Dark Souls 2 - You Died

I have now played all of the Dark Souls games! 🎉 I found most of the experience to be very rewarding, and would even say that Dark Souls is one of the best series that I've played. However... Dark Souls 2 struck nerve after nerve within me, bringing me anger and frustration that I was unprepared for. Thus, I have been compelled to rant about why DS2 is FromSoftware's neglected middle child.

Breadth, Not Depth

There are 42 bosses in Scholar of the First Sin, which is significantly more than the other games. Here's a few of them:

• Dragonrider
• ... Twin Dragonriders
• Smelter Demon
• ... Blue Smelter Demon
• Literally a Giant Slug That Doesn't Attack
• A Bunch of Normal Rat Enemies
• Three Normal NPCs

When there are so many bosses in the game, I find it strange that they found the need to include some of these. None of them have any plot reasoning, they just weaken the overall boss variety.

As a whole, the game is huge. The wide expanse of levels didn't feel natural, however. You are told at the beginning of the game to seek large, powerful souls. To proceed you must gather souls of "Great Ones", but you aren't really told anything about these "Great Ones." What makes them great? Who are they? The wiki page for the Lost Sinner, for example, has no solid explanation for who the Lost Sinner is - just two fan theories.

Level Design is Lacking

A common complaint of Dark Souls 2, compared to its predecessor, is that the world is only superficially connected. The hub world, Majula, has multiple spokes away from it which lead down several rather linear paths. I did not find this to be a significant problem - I am not particularly captured by the realism of Dark Souls in the first place.

However, when I took an elevator up from within a windmill and ended up at a castle in a pool of lava... I started feeling that the world building might have some issues.

I would be able to write off the world issues, if the individual areas were well designed for the gameplay. This is, woefully, not the case.

I mentioned in my Bloodborne review that the level design of Soulsborne games is at it's best when you are just barely able to reach a checkpoint or a shortcut. The tension is fun, but only when you can trust that the game has reasonable expectations. Dark Souls II breaks this contract with the player.

Perhaps about 20% of the bonfires in the game are behind hidden walls, which you must click A in front of to reveal and pass through. If you're playing online, and read every message, this might not be too bad. If you are playing offline, as I did, you have absolutely no idea where these are. I looked them all up.

When you reach a boss in souls games, you are often going to fail several times before beating it. When you're stuck at a boss, however, the space and gameplay friction between respawn and retry cannot be too large, lest it becomes tedious and very frustrating. DS2 has several instances where the run between bonfire and boss room is ridiculously long. Here's the runback to Sir Alonne:

• Spawn at bonfire.
• Walk up to a suit of armor and trigger it.
• Loading screen.
• Clear a long rectangular room with 9 enemies.
• Drop down into another long rectangular room with 5 enemies.
• Fight Sir Alonne.

"But Ian, can't you just run past all of the enemies and enter the boss room?" Ah, well you would think so if you played any of the other games, but alas, in Dark Souls II the animation to enter a boss room can be cancelled for the first second by any enemy damage. Also most enemies can run faster than you. Good luck!

The Designers Hate You

I don't want to elaborate on each of these in depth, but here's a bunch of things that DS2 does that seem to just serve as punishments to the player for trying to play the game:

• Every time you die you lose max HP, making your next attempt harder.
• Most enemies cannot be targeted until you are nearly in melee range, even if they are blatantly visible.
• Enemy attacks are nearly all tracking. Enemy arrows and spells bend their path in mid air towards you, and melee attackers can change direction while mid-air or mid-swing. An egregious example is that an ogre can turn 90° while falling backwards.
• Many areas are designed to be played while holding a torch. Putting a torch away extinguishes it.
• You do not have direct control of when your character attempts to do a backstab, but backstabs can be dodged in DS2.
• Groups of enemies have single aggro triggers, rather than individual vision lines / aggro radii. There are many areas where you cannot play slow and smart, you are forced into ridiculous 1v5 situations.
• I probably fought 25 NPC invaders over the course of the game.

The Chosen Undead is a Zombie

Most of my issues with Dark Souls II boil down to a desire for my character to feel strong, even if the challenges are difficult. I should feel like I am a powerful knight, harnessing the power of souls to become as strong as the great beings that I am killing. You don't get that feeling in DS2, though. You're slow and you tire quickly. When you're knocked down, you lay on the ground unmoving for multiple seconds.

For better or worse, your character in Dark Souls doesn't feel like the "Chosen Undead," he just feels like ... the undead. For some, this might be more realistic. For me, it just makes Dark Souls II feel dated and unsatisfying. A game of zombies fighting zombies, rather than gods fighting gods.

I Can't Say it Better Myself

I leave you with some content from others that express things in ways I could not. Thanks for reading!