I have some fundemental disagreements about whether or not something is "bad", but rather than writing it all let me just say every single time that dark souls moan played I giggled like a child.
ds2 is a great game that never was, it's like waking up from a wet dream, all you remember is being wet, not the climax that made it so, where is the fun in that !#!?
Ds2 adaptability is lame, but ds2 also gives like 5x the amount of souls than ds1/3 so you can literally make it a non issue after you get a free 20+ levels after the first boss just fyi.
Agreed, it is a literal none issue, plus elden ring does something similar with vigor, for a normal player you need atleast 40 points into vigor for late game which could have been used for other things, ik you need vigor for other souls games but it was never that much
Yep, eye of ephemeral souls. As well as having the cling ring to keep your health at like 65% after you die and return. Ds2 is almost identical in both respects.
@@sethlhaynes Yeah, I like how people complain about DS2 mechanics where you have to die multiple times to even reach the health reduction of Demon Souls. And in Demon Souls if you use the ephmeral souls or beat a boss and then die again which happens many times, even the world tendency gets darker and the game punishes you with harder enemies. It's insane. But I love Demon Souls and also not seen many people complain about Demon Souls, they praise it, while everyone hates DS2 for things that existed in other games and even worse.
@Optimus6128 demons souls system is about 10x worse than ds2. Not only do you instantly get cut to 50%, but the world is permanently affected, and cut off content depending on how far you pushed the tendency Getting the platinum sucked because of it
@@joegella demon souls is more aware that players will not be at 100% life bar so, enemies deal less damage. Also Demon souls, does not have that many gank fights, and is usually not much focused in combat Is More about careful exploration, yet I believe nobody complains about that issue in demon souls Is because nobody gives a damn about that game
@@JJ-qo7th Fun fact, one of the NPCs you can summon in that area, Devotee Scarlett, gestures you to come closer when you pass near the windmill, and then points at it if you do approach the windmill.
@@JhonDoe-yh2lx Not to take away from what you said, I basically ran most zones not fully human, because I wanted online options available, but I didn't want to be a priority host for invasions and I didn't want to muck about with my connection.
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE 100 FANS, I'M ONE OF THEM IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE 10 FANS, I ALSO ONE OF THEM IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE ONLY 1 FANS, IT'S WAS ME AND IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE NO FANS, I ALREADY GONE FROM THIS WORLD
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS 100 HATERS, I'M ONE OF THEM IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS 10 HATERS, I'M ALSO ONE OF THEM...(I mean makes sense right i already said I didn't like it?) IF DARK SOULS 2 ONLY HAS 1 HATER, IT WAS ME AND IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS NO HATERS, I DECIDED TO PLAY IT AGAIN AND I'M NOW GONE FROM THIS WORLD
I am a big souls fan, played all of them through multiple times. Here is my order of likability - Elden Ring (if you count it as Souls), Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, Demon's Soul's. I think most people's lists would be closer to that if it wasn't for all these you tubers trying so hard to agree with eachother that it influences the masses.
@@sid3fx1122 No I just don't like ds2 and this post was so passionate. I've beat all the FS games (all the souls like games not like AC and such) and it's the only game I don't like what so ever. I also don't like sekiro but I 100% understand why people do and I get it's a great game just not my thing. Ds2 it's just not fun to play at all for me personally. I think it's a bad game....
3:40 minor correction here. Firekeeper souls can only be used to increase the potency of flasks while humanity is sacrificed at bonfires to increase flask charges at a specific bonfire while having the rite to kindle.
@@joegellaFire Keeper Souls are useful. Flask upgrades are a big deal. Look at how much more a +3 Flask heals compared to base. And if you kill certain Fire keepers for their Souls you can go as high as +5. In NG+ cycles though they're basically just 5 Humanity though.
You can sacrifice humanity without the rite of kindling to go from 5 flask to 10. Rite lets you go to 15 and 20. You can do this at every bonfire in the game, not specific ones. Firelink shrine just starts at 10, it may be the case that all bonfires with a fire keeper start kindled, I forget if the pale lady is kindled by default or not. But the point remains, all bonfires can be increased to 10 flasks, rite lets you kindle two additional times for 15 and 20
Dark Souls 2 as a whole was supposed to have a bigger emphasis on using light and torches which is why there is torch related puzzles with those braziers everywhere. The game was supposed to be A LOT darker but the darkness was recieved negatively so the game as a whole was brightened negating the importance of the torch
I recall the feedback I read from testers regarding that and they all responded positively about the darkness. Then the game came out and it was broken. They fixed it in the director's cut. Interesting nontheless.
So in other words the players whined and the games worse off for it... There's a lesson there to the plebs to busy whining to enjoy the game for what it is.
Sorry, but I played the network test. The darkness was awesome. Everyone I talked to felt the same. They couldn’t get the lighting engine to run reliably through the whole game. So, before the original release they redid the lighting so everything could be seen, eliminating the need for the torch. SotFS didn’t fix anything in regards to the lighting.
@@ephraimthemugwump wow, basically it released on ps3 hardware (btw the game was designed for ps4 hardware) it couldnt take it, and they had to cut it. WOOOOOW
12:03 There's this mechanic called "counter damage" where you deal extra damage if you hit an enemy while it's performing it's attack animation. Each weapon has a different counter damage value. 22:20 you can either go to the Forest of Fallen Giants or Heide's tower, as the other paths are blocked by needing items for it. Either of the 2 first paths get you into Lost Bastille with Heide's having stronger enemies in lower quantities. If Dark Souls teaches you one thing is to go back if you think you're underpowered, I never got a problem in finding the Forest of Fallen Giants as I saw Heide's enemies towering over me and just turned back.
@@joegella It appears on the weapon's stats page with the symbol of a arrow turning back. It works by multiplying the base damage by the counter damage value. For example, the Uchigatana has a counter damage of 150, so each hit landed during an enemy's attack will be base damage x 1.5. The Greatsword has 130 counter damage, so it's multiplied by 1.3 and so on.
Im pretty sure the hollow infantry with shield variant has higher defense than the other hollow infantry I consistently notice less damage when attacking those guys
yeah you can go down either path, Dark Souls 1 has a similar thing letting you go to 3 areas right from Firelink but two of those areas are incredibly hard and not meant to be tackled that direction. Dark Souls 2 is more freeing in that regard and with a fragrant branch there's even another path you can go down to the shaded woods and Heide's tower splits into two paths also.
Doors taking time to open - is a "hidden loading-screen". This is likely why enemies don't follow past that point - because the enemy type doesnt exist in that "new map".
@@joegella In DS1 there were a ton of fog gates in between sections of the same map (Undead Burg comes to mind), in DS2 you have doors instead, and not as many by far. Same thing, different presentation.
The best things about Dark souls 2 in my opinion: - performance - dual wielding, even the crossbow and you hold both heavy weapon on your shoulder, not just holding by the left hand like ER - fashion soul - unique weapon (I love bone fist) - hex - life gem - NG+ - bonfire ascetic - best hub in all FS games (Majula) - best pvp - best dragon form appearance - best greatsword moveset (mirrah greatsword, loyce greatsword) ....
Dual wield movesets, you can dual wield different weapons which gives you more movesets. You can use bone fire ascetic to respawn bosses, items but it makes that particular area ng+ every time you use it. Can use this to farm souls and items to upgrade weapons without going to new game cycle 'officially'. One of the best DLCs. Ds2 was the GOAT!!
Ruined the world in comparison to Dark Souls. In the original game you were on a journey by yourself and it felt isolating. At the same time you had to take the world seriously because you couldn't just teleport everywhere, so you HAD to focus on whether or not you were supposed to be where you were. This made leveling up at bonfires feel better. Having to go to some random person to level up "because reasons" removes the feeling of isolation, makes the world feel less real and less dangerous, and means you have to think less about where you're going and why.
@@cowbats 🤣 youre right, its absolute nonsense. It cant be isolating if you can always retreat to a safe place with people waiting for you. Thats literally the opposite of isolating.
Oh man, my wife bought this for me for the PS3, and I was horrible, so I put it down for a few months. Then she watched me play it every single time. We would go to sleep looking out to the sea with that calm soundtrack playing. Now she's passed on after suicide, and Everytime I hear it, the memories come flooding back. Such a great soundtrack for the whole game.
I loved ds2 but it was my introduction to the series so I didn’t have anything to base it off of at the time. Even after playing the other games I still love it. It had some awesome environments in it.
Haha yes i was thinking the same. Who needs Estus if you have that many life gems and they are way faster to use and you can also move a bit while you use them. Also you can use them to heal you up even when you get hit, so you can stack a view and if you dont reach max HP they will heal you for a pretty good time xD
Ok... Are you that bad that you need infinate heals? Are you... that grindy you will get the tens of thousands of souls needed to buy "infinate heals"? Are you going to spend your souls on "infinate heals" instead of levels? Are you THAT BAD AT VIDEO GAMES THAT THE AMOUNT OF ESTUS YOU GET IS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU???? No? Then it isnt that important.
@@brentonherbert7775 the game incentivizes you to use life gems by giving you only one Estus in the beginning. like dark was saying, life gems are a better heal all around, so if you’re not using them and walking around enemies’ attacks, you probably haven’t figured the game out. If you spend the souls you have left after leveling you’ll end up with enough to clear the next area. And if you made it to NG+ like a chad and do that, you’ll be topping off at 99 every time. We don’t have to talk about being bad at video games when we’re talking ab DS2, if you happen to “get good” at it, the game will be itself and remind you that “bad programming” = good challenge. It sounds like you haven’t played dark souls 2* 🤷🏻♂️
I love Dark Souls 2. It was obnoxious at some points, but if you take it slow it's not that bad. It was the first game in the series that made me think about how to approach each area.
i played both, and i enjoyed darksouls 1 and 2 the same, i wasnt autistic with the stats or compairing it to dark souls 1, i just knew that dark souls games are hard, and i wanted to overcome the challenge, people didn't like having a stat for s, but it made me get better at dodging throughout the entirety of souls games, sure there was alot of deaths, but eventually you just get good at it.
@@michaelcarroll5801 What fanboy nonsense, DS1 doesn't make you think about the areas? Sen's Fortress? Blighttown? Anor Londo? New Londo? Duke's Archives? Tomb of the Giants? The only thing worse than DS2 are the delusional and braindead DS2 fanboys.
@@omarcomming722 the ideal strategy in all of those zones is to run through. It's okay on the first playthrough, but on subsequent runs the enemy placements are too forgiving. DS1 zones are pretty good though. You're a bit aggressive, it's just a video game. Sorry for offending your supreme taste and sensibilities, king.
Vanilla DS2 was my first souls game. I played countless hours without event dlc. Then came scollar and was an improvement for me. Its most replayable souls game too. I like this game.
Ds3 was my first dark souls. After playing ds1 I can clearly see how ds3 took all those same concepts and reskined them. Some parts of ds1 felt like a weird deja vu to me. I still think ds3 stands on its own though because the pacing is way different and the bosses are so intense by comparison. Might be a bit too roll spammy though
14:55 About the lock on free aiming. Actually, DS3 and Elden Ring give you the option to turn this on manually. It's called "Manual Attack Aiming" in the settings.
Noone talking abt how when you get to shrine of amana you dont need to use the human effigy or ring of binding anymore Theres a tower with fire in it that unhollows you for free
@@ZirixStrarstrider I ended my first save with 99😭😭 I kept thinking I had to save them for smth important and then kept saying that till the final boss
@@ZirixStrarstrider People used to hate DS2 like a meme, so they found every excuse. Like this "you die you get punished in some form or another and have to use a special item" wasn't a standard of all FromSoft souls games? Think about it,. Demon Souls: Ephemral Eyes DS1: Humanities DS2: Effigies DS3: Ember Elden Ring: Great Runes Now see, they did a psychological game with DS3/Elden Ring. You think that Ember or Great Runes boosts up your normal health and stats, but in reality the normal condition is like hollow in a sense. But you think you are in normal, the health bar seems full. It just becomes bigger after using those items before you die again. And they are also rare. I didn't realize it worked like that. People hated the mechanics of "if I die I start with less health", so they did reverse psychology in the newer games, you think you are full without Ember/Great Runes, and you think you get an extra boost when using them. It's basically the same.
I fell in love with Souls after Dark Souls 2. Despite its issues it's still a game I am happy to go back to every so often purely because of how much it got me into Fromsoft games.
i had a DS2 run where i fought Freja, the Duke and then Vengarl. Midway through the Freja fight i lost all healing, then i had a load of souls in my pockets, then i fought the Duke and Vengarl, then Aldia bombed me. After lighting the bonfire and teleporting i saw Herald sitting on a rock in Majula kicking her feet up in the air and i was ready to collapse into her lap and ask for a hug. She was the epitome of purety and innocence for me in that moment.
You mention that in Dark Souls 1, you get one estus upgrade material, and you can choose whether to use it to upgrade your flask potency or your number of flasks. That is just not true. You use humanity to increase the number of flasks, and fire keeper souls to upgrade the potency. I personally prefer this system to the one we got in future games, but they're both perfectly good systems.
I started playing dark souls 1 back in 2012 and got dark souls 2 as soon as it launched on the 360. I'm one of those weirdos who thoroughly enjoyed dark souls 2 and still play it occasionally to this day. I had no f****** clue that they treated negative stamina like that at all 🤯🤯
LOL and I've always wondered about how all the challenge runners fight the throne watcher and defender and then Nashandra separately. I've literally only ever done a double boss fight with all three of them...
Try Domo3000 with and the visual hitbox and runback comparisons. He is currently debunking a fuckton of DS2 criticism. He has 9 parts on Mauler's videos already.
I don't think this is how the stamina mechanic works - and you can prove it with sprinting - the mechanic is that if you completely deplete your green gauge, then there is a fixed delay before it starts refilling - the speed runners watch this, and stop sprinting just before the gauge runs out completely, so it starts refilling instantly - it is not negative stamina, it is a deliberate delay if stamina reaches zero. The person making this video does not know the game that well.
@@ReachStudioPro oh my God I remember screaming for Joy when they first announced that DS1 remastered was coming to switch lmao I wouldn't shut up to all my friends about how I was going to be able to die everywhere 🤣
@@Izzmonster have you ever looked at where the stuff connects throughout the map? It connects to a system that adds poison in the boss room I have looked around the entirety of that map I have killed off every single enemy unit they stopped spawning to explore the map and I saw that the windmill has connections past it just being a windmill from below before you get to the level where the burn option is. The cat walk where a grave warden attacked at that surrounding area are all windmill connection rods you can tell because they are if not all most are turning. If you look closely.
@@damianstarks8974 Sure man, they're all turning, but no reasonable person would see a giant windmill and immediately think "ah yes, this is working a pump!". I'm sure that is what the intention was, but there's nothing connecting that specific windmill to the boss room. Just watched someone recently play who was directed right to the windmill by a white spirit and he had no idea what he meant because it makes no fkn sense.
how the fuck would i know that. I literally spent 7 hours bashing my head into the fucking wall until i beat that fight WITHOUT clearing the poison because why would i even assume that's a thing you can do?
It's kinda touched on indirectly but the engine change for DS2 really makes it stand alone as "different" at minimum and "bad" in context. You can basically carry muscle memory through DS1 -> DS3 -> ER or backwards. I started with Elden Ring and went to DS1, and it basically felt like an older version of the same game. DS3 and ER are even more similar in feel. DS2 on the other hand has so many mechanic changes (directional movement, in particular) that it just feels bad when you've played all the others. Not to mention Fromsoft themselves made the decision to go back to the DS1 engine after DS2 instead of building upon the DS2 engine for future releases, likely because it was just better.
It’s funny to watch a video praising Dark Souls 2 for a variety of reasons, and then watch another video criticizing the game for those same reasons. It honestly just makes me more interested in the game.
It has a great atmosphere, and is a lot less dreary than DS3. The exploration is fun, and despite having played it through several times, I still forget where the important keys are etc etc so it is fun to start a new game and see how it all opens up. It's interesting to note that there are one or two rough edges, and it's these that make players lose respect for the game, and after that tend to miss all the subtleties and start to hate it. Watching players go through it, you can see them getting frustrated and angry at mechanics or puzzles they just don't understand fully, rather than assuming the game designers were intelligent people who knew what they were doing.
12:00 the "hidden multiplier you missed was "counter damage". In ds2 ALL weapons do better damage if you use it while your opponent is on an attack animation (grabs excluded). The first you one shotted it because the soldier was already trying to punch you. The second one didnt even turn on you so you didnt do counter damage. Thats literally it. Could also be partially your "reach damage" issue. Since with the tip of your blade you could outspace enemies, preventing yourself from using counter damage. In the other games they gave this property to thrusting weapons only, which feels lame. In this game thrusting was still a bit better in this regard, and then a lot better with the leo ring.
There's also sweet spot damage in DS2 where weapons used outside of their ideal range will do less damage, which can lead to some inconsistency. On the other side, though, it'll boost your damage if you nail the sweet spot
@@vittocrazi It was limited to pole arms / axes in Demons / Dark 1 but expanded to cover all weapons in DS2. He mentioned it in the video when talking about getting less damage when hitting the enemy with just the tip of the Greatsword.
The torch timer is a non-issue. There is an overabundance of thorches and you literally need them for like 3x10 minutes during the entire game. Also you can light the torch whenever with a Flame Butterfly which are also abundant as all hell. As others probably already said: you can very easily overlevel in DS2 to the point of ridiculousness. Thus rendering Adaptability nothing but a soul sink for like the first two hours.
I actually think getting the Lordvessel before you can fast travel is one of the big reasons I initially fell in love with the souls series, and I still miss that in every subsequent fromsoft game. The absolute brutality of having to traverse back through areas if you ran low on a specific resource or needed to talk to a certain character was one of the most punishing parts of DS1 on a first playthrough. The terror that set in when you enter a scary new area that cuts you off from your means of heading back into familiar territory was matched only by the joy of discovering a shortcut back to an area you've been through. It made the interconnected level design so compelling to navigate in a way that is completely lost in later titles, and in the context of DS1 getting the Lordvessel comes at the perfect time when having to walk all the way back would just be tedious and unnecessary. I wish at the very least later games would only give you one or two fast travel OK bonfires and have the rest in an area require you to make your way through the area a little if you have to leave and come back
this only works and is only fun if the level design IS as interconnected and well thought out as DS1. Imagine not getting the New Londo Ruins key and having to backtrack through Blighttown and the Depths to get back to Firelink. Imagine if the Valley of the Drakes - Darkroot Garden path didn't exist. Imagine if there was no lift at the end of Sen's Fortress, etc. The easy way out would've been "just port out", but they went one up and linked so many areas together it's still lauded to this day, and for good reason.
Elden ring is the only other game that I could see working without fast travel, since there’s a lot of dead space and you have torrent. Even then I think elden ring would be best off if you could travel to a select few graces.
this ONLY works because of ds1 map design, which ds2 couldnt get the time to implement. Im sure they would've wanted to, but they sadly just... ran out of time. I mean, they were working on the game WHILE promo material was being made that didnt even line up CLOSE to the in game content because of how rushed they were.
About the ring of binding: its easy to keep it most of the game, but you are not forced to. You get about 4 deaths until you start to "need it" after using an effigy. But 1/4 is way better than the 1/2 of its predecessor, there "ring of favor and protection" is not only best in slot, but also destroyed if you remove it (an actual severe punishment)
@@Izzmonsteror maybe the Game simply focus more on the hollowing and how thats affects the people in the world even the player so thats why they make it a mechanic
@@vittocrazi yes it does, the ring of favor is a token of the jealous goddess, thats why Lautrecs armor has arms that embrace him. When you remove the ring it breaks because youve betrayed the goddess.
For me the biggest problem I have with ds2 is the 'lag' between me pressing a button and the action happening. Because of this, you could be in the middle of an attack but you see an enemy about to attack you, so you dodge. What happens your still attack first 2 seconds after dodging and then get hit and then roll.
3:05 I think that unlocking teleporting in the middle of the game is better. The world is designed around the fact that in the first half of the game you walk everywhere and locations are better connected. Blighttown wouldn't be that scary if you could just teleport out. When you defeat queelag you have to go through the blighttown, depths, lower undead burg and undead burg if you don't know the shortcut. I think that the feeling of being stuck somewere and the way the world is designed is very important in ds1, especially on the first playthrough.
@@NightsmokeFTBDS3 was my first souls game and it's absolutely amazing. Maybe just a bit short imo but the DLC's are super good. Can't play DS3 without the DLC's. Atleast Ringed City.
In DS1 you upgrade estus potency with fire keeper souls, and increase charges via humanity per bonfire. In DS2 you upgrade estus potency with subline bone dust, and increase charges with estus flask shards. The only difference is charges are locked to a given bonfire in DS1.
Quick not on the weapon damage. It's not random modifier, it's weapon sweet spots. Try with halbert for example - When you hit a mob with the end of weapon, you deal more damage then if you hit him with the wooden part. Same for any other weapon.
3:49 NO. Powerstance in DS2 is way better than Elden Ring. The amount of moves you can do with the 2 Smelter swords for example is crazy. Elden Ring did dual wielding, which is not really the same.
This brought back memories of doing this game with a friend. The way I described the mechanics was always; "It feels like the developers created a problem that wasn't there before, only to fix it in a roundabout way and say 'look we fixed the problem'."
I honestly think you over exaggerated adaptability. It doesnt take long at all to get it to the level where you have 100 agility. You cab easily get that before you get to the pursuer boss room
The guy had 18 adp and already had 106 agility, which is higher than ds1 light roll 96 agility is equivalent to the medium roll from ds1 (11 frames), and it doesn't level up just with adp but with attunement too Typical mindless DS2 unfounded bitching
6:10 if i'm not wrong every stats increases health, not only endurance - and nobody know cuz ppl don't have eyes, attunment raises agility ( 20 ADP u have ds1 fast rolls s, 40 ATN u have ds1 fast rolls s, this is why mages don't need adp )
While I don't like the existence of adp, I do admit that the stat system works well around it. You're right. Other stats give you health as well, which definitely helps. But the big thing i noticed is that your typical "damage stats" (at least for melee) like str and dex didn't need to be leveled nearly as much as the other games. Like you basically leveled str and dex till you get your weapon's min requirements, and then from that point, you can safely ignore those stats while focusing on adp and health. The real way to increase damage is by upgrading weapons
@@joegella maybe if u r using a santier spear or any weapon that has no scaling, but idk man, i play this game since day1 vanilla and i always reach lvl 50 in str or dex depend from the build. so i can't speak for that. learning about counter dmg would let u understand about the damage modifier that i don't think u understand, if u see more dmg while the enemy is attacking (or any special animation) is because of the counter dmg, so yeah u do more dmg even with low str / dex
@@joegellayou’re kind of right… it’s that there are multiple soft caps for each stat, every stat gets huge benefits up to the first soft cap of 20. You can really do well with something like a mace and only 20 STR, but you still get benefits for going all the way to 50 and then 99.
I've realized that 99% of the time people have problems with DS2 is because they treat it as an action game rather than a mix of action and RPG. Instead of playing the game at the slower pace and like that of an adventure, they want to act like it's DS3 or some generic action game and try to speed through the entire game, skipping most enemies and not taking things slow and cautiously and carefully learning the mechanics. When you take the game slow and play it on its terms then you realize how the pieces fit together to make a slower tactical experience than 1, but if you have ADHD and just want to roll and press R1 or have cool flashy weapon arts that trivialize the game you are never going to like it and you are just going to see it as unfair. That is what it all comes down to. All the mechanics push you into being slow, cautious, and to think about your actions and have backup plans yet in so much gameplay for critiques of the game including yours I just see people bullrushing into dumb situations and then getting mad about it, not taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of enemies at all. As if running into the bridge drake's fire over and over again in 1 wasn't equally as stupid. Even the ganks are not as bad in 2 as they are in 1 or 3 if you really look for them and play slowly like you are supposed to and the game drives you to do. Meanwhile in 3 you have dragon chain axe guys that can clip you through walls and hitscan health stealers that can also block your healing. And then there are of course the bonewheels in multiple sections of 1, the duke's archives, the painted world, etc as well. People just don't talk about them as being "unfair" like with 2 because the game doesn't punish you for being ADHD and just trying to weak attack, panic roll, and sip your way out of trouble. Or better yet, just run past it since this kind of person sees anything that isn't a boss enemy as being "not worth their time" because they just want an action game with only the suggestion of RPG mechanics and not an actual RPG. Yes, some parts are janky and the level design is weaker than DS1, but the marriage between action and RPG is more fluid than any other Souls game where in DS1 some options were just useless (like the whip, crossbows, fist weapons, etc) and DS3 only pretended to have RPG mechanics but was really just shallow and all about the devs forcing you to play in a manner to Bloodborne (which frankly did massive damage to From's RPG design philosophy by shifting their focus to only the action portions of the games and neglecting things like real build variety). DS2 makes everything useful if you are clever enough, and if you have problems using the massive sandbox/toolkit the game gives you which is bigger than any other souls game, the issue is with you and not the game.
Are you dumb? Did you watch the video? The dark souls 2 system takes humanity to increase the flask PER BONFIRE, DS2 introduced it increasing the flask count PERMENETLY, otherwise you'd have 1 flask, One item to increase the amount, and another the charge, this was carried over to Elden ring and dark souls 3, NOT the bonfire flask system
@@ZirixStrarstrider you can go to 10 without the rite of kindling which is easily attained from the start of the game so you can have 20 before even fighting Taurus demon. Also you can kindle any and every bonfire. To adjust the difficulty of an area. So it’s a players choice to have 5, 10, 15 or 20 estus. Not just a specific bonfire.
Two things when it comes to torches, firstly, you are wrong about having to aproach a fire to light your torch. Flame Butterflies can light your torch anywhere, and they're not rare enough to be a concern. Having played completely through DS2 for the first time less than a week ago, I used maybe 5 flame butterflies, and still had more than 15 left. Also, the torches are given out rather abundantly too. By the end of my playthrough I had over 5 hours of torch time left over.
Im not wrong about having to approach the fire to light the torch. That's literally how you light the torch. Doesn't matter if there's also another method. Also, you're right you get plenty of torches when you consider the entire game. But not when you consider an individual play session. Unless you farm torches or refrain from using them till you absolutely have to, you'll be out. You get a few minutes per torch, which is nothing considering how slow and deliberate you have to play this game due to the constant ambush setups. So you burn through those torches quick and may or may not be getting a drop in time to be restocked. The game is clearly designed to be played slowly and calculated so the whole timer thing on a torch is contradictory and makes no sense
@@joegellawhy not just... Clear all the enemies around before lighting a torch? Then put it out, move to the next spot that needs to be lit, clear enemies, light the torch from the previously lit spot, light the new one, and repeat. That's not that hard, bro
10:10 it's bad on the other games if you don't "reset" the sprint, but if you stop and sprint again, you WILL sprint again even if ur not full of stamina in ds2 you won't but in the others you will
I played ds2 going in with the mindset that the game was gonna be ass. I ended the game after beating all dlc, and I had an absolute blast. Yeah, having adaptability be tied to your I-frames was a shit idea, but you get so many souls early on, and so quickly, that it quickly becomes a non-issue. The game is genuinely fun, you just gotta have a little patience, and you’ve gotta understand that if you level adaptability, a lot of your problems just disappear.
the whole thing about the giants kinship "just spawning" nashandra in the throne room is so silly and redundant cuz its obvious you didnt read the item description. you kill a major boss and get a key item that you dont know what to do with, so you check the item description to see what youre supposed to do with it. the description quite literally states "Grants access to the throne room beneath the castle". There is only ONE throne room underneath a castle. i sure do wonder what im supposed to do with this.
Yeah, but the final boss still just spawns in the throne room. It's not about being unable to figure out where to go, it's about taking you back to a location you already fought a boss in previously, without where also being more to the location. That's why I gave the elden ring example, which it's obvious you didn't grasp. You fight morgott, and then when you come back to that same location later for the final fight, you can now access the erdtree. They didn't just put morgott in the erdtree. However, that's what ds2 did
@@joegella It's a...story beat? You know when the Emerald Herald literally tells you that Nashandra will be coming for you now that you have the means to get to the throne? If you have already done Throne Watcher and Defender she is waiting there for you to come, if not she comes in behind you after you beat them for her. It makes sense if you pay any attention?
@@joegella there's a cutscene of nashandra literally walking into the boss room if you wait to fight the throne watcher and throne defender, you even hear her pass through the fog wall
@@joegella Here we go again, oh no killing boss no make progress, guess I go through other door to kill other bosses. Oh I get item for giants? I go to giants and open last door. Oh I get item for throne? I go to throne and woah new dialogue and final boss? wow!
19:10 I actually like that, because despawning enemies might reduce farming, but then again, you get plenty souls from all the areas and enemies you kill, and if a certain area is particularty hard, or a certain boss is particularly hard, you are making the way ahead easier to yourself. 25:50 I feel like the whole vibe of Throne of Want area just screams "The End" so I personally did go do other things and then had whole throne duo + Nashandra + Aldia combo. Sill having that last gate locked would make it much better to guarantee you know there is the end and that you have double boss as intended, probably.
I liked the limited respawns on enemies. It allows you clear the path to a difficult boss. Also, I really prefer the original DS2 over the Scholar version. The enemy placement makes much more sense.
besides you can just leave the covenant by talking with the cat, i cant understand why people act like its such a big deal when the boost to enemies isn't even that big, its more of a "hey you beat this enemy 20 times so we know you can handle it just get to the point" feature
I can't prove it, but I have the feeling though that the limited respawn mechanic led to some enemy placement decisions that straight up would not have happened without it. I'm not against it in principle but I resented it when the game would pile like 7 dudes in a small hallway on the way to any boss that's even remotely challenging, almost like it was saying to me 'well you can despawn them!' but like...that's boring and feels like a waste of time! I dunno.
I'd rather have normal boss runs that this. Seriously, every time I get to Iron Keep it's just "time to farm the Alonne Knights" because if you do it slow it's easy and gives a lot of souls, but if you try to run, it's fucked. Their detection triggest are bonkers.
I have no idea who you are, or why my Elden ring law video suggested you, but i gotta say, i LOVE the style of this video. the bullet points, the concise nature with examples, the ease in which i can follow your points despite not playing ds2. good on the algorithm, subbed, and i look forward to more video easy/ critiques from yourself :)
Dark Souls 2 SOFTS remaster (PS4/XB1/PC) is almost a different experience than base DS2+DLC (PS3/X360/PC), They made so many changes to base game, they made it super chaotic. DS2 base is closer to a coherent experience.
Scholar is just them copy and pasting more enemies onto a map, that's it. Some enemies don't even make sense, they do it just to troll players further.
Hot Take Harry here: Dark Souls 2’s quality is overall lower than Dark Souls 1, but it’s consistent throughout. Dark Souls 1 actually shits the bed immediately after Qualaag, I would take the whole of Dark Souls 2 over replaying the entirety of Dark Souls 1 again.
Thank you for this. I warched a few key parts of the video trying not to spoil too much as im starting my very first ds2 playthrough tomorrow. Ive finished ds1, demons souls remake, bloodborne, and elden ring. No ds3 or sekiro yet but i figured I'd get ds2 done now 👍. Thanks again friend, great video.
I feel like you miss understood the flasks in DS1, or you didn't word it right. The main upgrade increased the potency of your flasks, but you can farm a recourse that lets you have the current maximum flasks, then killing a boss gives you the current maximum flasks of that NG+ cycle and when you upgrade a bonfire to the maximum flasks currently, it carries over to the next NG+ cycle. Also with ADP, it also increased how fast you drink flasks but it is still a dumb mehcanic. The lowering of health after death, yes they took that from Demon's Souls, yes you have to have a ring slot to keep your health at 75% but that was the same as Demon's Souls as there was a ring to keep your hewlth at 75% when in soul form also. Now with the final boss, there is also a 3rd final boss. By going through the other giant memories you get giant souls and there's a hidden one in Black Gultch, but once you get 4 of them, or 5 if you kill the Ancient dragon, you then fight Vendric, collecting and keeping the gaint souls lowers vendrics defense because if you don't have them, you won't hurt him much. But killing him triggers a 3rd boss after Nashandra
@@joegellait was implemented into DS3 also. Also one mechanic that you probably didn't know about is with Fume Knight in Iron King DLC. He has 2 unique mechanics only to him You can go through the full fight without triggering his 2nd phase, but you have to constantly drink your flasks under 12 seconds on each other, it keeps his sword glowing which stops him from going into phase 2. Speaking of phase 2, if you went into his boss fight with Velstaad's armour, he instantly goes into phase 2 as soon as you walk into the boss room
I got this platinum as well, several times. I can see why people complain but I feel the level designs and the bosses were great. The Chariot boss is my favorite. Thanks for the great video.
25:00 you would think to go back to that area because that's the area that gave you the clue to seek out the kinship of the giants in the first place, or did you not read the sign on the ground facing towards the throne? :O
it's EXACTLY what they did in Elden Ring too lol. You get to an area, kill a boss, get a clue, (thorns, melina says we gotta burn them, ER is much more in your face about it) go and do the thing and then come back. You're telling me that you needed the game teleporting you back to the Ashen Capital to figure out that you should have gone back to the tree? Same thing is happening here :s
Honestly, I think it’s mostly about which game you played first. I played dark souls 2 sotfs first and the other games were too different and confusing to me because I was used to (basically) a completely different game while expecting the same game mechanics
Man... being a ds2 fan is hard; seeing so many people hate what you love. (Btw I'm only missing the Cristal soul spear to 100% this headache of a "masterpiece") I also just wanted to mention that at this moment, the hollow you one-shoted was in the middle of a swing, so you probably did counter damage while the latter one wasn't 12:00 Also, the lock-on issue only applies to colossal weapons (so I avoid those in many cases cause it can get frustrating)
I tried DS2 couple of years ago, couldn’t stand it more than couple of hours. Bought SOTFS edition on Steam this summer, finished it in about 20h (not including the DLCs), and I have to say that it isn’t “the worst game ever made”, as some people say, but it genuinely is the worst DS game. Difficulty isn’t the problem, it is the lack of; B-team that made DS2 clearly didn’t know how to implement rewarding difficulty, so they went with couple of weird designs; gem stones, abundance of souls, enemy galore etc. I found the story to be quite good, with Majula being the best hub out of all DS games. However, the game (for me) lacked in difficulty to an extreme; if you play extremely slow and pick your targets, it is a breeze. Secondly, bosses were extremely underwhelming, to the point where I had to try to die. Thirdly, hitboxes are atrocious. Finally, level design was also a bit weird, and connection between locations made 0 sense. Other than that, it was a fine game, but certainly not worth FS signature in my opinion. There are some additional problems with the game, but they are tied to some weird decisions that b-team made (ADP, life decreasing after death, enemy despawning etc.)
honestly, I hated my first ds2 playthrough. I played it right after ds1 (I played the whole series in order). Then I revisited it after elden ring and I appreciate it a lot more for some reason; maybe it's because of how out there it is. It still grinds my gears on some sections (snow field, cough cough) @VREMEPLOV1
I am sick and tired of people praising Dark Souls 2 and calling Elden Ring and even Dark Souls 1 worse in comparison. Praising Dark Souls 2 doesn't make you look smart, all you having is a unique opinion to stroke your ego.
The part with diminishing damage for partially hiting the target or for passing through objects before hiting the target... that is logical and makes sense. I don't understand why people complain about it.
@@tylerbacoka4248in a game that has too many janks, an extremely unbalanced stat system (adp and vitality), katanas being too op among all the other weapons thanks to Counters, and infinite healing thanks to Life gems. This is the wet dreams for everyone getting into Souls, cause it caters to exploiters and its not that hard. Tbh the setting is amazing, the weapons looked cool, the lore was alright, and the boss designs were from extremely questionable to amazing bosses, this game is a huge miss for me imo.
@@LeMajesticJames vitality is in ds3 and adp is just vigor with flavor. also ds1 was horribly designed for alot of shit, lets not glaze ds1 nor compare 3 to 2 because of the MASSIVE core difference between the games. Compare ds3 to elden ring and ds1 to ds2, and you'll get a better take. cause ds3 came after bloodborne and well... ds2 couldnt use bloodbornes success to know what people like.
Dude. The slow healing in DS2 from flasks is great! You can pop one off even if you can see that it would be an Overheal, but since it's so slow you probably will get hit again before it's done thus not "Overhealing". I liked all the ambushes and fighting more than two mobs at a time. It was like I was communicating with the devs, imagining them laughing their ass off at their own placement of monsters and their own traps. It was amusing and I nodded back "good one guys good one, you had me there, wont happen next time tho". Never had such connection with whoever made a game I was playing until this. It was also a proof the devs were having fun.
I’ll say this under every video like this I see. I do not _hate_ Dark Souls 2, in fact I love it. I _dislike_ Dark Souls 2: Scholar of The First Sin Edition, because being that it was my first foray into Dark Souls 2, it sucked that it was basically what should’ve been an optional hardmode, laden with so many enemies that it became optimal to just run past as many of them as possible, so that I could conserve resources for boss fights.
Nice video, however I feel you are missing the point of some Souls fundamental mechanics. For instance Fast Travelling is not always a good thing. If you had it on DS1 from the beginning, you would miss the AMAZING level design & short cut system. Also no Fast Travel means more is on the line when you are traversing levels.. Also, DS2 AND Demon's Souls "punish" you with decreased health after dying. DS1 also has a similar punishment for dying a lot. It adds to the risk-reward tension of the game. Same as dropping your souls/runes when dying... ❤
For me it's a few things. It's clunky and the player movement is awful. the bosses and overall story I find uninteresting as opposed to the other games - I couldn't name you more then 5 bosses from that game. There is to many mobs, the layout makes no sense, and some of the worst and frustrating areas in all of the souls games
It's a bad game, I liked nothing about this game, finished it because my brain and never went back to it, never will. Actually I like one thing, the cutscene at the beginning.
To add to what you said about bosses and story, I find the world design uninteresting as well. I'm not into PVP or the exact detail of how certain mechanics or balancing works in these games, I play them as single player adventure games in a sense. The world, exploration, and progression in Dark Souls 1, 3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro are all amazing and create an amazing experience to me. But Dark Souls 2 just feels very lacking in that sense. It's not very interesting to play.
Some of your complaints have explanations. The "soft lock on" is an intended feature that only works for certain weapons types.. Like the one you are using. This actually is an togglable option in Elden Ring as well.
as someone who started with DS2 as their first entry in the series, I feel like I appreciated the game more bc a lot of these points are just comparing it to the other games.
I have fond memories of this game. I played it before SoTFS became the standard. But to be fair, I'm a grinder, always over leveled my characters and just bulldozed my way through. I didn't even think much about all of these flaws. I'm sure if I go back and play it, it wouldn't hold up compared to others. Glad you went in for your self to check it out. Well done on the video.
I played it on release and had the absolute time of my life. I can't stress enough how PERFECT the connectivity of PVP and Coop felt compared to suffering through DS1 Prepare to Die Edition for almost 2 years. This game is an absolute favorite of mine in the series personally. I believe it is the only game that conveys a world state that is still clinging on to life, like it's the beginning of the end or something. Drangleic has not quite succumbed as far as the lands of Lordran to the curse. And then, there is Dark Souls 3 which displays the end of the line, absolute grotesque corruption, Lothric is so far gone that you find rot, death, or decay around almost every corner it feels. Each game has a special place and feeling I believe.
I liked Shrine in Dark Souls 2. It rewarded slow, methodical gameplay and actually let stealth magic / ring users ambush people. If you had a bow build you were having a good time too. The aquatic ruins aesthetic does it for me too. In general I enjoy water stuff.
Most of the "bad mechanics" are just different from what you're now used to. Also it's funny that there's some clear choices to keep players on their toes, and yet the vocal "git gud" crowd is the one complaining that it makes the game worse
@@joegella most of them its you not knowing about them like counter damage, or not using basic skills like luring enemies, planing, sniping, or using your head like putting ways the torch and only using after you cleared the enemies.
i heavily agree with you about teleporting between bonfires, but i dont get it why people say thats a bad thing, like having to walk 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing just running and ignoring enemies was fun and engaging lol... i see most people say that is better to not teleport because the world feels more alive (?). i dont really get it, but its the first time i see someone agree with teleporting between bonfires is good (also sorry for bad english i barely my native language xd)
Yeah teleporting is absolutely a good change to the formula. Fromsoftware kept it for all future games because it's great. I think no teleport works fine in ds1 because they eventually give it to you halfway in. But the first time I played thst game, I ended up going all the way down through blighttown and then couldn't kill that fire spider boss at the bottom because I wasn't properly equipped. But then I had to painfully fight my way back up just to get to the blacksmith
I loved DS1’s interconnected level design. It’s probably my favorite part of the game. But the other souls games aren’t as interconnected, because warping between bonfires made that unnecessary. Warping is cool, but if the cost of warping is that the level design getting worse, then it’s not worth it. Warping made the games slightly better, but the lack of inter-connectivity made the level design WAY worse. Overall, it’s a net negative imo.
This is a great point too. The no warp in ds1 works because it was designed for that. I can totally get behind it if they decide to revisit this in the future. But I do still think that it limits your options. You sort of have to tackle what's in front of you rather than going back to another location and trying that, because it takes time to get there
3:50 I swear you use humanity to kindle bonfires and firekeeper souls to upgrade the flasks no? I much prefer the current system but your statement was just wrong
There's a fine balance between challenging and tedious, and DS2, at times, leans too tedious. Like having to lure out enemies one by one by one because the area wasn't designed to take them on all at once, and then having to do it over and over and over again. It doesn't have to be tedious to be difficult. Which is why they don't make their games like that any longer. For instance, Ringed City and Shadow Of The Erdtree are immensely challenging, but they aren't exactly tedious.
the area wasn't made to take them all at once because being smart when choosing the environment is a intellectual skill, the game move away from intellectual skills like patience and planning and more into physical ones like reflex.
11:53 i think the attack with the highest damage was registered as a sneak attack where you caught them off guard , and i think this mechanic exists in elden ring as well
DS2 is my fav for many reasons. But my prime reason is, it agitates me the least. There’s nearly nothing about it i dread playing through. Where as every other game has typically instead of “THAT ONE PLACE” or something it’s “THOSE CERTAIN CHUNKS OF THE GAME” that can be extremely off putting for me. BUT!! I’ve come to terms that, I think & feel alot different than most people.
Honestly my opinion changed on this game first 2-3 hours I hated the game I was very confused i didn’t like the movement even though I played every game from the studio but now after 10+ hours in I can say that it’s an fun game not the best. Not the worst but still a good enjoyable game
29:50 DS2 has some questionable areas but I never get why people struggle here. The first time around you can use the torch and just clearly see the path.
Not sure if anyone commented this, I hope u see this. Darksouls 2 and dark souls scholar of the first sin were released seperately and I've played both. The NG+ in scholar of the first sin was the enemy layout in the original dark souls 2. They just added the floating firey head questline.
im a large ds2 enjoyer but i think stonesword keys are much better implemented because they're never mandatory, whereas multiple key moments in progression rely on fboys and pls
theres if I remember only 1 required fragbranch being the one with the stoned lady, the rest are either, unlocking a bonus area or a bonus bonfire or some extra loot edit: even if you loose all of the branches you can still progress by having 1milion soul memory, in DS1 if you go the catacombs you can legit soft locked yourself if you dont have the Lord Vessel
Lack of patience, observation and battle skills is what makes people hate DS2? Not to stroke my (souls moan) ego but I defeated the throne W&D, Nashandra and Aldia with a single bone fist in a row with Estus to spare. I was always so bound to UGSs but truth be told, those make the game easier, and at times... the lack of variety makes the game a bit stale. I am currently doing a Luchadore run and it is hilarious when you don't take the game too seriously and just play for fun. Let me add some key points of my own. I am by no means an expert in the game, just your average pixel wizard on the internet. 1. The game rewards people with forward thinking and observation skills. Even with power-stanced UGS, it is idiotic to run towards a mob. You will be ganked to oblivion. Take your time, one or two at a time and continue. You can even do a caestus run with that in mind. And yes, you can run to bosses but you have to bait an attack from nearby enemies so it gives you time to cross the fog, else you are f*cked. 2. Nobody complained about pressing A on walls or poking them with a sword in other games. It's easier to walk around pressing A. Super satisfying to find a path where you thought it would be. 3. Your lack of poison arrows bothers me. That makes Shrine of Amana a lot easier. 3/4 arrows and each caster is dead. You can buy them with the half wheel, half deal brother. You would be surprised how poison makes far enemies easier to kill. Even the ogres and headless giants succumb to it. 4. Yes, rolls must be controlled else your sword hits somewhere else. But it has its uses, you can ward off another enemy that popped up uninvited or use no lock while fighting many at once. A must do for the Chaos area in the DLC. 5. Take a whip and clear the pesky statues in the Gutter/Black Gulch. Take a torch, roll onto the pools of oil and watch the lurkers burn. You can switch between weapons and whips if you use a torch most of the time. 6. lowering HP, in my opinion, forces you to get good and be more careful with your attacks. Oh, I just landed 3 hits, the Smelter Demon almost insta killed me with a horizontal slash and I want to chug Estus as soon as he stopped attacking? No. You go in as if you had full health, dodge, find an opening and instead of attacking, heal. It's either attacking or healing, and rarely both at once. 7. You HAVE to burn the windmill. You say the Torch mechanic is bad, but there are so many places that look even better with lights on, not only two areas. There are many places where fire is a must. If using the UGS, use R2 for a vertical attack in tight spots. I can't think of a time where I ran out of torches in my 300+ hrs playing DS2. It is a must for the Shrine of Amana if you want to see where you are going at times. Even in Aldia's keep it is a must if you want to get the key to open the side path. Some enemies drop them constantly, like the hidden dude in a concrete room in No Man's Wharf after the wooden bridges area. Some enemies even run away from fire or become harmless. 8. Use life gems as means to prolong exploration trips and Estus when you need a chunk of life in a hurry. 9. At least we don't have to repair things here unless broken, which is a nice improvement. Make sure to have two weapons at +10 (or highest possible) in case the durability becomes an issue. 10. The bonfire teleports from the get-go should have been the norm since DS1. Exploration becomes a breeze. 11. While Souls games have very nice beauty shots, DS2 takes the crown. It is like being in a painted world sometimes. Heide's Tower of flame is such a beauty if you have played under a status effect, if you catch my drift. 12. We have the Emerald Waifu. Sometimes I find her playing without a care near the bonfire. Also, the Majula theme is fire. So nostalgic, melancholic, but yet it has its notes of hope. Overall, it's fair to give your opinion. But don't call a game bad just because you don't want to adapt to its mechanics. I love this game, it is my favorite out of all the souls games. It's a game of discovery, trial and error. But then again, take it from a guy who dropped Breath of the Wild because he found it annoying to travel long distances. And even Elden Ring has a bit of that too. Does that make games bad? No, it's just not my style of game. Maybe that's why I did not like Skyrim either. I'd do any Metroid or Megaman Zero/Legends before any open world game any day.
yeah, i agree that glazing ds2 works well. The game has plenty of problems, but its at the end of the day the most ambitious of the souls games. Like i'd BEG to have somebody tell me what new interesting mechanics that could have downsides were added in ds3. CAUSE THEY DIDNT ADD SHIT, ALL THEY ADDED WAS WEAPON ARTS! NOT A SINGLE NEW STATUS EFFECT, BONFIRE THING, BOSSES HAVE PRACTICALLY FUCK ALL IN UNIQUE GIMMICKS. its so EMPTY in variety, the problem with ds3 is that its good, but has nothing special that makes you say "i cant do this in another souls game, thats why i like it" its all "yeah this is just elden ring with smaller areas and less variety"
Im pretty sure the og dark souls only let you move in the 4 cardinal directions when locked on. it was part of the reason things felt weird with ds2 because people were used to 4 directions. This was later expanded upon in the future games.
11:51 392 dmg because counter damage and sweet spot, that one was NOT in attack/special animation, the other 2 were attacking u, maybe learn what is counter dmg, i believe u know what is the sweet spot alrdy. ( if not learn about it )
It's amazing how someone is willing to make a whole video about Dark Souls 2 without even trying to understand it fully... and counter damage is something that is present in every souls game....
@@simonenot5839 this guy played ds2 till Ng+2 with the intention of making a video, Imagine playing a game to have fun, and even worst, he probably followed a fooking guide while playing, that's a even bigger no-no
@@AtreyusNinja Lmao, DS2 is not a game you play blind. It tells you nothing, so you'll miss out on most of the game's mechanic. Hidden walls, adp, powerstancing, the windmill...
@@3idiotsblack oh because Mytha is not calculated to be fight with the poison, she don't stare at u for 5 minute before attacking u, r u fooking blind? do u know there are lifegems in this game? 1 lifegem counter the poison effect, 2 lifegems heals u, with a DECENT dps u kill her with the poison, i don't expect u to understand sh1t tho.
I like that this video is a balanced evaluation of the game and I enjoy the humor in it. I also think you are underselling certain parts of the game. For example with the torch, it's not only useful in no man's wharf and the gutter, but also in brightstone cove tseldora as the spiders are afraid of fire, and in black gulch where you can set the oil pools on fire to instakill the enemies that jump out of them. I also like the fact that the estus flask heals you slowly over time instead of instantly. It keeps healing you even if you get hit, which means you can use it in different ways. I think you're right about the ambushes, people often say that it's intended for you to play the game slowly and deliberately and I get that but I don't want to have to do that every time while retrying a boss. However I don't think DS2 is the only game with that issue, it happens in DS3 as well to a lesser extent. I also think you're right that the game doesn't always communicate well what you're supposed to do, but that's all the dark souls games. When I got DS1 remastered I thought I didn't have the DLC because I had no idea how to get there, I had to look up a guide. A lot of it is very unintuitive.
Dark Souls 2 was bad, it has janky uncoordinated gameplay acompanied by unsatisfying sound design and feedback when attacking enemies. Game plays like ass.
Damn I didn't think of that possibility. Thanks! Critical hits are pretty common im videogames but it's never been in any of the other souls games. Still was annoying that I never knew if a guy would be a 1 or 2 hit kill
@@joegella critical hits and counter hits exist in all the souls games dude. DS3 even explicitly telegraphs critical / counter hits by having a unique damage sound
Thanks for sharing. I understand now why people hate it. I don't think you were nitpicking. All of your observations seemed to me like they were legitimately on-point. I wouldn't have enjoyed those weird mechanics either.
@@joegella considering the amount of comments that are pointing you to mistakes you made in your video, I wouldn't really rate your video as "reality" You didn't use the full spectrum and range of tools DS2 gave you and you're mad about it.
@@eliesbutz3317 so many of those issues could be fixed by playing the right way like luring enemies and paying attention to the environment so you aren't close to walls and objects when fighting,
@@joegellaomg how do you do that? In the video at 35 minutes 54 seconds? I love how you get trigged by the damage debuf 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I love how the screen goes red How do you do that?
@@joegella Wow, just wow. Seems like you're the one who can't accept reality. I mean, you have to be pretty delusional to seriously think that Dark Souls 1 Estus system is worse the Demons Souls/Dark Souls 2 infinite healing through grass/gems. I honestly just turned your video off after that section as you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
thats what bad is in the context of a gaming series. If the new cod had old time guns and flint pistols they wouldn't be bad overall, they would be different from other cod games making it "bad" for people who enjoy normal guns.
I mean I’ve been playing ds2 for two weeks and those first 6-7 hours of getting used to these frustrating mechanics were not enjoyable. So I’m not gonna act like they aren’t bad mechanics, but very frustrating to get used to at least. And for that I can understand why this is considered the worst game in the franchise, but it is still fun and enjoyable after you get used to it- at least that was the case for me
I have some fundemental disagreements about whether or not something is "bad", but rather than writing it all let me just say every single time that dark souls moan played I giggled like a child.
Æough, ah, ahghhhhh, ahhhhah
ds2 is bad just accept it already
ds2 is a great game that never was, it's like waking up from a wet dream, all you remember is being wet, not the climax that made it so, where is the fun in that !#!?
@@samueldawkinsstill a good arpg, just a bad souls like
one i find even funnier is in ds3, the fall death sound where it sounds like he is literally being dragged to the deepest depths of hell
Ds2 adaptability is lame, but ds2 also gives like 5x the amount of souls than ds1/3 so you can literally make it a non issue after you get a free 20+ levels after the first boss just fyi.
Agreed, it is a literal none issue, plus elden ring does something similar with vigor, for a normal player you need atleast 40 points into vigor for late game which could have been used for other things, ik you need vigor for other souls games but it was never that much
Please I'm begging you, make a video on ds2 and my life is yours
Except that's straight up terrible design.
I play the game without leveling adp to prove a point
@@sentinelslayer8328 fancy seeing you here
Demon's Souls also had an item to get human form/health back. Killing boss was just second option not the only option
Yep, eye of ephemeral souls. As well as having the cling ring to keep your health at like 65% after you die and return. Ds2 is almost identical in both respects.
@@sethlhaynes Yeah, I like how people complain about DS2 mechanics where you have to die multiple times to even reach the health reduction of Demon Souls. And in Demon Souls if you use the ephmeral souls or beat a boss and then die again which happens many times, even the world tendency gets darker and the game punishes you with harder enemies. It's insane.
But I love Demon Souls and also not seen many people complain about Demon Souls, they praise it, while everyone hates DS2 for things that existed in other games and even worse.
@Optimus6128 demons souls system is about 10x worse than ds2. Not only do you instantly get cut to 50%, but the world is permanently affected, and cut off content depending on how far you pushed the tendency
Getting the platinum sucked because of it
@@joegella demon souls is more aware that players will not be at 100% life bar so, enemies deal less damage. Also Demon souls, does not have that many gank fights, and is usually not much focused in combat Is More about careful exploration, yet I believe nobody complains about that issue in demon souls Is because nobody gives a damn about that game
@@joegella git gud
Oh goddamnit, I seriously could have burnt the windmill and saved myself a fucking headache with the poison boss.
But would you have known without someone telling you about it?
@@JJ-qo7th Fun fact, one of the NPCs you can summon in that area, Devotee Scarlett, gestures you to come closer when you pass near the windmill, and then points at it if you do approach the windmill.
@@JhonDoe-yh2lxwhich doesn't even remotely communicate the idea
if the windmill actually looked burnable this wouldn't be so baffling
without being told im pretty sure i would have never found that out.
@@JhonDoe-yh2lx Not to take away from what you said, I basically ran most zones not fully human, because I wanted online options available, but I didn't want to be a priority host for invasions and I didn't want to muck about with my connection.
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE 100 FANS, I'M ONE OF THEM
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE 10 FANS, I ALSO ONE OF THEM
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE ONLY 1 FANS, IT'S WAS ME
AND IF DARK SOULS 2 HAVE NO FANS, I ALREADY GONE FROM THIS WORLD
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS 100 HATERS, I'M ONE OF THEM
IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS 10 HATERS, I'M ALSO ONE OF THEM...(I mean makes sense right i already said I didn't like it?)
IF DARK SOULS 2 ONLY HAS 1 HATER, IT WAS ME
AND IF DARK SOULS 2 HAS NO HATERS, I DECIDED TO PLAY IT AGAIN AND I'M NOW GONE FROM THIS WORLD
I am a big souls fan, played all of them through multiple times. Here is my order of likability - Elden Ring (if you count it as Souls), Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, Demon's Soul's. I think most people's lists would be closer to that if it wasn't for all these you tubers trying so hard to agree with eachother that it influences the masses.
Cbrunning must be a 13 yo asmon fan 😂
@@sid3fx1122 No I just don't like ds2 and this post was so passionate. I've beat all the FS games (all the souls like games not like AC and such) and it's the only game I don't like what so ever. I also don't like sekiro but I 100% understand why people do and I get it's a great game just not my thing. Ds2 it's just not fun to play at all for me personally. I think it's a bad game....
Come up for air lil bro
3:40 minor correction here. Firekeeper souls can only be used to increase the potency of flasks while humanity is sacrificed at bonfires to increase flask charges at a specific bonfire while having the rite to kindle.
Dang you right I forgot about that. Thanks for the correction. I guess that makes fire keeper souls even less useful
@@joegellaThey become useful in ng+ as just free 5 soft humanity
@@joegellaFire Keeper Souls are useful. Flask upgrades are a big deal. Look at how much more a +3 Flask heals compared to base. And if you kill certain Fire keepers for their Souls you can go as high as +5.
In NG+ cycles though they're basically just 5 Humanity though.
You can sacrifice humanity without the rite of kindling to go from 5 flask to 10. Rite lets you go to 15 and 20. You can do this at every bonfire in the game, not specific ones. Firelink shrine just starts at 10, it may be the case that all bonfires with a fire keeper start kindled, I forget if the pale lady is kindled by default or not. But the point remains, all bonfires can be increased to 10 flasks, rite lets you kindle two additional times for 15 and 20
Why am I not surprised that the guy who made this knows nothing about Dark Souls.
Dark Souls 2 as a whole was supposed to have a bigger emphasis on using light and torches which is why there is torch related puzzles with those braziers everywhere. The game was supposed to be A LOT darker but the darkness was recieved negatively so the game as a whole was brightened negating the importance of the torch
I recall the feedback I read from testers regarding that and they all responded positively about the darkness. Then the game came out and it was broken. They fixed it in the director's cut. Interesting nontheless.
So in other words the players whined and the games worse off for it... There's a lesson there to the plebs to busy whining to enjoy the game for what it is.
Sorry, but I played the network test. The darkness was awesome. Everyone I talked to felt the same. They couldn’t get the lighting engine to run reliably through the whole game. So, before the original release they redid the lighting so everything could be seen, eliminating the need for the torch. SotFS didn’t fix anything in regards to the lighting.
@@ephraimthemugwump wow, basically it released on ps3 hardware (btw the game was designed for ps4 hardware) it couldnt take it, and they had to cut it. WOOOOOW
@ ok
12:03 There's this mechanic called "counter damage" where you deal extra damage if you hit an enemy while it's performing it's attack animation. Each weapon has a different counter damage value.
22:20 you can either go to the Forest of Fallen Giants or Heide's tower, as the other paths are blocked by needing items for it. Either of the 2 first paths get you into Lost Bastille with Heide's having stronger enemies in lower quantities.
If Dark Souls teaches you one thing is to go back if you think you're underpowered, I never got a problem in finding the Forest of Fallen Giants as I saw Heide's enemies towering over me and just turned back.
Another commenter brought this up and it makes complete sense. I never noticed this in any of the other games so this buff must be pretty hefty in ds2
@@joegella It appears on the weapon's stats page with the symbol of a arrow turning back. It works by multiplying the base damage by the counter damage value.
For example, the Uchigatana has a counter damage of 150, so each hit landed during an enemy's attack will be base damage x 1.5. The Greatsword has 130 counter damage, so it's multiplied by 1.3 and so on.
Counter damage is also a mechanic in every good fighting game
Im pretty sure the hollow infantry with shield variant has higher defense than the other hollow infantry
I consistently notice less damage when attacking those guys
yeah you can go down either path, Dark Souls 1 has a similar thing letting you go to 3 areas right from Firelink but two of those areas are incredibly hard and not meant to be tackled that direction. Dark Souls 2 is more freeing in that regard and with a fragrant branch there's even another path you can go down to the shaded woods and Heide's tower splits into two paths also.
Doors taking time to open - is a "hidden loading-screen".
This is likely why enemies don't follow past that point - because the enemy type doesnt exist in that "new map".
That makes a lot of sense. But it turns the problem into "there's loading screens all over the place that interrupt gameplay"
@@joegella
That's usually the case. Haha.
@@joegella In DS1 there were a ton of fog gates in between sections of the same map (Undead Burg comes to mind), in DS2 you have doors instead, and not as many by far. Same thing, different presentation.
@@Darkko88 it would be the same thing if u had the ifrmaes during door opening animation
@@joegella You know you can roll through the door when it's opened a little bit.
The best things about Dark souls 2 in my opinion:
- performance
- dual wielding, even the crossbow and you hold both heavy weapon on your shoulder, not just holding by the left hand like ER
- fashion soul
- unique weapon (I love bone fist)
- hex
- life gem
- NG+
- bonfire ascetic
- best hub in all FS games (Majula)
- best pvp
- best dragon form appearance
- best greatsword moveset (mirrah greatsword, loyce greatsword)
....
Nailed it. I'd add company of champions covenant for the challenge, and most satisfying visceral crit animations.
+ it also has my poison infused manslayer.
Dual wield movesets, you can dual wield different weapons which gives you more movesets.
You can use bone fire ascetic to respawn bosses, items but it makes that particular area ng+ every time you use it.
Can use this to farm souls and items to upgrade weapons without going to new game cycle 'officially'.
One of the best DLCs.
Ds2 was the GOAT!!
Atmosphere/Tone is there for me. In impact and variety; they aren't afraid to make you feel hope in this game
@@altibzz also butterfly wings that reduce fall damage and boost poisin damg😂
The Emerald Harald not being put in the "good" side is a huge mistake. That lady design is top tier.
I completely left that part out. They went back to the demons souls upgrade waifu design
Ruined the world in comparison to Dark Souls. In the original game you were on a journey by yourself and it felt isolating. At the same time you had to take the world seriously because you couldn't just teleport everywhere, so you HAD to focus on whether or not you were supposed to be where you were. This made leveling up at bonfires feel better. Having to go to some random person to level up "because reasons" removes the feeling of isolation, makes the world feel less real and less dangerous, and means you have to think less about where you're going and why.
@@Izzmonster Ds2 is also isolating, although it's presented in a different way than in 1; it's about being alone, together.
@@cowbats 🤣 youre right, its absolute nonsense. It cant be isolating if you can always retreat to a safe place with people waiting for you. Thats literally the opposite of isolating.
@@Izzmonster what are u on about brother 💀
Oh man, my wife bought this for me for the PS3, and I was horrible, so I put it down for a few months. Then she watched me play it every single time. We would go to sleep looking out to the sea with that calm soundtrack playing.
Now she's passed on after suicide, and Everytime I hear it, the memories come flooding back. Such a great soundtrack for the whole game.
Why she did?
Sorry for your loss.
@@mostafanabil6011 dark theme of DS games can make people depressed
She did it because dark souls 2 sucks. 😂
@@Nehilism You're a horrible human being.
I loved ds2 but it was my introduction to the series so I didn’t have anything to base it off of at the time. Even after playing the other games I still love it. It had some awesome environments in it.
“Life gems aren’t that important” literal infinite heals
Was the first thing I thought of
like literally theres a complaint about how slow estus is but no one talks about how it's balanced with lifegems existing in this game
Haha yes i was thinking the same. Who needs Estus if you have that many life gems and they are way faster to use and you can also move a bit while you use them. Also you can use them to heal you up even when you get hit, so you can stack a view and if you dont reach max HP they will heal you for a pretty good time xD
Ok... Are you that bad that you need infinate heals?
Are you... that grindy you will get the tens of thousands of souls needed to buy "infinate heals"?
Are you going to spend your souls on "infinate heals" instead of levels?
Are you THAT BAD AT VIDEO GAMES THAT THE AMOUNT OF ESTUS YOU GET IS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU????
No? Then it isnt that important.
@@brentonherbert7775 the game incentivizes you to use life gems by giving you only one Estus in the beginning.
like dark was saying, life gems are a better heal all around, so if you’re not using them and walking around enemies’ attacks, you probably haven’t figured the game out.
If you spend the souls you have left after leveling you’ll end up with enough to clear the next area. And if you made it to NG+ like a chad and do that, you’ll be topping off at 99 every time.
We don’t have to talk about being bad at video games when we’re talking ab DS2, if you happen to “get good” at it, the game will be itself and remind you that “bad programming” = good challenge.
It sounds like you haven’t played dark souls 2* 🤷🏻♂️
I love Dark Souls 2. It was obnoxious at some points, but if you take it slow it's not that bad. It was the first game in the series that made me think about how to approach each area.
First game that makes you think about the areas and only.
i played both, and i enjoyed darksouls 1 and 2 the same, i wasnt autistic with the stats or compairing it to dark souls 1, i just knew that dark souls games are hard, and i wanted to overcome the challenge, people didn't like having a stat for s, but it made me get better at dodging throughout the entirety of souls games, sure there was alot of deaths, but eventually you just get good at it.
@@michaelcarroll5801 The haters need to understand that you can't enjoy dark souls 2 if you're not thinking about and only.
@@michaelcarroll5801 What fanboy nonsense, DS1 doesn't make you think about the areas? Sen's Fortress? Blighttown? Anor Londo? New Londo? Duke's Archives? Tomb of the Giants?
The only thing worse than DS2 are the delusional and braindead DS2 fanboys.
@@omarcomming722 the ideal strategy in all of those zones is to run through. It's okay on the first playthrough, but on subsequent runs the enemy placements are too forgiving. DS1 zones are pretty good though.
You're a bit aggressive, it's just a video game. Sorry for offending your supreme taste and sensibilities, king.
Vanilla DS2 was my first souls game. I played countless hours without event dlc. Then came scollar and was an improvement for me. Its most replayable souls game too. I like this game.
I agree. NG+ is amazing in DS2 and they really killed NG+ after DS2 :(
@@xXLunatikxXlul not only ng+, even just the best build variety ( hexes, mundane, POISON IS ACTUALLY GOOD LOL DS3 )
@@AtreyusNinja I agree.. DS3 felt like a Steph back when it came to mechanics and build variety.
Ds3 was my first dark souls. After playing ds1 I can clearly see how ds3 took all those same concepts and reskined them. Some parts of ds1 felt like a weird deja vu to me. I still think ds3 stands on its own though because the pacing is way different and the bosses are so intense by comparison. Might be a bit too roll spammy though
I've replayed ds2 more times than 1 or 3
14:55 About the lock on free aiming. Actually, DS3 and Elden Ring give you the option to turn this on manually. It's called "Manual Attack Aiming" in the settings.
Yes. And IS a very powerful tool on Big weapons pvp
In ER it only applies to the Finger hammer's Ash of War, hilariously enough.
@@asdergold1not true
@@alessandrobaggi6129 it is true, the feature is bugged in ER since release Fromsoftware never fixed
@@asdergold1 the setting doesnt work in elden ring at all
14:23 actually in DS1 when you are locked on you only have 4 directions to move in instead of 8. You also cant sprint in any direction but forward
thats only when you are locked on
@@p1ngerss read my comment again dude. "When you are locked on"
12:14 It's not the same enemy, the shield variant has higher defenses
IDK how he missed that.
Thank you for pointing this out I was hoping someone would mention that
Correct.
this dude is genuinely wrong at so many points it's infuriating
so it is basically the same enemy lol
Noone talking abt how when you get to shrine of amana you dont need to use the human effigy or ring of binding anymore
Theres a tower with fire in it that unhollows you for free
Only if you don't have any effigy on your inventory. Also, i never understand how people run out of effigy. The game lets you farm them a lot.
@@ZirixStrarstriderTrue, but vanilla DS2 had less effigies (or lower drop rates) that SOTFS. Still plenty for a first playthrough.
@@ZirixStrarstrider I ended my first save with 99😭😭 I kept thinking I had to save them for smth important and then kept saying that till the final boss
@@weevil_1457 just a testament that you can beat the whole game with maximum deaths and minimum human effigy and be completely fine.
@@ZirixStrarstrider People used to hate DS2 like a meme, so they found every excuse.
Like this "you die you get punished in some form or another and have to use a special item" wasn't a standard of all FromSoft souls games?
Think about it,.
Demon Souls: Ephemral Eyes
DS1: Humanities
DS2: Effigies
DS3: Ember
Elden Ring: Great Runes
Now see, they did a psychological game with DS3/Elden Ring.
You think that Ember or Great Runes boosts up your normal health and stats, but in reality the normal condition is like hollow in a sense.
But you think you are in normal, the health bar seems full. It just becomes bigger after using those items before you die again.
And they are also rare. I didn't realize it worked like that.
People hated the mechanics of "if I die I start with less health", so they did reverse psychology in the newer games, you think you are full without Ember/Great Runes, and you think you get an extra boost when using them. It's basically the same.
I fell in love with Souls after Dark Souls 2. Despite its issues it's still a game I am happy to go back to every so often purely because of how much it got me into Fromsoft games.
i had a DS2 run where i fought Freja, the Duke and then Vengarl.
Midway through the Freja fight i lost all healing, then i had a load of souls in my pockets, then i fought the Duke and Vengarl, then Aldia bombed me.
After lighting the bonfire and teleporting i saw Herald sitting on a rock in Majula kicking her feet up in the air and i was ready to collapse into her lap and ask for a hug.
She was the epitome of purety and innocence for me in that moment.
Except she has the emotional capacity of a goldfish
DS2 is my introduction to this series and is one of my favorites of all time.
That happens when someone plays DS2 first. I am with you, fella.
Its good that you played this before DS1. DS1 was just insanely superior to 2, but I like them both.
You mention that in Dark Souls 1, you get one estus upgrade material, and you can choose whether to use it to upgrade your flask potency or your number of flasks. That is just not true. You use humanity to increase the number of flasks, and fire keeper souls to upgrade the potency. I personally prefer this system to the one we got in future games, but they're both perfectly good systems.
he did talk about this. its really annoying
I started playing dark souls 1 back in 2012 and got dark souls 2 as soon as it launched on the 360. I'm one of those weirdos who thoroughly enjoyed dark souls 2 and still play it occasionally to this day. I had no f****** clue that they treated negative stamina like that at all 🤯🤯
LOL and I've always wondered about how all the challenge runners fight the throne watcher and defender and then Nashandra separately. I've literally only ever done a double boss fight with all three of them...
Try Domo3000 with and the visual hitbox and runback comparisons. He is currently debunking a fuckton of DS2 criticism.
He has 9 parts on Mauler's videos already.
I don't think this is how the stamina mechanic works - and you can prove it with sprinting - the mechanic is that if you completely deplete your green gauge, then there is a fixed delay before it starts refilling - the speed runners watch this, and stop sprinting just before the gauge runs out completely, so it starts refilling instantly - it is not negative stamina, it is a deliberate delay if stamina reaches zero. The person making this video does not know the game that well.
I'm just waiting to get the game again plus DS3 and Elden Ring on Switch 2. I'm playing DS1 again on Switch 1 right now.
@@ReachStudioPro oh my God I remember screaming for Joy when they first announced that DS1 remastered was coming to switch lmao
I wouldn't shut up to all my friends about how I was going to be able to die everywhere 🤣
The windmill is attached to a pump that fills the boss room with poison.
It kinda gave me Ocarina of Time vibes :D
No it isn't, its just a windmill with no attachment to the boss room.
@@Izzmonster have you ever looked at where the stuff connects throughout the map? It connects to a system that adds poison in the boss room I have looked around the entirety of that map I have killed off every single enemy unit they stopped spawning to explore the map and I saw that the windmill has connections past it just being a windmill from below before you get to the level where the burn option is. The cat walk where a grave warden attacked at that surrounding area are all windmill connection rods you can tell because they are if not all most are turning. If you look closely.
@@damianstarks8974 Sure man, they're all turning, but no reasonable person would see a giant windmill and immediately think "ah yes, this is working a pump!". I'm sure that is what the intention was, but there's nothing connecting that specific windmill to the boss room. Just watched someone recently play who was directed right to the windmill by a white spirit and he had no idea what he meant because it makes no fkn sense.
how the fuck would i know that. I literally spent 7 hours bashing my head into the fucking wall until i beat that fight WITHOUT clearing the poison because why would i even assume that's a thing you can do?
It's kinda touched on indirectly but the engine change for DS2 really makes it stand alone as "different" at minimum and "bad" in context. You can basically carry muscle memory through DS1 -> DS3 -> ER or backwards. I started with Elden Ring and went to DS1, and it basically felt like an older version of the same game. DS3 and ER are even more similar in feel. DS2 on the other hand has so many mechanic changes (directional movement, in particular) that it just feels bad when you've played all the others. Not to mention Fromsoft themselves made the decision to go back to the DS1 engine after DS2 instead of building upon the DS2 engine for future releases, likely because it was just better.
It’s funny to watch a video praising Dark Souls 2 for a variety of reasons, and then watch another video criticizing the game for those same reasons. It honestly just makes me more interested in the game.
its a great game!
DS2 is the best one in the series, IMHO.
It has a great atmosphere, and is a lot less dreary than DS3. The exploration is fun, and despite having played it through several times, I still forget where the important keys are etc etc so it is fun to start a new game and see how it all opens up. It's interesting to note that there are one or two rough edges, and it's these that make players lose respect for the game, and after that tend to miss all the subtleties and start to hate it. Watching players go through it, you can see them getting frustrated and angry at mechanics or puzzles they just don't understand fully, rather than assuming the game designers were intelligent people who knew what they were doing.
@@Jsteiner1974your opinion is piss
its brilliant
12:00 the "hidden multiplier you missed was "counter damage". In ds2 ALL weapons do better damage if you use it while your opponent is on an attack animation (grabs excluded). The first you one shotted it because the soldier was already trying to punch you. The second one didnt even turn on you so you didnt do counter damage.
Thats literally it. Could also be partially your "reach damage" issue. Since with the tip of your blade you could outspace enemies, preventing yourself from using counter damage.
In the other games they gave this property to thrusting weapons only, which feels lame. In this game thrusting was still a bit better in this regard, and then a lot better with the leo ring.
There's also sweet spot damage in DS2 where weapons used outside of their ideal range will do less damage, which can lead to some inconsistency. On the other side, though, it'll boost your damage if you nail the sweet spot
@@fyrechyld_4571 yes! But that mechanic only applied to pole arms, if i remember correctly.
Katanas were so busted if You abused the counter damage
@@vittocrazi It was limited to pole arms / axes in Demons / Dark 1 but expanded to cover all weapons in DS2. He mentioned it in the video when talking about getting less damage when hitting the enemy with just the tip of the Greatsword.
@@grmthmpsn no. In the video that was counter. Not sweet spot
The torch timer is a non-issue. There is an overabundance of thorches and you literally need them for like 3x10 minutes during the entire game. Also you can light the torch whenever with a Flame Butterfly which are also abundant as all hell. As others probably already said: you can very easily overlevel in DS2 to the point of ridiculousness. Thus rendering Adaptability nothing but a soul sink for like the first two hours.
I actually think getting the Lordvessel before you can fast travel is one of the big reasons I initially fell in love with the souls series, and I still miss that in every subsequent fromsoft game. The absolute brutality of having to traverse back through areas if you ran low on a specific resource or needed to talk to a certain character was one of the most punishing parts of DS1 on a first playthrough. The terror that set in when you enter a scary new area that cuts you off from your means of heading back into familiar territory was matched only by the joy of discovering a shortcut back to an area you've been through. It made the interconnected level design so compelling to navigate in a way that is completely lost in later titles, and in the context of DS1 getting the Lordvessel comes at the perfect time when having to walk all the way back would just be tedious and unnecessary.
I wish at the very least later games would only give you one or two fast travel OK bonfires and have the rest in an area require you to make your way through the area a little if you have to leave and come back
Agreed
this only works and is only fun if the level design IS as interconnected and well thought out as DS1.
Imagine not getting the New Londo Ruins key and having to backtrack through Blighttown and the Depths to get back to Firelink.
Imagine if the Valley of the Drakes - Darkroot Garden path didn't exist.
Imagine if there was no lift at the end of Sen's Fortress, etc. The easy way out would've been "just port out", but they went one up and linked so many areas together it's still lauded to this day, and for good reason.
Elden ring is the only other game that I could see working without fast travel, since there’s a lot of dead space and you have torrent. Even then I think elden ring would be best off if you could travel to a select few graces.
this ONLY works because of ds1 map design, which ds2 couldnt get the time to implement. Im sure they would've wanted to, but they sadly just... ran out of time. I mean, they were working on the game WHILE promo material was being made that didnt even line up CLOSE to the in game content because of how rushed they were.
About the ring of binding: its easy to keep it most of the game, but you are not forced to. You get about 4 deaths until you start to "need it" after using an effigy.
But 1/4 is way better than the 1/2 of its predecessor, there "ring of favor and protection" is not only best in slot, but also destroyed if you remove it (an actual severe punishment)
100%
Because DS1 was focused on bringing you into a world that didn't care about you, and DS2 was focused on being a hard videogame.
@@Izzmonster that has nothing to do...
@@Izzmonsteror maybe the Game simply focus more on the hollowing and how thats affects the people in the world even the player so thats why they make it a mechanic
@@vittocrazi yes it does, the ring of favor is a token of the jealous goddess, thats why Lautrecs armor has arms that embrace him. When you remove the ring it breaks because youve betrayed the goddess.
For me the biggest problem I have with ds2 is the 'lag' between me pressing a button and the action happening.
Because of this, you could be in the middle of an attack but you see an enemy about to attack you, so you dodge. What happens your still attack first 2 seconds after dodging and then get hit and then roll.
I've played through DS2 dozens of times and don't recall ever having this issue. Maybe your hardware is bad?
This is fixed in the settings. You can search on the thematic forums
3:05 I think that unlocking teleporting in the middle of the game is better. The world is designed around the fact that in the first half of the game you walk everywhere and locations are better connected. Blighttown wouldn't be that scary if you could just teleport out. When you defeat queelag you have to go through the blighttown, depths, lower undead burg and undead burg if you don't know the shortcut. I think that the feeling of being stuck somewere and the way the world is designed is very important in ds1, especially on the first playthrough.
The insane thing is...DS2 is the only Dark Souls I've finished the entire way through. 😭
Same I'm playing ds3 for the first time on my channel
@@NightsmokeFTBDS3 was my first souls game and it's absolutely amazing. Maybe just a bit short imo but the DLC's are super good. Can't play DS3 without the DLC's. Atleast Ringed City.
In DS1 you upgrade estus potency with fire keeper souls, and increase charges via humanity per bonfire.
In DS2 you upgrade estus potency with subline bone dust, and increase charges with estus flask shards.
The only difference is charges are locked to a given bonfire in DS1.
Quick not on the weapon damage. It's not random modifier, it's weapon sweet spots. Try with halbert for example - When you hit a mob with the end of weapon, you deal more damage then if you hit him with the wooden part. Same for any other weapon.
3:49 NO. Powerstance in DS2 is way better than Elden Ring. The amount of moves you can do with the 2 Smelter swords for example is crazy. Elden Ring did dual wielding, which is not really the same.
This brought back memories of doing this game with a friend. The way I described the mechanics was always; "It feels like the developers created a problem that wasn't there before, only to fix it in a roundabout way and say 'look we fixed the problem'."
I honestly think you over exaggerated adaptability. It doesnt take long at all to get it to the level where you have 100 agility. You cab easily get that before you get to the pursuer boss room
The guy had 18 adp and already had 106 agility, which is higher than ds1 light roll
96 agility is equivalent to the medium roll from ds1 (11 frames), and it doesn't level up just with adp but with attunement too
Typical mindless DS2 unfounded bitching
@@josefrancisco4178 exactly
This is true! I usually start a playthrough by upping adp
He over exaggerated most of the points, tbf.
@@Nibelheim1989 yep, but adp is the one everyone always jumps at for whatever reason.
6:10 if i'm not wrong every stats increases health, not only endurance - and nobody know cuz ppl don't have eyes, attunment raises agility ( 20 ADP u have ds1 fast rolls s, 40 ATN u have ds1 fast rolls s, this is why mages don't need adp )
While I don't like the existence of adp, I do admit that the stat system works well around it. You're right. Other stats give you health as well, which definitely helps.
But the big thing i noticed is that your typical "damage stats" (at least for melee) like str and dex didn't need to be leveled nearly as much as the other games. Like you basically leveled str and dex till you get your weapon's min requirements, and then from that point, you can safely ignore those stats while focusing on adp and health. The real way to increase damage is by upgrading weapons
@@joegella maybe if u r using a santier spear or any weapon that has no scaling, but idk man, i play this game since day1 vanilla and i always reach lvl 50 in str or dex depend from the build. so i can't speak for that.
learning about counter dmg would let u understand about the damage modifier that i don't think u understand, if u see more dmg while the enemy is attacking (or any special animation) is because of the counter dmg, so yeah u do more dmg even with low str / dex
@@joegellayou’re kind of right… it’s that there are multiple soft caps for each stat, every stat gets huge benefits up to the first soft cap of 20. You can really do well with something like a mace and only 20 STR, but you still get benefits for going all the way to 50 and then 99.
I've realized that 99% of the time people have problems with DS2 is because they treat it as an action game rather than a mix of action and RPG. Instead of playing the game at the slower pace and like that of an adventure, they want to act like it's DS3 or some generic action game and try to speed through the entire game, skipping most enemies and not taking things slow and cautiously and carefully learning the mechanics.
When you take the game slow and play it on its terms then you realize how the pieces fit together to make a slower tactical experience than 1, but if you have ADHD and just want to roll and press R1 or have cool flashy weapon arts that trivialize the game you are never going to like it and you are just going to see it as unfair. That is what it all comes down to.
All the mechanics push you into being slow, cautious, and to think about your actions and have backup plans yet in so much gameplay for critiques of the game including yours I just see people bullrushing into dumb situations and then getting mad about it, not taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of enemies at all. As if running into the bridge drake's fire over and over again in 1 wasn't equally as stupid.
Even the ganks are not as bad in 2 as they are in 1 or 3 if you really look for them and play slowly like you are supposed to and the game drives you to do. Meanwhile in 3 you have dragon chain axe guys that can clip you through walls and hitscan health stealers that can also block your healing. And then there are of course the bonewheels in multiple sections of 1, the duke's archives, the painted world, etc as well. People just don't talk about them as being "unfair" like with 2 because the game doesn't punish you for being ADHD and just trying to weak attack, panic roll, and sip your way out of trouble.
Or better yet, just run past it since this kind of person sees anything that isn't a boss enemy as being "not worth their time" because they just want an action game with only the suggestion of RPG mechanics and not an actual RPG.
Yes, some parts are janky and the level design is weaker than DS1, but the marriage between action and RPG is more fluid than any other Souls game where in DS1 some options were just useless (like the whip, crossbows, fist weapons, etc) and DS3 only pretended to have RPG mechanics but was really just shallow and all about the devs forcing you to play in a manner to Bloodborne (which frankly did massive damage to From's RPG design philosophy by shifting their focus to only the action portions of the games and neglecting things like real build variety).
DS2 makes everything useful if you are clever enough, and if you have problems using the massive sandbox/toolkit the game gives you which is bigger than any other souls game, the issue is with you and not the game.
fire keeper souls upgraded the potency and humanity upgraded the flask use. Dual Upgrade mechanic existed in DS1.
Thx I noticed it too
@@emmelinesupremacy no prob 🤙
Are you dumb? Did you watch the video?
The dark souls 2 system takes humanity to increase the flask PER BONFIRE, DS2 introduced it increasing the flask count PERMENETLY, otherwise you'd have 1 flask,
One item to increase the amount, and another the charge, this was carried over to Elden ring and dark souls 3, NOT the bonfire flask system
Is not the same. You have to be in a specific bonfire with the rite of rekindling to get more uses. If not, you stuck with 5 if you are not human
@@ZirixStrarstrider you can go to 10 without the rite of kindling which is easily attained from the start of the game so you can have 20 before even fighting Taurus demon. Also you can kindle any and every bonfire. To adjust the difficulty of an area. So it’s a players choice to have 5, 10, 15 or 20 estus. Not just a specific bonfire.
Two things when it comes to torches, firstly, you are wrong about having to aproach a fire to light your torch. Flame Butterflies can light your torch anywhere, and they're not rare enough to be a concern. Having played completely through DS2 for the first time less than a week ago, I used maybe 5 flame butterflies, and still had more than 15 left. Also, the torches are given out rather abundantly too. By the end of my playthrough I had over 5 hours of torch time left over.
Im not wrong about having to approach the fire to light the torch. That's literally how you light the torch. Doesn't matter if there's also another method.
Also, you're right you get plenty of torches when you consider the entire game. But not when you consider an individual play session. Unless you farm torches or refrain from using them till you absolutely have to, you'll be out. You get a few minutes per torch, which is nothing considering how slow and deliberate you have to play this game due to the constant ambush setups. So you burn through those torches quick and may or may not be getting a drop in time to be restocked. The game is clearly designed to be played slowly and calculated so the whole timer thing on a torch is contradictory and makes no sense
@@joegellawhy not just... Clear all the enemies around before lighting a torch? Then put it out, move to the next spot that needs to be lit, clear enemies, light the torch from the previously lit spot, light the new one, and repeat. That's not that hard, bro
10:10 it's bad on the other games if you don't "reset" the sprint, but if you stop and sprint again, you WILL sprint again even if ur not full of stamina
in ds2 you won't but in the others you will
I played ds2 going in with the mindset that the game was gonna be ass. I ended the game after beating all dlc, and I had an absolute blast. Yeah, having adaptability be tied to your I-frames was a shit idea, but you get so many souls early on, and so quickly, that it quickly becomes a non-issue. The game is genuinely fun, you just gotta have a little patience, and you’ve gotta understand that if you level adaptability, a lot of your problems just disappear.
adp is a non issue
the whole thing about the giants kinship "just spawning" nashandra in the throne room is so silly and redundant cuz its obvious you didnt read the item description.
you kill a major boss and get a key item that you dont know what to do with, so you check the item description to see what youre supposed to do with it.
the description quite literally states "Grants access to the throne room beneath the castle". There is only ONE throne room underneath a castle. i sure do wonder what im supposed to do with this.
Yeah, but the final boss still just spawns in the throne room. It's not about being unable to figure out where to go, it's about taking you back to a location you already fought a boss in previously, without where also being more to the location.
That's why I gave the elden ring example, which it's obvious you didn't grasp. You fight morgott, and then when you come back to that same location later for the final fight, you can now access the erdtree. They didn't just put morgott in the erdtree. However, that's what ds2 did
@@joegella It's a...story beat? You know when the Emerald Herald literally tells you that Nashandra will be coming for you now that you have the means to get to the throne? If you have already done Throne Watcher and Defender she is waiting there for you to come, if not she comes in behind you after you beat them for her. It makes sense if you pay any attention?
@@joegella there's a cutscene of nashandra literally walking into the boss room if you wait to fight the throne watcher and throne defender, you even hear her pass through the fog wall
Were talking about after already killing thr throne watcher boss
@@joegella Here we go again, oh no killing boss no make progress, guess I go through other door to kill other bosses. Oh I get item for giants? I go to giants and open last door. Oh I get item for throne? I go to throne and woah new dialogue and final boss? wow!
19:10 I actually like that, because despawning enemies might reduce farming, but then again, you get plenty souls from all the areas and enemies you kill, and if a certain area is particularty hard, or a certain boss is particularly hard, you are making the way ahead easier to yourself.
25:50 I feel like the whole vibe of Throne of Want area just screams "The End" so I personally did go do other things and then had whole throne duo + Nashandra + Aldia combo. Sill having that last gate locked would make it much better to guarantee you know there is the end and that you have double boss as intended, probably.
You can also farm human effigy.
I liked the limited respawns on enemies. It allows you clear the path to a difficult boss.
Also, I really prefer the original DS2 over the Scholar version. The enemy placement makes much more sense.
besides you can just leave the covenant by talking with the cat, i cant understand why people act like its such a big deal when the boost to enemies isn't even that big, its more of a "hey you beat this enemy 20 times so we know you can handle it just get to the point" feature
I can't prove it, but I have the feeling though that the limited respawn mechanic led to some enemy placement decisions that straight up would not have happened without it. I'm not against it in principle but I resented it when the game would pile like 7 dudes in a small hallway on the way to any boss that's even remotely challenging, almost like it was saying to me 'well you can despawn them!' but like...that's boring and feels like a waste of time! I dunno.
I'd rather have normal boss runs that this.
Seriously, every time I get to Iron Keep it's just "time to farm the Alonne Knights" because if you do it slow it's easy and gives a lot of souls, but if you try to run, it's fucked. Their detection triggest are bonkers.
I have no idea who you are, or why my Elden ring law video suggested you, but i gotta say, i LOVE the style of this video. the bullet points, the concise nature with examples, the ease in which i can follow your points despite not playing ds2.
good on the algorithm, subbed, and i look forward to more video easy/ critiques from yourself :)
Dark Souls 2 SOFTS remaster (PS4/XB1/PC) is almost a different experience than base DS2+DLC (PS3/X360/PC),
They made so many changes to base game, they made it super chaotic.
DS2 base is closer to a coherent experience.
I kinda get where you come from, but I'll take that over the OG Dragon Shrine.
Scholar is just them copy and pasting more enemies onto a map, that's it. Some enemies don't even make sense, they do it just to troll players further.
Ngl after seeing Domo3000's video on this i want to experience it first hand comparing them lol
Hot Take Harry here: Dark Souls 2’s quality is overall lower than Dark Souls 1, but it’s consistent throughout. Dark Souls 1 actually shits the bed immediately after Qualaag, I would take the whole of Dark Souls 2 over replaying the entirety of Dark Souls 1 again.
Thank you for this. I warched a few key parts of the video trying not to spoil too much as im starting my very first ds2 playthrough tomorrow.
Ive finished ds1, demons souls remake, bloodborne, and elden ring. No ds3 or sekiro yet but i figured I'd get ds2 done now 👍. Thanks again friend, great video.
I feel like you miss understood the flasks in DS1, or you didn't word it right.
The main upgrade increased the potency of your flasks, but you can farm a recourse that lets you have the current maximum flasks, then killing a boss gives you the current maximum flasks of that NG+ cycle and when you upgrade a bonfire to the maximum flasks currently, it carries over to the next NG+ cycle.
Also with ADP, it also increased how fast you drink flasks but it is still a dumb mehcanic.
The lowering of health after death, yes they took that from Demon's Souls, yes you have to have a ring slot to keep your health at 75% but that was the same as Demon's Souls as there was a ring to keep your hewlth at 75% when in soul form also.
Now with the final boss, there is also a 3rd final boss. By going through the other giant memories you get giant souls and there's a hidden one in Black Gultch, but once you get 4 of them, or 5 if you kill the Ancient dragon, you then fight Vendric, collecting and keeping the gaint souls lowers vendrics defense because if you don't have them, you won't hurt him much. But killing him triggers a 3rd boss after Nashandra
I definitely miss remembered the flask upgrade from ds1. Someone corrected me earlier on the comments, but I still think ds2s system is way better
@@joegellait was implemented into DS3 also.
Also one mechanic that you probably didn't know about is with Fume Knight in Iron King DLC. He has 2 unique mechanics only to him
You can go through the full fight without triggering his 2nd phase, but you have to constantly drink your flasks under 12 seconds on each other, it keeps his sword glowing which stops him from going into phase 2.
Speaking of phase 2, if you went into his boss fight with Velstaad's armour, he instantly goes into phase 2 as soon as you walk into the boss room
@@joegellawrong. Burning undead bone shards is trash and so is finding estus shard flasks
As a glass cannon mage I had no issue ds2 had the best casting in the series even without the binoculars
i had the complete opposite experience, switching to shield and sword made this game so much easier for me
Eh, my only issue with Dark Souls 2 were the parry/backstab nerfs and the Smelter Demons.
But outside of that, I actually loved it.
I got this platinum as well, several times. I can see why people complain but I feel the level designs and the bosses were great. The Chariot boss is my favorite. Thanks for the great video.
25:00 you would think to go back to that area because that's the area that gave you the clue to seek out the kinship of the giants in the first place, or did you not read the sign on the ground facing towards the throne? :O
it's EXACTLY what they did in Elden Ring too lol. You get to an area, kill a boss, get a clue, (thorns, melina says we gotta burn them, ER is much more in your face about it) go and do the thing and then come back. You're telling me that you needed the game teleporting you back to the Ashen Capital to figure out that you should have gone back to the tree? Same thing is happening here :s
Honestly, I think it’s mostly about which game you played first. I played dark souls 2 sotfs first and the other games were too different and confusing to me because I was used to (basically) a completely different game while expecting the same game mechanics
Man... being a ds2 fan is hard; seeing so many people hate what you love. (Btw I'm only missing the Cristal soul spear to 100% this headache of a "masterpiece")
I also just wanted to mention that at this moment, the hollow you one-shoted was in the middle of a swing, so you probably did counter damage while the latter one wasn't 12:00
Also, the lock-on issue only applies to colossal weapons (so I avoid those in many cases cause it can get frustrating)
I tried DS2 couple of years ago, couldn’t stand it more than couple of hours. Bought SOTFS edition on Steam this summer, finished it in about 20h (not including the DLCs), and I have to say that it isn’t “the worst game ever made”, as some people say, but it genuinely is the worst DS game. Difficulty isn’t the problem, it is the lack of; B-team that made DS2 clearly didn’t know how to implement rewarding difficulty, so they went with couple of weird designs; gem stones, abundance of souls, enemy galore etc. I found the story to be quite good, with Majula being the best hub out of all DS games. However, the game (for me) lacked in difficulty to an extreme; if you play extremely slow and pick your targets, it is a breeze. Secondly, bosses were extremely underwhelming, to the point where I had to try to die. Thirdly, hitboxes are atrocious. Finally, level design was also a bit weird, and connection between locations made 0 sense. Other than that, it was a fine game, but certainly not worth FS signature in my opinion. There are some additional problems with the game, but they are tied to some weird decisions that b-team made (ADP, life decreasing after death, enemy despawning etc.)
honestly, I hated my first ds2 playthrough. I played it right after ds1 (I played the whole series in order). Then I revisited it after elden ring and I appreciate it a lot more for some reason; maybe it's because of how out there it is. It still grinds my gears on some sections (snow field, cough cough) @VREMEPLOV1
I am sick and tired of people praising Dark Souls 2 and calling Elden Ring and even Dark Souls 1 worse in comparison. Praising Dark Souls 2 doesn't make you look smart, all you having is a unique opinion to stroke your ego.
And you think it makes you look smart, disregarding the opinion of others? Hypocrite.
You weird for this ngl. Just let people like what they wanna like tf
@@Randomness662I'm not saying it's a gutter shit game. It has its merits. But insulting people for criticising is something else.
Ds2 was and still is my favorite and im not the only one. Some people love it, some hate it.
The part with diminishing damage for partially hiting the target or for passing through objects before hiting the target... that is logical and makes sense. I don't understand why people complain about it.
everything in d2 was meant to be punishing, we have a new generation of softies.
@@tylerbacoka4248in a game that has too many janks, an extremely unbalanced stat system (adp and vitality), katanas being too op among all the other weapons thanks to Counters, and infinite healing thanks to Life gems. This is the wet dreams for everyone getting into Souls, cause it caters to exploiters and its not that hard.
Tbh the setting is amazing, the weapons looked cool, the lore was alright, and the boss designs were from extremely questionable to amazing bosses, this game is a huge miss for me imo.
@@LeMajesticJames vitality is in ds3 and adp is just vigor with flavor.
also ds1 was horribly designed for alot of shit, lets not glaze ds1 nor compare 3 to 2 because of the MASSIVE core difference between the games. Compare ds3 to elden ring and ds1 to ds2, and you'll get a better take.
cause ds3 came after bloodborne and well... ds2 couldnt use bloodbornes success to know what people like.
Darksouls 2 before scholor or even after, sitting at iron bridge joining fight clubs all day long as a kid. That was peak darksoils2 for me.
Just finished the game. Your video summed up my exact experience and made me laugh, especially the level design part. Earned my like and sub 👍
Dude. The slow healing in DS2 from flasks is great! You can pop one off even if you can see that it would be an Overheal, but since it's so slow you probably will get hit again before it's done thus not "Overhealing". I liked all the ambushes and fighting more than two mobs at a time. It was like I was communicating with the devs, imagining them laughing their ass off at their own placement of monsters and their own traps. It was amusing and I nodded back "good one guys good one, you had me there, wont happen next time tho". Never had such connection with whoever made a game I was playing until this. It was also a proof the devs were having fun.
I cringed reading this
@@a.s.raiyan2003-4 good finally feeling something?
I’ll say this under every video like this I see. I do not _hate_ Dark Souls 2, in fact I love it. I _dislike_ Dark Souls 2: Scholar of The First Sin Edition, because being that it was my first foray into Dark Souls 2, it sucked that it was basically what should’ve been an optional hardmode, laden with so many enemies that it became optimal to just run past as many of them as possible, so that I could conserve resources for boss fights.
Nice video, however I feel you are missing the point of some Souls fundamental mechanics.
For instance Fast Travelling is not always a good thing. If you had it on DS1 from the beginning, you would miss the AMAZING level design & short cut system. Also no Fast Travel means more is on the line when you are traversing levels..
Also, DS2 AND Demon's Souls "punish" you with decreased health after dying. DS1 also has a similar punishment for dying a lot. It adds to the risk-reward tension of the game. Same as dropping your souls/runes when dying...
❤
For me it's a few things. It's clunky and the player movement is awful. the bosses and overall story I find uninteresting as opposed to the other games - I couldn't name you more then 5 bosses from that game. There is to many mobs, the layout makes no sense, and some of the worst and frustrating areas in all of the souls games
It's a bad game, I liked nothing about this game, finished it because my brain and never went back to it, never will. Actually I like one thing, the cutscene at the beginning.
To add to what you said about bosses and story, I find the world design uninteresting as well. I'm not into PVP or the exact detail of how certain mechanics or balancing works in these games, I play them as single player adventure games in a sense. The world, exploration, and progression in Dark Souls 1, 3, Elden Ring, and Sekiro are all amazing and create an amazing experience to me. But Dark Souls 2 just feels very lacking in that sense. It's not very interesting to play.
Some of your complaints have explanations.
The "soft lock on" is an intended feature that only works for certain weapons types..
Like the one you are using.
This actually is an togglable option in Elden Ring as well.
The weapons , the stances , the variety i know its not popular but DS2 is indeed my favorite Soul game
as someone who started with DS2 as their first entry in the series, I feel like I appreciated the game more bc a lot of these points are just comparing it to the other games.
Probably because its a part of a series, it's gonna be compared to the better games it shares a title with
Bearer...seek.... seek... lest...
I have fond memories of this game. I played it before SoTFS became the standard. But to be fair, I'm a grinder, always over leveled my characters and just bulldozed my way through. I didn't even think much about all of these flaws. I'm sure if I go back and play it, it wouldn't hold up compared to others. Glad you went in for your self to check it out. Well done on the video.
I played it on release and had the absolute time of my life. I can't stress enough how PERFECT the connectivity of PVP and Coop felt compared to suffering through DS1 Prepare to Die Edition for almost 2 years. This game is an absolute favorite of mine in the series personally. I believe it is the only game that conveys a world state that is still clinging on to life, like it's the beginning of the end or something. Drangleic has not quite succumbed as far as the lands of Lordran to the curse. And then, there is Dark Souls 3 which displays the end of the line, absolute grotesque corruption, Lothric is so far gone that you find rot, death, or decay around almost every corner it feels. Each game has a special place and feeling I believe.
I liked Shrine in Dark Souls 2. It rewarded slow, methodical gameplay and actually let stealth magic / ring users ambush people. If you had a bow build you were having a good time too. The aquatic ruins aesthetic does it for me too. In general I enjoy water stuff.
Most of the "bad mechanics" are just different from what you're now used to.
Also it's funny that there's some clear choices to keep players on their toes, and yet the vocal "git gud" crowd is the one complaining that it makes the game worse
They're different in a bad way. The game is worse off for sure
@@joegella No. They're different in a way you like less. It's not the same
Different and bad
@@TheEvilErminethe game it self might be a good game but its a baaaad souls game
@@joegella most of them its you not knowing about them like counter damage, or not using basic skills like luring enemies, planing, sniping, or using your head like putting ways the torch and only using after you cleared the enemies.
i heavily agree with you about teleporting between bonfires, but i dont get it why people say thats a bad thing, like having to walk 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing just running and ignoring enemies was fun and engaging lol... i see most people say that is better to not teleport because the world feels more alive (?). i dont really get it, but its the first time i see someone agree with teleporting between bonfires is good
(also sorry for bad english i barely my native language xd)
Yeah teleporting is absolutely a good change to the formula. Fromsoftware kept it for all future games because it's great.
I think no teleport works fine in ds1 because they eventually give it to you halfway in. But the first time I played thst game, I ended up going all the way down through blighttown and then couldn't kill that fire spider boss at the bottom because I wasn't properly equipped. But then I had to painfully fight my way back up just to get to the blacksmith
I loved DS1’s interconnected level design. It’s probably my favorite part of the game. But the other souls games aren’t as interconnected, because warping between bonfires made that unnecessary.
Warping is cool, but if the cost of warping is that the level design getting worse, then it’s not worth it.
Warping made the games slightly better, but the lack of inter-connectivity made the level design WAY worse.
Overall, it’s a net negative imo.
This is a great point too. The no warp in ds1 works because it was designed for that.
I can totally get behind it if they decide to revisit this in the future. But I do still think that it limits your options. You sort of have to tackle what's in front of you rather than going back to another location and trying that, because it takes time to get there
@@ezekielanderson9055 i strongly disagree, I don't think trading a "better" level design for walking around doing literally nothing is worth it
@@zeldola2202🤦♂️ you aren’t walking around doing nothing. You’re exploring the map. Exploring is much better than just POOF you’re there.
Ironically enough, Dark Souls 2 was the only Fromsoft game in which I was consistently over leveled and had a surplus of souls most of the time
3:50 I swear you use humanity to kindle bonfires and firekeeper souls to upgrade the flasks no? I much prefer the current system but your statement was just wrong
There's a fine balance between challenging and tedious, and DS2, at times, leans too tedious. Like having to lure out enemies one by one by one because the area wasn't designed to take them on all at once, and then having to do it over and over and over again. It doesn't have to be tedious to be difficult. Which is why they don't make their games like that any longer. For instance, Ringed City and Shadow Of The Erdtree are immensely challenging, but they aren't exactly tedious.
the area wasn't made to take them all at once because being smart when choosing the environment is a intellectual skill, the game move away from intellectual skills like patience and planning and more into physical ones like reflex.
11:53 i think the attack with the highest damage was registered as a sneak attack where you caught them off guard , and i think this mechanic exists in elden ring as well
DS2 is my fav for many reasons. But my prime reason is, it agitates me the least. There’s nearly nothing about it i dread playing through. Where as every other game has typically instead of “THAT ONE PLACE” or something it’s “THOSE CERTAIN CHUNKS OF THE GAME” that can be extremely off putting for me.
BUT!! I’ve come to terms that, I think & feel alot different than most people.
did you forget that shrine of amana and frigid outskirts exists
Ladies and gentlemen, we found him, we found the one who likes the Shrine of Amana.
Good for you, pal.
14:46 nah this is a skill issue get good
😂
Honestly my opinion changed on this game first 2-3 hours I hated the game I was very confused i didn’t like the movement even though I played every game from the studio but now after 10+ hours in I can say that it’s an fun game not the best. Not the worst but still a good enjoyable game
29:50 DS2 has some questionable areas but I never get why people struggle here. The first time around you can use the torch and just clearly see the path.
You can also spell parry them with the small cleric shield aswell.
Seek seek lest
Not sure if anyone commented this, I hope u see this. Darksouls 2 and dark souls scholar of the first sin were released seperately and I've played both. The NG+ in scholar of the first sin was the enemy layout in the original dark souls 2. They just added the floating firey head questline.
im a large ds2 enjoyer but i think stonesword keys are much better implemented because they're never mandatory, whereas multiple key moments in progression rely on fboys and pls
This is where I praise ds2 though, because it did stone sword keys first. I agree elden rings system is a bit better but ds2 still did it great
@@joegella 🤝
theres if I remember only 1 required fragbranch being the one with the stoned lady, the rest are either, unlocking a bonus area or a bonus bonfire or some extra loot
edit: even if you loose all of the branches you can still progress by having 1milion soul memory, in DS1 if you go the catacombs you can legit soft locked yourself if you dont have the Lord Vessel
@@dradonie There is a way back after Pinwheel's boss room, but good luck finding it if you don't have a light source.
Lack of patience, observation and battle skills is what makes people hate DS2? Not to stroke my (souls moan) ego but I defeated the throne W&D, Nashandra and Aldia with a single bone fist in a row with Estus to spare. I was always so bound to UGSs but truth be told, those make the game easier, and at times... the lack of variety makes the game a bit stale. I am currently doing a Luchadore run and it is hilarious when you don't take the game too seriously and just play for fun.
Let me add some key points of my own. I am by no means an expert in the game, just your average pixel wizard on the internet.
1. The game rewards people with forward thinking and observation skills. Even with power-stanced UGS, it is idiotic to run towards a mob. You will be ganked to oblivion. Take your time, one or two at a time and continue. You can even do a caestus run with that in mind. And yes, you can run to bosses but you have to bait an attack from nearby enemies so it gives you time to cross the fog, else you are f*cked.
2. Nobody complained about pressing A on walls or poking them with a sword in other games. It's easier to walk around pressing A. Super satisfying to find a path where you thought it would be.
3. Your lack of poison arrows bothers me. That makes Shrine of Amana a lot easier. 3/4 arrows and each caster is dead. You can buy them with the half wheel, half deal brother. You would be surprised how poison makes far enemies easier to kill. Even the ogres and headless giants succumb to it.
4. Yes, rolls must be controlled else your sword hits somewhere else. But it has its uses, you can ward off another enemy that popped up uninvited or use no lock while fighting many at once. A must do for the Chaos area in the DLC.
5. Take a whip and clear the pesky statues in the Gutter/Black Gulch. Take a torch, roll onto the pools of oil and watch the lurkers burn. You can switch between weapons and whips if you use a torch most of the time.
6. lowering HP, in my opinion, forces you to get good and be more careful with your attacks. Oh, I just landed 3 hits, the Smelter Demon almost insta killed me with a horizontal slash and I want to chug Estus as soon as he stopped attacking? No. You go in as if you had full health, dodge, find an opening and instead of attacking, heal. It's either attacking or healing, and rarely both at once.
7. You HAVE to burn the windmill. You say the Torch mechanic is bad, but there are so many places that look even better with lights on, not only two areas. There are many places where fire is a must. If using the UGS, use R2 for a vertical attack in tight spots. I can't think of a time where I ran out of torches in my 300+ hrs playing DS2. It is a must for the Shrine of Amana if you want to see where you are going at times. Even in Aldia's keep it is a must if you want to get the key to open the side path. Some enemies drop them constantly, like the hidden dude in a concrete room in No Man's Wharf after the wooden bridges area. Some enemies even run away from fire or become harmless.
8. Use life gems as means to prolong exploration trips and Estus when you need a chunk of life in a hurry.
9. At least we don't have to repair things here unless broken, which is a nice improvement. Make sure to have two weapons at +10 (or highest possible) in case the durability becomes an issue.
10. The bonfire teleports from the get-go should have been the norm since DS1. Exploration becomes a breeze.
11. While Souls games have very nice beauty shots, DS2 takes the crown. It is like being in a painted world sometimes. Heide's Tower of flame is such a beauty if you have played under a status effect, if you catch my drift.
12. We have the Emerald Waifu. Sometimes I find her playing without a care near the bonfire. Also, the Majula theme is fire. So nostalgic, melancholic, but yet it has its notes of hope.
Overall, it's fair to give your opinion. But don't call a game bad just because you don't want to adapt to its mechanics. I love this game, it is my favorite out of all the souls games. It's a game of discovery, trial and error. But then again, take it from a guy who dropped Breath of the Wild because he found it annoying to travel long distances. And even Elden Ring has a bit of that too. Does that make games bad? No, it's just not my style of game. Maybe that's why I did not like Skyrim either. I'd do any Metroid or Megaman Zero/Legends before any open world game any day.
yeah, i agree that glazing ds2 works well. The game has plenty of problems, but its at the end of the day the most ambitious of the souls games. Like i'd BEG to have somebody tell me what new interesting mechanics that could have downsides were added in ds3. CAUSE THEY DIDNT ADD SHIT, ALL THEY ADDED WAS WEAPON ARTS! NOT A SINGLE NEW STATUS EFFECT, BONFIRE THING, BOSSES HAVE PRACTICALLY FUCK ALL IN UNIQUE GIMMICKS.
its so EMPTY in variety, the problem with ds3 is that its good, but has nothing special that makes you say "i cant do this in another souls game, thats why i like it" its all "yeah this is just elden ring with smaller areas and less variety"
I have a soft spot for DS2 because back in the day that was the souls game I completed without guides. And Majula of course. I love Majula too.
Im pretty sure the og dark souls only let you move in the 4 cardinal directions when locked on.
it was part of the reason things felt weird with ds2 because people were used to 4 directions. This was later expanded upon in the future games.
11:51 392 dmg because counter damage and sweet spot, that one was NOT in attack/special animation, the other 2 were attacking u, maybe learn what is counter dmg, i believe u know what is the sweet spot alrdy. ( if not learn about it )
It's amazing how someone is willing to make a whole video about Dark Souls 2 without even trying to understand it fully... and counter damage is something that is present in every souls game....
@@simonenot5839 this guy played ds2 till Ng+2 with the intention of making a video, Imagine playing a game to have fun, and even worst, he probably followed a fooking guide while playing, that's a even bigger no-no
@@AtreyusNinja Lmao, DS2 is not a game you play blind. It tells you nothing, so you'll miss out on most of the game's mechanic. Hidden walls, adp, powerstancing, the windmill...
@@3idiotsblack oh because Mytha is not calculated to be fight with the poison, she don't stare at u for 5 minute before attacking u, r u fooking blind?
do u know there are lifegems in this game? 1 lifegem counter the poison effect, 2 lifegems heals u, with a DECENT dps u kill her with the poison, i don't expect u to understand sh1t tho.
@@3idiotsblack you can play with tips, but using a full ass guide just kills it.
I like that this video is a balanced evaluation of the game and I enjoy the humor in it.
I also think you are underselling certain parts of the game. For example with the torch, it's not only useful in no man's wharf and the gutter, but also in brightstone cove tseldora as the spiders are afraid of fire, and in black gulch where you can set the oil pools on fire to instakill the enemies that jump out of them. I also like the fact that the estus flask heals you slowly over time instead of instantly. It keeps healing you even if you get hit, which means you can use it in different ways.
I think you're right about the ambushes, people often say that it's intended for you to play the game slowly and deliberately and I get that but I don't want to have to do that every time while retrying a boss. However I don't think DS2 is the only game with that issue, it happens in DS3 as well to a lesser extent. I also think you're right that the game doesn't always communicate well what you're supposed to do, but that's all the dark souls games. When I got DS1 remastered I thought I didn't have the DLC because I had no idea how to get there, I had to look up a guide. A lot of it is very unintuitive.
Dark Souls 2 was bad, it has janky uncoordinated gameplay acompanied by unsatisfying sound design and feedback when attacking enemies. Game plays like ass.
you could say that for 1 too.
@@thatblackdude2645 I really couldn't.
12:21 you just had a critical hit, you can boost your crit rate stat too with some gauntlets
Damn I didn't think of that possibility. Thanks! Critical hits are pretty common im videogames but it's never been in any of the other souls games.
Still was annoying that I never knew if a guy would be a 1 or 2 hit kill
@@joegella critical hits and counter hits exist in all the souls games dude. DS3 even explicitly telegraphs critical / counter hits by having a unique damage sound
@rigorm136 leave him before he says ds2 is the only game you can die or something
Thanks for sharing. I understand now why people hate it. I don't think you were nitpicking. All of your observations seemed to me like they were legitimately on-point. I wouldn't have enjoyed those weird mechanics either.
This video should've been renamend:
Uninformed nitpicking - a video essay
Comment should have said: "Here's my inability to accept reality."
@@joegella considering the amount of comments that are pointing you to mistakes you made in your video, I wouldn't really rate your video as "reality"
You didn't use the full spectrum and range of tools DS2 gave you and you're mad about it.
@@eliesbutz3317 so many of those issues could be fixed by playing the right way like luring enemies and paying attention to the environment so you aren't close to walls and objects when fighting,
@@joegellaomg how do you do that? In the video at 35 minutes 54 seconds? I love how you get trigged by the damage debuf 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I love how the screen goes red
How do you do that?
@@joegella Wow, just wow. Seems like you're the one who can't accept reality. I mean, you have to be pretty delusional to seriously think that Dark Souls 1 Estus system is worse the Demons Souls/Dark Souls 2 infinite healing through grass/gems. I honestly just turned your video off after that section as you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
I could argue that the "bad game mechanics" are not inherently bad... they're just different from other Souls games.
Nope they’re definitely bad.
@@ArtoriasTheme I mean, that's definitely an opinion. Just like my opinion that your comment was bad.
I mean beside the lock system problem I agree. It is just more difficult.
thats what bad is in the context of a gaming series. If the new cod had old time guns and flint pistols they wouldn't be bad overall, they would be different from other cod games making it "bad" for people who enjoy normal guns.
I mean I’ve been playing ds2 for two weeks and those first 6-7 hours of getting used to these frustrating mechanics were not enjoyable. So I’m not gonna act like they aren’t bad mechanics, but very frustrating to get used to at least. And for that I can understand why this is considered the worst game in the franchise, but it is still fun and enjoyable after you get used to it- at least that was the case for me