I replayed DSII: SotFS recently and, a year later, I feel like I'm more lenient with the game, and even if I still hold my gripes with it, I'll make the effort to point out the good things too to differentiate this wannabe critique from the other Dark Souls II threads which are 90% of the time negative –understandably so.
But before that happens, I have to reiterate in why the game is without a doubt for me the worst Souls game. (The good things are in the latter half of the wall of text).
A lot has been said about level design, it's no secret that the vanilla game has mediocre to bad level design across the board. There are only a few areas that are remotely close to what we can expect from the franchise, and these are Lost Bastille and Forest of the Fallen Giants. Nothing in any of the other areas is remarkable in a positive way. On the contrary, plenty of them are really bad, such as:
The boss fight is beyond easy, even if it has a refreshing design coming from all of the previous lack of inspiration throughout the whole game.
I can imagine a room with a bed and chairs and tables to be a place where someone lived, I can't imagine what purpose can serve a room full of poison masks or some hall filled with statues that come to life only so you can activate an inanimate golem that opens a door to another empty room with a recycled ruin sentinel that was just... there? Waiting for someone to come?
The whole place is a complete nonsense through and through. The pool of corrosive acid that is spewed by some dragon statues, the rooms full of stone soldiers, etc. It definitely takes you out of the world and makes you feel like you're going through some bizarre obstacle course, not a real castle.
Now, the fact that I don't mention other zones doesn't mean they're good, it means they're better than those, which I consider the absolute worst. It's not a particularly commendable feat all things considered, anyways.
Honorable mention to the welcoming courtyard inside the Iron Keep. The definition of clown cars. Absolutely horrible. I don't include it in the ”worst areas list" because I like the use of the environment and the theme, but man, did they try hard for it to suck. Remember that bonfire that made you run through that pvp arena every time the easy boss cheesed you by throwing you off the platform? To think you could reduce the path in half if you could jump over a half-inch step.
This is by far my biggest issue with Dark Souls II. If this game hadn't butchered the gameplay in such a blatant way it would've been much, much easier to look past the subpar level and enemy design. But when you combine both, the result is just inexcusable.
It is the only game in the franchise that plays different. You can pick literally any of the other games, including Bloodborne, and feel right at home. All of them share the same core gameplay and controls, they feel the same. All of them except Dark Souls II, which for some reason thought it was a good idea to change everything by impairing the player. They very clearly didn't know how to make the game challenging with such pushover non-AI fodder enemies and ”Toddler's First Dark Souls" bosses, so their solution was making everything slower and sluggish.
The recovery time after any attack is significantly increased, meaning the most viable weapons in PvE are by far the big ones because even if you use a fast weapon, the recovery time before you can roll is so absurdly long that you're punished 90% of the time if you attack more than two times.
The enemies are incredibly poor, none of them has good AI, they throw a lot of them at you as soon as you enter a room because they know they didn't create a single enemy that can challenge the player in a 1v1 situation, and that includes bosses.
I remember getting destroyed by the red eyed knight in Demon's Souls, or the Silver Knight in Dark Souls, hell even by the executioner in central yharnam. And you don't even have to go as far; many normal enemies like the rapier undead in the Undead Parish or the skeletons in the Catacombs or the Shrine of Storms actually forced the player –be it because their positioning or because they had proper AI– to think and engage them in different ways that weren't just ”two shot them with a big weapon" and don't even think about it.
Sure, they become somehow pushover enemies when you master the game, but isn't that the whole point? Unlike in DSII, it isn't the stats making the player better, it's their actual experience overcoming the challenges throughout the game. There's nothing to ”master" in Dark Souls II, you just get better weapons and better stats and hope you two shot the useless mob so you can move on and don't have to bother seeing their pathetic attempt of an offensive.
Just compare the fight against a giant knight in Anor Londo with the giant mammoths of DSII. They couldn't even manage to make a big enemy challenging, so they put two of them in the Drangleic Castle, forcing you to cheese them because the gameplay is not suited for encounters with multiple enemies. Which is hilariously ironic because it's the one that pushed the concept to absurd levels.
There were mob gangbangs in the other games, but it never felt cheap or overwhelming because:
No, I won't say the infamous build variety, replayability and accessible PvP are things that redeem the poor gameplay, because they absolutely aren't. Bloodborne has the least amount of weapons yet it's the most fun to play because all of them feel and play different. Having hundreds of weapons that are either a reskin of another one or feel like crap, lacking weight and having bad animations mean nothing to me.
Replayability follows the same principle: I don't welcome the improved replayability options when I don't really want to replay the actual thing because it was disappointing and the combat and bosses were beyond underwhelming. Same for PvP.
I liked the idea of the covenant of champions though. The rest are mostly recycled from DS one way or another.
The impression this game gave me is that they placed a much bigger effort into making it look pretty and show how cool the improved graphics enginge was than they did in making an actually good game.
THE BOSSES
Undoubtedly the worst selection of bosses in the entire saga. All of them except two gravitate Pinwheel levels of easy. Those two are Smelter Demon and Darklurker, which are only slightly above the rest in terms of challenge, but not inspiration. Not to mention the paths leading to them are both completely infuriating garbo.
Easy, boring, unrewarding, uninspired. Just awful, very very bad. You'd think they could've tried to redeem the poor level design if the reward was some decent boss, but oh boy, they're even worse than the levels.
I could write an entire essay on how they're horrible, but I'm confident everybody who played the game can easily tell how much of an absolute downgrade across all levels these bosses were from the rest of the games.
I'll mention Nashandra though because she's the final boss. She is the weakest, stupidest, silliest, ugliest, uninspired and easiest final boss ever created. Just god-damn-awful. A generic skeleton lady with literally 3 moves and an annoying gimmick. That's what she is. Terrible fight all around. Just terrible.
Thank god the previous boss is much... Worse. Two guys attacking you non-stop, run around until you find a window which allows you to attack once unless you want to be destroyed by their follow-up attacks.
Which pretty much sums the whole issue with the game. ”Run in circles while a lot of people chase you, wait so they attack you in a way you can counter attack, rinse and repeat. If you dare attacking more than once without a weapon that staggers them all you better be ready for the probable oneshot".
Necessary mention to the bosses' soundtrack: not a single memorable theme. The worst soundtrack in the franchise with only Majula's theme and Longing as good tracks.
Unlike the other games, Dark Souls II lacks a consistent theme and look. It's just a colorful world that doesn't fit with the theme of the lore, full of bright and colorful areas with bizarre lightning/day of time changes that are only there so the game can look nice and varied. It's a level selector, basically, and while the colorful, almost cartoony look can be refreshing after the gloom and washed out of the other games, it just doesn't fit at all and at the end of the day, making it more welcoming and cheerful contrasts too much with the lore and makes it a totally unbelievable world.
It feels more like a platforming game or something in which you go from the green zone to the red zone, the ice zone, the dark zone etc. The lightning with the torch and the real time shadows it casts is really nice though.
But enough of the bad, there is plenty of information out there about why the game is fundamentally flawed and the worst in the franchise. Let's get with the less bad.
Before SotFS, the lore was just alright. It was a retread of Dark Souls in many aspects, but it was decent if you don't mind the radical change of setting. When they made Aldia a proper character and retconned him to be important, it became more than alright. The more human approach, how it plays with the idea of what is humanity and why must they be subjugated to deities and their past deeds is interesting.
Aldia and Vendrick's story is good: the lore itself, the backstory is good, but the NPCs are forgettable and I couldn't care less about their stories or quests. Almost all of them are a bland rehash of some concept from DeS/DS, with the rest just being unremarkable. I guess the cat was cute though.
The thing is, while the story of Vendrick, the giants, Nashandra and Aldia is interesting, the game does its best to take you out of the story and make it seem like those things never happened in such a weird, bizarre and senseless world full of mediocre and odd design.
There's a feeling of otherworldlyness and weirdness that, unlike in DeS, is not a positive aspect of the game. Because it wasn't intended. The way the characters look and animate, the illogical structures and rooms, etc. It all contributes to the game feeling like it's happening in a world that is not or ever was real, and that's totally not what the game tries to do.
It tries to make you believe you're exploring actual places and not videogame levels. I'd describe it as a dream that looks sufficiently real to fool you into thinking it's actually real but has some weird elements that stand out in unsettling fashion to shatter the illusion that it was something real.
In Demon's Souls, the atmosphere was eerie, otherworldly and unsettling, but you can still believe these are actual people and living beings and it's an actual world with places that served a purpose. There's a really big difference.
The main issue with this aspect of the game, however, is not the lack of cohesiveness of one area with another –witch is still a problem–, it's the lack of cohesiveness with the game itself. In Demon's, Dark 1 and Bloodborne, the lore ties perfectly with the game, with how it plays, with how the levels are distributed, designed and played. Even the mechanics are part of the lore. Dark Souls II lacks that distinction that made the other games so fantastic in this regard.
The menus are nicer to look at compared to those in Dark Souls. I'd say just about everything UI related is nicer to look at compared to DS, which is the ugliest and roughest of them all.
Consuming multiple souls and the grid inventory are a godsend. Navigating through the inventory in DS was horrible and is much more convenient in DSII. But because this is Dark Souls II we're talking about, they just had to make a step back too so they removed the object icon when you pick up something and they added a stupid delay when talking to NPCs and picking up items.
THE DLC
Now I wouldn't say this is the saving grace of the game because I honestly can't consider this as part of the same experience.
I don't know what happened with all that Shibuya mess, but the DLC was clearly not made by the same people or under the same direction as the main game. Playing the DLC was the first and only time in the game where I thought ”okay, now I'm playing Dark Souls".
Shulva and Brume are excellent, while Eleum Loyce was not as good imo but still leagues above the vanilla game.
The way the levels are designed is fantastic and what you would expect from a Souls game. The bosses are actual bosses! They're challenging and fun to fight. Yes, the combat with normal enemies is still mediocre because they'd need to overhaul the whole thing to make it play like an actual Souls, and the enemies are reskins and pushovers, but they introduced new elements to make it different and these mechanics were fun.
The switches and the ghost knights in Shulva, the environmental hazards in Brume, the verticality of the levels... They made the combat suck a bit less, even if most enemies were still ”two shot with a greatsword and move on" and the clown cars issue came back strong in Eleum Loyce, which is why it's the worst DLC. One noticeable thing is how the giant knights in Brume are significantly more fun to fight than literally any of the giant knights in the main game, and they didn't need to throw 4 of them at you at the same time.
That said, they somehow found a way to tamper the experience with these stupid ”challenge" areas, but they're optional so I give them a pass even if they're complete trash and my experience soloing the gank squad boss is my worst ever time with a Souls game.
What I don't give them a pass for however, is for the memory of the old king or whatever its name is. The area before Alonne. Just, fucking ugh. Did Shibuya come back only to design the challenge areas and this crap level-editoresque Iron Keep rehash with an army of Alonne Knights and fire lizards? Just WHY would you lock a decent fight like Alonne behind this absolute bullshit of an area? Just... unbelievable, really.
I must mention the fight with the Ivory King too. Yes, the presentation is absolutely awesome. Dropping down to the arena, the subtle but creepy ambient sound, the battle and the way the boss itself comes out were really cool... The first time. When you have to get through the exact same event more than 3 times because you were oneshotted by the boss while learning his patterns, it stops being cool and starts being annoying instead.
Just how many times do you have to deal with the stupid knights that ignore your allies and focus the hell out of you before you can attempt to fight the boss? Jesus, way to destroy a great moment.
I guess the boss being a glorified Gwyn reskin in terms of fighting and lore would be a bit of a letdown if it weren't for the prior battle. Which, again, made up for the somewhat uninspired boss, but not when they force you to do it time after time.
All in all, the DLC was very good. There's not even a legit comparison to be made with the rest of the game. It's just on a whole different league, it's almost on par with the Souls franchise. And I say almost because the combat and gameplay is still Dark Souls II and that prevents these DLCs from being truly great.
Dark Souls II shouldn't have been called Dark Souls II. That sums it up. If this game was named Obscure Souls or was released before any of the other games, it would've been a solid 8.5 including the DLC. As a Dark Souls numbered sequel, it's nothing but a 6, a 7,5ish if you count the DLC. These great DLC pieces can only carry the whole thing so much.
I fully, honestly, unironically believe this game should've been called Dark Souls: Drangleic or something along those lines. Make it clear that it's not the same thing, don't make players expect an actual sequel, sell it as its own thing. When you don't pretend it's a sequel to Dark or Demon's, you can be more lenient with the game's issues and differences. If you put a Dark Souls II name on it, you better meet the expectations and knock it out of the park, which definitely wasn't the case.
The game, I found on subsequent consideration and replay, serves a purpose: it makes you see how a different developing team would tackle on the Souls formula. It's so different –for worse in most cases, unfortunately– that if it was considered a spin-off (which I do), I'm confident it'd be regarded as a decent side experience considered the troubled development, sort of an optional palette cleanser in between the real deal, something that can help alleviate the fatigue and makes you appreciate the other games even more while still providing acceptable content for a spin-off, B project.
Unfortunately, the Dark Souls II name will forever be the game's biggest burden.
But before that happens, I have to reiterate in why the game is without a doubt for me the worst Souls game. (The good things are in the latter half of the wall of text).
THE AREAS
A lot has been said about level design, it's no secret that the vanilla game has mediocre to bad level design across the board. There are only a few areas that are remotely close to what we can expect from the franchise, and these are Lost Bastille and Forest of the Fallen Giants. Nothing in any of the other areas is remarkable in a positive way. On the contrary, plenty of them are really bad, such as:
- Doors of Pharros
- Grave of Saints
- Dragon Aerie
"Damn, looks nice. Could it be the next Sen's Fortress? It better be after this straightforward loot area. Oh".
- Dragon Shrine
- Shrine of Amana
The boss fight is beyond easy, even if it has a refreshing design coming from all of the previous lack of inspiration throughout the whole game.
- Drangleic Castle
I can imagine a room with a bed and chairs and tables to be a place where someone lived, I can't imagine what purpose can serve a room full of poison masks or some hall filled with statues that come to life only so you can activate an inanimate golem that opens a door to another empty room with a recycled ruin sentinel that was just... there? Waiting for someone to come?
The whole place is a complete nonsense through and through. The pool of corrosive acid that is spewed by some dragon statues, the rooms full of stone soldiers, etc. It definitely takes you out of the world and makes you feel like you're going through some bizarre obstacle course, not a real castle.
- Black Gulch
Now, the fact that I don't mention other zones doesn't mean they're good, it means they're better than those, which I consider the absolute worst. It's not a particularly commendable feat all things considered, anyways.
Honorable mention to the welcoming courtyard inside the Iron Keep. The definition of clown cars. Absolutely horrible. I don't include it in the ”worst areas list" because I like the use of the environment and the theme, but man, did they try hard for it to suck. Remember that bonfire that made you run through that pvp arena every time the easy boss cheesed you by throwing you off the platform? To think you could reduce the path in half if you could jump over a half-inch step.
THE GAMEPLAY
It is the only game in the franchise that plays different. You can pick literally any of the other games, including Bloodborne, and feel right at home. All of them share the same core gameplay and controls, they feel the same. All of them except Dark Souls II, which for some reason thought it was a good idea to change everything by impairing the player. They very clearly didn't know how to make the game challenging with such pushover non-AI fodder enemies and ”Toddler's First Dark Souls" bosses, so their solution was making everything slower and sluggish.
The recovery time after any attack is significantly increased, meaning the most viable weapons in PvE are by far the big ones because even if you use a fast weapon, the recovery time before you can roll is so absurdly long that you're punished 90% of the time if you attack more than two times.
The enemies are incredibly poor, none of them has good AI, they throw a lot of them at you as soon as you enter a room because they know they didn't create a single enemy that can challenge the player in a 1v1 situation, and that includes bosses.
I remember getting destroyed by the red eyed knight in Demon's Souls, or the Silver Knight in Dark Souls, hell even by the executioner in central yharnam. And you don't even have to go as far; many normal enemies like the rapier undead in the Undead Parish or the skeletons in the Catacombs or the Shrine of Storms actually forced the player –be it because their positioning or because they had proper AI– to think and engage them in different ways that weren't just ”two shot them with a big weapon" and don't even think about it.
Sure, they become somehow pushover enemies when you master the game, but isn't that the whole point? Unlike in DSII, it isn't the stats making the player better, it's their actual experience overcoming the challenges throughout the game. There's nothing to ”master" in Dark Souls II, you just get better weapons and better stats and hope you two shot the useless mob so you can move on and don't have to bother seeing their pathetic attempt of an offensive.
Just compare the fight against a giant knight in Anor Londo with the giant mammoths of DSII. They couldn't even manage to make a big enemy challenging, so they put two of them in the Drangleic Castle, forcing you to cheese them because the gameplay is not suited for encounters with multiple enemies. Which is hilariously ironic because it's the one that pushed the concept to absurd levels.
There were mob gangbangs in the other games, but it never felt cheap or overwhelming because:
A) The way you move and attack allows you to tackle on multiple enemies. Faster movement, faster attacks, shorter recovery time, more stamina, faster stamina recovery. The polar opposite of Dark Souls II.
B) Most of the time they were trash mobs or enemies that were easy to 1v2, not giant mammoths or 5 Alonne Knights. Imagine entering a room in Anor Londo and being greeted by 4 melee Silver Knights and one archer. Just ridiculous. Unlike Alonne's though, the Silver Knights punish the player for their mistakes and have decent AI and moveset, so the developers don't have to resort to spamming them.
B) Most of the time they were trash mobs or enemies that were easy to 1v2, not giant mammoths or 5 Alonne Knights. Imagine entering a room in Anor Londo and being greeted by 4 melee Silver Knights and one archer. Just ridiculous. Unlike Alonne's though, the Silver Knights punish the player for their mistakes and have decent AI and moveset, so the developers don't have to resort to spamming them.
No, I won't say the infamous build variety, replayability and accessible PvP are things that redeem the poor gameplay, because they absolutely aren't. Bloodborne has the least amount of weapons yet it's the most fun to play because all of them feel and play different. Having hundreds of weapons that are either a reskin of another one or feel like crap, lacking weight and having bad animations mean nothing to me.
Replayability follows the same principle: I don't welcome the improved replayability options when I don't really want to replay the actual thing because it was disappointing and the combat and bosses were beyond underwhelming. Same for PvP.
I liked the idea of the covenant of champions though. The rest are mostly recycled from DS one way or another.
The impression this game gave me is that they placed a much bigger effort into making it look pretty and show how cool the improved graphics enginge was than they did in making an actually good game.
THE BOSSES
Undoubtedly the worst selection of bosses in the entire saga. All of them except two gravitate Pinwheel levels of easy. Those two are Smelter Demon and Darklurker, which are only slightly above the rest in terms of challenge, but not inspiration. Not to mention the paths leading to them are both completely infuriating garbo.
Easy, boring, unrewarding, uninspired. Just awful, very very bad. You'd think they could've tried to redeem the poor level design if the reward was some decent boss, but oh boy, they're even worse than the levels.
I could write an entire essay on how they're horrible, but I'm confident everybody who played the game can easily tell how much of an absolute downgrade across all levels these bosses were from the rest of the games.
I'll mention Nashandra though because she's the final boss. She is the weakest, stupidest, silliest, ugliest, uninspired and easiest final boss ever created. Just god-damn-awful. A generic skeleton lady with literally 3 moves and an annoying gimmick. That's what she is. Terrible fight all around. Just terrible.
Thank god the previous boss is much... Worse. Two guys attacking you non-stop, run around until you find a window which allows you to attack once unless you want to be destroyed by their follow-up attacks.
Which pretty much sums the whole issue with the game. ”Run in circles while a lot of people chase you, wait so they attack you in a way you can counter attack, rinse and repeat. If you dare attacking more than once without a weapon that staggers them all you better be ready for the probable oneshot".
Necessary mention to the bosses' soundtrack: not a single memorable theme. The worst soundtrack in the franchise with only Majula's theme and Longing as good tracks.
THE LOOKS
Unlike the other games, Dark Souls II lacks a consistent theme and look. It's just a colorful world that doesn't fit with the theme of the lore, full of bright and colorful areas with bizarre lightning/day of time changes that are only there so the game can look nice and varied. It's a level selector, basically, and while the colorful, almost cartoony look can be refreshing after the gloom and washed out of the other games, it just doesn't fit at all and at the end of the day, making it more welcoming and cheerful contrasts too much with the lore and makes it a totally unbelievable world.
It feels more like a platforming game or something in which you go from the green zone to the red zone, the ice zone, the dark zone etc. The lightning with the torch and the real time shadows it casts is really nice though.
That torch lightning looks much better than in Bloodborne (really).
But enough of the bad, there is plenty of information out there about why the game is fundamentally flawed and the worst in the franchise. Let's get with the less bad.
THE LORE
Before SotFS, the lore was just alright. It was a retread of Dark Souls in many aspects, but it was decent if you don't mind the radical change of setting. When they made Aldia a proper character and retconned him to be important, it became more than alright. The more human approach, how it plays with the idea of what is humanity and why must they be subjugated to deities and their past deeds is interesting.
Aldia and Vendrick's story is good: the lore itself, the backstory is good, but the NPCs are forgettable and I couldn't care less about their stories or quests. Almost all of them are a bland rehash of some concept from DeS/DS, with the rest just being unremarkable. I guess the cat was cute though.
The thing is, while the story of Vendrick, the giants, Nashandra and Aldia is interesting, the game does its best to take you out of the story and make it seem like those things never happened in such a weird, bizarre and senseless world full of mediocre and odd design.
There's a feeling of otherworldlyness and weirdness that, unlike in DeS, is not a positive aspect of the game. Because it wasn't intended. The way the characters look and animate, the illogical structures and rooms, etc. It all contributes to the game feeling like it's happening in a world that is not or ever was real, and that's totally not what the game tries to do.
It tries to make you believe you're exploring actual places and not videogame levels. I'd describe it as a dream that looks sufficiently real to fool you into thinking it's actually real but has some weird elements that stand out in unsettling fashion to shatter the illusion that it was something real.
In Demon's Souls, the atmosphere was eerie, otherworldly and unsettling, but you can still believe these are actual people and living beings and it's an actual world with places that served a purpose. There's a really big difference.
The main issue with this aspect of the game, however, is not the lack of cohesiveness of one area with another –witch is still a problem–, it's the lack of cohesiveness with the game itself. In Demon's, Dark 1 and Bloodborne, the lore ties perfectly with the game, with how it plays, with how the levels are distributed, designed and played. Even the mechanics are part of the lore. Dark Souls II lacks that distinction that made the other games so fantastic in this regard.
THE QoL CHANGES
Consuming multiple souls and the grid inventory are a godsend. Navigating through the inventory in DS was horrible and is much more convenient in DSII. But because this is Dark Souls II we're talking about, they just had to make a step back too so they removed the object icon when you pick up something and they added a stupid delay when talking to NPCs and picking up items.
THE DLC
Now I wouldn't say this is the saving grace of the game because I honestly can't consider this as part of the same experience.
I don't know what happened with all that Shibuya mess, but the DLC was clearly not made by the same people or under the same direction as the main game. Playing the DLC was the first and only time in the game where I thought ”okay, now I'm playing Dark Souls".
Shulva and Brume are excellent, while Eleum Loyce was not as good imo but still leagues above the vanilla game.
The way the levels are designed is fantastic and what you would expect from a Souls game. The bosses are actual bosses! They're challenging and fun to fight. Yes, the combat with normal enemies is still mediocre because they'd need to overhaul the whole thing to make it play like an actual Souls, and the enemies are reskins and pushovers, but they introduced new elements to make it different and these mechanics were fun.
The switches and the ghost knights in Shulva, the environmental hazards in Brume, the verticality of the levels... They made the combat suck a bit less, even if most enemies were still ”two shot with a greatsword and move on" and the clown cars issue came back strong in Eleum Loyce, which is why it's the worst DLC. One noticeable thing is how the giant knights in Brume are significantly more fun to fight than literally any of the giant knights in the main game, and they didn't need to throw 4 of them at you at the same time.
"Looks like there's some stuff down there, and looks like I will be able to get there.
I can't believe I'm finally playing a Souls game!"
That said, they somehow found a way to tamper the experience with these stupid ”challenge" areas, but they're optional so I give them a pass even if they're complete trash and my experience soloing the gank squad boss is my worst ever time with a Souls game.
What I don't give them a pass for however, is for the memory of the old king or whatever its name is. The area before Alonne. Just, fucking ugh. Did Shibuya come back only to design the challenge areas and this crap level-editoresque Iron Keep rehash with an army of Alonne Knights and fire lizards? Just WHY would you lock a decent fight like Alonne behind this absolute bullshit of an area? Just... unbelievable, really.
I must mention the fight with the Ivory King too. Yes, the presentation is absolutely awesome. Dropping down to the arena, the subtle but creepy ambient sound, the battle and the way the boss itself comes out were really cool... The first time. When you have to get through the exact same event more than 3 times because you were oneshotted by the boss while learning his patterns, it stops being cool and starts being annoying instead.
Just how many times do you have to deal with the stupid knights that ignore your allies and focus the hell out of you before you can attempt to fight the boss? Jesus, way to destroy a great moment.
I guess the boss being a glorified Gwyn reskin in terms of fighting and lore would be a bit of a letdown if it weren't for the prior battle. Which, again, made up for the somewhat uninspired boss, but not when they force you to do it time after time.
All in all, the DLC was very good. There's not even a legit comparison to be made with the rest of the game. It's just on a whole different league, it's almost on par with the Souls franchise. And I say almost because the combat and gameplay is still Dark Souls II and that prevents these DLCs from being truly great.
"Woah, that's badass > Woah, that's slightly less badass > It looks cool but I'm not sure about the repeated structure of the fight > God, thank god that stupid gangbang is over > Jesus would you just come the f*** out of the portal so I can get it over with!"
CLOSURE
I fully, honestly, unironically believe this game should've been called Dark Souls: Drangleic or something along those lines. Make it clear that it's not the same thing, don't make players expect an actual sequel, sell it as its own thing. When you don't pretend it's a sequel to Dark or Demon's, you can be more lenient with the game's issues and differences. If you put a Dark Souls II name on it, you better meet the expectations and knock it out of the park, which definitely wasn't the case.
The game, I found on subsequent consideration and replay, serves a purpose: it makes you see how a different developing team would tackle on the Souls formula. It's so different –for worse in most cases, unfortunately– that if it was considered a spin-off (which I do), I'm confident it'd be regarded as a decent side experience considered the troubled development, sort of an optional palette cleanser in between the real deal, something that can help alleviate the fatigue and makes you appreciate the other games even more while still providing acceptable content for a spin-off, B project.
Unfortunately, the Dark Souls II name will forever be the game's biggest burden.
