I recently started playing DS2 again after quitting a few years ago. Now I know why I quit. For some reason movement and attacking feels so unresponsive sometimes. There are times that my character will just not attack and just stand there and get hit while I still have stamina. Also ADP is terrible and should have never been an attribute. Bosses are either no challenge at all or it's so hard because of hit boxes being so unreliable.
Facts. Playing right now and I've died a few times simply because my guy just didn't swing his sword for some reason. And every character should have the same I-frames regardless of attribute allocation. This stuff ruins an otherwise interesting game.
honestly, seeing FishStickOnAStick recent video of playing Dark Souls 2 reminded me why the game was on discount every time. It's horrible to the core and i legit can't tell why anyone enjoys playing it like ds2 fans, lots of builds and stuffs but to ACTUALLY enjoy it, you have like 2-3 builds to even get that ds1 challenging difficulty. People that says Dark Souls 2 was a masterpiece always comes off as contrarians for the sake of standing out, like show them his entire video and see their arguments crumble to dust
@@xecksoffender942 To be honest, not even i know why i like this game so much. I can understand why people may call it "the worst videogame every" or things like that, but something just makes me boot up DS2 instead of DS1. I'm not trying to say that one is better than the other, but i really like my shitty game. It is frustrating beyond belief and i've spent countless hours arguing about how much i play this game but i keep playing it. Well, videogames are made for people to have fun, and neither of us can decide how someone wants to have their fun. Respect DS2 fans, because we already have a game that disrespect us every single time :D.
This is the only Souls with cancels, efficient backstep dodges, shortcut to 2 handed parries ( to be faster in active frame se), delocked jumped attack with insane tracking when you lock after jump. The gameplay is jank but clé et than any other Souls. You can t love this game if you don’t learn ton play with this unique gameplay.
@@SayedSaleh313 Demon Souls: World Tendency Dark Souls 1: Poise, The ENTIRETY of Online PvP (Backstab festival), The Entirety of the Great Hollow and the Platforming in that area. Dark Souls 3: The entire healing system, especially in PVP (The Flask System offers WAY too many chances after you mess up.) Blue Sentinels Summoning (They never get summoned lmao), and both the DLCs break the games balancing wide open (They can be accessed early game and essentially give you the best gear in the game.) Each of these games have jank, broken mechanics, and poor balancing, and sure, Dark Souls II does have some of the other issues listed here (Lifegems OP), and Soul Memory is unironically garbage, but acting like Dark Souls II is the only souls game with Broken shit is downright delusional.
@@SayedSaleh313 by pointing out a blatant and stupid lie? “Ds2 is the ONLY one with broken mechanics “ I think you’re mad that I easily disproved such a dumb comment. 😂🤡
Guy complains about the bug enemy in Shrine of Amana that destroys equipment. Yet, it's piss easy to just shoot arrows, throwing knives, firebombs or other shit at him. Why lose time removing then re-equipping or breaking your own equipment? You have to come prepared by this point in the game. A ranged option is kinda mandatory if you want to have an easier time.
I played through Shrine of Amana recently and I enjoyed it. I don't really understand the complaints. It wasn't difficult unless I tried to run through everything which makes sense to be punished. It was rewarding to get through all of the areas with lots of mobs. The bugs were super easy too
Agreed, beautiful area and interesting enemies. People are refusing to use systems given to them by the game cause sweats don’t think you are a real gamer unless you wield an ultra greatsword and wear no armor. DS community is so awful and I hate them for making me think this game was the worst game ever made.
The entire area becomes a joke with a bow … which is a bad thing because the DS systems are not designed for extended periods of manual aiming at microscopic specs in the distance. The problem with the area is not that it’s hard but that what it forces the player to do to make it easier is boring.
@@ShyGuyTravel you don't need a bow at all. The mages can be evaded without even dodging and have 0 poise. Just walk up to them and take them out. Then there's a few of those other knights at the end which again have zero poise. I agree with the thought that bow cheese is boring, but by no means is it necessary.
i recently beat it and i think one of the strongest things DS2 has going for it is the story. it feels coherent enough, and you can feel the 'bts' of how the game pulled back from being something it originally wasn't i love the decrepit landscapes, namely Heide's Tower, and how you can just tell everything has been abandoned. like Heide's Tower, the knights are flat out exhausted and not aggressive right away. that's something i love when it's done correctly. we can tell from defeating Velstadt and stumbling into Vendricks room that he's a vessel of a lost man, just wandering in circles as his clothes and armor have been set aside. we can tell that there has been usurping as we fight Nashandra and see that she's abandoned her humanity for what she truly wants as a monarch - and her appearance has changed from when we previously saw her on her throne, not even allowed to walk up to her and instead speaking to her from across a gap in the wall DS1 story was coherent too, but DS2 takes it's atmosphere to another level in certain areas. idk, to me at least, the story was more confined and grounded, and my questions got answered by the end or with a little connecting of the dots
I will congratulate myself on the fact that my comment on your previous DS2 video was about how the discussion of DS2 is going through loops of "it's not that bad" - "it's not that good" - "but it's not that bad" - "but it's still bad" forever. You, too, apparently, are subject to this loop. Okay, some criticisms. 4:44 not really, you still have other options, like using magic or bows, and also with longer weapons it's possible to kite these things and retreat before they release the orange stuff. It still sucks, because the expectation the game sets for the most part is that you can use any weapon you like, but it's a separate criticism, because you don't HAVE to strip down or take durability damage. There was also something about optional areas, but then I watched further, so I deleted it.
From what I remember from my blind playthrough of the original DS2, without having played DS1 and not knowing wtf adaptability, agility or i-frames even were (lol), the Shrine of Amana was a nightmare there too, but so was the rest of the game. A nightmare I fucking loved tho'. I installed it on my high school laptop and used to play it at school sometimes. Ill never forget how I beat Smelter Demon first time, in class, while getting yelled on by my math teacher and my friends(who were also playing) sitting beside me in disbelief as both were stuck on that sucker for hours. I was a lil' shit that really needed an ass kicking, at least DS2 gave me some of it. But the memories, the discussions, the way in which we learned and theorized about the world, lore, weapons, and playstyles together were the fucking best
enemy placement in ds2 is actually the thing that made it ny favorite souls game by far, yeah bosses suck, and some places are ass. but areas are actually difficult to navigate, and overwhelming if you try to face them head-on. other souls games are consistently predictable, fairly easy with some traps, in ds2 I know there is a "method" for basically every area to make it easy. the game has a massive pile of issues but I think a big part of why people hate this game is because they played it like dark souls 1 & 3
The only enemy placement i complain about is the exploding hollows in Dragon Aerie. They just ruin the asethetic and vibe of being alone atop a windy, panoramic, dragon-dwelled mountain. It makes no sense, thematically.
Ok, controversial opinion. Why do people keep on complaining about ADP ? The game let you decide if you're good enough to spend points elsewhere, and if like most people you're not, then spend them in ADP and just accept the idea that it's been taken into acount by the devs, the difficulty has been balanced around it. It's not like you're wasting those points. I've always spent 30 to 40 points in ADP, and it didn't feel like those points were missing elsewhere, you can go as high as you want in souls game, to the point you can go 99 in each stats if you feel like it, with NG+ cycles. It's Dark Souls, not Skyrim, it lets you decide if you want to gamble and trade survavibility for DPS.
It’s not like you ever have a shortage of souls either, this is by far the easiest game to level up in, and none of the enemies in the beginning of the game imo are so difficult where those extra frames are so useful, you can get 99 agl by the time you fight pursuer
Because ADP dictates the entire balance of the game. With the other games, the developers have only 4 variables to consider when designing attacks. Light, medium, and heavy roll, plus blocking. Every attack has to be designed with the I-frames of each roll And the blocking in mind. With ADP there’s too many different variables that the devs couldn’t design enemy attacks properly. They don’t know how many I-frames a player will have when they get to veldstat or Nashandra. They don’t know how many I-frames a player will have in Drangleic castle, so they had to basically improvise Enemy attacks. This gave the enemies that janky and floaty feeling. It’s not a good mechanic and it has effects that trickle down and hurt the game as a whole. The fact that the entire balance of the game was dictated on a stat is what pissed people off. I love DS2, I love all of them. But ADP was an absolutely terrible decision.
It's a good but majorly flawed game , if you honestly think its ,, perfect ,, you either have low standards or you don't know how to measure how good a game really is ., sounds more like a fanboy comment than anything really .
I really do love it. It's such a unique experience as a souls title, and it's among my favorite games. Just felt the need to argue the other side for once.
@@ghostdude7448 well I don’t find it fun to run through every single map naked and be able visibly identify every single enemy. Dark souls would be absolutely trash without arrows as would any of the souls game. You just like an easier experience.
I like Darksouls 2 it did a thing or two better than the other games including elden ring . The pros 1 it has the best implementation of new game + with many new weapons and rings hidden behind the big con for me is how clunky it feels to play and also the adaptation stat apart from that i think the game is good. another con in darksouls 2 scholar of the first sin for me is the absurd amount of npc invasions.
The matchmaking thing must be frustrating for online players. I enjoy the enemy placements personally. And most definitely the development of DS2 was rushed but they still had that same ambition that ds1 had. I love the way ds2 feels, if only there was more interesting ng+ changes or little things like the events when lighting sconces.
When you try to do everything good, you fail to do anything great. That's how I feel about Dark Souls 2. It was super ambitious and tried so many new things, yet it's because of the quantity of ideas and mechanics that not a single one feels fully fleshed out. It's a bittersweet experience where you appreciate what's there, but can't help wonder what it could've been.
@sherman1476 gonna have to hard disagree lol. I still enjoy Dark Souls 2 quite a lot, but without a doubt in my mind, it's the most flawed game in the souls series
@@stayhydratedwalter Sure it's flawed, but it is way less flawed than DS1. DS3 is def the most flawless game of the series but it lacks anything very interesting except for very fast paced boss fights. I stand by the hill that DS2 has a better dlc than DS1 (except for the snow dlc)
Every game comes with pros and cons (not ubi/beth games with only cons). What struck me more than anything, was how after repeated farming, the enemies stop spawning. For your predator, who was killing you countlessly an hour back, has ceased to exist in the wake of your power, you become Death. No amount of power creep in any game could award me the same feeling.
From my first playtrough last year I really hated how disconnected are the areas - this is where DS1 is infinitely better and even DS3 is really good at. It feels more like a level in a conventional videogame. However, some of the areas are pretty cool
DS2 defenders say silly things, but the silliest is “skill issue.” Most of the people who dislike DS2 have played and enjoyed other FromSoftware titles so are not averse to difficulty per se. What’s wrong with DS2 is what the game encourages the player to do in response to the challenges it creates - fundamentally, it’s boring. “Just use a bow lmao” This is boring to do for every enemy encounter - stop, manually aim the bow at a single enemy, shoot until it’s close, finish it off with your main weapon. Repeat until all the enemies are dead. THEN, you’re allowed to explore the level. There are numerous occasions that, if you want to avoid being ganked on all sides, you have to engage in this dull gameplay loop. We can all wave our you-know-whats around in the talk around difficulty - at the end of the day it’s all about fun, right? Well this isn’t fun. There are easy fun games, and hard fun games. Usually FromSoft is the latter, but not in DS2. It’s not necessarily harder than the others (the bosses lol), just more boring.
Almost every enemy placement is completely solved by a bow. However, it does slow you down a bit even with the busted poison arrows. [Evil rat = good me, I'm still your first hater >:) ]
Yes, and this is a boring gameplay loop. Stop what you’re doing, equip the bow, manually aim the bow at one enemy, shoot until it gets close, finish it off with your main weapon. Repeat until all enemies are down, and then you’re allowed to explore the world without being ganked.
Mage player here. Shrine of Amana was basically a shooting gallery. I think people overeact to ADP. I dont think it needed to exist, but all it did was move your s to the start of your rolls, so you had to time dodges before you got hit, like a block in Sekiro. I saw people say you need 60 to make it reasonable ffs. I did it with 30, and it was only because it's stupid that it affects estus drinking speed, but of all the things I've seen people get pissed off at in DS, ADP is the least upsetting thing.
People get pissed at ADP (actually, at AGI) because the game doesn't bother to explain what it does. It's not offensive when you have the knowledge of what happens. But the game doesn't give you that knowledge.
@@Spellweaver5 if you press the select button on the stats screen it explains every stat. its not like these games evere explain anything clearly though
@memberofchat2825 Don't get clever. People know how to look at stats tooltips. The issue is that "boosts ease of evasion and other actions" is not a sufficient explanation for such a vital mechanic. No one will know that their s are even different from the first game without a guide or extensive testing far beyond what an average player would do. Let alone that this stat affects them.
I couldn't finish the game , you explained to me why the combat feels unresponsive, i could get over it if the enemy encounters were more interesting, from the start up to lost bastille fighting the enemies is either super easy OR there is an instance where multiple enemies piled onto you all at once, or they are in a room and you have to go in the room and back out of the room to have any chance, the slow unresponsive combat demands you find a cheesy way to deal with them. Bosses are cool but i just couldn't be bothered dealing with those dozen royal swordsmen again and again to get to the ruin sentinels from the blacksmith bonfire. DS2 is not a game i had fun with and i loved 1 and 3.
This part you’re talking about struck me too and made me realise I wasn’t enjoying myself - I was thinking “This is just baiting out and swiping at waves of enemies. This isn’t Dark Souls.” It had the feel of a hack and slash game but with slow and punishing mechanics, just a bad time.
What I noticed with both fans of ds1 and ds2 is how one side shits on the other. Like ds2 fans hate ds1 and ds1 fans hate ds2(not saying all fans btw). What i mean is the fact that they talk about only the flaws about ds2/ds1 while they talk about all the good things in ds2/ds1. Like people, stop having a mid off. They are both incredible games for both starters and veterans alike and they both have stupid things to them as well. And yes, while all the souls games have some flaws to all of them, i just wanted to mention these two since people seem to be very divided between these games and consistently like to shit on the other game. Imo both ds1 and ds2 are the same for me because they both have stupid things and both have very cool or good things to them. I loved ds2 but it dosent make me hate ds1 since its the first souls game i ever played and enjoyed the most.
It's an incredibly common stance that I see in the community. From the perspective of both a fan and a critic, it's really dumb to see it happen. Both games are great. Like you said, they each have highs and lows. It'd mind boggling how divided some community members get over the two games.
Honestly rather than fans of 1 and 2 picking each other apart it seems more like people who hyperfocus on certain aspects of 3 really despise 2 while glazing over 1. So fans of 2 feel the need to say 1 isn’t perfect and 2 has all these good improvements and ideas. Why talk about DS2’s flaws when the attitude its detractors have is so hostile to begin with, right? ‘cause I’m not exactly seeing very many videos saying DS2 is perfect and the other games are trash for fans of those games to get as defensive over as DS2 fans feel the need to be.
The answer to this conundrum is that you’re wrong and the fans of DS1 are right. DS1 is an infinitely better game than 2. DS2 fans in a desperate attempt to defend a broken game that they enjoy make silly comparisons to DS1, trying to pass off obvious design flaws as improvements upon the original. For example: “ADP is good! Finally no more roll spamming!” “Incoherent world design is good! No more backtracking!” It’s embarrassing.
i saw this one so i figured id watch it too. some of this is prob a lil repeaty from my other comment, for that i am sorry. im glad you showed the degrade bugs specifically. its always the example i use to highlight how [i think] they wanted players to interact with the despawn system. because your items are repaired when resting at a bonfire unless they are fully broken, how you are meant to do this puzzle, which is how i look at it is as follows: kill the bugs till your gear is nearly 100% degraded. BEFORE it breaks, rest at the bonfire nearby, thus repairing all your gear. then kill them again. repeat 12 times to despawn them so you do not have to worry about them degrading gears before moving on. that seems so much more obvious to me than stripping down to punch them to death if im honest. i highly encourage you to look back on some of the problem areas in the game for yourself and genuinely ask yourself if those areas would be easier if you simply despawned even 1 or 2 enemies. i feel like so many players go out of their way to not interact with the despawn mechanics while at the SAME TIME, complaining about enemies placement. this is why i believe enemy placement was balanced around some spawns not being there, and why not interacting with the despawn mechanics feels overly punishing for some players in certain areas, specifically those players that rush thru areas. also, the fact you can change covs WITHOUT losing rank AND cov of champs brings back enemies completely for farming is another reason i believe this. the game people complain about the most bc of enemy placement AND runbacks quite literally lets you control how hard those are. and i still to this day dont understand why more people dont take advantage of the despawn mechanics, especially if they are struggling. idk if players just dont think to do this, dont register 15 runbacks to a boss means you could have despawned everything by then, thus saving supplies, or if its just straight up stubbornness. 'i can do this runback ive beaten ds1' type behavior [cut to them getting backstabbed at fog door] but what i do know is that if you interact with the despawn mechanics to any meaningful degree, you will notice a significant change in how you approach certain areas. while i disagree with some of these points, i do understand. i also agree with a lot of these, such as bonfire ascetics. and im glad i watched this one too. one of my semi dislikes myself is ADP/AGI. even tho i KNOW about it, and why its impactful, and even that it can give you MORE s than any other title. so while it may not be an issue really for me, because i know, players that dont know, will struggle more than they need to, and oftentimes not even understanding why. that i do dislike. i also dont super love soul memory, as it does really harm the co-op (and pvp) experience without really adding anything. anywho, this was equally as refreshing of a watch. i very much agree its ok to criticize things you enjoy, and that doing so doesnt in any way mean you enjoy said thing less. this is my biggest issue i suppose with the complaint about enemy placement, bc it seems to IGNORE the despawn mechanic every time its brought up. every time i watch one of these videos i am grateful i enjoy the despawn mechanic, which is one of the things i was originally hesitant about in my very first playthru, bc it meant you 'couldnt farm.' which i learned was also not true, bc of the cov of champs for example. anywho, im rambling, but i agree, dislikes can highlight the likes. a lot of things people dislike about the game, i enjoy. for me, the reason WHY i like them is bc how i naturally play ds2 is rewarded. i take my time, im slow, im patient, i enjoy farming, i enjoy exploring, i enjoy a jack of all trades build. all of those things are rewarded in ds2. where as someone with the playstyle of rushing thru enemies to the boss fog in heavy armor prob will be punished more so than they are used to in other titles. so anyways, my point i suppose, is that the flaw of enemy placement, TO ME, only highlights the importance of interacting with the despawn mechanics. i think what you will find is that the despawn mechanic is actually done fairly well, and makes a lot of the encounters over the course of the game much more manageable. or at least, thats been my experience. i certainly dont feel betrayed, thats silly. you have a right to your opinion the same as i do. neither one of us is right or wrong, we simply play the game differently, enjoy it differently. i have a better understanding of why you love this game, and which parts you dont love, and also the reasoning. maybe youll have a better idea of why i love the game and my reasonings from reading this as well. but most importantly, i agree we shouldnt dwell on the flaws. yes they are there, and should be acknowledged, but no i dont believe the flaws outweigh the positives. thank you.
Ok there is a level of subjectivity to it, you may enjoy the grindiness more than others. But wouldn’t it not be better to remove the despawn feature entirely and just put the enemies in places that are not so obnoxious? Grind lovers can still farm as much as they like, and players who would get bored of that get to choose when they want to engage with enemies - win-win. Just like every other FromSoft title. Except that wouldn’t work in this game, because the whole reason it’s designed this way is to crank up artificial difficulty because otherwise it would be too easy. Shrine of Amana is an excellent example - they didn’t have the time to make a good/challenging boss, so they made the level an absolute chore to get through.
@@ShyGuyTravel i agree its subjective, which is why i dont WANT it to feel like every other fromsoft title. if you dont enjoy interacting with the mechanics you could just... play one of the other titles? imo they designed this game to a degree around the despawn mechanics, the thing setting it apart from the other titles. so no, to me, it would not be better to remove it. furthermore, players that choose when they want to engage with enemies oftentimes run past them completely. that sure is engaging! that is WHY ds2 is designed the way it is, bc that WAS such a common way to 'engage' with enemies in ds1. i dont consider it good design to be able to run past all the enemies in the area with no punishment. i think thats deranged truly. clearly if you give players the option of choosing when to engage, they simply never will, bc running past is far more efficient. that is WHY i appreciate ds2's mechanics. they tried something different, they tried to punish our habits from ds1. i very much disagree about shrine of amana as well. its one of my favorite areas. very pretty, amazing soundtrack. it does take some time getting thru, but i always enjoy that section of the game, its calming and serene. i also quite like demon of song. i dont really think its a good boss, but i do enjoy its design. i also think "they didn’t have the time to make a good/challenging boss, so they made the level an absolute chore to get through." is cope. blighttown, catacombs, and sen's all fit this description as well. i get that you may not enjoy some of ds2's mechanics and that we approach the game entirely differently it seems, but i hope this helped explained why some of us enjoy ds2 over the other titles. i would not ask they drastically change your favorite souls title to fit how i play. they didnt keep this formula so every other fromsoft title plays the same, feel free to enjoy one of those. it is ok to not enjoy ds2. BUT! it is also equally as ok to enjoy it.
@@Laughingwithtravii yes exactly, this is why I moved on from DS2 to play better games. But you must expect from time to time that people are going to talk about games they didn’t enjoy and why, and that’s what this is about. I’m obviously not going to change history and make DS2 how I would like it, but it’s also ok to talk about how it’s busted. They didn’t design the game around the despawn mechanic - at least it doesn’t seem like it. It smacks of a later addition after testers complained about the boss run backs. It’s yet another example of reactive game design - they made an unbalanced game and had to compensate somehow with questionable additions to the mechanics. If I’m wrong about their motivations, it’s still a silly idea. Just put enemies in better positions. In DS1 there was already plenty of incentive not to run past every enemy - the souls for one, and then the items, secrets and shortcuts are easier to find if you actually engage with the enemies. The system was perfectly fine as it was, and returning to the same system in later FromSoft titles didn’t harm the experience of those games. The player usually only wants to run past the enemies once they’ve already killed most of them and explored the area as much as they want to, and they just want to have another go at the boss. I put it to you that Blighttown would not have been improved if it required you to defeat every enemy there each time you wanted to face Queelag. This wasn’t a thing that needed improving from DS1. And don’t you dare compare the Shrine to Sen’s Fortress, the latter being a masterpiece of level design, whose boss run back isn’t a cakewalk by any means but at least not the boring cheese fest that is dealing with Amanna’s enemies. You actually feel accomplished when overcoming Sen’s Fortress - when you get through the shrine, you think “Thank God that’s over.”
Yeah i disagree with your take on the adaptability stat. Its just a level sink for no reason limiting builds. It also makes it really hard to balance enemies because literally everyone has different Iframes. I dont think theres really anything good to say about that stat.
Oh my god thank you. Finally some proper criticism instead of someone just making shit up about hitboxes or ganks. I like DS2, though it definitely isn't my favourite From Software game, I've just really gotten sick of people lying about it, this is an amazing criticism.
I’m pretty sure people aren’t lying when they’re talking about ganks at least. Anyone who has played this game must notice numerous enemy encounters that amount to many mobs rushing you from every angle. Why people would collectively try to deceive others about what is easily verifiable is beyond me.
@@ShyGuyTravel It’s cheap and easy to slander something that’s been deemed a free target, and it takes more genuine effort to disprove lies than say them.
@@Zapdos7471 Why don’t people “lie” about the other games in FromSoft’s catalogue? What in particular motivates people to pick on DS2 as a free target?
@@ShyGuyTravelcause nobody is lying about DS2. People bandwagon and hate on it just cause it’s popular to do, but that doesn’t suddenly mean everyone who says a bad word about it is lying lmao.
Man it's so popular to shit on DS2, but I generally don't think it's bad, it's different, yes very different. I remember when I first played DS, I generally hated it, because I wasn't use to how it worked, over time though I gradually started to love it and understood it better, heck the game could often remind you, that pain isn't easily avoidable. DS2 was the same for me, it took me some time to get used to it but I started to love it and appreciate it I'd say it's the same for every souls game. but to each their own! But can't deny all of them definitely had interesting lore and stories. edit: this just a random comment on my thoughts, not directly responding to the vid :P
What made you love the game specifically if I may ask? I know DS2 offers something different from the others but what it offer are underwhelming to be quite honest, and everything it does remotely well (satisfaction from overcoming a seemingly impossible challenge, for one) are offered by the other games and more often than not the others does it better overall. I really wish I could love the game too I really do, but it's just so disappointing everytime I went into it.
Dark Souls 2 did some things right. Some of the bosses were good with the mirror knight being very clever. The PVP was improved. But i played the first game and couldn't get enough of it yet the second one felt well hollow. The difference i feel is one was a work of passion and it shone through while the second was generic business project.
Good job with the video and all but i cant disagree more with basically everything you said lol. Dark Souls 2 is my favorite of the trilogy and I won't argue with anyone who thinks it's the worst fromsoft game. There's just no convincing a souls player that ds2 is a great game if they already think it's bad. One thing I do want to mention though is the argument I've heard time and time again and that's that if Dark Souls 2 wasn't named Dark Souls that it would have been received way better. Whoever first said that and whoever agrees with it is so full of shite lmao. If it had a different name then people would shite on the game even more because they would also say something like "its the worst 'souls like' ever made" or "it copies everything dark souls did, but badly" and things like that. Theyd probably rate it the same as the original Lords of the Fallen, which btw imo is also not a bad game. I see it as a kind of love letter to ds1 because although it plays a bit slower, it pretty much copies the formula and only adds a couple of new things and actually does a good job of it for the most part. Same way that Lies of P is a love letter to Bloodborne and only adds a few new mechanics. Anyways, I've gone on long enough. Thanks in for sharing the video because although I disagree, it is a well made video as usual. Take care and God bless. 👍🍔
I think the worst part of the game is the bosses and their presentation. Either they are mechanically forgettable like the Iron King or really cool bosses like the looking glass knight, which didnt get a backround like a cutscene or something.
Honestly my biggest complaint with this game wich I think isnt a problem in pc, is the fact that you are forced to play online. Im a person that hates any kind of online crap especially when its forced in the way Dark Souls 2 does it. I dont want to play having to keep in mind that at any point ill be invaded by some random tryhard when Im litterally at the beggining of the game farming enemies for souls. That takes away the fun completely for me. But I do understand the good things and why people love it, its just not for me and I admit it.
the amount of souls ds2 gives you makes it not a big deal, and it has respeccing for when people want to take it away or put more into it. its a lot better than fucken resistance where there was NO respeccing at all in ds1. ds2 is the only one in the trilogy without a useless stat. its more like a difficulty slider, it is not at all hard to level up. EVEN if you run through the game and cry about it being ganky
1. Animation Commitment: Yes you're locked into most animations, but unlike the other games, you're given a brief but decent sized window to cancel attacks. This is especially helpful in PvP for creating feints. 2. Adaptability: I personally think Adaptability is fine for the most part but could use slight adjustments for better player understanding. 3. Enemy Placement: The only difference between DS2 and other titles, is the ease the other titles have in allowing you to avoid 99.9% of all encounters. The Equipment Breakage creatures are only an issue if you choose not to use the enormous plethora of tools at your disposal. Shrine of Armana is the epitome of brute forcing a solution will give you a bad time. Ranged Weapons, Spells, and Consumables exist for a reason. Spiders are terrified of torches and choosing to use them makes the entire area trivial. 4. Optional Areas: While most areas aren't entirely "optional" but you have a lot of freedom of when you wish to tackle them. If you look at DS3, it's almost entirely a branchless stick. 5. Soul Memory: It was a nice experiment, but Soul Memory was an over convoluted solution to a simple problem. If a remake is done, it needs to go. 6. Seriously Enough: DS2 went through quite the Development Hell, which is why so many inpolished ideas were glued together. (Blame Bamco for that ) Yet on the other hand, DS2 tackled numerous mechanics and little quirks that brings a lot of interaction throughout the game. Meanwhile, DS3 played it extremely safe and oversimplified, as there was barely anything that really made it stand out. While DS2 has many issues, those same issues in the other games are almost always glossed over.
I still prefer DSII as the best game for beginners, especially as someone who was biased towards old Zelda games. DSI confused me with its navigation issues. DSIII is extremely linear and full of references I didn't get. DSII was just right. I didn't know much about Soul Memory but the named rings allowed me to summon my discord clan mates consistently. Pity that eventually you can yeet a character out of public summoning range though. DSII, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring is where new people should begin.
@@TheTrueHolyDarkness to honor my experience I would say to new players: DS2 is categorically NOT the game you should play first, lest you be misled into thinking these games are straight up bad.
So what do you think accounts for people picking on DS2 on these things but not on the others? That they’re lying? I’d suggest that they’re genuinely not enjoying the game and therefore these apparently small issues become a lot worse.
@@ShyGuyTravel It's a combination of Rose-tinted Glasses, Parroting what influencers say without even playing DS2 (this actually comes up A LOT), or simply outright refusing to experiment/learn DS2's game mechanics and then blame the game itself. It's fine not to like DS2, but it's appalling to come across so many lies about it or the acceptance of unchallenged misinformation. Hitboxes is probably the biggest one of these, as DS2's Hitboxes are fairly tight compared to the other games. The grand majority of all hitbox complaints against DS2 come from players who either don't know how I-Frames work and/or don't understand that they're being hit well after their I-Frames have ran out. Yet if you bring up the many DS3 hitbox issues that can be consistently repeated, you get instantly gaslit by the community and they will actively gloss over the brought up issues. I'm not saying DS2 is without issues, but it is absolutely an issue of the community making mountains out of anthills.
I have never left a game or decided not to play it except Dark Souls 2. Its horrible. specially on keyboard and mouse. Also when multiple enemies attack you it is hard to hit everyone and you just keep rolling and rolling and then attack and then repeat this shit. This is not enjoyable. Also the bosses are not that hard they are super easy but its the way to the boss that is hard. This game is not hard its annoying. you just need luck to clear this game. Some time you get the boss one time without dying along the way and sometimes you just get stuck. And no fancy moves in the game as well. specially the spider boss is where i quit the game. You have to cheese through every part of the game that is not enjoyable. We want bosses that counter attack and do other things, not continuously spamming same moves over and over again meanwhile its minions are attack you and poking the fuck out of you. Of course I can manage that but is it enjoyable? no not at all.
4:34 Nooo! lol wth? Soul memory isn't underdeveloped, it's straight up bad. Taking your own example: if you have 10.000 souls and die without picking them up those are lost forever except your soul memory will still be 10.000. See where I'm going here? Next time you hit 10.000 your soul memory will be at the 20.000 so if a new player dies a lot (as they will) they might end up with an inflated soul memory while still being at a low level and that sucks for co-op and invasions.
i just finished dark soul 1 with almost 0 issues through the whole game now playing dark souls 2 i'm still at the beginning of the game slightly deeper into the the forest of giants or smth like that i lost count of how many issues i encountered
@@Kaskrout_Gaming I still keep going to finish the game and not just give up even if its bad, im far into the game and it isnt better, i reccomend you getting dark weapon, and equipping the lightest armor and lvling your ADP so you have 99 Agillity after that it made the game a lot better, the armor doesnt really matter at all
Haven't read the game description? have you. The game is meant to torment you as a player. Sensory Assault, A labyrinth of monsters are the key features of this game, should have read the description before playing the damn game.
disagree actually. I think shrine of amana is one of the strongest areas in the base game especially without a bow. people just have a legitimate skill issue dodging the world's slowest homing projectiles.
@@deVon30241 again, what are you talking about? I said they're getting fun. The challenging part is getting over to broken mechanics? Are you kidding me?? Child, I played all the souls games and beat all of them with standard trash weapons. Just for fun. I love the soul series but I'm not going to sit here and act like this game is actually decent
@@jayyoung1338 The movement is very clunky. They put way too many enemies in the game right before you get to the boss. The fog wall doesn't give you s like it's supposed to weapon breaks too easy, if you run out of effigies and you don't spend enough points on health, you practically have to start all over again 💀 I can literally name like at least 10 more.
@@prodanalexandru219 I dont buy that youve never clicked the button once even by accident. But anyways, I only lock on sometimes and only with 1v1. Its suicide to lock on with a mob lol.
All enemies can be agro very easy with the 2,000 arrows you carry . Enemy placement is fine. 😂 why do people think they should be able to run past everything without consequences? Absolutely stupid
Problem is a lot of people who dislike Dark Souls 2 only played Scholar of the First Sin, which isn't actually DS2. It completely messed with the placement of enemies and pacing of the game. Miyazaki messed with the dish that didn't need to be messed with in the way he did.
@@portsilpa there is literally only a few more enemies added in scholar. It's been proven with a side by side comparison. The only real change is placement and some enemies were swapped out for another. That's it. There aren't a lot of enemies added to scholar like so many players proclaim. It blows my mind how people still have that argument. lol
I can already tell without reading comments that someone probably mentioned this before but Tseldora there is something called a "Torch" Its a wooden stick on fire, I have heard that its helpful... like I don't know removing the annoying spiders as they can't attack even if Freja's arena? XD Still ds2 for all its faults is the peak of from soft games... no this is not a joke before you ask. I genuinely think that DS2 Scholar is the best game that fromsoft made. Elden Ring is a worth while successor to ds2 even if its a disappointment for me (Elden ring isn't hard enough essentially) -Askaria
@@Askaria-Askanurn you sure did. You could say "did you know you could use torch to scare off that swarm of spiders you complained about". Instead, you chose to pretend like the dude doesn't know what a torch is.
I recently started playing DS2 again after quitting a few years ago. Now I know why I quit. For some reason movement and attacking feels so unresponsive sometimes. There are times that my character will just not attack and just stand there and get hit while I still have stamina. Also ADP is terrible and should have never been an attribute. Bosses are either no challenge at all or it's so hard because of hit boxes being so unreliable.
Facts. Playing right now and I've died a few times simply because my guy just didn't swing his sword for some reason. And every character should have the same I-frames regardless of attribute allocation. This stuff ruins an otherwise interesting game.
honestly, seeing FishStickOnAStick recent video of playing Dark Souls 2 reminded me why the game was on discount every time. It's horrible to the core and i legit can't tell why anyone enjoys playing it like ds2 fans, lots of builds and stuffs but to ACTUALLY enjoy it, you have like 2-3 builds to even get that ds1 challenging difficulty.
People that says Dark Souls 2 was a masterpiece always comes off as contrarians for the sake of standing out, like show them his entire video and see their arguments crumble to dust
Were you playing with keyboard and mouse? If you were, I might be able to give an advice considering the attack responsibility issue.
@@xecksoffender942 To be honest, not even i know why i like this game so much. I can understand why people may call it "the worst videogame every" or things like that, but something just makes me boot up DS2 instead of DS1. I'm not trying to say that one is better than the other, but i really like my shitty game. It is frustrating beyond belief and i've spent countless hours arguing about how much i play this game but i keep playing it.
Well, videogames are made for people to have fun, and neither of us can decide how someone wants to have their fun. Respect DS2 fans, because we already have a game that disrespect us every single time :D.
Literally a skill issue
That's so weird I literally found your dark souls 2 video yesterday and now you follow up the next day
YT algorithm be crazy
same here!
This is the only Souls with cancels, efficient backstep dodges, shortcut to 2 handed parries ( to be faster in active frame se), delocked jumped attack with insane tracking when you lock after jump.
The gameplay is jank but clé et than any other Souls.
You can t love this game if you don’t learn ton play with this unique gameplay.
It's also the only one with broken mechanics
@@SayedSaleh313
Demon Souls: World Tendency
Dark Souls 1: Poise, The ENTIRETY of Online PvP (Backstab festival), The Entirety of the Great Hollow and the Platforming in that area.
Dark Souls 3: The entire healing system, especially in PVP (The Flask System offers WAY too many chances after you mess up.) Blue Sentinels Summoning (They never get summoned lmao), and both the DLCs break the games balancing wide open (They can be accessed early game and essentially give you the best gear in the game.)
Each of these games have jank, broken mechanics, and poor balancing, and sure, Dark Souls II does have some of the other issues listed here (Lifegems OP), and Soul Memory is unironically garbage, but acting like Dark Souls II is the only souls game with Broken shit is downright delusional.
@@SayedSaleh313yea… because DS1 didn’t have broken backstab mechanics. 😂🤡 just another bot copying what other bad players spam
@@samueldavis5895 bro's mad for a video game 🤡
@@SayedSaleh313 by pointing out a blatant and stupid lie?
“Ds2 is the ONLY one with broken mechanics “
I think you’re mad that I easily disproved such a dumb comment. 😂🤡
Guy complains about the bug enemy in Shrine of Amana that destroys equipment.
Yet, it's piss easy to just shoot arrows, throwing knives, firebombs or other shit at him.
Why lose time removing then re-equipping or breaking your own equipment?
You have to come prepared by this point in the game. A ranged option is kinda mandatory if you want to have an easier time.
I played through Shrine of Amana recently and I enjoyed it. I don't really understand the complaints. It wasn't difficult unless I tried to run through everything which makes sense to be punished. It was rewarding to get through all of the areas with lots of mobs. The bugs were super easy too
Agreed, beautiful area and interesting enemies.
People are refusing to use systems given to them by the game cause sweats don’t think you are a real gamer unless you wield an ultra greatsword and wear no armor.
DS community is so awful and I hate them for making me think this game was the worst game ever made.
I can’t get over the tseldora outfit still being worn in shrine of amana.
The entire area becomes a joke with a bow … which is a bad thing because the DS systems are not designed for extended periods of manual aiming at microscopic specs in the distance. The problem with the area is not that it’s hard but that what it forces the player to do to make it easier is boring.
@@ShyGuyTravel you don't need a bow at all. The mages can be evaded without even dodging and have 0 poise. Just walk up to them and take them out. Then there's a few of those other knights at the end which again have zero poise. I agree with the thought that bow cheese is boring, but by no means is it necessary.
i recently beat it and i think one of the strongest things DS2 has going for it is the story. it feels coherent enough, and you can feel the 'bts' of how the game pulled back from being something it originally wasn't
i love the decrepit landscapes, namely Heide's Tower, and how you can just tell everything has been abandoned. like Heide's Tower, the knights are flat out exhausted and not aggressive right away. that's something i love when it's done correctly. we can tell from defeating Velstadt and stumbling into Vendricks room that he's a vessel of a lost man, just wandering in circles as his clothes and armor have been set aside. we can tell that there has been usurping as we fight Nashandra and see that she's abandoned her humanity for what she truly wants as a monarch - and her appearance has changed from when we previously saw her on her throne, not even allowed to walk up to her and instead speaking to her from across a gap in the wall
DS1 story was coherent too, but DS2 takes it's atmosphere to another level in certain areas. idk, to me at least, the story was more confined and grounded, and my questions got answered by the end or with a little connecting of the dots
I will congratulate myself on the fact that my comment on your previous DS2 video was about how the discussion of DS2 is going through loops of "it's not that bad" - "it's not that good" - "but it's not that bad" - "but it's still bad" forever. You, too, apparently, are subject to this loop.
Okay, some criticisms.
4:44 not really, you still have other options, like using magic or bows, and also with longer weapons it's possible to kite these things and retreat before they release the orange stuff. It still sucks, because the expectation the game sets for the most part is that you can use any weapon you like, but it's a separate criticism, because you don't HAVE to strip down or take durability damage.
There was also something about optional areas, but then I watched further, so I deleted it.
From what I remember from my blind playthrough of the original DS2, without having played DS1 and not knowing wtf adaptability, agility or i-frames even were (lol), the Shrine of Amana was a nightmare there too, but so was the rest of the game. A nightmare I fucking loved tho'.
I installed it on my high school laptop and used to play it at school sometimes. Ill never forget how I beat Smelter Demon first time, in class, while getting yelled on by my math teacher and my friends(who were also playing) sitting beside me in disbelief as both were stuck on that sucker for hours. I was a lil' shit that really needed an ass kicking, at least DS2 gave me some of it. But the memories, the discussions, the way in which we learned and theorized about the world, lore, weapons, and playstyles together were the fucking best
Thats nice man, this is what gaming is all about!
enemy placement in ds2 is actually the thing that made it ny favorite souls game by far, yeah bosses suck, and some places are ass. but areas are actually difficult to navigate, and overwhelming if you try to face them head-on. other souls games are consistently predictable, fairly easy with some traps, in ds2 I know there is a "method" for basically every area to make it easy.
the game has a massive pile of issues but I think a big part of why people hate this game is because they played it like dark souls 1 & 3
I feel the exact same way. You dropped this 👑
The only enemy placement i complain about is the exploding hollows in Dragon Aerie. They just ruin the asethetic and vibe of being alone atop a windy, panoramic, dragon-dwelled mountain. It makes no sense, thematically.
Ok, controversial opinion.
Why do people keep on complaining about ADP ? The game let you decide if you're good enough to spend points elsewhere, and if like most people you're not, then spend them in ADP and just accept the idea that it's been taken into acount by the devs, the difficulty has been balanced around it. It's not like you're wasting those points. I've always spent 30 to 40 points in ADP, and it didn't feel like those points were missing elsewhere, you can go as high as you want in souls game, to the point you can go 99 in each stats if you feel like it, with NG+ cycles. It's Dark Souls, not Skyrim, it lets you decide if you want to gamble and trade survavibility for DPS.
It’s not like you ever have a shortage of souls either, this is by far the easiest game to level up in, and none of the enemies in the beginning of the game imo are so difficult where those extra frames are so useful, you can get 99 agl by the time you fight pursuer
Because ADP dictates the entire balance of the game. With the other games, the developers have only 4 variables to consider when designing attacks. Light, medium, and heavy roll, plus blocking. Every attack has to be designed with the I-frames of each roll And the blocking in mind. With ADP there’s too many different variables that the devs couldn’t design enemy attacks properly. They don’t know how many I-frames a player will have when they get to veldstat or Nashandra. They don’t know how many I-frames a player will have in Drangleic castle, so they had to basically improvise Enemy attacks. This gave the enemies that janky and floaty feeling. It’s not a good mechanic and it has effects that trickle down and hurt the game as a whole. The fact that the entire balance of the game was dictated on a stat is what pissed people off.
I love DS2, I love all of them. But ADP was an absolutely terrible decision.
What Went Wrong with Dark Souls 2? Nothing, its perfect and i love it, i dont care anyone else thinking
I love ds2 as well my favorite being ds1 but 2 is my second favorite.
It's a good but majorly flawed game , if you honestly think its ,, perfect ,, you either have low standards or you don't know how to measure how good a game really is ., sounds more like a fanboy comment than anything really .
@@blabla-fw9ix spoken like a true gatekeeping fanboy. Smh
@@CountStoczkowski Gatekeeping fanboy ? Lmao .
So you think that DS2 is a perfect flawless game ?
@@blabla-fw9ix Doesn't matter if it is a flawless game, I always enjoy playing it. That's it.
Nothing went wrong. It's a good game.
Not gonna lie, you had me at the first half, lol. Glad to hear in the end you love the game, at least that’s the one thing we got.
I really do love it. It's such a unique experience as a souls title, and it's among my favorite games. Just felt the need to argue the other side for once.
insane plot twist
I played vanilla ds2 for my first playthrough and I can confirm that shrine of Amana was still bs and annoying
It’s a breeze with arrows and you can carry 2,000… what real souls player neglects or doesn’t know when to use arrows in the game?😂 😅
@samueldavis5895 because they don't find that fun
@@ghostdude7448 well I don’t find it fun to run through every single map naked and be able visibly identify every single enemy.
Dark souls would be absolutely trash without arrows as would any of the souls game. You just like an easier experience.
I like Darksouls 2 it did a thing or two better than the other games including elden ring . The pros 1 it has the best implementation of new game + with many new weapons and rings hidden behind the big con for me is how clunky it feels to play and also the adaptation stat apart from that i think the game is good. another con in darksouls 2 scholar of the first sin for me is the absurd amount of npc invasions.
The matchmaking thing must be frustrating for online players. I enjoy the enemy placements personally. And most definitely the development of DS2 was rushed but they still had that same ambition that ds1 had. I love the way ds2 feels, if only there was more interesting ng+ changes or little things like the events when lighting sconces.
When you try to do everything good, you fail to do anything great. That's how I feel about Dark Souls 2.
It was super ambitious and tried so many new things, yet it's because of the quantity of ideas and mechanics that not a single one feels fully fleshed out. It's a bittersweet experience where you appreciate what's there, but can't help wonder what it could've been.
Bloodborne messed up Darksouls 2 quite a bit and even then DS2 is still the best darksouls game.
@sherman1476 gonna have to hard disagree lol. I still enjoy Dark Souls 2 quite a lot, but without a doubt in my mind, it's the most flawed game in the souls series
@@sherman1476 I like dark souls 2 the most out of all the games. But it is definitely not the best.
@@stayhydratedwalter Sure it's flawed, but it is way less flawed than DS1. DS3 is def the most flawless game of the series but it lacks anything very interesting except for very fast paced boss fights. I stand by the hill that DS2 has a better dlc than DS1 (except for the snow dlc)
how so?@@Gainersy
Every game comes with pros and cons (not ubi/beth games with only cons). What struck me more than anything, was how after repeated farming, the enemies stop spawning. For your predator, who was killing you countlessly an hour back, has ceased to exist in the wake of your power, you become Death. No amount of power creep in any game could award me the same feeling.
From my first playtrough last year I really hated how disconnected are the areas - this is where DS1 is infinitely better and even DS3 is really good at. It feels more like a level in a conventional videogame. However, some of the areas are pretty cool
DS2 defenders say silly things, but the silliest is “skill issue.” Most of the people who dislike DS2 have played and enjoyed other FromSoftware titles so are not averse to difficulty per se. What’s wrong with DS2 is what the game encourages the player to do in response to the challenges it creates - fundamentally, it’s boring.
“Just use a bow lmao” This is boring to do for every enemy encounter - stop, manually aim the bow at a single enemy, shoot until it’s close, finish it off with your main weapon. Repeat until all the enemies are dead. THEN, you’re allowed to explore the level.
There are numerous occasions that, if you want to avoid being ganked on all sides, you have to engage in this dull gameplay loop.
We can all wave our you-know-whats around in the talk around difficulty - at the end of the day it’s all about fun, right? Well this isn’t fun.
There are easy fun games, and hard fun games. Usually FromSoft is the latter, but not in DS2. It’s not necessarily harder than the others (the bosses lol), just more boring.
Yeah DS2 fans need to represent their opposition more fairly. As a DS2 fan
Amazing video, u deserve way more attention, i loved every second of this video. Amazing voice, amazing Video
Almost every enemy placement is completely solved by a bow. However, it does slow you down a bit even with the busted poison arrows. [Evil rat = good me, I'm still your first hater >:) ]
Yes, and this is a boring gameplay loop. Stop what you’re doing, equip the bow, manually aim the bow at one enemy, shoot until it gets close, finish it off with your main weapon. Repeat until all enemies are down, and then you’re allowed to explore the world without being ganked.
Mage player here. Shrine of Amana was basically a shooting gallery.
I think people overeact to ADP. I dont think it needed to exist, but all it did was move your s to the start of your rolls, so you had to time dodges before you got hit, like a block in Sekiro. I saw people say you need 60 to make it reasonable ffs. I did it with 30, and it was only because it's stupid that it affects estus drinking speed, but of all the things I've seen people get pissed off at in DS, ADP is the least upsetting thing.
i only ever put 25 points in adp, thats more than enough for people that dont have skill issues
People get pissed at ADP (actually, at AGI) because the game doesn't bother to explain what it does.
It's not offensive when you have the knowledge of what happens. But the game doesn't give you that knowledge.
@@Spellweaver5 if you press the select button on the stats screen it explains every stat. its not like these games evere explain anything clearly though
@memberofchat2825 Don't get clever. People know how to look at stats tooltips. The issue is that "boosts ease of evasion and other actions" is not a sufficient explanation for such a vital mechanic. No one will know that their s are even different from the first game without a guide or extensive testing far beyond what an average player would do. Let alone that this stat affects them.
@@Spellweaver5 even at the lowest adp level its easy to evade attacks withouth any issue, people just suck at the game
I know ds2 has a lot of bad things, it really could have been much better, but anyways, I really enjoyed it and it has a special place in my heart
I couldn't finish the game , you explained to me why the combat feels unresponsive, i could get over it if the enemy encounters were more interesting, from the start up to lost bastille fighting the enemies is either super easy OR there is an instance where multiple enemies piled onto you all at once, or they are in a room and you have to go in the room and back out of the room to have any chance, the slow unresponsive combat demands you find a cheesy way to deal with them. Bosses are cool but i just couldn't be bothered dealing with those dozen royal swordsmen again and again to get to the ruin sentinels from the blacksmith bonfire. DS2 is not a game i had fun with and i loved 1 and 3.
This part you’re talking about struck me too and made me realise I wasn’t enjoying myself - I was thinking “This is just baiting out and swiping at waves of enemies. This isn’t Dark Souls.” It had the feel of a hack and slash game but with slow and punishing mechanics, just a bad time.
Also, why are you bald markiplier?
What I noticed with both fans of ds1 and ds2 is how one side shits on the other. Like ds2 fans hate ds1 and ds1 fans hate ds2(not saying all fans btw). What i mean is the fact that they talk about only the flaws about ds2/ds1 while they talk about all the good things in ds2/ds1. Like people, stop having a mid off. They are both incredible games for both starters and veterans alike and they both have stupid things to them as well. And yes, while all the souls games have some flaws to all of them, i just wanted to mention these two since people seem to be very divided between these games and consistently like to shit on the other game. Imo both ds1 and ds2 are the same for me because they both have stupid things and both have very cool or good things to them. I loved ds2 but it dosent make me hate ds1 since its the first souls game i ever played and enjoyed the most.
It's an incredibly common stance that I see in the community. From the perspective of both a fan and a critic, it's really dumb to see it happen. Both games are great. Like you said, they each have highs and lows. It'd mind boggling how divided some community members get over the two games.
Honestly rather than fans of 1 and 2 picking each other apart it seems more like people who hyperfocus on certain aspects of 3 really despise 2 while glazing over 1. So fans of 2 feel the need to say 1 isn’t perfect and 2 has all these good improvements and ideas.
Why talk about DS2’s flaws when the attitude its detractors have is so hostile to begin with, right? ‘cause I’m not exactly seeing very many videos saying DS2 is perfect and the other games are trash for fans of those games to get as defensive over as DS2 fans feel the need to be.
The answer to this conundrum is that you’re wrong and the fans of DS1 are right. DS1 is an infinitely better game than 2. DS2 fans in a desperate attempt to defend a broken game that they enjoy make silly comparisons to DS1, trying to pass off obvious design flaws as improvements upon the original.
For example: “ADP is good! Finally no more roll spamming!”
“Incoherent world design is good! No more backtracking!”
It’s embarrassing.
i saw this one so i figured id watch it too. some of this is prob a lil repeaty from my other comment, for that i am sorry. im glad you showed the degrade bugs specifically. its always the example i use to highlight how [i think] they wanted players to interact with the despawn system. because your items are repaired when resting at a bonfire unless they are fully broken, how you are meant to do this puzzle, which is how i look at it is as follows: kill the bugs till your gear is nearly 100% degraded. BEFORE it breaks, rest at the bonfire nearby, thus repairing all your gear. then kill them again. repeat 12 times to despawn them so you do not have to worry about them degrading gears before moving on.
that seems so much more obvious to me than stripping down to punch them to death if im honest. i highly encourage you to look back on some of the problem areas in the game for yourself and genuinely ask yourself if those areas would be easier if you simply despawned even 1 or 2 enemies. i feel like so many players go out of their way to not interact with the despawn mechanics while at the SAME TIME, complaining about enemies placement. this is why i believe enemy placement was balanced around some spawns not being there, and why not interacting with the despawn mechanics feels overly punishing for some players in certain areas, specifically those players that rush thru areas.
also, the fact you can change covs WITHOUT losing rank AND cov of champs brings back enemies completely for farming is another reason i believe this. the game people complain about the most bc of enemy placement AND runbacks quite literally lets you control how hard those are. and i still to this day dont understand why more people dont take advantage of the despawn mechanics, especially if they are struggling. idk if players just dont think to do this, dont register 15 runbacks to a boss means you could have despawned everything by then, thus saving supplies, or if its just straight up stubbornness. 'i can do this runback ive beaten ds1' type behavior [cut to them getting backstabbed at fog door] but what i do know is that if you interact with the despawn mechanics to any meaningful degree, you will notice a significant change in how you approach certain areas.
while i disagree with some of these points, i do understand. i also agree with a lot of these, such as bonfire ascetics. and im glad i watched this one too. one of my semi dislikes myself is ADP/AGI. even tho i KNOW about it, and why its impactful, and even that it can give you MORE s than any other title. so while it may not be an issue really for me, because i know, players that dont know, will struggle more than they need to, and oftentimes not even understanding why. that i do dislike. i also dont super love soul memory, as it does really harm the co-op (and pvp) experience without really adding anything.
anywho, this was equally as refreshing of a watch. i very much agree its ok to criticize things you enjoy, and that doing so doesnt in any way mean you enjoy said thing less. this is my biggest issue i suppose with the complaint about enemy placement, bc it seems to IGNORE the despawn mechanic every time its brought up. every time i watch one of these videos i am grateful i enjoy the despawn mechanic, which is one of the things i was originally hesitant about in my very first playthru, bc it meant you 'couldnt farm.' which i learned was also not true, bc of the cov of champs for example. anywho, im rambling, but i agree, dislikes can highlight the likes. a lot of things people dislike about the game, i enjoy. for me, the reason WHY i like them is bc how i naturally play ds2 is rewarded. i take my time, im slow, im patient, i enjoy farming, i enjoy exploring, i enjoy a jack of all trades build. all of those things are rewarded in ds2. where as someone with the playstyle of rushing thru enemies to the boss fog in heavy armor prob will be punished more so than they are used to in other titles.
so anyways, my point i suppose, is that the flaw of enemy placement, TO ME, only highlights the importance of interacting with the despawn mechanics. i think what you will find is that the despawn mechanic is actually done fairly well, and makes a lot of the encounters over the course of the game much more manageable. or at least, thats been my experience. i certainly dont feel betrayed, thats silly. you have a right to your opinion the same as i do. neither one of us is right or wrong, we simply play the game differently, enjoy it differently. i have a better understanding of why you love this game, and which parts you dont love, and also the reasoning. maybe youll have a better idea of why i love the game and my reasonings from reading this as well. but most importantly, i agree we shouldnt dwell on the flaws. yes they are there, and should be acknowledged, but no i dont believe the flaws outweigh the positives. thank you.
Ok there is a level of subjectivity to it, you may enjoy the grindiness more than others. But wouldn’t it not be better to remove the despawn feature entirely and just put the enemies in places that are not so obnoxious? Grind lovers can still farm as much as they like, and players who would get bored of that get to choose when they want to engage with enemies - win-win. Just like every other FromSoft title.
Except that wouldn’t work in this game, because the whole reason it’s designed this way is to crank up artificial difficulty because otherwise it would be too easy. Shrine of Amana is an excellent example - they didn’t have the time to make a good/challenging boss, so they made the level an absolute chore to get through.
@@ShyGuyTravel i agree its subjective, which is why i dont WANT it to feel like every other fromsoft title. if you dont enjoy interacting with the mechanics you could just... play one of the other titles? imo they designed this game to a degree around the despawn mechanics, the thing setting it apart from the other titles. so no, to me, it would not be better to remove it. furthermore, players that choose when they want to engage with enemies oftentimes run past them completely. that sure is engaging! that is WHY ds2 is designed the way it is, bc that WAS such a common way to 'engage' with enemies in ds1.
i dont consider it good design to be able to run past all the enemies in the area with no punishment. i think thats deranged truly. clearly if you give players the option of choosing when to engage, they simply never will, bc running past is far more efficient. that is WHY i appreciate ds2's mechanics. they tried something different, they tried to punish our habits from ds1.
i very much disagree about shrine of amana as well. its one of my favorite areas. very pretty, amazing soundtrack. it does take some time getting thru, but i always enjoy that section of the game, its calming and serene. i also quite like demon of song. i dont really think its a good boss, but i do enjoy its design. i also think "they didn’t have the time to make a good/challenging boss, so they made the level an absolute chore to get through." is cope. blighttown, catacombs, and sen's all fit this description as well.
i get that you may not enjoy some of ds2's mechanics and that we approach the game entirely differently it seems, but i hope this helped explained why some of us enjoy ds2 over the other titles. i would not ask they drastically change your favorite souls title to fit how i play. they didnt keep this formula so every other fromsoft title plays the same, feel free to enjoy one of those. it is ok to not enjoy ds2. BUT! it is also equally as ok to enjoy it.
@@Laughingwithtravii yes exactly, this is why I moved on from DS2 to play better games. But you must expect from time to time that people are going to talk about games they didn’t enjoy and why, and that’s what this is about. I’m obviously not going to change history and make DS2 how I would like it, but it’s also ok to talk about how it’s busted.
They didn’t design the game around the despawn mechanic - at least it doesn’t seem like it. It smacks of a later addition after testers complained about the boss run backs. It’s yet another example of reactive game design - they made an unbalanced game and had to compensate somehow with questionable additions to the mechanics. If I’m wrong about their motivations, it’s still a silly idea. Just put enemies in better positions.
In DS1 there was already plenty of incentive not to run past every enemy - the souls for one, and then the items, secrets and shortcuts are easier to find if you actually engage with the enemies. The system was perfectly fine as it was, and returning to the same system in later FromSoft titles didn’t harm the experience of those games.
The player usually only wants to run past the enemies once they’ve already killed most of them and explored the area as much as they want to, and they just want to have another go at the boss. I put it to you that Blighttown would not have been improved if it required you to defeat every enemy there each time you wanted to face Queelag. This wasn’t a thing that needed improving from DS1.
And don’t you dare compare the Shrine to Sen’s Fortress, the latter being a masterpiece of level design, whose boss run back isn’t a cakewalk by any means but at least not the boring cheese fest that is dealing with Amanna’s enemies. You actually feel accomplished when overcoming Sen’s Fortress - when you get through the shrine, you think “Thank God that’s over.”
@@ShyGuyTravel im happy for you or sorry that happened
dark souls 2 is a different game??? people like it because they think its f-f-f-fun?!?!?
Some people don’t have fun with this game and sometimes they like to talk about that fact. Enjoyers of the game find this unacceptable.
@@ShyGuyTravel uhh i was explaining why people like ds2, nothing in what i said made it sound like i have a problem with people disliking it.
People hating ds2 went into the game wanting to hate it, knowing its mass hated they find any excuse to dislike the game
Yeah i disagree with your take on the adaptability stat. Its just a level sink for no reason limiting builds. It also makes it really hard to balance enemies because literally everyone has different Iframes. I dont think theres really anything good to say about that stat.
Oh my god thank you. Finally some proper criticism instead of someone just making shit up about hitboxes or ganks. I like DS2, though it definitely isn't my favourite From Software game, I've just really gotten sick of people lying about it, this is an amazing criticism.
I’m pretty sure people aren’t lying when they’re talking about ganks at least. Anyone who has played this game must notice numerous enemy encounters that amount to many mobs rushing you from every angle. Why people would collectively try to deceive others about what is easily verifiable is beyond me.
@@ShyGuyTravel It’s cheap and easy to slander something that’s been deemed a free target, and it takes more genuine effort to disprove lies than say them.
@@Zapdos7471 Why don’t people “lie” about the other games in FromSoft’s catalogue? What in particular motivates people to pick on DS2 as a free target?
@@ShyGuyTravelcause nobody is lying about DS2. People bandwagon and hate on it just cause it’s popular to do, but that doesn’t suddenly mean everyone who says a bad word about it is lying lmao.
@@SeightJam OP said people lie about DS2. I think people “bandwagon” on this game because they genuinely have a bad time with it.
Man it's so popular to shit on DS2, but I generally don't think it's bad, it's different, yes very different.
I remember when I first played DS, I generally hated it, because I wasn't use to how it worked, over time though I gradually started to love it and understood it better, heck the game could often remind you, that pain isn't easily avoidable.
DS2 was the same for me, it took me some time to get used to it but I started to love it and appreciate it
I'd say it's the same for every souls game. but to each their own!
But can't deny all of them definitely had interesting lore and stories.
edit: this just a random comment on my thoughts, not directly responding to the vid :P
What made you love the game specifically if I may ask? I know DS2 offers something different from the others but what it offer are underwhelming to be quite honest, and everything it does remotely well (satisfaction from overcoming a seemingly impossible challenge, for one) are offered by the other games and more often than not the others does it better overall.
I really wish I could love the game too I really do, but it's just so disappointing everytime I went into it.
Its popular to shit on DS2 because DS2 is rubbish
I hate this game 😢. I still put over 300 hours on 2 characters, though 😂
Dark Souls 2 did some things right.
Some of the bosses were good with the mirror knight being very clever.
The PVP was improved.
But i played the first game and couldn't get enough of it yet the second one felt well hollow.
The difference i feel is one was a work of passion and it shone through while the second was generic business project.
Good job with the video and all but i cant disagree more with basically everything you said lol. Dark Souls 2 is my favorite of the trilogy and I won't argue with anyone who thinks it's the worst fromsoft game. There's just no convincing a souls player that ds2 is a great game if they already think it's bad. One thing I do want to mention though is the argument I've heard time and time again and that's that if Dark Souls 2 wasn't named Dark Souls that it would have been received way better. Whoever first said that and whoever agrees with it is so full of shite lmao. If it had a different name then people would shite on the game even more because they would also say something like "its the worst 'souls like' ever made" or "it copies everything dark souls did, but badly" and things like that. Theyd probably rate it the same as the original Lords of the Fallen, which btw imo is also not a bad game. I see it as a kind of love letter to ds1 because although it plays a bit slower, it pretty much copies the formula and only adds a couple of new things and actually does a good job of it for the most part. Same way that Lies of P is a love letter to Bloodborne and only adds a few new mechanics. Anyways, I've gone on long enough. Thanks in for sharing the video because although I disagree, it is a well made video as usual. Take care and God bless. 👍🍔
I think the worst part of the game is the bosses and their presentation. Either they are mechanically forgettable like the Iron King or really cool bosses like the looking glass knight, which didnt get a backround like a cutscene or something.
Honestly my biggest complaint with this game wich I think isnt a problem in pc, is the fact that you are forced to play online. Im a person that hates any kind of online crap especially when its forced in the way Dark Souls 2 does it. I dont want to play having to keep in mind that at any point ill be invaded by some random tryhard when Im litterally at the beggining of the game farming enemies for souls. That takes away the fun completely for me. But I do understand the good things and why people love it, its just not for me and I admit it.
You can play offline
You can play offline. In fact I cant even play online because Im kicked off the servers like 5 mins into booting it up.
the amount of souls ds2 gives you makes it not a big deal, and it has respeccing for when people want to take it away or put more into it. its a lot better than fucken resistance where there was NO respeccing at all in ds1. ds2 is the only one in the trilogy without a useless stat. its more like a difficulty slider, it is not at all hard to level up. EVEN if you run through the game and cry about it being ganky
I love ds2 and still play it, its very different from the others but that doesn't make it bad
1. Animation Commitment:
Yes you're locked into most animations, but unlike the other games, you're given a brief but decent sized window to cancel attacks. This is especially helpful in PvP for creating feints.
2. Adaptability:
I personally think Adaptability is fine for the most part but could use slight adjustments for better player understanding.
3. Enemy Placement:
The only difference between DS2 and other titles, is the ease the other titles have in allowing you to avoid 99.9% of all encounters.
The Equipment Breakage creatures are only an issue if you choose not to use the enormous plethora of tools at your disposal. Shrine of Armana is the epitome of brute forcing a solution will give you a bad time. Ranged Weapons, Spells, and Consumables exist for a reason.
Spiders are terrified of torches and choosing to use them makes the entire area trivial.
4. Optional Areas:
While most areas aren't entirely "optional" but you have a lot of freedom of when you wish to tackle them. If you look at DS3, it's almost entirely a branchless stick.
5. Soul Memory:
It was a nice experiment, but Soul Memory was an over convoluted solution to a simple problem. If a remake is done, it needs to go.
6. Seriously Enough:
DS2 went through quite the Development Hell, which is why so many inpolished ideas were glued together. (Blame Bamco for that )
Yet on the other hand, DS2 tackled numerous mechanics and little quirks that brings a lot of interaction throughout the game. Meanwhile, DS3 played it extremely safe and oversimplified, as there was barely anything that really made it stand out.
While DS2 has many issues, those same issues in the other games are almost always glossed over.
I still prefer DSII as the best game for beginners, especially as someone who was biased towards old Zelda games. DSI confused me with its navigation issues. DSIII is extremely linear and full of references I didn't get.
DSII was just right. I didn't know much about Soul Memory but the named rings allowed me to summon my discord clan mates consistently. Pity that eventually you can yeet a character out of public summoning range though.
DSII, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring is where new people should begin.
@@TheTrueHolyDarkness
Funnily enough, those are my Top 3 of the Soulsborne games.
@@TheTrueHolyDarkness to honor my experience I would say to new players: DS2 is categorically NOT the game you should play first, lest you be misled into thinking these games are straight up bad.
So what do you think accounts for people picking on DS2 on these things but not on the others? That they’re lying?
I’d suggest that they’re genuinely not enjoying the game and therefore these apparently small issues become a lot worse.
@@ShyGuyTravel
It's a combination of Rose-tinted Glasses, Parroting what influencers say without even playing DS2 (this actually comes up A LOT), or simply outright refusing to experiment/learn DS2's game mechanics and then blame the game itself.
It's fine not to like DS2, but it's appalling to come across so many lies about it or the acceptance of unchallenged misinformation.
Hitboxes is probably the biggest one of these, as DS2's Hitboxes are fairly tight compared to the other games. The grand majority of all hitbox complaints against DS2 come from players who either don't know how I-Frames work and/or don't understand that they're being hit well after their I-Frames have ran out.
Yet if you bring up the many DS3 hitbox issues that can be consistently repeated, you get instantly gaslit by the community and they will actively gloss over the brought up issues.
I'm not saying DS2 is without issues, but it is absolutely an issue of the community making mountains out of anthills.
I just finished ds2 and I believe it was overhated I did enjoy it for the most part however it’s still the weakest out of the series in my opinion
DS2 in a nutshell: good ideas, poor execution.
I have never left a game or decided not to play it except Dark Souls 2. Its horrible. specially on keyboard and mouse. Also when multiple enemies attack you it is hard to hit everyone and you just keep rolling and rolling and then attack and then repeat this shit. This is not enjoyable. Also the bosses are not that hard they are super easy but its the way to the boss that is hard. This game is not hard its annoying. you just need luck to clear this game. Some time you get the boss one time without dying along the way and sometimes you just get stuck. And no fancy moves in the game as well. specially the spider boss is where i quit the game. You have to cheese through every part of the game that is not enjoyable. We want bosses that counter attack and do other things, not continuously spamming same moves over and over again meanwhile its minions are attack you and poking the fuck out of you. Of course I can manage that but is it enjoyable? no not at all.
Thank you for changing your opinion to the correct one.
I love that UA-cam started recommending small creators. Keep up the great work man!
4:34 Nooo! lol wth?
Soul memory isn't underdeveloped, it's straight up bad. Taking your own example: if you have 10.000 souls and die without picking them up those are lost forever except your soul memory will still be 10.000. See where I'm going here? Next time you hit 10.000 your soul memory will be at the 20.000 so if a new player dies a lot (as they will) they might end up with an inflated soul memory while still being at a low level and that sucks for co-op and invasions.
😂😂😂 just beat the king in that big ass castle with my adpt level 8 never lost to a boss more then 4 time's
i just finished dark soul 1 with almost 0 issues through the whole game
now playing dark souls 2 i'm still at the beginning of the game slightly deeper into the the forest of giants or smth like that
i lost count of how many issues i encountered
The game is shit, looks like a failed april fools joke, that entire game looks and feels ugly and people who defend it just want to be special
@@konan4961 it just feels like a downgrade when you're playing it right after finishing ds1
Idk, maybe you were secretly bad at DS1 and DS2 is punishing your bad habits? I had zero issues coming from DS1 and Bloodborne.
@@CausticSpace nope pretty sure I was good at ds1 since I first timed most of the bosses of the games easily
@@Kaskrout_Gaming I still keep going to finish the game and not just give up even if its bad, im far into the game and it isnt better, i reccomend you getting dark weapon, and equipping the lightest armor and lvling your ADP so you have 99 Agillity
after that it made the game a lot better, the armor doesnt really matter at all
Haven't read the game description? have you.
The game is meant to torment you as a player. Sensory Assault, A labyrinth of monsters are the key features of this game, should have read the description before playing the damn game.
Bubsy 3D torments the player too. That must also be a masterpiece.
@@ShyGuyTravel did I say its a masterpiece?
I agree shrine of Amana and other places suck but like bro JUST USE A BOW
disagree actually. I think shrine of amana is one of the strongest areas in the base game especially without a bow. people just have a legitimate skill issue dodging the world's slowest homing projectiles.
@@toolala3908 my issue with Amana is the projectiles never disappear, they track you for miles
crazy opinion bro@@toolala3908
I used a bow and got through it first time. But it was incredibly boring.
This game is clunky and just broken, not finished and just a shit souls game tbh. Its fun but only when ur powerful
It's fun but only when the power level of my character overcomes my massive skill issue
It's only fun when it's not challenging lmao
@@deVon30241 again, what are you talking about? I said they're getting fun. The challenging part is getting over to broken mechanics? Are you kidding me?? Child, I played all the souls games and beat all of them with standard trash weapons. Just for fun. I love the soul series but I'm not going to sit here and act like this game is actually decent
@@PureMerpy I'd be interested to hear what you think is broken
@@jayyoung1338 The movement is very clunky. They put way too many enemies in the game right before you get to the boss. The fog wall doesn't give you s like it's supposed to weapon breaks too easy, if you run out of effigies and you don't spend enough points on health, you practically have to start all over again 💀 I can literally name like at least 10 more.
0:38, wait.... you can lock on in dark souls 2?
i really hope you're joking
@@Choomba-j8u not at all, i played till today without it
@@prodanalexandru219 I dont buy that youve never clicked the button once even by accident. But anyways, I only lock on sometimes and only with 1v1. Its suicide to lock on with a mob lol.
@@CountStoczkowski why would I lie?? lol plus who the fuck presses the middle botton, that is used to scroll, on mouse, even by accident.
Most people play with controller@@prodanalexandru219
Oh no do I need to unsub.
Because he doesn’t like this poorly designed game?
I will bite you
All enemies can be agro very easy with the 2,000 arrows you carry . Enemy placement is fine. 😂 why do people think they should be able to run past everything without consequences? Absolutely stupid
hitboxes + too good of a game
Problem is a lot of people who dislike Dark Souls 2 only played Scholar of the First Sin, which isn't actually DS2. It completely messed with the placement of enemies and pacing of the game. Miyazaki messed with the dish that didn't need to be messed with in the way he did.
Dark Souls 2 has many issues, scholar of the first sin just make those worse.
Been playing the og version on ps3... honestly, it's mostly just worse, there are less enemies though, and I haven't finished SOTFS
i play SotFS and i fucking love the game, and I don't plan to buy DS2 again
totally agreed!
@@portsilpa there is literally only a few more enemies added in scholar. It's been proven with a side by side comparison. The only real change is placement and some enemies were swapped out for another. That's it. There aren't a lot of enemies added to scholar like so many players proclaim. It blows my mind how people still have that argument. lol
I can already tell without reading comments that someone probably mentioned this before but Tseldora there is something called a "Torch"
Its a wooden stick on fire, I have heard that its helpful... like I don't know removing the annoying spiders as they can't attack even if Freja's arena? XD
Still ds2 for all its faults is the peak of from soft games... no this is not a joke before you ask. I genuinely think that DS2 Scholar is the best game that fromsoft made.
Elden Ring is a worth while successor to ds2 even if its a disappointment for me (Elden ring isn't hard enough essentially)
-Askaria
Dark souls 2 is one of the easiest souls games
You must have used summons in elden ring if you think that, its the easiest of the games by far
Could you be a little more smug and condescending, please?
@@Spellweaver5 Did I really come off that way? If so that was not my intention, besides ER is not hard at all anyway.
@@Askaria-Askanurn you sure did. You could say "did you know you could use torch to scare off that swarm of spiders you complained about". Instead, you chose to pretend like the dude doesn't know what a torch is.
Nah. None of this is an issue but it's all good. Don't like it don't play it.
Go to hell
People played it because others said it was good. They didn’t have a good time. Now they want to talk about that.
i really think scholar messed up the game sm imo
Finally came to your senses haha