock this until end game? I don't want to miss this my first play through.

 

[mellow]

I have watched a video...I am literally encountering a fatal game bug..There is supposed to be a stone giant statue that lights up when you defeat enemies...It absolutely doesn't in my playthrough..I tried many times to kill the enemies and they don't do it.

wow, that's terrible. you have to kill the enemies next to the stone giant so he absorbs the souls, but if you saw a video I assume you know that, considering that's a theme throughout that section

I hope you can somehow fix it.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Thing is, you're supposed to be rushed by the whole mob and that's one of the greatest improvements over Dark Souls. They didn't just litter the maps with enemies that you lure to piss-easy 1v1 fights, they're hard-coded to come at you in a group a lot of the time. Lost Bastille is over the top though.

Me and my friend found the game better than Dark Souls, especially bosses. There are a few areas that I might dislike once the novelty wears off, but, hey, Dark Souls is nothing if not a game full of mediocre areas and a few great ones.

It'd be an "improvement" if there was more than a handful of crowd control movesets in the game.

Dark Souls has always excelled at one-on-one combat and struggled with groups. Half of why Belfry Gargoyles and Ornstein & Smaugh give first time players such a hard time in Dark Souls is because they're fights where camera management is suddenly thrown into the mix of multiple large enemies with their own movement and attack patterns.

In a game with combat focused around watching for animation tells, throwing tons of enemies at the player is an exercise in bullshit design. Each enemy in an encounter makes the whole thing exponentially hard; with the previously mentioned greatsword knights, you can potentially face up to four or five enemies at once in a tight hallway or bridge. Each knight can potentially combo you if you're not careful, so waiting for the correct opening is vital - except that when one is open, the other three could be winding up or attacking. All of a sudden, luck becomes a factor, and that makes the whole thing really frustrating. There's no real way to goad all enemies into similar timing patterns, and there's not much interesting or fun about running away and hoping the whole thing resets.

In Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, there are encounters with multiple enemies. More often than not, though, they were either in clusters of two or three, which is at least in the "challenging but manageable" tier of design, or the game punished you for rushing through encounters by having more enemies aggro if you weren't careful. Getting swarmed by enemies was usually your own fault in DeS and DaS; in 2 it's often completely unavoidable and you're just expected to be able to deal with it. I kind of feel for people without STR builds.

 

[KoreanBarbecue]

Are the torturers the twin sickle fatties? Just bait their attack and kill them when they're open. They telegraph their moves pretty hard, they're not that tough. Rolling backwards is usually more than enough for all their attacks.

Ha, no, those twin sickle guys are a piece of cake. Its' the other guys, speedy ones swinging around the staffs/whips.

 

[-TRN-]

Does anyone know who does the va for the emerald herald? Totally sounds like the woman from American horror story (Sarah Paulson) to me bit I couldn't find who actually dubs her on imdb

 

[ironcreed]

About time to dive back in and prepare for The Smelter Demon.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Ha, no, those twin sickle guys are a piece of cake. Its' the other guys, speedy ones swinging around the staffs/whips.

Hmm I don't even remember them doing any bleed damage. Well, they're a pain but you can usually

Spoiler

circle-strafe/dodge a bit and then get a backstab in, then finish them off in 2-3 hits when they get up. I was using a fire longsword+3 at the time, IIRC, and that's how I'd kill them. One backstab, then two-hand the sword and they'd die in two more hits as they got up. The whip guys are easier to kill because their attacks barely drain stamina on your shield, unlike the axes.

 

[Zeliard]

The same can be said about a lot of areas in the game, period. The game is super inconsistent.

On the one hand, it's awesome that there are so many bosses and varied areas. On the other hand, at least half of them are basically a big fart noise. So many of the bosses are DeS/DkS bosses but with more mobs to deal with (

Spoiler

Big King Rat Playa just feels like Sif but with longer attack chains and extra dudes

. Likewise, a good chunk of this game just looks and feels super lazy compared to other areas. All the best stuff is right at the end - which, granted, is a nice change from DkS, which was frontloaded with all the good areas - but it's not much comfort when you have to slog through crap like

Spoiler

Shaded Ruins

and

Spoiler

Brightstone Bad Neighborhood

to get there.

I mentioned early in the thread back when I was playing my copy early that I felt like the enemy placement and general encounter design was bunk, and I stand by it. So many levels in this game just throw more enemies at you, rather than place them creatively or do anything interesting with them. Did anyone enjoy getting bumrushed by the eight or nine greatsword knights in

Spoiler

Lost Bastille

on the way to the first boss? Is carefully pulling one guy out of a dozen at a time and praying no one else comes with them really much fun?

This isn't the whole game, obviously, but there are lots of places where the game just feels like a lazy slog.

Yeah, I agree. The game is a huge letdown when it comes to encounter and world design. There's none of the strong, cohesive, interconnected feel of Dark Souls and very little of the memorable, visually striking nature of Demon's Souls' level design. People often compare DaS2 to Demon's but I've seen nothing that approaches a Boletarian Palace or a Tower of Latria in design, either mechanical or aesthetic. Areas are frequently more linear and less interesting to explore, and many are visually bland. They should have either gone full-on hub-style and concentrated on making the distinct levels stronger, or gone with a large open world like Dark that actually feels and for the most part is contiguous rather than a patchwork of different areas. What we got instead was a hodgepodge of the two styles.

Boss design also hasn't been anything interesting. Most of them so far boil down to giving you large, plodding enemies with slow, predictable attacks, many of them pale imitations in style to those found in the previous games (if not basically copy/pasted). The easier bosses in Demon's and Dark Souls 1 all had verve to them, something striking in atmosphere or concept that overcame their relative lack of difficulty (Old Hero, Fool's Idol, Gaping Dragon, Moonlight Butterfly, etc). Pursuer and Lost Sinner had potential - and Pursuer had a great entrance - but in combat each came off pretty much like a poor man's Artorias. Most of the others are so forgettable they aren't even worth writing about.

The PvE covenant design is also a mess, going one step further in rewarding trolling and cowardly play in favor of actual, thoughtful duels. They've minimized mindless low-level ganking and emphasized mindless griefing. Brilliant. At the same time, they've neutered co-op with their silly decision to base level ranges on soul history, and few seem to be having much success with the Blue covenants.

It's still a Souls game, and there's a certain degree of quality that comes with that, but I think the other two best it handily. Core combat is still solid, though the addition of Agility means it will feel super clunky if you're the roll-dodging type until you get the stat up to a respectable number.

I think the dual wielding was a fun addition, and I like the versatility that comes with being able to use two weapons with different movesets and have full, uninterrupted access to each, along with being able to swiftly go two-handed (being able to parry while 2H is also great). Power stance adds a new wrinkle in choosing where to put points and in which types of weapons to use. Having six equipment and four ring slots is wonderful. I've never been hugely into bow use, but it feels snappier and more responsive.

That stuff is all pretty good. It would have been nice to have more interesting levels and enemies surrounding it. In both of those cases they should have gone with quality over quantity.

Royal Rat Authority is one of the best bosses I have encountered in the game.

In... what way, exactly?

I mean, compare that boss design to something like Kalameet. Where's the grandeur and the enjoyably tense combat? Where's the melancholic mood and visual design of a Sif?

Tossing several toxic rats at you with hitboxes so poor a katana continually whiffs the air while trying to hit them, as you're also trying to dodge the large, completely bland boss swiping at you and making a mockery of the game's camera, is not my idea of a memorable encounter.

 

[AngryMoth]

So I'm fighting what I assume is the final boss, but there's an area I missed I'd like to check out. Anyone help me out, I have no idea where it is. It's between iron keep and shaded woods on the travel menu.

Also, tried fighting

Spoiler

king vendrick. Wtf he has a ridiculous amount of health!

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Question to those who own the game on PC.

Is it worth it? I mean, I never played any of the Souls games before, mostly because I was sick of everyone gushing about how stupid hard it was and how it made the game a masterpiece, but I've heard that this game actually has a learning curve before it gets stupid hard.

I was wondering if I should get it for PC, since I don't want to buy a full console for it, and my current PC isn't exactly that powerful.

I've never had any real interest in the Souls games to be honest, but I was thinking about picking it up when I have the cash available.

Edit: Nevermind I'm an idiot and didn't see it hasn't come out yet on PC

I wouldn't call the games stupid hard. I'm not very great at video games, but I've played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls multiple times through and they are two of my favorite games of all time. It all comes down to learning how to play better with different equipment and against different enemies. Sure you can upgrade your equipment and level up, but the benefits from those are limited compared to improving your own skill as a player and learning new strategies. In this aspect, I find the games immensely satisfying like no other except maybe learning raid content in an MMORPG.

But, yeah, you should definitely play them if they intrigue you at all. I think they're pretty much the best games of this generation of consoles.

 

[Somnium986]

went to Bell tower last night at SL137 and was constantly getting invaded. I think people are correct in assuming the general SL for pvp will be higher in this game due to more stat reqs for equips and the new stats to level.

Guess I start leveling up more then. Thanks.

 

[Astral]

Both Rat bosses are two of the hardest bosses in the game, I think. All because of their stupid minions.

 

[Dresden]

@Dresden


that's part of the

Spoiler

dark pilgrims

line of quests isn't it? I haven't run into that one yet, but accidentally read some stuff about it. I'm guess you can't unlock this until end game? I don't want to miss this my first play through.

Near endgame, yes.

 

[KoreanBarbecue]

Hmm I don't even remember them doing any bleed damage. Well, they're a pain but you can usually

Spoiler

circle-strafe/dodge a bit and then get a backstab in, then finish them off in 2-3 hits when they get up. I was using a fire longsword+3 at the time, IIRC, and that's how I'd kill them. One backstab, then two-hand the sword and they'd die in two more hits as they got up. The whip guys are easier to kill because their attacks barely drain stamina on your shield, unlike the axes.

I figure I just need to bite the bullet and taken down the Pursuer so I can get the Drangelic shield. Using a shield now that blocks about 92% of physical damage, but guessing the Dragnelic's 100% absorption will prove to be really handy with those guys.

 

[Gorillaz]

So far tho I definitely think the most disappointing aspect boss wise is

Spoiler

how many of them are just humanoid, we don't have something like a sif

 

[Danielsan]

Beat The Lost

Spoiler

Sinner

. Feels like I'm making significant progress now.

I un

Spoiler

pretrified the pyromancy girl, but I didn't give her any clothes straight away

. I figured I could just do that later. Now she is gone and I can't find her in Majula either. Did I fuck up?

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Yeah, I agree. The game is a huge letdown when it comes to encounter and world design. There's none of the strong, cohesive, interconnected feel of Dark Souls and very little of the memorable, visually striking nature of Demon's Souls' level design. People often compare DaS2 to Demon's but I've seen nothing that approaches a Boletarian Palace or a Tower of Latria in design, either mechanical or aesthetic. Areas are frequently more linear and less interesting to explore, and many are visually bland. They should have either gone full-on hub-style and concentrated on making the distinct levels stronger, or gone with a large open world like Dark that actually feels and for the most part is contiguous rather than a patchwork of different areas. What we got instead was a hodgepodge of the two styles.

Boss design also hasn't been anything interesting. Most of them so far boil down to giving you large, plodding enemies with slow, predictable attacks, many of them pale imitations in style to those found in the previous games (if not basically copy/pasted). The easier bosses in Demon's and Dark Souls 1 all had verve to them, something striking in atmosphere or concept that overcame their relative lack of difficulty (Old Hero, Fool's Idol, Gaping Dragon, Moonlight Butterfly, etc). Pursuer and Lost Sinner had potential - and Pursuer had a great entrance - but in combat each came off pretty much like a poor man's Artorias. Most of the others are so forgettable they aren't even worth writing about.

Really, the only boss with any striking flair is

Spoiler

Old Iron King

, but unfortunately the fight is basically an encounter from God of War 2 with more annoying holes to fall into.

I've definitely enjoyed the game overall, but a lot of that is due to lasting goodwill for the Souls franchise. It's still unique and engrossing, but it's by far the weakest of the three so far. Most of the changes I like are, similar to you, small mechanical things. If Dark Souls III kept power stances but went back to I's animation system, I'd be one happy camper.

Speaking of relatively intangible qualities, I've noticed that there's no one in the game who's been as widely appreciated as Solaire yet. It's sort of bullshit to say "it's less charming," but I can't shake the feeling.

 

[Prototype]

Near endgame, yes.

ok cool. I just got past the

Spoiler

shrine of amana

WOW having a

Spoiler

ranged

weapon really helps.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

The PvE covenant design is also a mess, going one step further in rewarding trolling and cowardly play in favor of actual, thoughtful duels. They've minimized mindless ganking and emphasized mindless griefing. Brilliant. At the same time, they've neutered co-op with their silly decision to base level ranges on soul history, and few seem to be having much success with the Blue covenants.

I haven't beaten the game yet (I'm at

Spoiler

Drangleic Castle

, first bonfire) but I really disagree with that. There are covenants for trolling, but there are covenants for duelling too, plus the red soapstone. The rat covenant is hilarious, it's very trollish but at the same time has really little penalty on the "trolled" one. I mean, I got summoned as grey spirit a few times in the Doors of Pharros, and when I lost, I'd just respawn in my world with nothing changed. It's funny, but not a real penalty. And if I won, I got my gear repaired and estus recharged!
I mean I haven't even got invaded once except in the Bell towers, and I'm level 110 or so! Haven't seen a single red/black phantom invader the whole game. Compared to the overly common Dickwraiths in Dark Souls 1, I really can't say the game encourages griefing more, on the contrary.
And as for neutered coop, I haven't noticed that at all. Some have claimed the 50k soul memory thing will gimp it, but is it even true? I haven't noticed a lack of white signs throughout, nor any significant delay in being summoned.

 

[Tucah]

Beat The Lost

Spoiler

Sinner

. Feels like I'm making significant progress now.

I un

Spoiler

pretrified the pyromancy girl, but I didn't give her any clothes straight away

. I figured I could just do that later. Now she is gone and I can't find her in Majula either. Did I fuck up?

Spoiler

She should be standing at the bottom of the stairs, past the bonfire, that lead up to where the depressed Way of Blue guy is.

 

[mellow]

So far tho I definitely think the most disappointing aspect boss wise is

Spoiler

how many of them are just humanoid, we don't have something like a sif

Yeah we kinda do, there's a boss that seems very much like it, but it's optional, maybe you didn't find it?

but I definitely agree on the first part

 

[pretty done]

I love it when people throw magic spears at the air behind or beside me and I die from it. So fun

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Beat The Lost

Spoiler

Sinner

. Feels like I'm making significant progress now.

I un

Spoiler

pretrified the pyromancy girl, but I didn't give her any clothes straight away

. I figured I could just do that later. Now she is gone and I can't find her in Majula either. Did I fuck up?

She didn't immediately return to Majula for me, either. I don't know what triggered it, but eventually she showed up.

 

[MurkyZebra2417]

This game is too good. What a journey and I am not even near the end (I guess)!

 

[Red Liquorice]

Yikes, thread moves so fast! Thanks to those who answered my quick question re: Gavlan!

I just dropped down off into a room in

Spoiler

Harvest Valley

that gave me flash backs to getting the large divine ember in TotG, got completely gangbanged by about 5 of those double-sickle dudes. I had the forethought to put on the sacrifice ring before taking a path I couldn't go back the same way!

That ring btw, seems kinda skeezy - I feel dirty using it. It's funny how there's double the ring slots now, but I still grumble over which 4 to use!

Also found

Spoiler

the Sunlight Altar

- so many memories! ;__;

 

[mellow]

event that happened after smelter demon

Spoiler

I was pretty shocked to see the pursuer emerged from the floor in the boss room, he wrecked me a few times since I pretty much used summons and the ballista to beat him originally, I was going to skip him since it seemed optional but I'm glad I didn't, you get a nice reward and he seems to spawn there constantly until you defeat him

 

[Dresden]

It'd be an "improvement" if there was more than a handful of crowd control movesets in the game.

Dark Souls has always excelled at one-on-one combat and struggled with groups. Half of why Belfry Gargoyles and Ornstein & Smaugh give first time players such a hard time in Dark Souls is because they're fights where camera management is suddenly thrown into the mix of multiple large enemies with their own movement and attack patterns.

In a game with combat focused around watching for animation tells, throwing tons of enemies at the player is an exercise in bullshit design. Each enemy in an encounter makes the whole thing exponentially hard; with the previously mentioned greatsword knights, you can potentially face up to four or five enemies at once in a tight hallway or bridge. Each knight can potentially combo you if you're not careful, so waiting for the correct opening is vital - except that when one is open, the other three could be winding up or attacking. All of a sudden, luck becomes a factor, and that makes the whole thing really frustrating. There's no real way to goad all enemies into similar timing patterns, and there's not much interesting or fun about running away and hoping the whole thing resets.

In Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, there are encounters with multiple enemies. More often than not, though, they were either in clusters of two or three, which is at least in the "challenging but manageable" tier of design, or the game punished you for rushing through encounters by having more enemies aggro if you weren't careful. Getting swarmed by enemies was usually your own fault in DeS and DaS; in 2 it's often completely unavoidable and you're just expected to be able to deal with it. I kind of feel for people without STR builds.

That, and the scaling down of defense*, the decreased usefulness of poise, the increase in damage from the enemies and their speed and reach all makes mobbing encounters a pain. It's a rolling clusterfuck of badly tested design. Take out any one of these things and it becomes more manageable. All together and it's just a royal fucking pain.

*resistance as a stat that increased Defense being removed probably resulted in this - they never tweaked the numbers post-removal, and rolled all the resistance-increasing benefits into ADP

---

Kind of depressing, going back to my own posts during the Network Test.

- Agility as a stat is a terrible idea. It'll either become mandatory for every player or it'll be nearly worthless - there's no middle ground because the actions it affects are so fundamental to the way the game is played, for every build and class.

- Framerate is Dragon's Dogma-esque.

- Lame bosses. Too easy, and not very interesting outside of that initial reveal.

- Using herbs to replenish spell stocks between bonfires. It's an awkward compromise between the spices of DeSouls and the system of Dark Souls.

- Love the new backstab animations, but the way priorities work feels iffy right now. There were occasions where just hitting Y/triangle to two-hand a weapon (or get the shield back up) would not register, or do so sluggishly.

 

[Dreaver]

God damn, already trying to beat

Spoiler

The Peruser

(second boss) for fucking 3,5 hours. Can't beat him, argh!!!!

 

[Onemic]

After a week delay, Amazon finally delivered my black armor edition DS2. Only problem is that I'm at school and won't be able to play it until later at night :/

 

[ViviOggi]

FINALLY slaughtered the Sm

Spoiler

elter Demon

, what a gigantic scumbag. Big thanks to Zeliard for the

Spoiler

rotten pine resin

tip, that at least doubled my dps! Had to go back and buy some from that dwarf after wasting the three I had but it was totally worth it.

 

[mellow]

God damn, already trying to beat

Spoiler

The Peruser

(second boss) for fucking 3,5 hours. Can't beat him, argh!!!!

Just

Spoiler

roll to his left, attack once, repeat

. He telegraphs all his moves and has like two combinations total.

 

[Ghazi]

I just discarded my normal size smooth and silky stone over the trader instead of leaving it... RIP.

 

[Jimmyfenix]

I just beat

Spoiler

smelter demon

. what an asshole it was.

 

[ultron87]

God damn, already trying to beat

Spoiler

The Peruser

(second boss) for fucking 3,5 hours. Can't beat him, argh!!!!

There are other routes you can take to make plenty of progress if you don't want to keep throwing yourself at him.

 

[Phatosaurus]

To me, that boss fight was like a shittier version of Sif. Did not like it all.

Speaking of boss fights, I have yet to have the feeling I had when I faced O&S or Artorias (DLC I know). I don't think I have ever enjoyed a boss fight more than those two.

Nothing will ever top Flamelurker for me.

The intro cutscene, the arena, the music and how aggressive the Flamelurker becomes as the fight progresses. Perfect.

I've co-oped most of the bosses in DSII so far so I don't have much of an opinion on them. I think the co-op really screws with the AI and ruins the challenge (but it sure is fun!).
I think when I do a solo run,

Spoiler

Ornstein

will be a bitch, so will the

Spoiler

Lost Sinner

.
Apart from the Pursuer, the other early bosses are kinda easy.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I just beat

Spoiler

smelter demon

.what an asshole it was.

His face?

 

[Deified Data]

At the same time, they've neutered co-op with their silly decision to base level ranges on soul history.

I keep hearing this yet still see plenty of summon signs and usually get summoned within 10 seconds of placing my sign. There are enough people playing with enough different playstyles that there should be plenty of co-op options at every stage of the game.

 

[Pikelet]

Hello folks, I've decided to wait for the PC version, would anyone know of any decent podcasts about where they talk about Dark Souls II? Would like to hear a bit about the game between now and then.

For anyone wanting a super in depth, but still accessible, dark souls podcast, check out bonfireside chat. They went trough every single area of darks souls and demons souls, and they di an episode per area. It's a great podcast, they currently have a mostly spoiler-free dark souls 2 impressions episode out now

 

[Toma]

Tossing several toxic rats at you with hitboxes so poor a katana continually whiffs the air while trying to hit them, as you're also trying to dodge the large, completely bland boss swiping at you and making a mockery of the game's camera, is not my idea of a memorable encounter.

Well, I would disagree on the memorable part, but still name the same reasons you just gave

 

[Ferr986]

Well, just had the pleasure to meet Mr

Spoiler

Smelter Demon

.... fuck

 

[Lumpy Onion]

40 hours in and am having the most fun I have had in gaming since....Dark Souls. I can say without hesitation that the Souls series are my favorite games of all time. And as I am playing all I can think about is doing it all over with a different build. Went through DS1 like 10 times so I imagine this will be the same. I went with Drangelic sword, which felt like my comfort character weapon from DS1. I think I have touched like 5% of the equipment and 2 pyromancies, so good lord do I have a lot to look forward to.

Now to get back to the horrors of Iron Keep and try to keep my composure.

 

[isual]

possible dlc location

Spoiler

shrine of amana, the flame where you pray at

 

[Farooq]

Yeah, I agree. The game is a huge letdown when it comes to encounter and world design. There's none of the strong, cohesive, interconnected feel of Dark Souls and very little of the memorable, visually striking nature of Demon's Souls' level design. People often compare DaS2 to Demon's but I've seen nothing that approaches a Boletarian Palace or a Tower of Latria in design, either mechanical or aesthetic. Areas are frequently more linear and less interesting to explore, and many are visually bland. They should have either gone full-on hub-style and concentrated on making the distinct levels stronger, or gone with a large open world like Dark that actually feels and for the most part is contiguous rather than a patchwork of different areas. What we got instead was a hodgepodge of the two styles.

Boss design also hasn't been anything interesting. Most of them so far boil down to giving you large, plodding enemies with slow, predictable attacks, many of them pale imitations in style to those found in the previous games (if not basically copy/pasted). The easier bosses in Demon's and Dark Souls 1 all had verve to them, something striking in atmosphere or concept that overcame their relative lack of difficulty (Old Hero, Fool's Idol, Gaping Dragon, Moonlight Butterfly, etc). Pursuer and Lost Sinner had potential - and Pursuer had a great entrance - but in combat each came off pretty much like a poor man's Artorias. Most of the others are so forgettable they aren't even worth writing about.

The PvE covenant design is also a mess, going one step further in rewarding trolling and cowardly play in favor of actual, thoughtful duels. They've minimized mindless low-level ganking and emphasized mindless griefing. Brilliant. At the same time, they've neutered co-op with their silly decision to base level ranges on soul history, and few seem to be having much success with the Blue covenants.

It's still a Souls game, and there's a certain degree of quality that comes with that, but I think the other two best it handily. Core combat is still solid, though the addition of Agility means it will feel super clunky if you're the roll-dodging type until you get the stat up to a respectable number.

I think the dual wielding was a fun addition, and I like the versatility that comes with being able to use two weapons with different movesets and have full, uninterrupted access to each, along with being able to swiftly go two-handed (being able to parry while 2H is also great). Power stance adds a new wrinkle in choosing where to put points and in which types of weapons to use. Having six equipment and four ring slots is wonderful. I've never been hugely into bow use, but it feels snappier and more responsive.

That stuff is all pretty good. It would have been nice to have more interesting levels and enemies surrounding it. In both of those cases they should have gone with quality over quantity.



In... what way, exactly?

I mean, compare that boss design to something like Kalameet. Where's the grandeur and the enjoyably tense combat? Where's the melancholic mood and visual design of a Sif?

Tossing several toxic rats at you with hitboxes so poor a katana continually whiffs the air while trying to hit them, as you're also trying to dodge the large, completely bland boss swiping at you and making a mockery of the game's camera, is not my idea of a memorable encounter.

This post really made me want to put my Dark Souls disc back into my console. Dark Souls to me had a lot more depth, you could peel away at the layers of the game and feel a deeper appreciation. I just don't feel that way with Dark Souls 2, maybe it will take time for it grow on me.

 

[Prototype]

I keep hearing this yet still see plenty of summon signs and usually get summoned within 10 seconds of placing my sign. There are enough people playing with enough different playstyles that there should be plenty of co-op options at every stage of the game.

the problem isn't summoing in general, it's that it makes it harder to play with friends. I have a few buddys who picked up the game and we were trying to coop last night.... it's pointless. We are going to start new characters and use that file for coop only when we play together.

 

[Deified Data]

In Dark Souls the Asylum Demon was so memorable they used him 3 times!

 

[HeelPower]

In... what way, exactly?

I mean, compare that boss design to something like Kalameet. Where's the grandeur and the enjoyably tense combat? Where's the melancholic mood and visual design of a Sif?

Tossing several toxic rats at you with hitboxes so poor a katana continually whiffs the air while trying to hit them, as you're also trying to dodge the large, completely bland boss swiping at you and making a mockery of the game's camera, is not my idea of a memorable encounter.

Just in the sense that clearing this frustrating enemy was really satisfying.

Of course visually he is really bland and his theme isn't that good either.

Also yeah compared to Dark Souls bosses and even regular enemy design has taken a serious step down.I'd like to add that weapon and armor is really disappointing.I am using Elite knight set from the first game so far.Nothing much appealed to me.

Still, however, the game is truly addicting and good.Just that it pales in comparison to the first in almost every regard.

wow, that's terrible. you have to kill the enemies next to the stone giant so he absorbs the souls, but if you saw a video I assume you know that, considering that's a theme throughout that section

I hope you can somehow fix it.

I'll try...I have no idea what the hell is going on here.