Dark Souls 2 - Series Strengths and Sequel Changes
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
- Patreon: / josephanderson
Twitter: / jph_anderson
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This is the first of three videos on Dark Souls 2 that I'll be releasing in the following weeks. If you want to wait for all three to be out before watching this, my current estimate is the second video will be out next week and early January for the third.
This one is a brief(ish) overview of what makes Dark Souls 1 great and then how that's changed in Dark Souls 2. My goal with these videos is to show that the sequel is a lot closer to the first game in terms of quality than most think, and that the vast majority of problems people have with the sequel are also present in the first game.
The second video is a sprint-through of the entire game and will likely be the least interesting of the three videos, since level design in the sequel is on the blander side.
The third video is on the DLC and how the level design is much improved.
My wife thinks I speak a little too fast in some sections in this video and she hears me talking all the time so she's probably right. I think I should work on slowing down a bit. Let me know if you had a similar issue. Also, if anyone thinks I could still clean up the audio more than I currently do, I'd love to have any tips on how to improve that.
Thanks for watching.
Links in the video:
My Dark Souls Critique (audio is pretty bad) - • Dark Souls Critique - ...
Matthewmatosis's Dark Souls 2 Video - • Dark Souls 2 Critique
Who gave Joseph coffee ? I've never seen him so energetic during a critic !
@@NAJMYNex he just learned about proper talking speed later in his carreer. at this point he didn't fully understand what a "comfortable" talking speed was, and probably just took a look at hyperactive, low tier youtube channels that also do everything as quickly as possible because they're afraid they'll lose attention, which is fine for low attention span videos about humor or something but definitely not for reviews.
Lol it’s wayyyy too fast Idk if I can watch
I had to check and make sure I didn't have it on 1.25 speed lmao
@@johnd3687 honestly listening on .75 isn't bas
Bad
I like how fast he speaks in these older videos, before he realized that he didn't need to rush and that long form content was something we really wanted.
And that algorithm change lol
And that he could make the same amount of money for less work.
0.5 or 0.25 speed is really something else
@@jjcoola998p
He also i think still had another job so less time, maybe im wrong tho
Good vid, Joe.
Joe mama
T a n z a n i a
Good video
I think why Dark Souls 2 was criticized more then Dark Souls 1 was due to the problems for DkS2 being easier to generalize when compared to DkS1. DkS1 suffered from polish in certain areas and had a poor last half. You already made a 5 parter to show unpolished areas of the game so I don't really have to say more. However DkS2 problems lie more in mechanics and level design. The harder it is to categorize a problem, the easier it is to forget, that's why players will forget about moments of poor polish in the early game of DkS1 (like the slippery walkway in Blighttown), but remember the rushed end game areas because the quality of those areas were consistently poor. DkS1 wasn't perfect, but there was a lot more good to remember then bad, at least for me. It was easier to sum up what I didn't like in DkS2 vs what I did. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'm just trying to give a reason as to why DkS2 as a whole was ranked lower then the first.
Btw you got great videos so far. 👍
+CompleteGarbage That's actually a really interesting way of looking at it. I think you might be onto something there, especially with how such simple criticism on the game can stick around even after it's shown not to be really worthy of it. The idea can infest public opinion.
I don’t think any DS player can say in good conscience that the Tomb of Giants was fun to play in. The dark just made it annoying to traverse, similar to the bottom of blighttown.
@@mutt8553 I can. It was some of the most fun I've ever had...getting out there lol
@@mutt8553 you... do know you can use a lantern right?
I mean I'm not a fan of the tomb of the giants per se, I think the skeletons on 4 legs are the most overtuned enemy in the game by far, but light really isn't that much of an issue, especially when the area is so small
"Framerate higher than my age" lel
Dks2 had a troubled developpement, the lead director of the team was changed and the new one (Tanimura) had to do with the content that had already been created. So this might explain the level design and some of the choices that were made.
+Lavos YT And why the DLC is such a step up in quality.
+Lavos YT I hear Tanimura was the one who actually had to deal with the mess that Dark Souls 2 was in the very-very beggining. People give him shit but apparently the game was shaping up to be much worse than it came out after his intervention. I think either AGS or ENB mentioned it in one of their videos, I'm not entirely sure though.
Comsidering what he had to work with, he freakin' saved Dark Souls 2 from becoming a complete failure, giving us a solid 9/10 game.
I don't even consider the first game a 7 out of 10...let alone the second a 9. Guess you and I score very differently.
7dayspking that's the way of the world
Put it at .75 speed if you’re used to Joseph’s usual videos. Slows things down to a nice pace
with the new custom playback speed, .9 now is (in my opinion) ideal for these videos. posting so others can see
The quality of your videos matches your taste in games. Marvelous.
Pretty big compliment there. I'll keep trying to be good enough for it.
And i'll be here watching.
+Joseph Anderson Cannot wait for your Dark Souls 3 Critique.
Oh, I do say, ol' chap! Marvelous indeed!
Right Cam?
Cam: "ya damn right"
Even after Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2 retains the greatest sense of adventure for me. Something about the disjointed crazy brokenness of it made the highs seems even higher.
That's very cool :) something special and personal about our fav souls game
Same here.
I think the biggest thing is that Dark Souls 2 has tangible rewards for exploring side areas, such as armor pieces with unique effects.
In Elden Ring, oftentimes the only reward is just a really great view (and occasionally a mushroom)
Just read books out of order, bro. You’ll love it.
@@deifiedtitan Assuming you're being sarcastic: telling a narrative out of order is a well-known literary tehcnique used in a lot of famous films and books.
@@deifiedtitan this guy would crumble into pieces watching pulp fiction
Nobody adresses the fact that your character just moves awkward.
I think that might be my biggest problem with the game.
Just in the beginning tbh
Actually, the game hardlocks you into moving only into eight directions. Hardly "realistic".
@ Moving only on 8 directions is completely unrealistic. Human beings at least can move at any direction at moment's notice.
Thank god I wasn't the only one. The animation looked so wrong to me and somehow DS2 looked much more bland and uglier than "rough" DS1 style.
I love finding a new channel with years of content to catch up on. Glad I found your vids man.
4:30
I've tried out Skyrim with higher damage input from both you and the enemies thanks to mods.
And it's DEFINITELY improved.
Did you know you can parry attacks in Skyrim? Well, you can. And it becomes vital when fighting really strong enemies like Bandit Chiefs early game. Dragons become actually frightening. Though I do recommend also boosting the health of dragons.
While it's not perfect, it makes Skyrim an actual action RPG experience.
this is really late but theres literally dark souls combat in skyrim now via mods
@@technoboop1890 Dude, I've had the pleasure of trying it and its SO GOOD. Third person actually works now. I never gave up on skyrim modding and I'm rocking over 400 mods right now. Over 1600 hours now. Not the most, but its a lot for me.
Honestly my biggest gripes with Dks2 are the animations (static, awkward) and the tone (or lack thereof) that are leagues behind those found in dks1. It feels like playing a knock off version of dark souls.
I used to hate DS2 but then I watched Hbomberguys video on it and then I realized how beautiful the story is and I took a greater appreciation to it.
@@xeagaort That's good. It certainly can be appreciated. However, that video is probably one of the poorest thought out and most obnoxious critiques I've seen though. He misrepresents others' words (the creator of this video for example) in an effort to support his own incredibly flawed subjective opinion that he's passing off as fact. Most of it is taking the game's objective flaws and trying to paint them in a different light so that they're actually "good" things. And in some cases he's just downright insulting for really no reason, which is pitiful.
Best to set it out straight for anyone else who's going to go and watch that and may not be capable of seeing it for what it is at first glance.
Just as an aside, the Devil May Cry series (starting I think with 3 Special Edition) has a difficulty mode where both you and your enemies die in one hit. This is probably overkill, but it still drastically changed the game, making some hard enemies ridiculously easy and some easy enemies ridiculously hard.
The post-lordvessel maps being of lower quality was because Dark Souls 1 had extremely troubled development and those areas couldn't get the attention they needed. The Painted World is the best designed level in the game and, it turns out, was actually the first area they made for internal demonstration purposes (a 'vertical slice' that ended up in the main game because they liked it so much). This line of reasoning actually makes Dark Souls 2 look worse, as it implies that almost none of its areas got the attention they deserved.
bhlaab i never understood people who think post lord vessel is of lesser quality. Dukes archives/Seath, TOTG/Nito, New Londo/4 kings and Oolacile and the whole dlc are all amazingly crafted. The only part of the game i feel drags and feel drags is Izalith, centipede demon and of course the Bed of Chaos, but hey, no game is absolutely perfect. Dark Souls has still been my favorite game of all time since it came out
Fans of the Souls series often severely downplay the flaws of Dark 1 while exaggerating the flaws of Dark 2. Really, both are excellent but far from perfect games with their own unique but substantial problems. Dark 1 was unfinished and felt unrefined at times while Dark 2 felt sloppy on numerous occasions, sometimes right in its fundamentals. Ultimately, I believe them both to be of roughly equal quality. That said, while I have played some of vanilla Dark 2 and seen a LP of it, the superior Scholar of the First Sin is the only version of the game I have experienced wholly firsthand. Also my opinions may be different if I cared about PvP, given balancing issues in both games.
Fans are doing the same thing to the DS3 too. I cannot tell you how much I hate the praise DS3 hitboxes are getting. Hitboxes are not that good in DS3. And no, DS combat is neither solid nor fair. There are lots of issues in PVE and PVP is totally shit. Dark Souls is getting the same treatment Skyrim did when it first came out. People are subconsciously overlooking the flaws of the game. They will realize those flaws in a few years.
Ds1 came out in 2009, almost a decade ago and 2 years after skyrim, it's flaws are well documented. It definitely isn't a perfect game but it does well what a lot of games in the current ecosystem do not, so many people will *consciously* overlook its flaws until the day a similar game does the same things well and also improves on the flaws of the original. Which to date still has not happened. As for unfairness, yeah it can be but the majority of the encounters are handle-able with any style and even with subpar equipment A few Seath-instakills over the course of the games isn't gonna change the fair feeling that the majority of the encounter design gives it.
As for PvP, I never gave a shit about and I find the hardcore PvP fanbase of the souls games to be by far the worst part of it. Luckily that can be ignored mostly if you don't want to participate in that section of the game. It's core appeal is easily recognizable though it just suffers form to much easy to replicate cheeze builds and the inherent assholery that comes with any form of competitive gaming.
Scholar of the first Sin is way better than the original product. The team that did Ds2 took a while to get into their stride but seeing as the Ds2 dlcs are some of the best souls content out there once they hit it things got a lot better. Base Ds2 was rough enough to make the core issues more exasperated than they would have been if the whole of the game had been more refined like it was in Scholar.
Zorblec "Ds1 came out in 2009, almost a decade ago and 2 years after skyrim" what...
Good video, but even acknowledging the fact that fighting groups of enemies unlocked was intentional, simply doing that is much, much less satisfying. The slower stamina regeneration, the high HP pools and the need to heal with life gems if you get hit means that the group fights are nearly always a test of patience; at least for me, and I think that this is what makes the PvE content in Dark Souls 2, which commonly has the group enemy placement less enjoyable for so many people, even people who know how to play around it. I also think that dodging out of the way of attacks in a group combat situation gets hamstrung by the agility system.
Really great video, though. Really good to see someone delve into the playstyle differences, and the 'chicken-and-the-egg' situations with some of the design in the game.
My problem is that darksouls2 felt so much more unfair then 1, and the levels felt unsatisfying. Its just not very fun to play for me
@d there wasn't?
This makes me think of the Iron Keep. Sure, I could kill all these enemies, or I could try and run past to face the boss. I don’t want to waste my time spending 5 minutes to kill a mob of knights
I have no clue how do you mange to put so much quality content in such short amounts of time. I enjoy your videos and i hope your fan base grows soon, you deserve it.
+Daniel Kolev Thanks!
I can't speak for other content creators, but I'm going to guess that the bottleneck they face is writing the script. I've written a lot of novels and, after doing that many hundreds of hours of creative writing, I find it extremely cathartic to write out an essay-type script on video games. There's a lot less to worry about and I end up writing a lot of it mentally ahead of time while playing the games--which, of course, is the fun part. Except for the last 20 hours of Fallout 4.
So I end up writing the scripts very quickly.
I need to get better at recording myself reading but the part I hate the most comes after that: editing the audio file and cleaning it up. The longer the script, the more hours I spend going through it all and deleting parts where I stutter or other noise. I also have short windows to get the recording done since we have a baby here that could start crying at any moment.
After that is finding visual examples to match the audio and this is the most time consuming part but it's also enjoyable in a sort of sadistic way. I see other creators use long stretches of footage and they're missing opportunities to support their points. I can do this while entertaining my son on my lap or talking with my wife, but it does take many hours.
IDK if it was mentioned in a comment earlier, but the Metro series ramps damage up with difficulty, starting at easy mode where basic enemies can take 3-4 shotgun shells to the face and shrug it off but you're also a walking tank, to the highest difficulty, where a stray shot or two leaves everyone dead. I really like this in first person shooters, it makes you play a lot more cautiously and rely on stealth.
It's a survivance of STALKER, which did the same thing. The harder difficulties in STALKER are the more balanced experience, because everything dies so much quicker, it's actually possible to kill ennemies. On Easy, it feels like your bullets disappear in mid-air.
Then again Metro was made by some of the devs from STALKER. So that explains where it came from.
Wow this was really in-depth. I esp liked the preventable damage analysis with older games and newer ones with cover mechanics and hp regen. Never really looked at it like that. I guess it's more complicated than just "the casualization of games".
Many people criticize regenerating health without really understanding it. Maybe that's because of nostalgia or something else, I don't know. Like I said in the video, some games abuse it and would be better with the old system.
Thanks for this series. I love the whole series, including 2. It's so popular to crap on this game when it did so many things right, and you know what? Ds3 was safe. Ds2 tried a lot of new things, not all of them worked. It took risks, and I appreciate that.
Funny how DS2 fanboys always shit on DS3 to justify their own shit taste.
@@TheStraightestWhitest LMAO True
@Burst Your Bubble I disagree, and so does the majority. Dark Souls 3 is the most critically acclaimed and best selling of all Soulsborne games. Clearly not inferior to DS1.
@Burst Your Bubble For mobile games yes, it's one of the greatest games of all time.
But nice try fighting a strawman just because you couldn't handle the facts.
@@TheStraightestWhitest Sales metrics aren't what makes a game good. Quality is completely subjective, even if some aspects of a game may be near-universally agreed upon to be good or bad. That's why quality is very much worth discussing and utterly pointless to argue.
Kingdom Hearts had the right idea with critical mode when it comes to difficulty. It gives you many more options from the get-go, makes you drastically less tanky, but also increases your overall damage output to have fights not drag on.
I started with ds3 and really loved it. Now i just finnished ds2 and i really liked it as well. The bosses in ds2 were really easy though. But idc, i think i enjoyed exploring the world more in ds2. Ds3 has a lot better combat though imo.
Yeah bosses are the worst part of DS2 bro
Ds2 has the best areas imo
Played multiple hundred of hours of 3, and a couple hundred of 2. I feel the same way. The combat in 3 is MUCH better, but I don't think DS2 deserves ALL the hate it gets. Objectively it's not a good game. It has massive glaring problems fundamental to the gaming experience (i.e. movement having snap points) but subjectively I thought it was a fine game and enjoyed it. Scholar of the First Sin edition on the other hand...that's an animal I refuse to tame.
@@Future_Doggo I disagree. I feel like 3s areas are better, though that's from a design perspective. Aesthetically, DS2 or DS1 have the best areas as a whole though my favorite looking area is Irythyll of the Boreal Valley
I wasnt arguing aesthetics at all. I focused on combat and other errors. Sure DS1 and DS2 look good but they dont have a tied together motif that DS3 has ("The word is falling apart! We have to stop it!"). Again, my opinion as aesthetics are subjective. Ai issues (too many to name here, but an example I was standing on the center of the dragon rider platform not cheesing, and he yeeted himself at lightspeed away from me and off a ledge) and movement issues (referring to snap points in movement which I have first hand experienced but had a lot less problems with because of HOW i play) are objectively bad problems.
Edit: Aesthetically. 2 and 1 are both really good though
I think the change that you missed talking about is the most important chicken-and-egg question of the game. Upon death, you lose maximum health down to half your maximum, which can only be regained with the use of a Human Effigy, effectively making the level that killed you progressively harder with each death, but you can't farm Effigies from enemies, because enemies stop respawning after being killed a certain number of times. This essentially makes each level beatable by attrition, meaning you never have to LEARN, just make enough trips back and forth to empty the level forever.
Add that to the fact that you're more likely to be invaded the more hollow you go, and you have a game that gets harder each time it beats you, which I think is a frustrating departure from the rock-steady nature of the first Dark Souls game.
Covenant of Champions can help with this. I actually don't know if joining the Covenant and then leaving it makes the enemy life-count reset. Hm...
I agree that enemies having limited lives is a bad design decision but this could start a very complicated discussion on the series that I've purposefully avoiding for some future video--one that I haven't even decided yet but I know it's something I'll want to make. About how the series, and many other games, gives you so many options to make things intentionally easier or harder on yourself.
For now, I think it's worth saying that the limited lives on enemies kind of works since I think you're meant to play these games more than once. The game is giving you a pity pass on continuing through a level that's giving you a LOT of trouble--killing enemies more than ten times will probably take hours unless you purposefully farm them down. Then you have another shot on your next playthrough.
Losing health each death is similarly complicated. You gain HP no matter what stat you pick when leveling up now, and I think that losing health each death matches the new lessons you've learned before finally dying. It helps keep the difficulty of an area closer to even before you conquer it. Effigies can then also function as a scoring system like humanity in the first game, with you needing fewer of them each playthrough and you can see your collection getting bigger each time.
Have you ever played Demon's Souls?
Welp just marathoned through all your vids in one night after finding one, great stuff, will look forward to more content!
11:00 I totally thought I lost control of my screen! Great video as usual, I'm a new but loyal fan of your work!
27:24 That was a beautiful description of Lost Izalith/Bed of Chaos
There is one problem with the idea that the player is supposed to learn how to play with camera unlocked to handle multiple enemies - the unclocked cammera is incredibly finnicky and needs constant adjustments if unlocked.
If I was a betting man I'd say that the higher ups decided that the winnig element of Dark Souls that made it so popular was it's difficulty (that was highly emphasised in the game's marketing) and made a big push on making the game even harder. And fights against multiple enemies were the hardest parts for Dark Souls (exacly BECAUSE your toolkit doesn't mesh well with them) so the dev team decided that it was the easiest way to make the game more challenging.
It's also not as easy to dodge when you're moving the camera. I don't like messing with the camera for that reason.
@@theepowerful you're missing the point. Finicky camera is not a predesigned challenge that's fun to overcome, it's an unwieldy tool that's frustrating to use. Imaging adding half-second delay to all you button inputs. Would it make the game harder? Sure. Would you be able to adapt to it? Probably yes. But is it a desired type of challenge?
@@alexandersarver3463 RE had locked camera angles, that was a whole different story. But yeah, I remember how much of a struggle the first Tomb Rider and Soul Reaver were solely because of the camera. Truth be told, camera issues are still the most prevalent problem in video games, that's why lock on systems are so popular.
@@alexandersarver3463 I guess we'll simply have to disagree on where acceptable limits of gameplay challenge lie. For me trying to keep enemies in focus seem like something my character wouldn't have to deal with, as a limitation of my ability to control him/her. And so, it breaks my immersion. However, I can see how you could see it as trying to emulate how player character has to keep enemies in his/her field of view, follow a quick enemy with his/her sight etc, and see it as a perfectly fine aspect of gameplay. Immersion is a very personal thing, and so I see no reason to disagree.
This opinion might seem inconsistent with my first comment, but in the time between then and now I've seen many people play a game of my own, and have seen first hand just how differently people can experience games, telling anyone that they enjoy the wrong games or they enjoy the wrong things is meaningless and doesn't make anyone happier.
Idk when I play through ds2 I almost always lock on and have little to no problem with multiple enemies
Why does nobody ever mention that in DS2 you can't string a heavy attack into light attacks? It bothered me the most about the game and I've yet to hear a justification of why that was removed from DS1 to DS2.
It turns the entire attack string system into a very, very shallow one.
DS2 has a heavy multiplayer focus and a lot of PvP [if you're looking for it]. It makes the fights more predictable, espacially since some attacks cannot be countered.
You must not have experimented with the combat engine enough then. Regular heavy attacks can connect with heavy power stance attacks, left-handed weapons are actually functional, all weapons have a parry animation...
There's a lot to learn in Dark Souls 2.
Might be different in SotFS, but depending on the weapon you could.
With most weapons you combo a right handed strong attack and a left handed light attack, this would be faster than with just one weapon. Granted that wouldn't help shield users, but I think DS2 is much better for non-shield users anyway.
The metro games on the ranger difficulties make everyone die in 1 or a few shots including the player , whereas on lower difficulties the player can take a lot of damage but so can the enemies , it's probably the first example I've seen of proper difficulty scaling , where everyone plays by the same rules and therefore it doesn't feel unfair like other games that just reduce the players own damage to enemies and health whilst increasing that of the enemies
I love how he managed to learn how to deal with the 2 ogres... I wonder what he would say about it now, given that the Pursuer joins the fight there in the scholar edition.
yeah that was messed up, didn't know it wasn't in the base game cuz I only played SotFS
Many times I have tried to explain what makes Dark Souls combat so great. You have put it into words very precisely. Thank you.
the main issue i have with ds2 is the hitbox
oh lets just go for a backstab.... and it somehow hit me
soniczoom
Meanwhile in Lordran:
*standing infront of enemy*
*doing light attack*
*suddendly ending up behind the enemy, doing a backstab*
Srsly, what the fuck is this "back"stab mechanik. And why am I impaling guys with a hammer?
soniczoom The only souls game that had stable backstabbing in Multiplayer was Ds3, Ds1 having the worst in the series
That was the best description of the Bed of Chaos I've ever heard.
"Almost all the bosses are fantastic in the DLC"
-Lud & Zallen
-Blue Smelter Demon
-Triple Gank Squad
I'd also say some of the areas in the DLC were pretty bad, even though they were relatively short
-Cave of the Dead
-Frigid Outskirts
-Iron Passage
Brume Tower was cool, but didn't have much substance.
I'd agree though that the DLC was all in all better than the base game and in many places superior to the later half of Dark Souls 1.
My preference still lies with Artorias of The Abyss however when it comes to the best DLC in the series.
Still good to hear another opinion on the game however.
watching this again i realize that the"block parry dodge" part is really nicely done.
I like how you started all examples with the same attack really cool idea(i hope its clear what i mean lol)
As someone who has played DS1 with the unlocked fps mod, DS1 definitely has the better combat when both games have the same framerate.
As someone who has beaten every single souls game multiple times (except sekiro and I’ve only beaten demons souls twice) and put at least 700 hours in total to the souls series, I’m always confused when people say not to lock on during gank fights. You can flick the joystick to target one at a time but target the middle one and still use a sweeping attack to hit both at the same time, if you unlock, you risk not hitting at all and in bloodborne especially it’s better to lock on because dashing is quicker.
Ok
@@axelhanne8238 jsbföejsbdkxldnsö
i can't help but think your new way of approaching the combat was unintentional. my thoughts are the devs, without miyazaki's influence and while being pressured by namco to make the game marketable, exaggerated the difficulty by forcing the player to deal with multiple high poise enemies at once. then i think they added in lifegems as a way to counter this, and the short development time gave them no choice but to make do with the monster they created.
the DLCs are a good step up in quality but still suffer from empty rooms, a lack of detail, and reskinned basic enemies (and bosses).
My thinking is that with the success of dark souls 1, the team thought a lot more people were going to play this game thus there would be a lot more co-operative play, so they added more enemies to keep it challenging.
Due to a weird control setup, using a shield, and spells I relied heavily on lock-on. It's only recently that I realized not being locked on is better in many occasions in *both games*.
I got used to diagonal rolling in DS2 so trying that in DS1 (while locked on) caused a lot of frustration. Now I do fight a lot of DS1 bosses and larger enemies without lock-on, but it didn't occur to me to do that until watching and hearing from others.
The DLC's were a pretty big step up from the base game in many ways, although not perfect or as good as DS1 or 3 DLC. I wish they coud have gotten the proper development time and resources to create DS2 more like how the DLC's were done.
the whole group combat argument is something i really can't get down with. like, sure it's POSSIBLE to deal with multiples by playing in the most clunky and unintuitive way imaginable, but it's blatantly obvious that's not what the controls were initially designed for. dark souls 2 changes the dynamic of combat, but the controls are exactly the same, the focus on group combat doesn't play to the series' strengths (1v1 engagements with very committed actions) at all.
look at a game that actually IS designed around group combat like bayonetta: the controls are completely unrestricted and your freedom of movement is basically infinite. the focus on multiples in dark souls 2 feels grafted onto a game it wasn't intended for (yes, despite the changes to healing) and it just makes me want to play a real action game instead.
I actually had no issue dealing with groups of enemies while using lock-on the entire time. You don't have to run around like crazy as he did to deal with groups. I personally managed to beat lots of challenges on my run through SOTFS while using lock-on the whole time, such as rat bosses, the two dragonriders, the ruin sentinels, skeleton lords and Magus, etc.
Also, I love DS2's multi-combat approach, but HATE games like Bayonetta that are apparently built for that kind of thing.
I welcome this change to DS2. It adds a nice variety to the levels and let's you get through different areas in a way that suits you, depending on the class. As JA noted in his DS1 video, ranged characters make that game a cakewalk than it already is for experienced players. In DS2, the fights keep it fresh and you have to approach these areas with caution. The enemies also punish cheesing with circle strafing and other mechanics. This is also why the life gems make sense in that the estus is slow and dangerous to pull off and life gems keep you in the fight and encourage you to be offensive instead of the defensive and slow way ds1 teaches you to play. The lifegems are too easy to come by, but keep in mind that experienced players aren't going to have a real problem with surviving in the world with just their estus. The lifegems function as a way to teach players to unlearn the passive and defensive approach that DS1 encourages that doesnt make engaging multiple enemies an overwhelming task.
Just because the game has a lock on system doesnt mean it has to be a linear 1v1 throughout.
Also not having a connected world map doesnt necessarily make the levels bad. I consider Bloodborne to the best in the series and the level design is fantastic. The same goes for ds2. DS1 has some of the worst levels and bosses in the entire series and while ds2 also has some underwhelming bosses, none of the levels are as bad as in DS1.
Basically as JA said, Scholar and DS1 are pretty equal and I personally believe that ds2 is only slightly better due to fps, smoother gameplay, and overall improved functionality. Although ds2 doesnt have the god tier high points that the first has, it has its strength in its consistency.
Basically the game threw a challenge at you that you couldnt overcome
@@Ziggerath Obviously not, they just don't like having play in the way that you have to when fighting multiple enemies. Way to dismiss and miss the point
@@theepowerful Not sure you've played Devil May Cry on any difficulty that isn't normal lmao, it's literally Dark Souls but on steroids. But back to your point: Yeah try tanking some hits while 3 dudes are swinging through each other. That'll go well. Lmao.
I like your videos man. Can’t say exactly why. I guess I just like your personality.
Can't say I agree that the game intends you to drop the lock on since many weapons have a move set that don't support that. If someone wanted to use something like a spear or rapier they are fucked because they don't have the sweeping attacks of any of the swords and need to use the lock on in order to reliably hit enemies.
Most of the time I use the spear lock on or not, I play SOFS so their are more phantom enemies who I use swinging weapons but controlling camera angle and luring enemies into a line make stabbing weapons the best for groups EXCEPT those on the ground, who the lock on is almost necessary as most weapons won't hit low. Also most weapons like the spear or rapier have a swinging heavy attack if you use them two handed.
Compared to some other vids of yours, you seem to be trying to rush through, like you edited the audio to remove any breaks in speech. Hopefully the next two in this series aren't like this, nor other videos. Otherwise, great stuff on this channel, whether I agree with certain things or not.
It kinda feels like it's at 1.25x speed.
Even though these videos are a few years old I'm just obsessed with hearing opinions on them even years later. Ds2 sotfs is my favourite souls game (super unpopular opinion) just ds2 in general imo did so much right and whilst I understand some criticisms other I don't. But I'm not here for that. I just watched your ds3 critique and I loved it so here I am watching this. You deserve a new sub so here ya go.
same bro, know I’m late but I’m in the same ballprk as you
Returning with some brief feedback on my previous comments since I'm now a good bit into DS2 -
I can't find myself entirely agreeing that the combat design is as deliberate as you arrived at. There are too many decisions and situations that I think fit poorly with it. Most notably: 1) The poor hitboxes - you would think this would have been a top priority to get right since the situations are already chaotic, hard to control and risky as-is in multiples fights, 2) The cramped spaces you often fight in; some areas are indeed more open but there are plenty of corridoresque ones which make it horrible to maneuever and pretty much just tells you you backtrack to a more open space, slowing the pace to an awful crawl 3) The general over-reliance on just pitting you against the same enemies over and over, which makes it seem like creativity was running low, which fits rather well with just more enemies being added, 4) The enemies generally seem to have more poise and stamina, being able to string together unpredictable long combos and being harder to stagger; elements which should both have been moving in the opposite direction if the focus was multiples combat, to increase reliability and predictability for the player in an otherwise chaotic situation 5) You still being at the mercy of RNG; enemies can still get desynchronized and be near impossible to attack, which is very tedious, 6) The game more often than before forces you to drop or walk into situations where you'll be immediately attacked by multiples with extremely little room to maneuever or reliably handle it.
I'm also, to a lesser degree, doubtful about Lifegems. See, being able to buy an infinite amount of them isn't something the game hands you. You have to do the very Souls-like thing of exhausting the vendor's conversation options or it'll never happen (well, not as far as I've yet seen). For this reason I still had Lifegems as a limited and very precious quantity about 20 hours in. If this was so integral to the combat I feel pretty unsure that it would have been contingent upon such specific conditions. Lifegems without the infinite vendor source are a precious resource that can not really be expected to be spent on just trying to get through a level where you might die anyway causing everything you used to be wasted.
In some fights I certainly see the intentionality, and even that it works pretty decently - Skeleton Lords for example (I think I got lucky with the Bonewheels though, they never charged me as fiercely as the DkS ones). Lots of space, pillars to maneuever around and take cover behind, enemies that are numerous but don't chase so relentlessly or with such wide attacks it starts treading on the absurd and uncontrollable. But then there are other places where it feels far more like an excess amount of enemies placed down in a vapid attempt at increasing difficulty and time it takes to get through the levels than deliberate and skillful design. The bordering on absurd knight gauntlet at the start of the Iron Keep or pretty much every multi encounter in No Man's Wharf with its constant narrow walkways and paths over lethal falls and water, for example. Or the large amount of enemies that kept chasing after you in The Gutter, the most narrow and lethal part I've been to yet. The fight you exemplified with, the two big guys, didn't work at all for me. They would hug each other nearly all the time, get desynchronized as they attacked, and they have (fast) 1HK attacks so there's no sense taking any chances. Possibly our builds make some difference here as I used a mace, which is a bit sluggish, but I don't think soft-forcing players to be fast, agile and use fastish weapons fits at all with anything the series should be going for. Now you're definitely also a more skilled player but spotting openings is something I believe myself reasonably capable of.
So while the DS2 version might work well some of the time, I already feel the exceptions and caveats are too serious to make it work as well as the DS1 version. Speaking of execution, not theory, of course. I'm getting a worse and worse taste for the "enemy spam" approach to level and encounter design the more I play despite that the game is pretty enjoyable overall. The unbelievably tedious knight spam at the start of Iron Keep soured my morning earlier today.
Not a very relevant comment at this stage, I know. But I really had your views in mind when starting to play the game and felt like giving some feedback.
As someone who's going backwards through your channel, I'm really glad you slowed down in later videos. It's not that I can't keep up, but I'm getting a little stressed out at how quickly you're speaking. :3 Well, also I'm doing something else while listening so I'm not paying 100% attention so that is probably on me.
Thank you for this. This video essay really give me a new perspective on the combat. In your view, the combat was not worse per se, but different, and life gems is an intentional part of this difference.
What sums up every Miyazaki game from DS2 for me is when I see DS1, DS3, & BB clips I remember playing that and makes me want to replay them. I just beat DS2 and I swear I can't remember experiencing half of what you're showing.
Casual.
Great stuff! You summed up the main mechanics of the first Dark Souls so well. The only other thing I'd mention would be the fact that blocking with a shield in Dark Souls is much more of a pro-active mechanic than defence in a lot of other action RPGS.
The comparison of lifegem regen with health regen in recent shooters was interesting too.
Are you looking forward to Dark Souls 3 yourself? I'd also suggest giving Bloodborne a go if you ever end up getting a PS4. The transition to a more aggressive combat system is dealt with extremely well in my opinion. And while the level design never quite reaches the best moments in DS1, its still extremely well done, with many shortcuts placed intelligently.
Sadly, I can not agree in regards to the enemy encounters at all - less about location, more about numbers...
You get spammed with multi-enemy encounters _constantly_ in this game. Yet, the design choices done in regards to controls (except for using snap points in movement instead of full analog controls) are still near identical. As you mentioned, fighting enemies in Dark Souls 1 can be more often than not a test of patience, waiting to either exhaust their attack combos to attack them, or to knuckle up, dive in and risk taking hits.
However, in Dark Souls 2 this has been cranked up a notch or twelve. More often than not you find yourself in encounters with all around 5 enemies or upwards in numbers, ranging from weak to wrecking in terms of their respective power levels. Yes, the areas are more open to avoid getting backed into a corner - when attacks are stacked upon themselves to a point where taking damage is near inevitable though, it makes the addition of life gems a necessity, which is why they seem to be so easily available, not the other way around. Hacking away at a blob of death that you have to either take damage from, use weapons that just outrange them or abusing their terrible AI that more often than not fails to keep the aggro on you and forgets about you is fine once, maybe twice to actually test your skills when it comes to multi enemy encounters. This however holds not true when all around half the encounters are like this and the game does nothing to change controls to provide you a better toolkit. You stated yourself that the works out best in it's 1v1 encounters due to its uninterruptable actions that have ramp-up times while being finnicky when it comes to multi-enemy encounters. Being bad in one game doesn't make it good in the next one because you now have basically unlimited health as stated before - the core controls and mechanics have not changed to accomodate for such a change in playstyle.
Dark Souls 2 is not "built around" fighting multiple enemies, it is "designed to put you up against multiple enemies". A small change in wording for sure, but far more important to understand In essence: Your offensive and defensive toolkit work best in a 1 on 1 encounter in Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2 takes on this toolkit and changes basically nothing, leaving you with the same possible solutions from the first game, while giving you the most frustrating encounter from it as your regular enemy.
This all seems to stem from the weird misconception that difficulty = challenge. Dark Souls has always been praised for being challenging - not for being difficult. The tools provided allowed you to overcome an obstacle by employing wits, learning, exploring and your own preseverance. While this can be no doubt difficult in its own right, it is never unfair - It is punishing. The reason you died were because you overextended yourself in one way or another. Yet here we have a game which is artificially raised in difficulty to the point of being unfair for all the wrong reasons. The inclusion of life gems in their availability and obtainability at that point seems to be a simple, yet fitting solution to adress that problem - balance out one unfairness with another one so both sides have an absurd advantage. Giving the player infinite health to adress for an issue which seems to be placed in deliberately for the reason of inflating difficulty is no befitting solution for any game which tries to be challenging. You said the DS1 core pillars are held together by estus management - This has been basically thrown out the window entirely since health and the resulting survivability have _always_ been paramount before it back to the start. At that point it's nothing but a sub-par hack and slash game more akin to the old God of War series while wearing the skin of Dark Souls as a disguise.
Dark Souls 1 also taught you how to deal with groups of enemies, but accounted for that by generally placing a strong enemy alongside a bunch of weak trash that you'll easily deal with and that barely deals damage or putting up a small group of enemies at different ranges that need time to engage you to make up for their increase in power, yet punishes you for not taking the situation seriously. In Dark Souls 2 however you encounter many big groups of enemies that not only chunk your health, but have far ranging or sweeping attacks to give you as little attack windows as possible.
To sum this all up: The game (DS2 that is) was not just frustrating "in places", but rather frustrating "throughout" because of this.
It's strange but that's what I like about this game in the first place. Other DS games fail to give me this feeling of clutching agains multiple opponents.
Very well said. DS2 is my least favorite in the series by far and this is pretty much why.
yo, sorry for necro, but i feel that people that actually address the blatant spambushes in this game, need some affirmation
so here it is, good comment dude
Not only are your video essays better than the best of 'em on UA-cam, but Joe your soft buttery voice in the background is all I need to pass the fuck out sometimes. I've never contributed on Patreon or anything but I'd like to think I'm supporting you in my own way by just having your videos going constantly on my tv. Probably seen this Dark Souls 2 video 20 fucking times all things considered. Keep up the great work dude!
Dark Souls II pains me because I want to like it. I want to say that I love the whole trilogy but I can't. I almost wish it had been called something other than Dark Souls because it honestly doesn't even feel like a sequel in a lot of ways.
25 dollars for a revised special edition sounds reasonable when compared to a barely updated Skyward Sword HD at full price for Switch.
I guess this was meant to be focused on gameplay, but it's worth mentioning that the world, characters, and lore was a massive portion of the criticism directed at Dark Souls 2 as well.
Anyways, I disagree with a few of your points. You said you were okay with enemy groups in Dark Souls 2 because small mistakes aren't as important and you like the strike and weave gameplay it provides. The bit about health is really no justification at all, even if it can negate cheap feeling damage loss, it doesn't actually change the gameplay. The second point, I have to completely disagree with, and bear with me, it will take a while to dispute this.
So I comend you on being one of the first people ever I've heard to recommend not locking on, it baffles me how few people I've seen who naturally begin to aim manually after a while, as it is the next step in opening up your options and raising the mechanical potential of the games. However, this leads me to a point that I never see anybody make, is the mechanical change I most hate about Dark Souls 2, and I will continue to rant about in as many comments on the internet as I can until the day I die. Dark Souls 2 ruined the precision of manual aiming. It's simply not there. Your character will no longer jump to the exact angle of your analog stick after the windup frames on an attack, and instead do this sort of inconsistent half turn. It ruins most of the high level mechanics concerning precisely timing your attack, utilizing the extremities of the attack arc, maintaining spacing, and executing advanced techniques like reverse backstep. Because of this high level of aim control, weaving and striking through enemy groups was actually better in Dark Souls 1, DS 2 just forces you to do it. Furthermore, DS 2 reduces your ability to skillfully dodge through an enemy group by positioning alone because of the ridiculous enemy tracking; you are always forced to roll.
Instead of just making more enemies and giving them tracking, which was the lazy option to reduce the first game's problems of circle strafing, they should have removed the broken mechanic that is backstabbing entirely and then designed enemies that can actually move and attack in a way that keeps the threat facing you (without it just sticking to your position of course, piece of shit tracking).
The new design angle of Dark Souls 2 created more problems than it solved, and it solved them going in the wrong direction and not tackling the root of the issues. There, done. Sorry, but I hadn't filled my angry Dark Souls 2 comment quota in a while.
You say "The bit about health is really no justification at all, even if it can negate cheap feeling damage loss, it doesn't actually change the gameplay." but you fail to realize that if it changes the way how you play the game, then it changes gameplay.
I think the lore of ds2 was great. Ds3 was basically "member this gwyn? Member gwyndolin? Etc etc" I like it, but come on. Ds2 moved the story forward and explored the cycle of light and dark in a different way. Aldias inclusion In scholar and his dialogue was just fantastic.
Lore in ds2? lol
The game hardly had anything substantial you could call lore. It was a mess
@@JayWhipp1e bro, I fucking hate DS3, but you can't say the stuff you did about it's lore. Have you even heard about The DLCs of DS3? I very much like DS2's lore, but DS3's is DEFINETLY not worse.
@@JayWhipp1e The "cycles" lore wasn't in the first game at all. DS1 was very clear that entropy is linear. *The* Age of Fire, the only one, is ending and then it will be Dark forever. DS2 completely invented the cycles (I suspect to allow a sequel regardless of your choice in DS1). I don't want to have an argument about which is better but people (like VaatiVidya) have meshed it all together as if this was always the series' vision and DS2 just fleshed it out and I want to be crystal clear that that is *not* the case.
How is it possible that I didn't know you before today? I hope this video can reach even more people, I'm going to watch the next two videos about DS2 rn (i play souls since the original demon's souls, played all of them, and nowadays, the only soul i would play again is actually DS2, which i have more hours into ds2 than anything else)
Feels to me like Dark Souls 2 just feels clunkier and slower for no good reason. I can play at 60 fps on a PS4 but it just feels so much slower than DS1 and found even healing with a life gem to be dangerous with enemies rushing you down. I disliked how the levels focused around drawing out one enemy at a time and killing them without aggroing others and that brought the pace to a crawl. Special shout out to the dragon in SotFS Heide's tower for giving you just a miniscule window to rush in and avoid his fire breath attack. Because otherwise you'd need a ranged weapon.
I felt the combat was slow too like ur weapon swings or enemy attacks, it felt sloppy...it didn't have that Miyazaki touch I guess...but now watching the video to face ds2 mobs directly instead of luring one out I can understand why they slowed down combat to give more time to attack while facing more enemies..I think I will revisit DS2 just based on this fact:)
N ewGuy I don't think the combat feels slow, I think its that characters now have weight.
Its like going from a twitch shooter to killzone 2
TOAOM123 It feels slow cause the animations are sloppy and don't even connect properly like they did in DS1. I don't know how anybody with *eyes* can claim otherwise, go play both games side by side If memory doesn't serve you.
Why didn't you just fight them at the same time then? I feel a lot of critism people give the game just comes down to people not wanting to adapt their playstyle from DS1. Probably why people who play DS2 first tend to prefer it.
For me, I got into the "genre" with Nioh and then Bloodborne. So, shields never felt right to me, two handing and duel wielding in DS2 felt better to me (granted I've only played the SotFS version, so other elements play into that too)
The games combat was purposefully slower so you process enemy attacks because there was a bigger emphasis on group encounters. I liked this better because made pvp more about strategic and skillfull rather than the shit show that dks3 is. If it were as fast as dark souls 3 then everybody would complain that gank fights were unfair. Try watching ephant's dark souls 2 videos they pretty much show how well you can work with combat
tldr combats not clunky you just need to git gud
I would attempt to play further into Dark Souls 2 if the movement and dodge mechanics were tighter. I've tried several times, but just can't force myself to enjoy it. Feels so wrong. Glad I have Dark Souls 3 to look forward to.
I am that one person that never thought about not locking on.
+LosandaAE Maybe it's because I am an older gamer, but I usually most of the time never lock on enemies. And that is usually because I have no view of the surroundings. The same goes for healing items in games, I usually get though to the game without healing much at all. Don't know where I developed that habit. Sure some bosses are challenging that way but at the end it makes it even more enjoyable.
+LosandaAE Same here.
See, the one thing I hate about the combat is the one thing no one talks about. It feels different. Not because of the more enemies, but it feels different on an almost physical level. Like, Dark Souls 1 wet sand, and you can make sand sculptures out of it, and Dark Souls 2 is play-doh. Sand and play-doh feels very different despite being able to make castles out both of them. This is why I don't like Dark Souls 2. It feels that different to me.
Side note: I actually hate sand and like play-doh, but DaS2 is toooo smooooth to be sand.
I can't imagine playing 2 after coming off of the first game. I skipped and went straight to 3, and though that game is actually pretty damn good, it definitely does give you the same feeling. It just doesn't play the same way Dark Souls 1 did, and that game had such tight movement that there was no real reason to change it.
It's a mix of 2 things: the animations and inputs are much smoother BUT, with the new agility stat, the mechanics themselves are clunkier and less reliable. The overall feeling is unnaturally smooth yet clumsy, like piloting a man with no bones.
Higher difficulties in skyrim DO make the enemies hit harder. The difficulty is actually a damage multiplier for the player and for npcs. Adept is x1, novice is 2x damage dealt by player and 0.5x damage dealt by npc, and legendary is 0.25x damage dealt by player and 3x damage dealt by npc. This is the way difficultly slider in skyrim works.
he was quite correct in how I approached combat in ds2. I allows locked on, and made sure my estus was out before using lifegems, except when topping off my help.
No way Sinh even comes close to Kalameet.
I beat Sinh my first try,
I needed some 20 tries for Kalameet to learn how to perfectly dodge and avoid all his moves at all times.
I beat Kalameet the first time on my 3rd or 4th time while it took me far longer to defeat Sinh
@@themeerofkats8908 You beat Kalameet on your first try or your third or fourth try?
@@andrewbuckner6319 somewhere around that yes
I beat it on second try.. it is super easy because ds1 can be fucked up all the way to the bone just by upgrading the pyromancy flame, while there is no way to cheese ds2 that easy and so I died dozen of times against sinh and just 1 against the Black dragon
John 8 weeeell ds2 has spells mundane rapier etc
not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet, but you mention how it's annoying to drop into Nito's fight and lose HP; the game does that so you stop to use an estus, and get hit by Nito's super long range upward spike attack, teaching you what that attack does and how you can't stop to heal if you're far away from Nito.
This game sure takes a lot of criticism.. I've never had more fun with a Souls game than I did with this one. It's gameplay was truly outstanding and its level of difficulty puts DS3 to shame. It had its own unique lore which I enjoyed. FromSoftware obviously wanted a new approach in the series which backfired greatly. I find that very disappointing.
Love your bookmarks
"framerate higher than my age" is such a perfect way to say that because the older you get the hight framerate is expected to be
Ds2 is the only souls game I've only played once. I was really surprised to learn about the lifegems!
ADP, VIT and Soul Memory. Scholar of the First Sin fixes a lot of the issues in the original game, but those three things are so fundamentally broken that Dark Souls 2 could have never been as good as its predecessor.
Sotfs has one problem. In normal ds2, you can move freely. However, in sotfs you are locked into 8 directions. Its very confusing.
Brainpalace i definitly agree with ADP ans soul memory, but not VIT. Changing it to a different stat makes the player ponder wether to invest souls in wearing better armor. It’s another customization descision, which is good.
@@brodun_ pretty sure you can fix it with a mod. Not an excuse, but still.
God I love Dark Souls 2. It's good having someone give it a fair shake, because it's the type of flawed masterpiece where you take plenty of good with plenty of bad. In spite of its flaws, I find it a lot more varied and consequently replayable than the first, and just way better in a majority of ways than Dark Souls 3. For a game that people claim is a massive improvement over 2, 3 sure does carry over a lot of the "flaws" of 2. Unconnected level design, needing to return to a hub to level up, lots of group fights...not to mention a number of improvements from 2 that Miyazaki decided to ignore for 3.
Never has there been a game that I wanted to love so much but was completely unable to... I've loved Souls since its inception with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 is probably by favourite so far even though that took me a few tries before I properly got into it (strange considering I bummed Demon's Souls before it). I'm considering giving Dark Souls 2 another go because it's a Souls game and I want to give it a chance to grow on me even though I know it won't be as good as the other games.
DarkStarAngelo I'd say don't bother. It never approaches the greatness of Dark Souls 1 or Demon's Souls, especially when it comes to atmosphere and world building.
StraightOuttaJarhois Funny enough, my opinion has changed quite a lot. My friend kept trying to convince me to give it another go and hearing her advice on how to start out and I've been having a lot of fun with it since. The previous games are still way better especially when there are dreadful parts of DS2 like Black Gulch and Undead Crypt (People like to throw shade at Lost Izalith but it's vastly superior to those two fucking awful parts) but I'm enjoying it way more than my first go. Nonetheless, my initial impression remains - I REALLY hated it on my first go.
DarkStarAngelo I agree and I'm glad you gave it another chance! It's better when you just accept it's not going to be as good. Scholar of the first sin and the DLC are both excellent
And I learned a lot of important things I never knew about when I tried he game again. For example
I never leveled adaptability ONCE in my first playthrough but I kept trying to roll and getting pissed off about the inconsistencies when it was my own fault they whole playthrough lol
Jared Lucus I beat it last night along with all of the DLC - there are plenty of things that REALLY pissed me off; especially areas like Black Gulch, Shrine of Amana, Undead Crypt and of course, Frigid Outskirts which are just awful but I really enjoyed the game a ton. Really looking forward to NG+ since I know the changes are really tangible rather than just having buffed enemies (Dunno what NG+ is like for DS3 though).
@@23Scadu wrong. Sheep
Interesting video. I might just go over the Dark Souls critique.
The change in level design philosophy probably stems from the troubled developpement the game went through. The Shibuya version was scrapped, leaving the new director with a lot of assets to re-arrange in a relatively short amount of time. I'd be willing to bet the game was scrapped and rebuilt again with the subsequent graphical downgrade. It certanly wasn't condusive to think the levels out properly and which is why they were kept relatively simple and straightforward, it would also explain some of the asinine design choice here and there.
Then again, while a jump in quality, the DLC's also exhibits flaws from the base game. Namely, it's too obvious that the levels are not practical places where people would have lived and thrived at one point, the least egregious in that respect would be Eluem Loyce (I love that place). Shulva and the Brume tower's purpose are ill defined at best, and their layout only makes sense for a player, but not a citizen. It's not like Dark Souls didn't have its far fetched areas but it generally was camouflaged way better and made the atmsphere of it all much more potent. DLC's co-op areas are also all garbage, and much of the time spent in the DLC is spent fighting against crowds. Which as you said is deliberate, is playable, surmountable, but I would argue it's really not well implemented at all.
Ignoring the lock on is definitely not encouraged by the game's control scheme as it would involve controlling the camera on your own to keep enemies on screen in order to find openings and avoid attacks. Problem is, the camera and the dodge both are controlled by the player's thumb. So fighting crowds simply doesn't feel right, in fact it feels often very wrong when it's coupled with enemies that have insane tracking such as the red phantoms who require invincibility frames in order to "dodge". Even if it is the best way to play the game (to the point where I wonder why you would even play with a shield), it's obvious it wasn't completely thought out. It doesn't completely mesh with the foundations established in the previous game that they decided to keep in this one. The change to the healing system makes sense in that regard but it doesn't make the game feel like anything but a haphazard mess. A fun haphazard mess, but still.
I absolutely agree with the scoring thought process at the end tho. I might bitch about DS2 a lot but all things considered I played it a lot more than the previous game. The fact that the overall quality of DS2's levels stays consistent all throughout and backstabs are not so easy to abuse make the overall experience easier to pick up than Dark Souls for me.
This is the only dark souls 2 review that isn't complete bullshit so thank you.
DS2 was the first Dark Souls I played, and I honestly loved it. Although, I never used the life gems or really any items lol, there are just so many weapons and items in DS2 I forgot all about them.
Dark Souls 2 was the best one for me, at least now. There aren't really any meta weapons. Unlike in the other 2 >.>
Constantly switching your thumb between the right stick and the dodge button when fighting groups, unless you’re willing to opt for a claw grip, sounds more like a cumbersome oversight than a tight gameplay scheme. I even use the claw grip myself and I can’t say it feels intuitive. I think properly communicating what tactics are expected of the player calls for a rework of the camera system entirely in order to facilitate a convincing, appropriate control scheme. Wrestling with the camera while also practicing tightly-timed maneuvers seems like byproduct of unclear gameplay priorities. I’m still figuring out how I feel about Dark Souls 2. I think you present some good arguments, but I think the true merits of the series have yet to be identified even to this day. It’s tough to say what’s really a success or a missed mark in this game considering what a hellscape its development must have been; design priorities must have been constantly shifting due to time constraints and directorial changes. The Souls series is a tricky one to pinpoint for sure.
Combat in Dark Souls 2 has more of an emphasis on positioning, and tactical situations. Some enemies lock on to the player to deal with e.g, circle-strafing, but typically, this just changes the timing of rolling. You don't roll when you see the enemy wind up, but just as they're about to hit you. That gives you the best window of opportunity to avoid damage in DS 2.
I personally like how you have to deal with multiple threats at once in DS2. Playing DS1 after this, I can see that the combat is more straightforward there, but also simpler and easier to deal with.
The player is slower in DS2 but can deal with more enemies at once. This emphasises choosing positioning, line of attack, and spacing from opponents. Its not a bad thing, it forces you to think before acting, where DS1 you can get by with reactions a bit more, DS2 makes you use timing (strategy) notably via changes to parry
So DS2's larger hitboxes and hitframes are to counter the circle-strafing?
Yes
I'm always happy to see your videos in my sub box. Even more so that it's more souls content. I'm definitely in the Dark Souls 1 camp as my favorite souls game (haven't played Bloodborne). So I'm interested to see your opinions, if they differ at all, to what many have said already on the internet (mainly the "Dark Souls 2 Critique" video, subreddits, other forums, etc.)
+Connor York Thanks man. Dark Souls 1 is still my overall favorite but damn do I love the DLC in the sequel. I have high hopes for Dark Souls 3. I'm hoping to play Bloodborne at some point too. Would be great if a miracle brought it to pc.
Joseph Anderson I know you've already played bloodborne, but it's available on pc.......ish
how's that?
The whole lock-on thing is opposite for me to your theoretical person who didn't even consider lock-on, Joe. I started Dark Souls 1 right after Monster Hunter on the PSP, which had no lock-on, so I only used it once in the entire game. (The final boss was incredibly difficult without it, and the second I used it, he went down in 30 seconds, which made me think of lock-on as an easy mode that I definitely did not want to use.)
So now I've beaten 3 Dark Souls games and watching videos is still so alien to me because locking on in such a basic mechanic for most people. I don't think I have any real point here, just thought I'd share.
Lol Duke's Dear Freja was probably my favourite boss encounter in the game, vary satisfying and tense)
Loving the bookmarks there Joseph
I never used the lock on in DS2. I found it easier to dodge in the direction i actually wanted to, and it let me get more information about every enemy in each encounter.
I agree with most of your points, and I think that DS2 gets an unnecessarily bad rep from the community, but most of the DS2 DLC bosses are some of the best in the series? An infinitely respawning Velstadt, gank squad, Sinh (most of the battle is waiting for him to land), reused smelter demon, and 2 tigers.
I think the DLC has some of the weakest bosses by far.
Some of the DLC bosses may not be the best, but the DLC's also harbour some of the best bosses in Dark Souls 2 - just look at the Burnt Ivory King, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne etc. etc.
Also to be honest, Blue Smelter Demon wasn't actually that bad, at least in my opinion. Yes, the run to it was horrible, but the boss itself was fine. The addition of adding delayed attacks, that made you unable to dodge just out of muscle memory, but instead had you pay more attention to the animations of the boss, was a refreshing and well thought out idea.
Joe King
Uuhm you don't get damaged by touching Sinh?
Sinh was one of the best bosses, next to Dancer that I've ever fought. Design is awesome, Moveset is great and makes sense, and the athmosphere is just awesome.
Joe King
No you don't. No wiki mentions it, and you don't seem to be so exeptionally knowledgeable about the Game that I would trust you more then a wiki.
And If he spends a lot of the time in the air, use ranged attacks, or the DrakeWing Ultra Greatsword or a similar blade. My fight was a mixture of flying attacks and a LOT of his head swiped, which is one of my most favourite attacks of him, and in the Souls Series in general. So you just had bad luck and therefore hate a bossfight and call him the worst boss in all of Souls, which is just bullshit, and you probably know it.
The athmosphere was not only the boss, it was whole Sanctum City. You know that the Citizens worship this dragon and the moment you enter this ancient cave with a giantic dragon spewing poison and then realizing that he has been fully impaled and still doesn't give a damn about it (meanwhile lil Kalameet gets hit by an arrow from a blind guy and now sleeps peacefully in a forest), that was just awesome. And no matter how many times you enter the arena, Sinh's entrance is still badass, maybe not as badass as the Burnt Ivory King, but still awesome.
Also, Sinh is arguably more difficult, since he has twice as much health and can be faced earlier on, but maybe Dark Souls awkward movement and framerate will add some difficulty to this fight, otherwise I don't see how he is the most difficult and best dragon fight ever.
Maybe I just like Sinh, but at least I can state some facts why.
I would be interested to see somebody time both the kalameet and sinh fights to see how much waiting around there is for them to land. I would imagine that the sinh fight has much more of that
Joe King
Well, I stated arguments, while you stated bullshit. Its clear who can defend their point better.
Me, I was that guy who didn't consider ignoring the lock on, part of the reason why the game was a challenge for me the first times through was because I didn't give up what worked so well for me in dark souls. That was, use a bow, one on one enemies, and circle strafe with a shield.
At least you can reclaim your manhood fighting with dignity in the sequel!!
Looking forward to the next bits!
Yo, just finished DS2 and the most exciting thing about that is that I finally get to watch your DS2 videos.
Worth subscribing too, not one video I don't want to watch unless it has spoilers for something I want to play.
I thought the DLCS felt like shit copies of each other except for the first one. And you didn't mention how good dark souls 1 DLC was. Well I thought it was superb.
He talked about how great the DS1 DLC was in his videos that were actually about DS1. He also says in this video that DS1's second half is of lower quality if you exclude the DLC.
The only really underwhelming level after the lordvessel in ds1 was lost izalith although it was very visually impressive. The archive's , tomb of giants , new londo were all great areas. You people should stop following bandwagons and try to have a personal opinion from time to time because most of these areas are still much better compared to the majority of ds2 areas.
Ds2 deserves alot more praise
26:24 took me my 3rd time with the ascetic to read that with a torch the spiders become irrelevant
I love DkS 2 its my favorite game of the 3.
Hey, Nice to see you again! I was wondering when you'd get around to this one! :D
I'll wait until the third video is released until I write a complete rant. Though I will say a few things, I enjoyed having Lifegems and honestly hope something similar is in Dark Souls 3, *if I get it!* Demon's Souls had grass that made the game broken at points, Dark Souls had souls and Humanity which was just as easy to get. Bloodborne had Blood-vials which actually made it harder for me to die toppled on with regaining health when you swing wildly after getting hit. I would have liked that after every major boss (i.e Old Iron King, Lost Sinner) Malentia would restock about 20 of them and you had to find more on corpses and enemies. Which would keep it balanced, in my opinion. It annoyed me getting clipped by an enemy through a wall that I would have to use an Estus Flask over cheapness and lose it in the coming boss battle. Lifegems made those moments bearable.
I feel as if Dark Souls 2 was more similar to Demon's Souls than Dark Souls 1. "Infinite" healing items, multiple enemies, fast-paced, and linear paths that had open areas, yet still closed within this world. Might be why I prefer 2 over 1, but that's blasphemy. Another thing, I would not credit MatthewMatosis's Dark Souls video; It's nitpicking to the extreme and it's honestly more whining than it is critiquing. Hell, Three-Quarters of the stuff he said could be turned around on Dark Souls 1 itself. Also, there were times I was thinking you were talking a bit too fast at some points. I believe you talked a lot slower in your Anno 2205 video, so, as always, the Mrs. is right. Anyway, I patiently await the others! Congratulations on the baby! :D
The term 'nitpick', is just another way of saying 'extensive critiquing'. It's hardly whining. There was a large article I read about Dark Souls 2, sometime back, where he even managed to make Matthewmatosis seem vague in his critique, he examined so many little elements. There's nothing wrong with doing that. The problem I do have, is when people make out that those trivial complaints, are more than they really are. I think Joseph is slightly falling into that territory, regarding criticising the second half of Dark Souls. But I can appreciate the effort he puts into the videos. His and Matthewmatosis' videos, both offer interesting insight.
+gilgamesh310
i think a large part of that usually is that sequels in certain areas can't match the original game. for PC gamers DS-II is the sequel with DS1 being the first game. so during DS1 you mess around with the combat mechanics, you learn when to block / dodge, when to attack or how to parry. a lot of these things are gone in the sequel. you already learned all this, and even if the combat system is changed a bit, like in DS2, it just won't feel like the experience you had in the first game.
the same goes for other elements of the game. you won't fall for certain traps anymore etc. but it's hard to factor in this effect while reviewing a game.
from soft tried to mix up combat with the multiple enemies at once approach, it' probably comes down to personal preference weather you like it or not.
Klorel123 I didn't like the multiple enemies approach to combat, but I almost always used the lock on. I might have enjoyed it more by not using it.
gilgamesh310 "The term 'nitpick', is just another way of saying 'extensive critiquing'." I don't know if I can agree with that. In Dark Souls 1, I always wondered how they got the water inside New Londo Ruins. Yeah, Ingjard flooded the place, but where did all that water come from? What happens when you clear it out, where does it go? That much water doesn't just disappear. That's just one tiny little thing that doesn't mean much, would you call that extensive critiquing? I do agree however, that making it seem so much more than it really is, is quite annoying.
I'm not trying to be rude, but there is a difference.
Jennifer Kingston That seems like something that Smudboy would actually nitpick. Matthewmatosis doesn't stretch that far. Regarding where the water goes to, there are a lot of cliffs around. Including one right after where the doors open. It could drain down off them.
Im personally not a fan of the ds2 dlc but that Sinh fight was an absolute banger ngl
28:50 so innocent
There's one element that hurts DSII a lot, in my opinion. Artistic design and lore. It's generic and uninspired, and it feels like Western Fantasy #768, which is a shame compared with the worldbuilding in the original one.
+jmiquelmb I know people want to give DkS II a lot of credit in retrospect now because the DLCs turned out so well, but you CAN'T strike how shit most of the base was. Levels like earthern peak, harvest valley, and no mans wharf were just so boring and uninspired for a SOuls game.
And half of the bosses looked like God of War rejects. The medusa clone...the smelter demon...the fucking dragon rider. Seriously, the DLC was good, but going back and playing most of the main game is SUCH a chore. At least Lost Izalith and Tomb the giants were interesting. Not to mention DkS only had one DL. No telling how good it could've been if it had more.
siegward of catarina shut up, ur just pissed u werent in it, siegward. Maybe if u hadnt called miyazaki a filthy casual, he wouldn't have cut ur part.
I remember thinking that DS2's art design made me think of Fable when I started playing
Shut up, the guys in armour were the best part of ds1 and then from focused on it more and it was great
yknow what was impressive about seeing knights in armour in ds1?
the fact that you didn't see them often, and when you saw your first black knight he was intimidating as shit
reviewing dark souls II is really difficult. one the hand i hand to applaud from software, because they dared to make (drastic) changes to dark souls II instead of just releasing a carbon copy sequel. nothing kills a series faster than just releasing one and the same game over and over again every year.
on the other hand i am torn about this decision, because i really don't enjoy the multiple enemy combat. to me it removes a great element of freedom in the way i want to fight. your video perfectly illustrates that. you could play defensive, go "berserk" or play somewhere in between. multiple enemy combat always leads to the "thirst for burst" combat style. burst down one enemy as quickly as you can, afterwards things will get significantly easier. this means that a defence playstyle will inherently be inferior to aggressive combat styles. to me this is a little bit sad, because literally every other game on the market (independent of the game genre) promotes offensive play. it removes a unique point from the game.
i really wish they would have found different ways to implement fighting multiple enemies. maybe reworking parry in a way that opens up different forms of crowd control. a kick after parry to make an enemy collaps for a longer period of time, a weapon swing to disarm him, a backstab to wound him so that he flees/estus up.... maybe destrucable terrain could also be used for things like that.
i don't even mind the healing changes, since you could use souls to heal in DS1 too. but somehow the combat is missing an element of grace and honor. in DS1 you i felt like the honorable knight fighting a duell against an oppoment. multiplayer invading then was the pinnacle of dueling and perfectly lined up with the game. DS-II combat just feels dirty in comparison. i know, this is a very subjective assesment, but i can't help it. that's how i feel.
besides that i just want to say that from software definitly fucked up, and burned me as a customer with their DLC policy. after the release they stated that DS-II won't have DLCs. this obviously was a lie. i would rather have waited for another "all in one product" than this messy step by step release. i still don't own the DLCs, and won't get them. purposefully backstabbing customers is no way of treating your audience... for multiplayer games DLCs serve a purpose. the try to sustain an alive community so that the game won't die. people revisitng the game is important for this. DS-II doesn't really fall into this category.
P.S: reusing some bosses from DS-I was lazy...
+Klorel123 I think the level design in DaS1 is so strong that they could justify making another just like it with only subtle tweaks to the combat. Ultimately, the major criticisms about circlestrafes and backstabs only apply to the "trash mobs" to borrow a term from MMOs. Be more creative with them, focus on great level design and bosses, and you could recapture the magic of DaS1 without resorting to the changes made to solve problems in DaS2.
That said, I really do enjoy the multiple enemies but it's hard to do well, and it's poorly rewarded in almost every case. Some sort of big soul bonus if you kill enemies within a timeframe is something I toyed with to make it worth it, but even souls are great later on. What I'm trying to say is that there's no real incentive to NOT cheese multiple enemies apart from enjoying the fight itself, which I can totally understand some people hating.
You also brought up a really good point about how it limits player choice. I didn't think of that and it's really made me think of how it violates the strengths found in 1 on 1 encounters. I think there's room for both styles in different games, and I'd be curious to see if something like Bloodborne is the direction they're taking for aggressive combat and Dark Souls returns to more defensive options.
Balance is also a huge problem since with the suggestions you gave about crowd control, these could be abused on single enemies for even greater effect. I think levels need to be more carefully designed in order to make it work. I'm eager to see if DaS3 solves any of these issues.
Thanks again for the thorough comment. You always leave good thoughts and I read them all, even if I sometimes don't reply or are late getting to it.
I'll never understand the complaint that you can't circle strafe the enemies. I think it's a good thing that most of the enemies will not let you circle around them constantly.
I've become a huge fan of your channel dude.
Even though you spent a fair bit of time on it, the point that the devs did a horrible job of teaching players to drop the lock-on cannot be overstated. There's absolutely nothing in the game to suggest the devs were aware that they needed to convince the player to change the habits they picked up from DkS1.
SuperSonicSoundwave no idea what you mean I dropped the lock on the moment I got into a group fight, it just came naturally. Did you play dark souls 1?
@@liamf2300 idk honestly if I hadn't heard about that strategy I probably wouldn't have employed it myself either. I think Joseph even explains it pretty well in this video, the targeting system has been the basis of 3d action games since ocarina of time and since it's usually so convenient it's really unintuitive to ignore it.
And this is coming from an avid Monster Hunter player, in which you used to not even be able to center the camera on the monster
Uh, not sure which Dark Souls 1 you played, but there were countless times I fought unlocked there. Beyond that, I'm not sure why you're expecting handholding in a game that's built around you learning and observing things on your own. The games certainly "teach" you a lot of concepts through gameplay scenarios, but the idea not to literally hone your camera in on an individual in the midst of a group seems natural to me. Especially when DS1 only had cardinal-direction rolling when locked on.
I love ur videos.i swear the audio is faster by like 3%... i like it :)