Dark Souls II - First Sin Review Roundup

As the title says here are some new reviews for Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin.

GameInformer - 9/10

Scholar of the First Sin is best suited for two types of player: Complete Souls newcomers that insist on playing with the latest hardware, and returning warriors who soaked up every bit of new game-plus content loaded into the original. While I don't think the encounters are quite up to the level of the original, it's hard to argue with more of one of 2014's best games.

GamesRadar - 4.5/5

It's the best version of one of last year's best games and runs beautifully on new-gen. Worth buying, especially if you've never played DS2 before.

Dealspwn - 9/10

Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin is the definitive version of a masterpiece. Surprising for veterans yet deceptively welcoming to newcomers, this rebalanced remaster proves as deeply impressive as it is brutally compelling.

IGN - 9/10

Over a year after its initial release, Dark Souls II still manages to impress. The visual enhancements make Scholar of the First Sin feel right at home on a new-gen system, while the additional enemies and reshuffled placement deliver a powerful dose of that special kind of torture that Souls fans clamour for.

More information.

…must…resist disparaging remarks about the graphical downgrade…must…rise…above

One thing they did change, which is very questionable (and ridiculous, in my opinion), is the repair costs of rings of life/soul protection. I'm not sure about the exact cost of the soul rings, but the life rings cost 14,000 souls to repair. They used to cost 3,000. This makes them of very limited use.

I've invented a name for this genre: Grind to grind

14k for soul ring? Is this a joke from? It is not funny

ring is useless anyway

is the pc interface improved ?

Not from what I've heard. The changes revolve around graphics, lighting, and item/enemy placement. The issues in the dx9 version are still present in this version. Specifically, 60fps durability issue and unreliable controls for guard break/jumping attack. Joy2key can be used to deal with the latter, though.

What's the deal with the graphics? I've seen some people claiming that it doesn't look any better than the original version and that in some ways it looks worse?

I've read that the changes are mostly related to bloom, shadows, and fog.

fix for dx11 https://github.com/eur0pa/DS2Fix64

You dummy elitists should be playing Bloodborne.

I don't know about elitist's but I play both. I won't pick this up though 1 time through DS2 was enough.

Originally Posted by sakichop
I don't know about elitist's but I play both. I won't pick this up though 1 time through DS2 was enough.

DS2 did get obnoxious IMO after some time. The level design and enemy placements just seemed willy-nilly. Hence why this version once again randomly throws the enemies about… DS2 was a good knock-off Souls game to tide us over while we waited for Bloodborne. Mmmmm, Bloodborne.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
You dummy elitists should be playing Bloodborne.

I've played through it twice now and am working my way through the final Chalice Dungeons. I'm in one now that halves your health and causes enemies to hit harder…one hit deaths for the first time in Bloodborne. Reminds me of Dark Souls all over again.

Originally Posted by muhabor
14k for soul ring? Is this a joke from? It is not funny

The fact that you could repair them in the first place just shows how dumb downed DS2 was compared to the first two.

Lifegems and repairable LOSP rings = very easy game. The less said about enemy placement and the weak bosses the better as well.

Bring on Soldiers Souls.

As far as I´m concerned the best FROM game just got even better.

There are few changes which I don´t see as improvements (enemy placement in Iron Keep, few of the newly added petrified statues, Majula being too bright, one enemy type with visibly unfinished running animations previously not obvious due to placement, new placement of dull ember is good for upping early build diversity but I think it´s a bit too easy to acquire now), but majority of changes are cool.

There are way too many enemy placements to list, but in general my favourite changes include more of the tougher enemies placed early (who however don´t hinder main progress and as such encourage returning to them later), more lore related inclusions (syan knights guarding bone dusts, dragon disciples not being necessarily hostile etc.) and more invading phantoms who serve as minibosses and have AIs quite á la those in DLC areas.

Besides the enemy reshuffle, the two most notable additions are increased utility of torches and newly placed helpful NPC summons.

When it comes to torches, dark areas are now more plentiful (but not to the point of overkill), lighting all or some sconces in certain areas may lead to surprises and there are now non-hostile hollows who drop loot and can only be seen via their shadows revealed by light. There´s also one area where enemy count may seem like overkill until player finds out that torchlight scares most of the opposition away (and thus also make one of the boss fights easier).

As for the new helpful summons, along with new invasions these first and foremost make the experience more lively and provide some aspects otherwise only available via online play. Whereas previously most of the summons were only there to help with the bosses (bar few exceptions, including DLC "challenge" areas), the additional ones mostly open opportunities to use them as help when going through the levels.
Each also come with personal quirks - one tends to observe environments via binoculars when out of fight, another heals player and gestures when one is out of range and one even urges player to a certain environmental interaction which makes one boss fight easier.
The effect is livelier game and difficulty even more malleable than it was before, at least as far as offline experience is concerned.

The other improvements include an invader who can invade pretty much everywhere, estus upgrades requiring more exploration, keys to DLC areas being scattered through the gameworld (which effectively makes 2, or at least 1, of them quite well hidden secrets), the amount of life protection rings being limited to 2 per playthrough and having increased repair costs and some small touches like "looking up" being occasionally rewarded or a certain item obtained in a DLC area having an effect in the main game.

When it comes to online changes, the upped summon limit increases the possibilities how to tailor difficulty to one´s preferences, can lead to a variety of fun situations and can occasionally increase the challenge too. The general effect is potentially even livelier experience than before.
Pools of blood showing multiple player deaths (up to 5 I think) at once is a fantastic little feature often leading to hilarious displays.

And yeah, visuals are mostly better as well, though I would call these mostly minor and not really the main selling point of the package. Lighting is better, there´s some more atmospheric color toning and improvements to particles, including glow when using healing items or absorbing souls.

It also perhaps bear pointing out that with the exceptions of the newly added random invader the DLC areas remained the same, likely because the devs were already fully satisfied with these (as was I).

All in all, this is a fantastic package for newcomers featuring the biggest and meatiest Souls game to date and a very good value proposal for those who only bought the base game and not the DLCs.
Personally I think that while most of the improvements are nice the upgrade price for owners of vanilla + DLCs is a bit too steep for its own good, around 10$ would feel more appropriate to me.

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As a side note, I hope that manufactured memes like durability "issue" or "willy-nilly" enemy placement won´t discourage potential newcomers from checking out the game .
Out of all Souls(like) titles this one comes with most breadth, RPG depth and replayability and should not be missed by any action RPG afficionados.

Originally Posted by DeepO
As far as I´m concerned the best FROM game just got even better.

You clearly haven't played Bloodborne.

…

But fine, I'm glad you are enjoying DS2…it is a good game. Lastly, Bloodborne.

Originally Posted by Ryder
The fact that you could repair them in the first place just shows how dumb downed DS2 was compared to the first two.

Lifegems and repairable LOSP rings = very easy game. The less said about enemy placement and the weak bosses the better as well.

Bring on Soldiers Souls.

Obviating draconian tedium != dumbing down

If you don't like the rings, then don't equip them. If you don't like having lots of life gems, then don't buy them. Plain and simple. If it makes the game more tolerable and enjoyable for other people, then why should you care? The game is still plenty hard for most. I question the credibility of anyone who describes this game as very easy. The project lead even stated that a goal of DS2 was to remove a lot of the tedium from Dark Souls. He succeeded on a lot of fronts, IMO.

Originally Posted by Brumbek
You clearly haven't played Bloodborne.

…

But fine, I'm glad you are enjoying DS2…it is a good game. Lastly, Bloodborne.

Or dark souls 1 or demon souls.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Or dark souls 1 or demon souls.

Ah, good point! But we shouldn't be so mean…people have a right to enjoy the obviously inferior cheap knock-off that is DS2. There's nothing wrong with that.