Dark Souls II - Editorial @ Press2Reset

JonNik said:

I completely fail to see how this game is significantly easier than DS1… (Well maybe a bit)
Maybe people should try playing without a wiki/guide ?

Click to expand...

Defo no guide on first playthrough.

killias2 said:

I've found some sections easier but some, like the Iron Keep, really really challenging.

Click to expand...

Burn a bonfire aesthetic at Iron Keep to make it easier for you.

Hm. I thought DS1 environment was a cool design. But it started to feel... small. An ingenious puzzle-box, but felt small and video gamey.

Its a matter of preference really.

They went with quantity and variety rather than the art-project level design of #1 so they had no choice but to spread it out...

I don't think exploration suffered terribly for it though (other than the obvious hit on the admirable interconnectivity of course) its still pretty strong at least. Still a lot of things and people to find and ways to find them (I've been very thorough in the 30-35 hours I've put thus far). I like both the pharos stones and exploding barrels utilized in that regard (they even work as alternative to keys some times) also.

Actually I may use my first ascetic to farm stones so I can activate every single one on the game to see what all of them do

The original dark souls relied a whole lot on a lack of foreknowledge for its difficulty. I recently picked it back up and noticed a tactic available at level 1 that nabs the Gravelord Sword, which makes most of the game cake. I went through the entire original playthrough of Dark Souls without knowing what covenants are or what advantages they gave. One guy forced me to join one to buy miracles, but I had no idea what else there was to it.

They took all the cheese out and improved in many ways in DS II, so you can play and don't feel like you will miss entire plot lines if you don't have a wiki/guide handy. Though if you do have the guide you know they should have put the first 40 pages or so in to the non-existent manual for the game.

Having experience with all three, DS 2 is not all that much easier. There are some things that kinda make some things more convenient (travel between bonfires) but I died a multitude of times. There are constant blood smears everywhere. Anyone that says it's significantly easier is lying to you flat out.

not being able to get stuck with a curse somewhere deep dark and wet does make it EASIER. )

On the whole, I don't think Dark Souls 2 is easier than the first. They just smoothed out a few of the extreme difficulty spikes that plagued (or "graced" if you're a masochist) the first game. If you want those spikes back, just don't rely on summons for boss fights (which is essentially what the Covenant of Champions imposes). See how you get on with The Pursuer and The Ruin Sentinels in NG+ then.

Looking at the PC version -- even on the first day, when folk are presumably still downloading and installing -- it was racking up more than 5 million player deaths a day. It ain't easy.

Anyone who has played and loved the previous two Soul's games would understand why Dark Souls II pales in comparison in almost all the aspect.

Dark Souls II Critique

Above video very accurately summarises the main problems with this game. Except for "gender" complaint at the beginning, all of the comparison points are logical and valid.

Played about 5 hours of DS II and I can easily say that DS 1 has a much superior game design. Not only in terms of magnificent world design, but also area design where DS 1 provided many routes to reach different destinations within a given area without forcing the player through bottlenecks of enemies.

In DS2, bonefires are aplenty and there is no complaint there which is appropriate with the increased size of the world and therefore fast travel feature. However, you can feel that these bonefire areas are 'forced' where you see a patch of land being specifically cut from the geometry to place these bonefires. In DS1 bonefires felt more 'organic' into the surrounding and fitted nicely into the world.

The atmosphere in DS1 I felt is also better.

The UI and inventory is still terrible in DS 2 as it was in DS 1.

There are also some design quirks in DS 2 that don't make a lot of sense in terms of monster placement and design. And those pig creatures in Majula, what is wrong with the designers, I can kill hulking beasts with 3 - 4 slashes and it took me 3 - 4 minutes of continous hacking and slashing just to kill one of those pigs!

On the other hand, DS 2 is technically much superior in terms of robustness with different hardware (PC in particular) compared to the horrible DS 1 port.

Having said that, I am enjoying DS 2 and probably these initial impressions will just be insignificant in comparions to what is going to follow.