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The pvp is unmatched. period. I probably put more hours into the pvp in this game than in world of warcraft. So addictive. But yeah fashion souls was pretty good too, so many outfits.
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU The only real issue with the PvP is Soul Memory, but otherwise it always seemed to me DS2 has gotten a lot of hate for no clear reason. The tone is different, for sure, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since I get the feeling the different tone is mostly due to the fact DS2 shows you the end of the world from an angle that hasn't really been explored in the others. While DS1 seems to happen slightly before the apocalypse proper, and DS3 straight up happens DURING the apocalypse, DS2 shows you the world way, way after everything burned down and the ashes have settled. Hence the somewhat oneiric "peace of death" feeling it has to it. It's a very interesting thing to do, I think. DS1 and 3 are a great city fire, DS2 is a quiet overgrown ruin.
@@Furymgs3 The game got so much childish hate cos Miyazaki wasnt involved, and the game was made in a bit different direction as you mentioned. Then when DS3 came out and Miyazaki was more involved it was suddenly praised again, even tho these many aspects of the game were pretty bad again, and it barely felt like DS1 again, besides some of the graphical visual aspects I guess. DS3 lacked the grandiosity, it lacked good pvp which was overall somehow even worse than ds1 pvp, probably cos everyone is just jumping around chugging estus, the atmosphere is worse too (the bigger the number after "dark souls" the less dark the setting was), world areas connection are worse, pve introduced many enemy and boss types you forget a few hours after you finish the game and also the little story progressions of these NPC characters were absolutely terrible, I dont think I finished even one of those naturally during the gameplay while you in DS1 you normally finish 2 or 3 without having to go to wiki to look up how to progress it or finish it. Overall imo DS3 is the worst game of all the 5 games, yet the title goes to DS2 because of children who can't objectively rate anything because...they're children obviously.
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU what the fuck ?? man dark souls 2 fans just hate on 3 for no fucking reason. Just because there is dark souls in the name does not mean the games setting needs to be in a fucking dark ass dungeon all the time, though there is no shortage of that in ds3 either, and ds3 is the worst of the 3 dark souls ?? mate the quality of bosses in dark souls 3 is far, far greater than dark souls 2, y'know that's sort of the most important part of souls ? The lore, the bosses, the overarching plot, but yeah sure "children who can't objectively rate anything because...tHey aRe cHilDrEn" shut up with that pretentious bullshit chief
@@steepledmender8502 Crown of The ivory king had frigid outskirts which is worse than the run to blue smelter demon and sir alonne combined Edit: Crown of the ivory king not the boss
@@Vilehlm It's worth a play - I love it - but your preferences will greatly affect whether it's worth it to you personally. If you can imagine enjoying a version of DS1 that's somehow clunkier but vast and colorful, DS2's got ya'. If you wished DS1 was smoother, more like a proper action game and don't mind excessive gray/brown, skipping to 3 may be a better time.
@@Vilehlm personally its a really good game with simply more flaws than the other ones. You would be missing out by not playing it, but dark souls 3 wont be really ruined for you if you do decide to play it first
It has been years already that the community realized DS2 is amazing, ever since SotFS came out theres more love than hate for DS2 - except for casuals who think its still cool to hate on DS2.
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 I played vanila way back on PS3 and later played SotFS on PS4. I'm gonna be honest, if you approach it slowly and methodically you'll get through most encounters just fine. (and probably won't even notice the differences.) The only area where I feel like the enemy placement is reealy all over the place is the Tower of Flame. The dragon and a bunch of Heide Knights was quite unnessesary
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 People have been hating this game since it first came out, it has nothing to do with SotFS. The hate stems from it being different and not from Miyazaki.
Dark Souls 2 was incredibly difficult for me to get the hang of, but once I beat it, I realized that learning how to win that game somehow made me better at all the other fromsoft titles. Like there was a set of skills I was missing, I just hadn't been forced into learning it until being forced to by the slowness of DS2. Knowing where to position myself, how to lure enemies into places where they're more vulnerable, how to take on large crowds with a limited amount of stamina, etc. These were all skills I kind of knew from DS1, but could kind of work around because of how the faster games taught me to brute force everything. After DS2, Elden Ring was cake. The enemies moved way faster, but it didn't matter cause I had developed my instincts and I knew what to do.
Yeah, I've always said that DS2 *heavily emphasizes* all the things FromSoft fans in the DS1 era said that they liked. It turned out in practice that most people just parroted ideas and really just found it frustrating. Since Bloodborne we've got more typical character action games but DS2 is still strict enough to teach you how to be patient.
Yep! Most people don't realize that Dark Souls 2 isn't the same as the other games. The pacing you have to take in it is sloooow, you need to be very methodical, so people coming from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 will have a very bad time early on. Tbf tho adp is a meme
@@RahmpageChicken adp at least is functional and gives you worthwhile benefits should you choose to invest in it beats the resistance stat from ds1 in potential utility by a long shot
@@mollysexton6005 Fume Knight is a bastard, he was one of the hardest ones for me in my first playthrough. Have just started my 2nd playthrough a year later, hopefully he is in a better mood this time.
1. Adaptability. 2. Jump attacks for the crystal lizards (or just keep 1 weapon slot reserved for the mace which fucks them up and knocks them on their backs in 1 hit making it super easy to finish them) 3. Bows are incredibly useful and make so many parts of the game so much easier. Also some of the "puzzles/secrets" kind of need a bow to set off. 4. Falchion and mace are OP in this game. 5. LIGHTNING! Lightning infusions, lightning miracles, lightning urns, lightning buffs, lightning xbow bolts, lightning arrows... LIGHTNIIIING! That is all.
@@theonlyzanny My entry into this series was with Dark Souls 2 and that was enough to get me excited about the Souls series. It's nice to see that you like it as much as I do. =)
They tried so many new things in DS2. Mirror boss invasion, powerstance, small soap stone, fast travel from beginning, better bird/ nest trading, Rat covenant, pyromancer waifu and more. DS2 is so underrated!!!
I wonder if Zanny noticed he was doing the gargoyles with the Company of Champions covenant active, where the enemies deal 50% more damage and have 20% more damage resistance
Im pretty sure he was aware. BUT! What he probably didnt realize IS if you Rush the gargoyles, you fight them 2 at a time. But if you play the patient game you Will ger overrun
I remember dying twice to Alonne and uninstalling the game. I had already fought all the harder bosses but no way I was going through that memory again. Loved the power stance though, big miss in ds3
Blue smelter demon, Sir Alonne, Lud and Zallen and the boss trio in the sunken city have such garbage run ups because the areas were very likely designed to be played in coop - which is a questionable choice in a DS game, but still. The group of statues after the bonfire lets you see the summoning signs of players from outside the DLC gates (where a group of identical statues is located), pre-SotFS this meant that players without the DLC could get a sneak peek of it and obtain some items from it (enemies there have special drop tables if you're a phantom).
Honestly i don’t think any of the Dark Souls trilogy is bad. It’s just that one or two of them will stand out a lot to a player, which makes the others feel less in comparison. They’re all really well designed games imo, even considering DS1 was unfinished, DS2 jank, and DS3 linearity
Yeah gotta love those ganks that spawn from thin air, wonky hit boxes and floaty combat animations. Oh don’t forget the plethora of uninteresting easy bosses and linear levels. 10/10
Scholar of the First Sin was the first souls game I ever played and I loved it at the time. I thought to myself it was just like every other souls game. I didn’t know at the time about its reputation. I got really good at it and it was my favorite and only game for the longest time. I beat it up to ng+3. And then all the other games were a lot easier. Now they are my favorite series of games. I think I have Stockholm syndrome with this game.
@@mr.bubbles8351 I feel like I'm biased towards DS2 a bit because I never really dealt with this problem that soured the game for so many people. It turns out the deadzones for the sticks are just horrible and it was easy enough to fix on PC.
@@mr.bubbles8351 "The only thing that sucked in dark souls 2 is the player character movement." And the enemy spam. And the broken world design. And the completely ruined healing pace. And the variable i-frame window that significantly limited their options for boss design. And the relative lack of unique bosses. And the utter failure of the lock-on to actually allow you to hit certain targets, like the crawlers on the floor in Prowling Magus and Congregation. And the unique one-time-kill enemies that had incredibly rare drops. Don't get me wrong, I _love_ Dark Souls 2. I have hundreds of hours in that game, I've beaten it many times, and I've gained the red phantom super aura, _twice_ , from dueling in the Brotherhood of Blood arena, and I have hundreds of invasions on each of my invader characters, including my blue sentinel. It has many, many significant problems that were steps backward, rather than forwards, for the series, and to this day when I'm reminded of that, I weep for the lost potential, for what could have been.
Yea I played dark souls 1 first when it was free in june back in 2013 for xbox, i got smashed a lot and quit after about a month, when dark souls 2 rolled around I watched a bit of radbrad and lpdsHD and he got me through game, I was only like 14 and didn't have any experience with those sorts of games, just shooters and rpg's and stuff, but yea I got addicted and beat it a few times, still have a soft spot for it...
@@sarcasm4371 I don't think that's quite fair. It's definitely the weakest entry in the series, by a significant margin, but it's not _bad_ . There are a lot of good games out there today, that Dark Souls 2 still outclasses. Yes, it has problems that make it frustrating to play, but it is, at the very least, worth one playthrough if you have never played it before and you're a Souls fan. Some positives: It has unique, mechanically complex spells and weapons that enable all sorts of builds. Best covenant systems of any of the games. Best netcode of any of the games. Best online mechanics (in terms of connectivity between areas, via the human effigy system), of any of the games. It has some positives.
14:14 this room has its trick. There's one point where you can shoot a fire arrow to destroy a barrel and opening a door that was previously stuck. From this door you can defeat an enemy who throws you bombs and you'll have a good shooting place for the bow. Bows are IMO essential in this game, that's why they added a third slot for weapons per hand and also why it's so easy to level up
Bows in DS2 were so good. A tiny bit too good in PVP considering the lock on with them was really strong, too perfect for finishing off a low HP opponent. But just so good in PvE, good enough to be incredibly useful, but not good enough to make the game trivial. Dragonrider bow gang
"Seek,seek,lest.."Know that dialogue skip all too well😂 Loved the emerald herald, partially because ds2 was my first souls game, but mainly because she set an appropriate tone for her character. As if everything she tells you has been said before to bumerous people before you came along, like she did not want to pile her hopes upon you succeeding, pretty fitting
I love how he was in the covenant of champions for more than half of these clips. 1000% he wouldn't have struggled against the gargoyles in literally any other covenant.
Dark Souls 2 also had some fun little additions I really enjoyed. Like the Covenant of Champions to give you a bit of extra challenge and change things up slightly with some new NPC invaders and rewards you with a Ring that gives strength scaling to your bare fists, it was dope or built in challenges like being awarded rings to make your weapons invisible when you clear the game without dying or resting at bonfires.
Actually might be my favorite souls game. Despite the glitchy game mechanics and awful rolling the game has such a great vibe and the areas are so beautiful. The music just has such a unique sound and style. Something cool is that My name is Zaniel and my family usually calls me Zanny or Zan so thought it was a cool coincidence when I found out abt your channel.
Totally agree, areas are so interesting in this game and varied. Alot of areas in souls seem like such a flat texture gameplay wise but DS2 is good at keeping it varied.
That guy was a badass. Made his palace on top of the Old Chaos to always be ready to fight whatever comes out and successfully uncorrupted a daughter of Manus. All while knowing she wanted to usurp him.
Ivory King, Maliketh, Gael, and Radahn. Alonne, Artorias, Midir, and Gwyn also though, and Sif. Honestly, they're all good. Wish we knew more about Laurence/Ludwig.
It’s a good game. I just wish people could praise it more without always feeling the need to add random caveats about it. Every souls game is different but dark souls 2 is the only one where people act like it’s weird for not being like the others.
It's not just different it have a lot of flaws (the kind of flaws that can make you hate the game and it's understandable). But the game have also some good idea like powerstance. And the fact that the lore of the game does not seem to correspond with the other two at first sight can explain why this game is apart.
@@stareeknight8839 No idiot, it's the same way that people always preface anything related to a certain subject with "I don't like X but" just to make their opinion "acceptable" within the community, it's completely unnecessary
I felt the same way when I played DS2, I was totally expecting to be underwhelmed but didn't care as I simply needed more Souls. Sure it definitely has its flaws, but it has some great areas, near endless options for weapons spells and armor(which you can upgrade for the only time in the series), has one of the best NG+ modes where things are actually switched up, and one of the best hub areas in gaming equipped with HANDS DOWN the greatest music. I REALLY like this game. Like, more than a friend...
Chariot isn't that bad since you can jump on the sides of those things at the end of the bridge, and since the enemies can't reach you, they stop being aggro'd. The difficulty of the run back to the Darklurker depends on which dungeon(?) you do last
After everything ive heard about the boss runs and playing it myself, Iron Passage, Cave of the Dead, Memory of Iron King and other "bad boss runs" wasnt that bad actually. All the enemies can be annoying but with good dodging you can get to the boss with only being hit once or twice. I was running a dual Greatsword build but i dont think that affects the boss run that much. All that doesnt apply to the Winter Wonderland tho, that area has a special place in hell and the developers that came up with the idea of that area is a terrible person
@@ashikjaman1940 bonfire ascetics were awesome. in ER you can only get unique weapons once per run or by trading, and the game is too long for me to play ng+
The dodging in this game transformed from “roll through a nuclear explosion” to “roll out of the nuke’s explosion range before it goes off A.K.A slightly more realistic”
Fun fact: The Emerald Herald was supposed to be a child, but they changed it up last minute. That's why a lot of her animations are super cutesy/childlike
The spambush gets old real fast in ds2 tho plus agility/adp is a stupid mechanic that pushes people to make raw weapon builds for the first half of the game while they level up adp until their agility gives them a half decent roll and it doesn't take an eon to sip estus.
@@aidanderson53X ADP always seems to be one of the reasons people shit on Dark Souls 2 and I don't get it. Dark Souls 2 is my favorite of the series and I never put points into ADP. I build my character exactly like I do in all the other games and ignore ADP because I forget it's even there. If it somehow ruins the game for you then don't put points into it? Plus raw weapon builds exist in all of the other Soulbourne games as well considering one of the "safest" ways to play the game is to get a good weapon that doesn't have great scaling and them max out END and VIG so you aren't as heavily punished for spamming attacks and not avoiding attacks.
@@atrozzorta9602 the reason adp ruins the game is because you waste like 20 levels to level a stat that is disproportionately powerful compared to every other stat available to you. Rolling makes you invincible due to i-frames. The way adp works (ironically adp doesn't even matter it's agility that matters it's just adp is the only stat that raises agility other than attunment but it raises agility more than attunment). Why would I level any stat other than the stat that makes me invincible longer? Not taking damage is going to be infinitely better than getting 30 hp, 1 stamina, or like 3 points in damage on your main weapon. You only have 5 I frames with the base roll or 1/8 of a second. Compare this to having 105 agility (like 35 adp or something like that) which gives you 13 I frames which is almost half a second (base ds2 was in 30 fps so the calculations are off of base 30 not base 60 although scholar fixes this but just double the numbers). This makes your roll significantly better because you can actually roll through attacks instead of getting clipped at the end of the animation. Sure you can ignore the stat but it's objectively inoptimal to do so because the stat is disproportionately more powerful which significantly decreased build diversity pre level 50-75. This isnt to mention the fact that increasing adp significantly decreases the time it takes to use items specifically to drink estus. It goes from an eon to a manageable amount of time to actually pull off in combat compared to using life gems. Due to people pretty much being required to pump adp to like 30 or so at least for the game to have anything close to the i-frames from ds1, most players use low stat requirement weapons with shit scaling or high base damage. The most prevalent one is the fire longsword because it does like 150 damage and you can use it with base stats or with like 1-2 levels in either str or dex iirc. Don't excuse shitty game design just because you like the game. Just because you enjoyed the game doesn't mean there are poor game design choices made when Miyazaki didnt have oversight over the project. Also adp isn't the reason people hate ds2 it's just the icing on the cake. People hate ds2 because it has shitty encounter design and poor average boss quality (prowling magus and congregation is an egregious example of this). Like 95% of player deaths are from the infamous spambush. It's like the designers didn't understand what made ds1 difficult and just mashed the paste key like 20 too many times in every encounter which just leads to consistent player frustration when they die and boring encounters since you either just run past everything to the next bonfire because it's boring and tedious to do the level normally (like the shrine of Amana) or backtracking to a choke point and taking the enemies one or two at a time as they squeeze through a doorway.
happy to see more people being able to enjoy darksouls 2 for what it is. also its really funny how much issue you had with hitting the crystal lizards xD i never saw someone have such a hard time with them and it made me giggle.
If you play DS1 first then DS2's core mechanics are like a kick to the teeth, but as a standalone game its very good. The only problem is that its so experimental starting it after one of the other games is a massive change people often don't like
Epic lows? Like what? The lows of DS3 are still better than literally 60% of Bloodborne, DS2 and DS1. That's the beauty of DS3. Insane consistent quality, more than any other game I've ever played. Yes it played it relatively safe (at least until the DLCs which truly completed and elevated the game), but as an offset it basically has no lows. I used to dislike the Curse Rotted Greatwood for example, but after playing the other games and fighting shit like Taurus Demon, Micolash, and Freyja, I've come to realize that mechanically, even the Curse Rotted Greatwood is actually a super solid fight. And it's fun to burst its pustules with massive damage, learning its timing so you can pull off a tremendously long spell or weapon art. The lows of DS3 are like the mid to highs of other games. The highs of DS3 are at the apex of gaming.
This is still my favorite in the series outside of Bloodborne. Imo DS2 is so criminally underrated. Especially as a coop game. There is so much pve/pvp content that is just a blast to do with a friend. Roaring Halberd/Dark Magic is also the best build in the game. Hmu for tips, my pvp was legendary. Backstep r1 1h and charge r2 2h will terrify any opponent you face. Also get affinity and dark greatsword. Cheers!
I think DS2 has the most overall content. It took me 90 hours to fully explore every last thing on a playthrough. There's a lot here, and they made the pathways wider so your sword doesn't deflect off of the wall quite so easy. There's pictures on the bonfire warp. That's just a nice touch. I think the reason people didn't like it is because they took meaningful names off of the bosses. Instead of Ornstein you're fighting The Dragonrider, and stuff like that. It makes it seem more generic. It's also very easy to miss the pathway switch (to make the room shift) that puts you going in the right direction, early on.
@@Chimchimchuno, it has nothing to do with names. There’s plenty of properly named bosses in ds2. There’s plenty of vaguely named bosses in ds1. I mean asylum demon is iconic. Taurus demon is great. Capra demon kinda sucks ass. Most of the fights in ds2 are just entirely unmemorable or bad.
my favorite of the series as it was the first introduction to power stancing, the amount of memes and discovery it gave out in the community when it came out such as the dual blade helicopter build
I remember getting the game on sale in GameStop, because I wanted to prove to myself that I was a "real gamer", and it was my first souls game. A rage induced 6 month break and over 300 deaths later I completed dark souls 2 on my first character. Absolutely love the game to bits!
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 I’ve played both and let me tell ya playing ng+ was crazy lol running into new enemies in spots like I remember I think there were 2 purserers at somewhere was freaking scary lol and I think there was a dragon before the old dragon slayer boss. I was blown away quite literally and metaphorically. 😂
Oh and yeah the hub of Dark Souls 2 is by far the best hub of any of the series... heck, any game even. I LOVE just sitting there with the music playing and the wind blowing hearing the seagulls and the blacksmith's hammer tinking away. I used to leave dark souls 2 open when i went to bed so the sounds would lull me to sleep. It's seriously just so relaxing and beautiful. I could listen to it forever. It's such a relief to return to Majula after fighting spider infested zombies or demons or giant knights who pin you to the wall with arrows the size of a tree... the tension melts away and you feel relaxed and relieved after another hard adventure. You return to Majula and feel like a weight is being lifted from your shoulders. Absolutely 10/10 location.
that's questionable bcs dark souls 3 chapel is also very good, especially with the lore around Iudex and Champion Gundyr. But aside of that Majula have it's own feel with the points of entry to every chainlocation.
It’s chapel is ass. None of the npc’s are worth talking to anyways and all of them are just copies of ds1 npc’s regardless. It doesn’t even have personality to justify it.
@@darkphoenix2 That and the hitboxes are usually like that in all games anyways. The only issues DS2 had in this regard were the lack of tied to polish the animations and finish the lighting, to be honest. Thanks, Bamco.
Zanny: "Gank fights are the fucking worst." Also Zanny: "I love Dark Souls 2." That's a paradox so great it would fry the circuits of a hyper-intelligent AI.
I was so obsessed with Dark Souls for so long, when I first heard of ds2 I lost my mind. People hate on it now but I have nothing but love for it. Great memories.
I love that Zanny references Ser Arthur Dayne from GoT. Idk it’s just cool that he made a build based off of an obscure character from that series. Thank you Zan this vid made my day.
@@Demha96 I'll never understand why you people think that's some kind of gotcha. Yeah I have an anime pfp, what of it? Would my words carry more weight if I had a picture of myself or some politician? Or if I had no picture at all?
First fromsoft game I played. Love it. The powerstance mechanic is so good how you can stance different weapons. This game helped me not rely on a shield and it’s made all the other games more enjoyable for that
You realize a non shield character is viable in Demon's and DS1 out the gate right? I beat Demon's using a pole arm and magic, no shield. DS1 I did a two hand strength build, no shield. DS2 has nothing in the way of gameplay to discourage shield use. In fact you get a shield vendor before a weapons vendor, with said shield vendor selling a 95 block shield out the gate. Almost sounds like they encourage shield use.
@@Foreseer117 I said first game I played. First. First. power stance was interesting, which led me to not use a shield later in the game. That changed how I played the other games. When I played them, after ds2. Because before ds2 would mean I didn’t play it ds2 first.
@@kiopsm8825 You would be amazed at how dumb people can be really. Not in the intellect way but in the ability to process information and apply it. I remember watching a livestream and the person had a shield equip but never used it. and this wasnt like Grasscrest or something like that just a normal shield and they just never blocked. Didnt even bother 2 handing the weapon.
The art design is fucking tops. And a lot of story concepts from DSII were refined and reused in Elden Ring. Also so many obscure mechanics ... I loved it! Glad some are beginning to reevaluate it.
DS2 is my favorite of the series. I joined in on ds1 too late for the fun and multiplayer, with almost all secrets known, DS2 not only was fresh, it had so many improvements that everybody ignores and just calls out inconveniences to make it look bad. I like the exploration, emerald herald (best waifu), combat variance, world (though it IS unfinished), and the npc's. Simply the fact that Phantoms sometimes behave like real people threw me off hard and I love it for that.
I like DS2 way better than DS3, though I can still recognize DS3 is a hell of a good game. I much prefer a game to be ambitious and fail in some ways, than a game that plays safe at every which turn and succeeds. DS3 borrows so much from DS1's aesthetic, yet fails to make its world feel even half as memorable. DS2 isn't afraid to bring some crazy ideas to the table, it is for better or for worse its own thing, and the ammount of hate it gets is unjustified. It's actually quite funny to see the backlash phenomenon happening to Elden Ring as well. Probably happened to Sekiro too, but in a much smaller scale. A good part of the community lashes out at every flaw a new entry has, little as they may be, just so they can make the old thing they like look better. They couldn't recognize each game has its own strengths and weaknesses to save their lifes, and that coupled with the obnoxious behavior regarding playstyles whenever someone new gets into these games is why I stopped wanting to be part of the community as a whole.
The enemy placement and density is actually pretty good in the base game, thing is they changed around where all the enemies are and how many in scholar of the first sin.
When Zanny was talking about all the good things it reminded me of DS3, I hope he really likes it, never played Dark souls 2 but I’ve always thought that it looked a lot different from the others, in a good way. It’s ui and ascetic look pretty cool
DS2 is underrated; not as smooth as anything after it, but weapon variety and overall content is some of my favorite in the series. Best pvp too hands down.
@@gladiumthebrazilian7803 it might, but I’m not sure. Most weapons though can be viable aside from a few I can remember. Definitely has the most fashion options, and armors with special effects
@@gladiumthebrazilian7803 Ah yes a fellow scholar of the fist, was always dope just drop kicking fools off the Brothers of blood bridge, although you can't beat the pyro combos (forbidden sun op)
I love this souls phase zanny is getting into. If you finish all the souls, i really recommend the Nioh series. Both games are amazing and hard as hell!
Majula is the best hub area in the trilogy. Nostalgic and calming music, sound of the ocean and birds puts me in tranquility and the scenery is a sight to behold. It feels like you are in a safe place filled with people who are just there living the best way they can and is happy to support you in your grim adventure, it's a place where I would go to just to feel at home. I also use the music to help me sleep.
DS2 was my into to dark souls since i only had a PC and Xbox360 ever, and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. I love the game and how you could powerstance weapons of the same group to make your own dual wield builds. I understand why later games removed it to simplify dual wield stuff, but i still preferred it. Dual falchions was so sweet :D
DS2 was my first souls game and I honestly love it! I have only one gripe against it (obviously aside from ADP) that one this will be is the fact the most weapons have the durability of papier-mâché 😂
A fellow dark souls 2 enjoyer! Real Chad right here. Honestly, your description of the game at 7:43 (plus my love for the torch mechanic) is exactly how I felt about the game
In a world of hyperbole and extremes, ds2 not being better than the others means that people will call it trash and terrible. I think its a fantastic game and Ive poured SO many hours into it
There's a fantastic game under many horrible design decisions and bugs. I have the platinum for it too, but it was infuriating so many time because it could have been so good.
@@basedneet_n3w0rd3ro. Bugs it barely had boderline doesn’t even have and some of the most polished game design decisions in the series. Shut up with the objectively wrong bad takes.
Many people like/liked it. It's differently growing up with it rather than just trying it out right now though. Takes a bit to adjust but after that it becomes quite fun
For those who have yet to play this, please use a torch in the off hand in the spider area. It just makes them scared of you, so the boss doesn’t become a gank
In fact torches are great for a exploring, they just work a bit different to other souls games. Every time you pick up a torch you gain extra 5 minutes on your torch time, so you only have one but you can just use it for longer when it’s lit. So use them!
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P.S. The timestamp in the video is wrong. It's actually 7:01
I saw the thumbnail and I know it’s a good vid
The phone is a mimic
@@spyboy4987 rtx4x45 y frx se r de f ya f6fff5x a rfzt
We need a remake 😭 I love the story
Zanny can you recommend total war Warhammer 3
Now imagine if someone told Zanny that the spiders leave you alone if you have a torch out
yeah but thats no fun.
@@jbaig1 but the anger you know he will feel is worth it, no?
@@jbaig1 That's why you Do it after he finishes the game
Delete this rn he might notice it lmao
@@dantefromdevilmaycry9857 W
I love zanny’s ‘i was lied to series’
@RR what a bot
We should lie to him more often
"I was LIED to"
@RR what a digital dummy
No shit, we all do. Lol
"They are afraid of death"
- Zanny 1 second before fleeing
@RR let's be honest we did not.
@RR no. But im reporting you though
Lol i read this as that part happened in the video🤣
@@nathanosthegamr2227 what did rr say? Yt deleted the comment
"surprise mf"
The fashion souls in DS2 is unmatched, and pretty much any build you go for in the game can be viable.
The pvp is unmatched. period. I probably put more hours into the pvp in this game than in world of warcraft. So addictive. But yeah fashion souls was pretty good too, so many outfits.
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU The only real issue with the PvP is Soul Memory, but otherwise it always seemed to me DS2 has gotten a lot of hate for no clear reason.
The tone is different, for sure, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially since I get the feeling the different tone is mostly due to the fact DS2 shows you the end of the world from an angle that hasn't really been explored in the others. While DS1 seems to happen slightly before the apocalypse proper, and DS3 straight up happens DURING the apocalypse, DS2 shows you the world way, way after everything burned down and the ashes have settled. Hence the somewhat oneiric "peace of death" feeling it has to it. It's a very interesting thing to do, I think. DS1 and 3 are a great city fire, DS2 is a quiet overgrown ruin.
@@Furymgs3 The game got so much childish hate cos Miyazaki wasnt involved, and the game was made in a bit different direction as you mentioned. Then when DS3 came out and Miyazaki was more involved it was suddenly praised again, even tho these many aspects of the game were pretty bad again, and it barely felt like DS1 again, besides some of the graphical visual aspects I guess. DS3 lacked the grandiosity, it lacked good pvp which was overall somehow even worse than ds1 pvp, probably cos everyone is just jumping around chugging estus, the atmosphere is worse too (the bigger the number after "dark souls" the less dark the setting was), world areas connection are worse, pve introduced many enemy and boss types you forget a few hours after you finish the game and also the little story progressions of these NPC characters were absolutely terrible, I dont think I finished even one of those naturally during the gameplay while you in DS1 you normally finish 2 or 3 without having to go to wiki to look up how to progress it or finish it. Overall imo DS3 is the worst game of all the 5 games, yet the title goes to DS2 because of children who can't objectively rate anything because...they're children obviously.
@@NotEvenDeathCanSaveU what the fuck ?? man dark souls 2 fans just hate on 3 for no fucking reason. Just because there is dark souls in the name does not mean the games setting needs to be in a fucking dark ass dungeon all the time, though there is no shortage of that in ds3 either, and ds3 is the worst of the 3 dark souls ?? mate the quality of bosses in dark souls 3 is far, far greater than dark souls 2, y'know that's sort of the most important part of souls ? The lore, the bosses, the overarching plot, but yeah sure "children who can't objectively rate anything because...tHey aRe cHilDrEn" shut up with that pretentious bullshit chief
@@royd209 I see you have some issue lol, I hope you get well. And I am sorry you found yorself in that last sentence.
"They put bonfiers outside bossrooms, that's awesome"
Blue smelter demon: "Are you sure about that?"
Ha! Personally I laughed at that remembering the Sir Alonne run back.
Terrible, F
The brume tower dlc was full of bad boss rushes but despite that it is easily one of the best souls games dlcs
Dont forget reindeer fuck land
Man right? I eventually just tried to despawn everything
@@steepledmender8502 Crown of The ivory king had frigid outskirts which is worse than the run to blue smelter demon and sir alonne combined
Edit: Crown of the ivory king not the boss
Here we can witness Danny’s slow descent into madness as he purposefully fights the hardest bosses in gaming
Danny?
Danny
Danny?
@@dreamlessking9 dark-zanny.
Danny?
Love that your twitch chat didn't tell you that having a torch out makes the spiders avoid you lol
I love that I've been playing this game since launch and I didn't know that 💀
We are no longer the Knights who say Ni, we now say ikki-ikki-ikki ptang zoo boing.
@@Pandemia616 this is just for Scholar version, not vanilla, maybe that is why you don't know.
@@ambience273 ah yeah makes sense. I haven't played the base version in a long time.
@@ambience273 it's the same in normal version I'm pretty sure
With Zanny on our side the dark souls 2 appreciators may rise. I know Im 2 months late to this, but still.
i just finished ds1 should i play this game or skip to ds3? many ppl hated it
@@Vilehlm It's worth a play - I love it - but your preferences will greatly affect whether it's worth it to you personally.
If you can imagine enjoying a version of DS1 that's somehow clunkier but vast and colorful, DS2's got ya'.
If you wished DS1 was smoother, more like a proper action game and don't mind excessive gray/brown, skipping to 3 may be a better time.
@@CaptWolfy i will give it a try, thank you!
@@Vilehlm personally its a really good game with simply more flaws than the other ones. You would be missing out by not playing it, but dark souls 3 wont be really ruined for you if you do decide to play it first
It has been years already that the community realized DS2 is amazing, ever since SotFS came out theres more love than hate for DS2 - except for casuals who think its still cool to hate on DS2.
If you consume more than one life gem at once, the healing speed stacks.
I like how the boss theme from Thymesia always sneaks into a Zanny video now
Does anyone actually skip to the timestamps? Why would you? Zanny's videos are so worth to watch fully
Ds2 was my first souls game and I loved every minute of it, not to mention it has arguably the best fashion souls out of all the games
cope
My coolest part of dark souls 2 was finding out when you have a torch equipped no spider attacks you, MIND BLOWING
I thought that was cool too. I like how they even have to a big brother in elden Ring.
It should be noted that this feature was only implemented in the Scholar version of the game.
TIL, even though I’ve run 6 different DkS2 characters
@@creepynoone7437 considering that scholar is the only one availabe for consoles, I do not see this as a genuine issue.
@@trust3474 The original DarkS2 came for PS3 and Xbox 360.
Zanny you are doing wonders for the Dark Souls 2 Loyalists I love you for this
It's such an elite game
Best souls
Elite game. Totally unwarranted hate.
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 I played vanila way back on PS3 and later played SotFS on PS4. I'm gonna be honest, if you approach it slowly and methodically you'll get through most encounters just fine. (and probably won't even notice the differences.) The only area where I feel like the enemy placement is reealy all over the place is the Tower of Flame. The dragon and a bunch of Heide Knights was quite unnessesary
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 People have been hating this game since it first came out, it has nothing to do with SotFS. The hate stems from it being different and not from Miyazaki.
Dark Souls 2 was incredibly difficult for me to get the hang of, but once I beat it, I realized that learning how to win that game somehow made me better at all the other fromsoft titles. Like there was a set of skills I was missing, I just hadn't been forced into learning it until being forced to by the slowness of DS2. Knowing where to position myself, how to lure enemies into places where they're more vulnerable, how to take on large crowds with a limited amount of stamina, etc. These were all skills I kind of knew from DS1, but could kind of work around because of how the faster games taught me to brute force everything.
After DS2, Elden Ring was cake. The enemies moved way faster, but it didn't matter cause I had developed my instincts and I knew what to do.
Yeah, I've always said that DS2 *heavily emphasizes* all the things FromSoft fans in the DS1 era said that they liked. It turned out in practice that most people just parroted ideas and really just found it frustrating. Since Bloodborne we've got more typical character action games but DS2 is still strict enough to teach you how to be patient.
Yep! Most people don't realize that Dark Souls 2 isn't the same as the other games. The pacing you have to take in it is sloooow, you need to be very methodical, so people coming from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 will have a very bad time early on.
Tbf tho adp is a meme
@@RahmpageChicken adp at least is functional and gives you worthwhile benefits should you choose to invest in it
beats the resistance stat from ds1 in potential utility by a long shot
@@dopaminecloud prove it. Make two ds1 playthroughs. One strength only snd the other res only 🤣
Souls games get a lot easier once you realise that most of the time dying doesn't even matter, once you know that you can be a lot more aggressive.
The DLC's are some of the best moments in all of the Souls games.
Dude, fighting the ivory king was peak for me
@@anothernobody1804 Hell yea. That level and everything was so amazing. The Fume Knight too.. ruled.
@@mollysexton6005 Fume Knight is a bastard, he was one of the hardest ones for me in my first playthrough. Have just started my 2nd playthrough a year later, hopefully he is in a better mood this time.
@@mollysexton6005sir alonne was such a badass fight but the runback and his grab attack are a little wack
1. Adaptability.
2. Jump attacks for the crystal lizards (or just keep 1 weapon slot reserved for the mace which fucks them up and knocks them on their backs in 1 hit making it super easy to finish them)
3. Bows are incredibly useful and make so many parts of the game so much easier. Also some of the "puzzles/secrets" kind of need a bow to set off.
4. Falchion and mace are OP in this game.
5. LIGHTNING! Lightning infusions, lightning miracles, lightning urns, lightning buffs, lightning xbow bolts, lightning arrows... LIGHTNIIIING!
That is all.
are you just listing stuff?
You forgot the part where you'll be standing behind enemies and still get sucked into their forward-facing grabs. Truly the PINNACLE of game design.
@@georgecostanza712 yeah the hitboxes are the only thing bugging me so far
@@georgecostanza712tbf that happens in every souls game i know of...
UGS powerstance🤤
"I gotta show this to the firekeeper". That was mad wholesome.
69th like
Take my like just for the Faraam Armor on the thumbnail
I understand your origin now...
No wonder For Honor is your bitch, you are literally just a souls boss roaming around dominion maps.
The thumbnail kinda looks like two claymores… Faraam highlander?
@@theonlyzanny My entry into this series was with Dark Souls 2 and that was enough to get me excited about the Souls series. It's nice to see that you like it as much as I do. =)
@@theonlyzanny and his ability to anti-gank. 🤯
They tried so many new things in DS2. Mirror boss invasion, powerstance, small soap stone, fast travel from beginning, better bird/ nest trading, Rat covenant, pyromancer waifu and more. DS2 is so underrated!!!
True, but mirror Knight boss invasion was kinda a thing alrdy because of the old monk in demons souls
pyromancer waifu LOL
Laurentius of the great swap is a waifu
Boss invasion wasn’t new. Fast travel from beginning wasn’t new either.
bonfire ascetics
I wonder if Zanny noticed he was doing the gargoyles with the Company of Champions covenant active, where the enemies deal 50% more damage and have 20% more damage resistance
Im pretty sure he was aware. BUT! What he probably didnt realize IS if you Rush the gargoyles, you fight them 2 at a time. But if you play the patient game you Will ger overrun
@@vittocrazi but if the gargoyle more then 2, they become passive
i wish every souls game had a covenant of champions
@@vittocrazi Also there's a summon for the Gargoyles. I also haven't noticed how good Strike damage is
@@wickedraptor2651 sekiro got It. But dS2 was just too early for the Gameplay mechanics
“Bonfires outside boss rooms”
The blue smelter demon would like to have a word
They really wanted to stay true to the red smelter demon run up :|
I remember dying twice to Alonne and uninstalling the game.
I had already fought all the harder bosses but no way I was going through that memory again.
Loved the power stance though, big miss in ds3
@@lambdacode1503 I managed to speedrun the location after few tries. Not very easy though.
@@lambdacode1503 the run up to Alonne is more difficult than Alonne itself.
Blue smelter demon, Sir Alonne, Lud and Zallen and the boss trio in the sunken city have such garbage run ups because the areas were very likely designed to be played in coop - which is a questionable choice in a DS game, but still. The group of statues after the bonfire lets you see the summoning signs of players from outside the DLC gates (where a group of identical statues is located), pre-SotFS this meant that players without the DLC could get a sneak peek of it and obtain some items from it (enemies there have special drop tables if you're a phantom).
After a not so pleasant playthrough of DS1 this one really picked me back up on to my feet. Loved this game to bits even with all the flaws.
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 SoTFS
Honestly i don’t think any of the Dark Souls trilogy is bad. It’s just that one or two of them will stand out a lot to a player, which makes the others feel less in comparison. They’re all really well designed games imo, even considering DS1 was unfinished, DS2 jank, and DS3 linearity
I really hate dark souls 2
But yeah dark souls 1&3 are the best things on earth
Yeah gotta love those ganks that spawn from thin air, wonky hit boxes and floaty combat animations. Oh don’t forget the plethora of uninteresting easy bosses and linear levels. 10/10
the DLCs were actually amazing.
Most memorable theming for places
The misty woods and the walk up to Castle Drangleic are my best
Scholar of the First Sin was the first souls game I ever played and I loved it at the time. I thought to myself it was just like every other souls game. I didn’t know at the time about its reputation. I got really good at it and it was my favorite and only game for the longest time. I beat it up to ng+3. And then all the other games were a lot easier. Now they are my favorite series of games. I think I have Stockholm syndrome with this game.
The only thing that sucked in dark souls 2 is the player character movement. The way it turns is so janky, it's not as smooth as dark souls 1 and 3
@@mr.bubbles8351 I feel like I'm biased towards DS2 a bit because I never really dealt with this problem that soured the game for so many people. It turns out the deadzones for the sticks are just horrible and it was easy enough to fix on PC.
@@mr.bubbles8351 "The only thing that sucked in dark souls 2 is the player character movement."
And the enemy spam.
And the broken world design.
And the completely ruined healing pace.
And the variable i-frame window that significantly limited their options for boss design.
And the relative lack of unique bosses.
And the utter failure of the lock-on to actually allow you to hit certain targets, like the crawlers on the floor in Prowling Magus and Congregation.
And the unique one-time-kill enemies that had incredibly rare drops.
Don't get me wrong, I _love_ Dark Souls 2. I have hundreds of hours in that game, I've beaten it many times, and I've gained the red phantom super aura, _twice_ , from dueling in the Brotherhood of Blood arena, and I have hundreds of invasions on each of my invader characters, including my blue sentinel. It has many, many significant problems that were steps backward, rather than forwards, for the series, and to this day when I'm reminded of that, I weep for the lost potential, for what could have been.
Yea I played dark souls 1 first when it was free in june back in 2013 for xbox, i got smashed a lot and quit after about a month, when dark souls 2 rolled around I watched a bit of radbrad and lpdsHD and he got me through game, I was only like 14 and didn't have any experience with those sorts of games, just shooters and rpg's and stuff, but yea I got addicted and beat it a few times, still have a soft spot for it...
@@sarcasm4371 I don't think that's quite fair. It's definitely the weakest entry in the series, by a significant margin, but it's not _bad_ . There are a lot of good games out there today, that Dark Souls 2 still outclasses. Yes, it has problems that make it frustrating to play, but it is, at the very least, worth one playthrough if you have never played it before and you're a Souls fan.
Some positives:
It has unique, mechanically complex spells and weapons that enable all sorts of builds.
Best covenant systems of any of the games.
Best netcode of any of the games.
Best online mechanics (in terms of connectivity between areas, via the human effigy system), of any of the games.
It has some positives.
14:14 this room has its trick. There's one point where you can shoot a fire arrow to destroy a barrel and opening a door that was previously stuck. From this door you can defeat an enemy who throws you bombs and you'll have a good shooting place for the bow. Bows are IMO essential in this game, that's why they added a third slot for weapons per hand and also why it's so easy to level up
Bows in DS2 were so good. A tiny bit too good in PVP considering the lock on with them was really strong, too perfect for finishing off a low HP opponent. But just so good in PvE, good enough to be incredibly useful, but not good enough to make the game trivial.
Dragonrider bow gang
Or just use sorceries with a binocular in the other hand
@@akiraigarashi2874 what did you just say? Is there such a gimmick?
@@starlyghtdrifter66 spell snipah
you can even just use a crossbow with fire bolts if you don't want to invest levels to use a bow.
I should NOT be laughing this hard at Zanny syncing with the Emerald Herald @14:36 "Bear, seek, seek, lest" xD
Zanny a man of dedication the John Wick of youtube 😂🤣
14:37
fr, i cannot stop laughing 🤣
-"What are you doing rn?"
-"What are any of us doing in this life?"
-"Ohhh Majula"
She's a keeper 😂
"Seek,seek,lest.."Know that dialogue skip all too well😂
Loved the emerald herald, partially because ds2 was my first souls game, but mainly because she set an appropriate tone for her character. As if everything she tells you has been said before to bumerous people before you came along, like she did not want to pile her hopes upon you succeeding, pretty fitting
I love how he was in the covenant of champions for more than half of these clips. 1000% he wouldn't have struggled against the gargoyles in literally any other covenant.
Bro literally has rock Lee's weights on
Dark Souls 2 also had some fun little additions I really enjoyed. Like the Covenant of Champions to give you a bit of extra challenge and change things up slightly with some new NPC invaders and rewards you with a Ring that gives strength scaling to your bare fists, it was dope or built in challenges like being awarded rings to make your weapons invisible when you clear the game without dying or resting at bonfires.
Its without dying or resting at a bonfire. You can still light them and drink estus
it's deathless and no resting at bonfires, can still light bonfires
My bad, its been a while. Thanks for the correction.
What sucks is that they for some stupid reason, Nerfed the hell out of the speed of the fists now it feels really awkward and slow to use.
I loved the Bonfire Ascetic system... fighting the bosses over again without having to start a new game
Dark Souls 2 was the game that got me hooked on video games, so it holds a special place in my heart.
It got me into the Soulsborne genre, so same. I'm glad it was my first because it only got better from there, but still DS2 is amazing!
wow, your entry to all games? An interesting start to say the least!
As a DS2 fan, I give you my absolute thanks zanny
oh look, a rare species.
Its a shiny!
As a DS3 fan, I unthankyou zannytizer
Always nice to see one of my kind.
How can we rare? I think think this game has a special place in our hearts as a fan of the souls series ❤
Actually might be my favorite souls game. Despite the glitchy game mechanics and awful rolling the game has such a great vibe and the areas are so beautiful. The music just has such a unique sound and style. Something cool is that My name is Zaniel and my family usually calls me Zanny or Zan so thought it was a cool coincidence when I found out abt your channel.
did you play ds2 first?
Totally agree, areas are so interesting in this game and varied. Alot of areas in souls seem like such a flat texture gameplay wise but DS2 is good at keeping it varied.
@@slippers8000 hm
ZAMN ZANIEL
ZAMN ZANIEL AR AR AR AR AR
Doing a sl1 run in DS2 at the moment and watching you rage has helped me feel better.
The "you have got to be joking" after beating the pursuer cracked me up 😂
I think my favorite story in all of soulsborne has to be the ivory kings story. just such a good narrative.
Aye. Ivory King was SATISFYING as heck! It was an honor putting him to final rest.
That guy was a badass. Made his palace on top of the Old Chaos to always be ready to fight whatever comes out and successfully uncorrupted a daughter of Manus. All while knowing she wanted to usurp him.
@@calevoid The man was a true blooded Isekai Protagonist! XD
Ivory King, Maliketh, Gael, and Radahn. Alonne, Artorias, Midir, and Gwyn also though, and Sif. Honestly, they're all good. Wish we knew more about Laurence/Ludwig.
It’s a good game. I just wish people could praise it more without always feeling the need to add random caveats about it. Every souls game is different but dark souls 2 is the only one where people act like it’s weird for not being like the others.
💯 well put
Are you saying, you wish someone could praise the game without criticizing it? seems a bit intellectually dishonest doesnt it?
It's not just different it have a lot of flaws (the kind of flaws that can make you hate the game and it's understandable). But the game have also some good idea like powerstance. And the fact that the lore of the game does not seem to correspond with the other two at first sight can explain why this game is apart.
Dark souls 2 is a good game but there are caveats. This is the same about every game, even my favorite series dead space.
@@stareeknight8839 No idiot, it's the same way that people always preface anything related to a certain subject with "I don't like X but" just to make their opinion "acceptable" within the community, it's completely unnecessary
You running away from big monsters always makes me smile lol
I felt the same way when I played DS2, I was totally expecting to be underwhelmed but didn't care as I simply needed more Souls. Sure it definitely has its flaws, but it has some great areas, near endless options for weapons spells and armor(which you can upgrade for the only time in the series), has one of the best NG+ modes where things are actually switched up, and one of the best hub areas in gaming equipped with HANDS DOWN the greatest music.
I REALLY like this game. Like, more than a friend...
The boss runs for smelter demon 1 and 2, sir alonne, Lud and Zallen, Darklurker and the chariot made me want to die.
I will never forgive Lud and Zallen for existing
Never in my life have I had to endure so much torture to fight a fucking re-skin
Chariot isn't that bad since you can jump on the sides of those things at the end of the bridge, and since the enemies can't reach you, they stop being aggro'd. The difficulty of the run back to the Darklurker depends on which dungeon(?) you do last
Why you gotta remind of these?
After everything ive heard about the boss runs and playing it myself, Iron Passage, Cave of the Dead, Memory of Iron King and other "bad boss runs" wasnt that bad actually. All the enemies can be annoying but with good dodging you can get to the boss with only being hit once or twice. I was running a dual Greatsword build but i dont think that affects the boss run that much. All that doesnt apply to the Winter Wonderland tho, that area has a special place in hell and the developers that came up with the idea of that area is a terrible person
i love that zanny's girlfriends is just as chaotic as he is i love it
I love how she instantly went with "you´re geh" lmao
@@lukas753331 Yeah, cause "geh" is bad.
@@MammalianCreature For her it would be, yes.
@@deathgu1se In general.
The power stance feature really makes me love this game. Made a duel wield hammer character and it was so badass
Made a character whose sole purpose was to Speedrun to double Fume Sword and to this day that remains my smartest Soulsborne decision
@@ashikjaman1940 bonfire ascetics were awesome. in ER you can only get unique weapons once per run or by trading, and the game is too long for me to play ng+
they make it seem more expansive than it is though. The animations have a variation of about 5 differences depending on the weapons you're holding.
It's always a good day when Zanny uploads
Fr going through the early stages of a break up and this video is legit the only thing i've cracked a smile and a laugh at today
The dodging in this game transformed from “roll through a nuclear explosion” to “roll out of the nuke’s explosion range before it goes off A.K.A slightly more realistic”
Not if you level adp. You can get triple the I frames of the first games fast roll.
No it turned the rolling into, 'Cool I rolled under the attack, so I can keep clos- wait why did I just get grabbed behind the boss?'
Fun fact: The Emerald Herald was supposed to be a child, but they changed it up last minute. That's why a lot of her animations are super cutesy/childlike
Story was altered to extend it's different game, original story involved timetravel
@@jakubgrzybek6181 Still does.
@@KarmasAB123 Not in the same way
thats a stretch of an assumption based on things that still exist in the files.
She wasn't supposed to be a child, we were supposed to time travel so she had both a child version and an adult version.
Honestly, I've always LOVED every single souls game that has come out, ever since Demon Souls. All games are masterpieces to me.
The spambush gets old real fast in ds2 tho plus agility/adp is a stupid mechanic that pushes people to make raw weapon builds for the first half of the game while they level up adp until their agility gives them a half decent roll and it doesn't take an eon to sip estus.
@@EllaKarhu just because there's a slightly smaller shit in my rice doesn't fix the fact that someone shat in my rice.
@@aidanderson53X ADP always seems to be one of the reasons people shit on Dark Souls 2 and I don't get it. Dark Souls 2 is my favorite of the series and I never put points into ADP. I build my character exactly like I do in all the other games and ignore ADP because I forget it's even there. If it somehow ruins the game for you then don't put points into it? Plus raw weapon builds exist in all of the other Soulbourne games as well considering one of the "safest" ways to play the game is to get a good weapon that doesn't have great scaling and them max out END and VIG so you aren't as heavily punished for spamming attacks and not avoiding attacks.
@@atrozzorta9602 the reason adp ruins the game is because you waste like 20 levels to level a stat that is disproportionately powerful compared to every other stat available to you. Rolling makes you invincible due to i-frames. The way adp works (ironically adp doesn't even matter it's agility that matters it's just adp is the only stat that raises agility other than attunment but it raises agility more than attunment). Why would I level any stat other than the stat that makes me invincible longer? Not taking damage is going to be infinitely better than getting 30 hp, 1 stamina, or like 3 points in damage on your main weapon. You only have 5 I frames with the base roll or 1/8 of a second. Compare this to having 105 agility (like 35 adp or something like that) which gives you 13 I frames which is almost half a second (base ds2 was in 30 fps so the calculations are off of base 30 not base 60 although scholar fixes this but just double the numbers). This makes your roll significantly better because you can actually roll through attacks instead of getting clipped at the end of the animation. Sure you can ignore the stat but it's objectively inoptimal to do so because the stat is disproportionately more powerful which significantly decreased build diversity pre level 50-75. This isnt to mention the fact that increasing adp significantly decreases the time it takes to use items specifically to drink estus. It goes from an eon to a manageable amount of time to actually pull off in combat compared to using life gems.
Due to people pretty much being required to pump adp to like 30 or so at least for the game to have anything close to the i-frames from ds1, most players use low stat requirement weapons with shit scaling or high base damage. The most prevalent one is the fire longsword because it does like 150 damage and you can use it with base stats or with like 1-2 levels in either str or dex iirc.
Don't excuse shitty game design just because you like the game. Just because you enjoyed the game doesn't mean there are poor game design choices made when Miyazaki didnt have oversight over the project.
Also adp isn't the reason people hate ds2 it's just the icing on the cake. People hate ds2 because it has shitty encounter design and poor average boss quality (prowling magus and congregation is an egregious example of this). Like 95% of player deaths are from the infamous spambush. It's like the designers didn't understand what made ds1 difficult and just mashed the paste key like 20 too many times in every encounter which just leads to consistent player frustration when they die and boring encounters since you either just run past everything to the next bonfire because it's boring and tedious to do the level normally (like the shrine of Amana) or backtracking to a choke point and taking the enemies one or two at a time as they squeeze through a doorway.
@@aidanderson53X Yeah I read none of that except the first sentence. Again if ADP ruins the game for you don't put points into it, I never do.
I’m so glad you’re playing the souls game. You’re doing exactly what I did after Elden ring
-what are you doing right now?
-what are any of us doing in this life?
-ooooh, majula
GOLD
happy to see more people being able to enjoy darksouls 2 for what it is. also its really funny how much issue you had with hitting the crystal lizards xD i never saw someone have such a hard time with them and it made me giggle.
They are terrible in this one.
I did. Me. Each lizard took many attempts
@@ambidex5383 1 Big Greatsword heavy attack, Problem solved.
@@ambidex5383 swing down for enemy on ground
I've always been baffled at the hate DS2 gets. I've actually beaten it and it's DLCs 3 times over the years and still feel like I could do it again.
Same. Always super fun.
I love it!
If you play DS1 first then DS2's core mechanics are like a kick to the teeth, but as a standalone game its very good. The only problem is that its so experimental starting it after one of the other games is a massive change people often don't like
@@rebull8262I think if dark souls 2 was made before dark souls 1 people would like it more
@@rebull8262I honestly didn't like ds1 as much as ds2. But I don't have rose tinted glasses about ds1 because I started with bloodborne
Literally cannot wait for Zanny to experience the epic highs and lows of Dark Souls 3
Dark Souls 3 is the most consistently good Dark Souls game though? It has lows, but it never ever gets as low as DS1 and 2 do.
The only lows in DS3 are The Curse-rotted Greatwood, Wolnir and the Wyvern and probably champion's graverender. Everything else is just PERFECT.
@@vagoslordofcinder7861 Exactly!
Epic lows? Like what? The lows of DS3 are still better than literally 60% of Bloodborne, DS2 and DS1. That's the beauty of DS3. Insane consistent quality, more than any other game I've ever played. Yes it played it relatively safe (at least until the DLCs which truly completed and elevated the game), but as an offset it basically has no lows. I used to dislike the Curse Rotted Greatwood for example, but after playing the other games and fighting shit like Taurus Demon, Micolash, and Freyja, I've come to realize that mechanically, even the Curse Rotted Greatwood is actually a super solid fight. And it's fun to burst its pustules with massive damage, learning its timing so you can pull off a tremendously long spell or weapon art.
The lows of DS3 are like the mid to highs of other games. The highs of DS3 are at the apex of gaming.
@@vagoslordofcinder7861 Gimmick bosses are not low points lmao why would you even think that?
This is still my favorite in the series outside of Bloodborne. Imo DS2 is so criminally underrated. Especially as a coop game. There is so much pve/pvp content that is just a blast to do with a friend. Roaring Halberd/Dark Magic is also the best build in the game. Hmu for tips, my pvp was legendary. Backstep r1 1h and charge r2 2h will terrify any opponent you face. Also get affinity and dark greatsword. Cheers!
I think DS2 has the most overall content. It took me 90 hours to fully explore every last thing on a playthrough. There's a lot here, and they made the pathways wider so your sword doesn't deflect off of the wall quite so easy.
There's pictures on the bonfire warp. That's just a nice touch. I think the reason people didn't like it is because they took meaningful names off of the bosses. Instead of Ornstein you're fighting The Dragonrider, and stuff like that. It makes it seem more generic.
It's also very easy to miss the pathway switch (to make the room shift) that puts you going in the right direction, early on.
This this this. It's my least fav of the bunch but 100% the best one to co op through with
@@Chimchimchuno, it has nothing to do with names. There’s plenty of properly named bosses in ds2. There’s plenty of vaguely named bosses in ds1. I mean asylum demon is iconic. Taurus demon is great. Capra demon kinda sucks ass. Most of the fights in ds2 are just entirely unmemorable or bad.
my favorite of the series as it was the first introduction to power stancing, the amount of memes and discovery it gave out in the community when it came out such as the dual blade helicopter build
I loved Dark souls 2. my first souls game back then it was soooo hard but i loved it.
Yeah share your experience it will always live fondly on my memories by being the first.
Same, my dad introduced me to the series by getting me it.
I remember getting the game on sale in GameStop, because I wanted to prove to myself that I was a "real gamer", and it was my first souls game. A rage induced 6 month break and over 300 deaths later I completed dark souls 2 on my first character. Absolutely love the game to bits!
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 I’ve played both and let me tell ya playing ng+ was crazy lol running into new enemies in spots like I remember I think there were 2 purserers at somewhere was freaking scary lol and I think there was a dragon before the old dragon slayer boss. I was blown away quite literally and metaphorically. 😂
Oh and yeah the hub of Dark Souls 2 is by far the best hub of any of the series... heck, any game even. I LOVE just sitting there with the music playing and the wind blowing hearing the seagulls and the blacksmith's hammer tinking away. I used to leave dark souls 2 open when i went to bed so the sounds would lull me to sleep. It's seriously just so relaxing and beautiful. I could listen to it forever. It's such a relief to return to Majula after fighting spider infested zombies or demons or giant knights who pin you to the wall with arrows the size of a tree... the tension melts away and you feel relaxed and relieved after another hard adventure. You return to Majula and feel like a weight is being lifted from your shoulders. Absolutely 10/10 location.
that's questionable bcs dark souls 3 chapel is also very good, especially with the lore around Iudex and Champion Gundyr. But aside of that Majula have it's own feel with the points of entry to every chainlocation.
It’s chapel is ass. None of the npc’s are worth talking to anyways and all of them are just copies of ds1 npc’s regardless. It doesn’t even have personality to justify it.
Majula theme is my favourite piece of music in the series
demon's souls nexus is the best my boi
@@bartoszboboryko4684 Chapel is shite, Nexus the best.
0:30 could this be the set I might wear for the rest of the game instead of using solely pants and being in human form for as long as I can?
2:30 those fateful last words, "I SAW THE TEETH!"
Not even 10 seconds in and I see the classic dark souls 2 hit boxes, never change, never change
He rolled early bro, right into the sword instead of to the side...pretty understandable even if the animation looks weird
@@darkphoenix2 That and the hitboxes are usually like that in all games anyways.
The only issues DS2 had in this regard were the lack of tied to polish the animations and finish the lighting, to be honest.
Thanks, Bamco.
@@asdergold1 The simping is real.
Zanny: "Gank fights are the fucking worst."
Also Zanny: "I love Dark Souls 2."
That's a paradox so great it would fry the circuits of a hyper-intelligent AI.
I was so obsessed with Dark Souls for so long, when I first heard of ds2 I lost my mind. People hate on it now but I have nothing but love for it. Great memories.
The comedic timing of this channel is unmatched
14:45 zanny swearing in spanish is hilarious
I love that Zanny references Ser Arthur Dayne from GoT. Idk it’s just cool that he made a build based off of an obscure character from that series. Thank you Zan this vid made my day.
19:12 zanny when the family of 5 in his basement is ‘begging to go home’ 🤓 but he’s trying to focus on dark souls
🤓🤓🤓
You're gonna love Dark Souls 3, but you're gonna miss Majula.
Dark Souls 3 is much worse
@@codafett nobody asked anime pfp
@@codafettno it's not
@@Demha96 I'll never understand why you people think that's some kind of gotcha. Yeah I have an anime pfp, what of it? Would my words carry more weight if I had a picture of myself or some politician? Or if I had no picture at all?
Dark Souls 3 is much better
First fromsoft game I played. Love it. The powerstance mechanic is so good how you can stance different weapons. This game helped me not rely on a shield and it’s made all the other games more enjoyable for that
Hbomberguy?
You realize a non shield character is viable in Demon's and DS1 out the gate right? I beat Demon's using a pole arm and magic, no shield. DS1 I did a two hand strength build, no shield. DS2 has nothing in the way of gameplay to discourage shield use. In fact you get a shield vendor before a weapons vendor, with said shield vendor selling a 95 block shield out the gate. Almost sounds like they encourage shield use.
@@Foreseer117 yes. Not what I was saying read again
@@_deadwait Absolutely what you said.
@@Foreseer117 I said first game I played. First. First. power stance was interesting, which led me to not use a shield later in the game. That changed how I played the other games. When I played them, after ds2. Because before ds2 would mean I didn’t play it ds2 first.
Ds2 is by far my favorite. So much to explore and a lot of variation in play styles and weapons. Not to mention Majula is the best
maHULA!!!!!
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 both
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054 Both! SotFS is
more stable but vanilla is where I started
Three words. Sacred Chime Hammer. Nuff said.
True OG’s have “ bear seek seek lest” carved in their brains
You know, I started my first play through last year dreading it, came back and fell in love the second time around.
4:01 "that goes straight to fucking blight town" actually pretty accurate lmao
13:07 now we wait for the “THEY FLY NOW!”
My man played this stressful ass game, without ADP and in convenant of champions.
Respect
Whats funny is most people dont know you can stack life gem effects to make the healing faster
Seriously? How do people not know that?
@@kiopsm8825 You would be amazed at how dumb people can be really. Not in the intellect way but in the ability to process information and apply it. I remember watching a livestream and the person had a shield equip but never used it. and this wasnt like Grasscrest or something like that just a normal shield and they just never blocked. Didnt even bother 2 handing the weapon.
The art design is fucking tops. And a lot of story concepts from DSII were refined and reused in Elden Ring. Also so many obscure mechanics ... I loved it! Glad some are beginning to reevaluate it.
6:20 using the orgasmic grunts from the Elden Ring opening for parries was a nice touch xD
DS2 is my favorite of the series. I joined in on ds1 too late for the fun and multiplayer, with almost all secrets known, DS2 not only was fresh, it had so many improvements that everybody ignores and just calls out inconveniences to make it look bad.
I like the exploration, emerald herald (best waifu), combat variance, world (though it IS unfinished), and the npc's. Simply the fact that Phantoms sometimes behave like real people threw me off hard and I love it for that.
Bradley > any other NPC AI.
‘Yo my dude, get over here. I’ll heal you.’
@@R1R1R2 yo bradley is the best, he keeps killing steve tho
I like DS2 way better than DS3, though I can still recognize DS3 is a hell of a good game. I much prefer a game to be ambitious and fail in some ways, than a game that plays safe at every which turn and succeeds. DS3 borrows so much from DS1's aesthetic, yet fails to make its world feel even half as memorable. DS2 isn't afraid to bring some crazy ideas to the table, it is for better or for worse its own thing, and the ammount of hate it gets is unjustified.
It's actually quite funny to see the backlash phenomenon happening to Elden Ring as well. Probably happened to Sekiro too, but in a much smaller scale. A good part of the community lashes out at every flaw a new entry has, little as they may be, just so they can make the old thing they like look better. They couldn't recognize each game has its own strengths and weaknesses to save their lifes, and that coupled with the obnoxious behavior regarding playstyles whenever someone new gets into these games is why I stopped wanting to be part of the community as a whole.
I can't say DS2 was my favorite, but it definitely left the biggest impression on me. The atmosphere is one of the best i've ever seen from a game
The faded out quiet screams are killing me lol 9:51
The enemy placement and density is actually pretty good in the base game, thing is they changed around where all the enemies are and how many in scholar of the first sin.
if you say the enemy placement is good then I am forced to assume you haven't played the other games or are just sucking this game off
Zanny's gonna be so happy to once again have functioning legs when healing in Dark Souls 3
14:37 Bear, Seek, Seek, Lest. The most memorable part of Ds2 Sotfs.
When Zanny was talking about all the good things it reminded me of DS3, I hope he really likes it, never played Dark souls 2 but I’ve always thought that it looked a lot different from the others, in a good way. It’s ui and ascetic look pretty cool
With the Champions covenant and the Maze he really made the Gargoyle fight into a challenge 😂
DS2 is underrated; not as smooth as anything after it, but weapon variety and overall content is some of my favorite in the series. Best pvp too hands down.
Does DS2 have the most amount of weapons with unique movesets?
I don't remember,all that i know is that Bone Fist fucks
Not a horrible game just not better then 1 and 3 in my opinion
@@gladiumthebrazilian7803 it might, but I’m not sure. Most weapons though can be viable aside from a few I can remember. Definitely has the most fashion options, and armors with special effects
Ds2 is my favorite dark soul idk why I just like ds2 more then ds3 since i only played these two so can’t say anything about ds1
@@gladiumthebrazilian7803 Ah yes a fellow scholar of the fist, was always dope just drop kicking fools off the Brothers of blood bridge, although you can't beat the pyro combos (forbidden sun op)
6:54 it happened to me the first time... I wasn't expecting them to appear from nowhere
11:40 seeing this covenant active on a new player first gameplay aways brings a tear onto my eyes.. that's just beautiful 🥹
I love this souls phase zanny is getting into. If you finish all the souls, i really recommend the Nioh series. Both games are amazing and hard as hell!
no. demons douls ps5 1st.
Majula is the best hub area in the trilogy.
Nostalgic and calming music, sound of the ocean and birds puts me in tranquility and the scenery is a sight to behold. It feels like you are in a safe place filled with people who are just there living the best way they can and is happy to support you in your grim adventure, it's a place where I would go to just to feel at home. I also use the music to help me sleep.
i thought only me used majula's music to sleep 😅
DS2 was my into to dark souls since i only had a PC and Xbox360 ever, and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. I love the game and how you could powerstance weapons of the same group to make your own dual wield builds. I understand why later games removed it to simplify dual wield stuff, but i still preferred it. Dual falchions was so sweet :D
DS2 was my first souls game and I honestly love it! I have only one gripe against it (obviously aside from ADP) that one this will be is the fact the most weapons have the durability of papier-mâché 😂
A fellow dark souls 2 enjoyer! Real Chad right here.
Honestly, your description of the game at 7:43 (plus my love for the torch mechanic) is exactly how I felt about the game
In a world of hyperbole and extremes, ds2 not being better than the others means that people will call it trash and terrible. I think its a fantastic game and Ive poured SO many hours into it
There's a fantastic game under many horrible design decisions and bugs. I have the platinum for it too, but it was infuriating so many time because it could have been so good.
The narrative that people call it trash is more misguided than the idea that the game is trash at this point
@@basedneet_n3w0rd3ro. Bugs it barely had boderline doesn’t even have and some of the most polished game design decisions in the series. Shut up with the objectively wrong bad takes.
@@zzodysseuszz you're either lying or haven't played the game lmao
@@basedneet_n3w0rd3r For every bug you can name in DS2 theres 4 in DS1 and DS3
Zanny: I like being rewarded for my efforts
Also zanny: I have 48 days on destiny 2
This game is so underrated thanks for bringing it to light dark souls 2 holds a special place in my heart
3:46 We need Johnny Weed to defeat it
Yea, Amber Herb is not enough...
It’s my favorite souls game for sure. It sucks that people didn’t like it but it was so addictive and creative.
Based.
How does it feel to be the only person in the galaxy to rock this opinion.
@@mikeyswift2010 I like Dark Souls 2 a lot, too.
@@mikeyswift2010 go back to ur cave
Many people like/liked it. It's differently growing up with it rather than just trying it out right now though. Takes a bit to adjust but after that it becomes quite fun
For those who have yet to play this, please use a torch in the off hand in the spider area. It just makes them scared of you, so the boss doesn’t become a gank
In fact torches are great for a exploring, they just work a bit different to other souls games. Every time you pick up a torch you gain extra 5 minutes on your torch time, so you only have one but you can just use it for longer when it’s lit. So use them!
Taking an arrow in the back while traversing a fog door....most dark souls thing ever.