Відео

Maybe you worded this wrong, but did I hear you claim that you don't get a first Estus until you find your first shard? Because this isn't true. Immediately talking to the Harold gets the first Estus as a gift. Shards increase the number of uses. And burning Sublime Bone Dust at the majula bonfire increase the amount of heal each use gives you. So if you find the shard in majula and bring it to the harold, you should start the journey with 2 estus.

Ok ending the game on 5 Estus is criminal. Did you play blindfolded? Literally takes away all your credibility if you don’t find the items the devs literally make unmissable

I'm so sorry but I see where you're going here but the video is just so sloppily written. There's so many major things you get catastrophically wrong, but I specifically fucking laughed when you used the word "circumnavigate" to just mean "navigate". Please never try and speak definitively on any game you've barely explored ever again.

Pretty good video so far (finally someone mentions the item icon on pickup thing) but it always mildly irks me whenever someone calls them "bonfire aesthetics" lmao

Preface: i really hope i dont come off as mean about this but my three favorite Souls games(also my favorite game franchise/"special interest" aside from SMT which occupies a similar place in my mind and heart) are Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2 and Demon's Souls(the original not the remake) and there are a few things that i noticed that other commenters have already pointed out but that i would like to try and shed more light/context on regardless that the points have already been made 1. Estus Flask Shards and Sublime Bone Dust: The Emerald Herald gives you a first Estus Flask no matter what upon talking to her whether you have the shard from the well or not, the shard in the well is there to give you an extra in case of emergencies to stave you off from careless use of lifegems until you can grind for or buy more, letting you start with 2 drinks of Estus if you're attentive- given that Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring give you 4 drinks each to start with and that Forest Of Fallen Giants has two shards and you can purchase a Fragrant Branch from Melentia to let you get a fifth in the tutorial area(Things Betwixt) you essentially start with 5 in the first two areas as long as you know where to look(which granted can be very confusing your first time I do admit) but another thing meant to help with this is DS2's deliberate enemy placement(for an example i will compare this with Golden Hippos in Elden Ring's Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC Expansion: In SOTE you learn from killing the hippo at Shadow Keep that much like Miquella Crosses, Statues Of Marika and churches that Hippos always have a Scadutree Fragment(with some exceptions in regards to Churches) meanwhile DS2 does a very similar thing with Syan Knights With the exception of Drangleic Castle where Syan Knights(the thick gold/bronze armored knights with swords or halberds that can do blue lightning attacks but are easy to parry) become a normal enemy anytime you find a Syan Knight in the world they will be guarding a metal chest with either an Estus Flask Shard or Sublime Bone Dust(used like Firekeeper Souls, Undead Bone Shards or Sacred Tears to boost the amount the flask heals per drink up to a max in DS2 of +5) meaning that if you look out for Syan Knights anywehre prior to Drangleic Castle, like say the No Man's Wharf, Shaded Woods or Grave Of Saints(which yes all have this trope of Syan Knights guarding flask upgrades) you should only miss very few, the maximun is 12 Drinks of +5 Estus which finishes up with the last Bone Dust in Drangleic Castle and the last Flask Shard in Shrine Of Amana and similarly to Elden Ring's Golden Seeds and Dragon Hearts there are actually more shards than you need/can use in the game, with a total of 12 Shards throughout the world, 5 Bone Dusts and the 1 +0 Estus given by Shanalotte/Emerald Herald

best souls.

DS2 hate is so forced

I loved this video and how you explained DS2's story and lore with the respect and melancholy it deserves.

I disagree that Flasks are important to the Souls series. I know that it's standard and expected. But DS2, to me, felt like a direct sequel to Demon's Souls. The lifegems are the replacement for the grass healing items. The reason that Estus Flask charges are so rare is because Estus is free healing that doesn't cost any souls to buy. Grass, Lifegems, and Bloodvials are all based on the same idea, implemented differently. Alot of people say that Grass and Lifegem healing is unbalanced because it allows you to have "infinite healing" and nothing is a challenge. But the reason they're good in my eyes is because they're limited, whereas Estus is the "infinite healing". With Estus you never have to worry about restocking because you're always given enough to get through each section until you get to the next bonfire. Dying in DeS and DS2 feels really impactful because you are worse off than you started. Your max HP is lower and you don't get your healing items back. In DS1, bruteforcing a boss until you eventually win is a viable strategy, but without free Estus, it really tells you that you have to learn the boss or you'll run out of supplies.

Adaptability represents all the pros and the cons of DS2. On paper, the idea of Adaptability is great. I love the idea that leveling up literally makes you move and dodge faster. The start of any souls game is all about feeling weak and overwhelmed, and by the end you and flipping around and dishing out massive damage to enemies that used to one shot you. The transition from low ADP to high ADP feels very tangible, with attacks that had tight dodge windows now feel effortless to avoid.... BUT. That messes with the fundamental flow of combat and makes it way harder to learn timing when fighting enemies. Basically everything in DS2 is either "Good idea, bad execution" or "Bad idea, weirdly good execution." It's still one of my favorite games but it is certainty jank.

Wooo yeahhh Peak Souls 2!!!!

I love how surreal the idea of the elevator to the iron keep is. I don't understand why many people have a problem with it, Souls game always had surreal-ish elements like this. Bloodborne Astral Clocktower is an example, but there they stated "this is a dream!". Another one is fighting inside memories in Sekiro. Why do we need real world logic in a game like this? For me, the whole souls experience is a dream-like one.

Phenomenal

OOFT. I’m SO glad to see the self-aware pinned comment. Watching through and every few minutes there’s a new claim that is just flat-out incorrect 😭

happy to be back. enjoy the dlc! it'll be one hell of a journey. small tip is to get sacred tear to +12. you'll heal for much more and the dlc enemies hit like a truck.

unexpected vid, but very welcome

This was the first Dark Souls game I played. I personally found the game beautiful. Yes, it was difficult and there were a lot of places I had no idea what to do or where to go, but beating this game made me feel more confident and confident encouraged me to play and appreciate harder games. It’s interesting to hear why people seem to dislike this game, but I strongly disagree and still have this game at the top of my lists.

there is no way u suck at the game so much to use a f bow in amana XD lmao

Just to point it out, you don’t have to get the Estus shard to get the flask, she just gives it to you if you talk to her (also you can find a shard immediately if you hit the rock into the well in majula)

Yeah, the use of the pharros lockstones in the doors of pharros and grave or saints are for enhancing the dungeon since its a covenant area

HELL YEAH, WE ARE SO BACK!!!!

I'm not hearing any more DS2 revisionist dick riding

I say movement system is good recommend this video RE: "RE: 'In Defense of Dark Souls 2'" - Movement

My love, my heart 🥹🥹🥹 I love this game so much. ❤️❤️❤️

Heres my honest take after hearing most arguments about Ds2. Its a game that has many good merits and many problems. But regardless of your thoughts on it. It was a game that i think was crucial to the future development of Souls games. It introduced many concepts that would go on to be welcomed staples into modern souls games and there were many concepts that didn't. Its a game that took genuine risks, and as far as risks go they dont always pan out in good reception. Many people have valid complaints but i see dark souls 2 as a foundation and turning point within the history of souls games. Since at the time the genre was new and fromsoftware rightfully wanted to see what they could and could not do in a souls like game. Even Miyazaki has gone on record saying even he doesnt know what the future of the souls series would have been without Ds2, and lets be honest if the horses mouth himself claims something that big im probably gonna believe him.

this game is unironically my favorite game of all time. and once every year i look up DS2 speedruns on GDQ

13:00 Made a mistake here. You already start with 1 estus flask when you first speak to Shanalot, then there's a shard piece at the well, so those who are perceptive usually start with 2 flasks. Which isn't much, but definitely better than 0 and completely relying on gems. 29:44 May be a slip of the tongue here, but you can only go as far as Demon Ruins before being blocked off, until you've placed the Lord Vessel. 33:40 You don't need to traverse the entire level. Idol of Engyi bonfire is right next to the Old Iron King boss arena, the second Black Gulch bonfire is right next to the The Rotten boss arena, and the crossroad bonfire at Shaded Woods is right next to the Shrine of Winter. Another thing I think could be mentioned are the binoculars. What DS2 did with them was never seen before and has never been seen since in any of the FromSoftware titles, which is a real shame, because I think they absolutely nailed the binocular mechanic in DS2.

First thing I disagree with is the healing system rant. It seems as though you think the life gems are supposed to be a buffer to fix a bad estus system. I disagree. Early on, you only have 1-3 flasks, so life gems are not only helpful, but Important to a low level characters survival. They are slow, and weaker than estus, but they serve a purpose to help your character conserve flasks. As you progress thru the game, you get more flasks and can start relying on them more, while lifegems become more of a background support to heal minor damage from small hits or accidental falls. They aren't as useful later on especially when you have a bigger HP bar and enemies begin to tank on more damage, so why not sell them infinitely at that point? Early game it'll be too expensive to hoard them, as you'll need your souls for additional levels to get stronger. Late game they become a useful tool. They're a weaker heal and they come at a souls cost. I dont see that as OP at all. The OG dark souls let you have 20 estus!! Second issue. For me I've never struggled with the 8 direction movement. Perhaps that's just me personally but it's never hassled me much. But in regards to enemy encounters, these are not "ganks" as you had just got done saying, this game requires a slower and more methodical approach to combat. Thus these large encounters you struggle with can all be combat with patience, smart combat choices, and a slew of other combat options at your disposal. Elden ring players love to say "use your toolss" so yea, use em haha. Sorry for the critical response. Your story analysis was beautiful tho, god what a fantastic story

I've heard somewhere that there was some concept art of the earthen peak tower being fused into a huge volcano, the one with Iron Keep on top of it. The Volcano Asset was supposedly not ready to be put into the game. That would explain a lot of the weird transition between the areas and really recontextualized it for me.

Yes, indeed. An incoherent mess of a game that is justly considered the worst one in the trilogy... and, yet, it has some interesting ideas.

I'd like to point something out about ds2, watch the health bar when you get hit, most attacks barely do any damage when you compare it to other souls games, you can wear nothing and still take multiple hits where in other games you would get oneshot. I think this offsets the need to lvl adp as much as everyone thinks, nevermind the other methods of dmg avoidance like positioning and shields.

Atleast you know bloodborne is best but best souls is far better game

Only wannabe gamers n sheep hate best souls do you 3v3n need more evidence 💀🫠🦅🐑🏁🏁🏁🏁

I love this video and everything you said I agree with except The Old Iron Keep DLC access. Now you will receive a lot of comments from ignorant individuals who enjoy the game and ignore the many flaws thinking this is the best Souls game. These people will tell you how wrong you are and how wrong this video is. Please ignore them this is a great video and everything you said is true.

I think this B-team narrative needs to stop somewhere. Yes, Tomohiro Shibuya was relatively unexperienced as a director, but he had Miyazaki's trust on this and Miyazaki was also supervising. Aside of that, a significant number of people working on DS1 also worked on DS2. If the game had problems in development it was because it was overly ambitious and brand new engine didn't handle too well, not because people lacked a vision or talent to pull it off.

this is like matthewmattosis's vid but shamelessly copied and worse

Instead of writing a 3k word long comment, id like to suggest you give Domo3000 video series about DS2 misconceptions a try. I think it might be eye opening for you

bro, only finding 5 estus shards is strange. i hope you realize that you only finding so little of them is not a legit critisism. i do agree that the lifegems make the game trivial. but just like the npc summons, you can just not use them?

As someone with over 20000 hours between all the souls games (mostly PvP) I can confidently say whether someone loves or hates this game is almost entirely dependent on what type of player they are and the various reasons one plays souls games. For clarification, I myself play these games for the PvP first and foremost so everything else, World/Lore/Bosses etc are all secondary to the PvP interactions and depth which DS2 is the pinnacle in this regard, for example Elden Ring and DS3 advanced PvP tech amounts to good spacing and situational hard swapping, now if we look at DS2 we have: good spacing, situational swapping, Utilizing the unique back step I frame for positioning and set up parrying, Lock off strats for dead angles because DS2 by far has the best lock off combat, animation canceling for setup combos/roll catching and the list goes on. Now from a PvE only perspective I completely understand why the game is so hated, if someone plays these games for the unique yet familiar PvE elements one would expect from other Souls entries, then personally I would agree all the other games are superior in that regard (Just my opinion).

Nice!

I have to admit, the moment I heard all the hate being quoted in that montage I expected Matthew Matosis to be included in the links....

Great Work!

why call this a "retrospective" if you aren't going to leave surface level analisis, if you aren't going to put the effort into looking how this game was when it released, why bother to make this video at all, if you dont have anything new to say, im not expecting some hot take nor a contrarian level of opion, i just belive that even after a decade there's something new to talk about, your gameplay perfectly summarizes how shallow your video is. I'm not saying you have to dump your entire life into this game to finally understand it, nor that you have to waste 500hrs or so just to make a youtube video, i'm not saying that if you play in a certain way you are a morron and the only way to play is my way, i'm not doubting whatever pasion you have for this game or the making of this video. What im trying to say is that this video is lazy and a waste of time. And it goes to show how there's really nothing new under the sun.

Best Souls 2 <33

Dang I watched all of this video and there is a lot of misinformation. Sad

Dark Souls 2 is the best of the trilogy

Ds2 didn't fail financially,you can go see how many copies ds2 sold compared to ds1,they are fairly the same