@@YEY0806 Dude, his audience literally never noticed *any* of the stuff that Domo points out. Like, none of it. He has an audience of lukewarm IQ individuals who believe that agreeing with him makes them smarter. Including someone who claims to literally teach 'critical writing' praising him for his "sound arguments" while also acknowledging that she knows nothing about the source material.
@deadworld953 who was that someone? Because imagine someone who does "critical writing" unironically saying that Mauler makes sound arguments is just funny
Mauler really feels like the kind of guy that thought no one liked him in school because "they were intimidated by his intellect"; when he was really just insufferable.
This is most definitely true and I say this even with no evidence. Just the fact that he keeps saying “this is objectively true or bad” but then goes on to describe his opinion that is so utterly unfounded in objectivity because he legitimately can’t distinguished what is fact and what is just his opinion should be obvious that he didn’t have much social interactions in his youth to know the difference 💀
He calls himself a "video essay analyticalyst" in his channel description. Analyticalyst isn't a word. He made up a word to try and make himself seem smarter
@@vizotzyz Most people who 'watch' long form video essays don't actually watch them, they sleep to them. Which they will often joke about in video comments, on streams or on other social media.
De-aggro range is in every souls game, yet is somehow only bad when it's in DS2. De-aggro is also *objectively* a good thing, it allows the player to run away. Either retreating to a bonfire or to a safe spot to re-think their strategy.
I know this is off topic, but another example of DS2 haters being bias are the bosses. When there's a mediocre fight in DS2, they just call it bad and "souless". But when the same happens in DS1 they just say something like: "Well, the arena is cool", or "but the lore makes up for it" or even "it's a good concept". And then they just say it's good. I think the best example of this is when they compare najka to quelaag, and say it's just a lazy and bad copy. But i never saw anyone complaining about iron golem being just a cheaper and worse version of tower knight.
Similarly, people will complain that DS2 copy pasted the Gargoyles from DS1, but do not care that DS1 recycled them from the Maneaters. Or when they complain that Lifegems do not belong in a Souls game. I doubt that the vast majority of DS2-hating "Souls Veterans" even played Demon Souls.
@@Gustodynho eh.... i don't think people who started the souls game with dark souls 3 (assuming they hate dark souls 2 because mostly do) will like demon's souls imo... ......But because it's directed by their god (Miyazaki) i think they'll like it anyway!
Man I wonder, how is it possible that a group of hollow enemies that have gone mad from dying again and again, losing completely any sense of self and what's happening to them, why don't they have self preservation??
The part about the lack of self-preservation amongst enemies is funny to me, because I remember back in 2011 or 2012 I was having trouble with the archers in Anor Londo and the advice I found online at the time was "bait them into drawing their swords and falling off the buildings when they attack"
I lost count of the amount of times in 3 where I'd enter an area and watch as enemies turned, walked towards me, then fell to their deaths. This was an issue in the souls series going all the way back to Demon's souls
"I really do not understand how he thought that his personal bias and lack of understanding of Souls mechanics are somehow a good basis for an objective review." Mauler's faux-objectivity fetish makes him think that his opinions are objectively correct and everyone who disagrees with him is objectively wrong or arguing in bad faith. It's genuinely a rather fanatical mindset to have.
This is not an uncommon belief to hold on the internet when it comes to critically analyzing art. This posturing of the nebulous concept of "Objectivity" to pretend your opinion has more merit than other people or has a stronger foundation for its critique. Outside of deliberate misinformation, that's a pretty god damn weak and cowardly position to hold. It's just a self-absorbed rationale to ignore others thoughts that you dont consider worthy of consideration when any opinion on art is subjective. All art critique is subjective, that's kind of the beauty in it. Imagine if this was held on a wider institutional level? Like you were only allowed to hold opinions that were prescribed as acceptably "Objective". It sounds like some Orwellian nightmare.
Say it with me, fellas: there are no objective reviews. “The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. … Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.” -Oscar Wilde
It's insane to me how he calls a video where hbomberguy goes on to state his opinions on a game terrible, while doing the EXACT SAME, all the while claiming his opinions are actually facts. Everyone who claims their opinions are facts is just manipulative, that's all there is to it. No matter the context. The amount of times Mauler throws the word "objectively" around is absolutely worrying. He doesn't use it for facts, he uses it as a "You can't attack my opinion."-card to play when he can't justify his claims with any reasoning. "Oh this is objectively bad, because I dislike it. You have to engage with this mechanic! Terrible." Even if he has issues with the game and its design the amount of research he did was so pathetic, half of the things in these videos are pretty easy to find by just googling them. (You are doing a great job at showcasing them way better than any wikipedia or forumpost could ever, so thanks again for your work. It's nice having a video to reference to timestamp and send to people!) But no, Mauler knows it all and will educate us with his expert knowledge on DS2! He misunderstood, misremembered or straight up falsely presented these so called "issues" just to undermine his, opini- ''facts''. It also showcases the incredible amount of cherrypicking and doublestandard when it comes to DS2 brilliantly, so thanks for pointing that out again. It's always hilarious to see how people play down any jank or bullshit in other entries just to shit on DS2 for having the same problems, sometimes not even to the same extent. I had to cringe so fucking hard at Mauler laughing at the enemies hitting the ''tree'' and not understanding why, I guess Vaati didn't make a video on that yet, huh? It's funny how he claims that he loves the lore of the franchise, uses it to makes excuses for the abhorrent copy-pasting of enemies in DS1, but as soon as we go to DS2, -BLAM- doublestandard-mode activated. It almost feels like fromsoftware games were almost beyond critique for some time and since DS2 is "the bad one" people just piled on it, critiquing aspects of the game that are true for all other entries and unfairly blaming it on specifically DS2, almost like they are venting. I am used to being the butt of the joke for liking Dark Souls 2, which is honestly fine, but what Mauler did is not just critiquing or nitpicking it, it's straight up just slander. Falsifying the truth to make it look worse than it actually is to people who are not familiar with it. I wonder how many people were kept from experiencing the game for themselves by people like him talking it down and the general Fromsoftware-Online-Hivemind telling people to avoid that one, because it's "bad". I am happy more and more people are slowly coming around to it.
Unfortunately, I was affected by the bad faith takes of the game to not try it and instead play the other games. However I was interested to try it out and was surprised to find a game that got me to play it 4 times with how fun and immersive it was
@@YEY0806 ya its just a really fun and well made game. does it have it's flaws? of course it does but so does every souls game. most of the problems i personally have with dark souls 2 i also have with every other souls game except demon's souls and sekiro. regardless i have such great memories from my first playthroughs of dark souls 2 i'm really glad i didn't get taken in by all the negative talk of it online to want to avoid it.
Yeah, it's also my reason to never ever engage with the fromsoft community. They mostly tend to be very toxic and egoistic. I've seen some decent people who is a fan of fromsoft games, my art mentor is one of them and actually the first person who introduced me to the dark souls trilogy. But these kind of actually decent people were overshadowed by the fromsoft cultists (or the hivemind-thing like you said). I mean it's fine to dislike one game but to spread misinfo about it... is just wrong. Tbh, i feel somewhat shame (for being a fan of the series) whenever i see videos or community spreading misinfo just to hate and avoid this one game.
@@YEY0806 same here. I didn’t play ds2 past the beginning of forest of fallen giants bc of his videos. I went back to it after I finished ds3, bloodborne, then ds1 in order and started to realise that it’s pure skill issue and most of it is deliberately false information
@@vanilla.icescream egotistic** but I completely agree. Biggest groups of elitist tourists I’ve ever seen. They pretend they’re veterans of dark souls, when really they don’t know much about them other than the surface level and they like to pretend that they are experienced with difficult games when really they suck at them and they’re too afraid to play actually difficult games like idk nioh. Sekiro was sort of difficult (personally i thought it was easy) but these people usually haven’t even played sekiro or never made it far into it.
Considering the fact that this response series is being made when you are an extremely small channel (compared to the average sub count nowadays) it’s amazing and awe-inspiring with the method you use to approach the issue (taking the time to showcase each and every mechanic/hitbox, etc.). I really enjoy your style and thank you for providing a response to Mauler’s series, which is possibly daunting taking into consideration the popularity and extension of his videos. Keep up the great work!
Lol no he didn't. His awful DS2 videos absolutely deserve to be ripped to shreds, but not everything he makes is bad. His Outlast critique is probably the most comprehensive you'll find on TH-cam. And I don't even particularly like the dude all that much.
It's actually crazy to me that Mauler, who considers himself an authority on "objetive" narrative interpretation of media, is presented with a clearly scripted scenario of not one but multiple enemies strangely running past you to aggro a weird looking tree, and it does not cross his mind that maybe that moment is very deliberate environmental storytelling to make the player curious as to why that's happening. But no, obviously intended behaviour must be a bug, because he already convinced himself that the game is bad, so he must try his hardest to contort reality and gish gallop his way into "demonstrating" he is "objectively" correct. I also noticed that most the issues he finds are the result of carefully and deliberately decontextualizing scenarios to the point that anyone that has ever played DS2 can easily point out he's either making shit up or making stuff look harder on purpose by breaking the natural way in which the game is played, but his audience, which will not play the game, won't. That's what's so insidious to me of his absurd +9 hour DS2 + Hbomb slander series, he's either deliberately or indirectly lying for the sake of content, just to be the one to say "yeah I, Mauler, snarky media understander, am objectively correct about how much DS2 sucks, I proved it with a +9 hour thesis, which surely is good because it's long". Surely nobody will bother to actually play the game with an unbiased mindset to debunk it amirite.
You know I would say that playing through Dark Souls II over 11 times looking for proof of it's alleged low quality only to misrepresent to fake or otherwise exagerate the flaws is the best defence of DS2, congrats.
@@igson-in4rd it's just way too hard for his melee-only no-tactics ranged build It's simply an objective fact that completely optional side challenges should not be challenging!
@@Domo3000 yup everything is hard in Fromsoft games if your run in like a total idiot and just start hitting things with your weapon. I mean if I try to start a robbery without a plan it's gonna be hard also so I guess Fromsoft tries to teach you to plan out your robberies.
The thing is every encounter in Ds2 still let's you run your head up against the mountain until somehow someway the mountain breaks. You could go back to the stsrting bonefire, take out the archers and dogs from there. You could even run through the zone 12 times snd despawn the enemies. You can also, just git gud and beat the encounter the hard way. Gitting gud is always an option, its just harder in ds2.
I don't believe he's ever had a good time playing any of the modern FromSoft games with how awful he seems to be at them. He's only taking it out on DS2 because it's the one that is socially acceptable to blame for failing at.
What we've learned from this: MauLer is so bad at the combat that he spaces himself from the enemies so much to a point where they are forced to return to their spawn location, then he calls it a bug. Going out of your way to force enemies to trigger a failsafe and calling it a bug is just so disingenuous. People really do be making up "problems" just to have an excuse to shit on this game lmao
It's funny because it contradicts his point about "enemy ganking" and "unfair ai behaviour" just to now say the game is bad for making enemies move back to their spawn point.
Here before this ends up on that podcast of his, glad to see someone take a shot at Mauler. Completely unsurprised that the guy who makes objetivity his entire personality fails to actually look at things objectivally
Tbh as a regular EFAP viewer I think I didn't hear them use the word objectivity since like years now. Also Mauler's live demeanor is much more chill than his video persona.
@@phillidaadamus4349 Unless he pulls another Avatar and the like. I remember him and Literature Devil making a really shitty circlejerk video about it.
Now that I think about it, this, for mostly worst, was the predecesor of all the "criticism" newer Fromsoft games has. Critiques filled with disinformation where they blame their own skill issue or lack of knowledge as something the game should correct. Or worse ,criticising something that others games also have but prefer to not care (bias). Its extremely fascinating and dissapointing for both sides that this kind of "critiques" still coexists between us and people start to believe on them as factual information because the video has a lot of views (Appeal to popularity )
Mauler is genuinely one of the worst critics on the internet. That so many people take him seriously, let alone endure his 10 hour long rants is just ridiculous.
@@bubududugaming8336No, joseph's ER video isn't as bad as mauler's ds2 sotfs videos. But its not great either. It fails to point out the actual issues. These games do not have good communication. And obfuscate things needlessly. And no, ER's ''combat flow state'' ain't a defense. Strafing, positioning, manipulating AI, dodging, attacking between attacks, etc. are present in ds2 sotfs too. Even the boss AI accounting for your actions such as cutting recovery time as soon as they see you heal. Or attack you with long range attacks based on your position. Ds2 can even let you make it essentially a no hit run when you go to NG+ with CoC active where basic enemies & bosses have no issues 2 to 3 shotting you.
the fact you can make so many videos out of maulers ds 2 video is crazy. also how the fuck did mauler put the soldiers hitting the tree in his video. people understood why that is ever since the fucking release.
Its one of the most obvious bits of storytelling in the game. Its like thinking the Radahn troops in Caelid have glitched out because they keep trying to fight the rot monsters.
Stop! Stop! He's already dead! Great video, as always. A philosophy that I have realized this past year is this: When you enjoy a game, you hyper focus on the good and ignore the bad. When you hate a game, you hyper focus on the bad and ignore the good. This is why I always enjoy people who can show both the good and bad in a game with objectivity as no game is perfect yet lots of games are good, just not your cup of tea.
And then you have "players" who will literally go out of their way to create artificial situations to make a game look worse than it is - that's Mauler's level which is just straight up cancer.
Happened to me in solo, I fought the cursed tree in the hero’s grave dungeon right after you start the game and after I staggered it, it didn’t move at all the rest of the fight.
I've also had the runebear boss clip out of the arena and die after a grab. Which you can trace back to Centipede Demon. Singling out one game to criticize it over AI freezes shows a real lack of experience and understanding of these games. At the very least a lack of research.
DS2 is obviously the worst because it isn't DS1. In terms of being DS1, I give it 0 DS1s out of a DS1, making it even with DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, King's Field, Drakengard, Elden Ring, and the Sims 4 in that it is not DS1. I think this is the only truly objective list.
@@feeblecursedone2540 Instead of having actual opinions on certain aspects of a game, you'd rather put it on a scale of 1 to DS1? And you call this objective? How does Sims 4 even relate lol. Many people like Sims 4 more than DS1. Even within its genre there are aspects that are better and worse than DS1. I don't understand how you praise a game this highly.
DS2 hate really can just be boiled down to "Ds2 is bad because i don't like it so im gonna judge it for things the other games did exactly the same or worse"
its impressive that there a a whole bunch of very legitimate reasons to criticise dark souls 2 and yet the ds2 haters always seem to go out of their way to find their own. it's much more effective to find the problems by asking people who like the game
To be honest why DID they make the offline message a big ass screen pop up that you have to accept? I’m glad Dark Souls 2 is the only one that lets you keep playing when you lose internet (No idea why they never brought that back????) but Mauler ain’t wrong when he says that they could had just been a pop up in the corner that you don’t have to interact with.
@@YEY0806 i dont think the linearity is really a bad thing the levels are well designed and fun to explore. it's designed more like demon's souls which seems to be fromsoft's preference up until elden ring. the first half of dark souls 1 being so open and interconnected was an experiment that cost us having a quality second half of the game
@Lin_Eileen, the issues the souls games have usually are due to lack of time and (in my opinion) unbalanced resource allocation. Honestly it seems evident alot of times that most of the development goes into the bosses and combat while the technical polish, details, pvp and level design is usually lacklustre
Mauler's "arguments" are so artificial, but worse is his smugness when affirming them, it's maddening to see. His clip at 12:40 pretty much makes it evident at how he is playing the game with the intent to hate on it and scrapping the bottom of the barrel to desperately find flaws in it (even if these "flaws" are also applicable to other Souls games). Seriously, the fact that he couldn't understand how that ogre at that forest behaves show that the game is actually more intelligent than him. But the worst offender was the beginning of the video, where he has to state multiple times that the original video is terrible. He seems really insecure about a different take. What a dishonest pos.
The Internet connection bit really pisses me off. Because both Demon Souls Remake and DkS2, while not fixing EVERY problem, demonstrate that these game can handle connecting and disconnecting to online better. And yet Elden Ring brings in these classic issues of having to reload the entire game to connect or disconnect. And what's crazier is that Dark Souls Dissected demonstrated how the ability to pause while online, to freeze online communication and resume it, is already somewhat possible, and would just take some minor changes to make it work smoothly.
@@LSB44446 If someone can get millions of views by being so biased and factually incorrect, that isn't a win (nor an accolade) for Mauler, just an indicator that people are easily fooled. The person with millions of followers who is wrong, is still wrong even with millions of followers. His career is not "singlehandedly ended" to be fair, but a blow to one's credibility is one of the worst perceptual blows someone can take. Especially when one is making a living or some sort of income, by making critiques on the internet that are tied to their identity (and/or pseudonym they use to make money) So yeah, when it turns out the entire video by Mauler is incorrect and biased it is a big deal. Not that he is the first person to misrepresent DS2, it was common then and now because it is very different from DS1* and DS3 and not what people expected, it was (and to an extent still is) an easy topic to hate on to farm for views
Didn't Miyazaki supervise the DS2 team halfway through? Would he really just sit idly by while the game became an unplayable buggy mess? Why would he willingly let them ship a bad game? What is Mauler trying to PROOVE?
Miyazaki also praised the game and stated that without it we would have never had Elden Ring. He even said that he will let the DS2 director (who also co-directed the DS3 DLCs and Elden Ring) direct the next games after he steps down.
@@Domo3000 Yui Tanimura is one hell of a talent. That guy is like the Satoru Iwata of Fromsoftware. Apparently DS2 was on a development hell and on an almost unplayable state, and Tanimura improved it so much on only the 6 months they had before release, when this development wise is completely madness. I respect that guy so much, feels almost like a crime that so many people shat on this man.
@@JoseViktor4099 oh 100% miyazaki gets so much praise (understandably so) but when it comes to ds2 its always written off as "B team", ignoring the fact that Yui Tanimura co-directed Elden Ring, DS2 was really revolutionary in many of its concepts and its a massive shame what happened during development
@@alexbattaglia8297 In fact, Tanimura codirected the entire DS3, Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, and *directed* The Ringed City. And as far as I know, most of the "B Team" also was the main responsable for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, one of the best regarded games of FromSoftware. Miyazaki is a great individual of these games indeed, but there is a lot of extremely talented individual that makes those games Great to begin with.
Mauler: "Enemies' aggro range is way too big, they follow me trough the whole map and gank me when I'm low HP and poorly equipt and ignore them! >:'(" Also Mauler: "The oh so dagenrous mini boss just despawns when I go too far away! >:'(" ... what is it now big boy!?
It is kind of strange that a being named 'The Pursuer' doesn't even attempt to follow you past 15 feet. But that's just a Scholar of the First Sin problem, not a base DS2 problem.
@@Potacintvervs Vanilla also had the early Pursuer in the Forest, the Pursuer after Smelter Demon and the Dual Pursuers. Vanilla simply half-assed him, like it did for so many mechanics.
@@Potacintvervs lol, he shows up multiple times throughout the game, why should he now even climb up ladders right after you just to end up stuck somewhere. Even from a subjective role playing stand point - If I was a mystical sell sword as big as a tank, I also wouldn't chase my target around tight quarters, but take the chance when I'm at an advantage somewhere in the open. The argument that now it's a problem the enemy disappears is logically incoherent when you first complain about a bunch of grunts chasing you and making the game uneccesarily harder, but you also say it's the better when a bunch of grunts AND a Behemoth now chase you all over the map. The problem can only be one or the other, not both! If both instances are problematic then in fact the argument is not objective, but rather just a subjective opinion... "I like when only the difficult enemies chase me" is in essence what he would be saying then.
@@Potacintvervs They've been trying to make a proper pursuer since Demons Souls. Even with elden rings open world zones they didn't manage it. I have no idea what kind of under the hood jank makes it so hard for them to create an enemy that just follows you forever until one of you drops dead.
21:11 this point is hilarious because one of the most common ways to kill enemies in from games without fighting them all the way up to and including elden ring, is to get on an elevator so they fall down into the pit lmao
I actually LOLd when he brought up the connection issue, seeing as how ds1 completely screws you over when that happens, while in ds2 it's just a slight inconvenience xD
11:30 was playing Elden Ring couple days a go and that happened several times in the DLC. I was intentionally testing out aggro range, as a veteran of these games I was *well aware* of what was happening. So the question is: Is MauLer a tourist, or a liar?
I was worried about playing DS2, because of videos like Maulers and hivemind takes about it. I saw one of your videos, debunking some lies and it made me play it. I really enjoyed it and am currently playing NG+, so thanks.
Oh but there are problems, same with 1, 2 and 3 and other games. 3 has more problems than 2. But it is not popular to blame other games, those games are made by Miyazaki himself, so they can't be blamed, they are untouchable.
one of my favorite moments in ds2 is when one of those long arm dudes in no mans wharf decides to break one of the walls in its way to get to you instead of just being stuck behind a doorway.
Wow. Drawing all the dogs and archers into the Pursuer fight is a CHOICE. "I've deliberately ran straight past several enemies, and now I can't figure out why I'm being chased by a bunch of enemies. It's so weird." Also, he played the game 14 times and still couldn't dodge the Pursuer's attacks? Yikes.
At around 16:40 when talking about enemies freezing- this still happens even in elden ring. Especially in the dlc. Ive had BOSSES shut down and stop moving and its even worse if you get summoned for coop (ive seen messmer bug out and stop moving over a dozen times now)
The bit on the Lost Bastille and its architecture was really neat! I had no idea that it was built like that on purpose (I also never really noticed how strange it was aside from the doors to nowhere). Thank you again Domo for bringing attention to how unfair and simply ridiculous Mauler's criticisms are. It makes me very sad that DS2 gets so much hate when it really doesn't deserve it. I'd also like to add that it bothers me how some really good Souls players are amazing at the other games, but the second they start playing DS2 they play like a total noob. I've seen it a few times now and I feel like people just purposefully play bad because they go into the game thinking it's bad. Idk, it just bothers me. I only started DS2 recently and I've been absolutely loving it. I hope that people who see your videos give the game another chance if they previously dismissed it.
It's crazy how mauler complained about ai quirks in ds2 that are present and the cause for some very well-known known cheese strats in later games. Like getting the demon under the wolnir room to leave its arena area and attack it while it passively shuffles back down the stairs. Or in elden ring where you sit on a low cliff for the giant jar challenge and have the npcs throw themselves off the cliff trying to hit you
The giant moghwyn palace crow in Elden Ring that everyone uses to farm runes as well! There's also a night cavalry in caelid that i've seen a lot of speedrunners and challenge runners trick into jumping off a cliff for a ton of runes.
Okay, so here's a thought; does Mauler think that's okay, or do YOU think that Mauler thinks that's okay? You're essentially making a whataboutism statement that he's okay with those examples, but just wants to hate on DS2. You realize that his video was a response and deconstruction of a video that was trying to defend and praise DS2 from another TH-camrs critiques, right? He's talking about the issues DS2 has because Harris was ignoring those issues or saying they didn't exist.
1-Level up adp instead of HP so you die in 2 hits and refuses to use the block mechanic. 2-Runs around instead of just taking down enemies where they are located. 3-try to use estus in the middle of the fight instead of popping 2 gems 4-complain about the game sucking The ds2 hater experience.
British person trying to be smart: And dearest Harris, you must accept that your issue lies within your lack there in of skill. Mauler trying to be relatable: AH YEAH DUDE. WHAT'S UP MATE? Does he not have shame or self awareness code switching like that?
You really need a lot of patience to hear Mauler speak and not tear you hear up. This video is about debunking him and I got annoyed from him, so I don't know how you can listen to him for so long in order to prove him wrong😅
20:45 It works so well to this day that in ER, luring the dumb bird in mohgwyn off a cliff by shooting it is one of the singular best rune farming methods for early game (there's also a billion different ways to cheese overworld bosses with methods like this. It's pretty funny). And if i'm not mistaken, there's plenty of cheeses like this in the dlc too so it's just jank all of us have accepted at this point The ai in fromsoft games has been pretty wonky across the series. Singling out dark souls 2 is blatantly unfair when it isn't very hard to find this stuff across the games (especially in DS1)
As someone who has always loved ds2 and have this to be my favorite of the trilogy thank you for these vids it’s validating as someone that always had to hear the ds2 hate which never felt “objective” to me
This guy’s life must be such a struggle. Blaming everything under the sun other than himself instead of taking a step back and assessing the situation or adapting to situations that are mildly inconvenient. If he does this with video games, you can bet this pattern carries over into his daily life and interpersonal relationships. Good luck buddy.
7:51 "This was just another spambush!" *LITERALLY breaks the scaffolding himself which not only doesn't disable that Royal Swordsman's range, but now also makes it a melee threat if you get too close* wuh "I've played a looooot of Dark Souls 1 & 3." That quote couldn't be more right, honestly. It's clear he indeed didn't play 2 a lot at all, and also that he must have some sort of perfect image of them in mind or something. "Enemies kill themselves, DS2 bad" My fukn sides ache from laughing.
Nevermind the fact that you can get a lot of enemies to throw themselves off ledges somewhat reliably in 1 and 3, and even Elden Ring That being a criticism for 2 is 100% a double standard
@MamaTrixxieAsmr, seriously imagining criticising something that was widely used as a reliable souls farm in DS1 and somehow convince that its only a thing in DS2 😂
It’s so ironic how one of the top comments on Mauler’s video is making fun of the enemy being called Pursuer and “having such a short aggro distance that it gives up and despawns” … not even realizing that the only way Mauler makes ds2 enemies look like they’re spam and ganking is due to the enemies he went out of his way to aggro tracking him throughout the level and not losing aggro
I've been binge-watching this series, and I've got to say, it has made for one hell of an addendum. I remember recognizing a few points where he misinterpreted fully intended mechanics as bugs, particularly the jester with the no-backstab ring, the enemies that attack the giant tree, and the enemy in Undead Purgatory that runs really fast for some reason. It's disappointing because it misses out on opportunities to discuss the execution of these mechanics versus assuming them to be glitches. It's nice to see these mechanics being brought to light. In my opinion, the only time a mechanic could be deemed objectively bad is if it fails to accomplish what it was intended to do, and for better or for worse, this game is working as intended far more than many realize. I still greatly enjoy Mauler's insight into the game. Maybe I give people the benefit of the doubt to a fault, but I never saw his videos as blatant malice. Misguided at certain points, maybe, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume anyone's lying to prove a point. That goes for all parties. I can't say I fully agreed with every point made in this video series either. It's not that you had any facts wrong, but I felt you misinterpreted Mauler's points a few times. For example, there was one part where Hbomberguy argued that the restricted linear level design made the enemy interactions tighter as you could only approach from one direction. Mauler then argued that the player could very well backtrack to look for items and that the AI was clearly not prepared. I never got the idea that Mauler was outright arguing DS1’s AI to be better than DS2's, just that DS2 was not immune to bad AI. I'll be honest, this isn't my favorite souls game. My gripe with DS2 includes: the world layout, the immediate ability to warp, the hollowing system, I-frames being tied to a level stat, equipment load and stamina being separate stats, fog walls and backstabs not giving you invincibility, the overabundance of bonfires, the lack of clever shortcuts, dead ends instead of an interconnected world, a more punishing stamina system, slower attacks, the permanent despawning of enemies, having to talk to the Emerald Herald to level up, and the biggest insult of all... there's an achievement for dying called "This is Dark Souls." In spite of all that I have listed, I still think this is a solid game, and I respect that many might enjoy these aspects and the unique challenges. Some people may love the accessibility of being able to warp or the added challenge of entering a fog door. Hell, a ton of these issues would return in the later entries. But yeah, all the games have their pros and cons. More importantly, these qualities will vary in importance from person to person. The things people say are "objectively" bad are more likely just unpopular.
Finally someone is shitting on Mauler and his awful videos. I would have done it but admittedly I am just too lazy and don't care about him enough, so thank you for putting in the effort.
@@Domo3000 I haven't seen all your videos yet, just a few but I felt the need to make this comment instantly as I am someone who is very frustrated by the massive amount of misinformation presented as "facts" out there about DS2. I think you present more than enough real facts in your videos that people should change their minds and hopefully at least some of them do!
A couple things Small correction on the invisible walls for enemies in ds3: they exist in ds1 too! If you look up challenger andy's all Gwyn run in ds1 he literally talks about how there are invisible walls Gwyn can't normally get over unless he does his jump attack in the right spot and how it forcefully deagroes him. Also fun fact related to the terrible architecture in lost Bastille: most castles had terible architecture because they would work as a defense measure, misaligned stairs won't stop a guard who has been in it for months because he should know its layout but will absolutely slow down or even stop an attacker who has no experience with the castle's layout.
3:46 it took me a while to realize this but you can even drop from that little ledge onto the roots coming out of the wall for ZERO fall damage 😱 It’s almost as if DS2 has good platforming mechanics.
@@feeblecursedone2540I would argue it’s more in line with the design philosophy of souls games than in any of the other games. There is an open-ended question about what is the correct path and whether a jump is intended or not. The player is allowed to experiment and be rewarded for clever thinking. There isn’t a dedicated jump button, sure, but you aren’t put in situations where you need one, either.
@@Zapdos7471 There is stuff like the Majula Pit and a fair bit of the zones leading to the Gutter which I personally don't find fun to deal with, but like I said it's not bad. Most of it is optional.
@@feeblecursedone2540 the thing that convinced me that platforming is good are things like the co-op token in huntsman’s copse and the poison sword ledge in earthen peak. All the souls games have mandatory platforming, but it’s pretty rare that an item be in a confounding spot, the solution isn’t immediately obvious, and there are actually multiple daring solutions.
@@Zapdos7471 I think we're talking about two different things here, you seem to be talking more about the level design of the platforming (which I agree is good) while I mean the the feel and mechanics behind executing it don't feel as good. Is that accurate or am I off?
No way that guy was thinking the hollow soldiers hitting the trees was a bug... On my first damn playthrough of that game (which was my introduction to any souls-game in general), I could tell what they were going for lore-wise with that. Especially with how deliberate they run at those giants...
He showed it at 36:46 of his video in the chapter about broken pathfinding (which is why I mentioned that the actually broken pathfinding is them jumping in the water). He also included the Usain Bolt hollow in the Assorted Bugs chapter. I'm surprised that he didn't also make fun of the torch carrying hollow friend.
Really enjoying your content. Inspired me to go back and give ds2 another try. Only from game i haven't completed after bouncing off it a number of if times
![[UNCUT] เก็บ "สจ.โต้ง" เอี่ยวมาเฟีย รู้ตัวคนบงการ ก่อนสั่งลั่นไก I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 13 ธ.ค.67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-J_p62D40w/mqdefault.jpg)
U s i n g m y r a n g e d b u i l d
>Only uses a sword
Really tells you how much he respects his audience
Lol this is comedy - he didn‘t even upgrade his weapon 😂
@@YEY0806 Dude, his audience literally never noticed *any* of the stuff that Domo points out. Like, none of it.
He has an audience of lukewarm IQ individuals who believe that agreeing with him makes them smarter. Including someone who claims to literally teach 'critical writing' praising him for his "sound arguments" while also acknowledging that she knows nothing about the source material.
I laughed that part so much. What kind of range built is this 😂.
@deadworld953 who was that someone? Because imagine someone who does "critical writing" unironically saying that Mauler makes sound arguments is just funny
Mauler really feels like the kind of guy that thought no one liked him in school because "they were intimidated by his intellect"; when he was really just insufferable.
@@blaze595 I can already picture him telling the cool kids that their taste in music is objectively bad
This is most definitely true and I say this even with no evidence. Just the fact that he keeps saying “this is objectively true or bad” but then goes on to describe his opinion that is so utterly unfounded in objectivity because he legitimately can’t distinguished what is fact and what is just his opinion should be obvious that he didn’t have much social interactions in his youth to know the difference 💀
@@Domo3000 lol 😂
He calls himself a "video essay analyticalyst" in his channel description. Analyticalyst isn't a word. He made up a word to try and make himself seem smarter
@@Domo3000 "rap is objectively a low intellect form of audio-stimulation enjoyed only by those of lesser cunning"
>complains about unfair gank encounters
>gets mad when enemies don't chase him forever and gank him to death
I'm surprised none of his viewers got suspicious about this
Looks like he was kiting the enemies to show more gank fights but then failed at that too
@@YEY0806 I guess if you space out the complaints 2-3 hours apart in your 30-hour "critique" then it makes them easier to forget.
@@vizotzyz Most people who 'watch' long form video essays don't actually watch them, they sleep to them. Which they will often joke about in video comments, on streams or on other social media.
De-aggro range is in every souls game, yet is somehow only bad when it's in DS2.
De-aggro is also *objectively* a good thing, it allows the player to run away. Either retreating to a bonfire or to a safe spot to re-think their strategy.
Mauler when thing, DS1 or DS3: 🙂
Mauler when thing, DS2: 😡
Pursuer is a chad. He doesn't waste time with morons and just leaves.
exactly! "hmm youre leaving? ill see you later then" :)
I know this is off topic, but another example of DS2 haters being bias are the bosses.
When there's a mediocre fight in DS2, they just call it bad and "souless". But when the same happens in DS1 they just say something like:
"Well, the arena is cool", or "but the lore makes up for it" or even "it's a good concept". And then they just say it's good.
I think the best example of this is when they compare najka to quelaag, and say it's just a lazy and bad copy. But i never saw anyone complaining about iron golem being just a cheaper and worse version of tower knight.
Similarly, people will complain that DS2 copy pasted the Gargoyles from DS1, but do not care that DS1 recycled them from the Maneaters.
Or when they complain that Lifegems do not belong in a Souls game. I doubt that the vast majority of DS2-hating "Souls Veterans" even played Demon Souls.
@@Domo3000 Demon's Souls deserves more atention fr
@@Domo3000 demon's souls is sadly overshadowed by dark souls
@@Gustodynho eh.... i don't think people who started the souls game with dark souls 3 (assuming they hate dark souls 2 because mostly do) will like demon's souls imo...
......But because it's directed by their god (Miyazaki) i think they'll like it anyway!
Demon souls has some of my favourite art design, such an underrated entry!
I... I can't believe I missed that drop in the Forest of Fallen Giants
lol me too
Same.... like four playthroughs...
Man I wonder, how is it possible that a group of hollow enemies that have gone mad from dying again and again, losing completely any sense of self and what's happening to them, why don't they have self preservation??
I know right, next thing you might see dragons using flight and fire when fighting
Imagine playing through a game you dislike 14 times in order to gather evidence of it being bad and still fail to do so
lmao xDDDDDD
Don't kink shame Mauler. he's just a dedicated masochist 😂
@@YEY0806 I mean that's what happens when you built your entire youtube personality on negativity "but very objective fr fr" isn't it
imagine playing through the game once and not noticing that it's kinda bad.
@@UgliusRodentiaprobably the best response
17:35 Bro really just took audio from a MauLer DS2 clip and laid it over DS1 video. Actually just peak comedy at this point
He was using an example of bad ai in ds1
@@thedarethnator2216 yeah that's what's so funny
The part about the lack of self-preservation amongst enemies is funny to me, because I remember back in 2011 or 2012 I was having trouble with the archers in Anor Londo and the advice I found online at the time was "bait them into drawing their swords and falling off the buildings when they attack"
Yeah just a few playthroughs of 3 or 1 should showcase more than enough instances of ai not giving a shit about their self preservation.
I lost count of the amount of times in 3 where I'd enter an area and watch as enemies turned, walked towards me, then fell to their deaths. This was an issue in the souls series going all the way back to Demon's souls
"I really do not understand how he thought that his personal bias and lack of understanding of Souls mechanics are somehow a good basis for an objective review."
Mauler's faux-objectivity fetish makes him think that his opinions are objectively correct and everyone who disagrees with him is objectively wrong or arguing in bad faith. It's genuinely a rather fanatical mindset to have.
I think it's because he spends so much time thinking about how to attack his opponent that gets him into a mindset like this
This is not an uncommon belief to hold on the internet when it comes to critically analyzing art. This posturing of the nebulous concept of "Objectivity" to pretend your opinion has more merit than other people or has a stronger foundation for its critique. Outside of deliberate misinformation, that's a pretty god damn weak and cowardly position to hold. It's just a self-absorbed rationale to ignore others thoughts that you dont consider worthy of consideration when any opinion on art is subjective. All art critique is subjective, that's kind of the beauty in it. Imagine if this was held on a wider institutional level? Like you were only allowed to hold opinions that were prescribed as acceptably "Objective". It sounds like some Orwellian nightmare.
Say it with me, fellas: there are no objective reviews.
“The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of
beautiful things. …
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.” -Oscar Wilde
@@MAYOFORCEexactly this
What's sad is seeing so called "writing experts" praise him on his arguments and talk up his apparently 1 trillion IQ in his comments section.
That ogre taking a bath and minding his own business be kinda wholesome ngl.
It's insane to me how he calls a video where hbomberguy goes on to state his opinions on a game terrible, while doing the EXACT SAME, all the while claiming his opinions are actually facts.
Everyone who claims their opinions are facts is just manipulative, that's all there is to it. No matter the context.
The amount of times Mauler throws the word "objectively" around is absolutely worrying. He doesn't use it for facts, he uses it as a "You can't attack my opinion."-card to play when he can't justify his claims with any reasoning. "Oh this is objectively bad, because I dislike it. You have to engage with this mechanic! Terrible."
Even if he has issues with the game and its design the amount of research he did was so pathetic, half of the things in these videos are pretty easy to find by just googling them. (You are doing a great job at showcasing them way better than any wikipedia or forumpost could ever, so thanks again for your work. It's nice having a video to reference to timestamp and send to people!)
But no, Mauler knows it all and will educate us with his expert knowledge on DS2!
He misunderstood, misremembered or straight up falsely presented these so called "issues" just to undermine his, opini- ''facts''.
It also showcases the incredible amount of cherrypicking and doublestandard when it comes to DS2 brilliantly, so thanks for pointing that out again. It's always hilarious to see how people play down any jank or bullshit in other entries just to shit on DS2 for having the same problems, sometimes not even to the same extent.
I had to cringe so fucking hard at Mauler laughing at the enemies hitting the ''tree'' and not understanding why, I guess Vaati didn't make a video on that yet, huh? It's funny how he claims that he loves the lore of the franchise, uses it to makes excuses for the abhorrent copy-pasting of enemies in DS1, but as soon as we go to DS2, -BLAM- doublestandard-mode activated.
It almost feels like fromsoftware games were almost beyond critique for some time and since DS2 is "the bad one" people just piled on it, critiquing aspects of the game that are true for all other entries and unfairly blaming it on specifically DS2, almost like they are venting.
I am used to being the butt of the joke for liking Dark Souls 2, which is honestly fine, but what Mauler did is not just critiquing or nitpicking it, it's straight up just slander.
Falsifying the truth to make it look worse than it actually is to people who are not familiar with it.
I wonder how many people were kept from experiencing the game for themselves by people like him talking it down and the general Fromsoftware-Online-Hivemind telling people to avoid that one, because it's "bad". I am happy more and more people are slowly coming around to it.
Unfortunately, I was affected by the bad faith takes of the game to not try it and instead play the other games. However I was interested to try it out and was surprised to find a game that got me to play it 4 times with how fun and immersive it was
@@YEY0806 ya its just a really fun and well made game. does it have it's flaws? of course it does but so does every souls game. most of the problems i personally have with dark souls 2 i also have with every other souls game except demon's souls and sekiro. regardless i have such great memories from my first playthroughs of dark souls 2 i'm really glad i didn't get taken in by all the negative talk of it online to want to avoid it.
Yeah, it's also my reason to never ever engage with the fromsoft community. They mostly tend to be very toxic and egoistic.
I've seen some decent people who is a fan of fromsoft games, my art mentor is one of them and actually the first person who introduced me to the dark souls trilogy. But these kind of actually decent people were overshadowed by the fromsoft cultists (or the hivemind-thing like you said).
I mean it's fine to dislike one game but to spread misinfo about it... is just wrong. Tbh, i feel somewhat shame (for being a fan of the series) whenever i see videos or community spreading misinfo just to hate and avoid this one game.
@@YEY0806 same here. I didn’t play ds2 past the beginning of forest of fallen giants bc of his videos. I went back to it after I finished ds3, bloodborne, then ds1 in order and started to realise that it’s pure skill issue and most of it is deliberately false information
@@vanilla.icescream egotistic** but I completely agree. Biggest groups of elitist tourists I’ve ever seen. They pretend they’re veterans of dark souls, when really they don’t know much about them other than the surface level and they like to pretend that they are experienced with difficult games when really they suck at them and they’re too afraid to play actually difficult games like idk nioh. Sekiro was sort of difficult (personally i thought it was easy) but these people usually haven’t even played sekiro or never made it far into it.
Considering the fact that this response series is being made when you are an extremely small channel (compared to the average sub count nowadays) it’s amazing and awe-inspiring with the method you use to approach the issue (taking the time to showcase each and every mechanic/hitbox, etc.). I really enjoy your style and thank you for providing a response to Mauler’s series, which is possibly daunting taking into consideration the popularity and extension of his videos. Keep up the great work!
I remember this MauLer guy also made an Outlast critique where he called it an "objectively" bad horror because he dislikes body and gore horror. 👏👏👏
>Dislikes certain thing
>Plays a game about that thing
>Dislikes game
Who could have seen that coming.
Lol no he didn't. His awful DS2 videos absolutely deserve to be ripped to shreds, but not everything he makes is bad. His Outlast critique is probably the most comprehensive you'll find on TH-cam. And I don't even particularly like the dude all that much.
The first "Spambush" in Dark Souls 2 teaches you to check environmental enemies and lets you kill each of them one by one before they wake up
Yes but Mauler ran around and deliberately aggro'd every single enemy in that entire area so, uh
Therefore Dark Souls 2 bad, apparently.
@@joshwenn989 too hard for ppl to use theyr fooooooooking brain
It's actually crazy to me that Mauler, who considers himself an authority on "objetive" narrative interpretation of media, is presented with a clearly scripted scenario of not one but multiple enemies strangely running past you to aggro a weird looking tree, and it does not cross his mind that maybe that moment is very deliberate environmental storytelling to make the player curious as to why that's happening. But no, obviously intended behaviour must be a bug, because he already convinced himself that the game is bad, so he must try his hardest to contort reality and gish gallop his way into "demonstrating" he is "objectively" correct.
I also noticed that most the issues he finds are the result of carefully and deliberately decontextualizing scenarios to the point that anyone that has ever played DS2 can easily point out he's either making shit up or making stuff look harder on purpose by breaking the natural way in which the game is played, but his audience, which will not play the game, won't. That's what's so insidious to me of his absurd +9 hour DS2 + Hbomb slander series, he's either deliberately or indirectly lying for the sake of content, just to be the one to say "yeah I, Mauler, snarky media understander, am objectively correct about how much DS2 sucks, I proved it with a +9 hour thesis, which surely is good because it's long".
Surely nobody will bother to actually play the game with an unbiased mindset to debunk it amirite.
The thing that baffles me the most is that this is how mauler behaves in all of his vids and he somehow managed to gain a huge following.
Any time anyone in the EFAP crew approaches video games (except Theo) you can expect the room's (well, discord call's) IQ to drop to room temp.
@@naunau311 After Theo's recent Elden Ring rant on EFAP, I don't think you can say that about Theo...
@@OKMBVideos I mean he's absolutely correct, Elden Ring's combat is awful for an action game.
@naunau311 Only the horse combat felt terrible tbh. Everything else plays pretty close to past Fromsoft games with some additional tweaks.
The kiln black knight running up to take one swing then tip-towing back made me lose it 😂
ds1 and ds3 meatriders when they can't beat ds2 with only spamming r1 + o like a m0ron (ds2 suddenly become a bad game to them)
u deserve a medal sir, for that comment.
8:45 Domo don't lie, we know that this Ogre is your favourite
Just let the ogre have his bath in peace 😂
You know I would say that playing through Dark Souls II over 11 times looking for proof of it's alleged low quality only to misrepresent to fake or otherwise exagerate the flaws is the best defence of DS2, congrats.
Funny, everytime he disconnects, hes with so many enemies that he purposely aggroed to make it look like spam enemies.
Mauler: this game is bad I can't kill a few mobs while dodging a mini boss
@@igson-in4rd it's just way too hard for his melee-only no-tactics ranged build
It's simply an objective fact that completely optional side challenges should not be challenging!
@@Domo3000 yup everything is hard in Fromsoft games if your run in like a total idiot and just start hitting things with your weapon. I mean if I try to start a robbery without a plan it's gonna be hard also so I guess Fromsoft tries to teach you to plan out your robberies.
The thing is every encounter in Ds2 still let's you run your head up against the mountain until somehow someway the mountain breaks.
You could go back to the stsrting bonefire, take out the archers and dogs from there. You could even run through the zone 12 times snd despawn the enemies.
You can also, just git gud and beat the encounter the hard way. Gitting gud is always an option, its just harder in ds2.
I don't believe he's ever had a good time playing any of the modern FromSoft games with how awful he seems to be at them. He's only taking it out on DS2 because it's the one that is socially acceptable to blame for failing at.
DS2 haters when an enemy bumps into a wall for 0.5 seconds
“BrOkEn, absolutely unplayable mess”
What we've learned from this:
MauLer is so bad at the combat that he spaces himself from the enemies so much to a point where they are forced to return to their spawn location, then he calls it a bug.
Going out of your way to force enemies to trigger a failsafe and calling it a bug is just so disingenuous. People really do be making up "problems" just to have an excuse to shit on this game lmao
It's funny because it contradicts his point about "enemy ganking" and "unfair ai behaviour" just to now say the game is bad for making enemies move back to their spawn point.
Babe, wake up! Domo just uploaded another DS2 vid!
the smugness with which he's telling these lies is the worst part.
This is 90% of the ds2 "critics" in comment sections; just confidently misrepresenting the game
@@xAbsolution1 "you can't walk five feet without getting attacked by 15 random enemies"
@@Domo3000 "game is full of broken hitboxes, not like DS1 where every single grab attack is atrocious"
@@Domo3000 wait i thought you were talking about ds2 not ds3?
His smug attitude and shit audience are the reasons I already didn’t like him even before the DS2 stuff.
Here before this ends up on that podcast of his, glad to see someone take a shot at Mauler. Completely unsurprised that the guy who makes objetivity his entire personality fails to actually look at things objectivally
Tbh as a regular EFAP viewer I think I didn't hear them use the word objectivity since like years now.
Also Mauler's live demeanor is much more chill than his video persona.
@@phillidaadamus4349 Unless he pulls another Avatar and the like.
I remember him and Literature Devil making a really shitty circlejerk video about it.
Now that I think about it, this, for mostly worst, was the predecesor of all the "criticism" newer Fromsoft games has.
Critiques filled with disinformation where they blame their own skill issue or lack of knowledge as something the game should correct. Or worse ,criticising something that others games also have but prefer to not care (bias).
Its extremely fascinating and dissapointing for both sides that this kind of "critiques" still coexists between us and people start to believe on them as factual information because the video has a lot of views (Appeal to popularity )
Mauler is genuinely one of the worst critics on the internet. That so many people take him seriously, let alone endure his 10 hour long rants is just ridiculous.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd he rode off the GoT and sequel star wars trainwrecks
Mauler's DS2 critique is on par with Joseph Anderson's Elden Ring video (it's fucking terrible but too many people eat it up)
@@bubududugaming8336 At least joseph anderson is earnestly wrong, Mauler is just actually seething at all times.
@@bubududugaming8336No, joseph's ER video isn't as bad as mauler's ds2 sotfs videos.
But its not great either. It fails to point out the actual issues. These games do not have good communication. And obfuscate things needlessly.
And no, ER's ''combat flow state'' ain't a defense. Strafing, positioning, manipulating AI, dodging, attacking between attacks, etc. are present in ds2 sotfs too. Even the boss AI accounting for your actions such as cutting recovery time as soon as they see you heal. Or attack you with long range attacks based on your position.
Ds2 can even let you make it essentially a no hit run when you go to NG+ with CoC active where basic enemies & bosses have no issues 2 to 3 shotting you.
the fact you can make so many videos out of maulers ds 2 video is crazy. also how the fuck did mauler put the soldiers hitting the tree in his video. people understood why that is ever since the fucking release.
Its one of the most obvious bits of storytelling in the game. Its like thinking the Radahn troops in Caelid have glitched out because they keep trying to fight the rot monsters.
Stop! Stop! He's already dead!
Great video, as always.
A philosophy that I have realized this past year is this: When you enjoy a game, you hyper focus on the good and ignore the bad. When you hate a game, you hyper focus on the bad and ignore the good. This is why I always enjoy people who can show both the good and bad in a game with objectivity as no game is perfect yet lots of games are good, just not your cup of tea.
-Ralph Wiggins
really
And then you have "players" who will literally go out of their way to create artificial situations to make a game look worse than it is - that's Mauler's level which is just straight up cancer.
This is precisely why Noah Gervais is the best video game journalist, and it's not even close
16:28 I recall one or two times in Elden Ring co-op when the boss completely froze in place for no reason.
Happened to me in solo, I fought the cursed tree in the hero’s grave dungeon right after you start the game and after I staggered it, it didn’t move at all the rest of the fight.
You can actually trigger the AI for phantom Loretta to freeze on command, and even after all the updates to the game, they still haven't fixed it.
I've also had the runebear boss clip out of the arena and die after a grab. Which you can trace back to Centipede Demon. Singling out one game to criticize it over AI freezes shows a real lack of experience and understanding of these games. At the very least a lack of research.
@Grarlic I had an anticlimactic moment where the death rite bird would fly to high, and when he came down just instantly died 😂
Bale from the DLC still does it.
29:21 if Mauler had eveb a sliver of integrity this line would haunt him every time he goes to sleep. Truly humiliating
DS2 is obviously the worst because it isn't DS1. In terms of being DS1, I give it 0 DS1s out of a DS1, making it even with DS3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, King's Field, Drakengard, Elden Ring, and the Sims 4 in that it is not DS1. I think this is the only truly objective list.
you clearly are biased to DS1.
@@vrowed7422 Well of course, its the only DS1 that I can confidently say is DS1
@@feeblecursedone2540 You are acting like nothing can be better than DS1 and that it is perfection
@@vrowed7422 When it comes to being DS1, I dont think any game does it better than DS1.
@@feeblecursedone2540 Instead of having actual opinions on certain aspects of a game, you'd rather put it on a scale of 1 to DS1? And you call this objective? How does Sims 4 even relate lol. Many people like Sims 4 more than DS1. Even within its genre there are aspects that are better and worse than DS1. I don't understand how you praise a game this highly.
Maldler be malding...joking aside I always get a headache hearing him spew so much wrong information, once again thank you Domo for debunking him.
I love ds2 so much so I absolutely love this content brother
DS2 hate really can just be boiled down to "Ds2 is bad because i don't like it so im gonna judge it for things the other games did exactly the same or worse"
That's a bit generalising
@@Samuel-oq8gndid you say it was generalizing when someone said ds2 was bad with hitboxs
@@Lego_Whis_the_wise i legit never had an issue with hitboxes
its impressive that there a a whole bunch of very legitimate reasons to criticise dark souls 2 and yet the ds2 haters always seem to go out of their way to find their own. it's much more effective to find the problems by asking people who like the game
Ok I hear you
Name them
Game is stiff.
@@deivymaybe7554cursed undead has poopy in his pants
You get em brother! Mauler is cooked!
To be honest why DID they make the offline message a big ass screen pop up that you have to accept? I’m glad Dark Souls 2 is the only one that lets you keep playing when you lose internet (No idea why they never brought that back????) but Mauler ain’t wrong when he says that they could had just been a pop up in the corner that you don’t have to interact with.
@@JellyJman they really had the chance to continue to improve it in DS3 but did not take it
@Domo3000 they were too focused with their narrow minded ds1 fanservice mindset.
@@xAbsolution1and making a linear boss rush game
@@YEY0806 i dont think the linearity is really a bad thing the levels are well designed and fun to explore. it's designed more like demon's souls which seems to be fromsoft's preference up until elden ring. the first half of dark souls 1 being so open and interconnected was an experiment that cost us having a quality second half of the game
@Lin_Eileen, the issues the souls games have usually are due to lack of time and (in my opinion) unbalanced resource allocation. Honestly it seems evident alot of times that most of the development goes into the bosses and combat while the technical polish, details, pvp and level design is usually lacklustre
Mauler's "arguments" are so artificial, but worse is his smugness when affirming them, it's maddening to see. His clip at 12:40 pretty much makes it evident at how he is playing the game with the intent to hate on it and scrapping the bottom of the barrel to desperately find flaws in it (even if these "flaws" are also applicable to other Souls games). Seriously, the fact that he couldn't understand how that ogre at that forest behaves show that the game is actually more intelligent than him. But the worst offender was the beginning of the video, where he has to state multiple times that the original video is terrible. He seems really insecure about a different take. What a dishonest pos.
The Internet connection bit really pisses me off. Because both Demon Souls Remake and DkS2, while not fixing EVERY problem, demonstrate that these game can handle connecting and disconnecting to online better. And yet Elden Ring brings in these classic issues of having to reload the entire game to connect or disconnect. And what's crazier is that Dark Souls Dissected demonstrated how the ability to pause while online, to freeze online communication and resume it, is already somewhat possible, and would just take some minor changes to make it work smoothly.
Domo is singlehandedly ending Mauler’s career
Implying Mauler had a career to begin with.
Yes the video with 1,500 views voiced by an AI is destroying a guy who gets millions of views analyzing a game that is a black sheep of a franchise
Mauler is doing that himself by fraternising with tr00ns
@@LSB44446 found mauler's alt
@@LSB44446 If someone can get millions of views by being so biased and factually incorrect, that isn't a win (nor an accolade) for Mauler, just an indicator that people are easily fooled.
The person with millions of followers who is wrong, is still wrong even with millions of followers. His career is not "singlehandedly ended" to be fair, but a blow to one's credibility is one of the worst perceptual blows someone can take. Especially when one is making a living or some sort of income, by making critiques on the internet that are tied to their identity (and/or pseudonym they use to make money)
So yeah, when it turns out the entire video by Mauler is incorrect and biased it is a big deal. Not that he is the first person to misrepresent DS2, it was common then and now because it is very different from DS1* and DS3 and not what people expected, it was (and to an extent still is) an easy topic to hate on to farm for views
Didn't Miyazaki supervise the DS2 team halfway through? Would he really just sit idly by while the game became an unplayable buggy mess? Why would he willingly let them ship a bad game? What is Mauler trying to PROOVE?
Miyazaki also praised the game and stated that without it we would have never had Elden Ring. He even said that he will let the DS2 director (who also co-directed the DS3 DLCs and Elden Ring) direct the next games after he steps down.
@@Domo3000 Yui Tanimura is one hell of a talent. That guy is like the Satoru Iwata of Fromsoftware. Apparently DS2 was on a development hell and on an almost unplayable state, and Tanimura improved it so much on only the 6 months they had before release, when this development wise is completely madness. I respect that guy so much, feels almost like a crime that so many people shat on this man.
@@Domo3000 oh plz no
@@JoseViktor4099 oh 100% miyazaki gets so much praise (understandably so) but when it comes to ds2 its always written off as "B team", ignoring the fact that Yui Tanimura co-directed Elden Ring, DS2 was really revolutionary in many of its concepts and its a massive shame what happened during development
@@alexbattaglia8297 In fact, Tanimura codirected the entire DS3, Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, and *directed* The Ringed City.
And as far as I know, most of the "B Team" also was the main responsable for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, one of the best regarded games of FromSoftware.
Miyazaki is a great individual of these games indeed, but there is a lot of extremely talented individual that makes those games Great to begin with.
Been replaying thru ds2 currently and it is such a good game, thank you domo for these vids
Mauler: "Enemies' aggro range is way too big, they follow me trough the whole map and gank me when I'm low HP and poorly equipt and ignore them! >:'("
Also Mauler: "The oh so dagenrous mini boss just despawns when I go too far away! >:'("
... what is it now big boy!?
It is kind of strange that a being named 'The Pursuer' doesn't even attempt to follow you past 15 feet. But that's just a Scholar of the First Sin problem, not a base DS2 problem.
@@Potacintvervs Vanilla also had the early Pursuer in the Forest, the Pursuer after Smelter Demon and the Dual Pursuers.
Vanilla simply half-assed him, like it did for so many mechanics.
@@Potacintvervs lol, he shows up multiple times throughout the game, why should he now even climb up ladders right after you just to end up stuck somewhere.
Even from a subjective role playing stand point - If I was a mystical sell sword as big as a tank, I also wouldn't chase my target around tight quarters, but take the chance when I'm at an advantage somewhere in the open.
The argument that now it's a problem the enemy disappears is logically incoherent when you first complain about a bunch of grunts chasing you and making the game uneccesarily harder, but you also say it's the better when a bunch of grunts AND a Behemoth now chase you all over the map.
The problem can only be one or the other, not both!
If both instances are problematic then in fact the argument is not objective, but rather just a subjective opinion... "I like when only the difficult enemies chase me" is in essence what he would be saying then.
@@Potacintvervs They've been trying to make a proper pursuer since Demons Souls. Even with elden rings open world zones they didn't manage it. I have no idea what kind of under the hood jank makes it so hard for them to create an enemy that just follows you forever until one of you drops dead.
21:11 this point is hilarious because one of the most common ways to kill enemies in from games without fighting them all the way up to and including elden ring, is to get on an elevator so they fall down into the pit lmao
I actually LOLd when he brought up the connection issue, seeing as how ds1 completely screws you over when that happens, while in ds2 it's just a slight inconvenience xD
omg the ogre just washing his feet in the river 😂 love it
11:30 was playing Elden Ring couple days a go and that happened several times in the DLC. I was intentionally testing out aggro range, as a veteran of these games I was *well aware* of what was happening. So the question is: Is MauLer a tourist, or a liar?
Is MauLer a tourist, or a liar?
Why not both?
MauLer been real quiet since these have dropped 😂
believe me, he better shut up.
2:15. jesus dude. SWING. YOUR. WEAPON.
I was worried about playing DS2, because of videos like Maulers and hivemind takes about it. I saw one of your videos, debunking some lies and it made me play it. I really enjoyed it and am currently playing NG+, so thanks.
Oh but remember, blaming dark souls 1 and 3 for the same issues is "playing the blame game", as those people like to say.
so why is only a problem when there is a "2" in the title man ? why is not a problem when there is a 1 or a 3 ?
Oh but there are problems, same with 1, 2 and 3 and other games. 3 has more problems than 2. But it is not popular to blame other games, those games are made by Miyazaki himself, so they can't be blamed, they are untouchable.
I think the lack of self-preservation perfectly coincides with the lack of self to preserve.
one of my favorite moments in ds2 is when one of those long arm dudes in no mans wharf decides to break one of the walls in its way to get to you instead of just being stuck behind a doorway.
Wow. Drawing all the dogs and archers into the Pursuer fight is a CHOICE.
"I've deliberately ran straight past several enemies, and now I can't figure out why I'm being chased by a bunch of enemies. It's so weird."
Also, he played the game 14 times and still couldn't dodge the Pursuer's attacks? Yikes.
You are doing the lords work, sir
At around 16:40 when talking about enemies freezing- this still happens even in elden ring. Especially in the dlc. Ive had BOSSES shut down and stop moving and its even worse if you get summoned for coop (ive seen messmer bug out and stop moving over a dozen times now)
Oh lord here we go again.
19:37 never knew about this warp thing
still kinda funny that something called "Pursuer" gives up so easily at their job
You coocked on this one king!
This Mauler guy is looking pretty bad, ngl
He is british, of course he is grumpy
Mauler hat einfach "Jemanden anlügen ist leichter als jemanden davon zu überzeugen das er angelogen wurde" durchgespielt.
Ok, but why did you write this in german?
@@Patryk-zq2pwbecause he probably noticed in some of my other videos that some games are in German
I am always astonished by some of the bonkers claims he makes in his video thank you for making this i gotta play more ds2
The bit on the Lost Bastille and its architecture was really neat! I had no idea that it was built like that on purpose (I also never really noticed how strange it was aside from the doors to nowhere).
Thank you again Domo for bringing attention to how unfair and simply ridiculous Mauler's criticisms are. It makes me very sad that DS2 gets so much hate when it really doesn't deserve it. I'd also like to add that it bothers me how some really good Souls players are amazing at the other games, but the second they start playing DS2 they play like a total noob. I've seen it a few times now and I feel like people just purposefully play bad because they go into the game thinking it's bad. Idk, it just bothers me. I only started DS2 recently and I've been absolutely loving it. I hope that people who see your videos give the game another chance if they previously dismissed it.
Great way to start the weekend!
19:35 I swear I always end up learning something new with every video
Another amazing video, Domo! Glad to see my suggestion made it in haha!
@@Rosy_bun thanks for the suggestion!
It's crazy how mauler complained about ai quirks in ds2 that are present and the cause for some very well-known known cheese strats in later games. Like getting the demon under the wolnir room to leave its arena area and attack it while it passively shuffles back down the stairs. Or in elden ring where you sit on a low cliff for the giant jar challenge and have the npcs throw themselves off the cliff trying to hit you
The giant moghwyn palace crow in Elden Ring that everyone uses to farm runes as well! There's also a night cavalry in caelid that i've seen a lot of speedrunners and challenge runners trick into jumping off a cliff for a ton of runes.
Okay, so here's a thought; does Mauler think that's okay, or do YOU think that Mauler thinks that's okay?
You're essentially making a whataboutism statement that he's okay with those examples, but just wants to hate on DS2.
You realize that his video was a response and deconstruction of a video that was trying to defend and praise DS2 from another TH-camrs critiques, right? He's talking about the issues DS2 has because Harris was ignoring those issues or saying they didn't exist.
@@ilikevideogames4331Mauler didn't criticise an exploit in Elden Ring in 2018 therefore dark souls 2 is a good game.
Getting npc to throw themselves off cliffs was one of the first farming techs people found in DS1, in the darkroot basin with the forest hunters
if mauler didnt have that resonant baritone voice with the brit accent no one would have cared about anything he had to say from the get go
Darksouls 2 has flaws like any game but its quite literally has less flaws than 1 and 3 but people overblow every single problem dS2 has.
1-Level up adp instead of HP so you die in 2 hits and refuses to use the block mechanic.
2-Runs around instead of just taking down enemies where they are located.
3-try to use estus in the middle of the fight instead of popping 2 gems
4-complain about the game sucking
The ds2 hater experience.
British person trying to be smart: And dearest Harris, you must accept that your issue lies within your lack there in of skill.
Mauler trying to be relatable: AH YEAH DUDE. WHAT'S UP MATE?
Does he not have shame or self awareness code switching like that?
11:46 my cats when they're hungry
lmaooo
domo mauling mauler saga continues
You really need a lot of patience to hear Mauler speak and not tear you hear up. This video is about debunking him and I got annoyed from him, so I don't know how you can listen to him for so long in order to prove him wrong😅
20:45 It works so well to this day that in ER, luring the dumb bird in mohgwyn off a cliff by shooting it is one of the singular best rune farming methods for early game (there's also a billion different ways to cheese overworld bosses with methods like this. It's pretty funny). And if i'm not mistaken, there's plenty of cheeses like this in the dlc too so it's just jank all of us have accepted at this point
The ai in fromsoft games has been pretty wonky across the series. Singling out dark souls 2 is blatantly unfair when it isn't very hard to find this stuff across the games (especially in DS1)
I believe the bird sudoku method was patched out, but the Albinauric genocide is still viable.
@@ChristianTheChicken it hasn't, to this day you can still get the bird to fall off the cliff
As someone who has always loved ds2 and have this to be my favorite of the trilogy thank you for these vids it’s validating as someone that always had to hear the ds2 hate which never felt “objective” to me
the KING is back
This guy’s life must be such a struggle. Blaming everything under the sun other than himself instead of taking a step back and assessing the situation or adapting to situations that are mildly inconvenient. If he does this with video games, you can bet this pattern carries over into his daily life and interpersonal relationships. Good luck buddy.
Im happy t see another great ds2 video. You are absolutely obliterating maulers credibility as a souls player.
One form of souls content i never thought id enjoy debunking bad takes keep up the good stuff
You know, I enjoy watching mauler. But i gotta hand it to you, you've got him good with this series, and earned a sub on top of it. Respect 🙌
i love you so much for this series lmfao
7:51 "This was just another spambush!"
*LITERALLY breaks the scaffolding himself which not only doesn't disable that Royal Swordsman's range, but now also makes it a melee threat if you get too close*
wuh
"I've played a looooot of Dark Souls 1 & 3."
That quote couldn't be more right, honestly.
It's clear he indeed didn't play 2 a lot at all, and also that he must have some sort of perfect image of them in mind or something.
"Enemies kill themselves, DS2 bad" My fukn sides ache from laughing.
Nevermind the fact that you can get a lot of enemies to throw themselves off ledges somewhat reliably in 1 and 3, and even Elden Ring
That being a criticism for 2 is 100% a double standard
@MamaTrixxieAsmr, seriously imagining criticising something that was widely used as a reliable souls farm in DS1 and somehow convince that its only a thing in DS2 😂
It’s so ironic how one of the top comments on Mauler’s video is making fun of the enemy being called Pursuer and “having such a short aggro distance that it gives up and despawns” … not even realizing that the only way Mauler makes ds2 enemies look like they’re spam and ganking is due to the enemies he went out of his way to aggro tracking him throughout the level and not losing aggro
imagine playing the game wrong on purpose and blaming the game for it, must be an enjoyable hobby..
holy shit the king returns
i genuinely think mauler is the worst youtuber
i genuinely think mauler is an 1d1ot
>Connection loss
didn't know he was straight up like that
I'm not gonna lie, DS2 is the best of the Souls game.... but that Black Knight walking off and coming back is pretty hilarious.
I've been binge-watching this series, and I've got to say, it has made for one hell of an addendum. I remember recognizing a few points where he misinterpreted fully intended mechanics as bugs, particularly the jester with the no-backstab ring, the enemies that attack the giant tree, and the enemy in Undead Purgatory that runs really fast for some reason. It's disappointing because it misses out on opportunities to discuss the execution of these mechanics versus assuming them to be glitches. It's nice to see these mechanics being brought to light. In my opinion, the only time a mechanic could be deemed objectively bad is if it fails to accomplish what it was intended to do, and for better or for worse, this game is working as intended far more than many realize.
I still greatly enjoy Mauler's insight into the game. Maybe I give people the benefit of the doubt to a fault, but I never saw his videos as blatant malice. Misguided at certain points, maybe, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume anyone's lying to prove a point. That goes for all parties. I can't say I fully agreed with every point made in this video series either. It's not that you had any facts wrong, but I felt you misinterpreted Mauler's points a few times. For example, there was one part where Hbomberguy argued that the restricted linear level design made the enemy interactions tighter as you could only approach from one direction. Mauler then argued that the player could very well backtrack to look for items and that the AI was clearly not prepared. I never got the idea that Mauler was outright arguing DS1’s AI to be better than DS2's, just that DS2 was not immune to bad AI.
I'll be honest, this isn't my favorite souls game. My gripe with DS2 includes: the world layout, the immediate ability to warp, the hollowing system, I-frames being tied to a level stat, equipment load and stamina being separate stats, fog walls and backstabs not giving you invincibility, the overabundance of bonfires, the lack of clever shortcuts, dead ends instead of an interconnected world, a more punishing stamina system, slower attacks, the permanent despawning of enemies, having to talk to the Emerald Herald to level up, and the biggest insult of all... there's an achievement for dying called "This is Dark Souls." In spite of all that I have listed, I still think this is a solid game, and I respect that many might enjoy these aspects and the unique challenges. Some people may love the accessibility of being able to warp or the added challenge of entering a fog door. Hell, a ton of these issues would return in the later entries. But yeah, all the games have their pros and cons. More importantly, these qualities will vary in importance from person to person. The things people say are "objectively" bad are more likely just unpopular.
"But I hope he isn't complaining that you can lure enemies down cliffs by baiting out attacks"
Dragonbarrow fam REPRESENT!
Tha Ogre taking a bath lmao. You soukd be allowed to gift him soap
You'd need to help him. He cannot scrub his body with those stubby lil arms.
Finally someone is shitting on Mauler and his awful videos. I would have done it but admittedly I am just too lazy and don't care about him enough, so thank you for putting in the effort.
Are there any arguments that annoyed you that I forgot to cover?
@@Domo3000 I haven't seen all your videos yet, just a few but I felt the need to make this comment instantly as I am someone who is very frustrated by the massive amount of misinformation presented as "facts" out there about DS2. I think you present more than enough real facts in your videos that people should change their minds and hopefully at least some of them do!
A couple things
Small correction on the invisible walls for enemies in ds3: they exist in ds1 too! If you look up challenger andy's all Gwyn run in ds1 he literally talks about how there are invisible walls Gwyn can't normally get over unless he does his jump attack in the right spot and how it forcefully deagroes him.
Also fun fact related to the terrible architecture in lost Bastille: most castles had terible architecture because they would work as a defense measure, misaligned stairs won't stop a guard who has been in it for months because he should know its layout but will absolutely slow down or even stop an attacker who has no experience with the castle's layout.
3:46 it took me a while to realize this but you can even drop from that little ledge onto the roots coming out of the wall for ZERO fall damage 😱
It’s almost as if DS2 has good platforming mechanics.
Eh, I wouldn't call them good per se, but they're not as bad as people make them out to be.
@@feeblecursedone2540I would argue it’s more in line with the design philosophy of souls games than in any of the other games. There is an open-ended question about what is the correct path and whether a jump is intended or not. The player is allowed to experiment and be rewarded for clever thinking.
There isn’t a dedicated jump button, sure, but you aren’t put in situations where you need one, either.
@@Zapdos7471 There is stuff like the Majula Pit and a fair bit of the zones leading to the Gutter which I personally don't find fun to deal with, but like I said it's not bad. Most of it is optional.
@@feeblecursedone2540 the thing that convinced me that platforming is good are things like the co-op token in huntsman’s copse and the poison sword ledge in earthen peak. All the souls games have mandatory platforming, but it’s pretty rare that an item be in a confounding spot, the solution isn’t immediately obvious, and there are actually multiple daring solutions.
@@Zapdos7471 I think we're talking about two different things here, you seem to be talking more about the level design of the platforming (which I agree is good) while I mean the the feel and mechanics behind executing it don't feel as good. Is that accurate or am I off?
No way that guy was thinking the hollow soldiers hitting the trees was a bug...
On my first damn playthrough of that game (which was my introduction to any souls-game in general), I could tell what they were going for lore-wise with that. Especially with how deliberate they run at those giants...
He showed it at 36:46 of his video in the chapter about broken pathfinding (which is why I mentioned that the actually broken pathfinding is them jumping in the water).
He also included the Usain Bolt hollow in the Assorted Bugs chapter.
I'm surprised that he didn't also make fun of the torch carrying hollow friend.
Really enjoying your content. Inspired me to go back and give ds2 another try. Only from game i haven't completed after bouncing off it a number of if times
robo voices are the only accent that can counter the british menace