Dark Souls 2

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silva
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Post by silva »

Just finished the game. And man, what a huge let down.

I got completely aimless from midgame forward, without even knowing why I was playing. I mean, yeah "Find souls, find bigger souls, find the king" but so what ? Ive found the old man and slayed him, and then what ? Ancient dragon who ? Big Giants what ? Sigh. The narrative in the series is already minimalist, but in this game its non-existent. Really, the game is trying hard to make the plot subtle and ambiguous when in truth there is no plot at all! Sure, there were improvements since the first game, specially in the mechanical parts (like combat), but the world and narrative aspect is completely botched. I was thinking bout beginning a NG, but nah Im done, its not really worth it.

My grade for the game: 6.5/10
(my grade for the first game: 10/10)
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

silva wrote:Just finished the game. And man, what a huge let down.

I got completely aimless from midgame forward, without even knowing why I was playing. I mean, yeah "Find souls, find bigger souls, find the king" but so what ? Ive found the old man and slayed him, and then what ? Ancient dragon who ? Big Giants what ? Sigh. The narrative in the series is already minimalist, but in this game its non-existent. Really, the game is trying hard to make the plot subtle and ambiguous when in truth there is no plot at all! Sure, there were improvements since the first game, specially in the mechanical parts (like combat), but the world and narrative aspect is completely botched. I was thinking bout beginning a NG, but nah Im done, its not really worth it.

My grade for the game: 6.5/10
(my grade for the first game: 10/10)
If you beat Vendrick... That is, weird. Because he has like 16 times defenses if you have the one giant soul you could have at the time you first run into him.

Although, I will summarize your post as the following:

The old game was a 10/10 perfect game.

The new game is better in all the parts where you are playing the game, but not as good as the parts where you aren't playing the game, this makes the game worse overall, and basically half as good.
Last edited by Kaelik on Mon May 12, 2014 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by icyshadowlord »

Yeah, the plot (or lack thereof) has bothered me as well.

Either way the game is still enjoyable, and I do plan to try out NG+.

If not that, then I'll burn a few Bonfire Ascetics to get the otherwise unobtainable stuff.
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Post by silva »

Ok, after the initial frustration for finishing the game, I can see its problems clearer I think:

1. weak sense of purpose.

DS1 was minimalist too, but it always gave players a strong sense of purpose both on the macro level (youre the chosen undead, go end the curse) and on the micro one (escape from undead asylum -> ring the bells -> get the 4 great souls -> rekindle the fire), while DS2 is opaque at best about your goals both immediate and overarching ("go to Drangleic to find a cure for your curse -> ? -> find 4 great souls -> ?" ), resulting in a feeling of aimless wandering a significant portion of your time in the game.

2. Weak contextualization of world elements.

The great wolf Sif in DS1 was foreshadowed enough by the game´s lore that when you meet him in Artorias grave its a big game moment - you recognize that beast and its significance for the greatest hero of Lordran. Now take the Royal Rat Authority - who is it ? whats its significance in the worlds context ? Why are you figthing him ? You dont know. The game dont bother to tell you anything. This example is emblematic to all other world elements, I think - who is the Duke ? who is Mytha ? Who is the Rotten ? Who is Aldia ? Who is the Ancient Dragon ? Dont fucking know. On the other hand, DS1 explaing contextualizes pretty well who is Seath the Scaleless, Gwin, Artorias, Havel the Rock, etc.

The only NPCs that are given significance in DS2 is the Iron King and his Queen (and lover), with the story of their Babel-like tower that sinks because of their ambitions. Its an awesome subplot, by the way, coupled with some of the best theme-coherent areas in the game - earthen peak/harvest valley/iron keep - why the game didnt adopt this kind of contextualization to more NPCs and areas is beyond me.

3. weak ideas / appeal.

DS1 mirrors some real world ancient mythologies: Fire as the source of life and creation (and change in a static world); the Age of Fire as a mythic Golden Age; the old gods abandoning the world leaving humans to their fate, etc. And the game manages to illustrate those points very well, contrasting the decaying of the land around to the opulence of Anor Londo - when you get there, you really feel the wondrous power that gods had, and how glorious that past was. This gives the player a meaningful goal to strive for, compelling him to rekindle the fire.

DS2 dont have anything like that. What exactly are we supposed to care about in this world ? The game fails at answering this simple question. Sure, there is a medievalesque kingdom with a (supposedly) great past, and some people that were important in some way (Duke, Aldia, The Queen, Knight Drummond, etc) but the game do not reveal enough info on these elements to make the player empathize and care for this old kingdom. Its all very loose, bits and pieces of info that struggle to form a coherent whole. And this "incomplete whole" is not that interesting, frankly. It doesnt have the mythic resonance of Lordran, nor the epicness of the first, where the protagonist meets a bunch of powerful NPCs on the way - Solaire, Big Hat Logan, Siegfried of Catharina, Way of White clerics, etc - all converging to the same place, same goal, giving it this character of a really epic quest for the world´s destiny. All in all, those points sum up to explain why, IMHO, DS1 is such a strong moving and exotic experience, while DS2 feels much more mudane and... simply uninteresting, in comparison.


Obs: this by no means DS2 dont have its merits. I found the way the NPCs develop reinforces the theme of loss of memory that permeates the world (its specially shocking to see the daughter of the blacksmith in Majula do not recognizing its father anymore). The fight between Pate and that other NPC shows how degraded are peoples minds in their way to hollowing. In general, I loved Majula. Its the perfect symbol of the world´s decaying, and the way the NPCs that converge there all show signs of mental degradation only reinforces this feeling. Also, most of the changes in actual game mechanics were for the better (the only point I aint convinced is the weapon degradation aspect). Overall, DS2 is a good game. Just not a great one, and not on par with the rest of the series.
Last edited by silva on Mon May 12, 2014 9:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

silva wrote:1. weak sense of purpose.
This is a paragraph where you explain that you are an idiot. Like, Get four great souls in order to X is the greatest most purpose driven game design ever, but get five great souls to open the doors of winter to get the ring and fight king vendrik is confusing and lack of purpose?

Look, you remember dark souls as the greatest thing since sliced bread and you project your current knowledge back. I walked around darks souls for a bit with no fucking clue what the fuck was going on. Now that I know the story of Dark Souls 2, everything you do has a real clear obvious purpose. But I was confused at the beginning of that too. Whatever.
silva wrote:2. Weak contextualization of world elements.
Going to say this is half you being an idiot, for example, the Great Dragon is Aldia, Vendrick's brother. If you don't care about him when you meet him it is because you missed things, not because they didn't give you a reason. And you praise the King/Queen storyline, but whine about how Mytha doesn't mean anything to you... The are the same person.

The other thing is that I guarantee you a bunch of fucking dark souls bosses were completely random and unforeshadowed to the same degree as the Royal Rat Authority, and you are just ignoring them.
silva wrote:3. weak ideas / appeal.
Dark Souls 1 has this once concept I liked, and Dark Souls 2 has this other concept I like, but I didn't fully understand the one from Dark Souls 2 yet, so whaaaaaa, Dark Souls one had a better theme.
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Post by silva »

kaelik wrote:the Great Dragon is Aldia, Vendrick's brother
Is there some concrete evidence for it or youre just speculating ?

I understand Aldia managed to create dragons and vanished without a trace but its never clear that he is the Ancient Dragon. In fact, when you kill the beast, you get a "Giant Soul", indicating it was in truth a Giant that was transformed. Further, there are items descriptions saying Aldia experimented upon giants in its manor. Also, the Ancient Dragon gives you a powder that allows you to enter in the memories of Giants, what leads one to believe that he (the Dragon) was indeed a giant originally.
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Post by OgreBattle »

The director of the 1st D. Souls games, Hidetaka Miyazaki, did not work on DS2 because he is working on "Project Beast" (in a possible collaboration with Sony, just as Demon's Souls was Sony Japan Studio + From Software)

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Post by silva »

Nice news, Ogre. The absence of Miyazaki explains the inferior quality of the second game.

Any info about a PC port of this "Project Beast" ?
Last edited by silva on Tue May 13, 2014 4:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

I was watching a stream of Dark Souls 2 a while ago, and the people were complaining, because they said, Dark Souls combat is supposed to be hard but fair, and that Dark Souls 2 is bullshit because instead of hard but fair they just through a pile of enemies at you and it is unfair.

I bring this up, because I recently bought a controller in order to play Dark Souls 1 that I bought however long ago. And three things from this:

1) I can definitively say that silva is (unsurprisingly) full of shit when he praises how clear and wonderful and storied the progression of DS 1 is compared to the jumbled mess of DS II. Literally all I have done is wander aimlessly for no apparent reason for hours. I rung a bell once, but I basically just stumbled across the bell. There is absolutely no clear idea where to go ever for any reason, and I just sort of stumble around killing things.

2) As it relates to the above. Currently, I have not yet lost any souls, but I am about to have to write some off. See, the problem is that in the Tomb of Giants there is this one room, where there are four hundred billion large skeletons, and the entire map is super dark, and from the ledge, I can't even depress the reticle on my bow low enough to actually shoot at them, and I can't lock on to shoot at them because of the dark. Also, I can't fight them, because they are literally everywhere, and if I drop down I am instantly so surrounded that I can't block everything, and also so surrounded that rolling actually prevents me from moving at all because literally every direction I roll into them and don't move.

And I can't help but think... What kind of idiot thinks Dark Souls II is unfair as compared to that?

3) I'm glad that someone explained sometime between I and II that in fact tails very rarely turn into weapons when you cut them off. I already have two tail weapons for no reason.
Last edited by Kaelik on Mon May 19, 2014 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by silva »

Stumbled on the first insult and stop reading.
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Post by Kaelik »

silva wrote:Stumbled on the first insult and stop reading.
That is interesting because there are actually no insults anywhere. Maybe you should stop being such an idiot and figure out the difference between someone saying you are wrong, and someone insulting you.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Aryxbez »

silva wrote:Stumbled on the first insult and stop reading.
Don't be a child, understand that adults aren't going to coddle you, and if mention "being idiotic" it's likely for a reason, opposed to making you feel bad.

I've played minimal amount of Dark Souls I, haven't played the 2nd yet, though I beat Demon Souls years ago. I believe part of DS2's design was to lessen the learning curve required to adequately play the game beforehand, has this held up to be true? Part of what doesn't have me playing Dark Souls so fervently is that "learning curve", such knowledge I'd prefer to know whatever that is, so that I can get to enjoying the game.
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"the thing about being Mister Cavern [DM], you don't blame players for how they play. That's like blaming the weather. Weather just is. You adapt to it. -Ancient History
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Post by silva »

Aryxbez, yes, I think the changes to DkS 2 were to make it more streamlined and user-friendly. And in fact, most game mechanics improved from the first two games.

The question then is one of rules vs flavour: do you prefer a game which is more tight mechanically but more forgetable and watered down as an experience, or one which is more flawed mechanically but provides a more rich, memorable and intense experience ? (because, really, even if mechanically inferior, DaS 1 is superior in every other aspect to DaS 2: story, atmosphere, art direction, level design, etc. )

( funnily, its a question very common on tabletop environment too. )
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Post by OgreBattle »

Here's some more rumored clips of Project Beast

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/29/576329 ... ars-online

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Post by RufusCorvus »

I'm sure people have seen it already, but Project Beast's official title is Bloodborne.

Just based on the pseudo-Victorian aesthetic the trailer gives off, I'm expecting a Marvelous Chester cameo.
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Post by OgreBattle »

RufusCorvus wrote:I'm sure people have seen it already, but Project Beast's official title is Bloodborne.

Just based on the pseudo-Victorian aesthetic the trailer gives off, I'm expecting a Marvelous Chester cameo.
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Post by Maxus »

OgreBattle wrote:
RufusCorvus wrote:I'm sure people have seen it already, but Project Beast's official title is Bloodborne.

Just based on the pseudo-Victorian aesthetic the trailer gives off, I'm expecting a Marvelous Chester cameo.
"This bald smirking man wants you to lean over a hole, Y/N?"
"N! And I kick him in the dick."
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

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Post by Laertes »

Maxus wrote:"N! And I kick him in the dick."
More games need Renegade interrupts.
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Post by icyshadowlord »

So how many days left till the Dark Souls II DLC arrives?
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Post by RufusCorvus »

On Steam, it unlocks on the 22nd. I'm sure it's probably the same for consoles.

Apparently there's also going to be a big calibration update on the 18th.
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Post by Ganbare Gincun »

How good/bad is the PvP in Dark Souls 2? Is it like Dark Souls 1 where you had a bunch of cheaters online running around murdering people like crazy? Or do you actually stand a chance against enemy invaders?
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Post by Kaelik »

Ganbare Gincun wrote:How good/bad is the PvP in Dark Souls 2? Is it like Dark Souls 1 where you had a bunch of cheaters online running around murdering people like crazy? Or do you actually stand a chance against enemy invaders?
In my experience most people are not cheaters. I definitely ran into a few, like one time there was a guy who every time I hit him, I did zero damage. And he was naked. That guy was probably a cheater. But I only ran into one definite cheater, and aside from that most people I didn't think they were cheaters. Although, at this point if you hit 12mil soul level or whatever, you will be fighting people with 99 in all stats.
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Post by Ganbare Gincun »

Kaelik wrote:If you hit 12mil soul level or whatever, you will be fighting people with 99 in all stats.
12 million souls? Jesus, how many rounds of NG+ does it take to accumulate that many? I'd probably be content with beating the game maybe once, twice tops.

Are there any decent caster builds that are good in both PvE and PvP? Or do they only really shine in PvE?
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Post by Kaelik »

Ganbare Gincun wrote:
Kaelik wrote:If you hit 12mil soul level or whatever, you will be fighting people with 99 in all stats.
12 million souls? Jesus, how many rounds of NG+ does it take to accumulate that many? I'd probably be content with beating the game maybe once, twice tops.

Are there any decent caster builds that are good in both PvE and PvP? Or do they only really shine in PvE?
Sorry, that was supposed to be 1.2. That is the point where your pool expands to everyone over that mark. But at this point, most people still playing are people who really really really like the game.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by RufusCorvus »

So the first of the Lost Crowns DLC dropped and I've beaten it once with a NG character and am roughly 60% done with it in NG+.

I think the $10 price tag is perfectly reasonable. If the next two are of similar quality, then the Season Pass is $25 well spent.

The two main areas are both well-designed. They look great and navigating them was a lot of fun. Shulva (the first area) has switches that raise and lower platforms, letting you alter the battlefield's terrain to some extent and open up hidden paths. The Dragon Sanctum is broken into two parts: the first is an honest-to-god dungeon crawl featuring enemies that are pretty much a masterclass on not relying solely on physical damage; the second is basically an extended platforming section, but it never comes across as bullshit. I'm almost positive they built the platforms so they were just wide enough for you not to roll off, but still give a scare.

The Sanctum is broken up by a slog through the area featuring these friendly-looking guys and is the new hip place to farm Twinkling Titanite and Petrified Dragon Bone. Even on NG with no item discovery, 1-3 dropped with each kill.

The boss fights were also awesome. I saw someone call Elana, the Squalid Queen "Nashandra done right" and that sounds about like a decent descriptor. Think Nashandra+Looking Glass Knight with a little Skeleton Lords on the side. Sinh is basically Kalameet 2.0. I'm not sure how he stacks up with the Ancient Dragon because... well, I've never fought the Ancient Dragon. (Or Priscilla. I'm a softy for the non-hostiles.) The third, optional boss fight is probably the hardest. It's a three-on-one beat-down featuring a greatbow-archer/fencer, a katana powerstancer, and everyone's favorite dildoman... and it is awesome. I had two phantoms with me when I beat them but I still felt like I had to work for it. I'm sure there's someone out there who can make it look easy.

Not to mention it has the best NPC invader ever.

So, yeah. Those are my off-the-cuff thoughts. I can expand if anyone wants.
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