What the hell? Were Dark souls 2 haters always casual shitters who kept parroting a midwit for over a decade while at the same playing disingenuously to get their biased viewpoint validated for a lame video essay? Never played Dark souls 2 and am considering buying it now that it's on sale. Haven't been in the soulssphere for ages so i'd like to hear your thoughts.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWiccoRo-mghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i03g6IdVFqc
It's a good game but it's no Dark Souls 13 is also a clusterfuck in its own way
>>733165018About 80% of the widely held opinions on this board stem from a youtube video or blog/forum post. it used to just be AVGN and jontron but has gotten much worse with the video essay epidemic
>>733165357Wholeheartedly agree. Had some real good times with 2. Fun game.
>>733165018It’s fine. Autist video essayists like to hyperbole everything. It’s not as unique as 1 but not as ridiculously streamlined like 3/elden ring. You should just play it for yourself and stop listening to faggots on Goytube.
>>733165508>2 isn't streamlined
>>733165018DaS2 was my first souls game and it wasn't even fun, BB was my secret and last one, boring once again. I fell for the memes, these games offer nothing except cool looking gear in general.
>>733165673my second *
Ever notice how ds2 fags are the only ones who care about eceleb opinions? You never ever hear>You only think DeS/DS1/BB/DS3/Sekiro/ER/NR is good/bad because of a youtuber!
>>733165759It's a meme just like how BB was supposed to be the best one despite a pathetic total sales of 3 or so millions.
>>7331650182 has the most replayability
>>733165659>but not as ridiculously streamlined like 3/elden ring>not as streamlined >not as
>>7331650181 has the worst gameplay and honestly is a setp back from Demon Souls.2 doesn't exist, it was just a beta for poor people, Scholar of the First Sin is the most fun one, the longest one, the most replayable one, the one with the most well regarded pvp, the one with the best graphics engine, most build variety, most open world, etc.3 is just a worse Bloodborne full of DS1 'member berries, crappy story and endings, again made around 'membering 1, most meta obsessed pvp, completely linear and shorter than OP's pecker.Also if you like Elden Ring in any way, shape or form, you like SotFS, make peace with that fact or eternally seethe, because ER is what SotFS was going to originally be.
>>733165508>opinion 1: I need this explained on the wiki, by the author and matt patt>opinion 2: I need unexplained additions, I cannot enjoy the game otherwiseopinion 3: I would prefer deliberate additions to contribute to the game and developers to otherwise not waste their time or my HDD space, especially in-jokes that are good for office morale but mean nothing to me, the playerImage related for the longest time on the Fallout wiki was listed as both the killer and the detective.The source? Not the game. Not a developer. Apparently a prima strategy guide claimed the detective was a woman and so some redditors or something extrapolated that it means... the male killer... had sex with her... and they both died on a bed... yeah, a serial killer and an unnamed, ungendered detective, of course they'd have sex. Of course.
>>733165970everything you complain about was done first by dark souls 2.
>>733165018DS2 is the easiest fromsoft gamePick up a great hammer and hexes and go to town, literally nothing will be a challenge You can crank ADP and spam infinite lifegems and never be threatened by anything The bad parts of DS2 are the hacked together content and a high level of underpolish on the backend
Cried about youtubers that haven’t been relevant in ten years again award
ds2 is the vietnamese pokemon romhack of the souls series
>>733165357fippy.Before all the contrarian tards get here, 2 was fun to play for a couple of playthroughs and then never touch again because it was so mid compared to 1.3 just sucks IMO. BB is the goat obviously and at least elden ring had a fuckton of content even though the open world was kinda meh
>>733165018It’s the worst souls game but still a 6/10 overall. You can tell where Tanimura injected his terrible ideas and once you notice it you’ll see where he negatively influenced Elden Ring
>people only say dark souls 2 is bad because of of a video essay but i know the truth because THIS video essay says-
>>733165018Reasons why Dark Souls II was maligned:>Soul MemoryIt's bad because it counts total souls accumulated, not total souls spent, so you couldn't cease its progression. Then they added the agape ring, which works, but now it consumes your souls so if you want to twink you don't get to keep souls at all.>weapon degradationIt was tied to frame rate, so on consoles it was fine, but on PC your weapons have the durability of wet paper towels. This is mitigated by consumables and spells, but I'd rather just not have the problem in the first place.>enemy despawningAfter they've been slain enough times, enemies will stop respawning. This is fine during a typical playthrough, but if you're the type to linger, eventually entire regions of the game will be devoid of anything in them at all. Empty maps. This is mitigated by joining the Company of Champions, but the covenant comes with its own changes that you may not wish to deal with>no Red Eye OrbThis is self explanatory; reds were upset because they had to farm for orbs. It's annoying busywork that could better be spent invading.>invasion timerIt puts pressure on the invader to do something, which is antithetical to the "I've got all the time in the world" strategies that people would employ, things like hiding and blending, lying in wait to ambush the host, or playing the long game by running through the level.>hosts can be invaded while hollowWhy? It renders moot the entire point of Humanity/human effigies.>abundance of healing>introduction of sublime bone dustThe first is self explanatory; there's too many healing consumables in the game that can just absorb damage. Bone dust effectively replaces Humanity, which makes no sense. There was no reason to fuck with the previous mechanics that worked so intuitively.>a bunch of other issues, i.e.>aggressive enemy tracking and bad hitboxes (got patched to some extent)>split into two versions DX9/DX11>visual downgrade from the promo materialetc.
>>733165018got any more video essays faggot? Your boyfriend recommended them to you?
yeah therese totally no legit reasons to dislike dark souls 2
>>733165018i'm playing it right and wtf is that runback to Blue Smelter Demon?? If i didn't had a bow a were supposed to just accepet that there are unreachable archer shooting at me while i fight the other mobs?? And even then it takes like 15 shots to kill those fucks, by the time i reach the boss my cortisol levels are too high to properly concentrate on the fight. I was enojoying the hell out of this game so far but this is just bullshit.
>>733165018I didnt like DS2
>>733168957>Soul Memory badagreed>weapon degradation tied to framerateonly in dx9 2 and got patched in 2014>enemy despawningplay covenant of champions if you wanna farm>no Red Eye Orb>invasion timer>hosts can be invaded while hollowall three made the whole system balanced, if you wanted fair pvp, go to the arena.Hollowing is tied to your health pool, has nothing to do with invasions and it should never had, there is a reason it got removed.>abundance of healing>introduction of sublime bone dustLess estus flasks, extremely slow healing, long animation. Having multiple sources was a way to go around that. Using humanities in 1 to instaheal was the cheapest, most casul thing of any fromsoft game, especially with how easy was to farm them>aggressive enemy tracking and bad hitboxesMost forgiving one, every time I get summoned in ER and the host summons a second phantom, I always see jumping bosses change directions mid air like an ufo>split into two versions DX9/DX11thank the publisher for that, and the game play a lot different, to the point you could consider them two different games, thus why no one talks about vanilla or dx9 2>visual downgrade from the promo materialbut unlike other fromsoft titles, you can get the promo graphics with 2 mods, ds2le and a texture pack.
>>733169176all the DLC areas have a gauntlet section where you're put in a really gimmicky area with effectively unavoidable encounters until you reach the boss. you should try to take the shortcuts activated by the levers. even if they're timed and if you fail to get past the gate they open in time you are dead because it just sends a mob of enemies and fireballs to gank you. either way yeah those parts are pretty annoying but that's just how it is. blue smelter also has this weird ability to adjust his attack speed on the fly and that always fucks with me whenever i replay the game.
>>733165018Maulers critique was pretty spot on if a tad hyperbolic at times. It's an extremely flawed game that clearly lacked any concrete vision for what it should be and had a very rough development because of that. What charm it has comes more from the spectacle and presentation of it all, rather than the mechanics or moment to moment gameplay.
>>733167043I need to rape Shinobu
>>733165018>Were Dark souls 2 haters always casual shitters who kept parroting a midwit for over a decadeI just didn't like it.
>>733165018This game is a piece of shit (Dark Souls is overrated in general) but it had good moments.https://youtu.be/1j70nIH8qS8?si=69QG04AxG4dshxLshttps://youtu.be/BeJ-Kscdp4w?si=j69Sqa6xtVdC6R1U
>>733170046Yeah I'm not sure why people try to argue that changing visions so far into development didn't harm the overall product. Really it's a miracle they got as coherent of a game as they did considering the mess that was development. Has a lot of good moments and ideas and really a lot of them got expanded upon in later games in various ways(really ER does it a lot). Though I wish From would stop throwing out good ideas that had poor execution of suffered from other outside issues, half of the online features of DS1 are a good example.
>>733169753>company of championscool in concept but it was effectively a pve covenant and who the hell wants to waste time on that? plus you can't summon or be summoned so it effectively cuts you off from co-op which is gay.>no Red Eye Orb>invasion timer>hosts can be invaded while hollow>all three made the whole system balanced, if you wanted fair pvp, go to the arena1. invaders didn't want to go to an arena, they wanted to go and invade out in the world.2. not having a full eye orb has nothing to do with balance, it's just an inconvenience.3. allowing for invasions while hollow is the stupidest thing they could have done, as it renders impotent the entire point of humanity. it's just them trying to switch things up for no reason it seems, or perhaps by salvaging a rushed product, they didn't have enough time to fully develop whatever replacement system they were going for. the end result is less satisfying than what came before, which is the issue.4. invasion timer doesn't affect balance either, it just forces you to act rather than tarry, and people didn't like that.>Less estus flasks, extremely slow healing, long animation.this is just the devs creating problems where they didn't exist previously, and then trying to come up with new ways to solve those problems. in the first game, every bonfire could provide a total of 20 flasks, but you had to kindle the flame to get that. why was this system dropped in favor of sublime bone dust and estus shards? it's trash.>Using humanities in 1 to instahealI won't deny that it was cheap and broken, but at least you had to go out of your way to get humanity, and the animation to consume them was slower than your estus flask, so it couldn't really be used when you're being focused.
>>733170046>Maulers critique was pretty spot onYou are a retard that is convinced easily.
>>733165018The first example of the enemies ganking you and you "doing the same thing in ds3 and ds1" is fucking bullshityou get ganked out of nowhere in ds2, its no the same as the enemy gathering he did in ds1 and ds3
>>733165018>over 2 fucking hoursds2fags are mentally ill
>>733170874>Scholar "Fixed" enemy encounter by making their aggro range the size of an entire area.Still one of funniest changes SoTFS made.But to your point, part of why I also couldn't stand ganks in DS2 is because the player is more sluggish than in even 1&3. Bloodborne still handled ganks the best since your trick weapons have two modes, for the most part one specialises in solo and the other in crowd control
>>733170720>cool in concept but it was effectively a pve covenantAnd?>plus you can't summon or be summonedEnter the covenant to farm whatever item you want, leave when you have it>1. invaders didn't want to go to an arena, they wanted to go and invade out in the world.>2. not having a full eye orb has nothing to do with balance, it's just an inconvenience.>3. allowing for invasions while hollow is the stupidest thing they could have doneInvaders could invade more easily since hollowing wasn't a way of protecting yourself anymore, so needing to buy the red orbs from the midget or farm them if you were using the ring was a balance decision.If you really wanted to be a faggot casul, you could burn an effigy to block invaders for 30 minutes.>4. invasion timer doesn't affect balance either, it just forces you to act rather than tarry, and people didn't like that.>nooooo I cant grief players by invading and hiding so they cant advance to other areas>slow estus is just the devs creating problems where they didn't exist previouslyestus chugging and humanity crackin' was the most faggot thing ever, and I'm glad they explored other ways>but at least you had to go out of your way to get humanitythe run from the second bonfire in the tomb of giants to the area where the baby skeletons spawn take like 20 seconds, you can roll past every enemy, kill the pinwheels, then you just farm the infinite spawning babies, completely unbothered.
>>733170726I played the game, everything he said about it was correct. How much it personally impacts you as you play is another matter but those problems still exist. DS2 is not some unfairly maligned masterpiece, its a charming mess.
Threadly reminder the biggest DS2 hater back then is a tranny, who got kicked off the lgbtq community, and then canceled by the rest of the trannies, for being the most fucking retarded and insufferable sperg known to man.
>>733165018Not watching your shitty videos. Work on your voice or hire someone.
>>733165018Getting angry at someone for giving DS2 ONLY a 7/10 is just retarded.
>>733165018It's more like Soulsniggers refuse to acknowledge any criticism towards the "action games for retards" franchise they base their identity.
>>733165018You should form your own opinions. This is not math. Someone can make a compelling argument why some criteria is worse on DS2 than 1, but that doesn’t matter because video games are art and you can find beauty wherever your soul is destined to find it. Go play it when you’re in the mood for a soulslike again
>>733165018I can give you a genuine opinion because not only did I actually play the game, I went in with no biases, for context, I played Sekiro first, Elden Ring, DS3, DS1 then DS2 in that order, I played OG DS1 when it came out, but it was so laggy I quit past undead burg.Now, was DS2 as bad as all the slop youtubers claim? Yeah, it was the worst one I played, clunky controls, and eird mechanics, but at the same time, literally no FromSoft game innovated more than DS2, it crawled so DS3 and Elden Ring can run, every good DS3 or Elden Ring, taken for granted, like power stancing, unique dual wielding combos were started in DS2, it's actually a heavyily misunderstood game. With that said, I fucking hate DS2 and I will never play it again.
>>733172282but enough about hellkitedrake
Soul memory was fine, especially with the ring it had really generous brackets to matchmake with which should be the whole point of a matchmaking system anyways.>>It made thinking 5% more annoyingWho cares? Why are we pretending this is a large amount of people.Ds1 strict 9 level difference is way more annoying to play around with friendsIs it the absolute Kino st system, no? But to pretend it's like some crime that ruins the game when MP is such a small part anyways is really silly
I didn't watch a fucking >video essay. I played the game in 2014 when half of you fags were in diapers and, based on my own experiences, formed the opinion that it was dull. Unintentionally dropped it somewhere in the giant castle because I just didn't feel like opening the game again.Sometimes I forget that most of you are <20.
>>733171768You “played the game” as in ragequit after 2 hours because you weren’t tutorialized that ADP effects your roll speed? You aren’t fooling anyone here.
>>733173667lol check it out uncs crashing out fr fr
>>733165018Every single souls game before Bloodborne is objectively a hot mess. Everyone pretends that DS1 was good only because it was their first game and there weren’t many titles in the series to compare it to when it released.
Why do DS2tards have such a persecution complex about people not liking their game?
>>733173853I'm 4th ranked chad. You DID NOT even spike my cortisol 1%, betacell.
>>733165018DS2 controls are just ass>Your movement sucks>The lockon sucks>Your animations are gay>Your iframes are broken>Every boss is fighting while half asleep to compensate for all of the aboveIs it a surmountable challenge? Yes. Is it good design? No. Is it worth making a 2.5 hour long video essay to cope about? Also no.
>>733173763I did almost everything there was to do actually.
>>733173562Fromsoft's asymmetric pvp system is what put it on the map. The online is, was, and always will be the main driver behind why these games are the cultural phenomenon they are. Modern /v/ being too casual to fight off red phantoms (especially in neo-Fromsoft where you're guaranteed to be fighting the red in a 2v1 or 3v1 gank) doesn't change that fact.
>I played the game in 2014 when half of you fags were in diapers
>>733165357This. It was good at launch, but still sub par compared to 1. Then SOTFS ruined it and I never touched it again after playing one playthrough of that """remaster""".
>>733165018I don't hate it because it's hard. I hate it because it's slow and the handling is terrible.
>>733165018Dark Souls 2 has a bevy of problems and is very jank and artificially hard. Their criticisms are valid.However all that can serve as an obstacle to overcome and take pride in conquering if you so choose.
DS2 is easier and less trap-heavy than DS1. Anyone that played on release remembers people being dissapointed at how easy the game was.
>>733175737>it's slow and the handling is terrible.this was actually one of my favorite parts of kings field 4, it's actually hypnotic and relaxing to play
>>733165018It's been like 12 years and people are still hung up on dark souls 2 drama? How?
>>733176076Pretty short too if you just do the required stuffIt feels shorter than a DS1 run with sens skip
>>733176093I didn't like Kings Field on release because it felt like a really slow Heretic or something.
>>733165018yes anoneveryone who dislikes 2 for>being ugly>incoherent world building>soul memory>no permanent red eye orb>weapons breaking after 4 hits if your fps is above 24>80% of bosses are just plain boring>enemies respawn after 4-5 runs, good luck getting that one weapon you wantedis just parroting le ebin youtuber manthe only things 2 did correctly were bonfire ascetics and hexes, everything else was hot garbage
>>733176251get baked and pass the controller around to your friends to watch them flail around with the ridiculous controls it's the best game on the ps2
2 is a good video game, it's worth playing. It's just not anywhere near as good as any of the other games in the souls adjacent series.
>>733176381Oh, I never played 4. Only 1.
>>733167043>tranimedidn't read lol
>soletroons having a melty>>>/trash/
>>733171735>Enter the covenant to farm whatever item you want, leave when you have itno.>Invaders could invade more easily since hollowing wasn't a way of protecting yourself anymore, so needing to buy the red orbs from the midget or farm them if you were using the ring was a balance decision.that's a retarded statement.>If you really wanted to be a faggot casul, you could burn an effigy to block invaders for 30 minutesor I could do what anyone with a brain does and simply play offline.>estus chugging and humanity crackin' was the most faggot thing ever, and I'm glad they explored other waysyeah well you're a homosexual so you'd know. those other ways are much more homosexual in comparison. you can get an infinite number of lifegems and use them to absorb incoming damage like a faggot. >humanities are easy to farmand? still takes more effort than going to the merchant and putting down souls for a full stack of lifegems like a faggot.
>>733165018I put the most hours out of any souls game into DS2/SotFS. It is by far the worst entry in the series.
I played DS2 on release after being extremely excited for it, having loved DS1.DARK SOULS 2 FUCKING BLOWS.The DOGSHIT opening cinematic is perfect example. An incoherent mix of disparate scenes offloaded to a Chinese renderfarm with no connection to the game you're about to play, yet widely lauded by DS2 fags who, anytime they see it, will throw up their arms and proclaim "CINEMA!" despite all it doing is seemingly giving your character a defined sex and backstory moments before you can choose to completely contradict it. Why is there a whirlpool full of fireflies that transports you to Drangleic? Did your character know it would transport them to Drangleic? Why are whirlpool teleports never seen or heard of again? Why do the old ladies make a lampshading joke about losing your souls again and again? Have they played DS1? Did Bamco give the old ladies a marketing script to follow?Also all the animations in the game suck fucking balls and it's uglier than DS1 to boot. Fuck DS2 contraryniggers, the fucking Phantom Menace apologists of vidya.
>>733165018I just got it on steam sale and just defeated lost sinner. I'm really disappointed lol. "peak souls 2" my ass, everything about it is absolute garbage lol. still going to finish it
>>733165018DS2 defenders really can't cope with the fact that people just didn't like it.
>>733165357It's one of those games that's good by itself and worth playing, but the worst in the franchise, which is UNACCEPTABLE to fans of said franchise. They can get fucked. don't like it, don't play it. It's that shrimple
It's bad-bad but cultist can't accept it
>>733175737>turning 180 degrees with a fast thrusting weaponlrn to freeaim>slow>bad handlingIt's ok, not everyone learned how to free aim. That's why fromsoft made the lock on tracking so hilarously strong in later games
>>733165018I like the Souls games, I just lack the patience required to play every boss like a turn based RPG.Luckily, grinding exists so I can just come back later and 1 shot them with my club.
>>733176381>get bakedI still don't understand how people play video games when highIt's basically fucking impossible, makes me retarded as fuck and I don't even want to play games like I do when I'm drunk
>>733179270It really depends on the quantity and strain you're using. most idiots are smoking basically horseshit and thinking they're hot shit
The game becomes playable once you upgrade adp and get a decent weapon
>>733178840>Free-aim because the lock on is literally brokenUsing an ultra weapon in DS2 is a humiliation ritual. Just one more aspect of the game that's broken on a mechanical level for no reason.
>>733165897we know it sold at least 7 million from the leaks a few years ago lying nigger
>>733165018I like og ds2 but the second I start brume tower i get souls fatigue again usually because sanctum city is so ass
JUST ONE MORE THREAD, JUST ONE MORE YOUTUBE VIDEO! KEEP FIGHTING, DS2GODS, THE NARRATIVE IS BEGINNING TO SHIFT, I CAN FEEL IT!
It's fitting in a way that fans of DS2 also suffer from severe middle child syndrome
>>733165018The kind of person who likes DaS2 is the same kind of person who likes New Vegas and gay sex.
>>733165437This
>>733165018Dark souls 2 is literally everything DS1 was, but all magic and brilliance replaced with stupid shit. Everything is worse. It's not a terrible game, but it's mediocre, and that dissapoints people when the previous one is an master piece.
I keep flip-flopping on whether this looks really impressive or entirely soullesshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmMaejO1UA
I love dark souls 2.what are your favourite levels?
>>733176357Everything you stated outside of soul memory and weapon durability is a problem that exists in both ds1 and demon’s souls. You are parroting something but your criticisms are nonsensical gibberish when compared to every other title that came before it. But no, dark souls 1 = good because.. because it just is while dark souls 2 is bad because.. just because.
>Dark Souls 2 thread>look inside>perpetual victim redditors crying about some eceleb from 12 years ago instead of actually talking about the game they supposedly loveI have performative gamer fatigue
>>733178682How about you accept the reality and discussion of it instead, fuckboy.
