I love how people ignore the fact that you can also upgrade armor in DS2. Its almost like you get an absolutely massive amount of materials for more than just your big sword.
And it's hella easy to farm slabs at those stone warriors in Drangleic Castle. You can literally max all weapons and armors in the game if you have the patience to do so. Cool, isn't it?
Fun fact, btw. Undead soldiers in Forest of fallen giants actually all looking up, like their neck been broken. They all died in the war, looking up on their enemies, because giants much higher than humans.
Complaining about being locked out of a single optional key item for killing an NPC is driving me fucking insane. This is literally somethig that you can do in every fromsoft game with killable NPCs ever fucking made like these are the consequences of your actions man. I don't get it.
@@YEY0806 I think you are missing what MauLer is actually doing here: He is MALICIOUS, he is deliberately trying to make arguments against the game and is deliberately trying to portray it in a bad light. This is why a lot of his complaints seem so strange and ridiculous, like "Well the music cuts off abruptly when i kill a boss!!!!" or "If go in to this area BACKWARDS, the enemies don't react properly", it's all scraping the barrel for complaints, like if you are a propagandist for the losing side in a war, so you have to make ridiculous stuff up to appease your citizens.
@jorge4572 of course, it's just that I notice that whenever a TH-camr calls themselves a souls "veterans", 9/10 they don't know what the fuck they are talking about
@@NobleAbsintheno you see it's very simple, logical and objectively true that if the other Souls games require you to farm for hours that's good game design, but if DS2 respects your time and makes it easier to farm them that's bad game design because DS2 bad.
@@Domo3000 lol just goes to show this whole response was just the inverse of Hbombs video. Tbh neither video represents ds2 well. But anyway ,like one of my favorite series is Monster Hunter and I deal with there 2% drop rate shenanigans. It does hit a dopamine rush when you FINALLY GET IT. I mean I wouldn't mind always getting the drops either though. The dopamine hit isn't there for DS.it's just killing the same mob and doing the exact same experience. So I was really confused on why they were acting as if getting a rare drop was bad. Like I'm trying to imagine a devils advocate argument but it's really silly lol.
@Domo3000 Seriously, Bloodborne was so stupid in its design to make materials so fucking rare, like you have all these cool weapons, most that can only be gotten at the endgame, yet I must stick with the same early game weapons that I don't like and waste upgrades on? Also it sucks extra balls that you must get a PS+ subscription so you can use the player made chalice Dungeons to get late game weapons and good blood gems earlier.
@@Domo3000 iirc he also complained that DS2 has more levels and more tit slabs allowing greater build variety, because in his opinion, DS1, a game where you are basically locked into 1 buiild the whole game, is "better designed" you heard it from mauler everyone, RPG having variety bad
Trying to frame ds2's generous amount of upgrade materials as a *negative* is actually insane to me "Why yes, I would like to have a smaller, weaker less varied arsenal. That is what I want please!"
MauLer when he has to make a choice which weapon to upgrade: that's objectively good, because Souls games should let you make mistakes MauLer when he has to make a choice which Petrified Statue to unpetrify: that's objectively bad, because Souls games should not punish your mistakes
@@Domo3000 Also on the topic of upgrade materials, I really like how in ds2's Dragon Aerie, an endgame area, you have an optional side path that's challenging but ultimately fair (and pretty straightforward once you figure it out) that rewards you with all kinds of upgrade materials, some infusion stones, as well as a respawnable bonfire ascetic. It's around 6-7 chunks, twinklings and dragon bones *each* PLUS a slab per run. No RNG, just learning the area (aka getting good) and traversing a progressively numerically harder version of the same area. It's still grinding, but it's such an objectively better way of handling material grinding than DS1's method that I struggle to complain; at one point I even started to enjoy the dragon aerie go-around. To me it feels like the devs acknowledging that yes, getting to upgrade the cool weapons is cool and you should be rewarded for getting to endgame and exploring side areas.
The baffling thing too is that having slabs means nothing if you don't have the other types of titanite first. The game progression still exists, and it is even better than DS1. In the first game, I can without any exploits get my weapon up to +5 within the undead burg AND also have all the large titanite needed to go at +10. The only thing that stops me, which I personally find more frustrating, is the large ember that prevents me from upgrading my normal sword.
Dark souls X haters while beeing a Dark Souls Y lover are something else. I once saw a negative review about DS3 saying that the runs to bosses were too short (and so easy) while complaining the bosses are too fast and that the lack of lifegems (so having limited heal) make them too hard Dude you want something easy or something hard ??? Or Elden Ring haters saying that it's not like Dark Souls you don't have a clear objective and all. Yeah because link/do not link the fire is clearly better than becoming Elden lord
LMAO THE COMPLAINING ABOUT UPGRADE MATERIALS I CANT Also who just goes around killing NPCs and then complains about being locked out of questlines? "I played a lot of DS1 and DS3" if that was the case then you would know not to attack random npcs that dont aggro on you.
People loving Fromsoft game X while hating Fromsoft game Y are some of the stupidest person that exist. DS2 runs to bosses are too hard + lifegems make the bosses to easy ---> DS3 runs to bosses are too easy + the boss attack so much it's so hard with limited heals OK bro what do you want ??? "Elden Ring open world is bad because you can go to high level area early" Yeah because in DS1 you cannot go to the catacombs and New Londo right from the start ! And even Blightown if you have the right key. And in DS2 you can directly go into 2 different areas and if you progress just a little bit in them you can go to 3 other areas from Majula You just want to play DS3 or what ?
@@IronChief13 I mean ds3 is the one that started the trend of AOE + Combo spammy bosses with the likes of friede phase 3, dancer phase 2, pontiff, champ gundyr phase 2, etc. They are especially bad to fight with a UGS. Thats not entirely the case with the likes of twin demons or nameless king or even gael to an extent (though his phase 3 is a bit annoying). ER just carries that boss + AOE spam to new levels in its base game and cranks it up even more in the DLC. If fromsoft wants to make devil may cry then make the player match their speeds too. Life gems in ds3 would help given if you want to play as a proper mage you will have to sacrifice estus flasks for ashen flasks. The ER open world being quite liberating in progression means for most bosses you'll either be overleveled or underleveled just by regular exploration. I mean a player going to all the dungeons, caves, etc. will be pretty overleveled for a lot of bosses meaning it'll just feel too easy. There's no middle ground really. The souls games had this issue too (well, ds3 solved it by being linear) but it was not as prevalent in ds1 and ds2 sotfs.
How in the fuck is missing an important but not required item (save for just one) even a DS2-exclusive complaint, or a SotFS complaint? Guess i can complain to him now how i can't get Soul Spear DS1 since i accidentally killed Big Hat Logan. Yeah i never got why people thought the music cut-off was solely DS2 either. But i guess it's funny in DS2 because...B-team?
In DS1 the music cuts but gets overridden by the text prompt that says you defeated the boss, DS2 does it right when you nail the final blow. It's just a timing difference, and I like DS2's approach more, but ultimately it's a subjective thing that nobody should put in a critique. Oh wait, it's a defense.
MauLer just comes off as insatiable in his criticism. He derides the abundance of titanite slabs because they rob the player of meaningful choice, but he complains about the petrified statues because…they give the player meaningful choice? If my life depended on MauLer being consistent in his DS2 critique, I’d be sad because I’d miss my family and I’d miss watching Domo’s videos.
He just sounds confident enough about what he's saying, so people just... accept it. If there's one thing souls storytelling's taught me is that the human mind is a feeble thing.
@@Maurricentbasically it all comes down to how close you sound to Vatti, the closer it is, the more gullible people are because "no way the sexy voice can be wrong"
Because he's not? He interacts regularly with very left wing people like Jay exci, one of the hosts (fringy) is a self described social liberal. When questioned on women's from "the right" they obfuscate all but denying that it even exists. For all his faults in criticism anyone trying to label him far left or far right is really only revealing they are the opposite.
So he and his friend has the information that the scorpion npc gives a fragrant branch but not the information that he needs to talk to him after killing Najka? Truly an inteligent being.
This is why I don't understand how anyone can take him seriously as a critic if they are anyway experienced with the subject he critiques about. It's so obvious his deliberately making shit up
@Domo3000 I want to personally thank you for taking the time to make these videos. As someone who is a dedicated souls player, a lover of ds2 and an aspiring game designer, this series has been fantastic food for thought on the subjects of game mechanics, level design, encounter design, community perception etc. Doing god's work out here, and I appreciate it!
It's honestly disgusting how much he covers his nonsense and bias with confidence and eloquent speech which apparently really makes it sound legit to many people.
Not getting that the soldiers are fighting the dead giants really goes to show everything you need to know. Maybe I can understand not getting it in a casual play through but if you're making a critique then you kind of have to pay attention. And if the wiki did exist (I don't know when the video came but I know I get to live in luxury with a full mostly correct wiki which I know didn't always exist) or if he had access to the internet to look these things up then its even worse.
He was playing Scholar and DS3 was already out. The game had been out for years at that point. The fact that the name "Forest of Fallen Giants" refers to the dead giants that are turning into trees was already well documented on the internet as people already had more than a few days to play this game. And honestly, even the biggest casuals would get curious and take a closer look at the tree to notice that it looks the same as the Last Giant.
The guys hitting the giant tree show you that the tree is special since it's gettin atention from the npcs, even if you don't use lore you can see they are useful for guiding new players to interact with the trees and seeing they got some use (to acess the memories). Always thought this was the main reason for having them.
Technically you could remember that this hole is the Abyss and make the connection if you happened to read the description. Technically - not realistically. On the other hand, you could also assume that this is just a Souls game pulling one of their unfair tricks on you by locking you into a room where the only way out is death.
I had a "friend" tell me what to do as I was in that area (annoying). It's annoying because I think I would have figured it out I feel the same way about people who see you doing a blind run of a game, and after ONE boss death they start backseating. Someone did this with Wolnir, and Curse Rotted Greatwood instantly telling me what their weakness / gimmick is. Same with the hallway to Veldstat some dude instantly was like "dude just kill the skeletons ringing the bell under the stairs" instantly. ^Like fk off I would have figured all these things out myself and I don't care how long it would have taken
For Manscorpion Tark thing, here is far more worst thing in DS III. If you want to join Moundmakers covenant you have to talk a spider cage npc but here is the problem, this npc is literally same model with hostile npcs in that same area. If you make him aggro the big cage guy that carry you to moundmakers covenant place, became hostile and not carries you. If you know Darksouls games you can repent your sin but if you killed that spider npc, nope you can't join moundmakers. There is a second way for that covenant, Sirris quest but here is another problem if you join Rosaria's finger you can't complate Sirris quest. That's litterally my first DS III experience. I attacked spider npc and killed it accidently and I joined Rosarias Finger. I simply did impossible to join two covenants. Now compare it with Manscorpion Tark, it is literally a unique npc unlike that damn spider npc from DS III and again it is stronger much harder than spider npc which aggroes two hits. I don't watch Maulers DS III review but did he talk about that?
He would probably commend the game for not "hand-holding" the player by giving obvious clues, even if it fucks you over for a whole playthrough, why? Because it isn't DS2, so it's fine
For the fingers, it's only if you have the covenant equipped, but i get it. I made that mistake once. Never did again. Why did I play that game again...
Man i need to replay dark souls 1. I missed that crazy lake area in my first playthrough a couple months ago. I also need to finish dark souls 2 lolol. But about the video. I really appreciate the many upgrade materials and watching the guy rolling his eyes and scoffing about getting a slab from an enemy really pissed me off. I would be so ecstatic if that happened on Dark Souls 1 more often lol.
Ash Lake doesn't have any playable content and is super far from Firelink Shrine, don't go there without Lordvessel if you don't want to walk for an hour.
Bro your luck with Yorgh's ring deflecting the spells. 🗿 When I try that shit, the deflect is rarer than getting those shadows from the flexile sentry to drop something. Edit: 21:05 Really dude? That guy doesn't appreciate Usain Bolt Hollow? Every single playthrough I race the lil' fella. Also, I go on an adventure with torch hollow from No-Man's Wharf and Undead Crypt because... why not? It's fun to have fun and company to do silly things when you are alone in the dark world of Dark Souls - it doesn't matter if it's an enemy.
FYI about the Flexile Sentry shadows, you can farm all of their stuff from any other shadow in the game, the ones in that arena are just the only ones that infinitely respawn naturally without needing to burn a bonfire ascetic or go into the Company of Champions. I farmed the entire armor set from the shadow below the secret bonfire outside of Mytha's fight pretty easily just by going in the CoC.
@@moonlight9493 Yeah I know. I like to farm the one in Lost Bastille since it's quite near the bonfire. Though... yeah, getting any drops from them is a pain.
Sorry Domo, I can't bring myself to finish this. Mauler must be the worst ds2 detractor yet. It's like the man woke up one day and decided to hate ds2, but he did not know why, so now he retroactively looks for the dumbest reasons to justify his hate.
Small preview for the next video: he complains that being able to teleport from the start is objectively bad, but says that it's okay in DS3 as it is a lot less linear than DS2.
@@YEY0806 most of his fans are from after him dunking on the easy target of tlj. They then retroactively assume his prior takes and future ones must be good. As one of the people noticing him earlier (before I had an active account) he was always hit or miss.
I say this. I also wanted to kill Tark the scorpion man in the first playthrough, there's no way you're looking at that arena and that AWESOME enemy and not think that it kinda looks like a battle. But, first - he didn't attack. Second, when i attacked, he started saying something, wichw as "..." thing, therefore i concluded that it's an NPC and didn't kill him. Me. Not a game critic. But he couldn't understand MECHANICKS that are there to show you that you might make a wrong move, wich is good design for presenting it as a fight, but then giving all the hints that it isn't.
He could have stopped when he noticed that he did not aggro. He could have stopped when he noticed the Talk prompt. He could have stopped after the first hit when he noticed that he still does not aggro. And he could have stopped when he saw him speak. And it seems like he didn't even know that you can get Absolution for your sins in Souls games. But instead of admitting that he made a mistake he instead just blames the game.
@@Domo3000 It's because haters hate from the start, the hate is not born from them interracting with the object, so they pervert their experience as much as possible to solidify their delusion. This is human psyche, it's just some people admit it, some fight it and succeed, some stay the same and continue in wiched ways. All out lives is about getting out from undead asylum, lifting this curse off of us, and getting better. Some stay the same to the "title screen", even though they "win" and finish, they burn to ashes. I need to play games less.
There is another thing that I find so annoying when he talks about the amount of Slabs he has at the end of the game. Yeah, he has 13 left, but at the same time, he doesn't seem to have a lot of titanite chunks despite only having leveled one weapon. Yes, you can later buy them, but only after a pretty late point in the game. Furthermore, you can also farm them, but when it just comes to "playing the game" it seems that DS2 keeps your weapon choice important as well.
A little tiny bit of defence. The music does cut earlier in DS2, when the enemy has 0 hp, unlike in DS1 when the enemy is done with dying animation. This combined with the "Victory Achieved" sound is less noticeable.
Not to mention he was complaining about the dropping materials from monsters that were ORIGINALLY in the DLCs. Where there are a slew of new weapons to try out. And to optimally try them out, you'd wanna get them to +10. Also, just wanna say I appreciate the footage of screwing up certain things, like wiffing the rock lizards for mats. Gives a good laugh!
Why is having an abundance of slabs a bad thing? I like experimenting and trying stuff out and I always hated the limited aspect of upgrade materials, the amount of games where weapons are left at +9/24 because I don't wanna commit to using up a slab incase I don't like it. Especially if you want to respec mid run and need to upgrade a whole new set of material
As enjoyable as it was to watch a thorough dismantling of Mauler's "critique" of the game, the real genesis of DS2 slander is Matthewmatosis. His review of the game is, in retrospect, borderline laughable. That being said, I do think that the review is genuine and not just a thoroughly asspained hit-piece on someone he doesn't like., as is the case with Mauler here. That being said, Dark Souls 2 is a fascinating game to me because its design language draws a lot from the very tail end of the ps2 and PSP era. One of the biggest common denominators amongst long time DS2 fans I've spoken to was experience playing Monster Hunter. People who had gotten onboarded to this style of combat through DS1 didn't understand the idea that devs could offer investment into defensive archetypes for players as a means to affect game balance. I think the very idea that you could be asked to spend part of your build economy on something akin to "Evade Distance" broke a lot of brains back in 2014.
Honestly my biggest issue with DS2 is that it doesn't go further with the customization (and by extension, all soulslikes). Monster Hunter (both classic & modern) is a great example of how you can have 'simple' combat that has variety thanks to all the weapon types, gem customization, and distinct boss monsters. Though, I'll even add that just looking at it from a From Soft perspective... Armored Core also trumps souls with better customization too. Those games don't even have i-frames. Weapons & Legs all meaningfully change how you approach the game. A high speed evasion mobile suit & slow bulky tank can both work & play completely differently.
the number one reason why i nver played DS1 after the first time, is i have no clue how upgrading is really supposed to work. I also love how DS2 lest me experimant with so many different weapons in a single playtrough.
Agreed on that one. DS1's weapon upgrade paths were overly complicated and not that rewarding compared to just using a special weapon. Definitely something they streamlined for a good reason.
Now try to follow a guide to the platinum trophy in that game and it's honestly aneurysm-inducing. (I'm still salty of having to beat that damn game like 3 times)
@@matheusmillion Most From Soft games require ~3 runs to get the platinum trophy. In Dark Souls 1, because you need 3 souls of Sif. In Dark Souls 2, you need to get to Wellager and buy the spells that you would only get as a reward in certain covenants. In Bloodborne you need to get the three different endings (Luckily, it can be done in different characters). In Sekiro, you need to farm enough XP to max out the skill tree. In AC6, you need 3 playthroughs to get to the third ending
Look, it's really simple You can use regular materials to upgrade at any smith to +5. This includes unique weapons, which use a different type of upgrade material, and boss weapons (once you have them) which also have a special boss weapon upgrade material. then you can either look for a special key item and give to the divine smith or : use the basic magic material to make a faith scaling weapon at the divine smith, an intelligence scaling weapon at the magic smith and a fire elemental weapon at the fire smith, who is hidden in the catacombs, from where you can't easily go back if you don't have the lordvessel, at which point maybe you don't even want a fire weapon any more since it trades ALL stat scaling for additional fire damage. Keep in mind that while Magic and Fire are available from the get go, you need a special key item in order to unlock Divine upgrades at the Divine smith you can upgrade weapons normally at the bonfire (if you have the smithbox) or at any smith until you reach the maximum level. "Ascending" the weapons to the next tier (i.e: a +5 into a +6 or a Fire or Divine etc..) requires you to go to the specific blacksmith which handles THAT specific upgrade path and may require that you find and give them a specific key item (an ember) that is used to unlock upgrade paths. These are specific to each upgrade path If you do get the special key item for regular upgrades, you can either go to +10 or a "raw" up to +5 with the intermediate upgrade materials. Raw weapons gain base damage but lose out on scaling. These are both done with the divine smith If your weapon is maxed out again, at any of these paths here are your new options for the ultimate weapon!!!: If this is a regular weapon, you can look for another key item to unlock high tier regular upgrades at the divine smith OR there is actually a fourth, godly blacksmith! This smith can make your weapons into Lightning weapons (which again lose all stat scaling for extra elemental damage) or use boss souls in order to turn them into the special "boss weapons". Additionally, there is also yet another key item that unlocks "crystal" upgrades, which make your weapon extra strong but unrepairable. Again at the godly blacksmith. Lightning, Crystal and regular will use the high tier normal materials. Boss weapon use the special boss weapon upgrade material as mentioned. Regular tops at +15, Boss, Lightning and Crystal at +5 (they have like 10 "hidden" weapon levels) If your weapon was Magic, scaling with intelligence, you need to give the Magic Blacksmith one of two special key items. One will allow them to be an advanced magical weapon, which goes to +10 while the other one unlocks the "Enchanted" upgrade path, which is the same idea but trades out some base damage and physical scaling for an even stronger focus on intelligence scaling for magic. These both use the "special magic upgrade" material and go to +10 magic or +5 enchanted If, instead, your weapon was Fire, you once again have two choices. One new key item unlocks advanced fire upgrades, up to +10 and another, different key item, unlocks upgrades to Chaos, which is similar to Fire but trades some base damage for a hidden scaling on both the physical and the fire damage that grows with the amount of humanity you are carrying (i.e: the little number on the top left of the HUD). Chaos will then grow up to +5. Both of these need to be ascended at the Fire blacksmith and will require the special fire upgrade material And finally, if you have a Divine weapon, that scales with faith, you have two new options at the divine blacksmith, each once again requiring a different key item to unlock. These are a bit different in that they both have similar damage and scaling but they have different special semi-hidden bonuses. Divine weapons (such as the one you would be ascending) deal extra damage to some enemies, such as skeletons, as well as prevent them from being resurrected by necromancers. Occult weapons, on the other hand, trade that for extra damage to "god" type enemies, such as Gwyn and Gwyndolin. But these both deal additional magic damage that scales with Faith. Divine will go up to +10 and Occult up to +5 and they, once more, use the special faith upgrade material. And there you have it, now you have a maxed out weapon (provided you visited the correct blacksmiths, gave them the specific ember and found the specific slab you needed (unless it was a unique or boss weapon) of your choice, suited to the build you're making, you're ready to take on even the biggest challenges of this game! I don't get what people find so confusing about going to one of four blacksmiths, farming for one of 7 different types of upgrade materials and making sure you collect and assign the measly 10 embers to get your weapon. It's pretty straightforward
To be fair, sometimes cramps are like that. It's one of the reasons DS1 is better than DS2- it's not possible to for people connect with their player character if they don't suffer from random deadly charley horses. You need that shared potassium-deficient experience. Seriously though... In hindsight, seeing that insta-death can just _happen_ when you are moving down a slope makes me feel a bit better about some of my confusing DS1 deaths. I felt stupid for not seeing some "trap" or "projectile" when I was just running around and my character's ankles would snap.
Not really. People who criticize ds2 don't say the other games are perfect. They know they all have flaws. It's just that ds2 has more than the other games and usually to a worse extent. It's ds2 fans that usually refuse to criticize any aspect of ds2 or even admit that there's anything wrong with it.
@@loubloom1941 not really, its that when they say "it has more" we prove that the og/3 often have worse issues, and virtually none of the ds2 issues are unique. Then the antis squeal whataboutism going full reddit buzzword.
lol, no. Everybody thinks that ds1 is masterpiece, but 50% it's just trash. Most overrated game in the series. Didn't like the game? Fine. Just don't make a criticism by comparing one piece of junk to more broken junk.
@@loubloom1941 Yeas, really. Everything you complaint about is present in the other games, and... THAT is what you complain about, not "ds2 has more than the other games", like what exactly are you blabbering about this time, if this wasn't even mentioned? All what you "state" gets refuted, and then you blabber about BS like your comment is, admit it, you're hater.
@@loubloom1941 I don't think I've ever seen a DS2 enjoyer who actually thinks the game is flawless. The problem is that we are put on the defensive by nonstop attacks, many of which are literally not true / just dumb (points like those addressed in this video). Why would you expect DS2 fans to go around openly criticizing their own game, when every time DS2 is brought up it's attacked as being an awful game?
@@loubloom1941 I mean he's providing a counter-argument with facts to back it up to each each of mauler's claim... I think he's doing much more than a great job proving mauler is an absolute dumbass that doesn't know what he's talking about lol
Also: The stray demon titanite slap can despawn if you don't pick it up. It happened to more than one person that a double ko just vanished a player's slab.
Another point on DS1 upgrades: You needed different colors of titinite for each weapon type (Divine, Magic, Fire, etc.) AND needed a slab for each. You only got one slab per path without the DLC, and each was located in late game areas locked behind having the Lordvessel. You needed two if you wanted multiple ascended weapons of the similar types (Magic and Enchated, for example) which you couldn't without get (without meticulous farming) until NG+ or until the DLC. Oh, except for Red of course, but for that you needed to trade an ascended pyromancy Flame with snuggly, of which you only get one semi-guaranteed unless you started as a pyromancer or got the egg head and spoke to Eingyi. Every step in this process is behind easily missable content, of course. Contrarily, getting a max standard weapon is easily obtainable within the first couple of hours or so (by an experienced player), and is only locked behind one early boss and one easy optional boss. Three if you don't want to farm. People argue by stating that getting the max ascension was to be a monstrous task in DS1, but it holds no water when you consider how relatively easy it was to ascend Twinkling and Boss weapons. This isn't to say I don't like the DS1 system. On the contrary, I prefer it. But it goes to show that DS2 had a different philosophy when it came to gear, in that they wanted players to have a toolkit of sorts to experiment with multiple different weapons and gear, as opposed to sticking to one main weapon. It was also great for new players, as the full standard upgrade path in DS1 would have been nigh inachievable for a new player without a guide.
DS1 is my favorite souls but yeah, i agree with your take on mauler criticism which is unfair for DS2. especially with all of the evidence and comparation that you presented, kudos sir !
19:28 the most "it has wings, use it" moment in video game history is in Horizon. There is a crocodile mech that cannot go in the water. You know that crocodiles didn’t evolved in MILLIONS of years just because they're so good at what they do ? And it's to be in the water !
I'm really enjoying these videos, I always liked DS2, but hardly anyone I've seen plays it, and everyone always trashes it. This series is actually teaching me a lot about the game and it's so freaking interesting to see just how intricate and detailed this game is.
Farming for upgrade materials is my least favorite thing in any video game. Complaining about a game not making you grind (either for the materials themselves or currency to purchase them) is truly TRULY mind boggling. 😂
His criticisms are so dumb that I genuinely think if miyazaki had put his name on ds2 from the start, it would've been received much better because they all make largely the same mistakes. Its because of his crap ''review'' of the game that fromsoft never learnt a thing from ds2 sotfs and that ultimately made ds3 and ER worse games. No hardmode, no rewarding challenge runs, no NG+ changes, far fewer ways of tackling a bossfight regardless of build, fewer bossfight variety (not boss variety per se), worse colossal weapons, no animation cancel, no backstep s, etc.
"They drop titanite slabs??? This fucking game" It's a tough enemy in a late game area that you encounter right before finishing the area... what do you expect? 😂
No you see, DS1 making them hard to find and frustrating to farm that's good game design. DS2 improving the player experience by making it easier to fully upgrade both weapons you want to powerstance, all the armor you want to upgrade and all the weapons you want to experiment with is just objectively bad game design.
So people will blindly trust a person with sexy voices even if they spilled many misinformation. Got it. As a female myself, it is not surprising at all.
I just started playing sotfs a month ago and i have tbh, its my favorite out of the souls series, yes it may be jank but in my opinion the jank makes it kind og engaging also the bonfire ascetics and how things change in NG+ is a really cool feature i wish stuck around
Imagine complaining about getting too many slabs lol. Bro I love it that I can actually push many of my fav weapons to max. This has always been one of my biggest complaints of the newer souls games, that I have to play many ng+ runs just to upgrade more weapons.
M question was how many people figured this out on their own. I guess most people that discovered the ring never read that description or made the connection.
@@Domo3000 Ingward also straight up tells you, that you won't be able to enter the Abyss unless you look for Artorias and learn from his ways. This whole thing is a really bad example on cryptic or unexplaned items.
I used to think like that when I first played the game. I tried forcing myself to like it and looked at all the bad parts. After beating the game, I don’t know over like 15 times I like the game. My most favorite part about it is the weapons because how fun they are to use.
Seriously about those statues. How many of them are essential to dispell to complete the game? There are 17 statues in the whole game and they only in base game areas, not in DLCs. There are 4 statues that block your way and their purpose is making you go extra minute around them or blocking side quest objective (Troll in Aldia's keep, two lion warriors in forest with cursed jars (also if you dispelled one of them then you don't have to do it for the second since they block the same room from two sides), and hollow on the rope bridge in dragons nest). And there are two practically worthless statues' in Aldia's keep near giant basilisk. It's already 6. The one in the Lost bastille that block your way for ruin sentinels? You can go around them to lost sinner if you pick your path through heide tower. Others are placed in the path of something either irrelevant like trans-coffin, or in front of the loot that you can easily skip and even find similar things later on. And one is keeping key to Orniphex if you want boss weapons. So in my memory there is only one statue that you need to take off to complete the game - pyromant girl near Majula, because there is no other way you can go to Vendrick's castle or to Freya or Aldia's keep. One npc is essential and there is 12 branches that you can get without specific activities and 4 to buy from merchants and 1 from quest. Is it really that bad after all?
It's like you said. Only Rosbeth is necessary, and it's impossible to lock yourself out of unpetrifying her. So he's acting as if is objectively bad to have some optional items, a boss and small areas to unlock. You know, as if adding more experimentation to the exploration and rewarding players in NG+ for remembering which ones they want to unpetrify for their build is somehow objectively bad. I'm 100% sure that if that system had been in place in DS1 but was removed in DS2 he would complain that it's gone.
Some of HBomberguy's DS2 takes are a bit strange, but its clear at this point that nearly all nine hours of Mauler's response video could have been summed up with "I didn't enjoy myself as much as with the first Dark Souls." I have enjoyed this series, and very much look forward to Mauler's several dozen responses.
For HBomber my bullshit meter is never exploding as he constantly says "in my opinion" or "I personally think" MauLer on the other hand presents his own personal feelings as objective facts to debunk the personal feelings of HBomber, which is just making my bullshit meter explode.
@@Domo3000Sounds about right. Hbomber's Fallout 3 video, on the other hand... oh boy. He barely acknowledges that the series went through both a studio and genre change and judges it by classic crpg standards. At least as far as video games go, he was much better at covering things he likes. Many a True Nerd has a great response, "Fallout 3 was better than you think," which, unlike Mauler's response to Harris, is a good-faith and constructive video.
@@andrewjmichael as an hbomberguy fan even he admits thats one of his worst videos, im pretty sure he even said that he would take it down if that dident seem like him "trying to act like it dident happen" which is fair because i can see people saying that. But his ds2 video is pretty much on point (besides the couple of bad taste jabs IMO) and he makes a good argument for alot of things. Heck alot of the times i see people critising him on it, its mostly taken from maulers video and highly misrepresented. Like how alot of people think that hbomberguy said that backtracking was better in ds2, when he acctualy said its better that they did not account for it, because it ment they could make tighter encounters apporched from 1-2 angles not 6.
@@ZombieKitty321 HBomber was one of my first subs back in the day, and I really like a lot of his videos still, but the Fallout 3 review made me skip on everything he did video game-related thereafter. I was one of the masochists who watched Mauler's entire 9 hour DS2 'response' when it first came out, because at that point I was still in the "let's hear Mauler out" phase. Its clear now that while Harris has grown and matured as a critic in the years since, Mauler has just doubled down on his 'objectivity' nonsense. Shame it took so many years for a hero like Domo3000 to step up and meticulously debunk his BS.
That part about soldiers focusing on the giants instead of the player is something i feel is missing from elden ring There's a spot where a bunch of soldiers are fighting a dragon and they will still try to kill you even when their friends are getting their heads caved in
Yeah, that fight in the DLC was a little silly. You basically have to wait until all the soldiers are dead each attempt if you don't wanna get combo'd while fighting the dragon.
I'll say this about the slab, with DS 2's open nature and the fact you can tackle stuff basically in any order, it can happen often to get a few slabs way before getting close to enough chunks, meanwhile in DS1 (if we ignore the DLC) all slabs feel very aptly placed and deliberate, normal slabs are in two very specific spots, colored slabs are all in a relevant area lorewise for them to be there. What I'm getting at is the slab is the ultimate exploration reward, the game doesn't even require you to get a max upgrade weapon to finish it, thus they felt pretty special. In DS2 it's way more convenient but... Way less special. On that note pointing out the demon and twinkling titanite argument is very relevant, and shows the deliberate lack of care in Mauler's argument since fully upgrading a weapon for any special weapon was always pretty damn easy even in DS1. Anyway I'm thoroughly enjoying these debunkings, it's refreshing to see the raw data for what it is.
Nahhh. Ds3>Ds2>Ds1. The combat consistently got better with every game, although there is definitely an argument for Dark Souls 2's quirky combat at movement
Complaining about the over abundance of upgrade materials is completely moronic and ignorant of all the other games. In what world is having too many upgrade materials a bad thing? A huge complaint I have with all the other souls games is how they limit upgrade materials for seemingly no reason. Ds2 fixing this in many ways (such as the bell keepers covenant giving upgrade materials when you defeat a tresspasser and making slabs farmable) actively improved upon a nonsensical and dumb system. I mean even now in elden ring they haven't solved this issue, smithing stones are all buyable, but not slabs. Complaints like Mauler's just exemplify how video essayers will simply make up artifical arguements and points to intentionally bloat their weak narratives.
Seriously, Bloodborne would be such a better game if there was more than ONE blood rock, being able to respec my stats if I want to do a different build without having to start the whole game again. Not needing shitty PS+ subscription to find the player created chalice Dungeons that allow you to get early late game weapons and good gems
@@YEY0806 Actually there are 2 blood rocks in base game one is in late game location other one you can buy from messengers for 60 insight and third one is in DLC but i agree with you about needing subscription to be able to get some late game weapons early is stupid not to mention second blood rock is gated behind a patch you have to download even in game of the year edition so that would leave you with 2 blood rocks(1 without DLC)
There are also 1 or 2 blood rocks in chalice dungeons but they are in more difficult dungeons so that means griding boring content in order to get to late game dungeons which is not worth doing in my opinion.
@@zouken7880 it just seems like damage control on Fromsoft to give reasons for exploring their mostly shitty Dungeons with reused bosses that would make DS2 blush
While I'm not happy about max upgrade materials still being limited in Elden Ring, the fact that normal weapons upgrade to +25 in that game makes not being able to max everything way less of an issue for me, since you only lose out on 1/25th of your weapon's power increase, rather than 1/10th. The special weapons, on the other hand, still have that issue.
1. Upgrade materials: How much scarcity/abundance of upgrade materials is ideal is a matter of preference. All about how much you value making a meaningful choice in what weapons you upgrade vs the ability to experiment and switch around what you use. Also, the main reason why ds1 makes it easier to fully upgrade special weapons is because they don't have a super rare upgrade material tied to the final upgrade tier, like the slabs for the regular weapons. This assumed prestige likely adds to why their commonality in ds2 would be seen as bad. Tho any indepth analysis of the upgrade system is beyond the scope of this comment 2.I did not know the ds boss music cuts off like that 3.I genuinely thought I had more to say
I always liked it how the music cuts off when you defeat the boss. It always added this "OOFFF" moment to the victory, like you execute not only the boss, but his whole existence, his theme.
Minor correction: i believe if you kill every single crystal lizard in the great hollow (10 if memory serves me right) the last one will always give you a titanite slab. I happened to get really lucky in my playthrough and got a slab from the darkwraiths minutes after getting the last chunks i needed to finish upgrading my composite bow to +15 lol. That entire playthrough i got really good drop luck though so it was quite the anomaly. Thanks for the video! Havent played ds2 but it looks neat. Powerstancing sounds great!
Another note about the siegmeyer questline: it’s possible for him to get poisoned and die in the izalith section, so not only do you have to do the fight as quickly as possible to avoid him dying, but you also might have to skip all his dialogue, and then IMMEDIATELY either quit/reload or use a homeward bone. I’m not a huge fan of the more lengthy npc quests in ds2, as they require you to bring weak summons into tough fights with tough runbacks, but the quests in ds1 had some next level shitty moments.
The point Mauler makes about Titanite Slabs really bothers me. So, in a game with a lot more weapon variety than the first, with the option to respec your character a few times if you ever want to change your build, or even just try out a new weapon on the same build, having more slabs so you can max out more weapons is a.....bad thing?
Tbf tho in Ds1 there were at least other kinds of titanite slabs so you could max multiple weapons in NG you'd just have to take a different upgrade path + there were way less weapons in Ds1 so of course they had to change this upgrade system for ds2 and it's good to see how the series developed I like all the games cause they all have quirks and strengths
Nothing is more frustrating in these games than being at endgame and having so many weapons you want to upgrade for different builds and not having enough slabs/ancient stones. I can't imagine how anyone could look at DS2 having an abundance of them as bad.
I honestly like having max level upgrade materials being incredibly limited/outright permanently missable if you fail a questline. You *can* just finish the game without a max level weapon and I think having that be a super rare luxury not everybody will have is a great idea. (Can't deny that Dks1 sort of botches this by making unique weapons so easily upgradeable by comparison but I do think it's an interesting game design conversation; I'm in the niche of weirdos that thought it was rad when 1.0 Bloodborne only gave you a single blood rock in the entire game lmao) That said I don't think Dks2 having materials be more readily available is inherently bad. For a game that has *so many* more weapons than the first, seemingly wants you to be playing with a larger arsenal with the extra equipment slots, *and* also lets you invest those precious materials into armor, it's not hard to see why they'd want to keep the amount of slabs proportional.
Bloodborne, to be fair, is a game with much less things to upgrade by a big margin. That said, all the weapons are so fun that only being able to upgrade one to max sounds like dookie.
@@goncalocarneiro3043despite MauLer claiming that Bloodborne only gives you one Blood Rock you actually do get 5 without farming if you include the DLC and Chalice Dungeons, and can get an unlimited amount from farming Depth 5 Chalice bosses
Be dark souls 2, have some of the most interesting and unique weapons in the dark souls series, have critics say that you should only have 3 titinite slabs meaning you can’t play around with these weapons. Funny how this game that also has a fun variety of weapons, spells and armour is the first one which allows you to reorganise levels. A feature that’d skip Bloodborne and only return in DS3 and later games after that
As someone who only ranks Dark Souls II above Demon's Souls, I really don't understand how these people can make full-on documentaries with the most stupid takes imaginable. It's like they just like to hear themselves talk, instead of understanding the things that are coming out of their mouths. Complaining about upgrade materials being too generous is absolutely hilarious. I loved saving that 1 titanite slab in DS1 all the way to the final boss because I was too worried I would use it on something I would've regretted.
I'm 99% sure it's "Movie Critic" syndrome. People who spend their lives ranting and hyperanalyzing every little thing (then proceeding to run away and ignore something if they face backlash-- MauLer's controversy with Avatar lol) tend to have overinflated egos and think they're somehow "more intelligent" or "superior" to other people and therefore think their opinion is objective fact. But in reality, as most people know, Movie Critics and Game Journalists tend to be the most obnoxious idiots possible lol
Thank you for being a real one with defending this game, Dark Souls 2 is my fav out of the trilogy and people bashing it with unfair criticism is really annoying.
statues and fragrant branches are no problem. you might worry about running out of the item, but you wont. same with lockstones. especially the random single times they show up.
I actually think the issue isn't hitboxes, but feedback. Hit feedback is better in the other games with enemies and the player model reacting stronger to hits, the way how poise works. People expect a certain thing and feel that the hit feedback doesn't give them good information.
I gotta say about the music cutoff in ds2 the bosses can't even have their death animation before the music stops in Ds1 they at least kinda had the music going for the death animation
These videos deserve so much more attention. So many people just accept Mauler’s take as fact simply because he claimed objectivity. He criticizes Hbomberguy for not thinking things through enough and then lies to his own audience by doing the same thing but *for longer*
Speaking of flying enemies, in Demon's Souls, gargoyles can fly and they even don't die from gravity. However, those flying gargoyles were extremely irritating, and From Software decided not to let flying enemies after Demon's Souls truly fly.
Who the hell complains that there are TOO MANY upgrade materials?!?!? They should all be available for unlimited purchase after you've cleared the game, at the very least! Also: This problem with common weapons being really hard to upgrade in comparison to unique ones is one that is still very frustrating in Elden Ring, actually
I came into this with a sceptical mindset, as I remember largely agreeing with and liking Mauler's videos on Ds2. But it seems I don't remember them well, because a lot of this stuff is actually bullshit. The same goes for hBomberguy though, his video on Ds2 was really not good (and the Bloodborne one where he says Shields are wrong is even worse), but that doesn't automatically make Mauler right. I mean, I still don't like Ds2, that probably won't change, but Mauler is still spewing a lot of shit here
Man. I wish this response had phoenix wright music all over it. Lol. I always wondered why I was fine with DS2 and never really had a negative experience like Mauler did. Vids like these show why. Shame this will be buried in obscurity because this channel ain't getting the views it deserves.
1:29 I mean I only have a sample size of two people from experience, but if you're paying any attention to the dialogue and reading item descriptions you'd know you need something from Artorias to travel to the Abyss. And you know he has a grave in Darkroot Garden. Personally for weapon upgrades, I think the somewhat limited quantity in DS1 suits it since most builds are set in stone. DS2 is much more open to customization, so the abundance of material is better for it. This is one of the points I wholeheartedly disagree with Mauler on, scarcity is totally opinion based and it would make even less sense in DS2 since you can reallocate stats. 21:40 This is also something I pointed out in his video, it makes sense when you understand the lore but you must admit on a first playthrough, it will look quite strange for hollows to sprint past you to start attacking a tree. I think it would have been better if they simply spawned there attacking it.
But he played DS1 before where the Snake People in the Duke's Archive also sprint past you, so enemies following scripted events to run past you shouldn't have ended up in his video.
@@Domo3000 I don't disagree with the idea , I just think the snake people running away from the Pisaca coming up the stairs makes a little more visual sense than the hollow soldiers. In either case though, he is wrong about it not being intended.
@@kioken101i mean tbh i would argue that its the point. Enemys completely ignore you and go straight for a tree and attack it you would go "thats weird" then later when you get told about the giants and that you have to go through there memorys you have a "Oh thats why they were so interested in the trees and not me" moment, it makes thematic sense and its also setting up for the player to make that connection later, it happens more than once as well.
For the boss music part, I noticed in your examples that for all the bosses in DS1 there is a very distinct 'boss killed' sound effect that plays when the music cuts out (minus Gwyn, where it plays during the death animation). In DS2, the sound isn't there in the clips shown, so the cut seems a lot more abrupt.
Don't tell him about Snake people running past you in Dukes Archives in DS1. He might think DS1 is actualy a shitty game.
What a crazy idea lol
I love how people ignore the fact that you can also upgrade armor in DS2. Its almost like you get an absolutely massive amount of materials for more than just your big sword.
And it's hella easy to farm slabs at those stone warriors in Drangleic Castle. You can literally max all weapons and armors in the game if you have the patience to do so. Cool, isn't it?
You can also upgrade armor in DS1. Good luck maxing out your armor in that game LOL
@@wolfy2469 Eh, just dupe glitch and you're good to go. It's not like the game isn't already broken from the purchase.
@@SuperKamiGuru-w4q dupe glitch or not it's still dumb
@@wolfy2469 Yeah, wasn't trying to justify it.
Fun fact, btw. Undead soldiers in Forest of fallen giants actually all looking up, like their neck been broken. They all died in the war, looking up on their enemies, because giants much higher than humans.
I like to believe they're starting at the Pursuer flying above 😊
Wow, really? There had to be the reason why they were like that. After knowing this game for so long, finding this out is like cherry on the top.
Do they still do that after you defeat Pursuer? I thought it was because he was flying around.
No, it's their default animation, as far as I remember.
Complaining about being locked out of a single optional key item for killing an NPC is driving me fucking insane. This is literally somethig that you can do in every fromsoft game with killable NPCs ever fucking made like these are the consequences of your actions man. I don't get it.
It shows the irony of souls "veterans" who love to praise how non hand holding the games are, yet being pissed when their actions get consequences
+ the fact that you can get the reward even after killing him. You know... the mechanic that many DS vet tard don't like because it's so forgiving
@@YEY0806 I think you are missing what MauLer is actually doing here: He is MALICIOUS, he is deliberately trying to make arguments against the game and is deliberately trying to portray it in a bad light.
This is why a lot of his complaints seem so strange and ridiculous, like "Well the music cuts off abruptly when i kill a boss!!!!" or "If go in to this area BACKWARDS, the enemies don't react properly", it's all scraping the barrel for complaints, like if you are a propagandist for the losing side in a war, so you have to make ridiculous stuff up to appease your citizens.
@@YEY0806 please, do not put us on the same sack as him, i implore you
@jorge4572 of course, it's just that I notice that whenever a TH-camr calls themselves a souls "veterans", 9/10 they don't know what the fuck they are talking about
ThEy DrOp TiTaNiTe SlAbS? ThIs GaMe.
Yeah I don't get the complaint either, low drop rates are a pain in any game. There's also like a hundred weapons, you want more drops!
@@NobleAbsintheno you see it's very simple, logical and objectively true that if the other Souls games require you to farm for hours that's good game design, but if DS2 respects your time and makes it easier to farm them that's bad game design because DS2 bad.
@@Domo3000 lol just goes to show this whole response was just the inverse of Hbombs video. Tbh neither video represents ds2 well.
But anyway ,like one of my favorite series is Monster Hunter and I deal with there 2% drop rate shenanigans. It does hit a dopamine rush when you FINALLY GET IT. I mean I wouldn't mind always getting the drops either though.
The dopamine hit isn't there for DS.it's just killing the same mob and doing the exact same experience. So I was really confused on why they were acting as if getting a rare drop was bad. Like I'm trying to imagine a devils advocate argument but it's really silly lol.
@Domo3000 Seriously, Bloodborne was so stupid in its design to make materials so fucking rare, like you have all these cool weapons, most that can only be gotten at the endgame, yet I must stick with the same early game weapons that I don't like and waste upgrades on? Also it sucks extra balls that you must get a PS+ subscription so you can use the player made chalice Dungeons to get late game weapons and good blood gems earlier.
@@Domo3000 iirc he also complained that DS2 has more levels and more tit slabs allowing greater build variety, because in his opinion, DS1, a game where you are basically locked into 1 buiild the whole game, is "better designed"
you heard it from mauler everyone, RPG having variety bad
Trying to frame ds2's generous amount of upgrade materials as a *negative* is actually insane to me
"Why yes, I would like to have a smaller, weaker less varied arsenal. That is what I want please!"
MauLer when he has to make a choice which weapon to upgrade: that's objectively good, because Souls games should let you make mistakes
MauLer when he has to make a choice which Petrified Statue to unpetrify: that's objectively bad, because Souls games should not punish your mistakes
@@Domo3000 Also on the topic of upgrade materials, I really like how in ds2's Dragon Aerie, an endgame area, you have an optional side path that's challenging but ultimately fair (and pretty straightforward once you figure it out) that rewards you with all kinds of upgrade materials, some infusion stones, as well as a respawnable bonfire ascetic.
It's around 6-7 chunks, twinklings and dragon bones *each* PLUS a slab per run. No RNG, just learning the area (aka getting good) and traversing a progressively numerically harder version of the same area. It's still grinding, but it's such an objectively better way of handling material grinding than DS1's method that I struggle to complain; at one point I even started to enjoy the dragon aerie go-around.
To me it feels like the devs acknowledging that yes, getting to upgrade the cool weapons is cool and you should be rewarded for getting to endgame and exploring side areas.
The baffling thing too is that having slabs means nothing if you don't have the other types of titanite first. The game progression still exists, and it is even better than DS1. In the first game, I can without any exploits get my weapon up to +5 within the undead burg AND also have all the large titanite needed to go at +10. The only thing that stops me, which I personally find more frustrating, is the large ember that prevents me from upgrading my normal sword.
@larrywalker1371 "You see. Dark souls 1 being shitty is actually deepest lore. I swear."
Dark souls X haters while beeing a Dark Souls Y lover are something else. I once saw a negative review about DS3 saying that the runs to bosses were too short (and so easy) while complaining the bosses are too fast and that the lack of lifegems (so having limited heal) make them too hard
Dude you want something easy or something hard ???
Or Elden Ring haters saying that it's not like Dark Souls you don't have a clear objective and all. Yeah because link/do not link the fire is clearly better than becoming Elden lord
LMAO THE COMPLAINING ABOUT UPGRADE MATERIALS I CANT
Also who just goes around killing NPCs and then complains about being locked out of questlines? "I played a lot of DS1 and DS3" if that was the case then you would know not to attack random npcs that dont aggro on you.
Mauler: But you see DS2 is bad, so it's bad
People loving Fromsoft game X while hating Fromsoft game Y are some of the stupidest person that exist.
DS2 runs to bosses are too hard + lifegems make the bosses to easy ---> DS3 runs to bosses are too easy + the boss attack so much it's so hard with limited heals
OK bro what do you want ???
"Elden Ring open world is bad because you can go to high level area early"
Yeah because in DS1 you cannot go to the catacombs and New Londo right from the start ! And even Blightown if you have the right key.
And in DS2 you can directly go into 2 different areas and if you progress just a little bit in them you can go to 3 other areas from Majula
You just want to play DS3 or what ?
@@IronChief13 I mean ds3 is the one that started the trend of AOE + Combo spammy bosses with the likes of friede phase 3, dancer phase 2, pontiff, champ gundyr phase 2, etc. They are especially bad to fight with a UGS. Thats not entirely the case with the likes of twin demons or nameless king or even gael to an extent (though his phase 3 is a bit annoying). ER just carries that boss + AOE spam to new levels in its base game and cranks it up even more in the DLC. If fromsoft wants to make devil may cry then make the player match their speeds too.
Life gems in ds3 would help given if you want to play as a proper mage you will have to sacrifice estus flasks for ashen flasks.
The ER open world being quite liberating in progression means for most bosses you'll either be overleveled or underleveled just by regular exploration. I mean a player going to all the dungeons, caves, etc. will be pretty overleveled for a lot of bosses meaning it'll just feel too easy. There's no middle ground really. The souls games had this issue too (well, ds3 solved it by being linear) but it was not as prevalent in ds1 and ds2 sotfs.
How in the fuck is missing an important but not required item (save for just one) even a DS2-exclusive complaint, or a SotFS complaint?
Guess i can complain to him now how i can't get Soul Spear DS1 since i accidentally killed Big Hat Logan.
Yeah i never got why people thought the music cut-off was solely DS2 either.
But i guess it's funny in DS2 because...B-team?
It's not like in ds3 you can't lose access to half the standard weapons just because you miss an npc or 2.
The death animation finishes playing before the music cuts out in the other games, but still… what a non-issue.
In DS1 the music cuts but gets overridden by the text prompt that says you defeated the boss, DS2 does it right when you nail the final blow. It's just a timing difference, and I like DS2's approach more, but ultimately it's a subjective thing that nobody should put in a critique. Oh wait, it's a defense.
...how does one kill big hat by accident?
@@stevenseagull4990 by killing Seath before buying Logan's sorceries
MauLer just comes off as insatiable in his criticism. He derides the abundance of titanite slabs because they rob the player of meaningful choice, but he complains about the petrified statues because…they give the player meaningful choice?
If my life depended on MauLer being consistent in his DS2 critique, I’d be sad because I’d miss my family and I’d miss watching Domo’s videos.
He really killed the npc and blamed the game for missing the quest, I don't know how anyone falls for his crap
He just sounds confident enough about what he's saying, so people just... accept it. If there's one thing souls storytelling's taught me is that the human mind is a feeble thing.
@@Maurricent objectivity is convoluted
@@Maurricentbasically it all comes down to how close you sound to Vatti, the closer it is, the more gullible people are because "no way the sexy voice can be wrong"
I mean people also think he is not a right wing anti-woke movie critic so beats me
Because he's not? He interacts regularly with very left wing people like Jay exci, one of the hosts (fringy) is a self described social liberal. When questioned on women's from "the right" they obfuscate all but denying that it even exists. For all his faults in criticism anyone trying to label him far left or far right is really only revealing they are the opposite.
So he and his friend has the information that the scorpion npc gives a fragrant branch but not the information that he needs to talk to him after killing Najka? Truly an inteligent being.
This is why I don't understand how anyone can take him seriously as a critic if they are anyway experienced with the subject he critiques about. It's so obvious his deliberately making shit up
Mauler can’t even complain about the correct upgrade material. Now where did I put that Titanite Chunk?
@Domo3000 I want to personally thank you for taking the time to make these videos. As someone who is a dedicated souls player, a lover of ds2 and an aspiring game designer, this series has been fantastic food for thought on the subjects of game mechanics, level design, encounter design, community perception etc.
Doing god's work out here, and I appreciate it!
It's honestly disgusting how much he covers his nonsense and bias with confidence and eloquent speech which apparently really makes it sound legit to many people.
Not getting that the soldiers are fighting the dead giants really goes to show everything you need to know. Maybe I can understand not getting it in a casual play through but if you're making a critique then you kind of have to pay attention. And if the wiki did exist (I don't know when the video came but I know I get to live in luxury with a full mostly correct wiki which I know didn't always exist) or if he had access to the internet to look these things up then its even worse.
He was playing Scholar and DS3 was already out. The game had been out for years at that point.
The fact that the name "Forest of Fallen Giants" refers to the dead giants that are turning into trees was already well documented on the internet as people already had more than a few days to play this game.
And honestly, even the biggest casuals would get curious and take a closer look at the tree to notice that it looks the same as the Last Giant.
The guys hitting the giant tree show you that the tree is special since it's gettin atention from the npcs, even if you don't use lore you can see they are useful for guiding new players to interact with the trees and seeing they got some use (to acess the memories). Always thought this was the main reason for having them.
honestly I think most ppl googled the four kings shit. I did too. The game REALLY does not tell u a goddamn thing
Technically you could remember that this hole is the Abyss and make the connection if you happened to read the description. Technically - not realistically.
On the other hand, you could also assume that this is just a Souls game pulling one of their unfair tricks on you by locking you into a room where the only way out is death.
The 4 Kings came as late as possible because I just couldn't figure out what to do there
Ingward (with whom the player is required to interact) explains you require the power of Artorias to traverse the Abyss
I had a "friend" tell me what to do as I was in that area (annoying). It's annoying because I think I would have figured it out
I feel the same way about people who see you doing a blind run of a game, and after ONE boss death they start backseating. Someone did this with Wolnir, and Curse Rotted Greatwood instantly telling me what their weakness / gimmick is. Same with the hallway to Veldstat some dude instantly was like "dude just kill the skeletons ringing the bell under the stairs" instantly.
^Like fk off I would have figured all these things out myself and I don't care how long it would have taken
@@Domo3000i could have sworn dont you get a message like "the abyss consumes you" or something or is that a fever dream
For Manscorpion Tark thing, here is far more worst thing in DS III. If you want to join Moundmakers covenant you have to talk a spider cage npc but here is the problem, this npc is literally same model with hostile npcs in that same area. If you make him aggro the big cage guy that carry you to moundmakers covenant place, became hostile and not carries you. If you know Darksouls games you can repent your sin but if you killed that spider npc, nope you can't join moundmakers. There is a second way for that covenant, Sirris quest but here is another problem if you join Rosaria's finger you can't complate Sirris quest. That's litterally my first DS III experience. I attacked spider npc and killed it accidently and I joined Rosarias Finger. I simply did impossible to join two covenants. Now compare it with Manscorpion Tark, it is literally a unique npc unlike that damn spider npc from DS III and again it is stronger much harder than spider npc which aggroes two hits. I don't watch Maulers DS III review but did he talk about that?
He would probably commend the game for not "hand-holding" the player by giving obvious clues, even if it fucks you over for a whole playthrough, why? Because it isn't DS2, so it's fine
For the fingers, it's only if you have the covenant equipped, but i get it.
I made that mistake once. Never did again. Why did I play that game again...
Titanite slab complaint got me like "????????". Yeah, having upgrade mats is a fatal flaw of the game, jeez.
Man i need to replay dark souls 1. I missed that crazy lake area in my first playthrough a couple months ago. I also need to finish dark souls 2 lolol.
But about the video. I really appreciate the many upgrade materials and watching the guy rolling his eyes and scoffing about getting a slab from an enemy really pissed me off. I would be so ecstatic if that happened on Dark Souls 1 more often lol.
Ash Lake doesn't have any playable content and is super far from Firelink Shrine, don't go there without Lordvessel if you don't want to walk for an hour.
I like to pretend that this channel is hosted by cat from profile picture.
Whiskers, Defender of Drangleic
The most based cat
Rule 63 shaliqoir
You're right XD
Move over Lil Bub, we got the new cat celebrity
I bet it's Sweet Shalquoir
Bro your luck with Yorgh's ring deflecting the spells. 🗿
When I try that shit, the deflect is rarer than getting those shadows from the flexile sentry to drop something.
Edit: 21:05 Really dude? That guy doesn't appreciate Usain Bolt Hollow? Every single playthrough I race the lil' fella. Also, I go on an adventure with torch hollow from No-Man's Wharf and Undead Crypt because... why not? It's fun to have fun and company to do silly things when you are alone in the dark world of Dark Souls - it doesn't matter if it's an enemy.
FYI about the Flexile Sentry shadows, you can farm all of their stuff from any other shadow in the game, the ones in that arena are just the only ones that infinitely respawn naturally without needing to burn a bonfire ascetic or go into the Company of Champions. I farmed the entire armor set from the shadow below the secret bonfire outside of Mytha's fight pretty easily just by going in the CoC.
@@moonlight9493 Yeah I know. I like to farm the one in Lost Bastille since it's quite near the bonfire. Though... yeah, getting any drops from them is a pain.
Sorry Domo, I can't bring myself to finish this.
Mauler must be the worst ds2 detractor yet.
It's like the man woke up one day and decided to hate ds2, but he did not know why, so now he retroactively looks for the dumbest reasons to justify his hate.
Small preview for the next video: he complains that being able to teleport from the start is objectively bad, but says that it's okay in DS3 as it is a lot less linear than DS2.
@@Domo3000"lot less linear than DS2" 😂😂😂.
Mauler is certainly a verified clown. How can anyone believe him this much?
@@YEY0806 most of his fans are from after him dunking on the easy target of tlj. They then retroactively assume his prior takes and future ones must be good. As one of the people noticing him earlier (before I had an active account) he was always hit or miss.
I say this. I also wanted to kill Tark the scorpion man in the first playthrough, there's no way you're looking at that arena and that AWESOME enemy and not think that it kinda looks like a battle. But, first - he didn't attack. Second, when i attacked, he started saying something, wichw as "..." thing, therefore i concluded that it's an NPC and didn't kill him. Me. Not a game critic. But he couldn't understand MECHANICKS that are there to show you that you might make a wrong move, wich is good design for presenting it as a fight, but then giving all the hints that it isn't.
He could have stopped when he noticed that he did not aggro. He could have stopped when he noticed the Talk prompt.
He could have stopped after the first hit when he noticed that he still does not aggro. And he could have stopped when he saw him speak. And it seems like he didn't even know that you can get Absolution for your sins in Souls games.
But instead of admitting that he made a mistake he instead just blames the game.
@@Domo3000 It's because haters hate from the start, the hate is not born from them interracting with the object, so they pervert their experience as much as possible to solidify their delusion. This is human psyche, it's just some people admit it, some fight it and succeed, some stay the same and continue in wiched ways. All out lives is about getting out from undead asylum, lifting this curse off of us, and getting better. Some stay the same to the "title screen", even though they "win" and finish, they burn to ashes.
I need to play games less.
There is another thing that I find so annoying when he talks about the amount of Slabs he has at the end of the game. Yeah, he has 13 left, but at the same time, he doesn't seem to have a lot of titanite chunks despite only having leveled one weapon. Yes, you can later buy them, but only after a pretty late point in the game. Furthermore, you can also farm them, but when it just comes to "playing the game" it seems that DS2 keeps your weapon choice important as well.
A little tiny bit of defence.
The music does cut earlier in DS2, when the enemy has 0 hp, unlike in DS1 when the enemy is done with dying animation. This combined with the "Victory Achieved" sound is less noticeable.
TBH the cut in the exact Moment of the defeat sounds so good. The random cut After the death animation Is far worse
Not to mention he was complaining about the dropping materials from monsters that were ORIGINALLY in the DLCs. Where there are a slew of new weapons to try out. And to optimally try them out, you'd wanna get them to +10.
Also, just wanna say I appreciate the footage of screwing up certain things, like wiffing the rock lizards for mats. Gives a good laugh!
Why is having an abundance of slabs a bad thing? I like experimenting and trying stuff out and I always hated the limited aspect of upgrade materials, the amount of games where weapons are left at +9/24 because I don't wanna commit to using up a slab incase I don't like it. Especially if you want to respec mid run and need to upgrade a whole new set of material
As enjoyable as it was to watch a thorough dismantling of Mauler's "critique" of the game, the real genesis of DS2 slander is Matthewmatosis. His review of the game is, in retrospect, borderline laughable. That being said, I do think that the review is genuine and not just a thoroughly asspained hit-piece on someone he doesn't like., as is the case with Mauler here.
That being said, Dark Souls 2 is a fascinating game to me because its design language draws a lot from the very tail end of the ps2 and PSP era. One of the biggest common denominators amongst long time DS2 fans I've spoken to was experience playing Monster Hunter. People who had gotten onboarded to this style of combat through DS1 didn't understand the idea that devs could offer investment into defensive archetypes for players as a means to affect game balance. I think the very idea that you could be asked to spend part of your build economy on something akin to "Evade Distance" broke a lot of brains back in 2014.
Honestly my biggest issue with DS2 is that it doesn't go further with the customization (and by extension, all soulslikes). Monster Hunter (both classic & modern) is a great example of how you can have 'simple' combat that has variety thanks to all the weapon types, gem customization, and distinct boss monsters.
Though, I'll even add that just looking at it from a From Soft perspective... Armored Core also trumps souls with better customization too. Those games don't even have i-frames. Weapons & Legs all meaningfully change how you approach the game. A high speed evasion mobile suit & slow bulky tank can both work & play completely differently.
the number one reason why i nver played DS1 after the first time, is i have no clue how upgrading is really supposed to work. I also love how DS2 lest me experimant with so many different weapons in a single playtrough.
ds2 > ds1
Agreed on that one. DS1's weapon upgrade paths were overly complicated and not that rewarding compared to just using a special weapon. Definitely something they streamlined for a good reason.
Now try to follow a guide to the platinum trophy in that game and it's honestly aneurysm-inducing. (I'm still salty of having to beat that damn game like 3 times)
@@matheusmillion Most From Soft games require ~3 runs to get the platinum trophy. In Dark Souls 1, because you need 3 souls of Sif. In Dark Souls 2, you need to get to Wellager and buy the spells that you would only get as a reward in certain covenants. In Bloodborne you need to get the three different endings (Luckily, it can be done in different characters). In Sekiro, you need to farm enough XP to max out the skill tree. In AC6, you need 3 playthroughs to get to the third ending
Look, it's really simple
You can use regular materials to upgrade at any smith to +5. This includes unique weapons, which use a different type of upgrade material, and boss weapons (once you have them) which also have a special boss weapon upgrade material.
then you can either look for a special key item and give to the divine smith or :
use the basic magic material to make a faith scaling weapon at the divine smith, an intelligence scaling weapon at the magic smith and a fire elemental weapon at the fire smith, who is hidden in the catacombs, from where you can't easily go back if you don't have the lordvessel, at which point maybe you don't even want a fire weapon any more since it trades ALL stat scaling for additional fire damage. Keep in mind that while Magic and Fire are available from the get go, you need a special key item in order to unlock Divine upgrades at the Divine smith
you can upgrade weapons normally at the bonfire (if you have the smithbox) or at any smith until you reach the maximum level. "Ascending" the weapons to the next tier (i.e: a +5 into a +6 or a Fire or Divine etc..) requires you to go to the specific blacksmith which handles THAT specific upgrade path and may require that you find and give them a specific key item (an ember) that is used to unlock upgrade paths. These are specific to each upgrade path
If you do get the special key item for regular upgrades, you can either go to +10 or a "raw" up to +5 with the intermediate upgrade materials. Raw weapons gain base damage but lose out on scaling. These are both done with the divine smith
If your weapon is maxed out again, at any of these paths here are your new options for the ultimate weapon!!!:
If this is a regular weapon, you can look for another key item to unlock high tier regular upgrades at the divine smith OR there is actually a fourth, godly blacksmith! This smith can make your weapons into Lightning weapons (which again lose all stat scaling for extra elemental damage) or use boss souls in order to turn them into the special "boss weapons". Additionally, there is also yet another key item that unlocks "crystal" upgrades, which make your weapon extra strong but unrepairable. Again at the godly blacksmith. Lightning, Crystal and regular will use the high tier normal materials. Boss weapon use the special boss weapon upgrade material as mentioned. Regular tops at +15, Boss, Lightning and Crystal at +5 (they have like 10 "hidden" weapon levels)
If your weapon was Magic, scaling with intelligence, you need to give the Magic Blacksmith one of two special key items. One will allow them to be an advanced magical weapon, which goes to +10 while the other one unlocks the "Enchanted" upgrade path, which is the same idea but trades out some base damage and physical scaling for an even stronger focus on intelligence scaling for magic. These both use the "special magic upgrade" material and go to +10 magic or +5 enchanted
If, instead, your weapon was Fire, you once again have two choices. One new key item unlocks advanced fire upgrades, up to +10 and another, different key item, unlocks upgrades to
Chaos, which is similar to Fire but trades some base damage for a hidden scaling on both the physical and the fire damage that grows with the amount of humanity you are carrying (i.e: the little number on the top left of the HUD). Chaos will then grow up to +5. Both of these need to be ascended at the Fire blacksmith and will require the special fire upgrade material
And finally, if you have a Divine weapon, that scales with faith, you have two new options at the divine blacksmith, each once again requiring a different key item to unlock. These are a bit different in that they both have similar damage and scaling but they have different special semi-hidden bonuses. Divine weapons (such as the one you would be ascending) deal extra damage to some enemies, such as skeletons, as well as prevent them from being resurrected by necromancers. Occult weapons, on the other hand, trade that for extra damage to "god" type enemies, such as Gwyn and Gwyndolin. But these both deal additional magic damage that scales with Faith. Divine will go up to +10 and Occult up to +5 and they, once more, use the special faith upgrade material.
And there you have it, now you have a maxed out weapon (provided you visited the correct blacksmiths, gave them the specific ember and found the specific slab you needed (unless it was a unique or boss weapon) of your choice, suited to the build you're making, you're ready to take on even the biggest challenges of this game!
I don't get what people find so confusing about going to one of four blacksmiths, farming for one of 7 different types of upgrade materials and making sure you collect and assign the measly 10 embers to get your weapon. It's pretty straightforward
8:22 "The easiest to farm are dragon scales." Instantly has bad cramp and dies.
To be fair, sometimes cramps are like that. It's one of the reasons DS1 is better than DS2- it's not possible to for people connect with their player character if they don't suffer from random deadly charley horses. You need that shared potassium-deficient experience.
Seriously though... In hindsight, seeing that insta-death can just _happen_ when you are moving down a slope makes me feel a bit better about some of my confusing DS1 deaths. I felt stupid for not seeing some "trap" or "projectile" when I was just running around and my character's ankles would snap.
@@Nyanx4 For sure. Some of the worst slope kill spots are near the Anor Londor Dragon Archers.
Hypocrisy is the second name for almost every critic of the second game.
Not really. People who criticize ds2 don't say the other games are perfect. They know they all have flaws. It's just that ds2 has more than the other games and usually to a worse extent.
It's ds2 fans that usually refuse to criticize any aspect of ds2 or even admit that there's anything wrong with it.
@@loubloom1941 not really, its that when they say "it has more" we prove that the og/3 often have worse issues, and virtually none of the ds2 issues are unique. Then the antis squeal whataboutism going full reddit buzzword.
lol, no. Everybody thinks that ds1 is masterpiece, but 50% it's just trash. Most overrated game in the series. Didn't like the game? Fine. Just don't make a criticism by comparing one piece of junk to more broken junk.
@@loubloom1941 Yeas, really. Everything you complaint about is present in the other games, and... THAT is what you complain about, not "ds2 has more than the other games", like what exactly are you blabbering about this time, if this wasn't even mentioned? All what you "state" gets refuted, and then you blabber about BS like your comment is, admit it, you're hater.
@@loubloom1941 I don't think I've ever seen a DS2 enjoyer who actually thinks the game is flawless. The problem is that we are put on the defensive by nonstop attacks, many of which are literally not true / just dumb (points like those addressed in this video). Why would you expect DS2 fans to go around openly criticizing their own game, when every time DS2 is brought up it's attacked as being an awful game?
“As it is easier to farm twinkling titanite”
Gets munched on by a crystal clam mid sentence😂
Complaining about having 13 slabs is so funny, you don't want to have like 10 maxed items in a game that has 250 weapons and 120 sets?
Damn you're STILL grinding this guy down? He's going to be nothing but silky dust.
Out-longmanning the longman
He's not doing a very good job grinding anything down. This response to mauler is awful.
@@loubloom1941 how is it awful?
@@akashthadani22Awful for mauler
@@loubloom1941 I mean he's providing a counter-argument with facts to back it up to each each of mauler's claim... I think he's doing much more than a great job proving mauler is an absolute dumbass that doesn't know what he's talking about lol
how many hours of mauler's ds2 vids have you covered already?
There is still so much bs
Hard to tell. He often spends so much time repeating the same point over and over until his fanbase thinks that it must be true.
@@Domo3000No trust me bro he said it's objectively bad. No one would ever spread misinformation on the internet, I'm sure of it!
Also: The stray demon titanite slap can despawn if you don't pick it up.
It happened to more than one person that a double ko just vanished a player's slab.
Another point on DS1 upgrades:
You needed different colors of titinite for each weapon type (Divine, Magic, Fire, etc.) AND needed a slab for each. You only got one slab per path without the DLC, and each was located in late game areas locked behind having the Lordvessel. You needed two if you wanted multiple ascended weapons of the similar types (Magic and Enchated, for example) which you couldn't without get (without meticulous farming) until NG+ or until the DLC.
Oh, except for Red of course, but for that you needed to trade an ascended pyromancy Flame with snuggly, of which you only get one semi-guaranteed unless you started as a pyromancer or got the egg head and spoke to Eingyi. Every step in this process is behind easily missable content, of course.
Contrarily, getting a max standard weapon is easily obtainable within the first couple of hours or so (by an experienced player), and is only locked behind one early boss and one easy optional boss. Three if you don't want to farm.
People argue by stating that getting the max ascension was to be a monstrous task in DS1, but it holds no water when you consider how relatively easy it was to ascend Twinkling and Boss weapons.
This isn't to say I don't like the DS1 system. On the contrary, I prefer it. But it goes to show that DS2 had a different philosophy when it came to gear, in that they wanted players to have a toolkit of sorts to experiment with multiple different weapons and gear, as opposed to sticking to one main weapon. It was also great for new players, as the full standard upgrade path in DS1 would have been nigh inachievable for a new player without a guide.
Isnt “missable questlines” like part of what makes dark souls as a franchise really cool what was that brit talking abt
You are a true hero
gee i hate being able to upgrade more weapons!
DS1 is my favorite souls but yeah, i agree with your take on mauler criticism which is unfair for DS2. especially with all of the evidence and comparation that you presented, kudos sir !
19:28 the most "it has wings, use it" moment in video game history is in Horizon. There is a crocodile mech that cannot go in the water. You know that crocodiles didn’t evolved in MILLIONS of years just because they're so good at what they do ? And it's to be in the water !
I'm really enjoying these videos, I always liked DS2, but hardly anyone I've seen plays it, and everyone always trashes it.
This series is actually teaching me a lot about the game and it's so freaking interesting to see just how intricate and detailed this game is.
it's because a lot of people are told to steer clear of it
When people said "souls community is the worst gaming community ever" you better trust them.
Farming for upgrade materials is my least favorite thing in any video game. Complaining about a game not making you grind (either for the materials themselves or currency to purchase them) is truly TRULY mind boggling. 😂
I never understood rhe hate for dark souls 2, but I only played the SOTFS version. I still like Dark Souls 1 more, but I like more than 3.
His criticisms are so dumb that I genuinely think if miyazaki had put his name on ds2 from the start, it would've been received much better because they all make largely the same mistakes.
Its because of his crap ''review'' of the game that fromsoft never learnt a thing from ds2 sotfs and that ultimately made ds3 and ER worse games. No hardmode, no rewarding challenge runs, no NG+ changes, far fewer ways of tackling a bossfight regardless of build, fewer bossfight variety (not boss variety per se), worse colossal weapons, no animation cancel, no backstep s, etc.
"They drop titanite slabs??? This fucking game"
It's a tough enemy in a late game area that you encounter right before finishing the area... what do you expect? 😂
No you see, DS1 making them hard to find and frustrating to farm that's good game design.
DS2 improving the player experience by making it easier to fully upgrade both weapons you want to powerstance, all the armor you want to upgrade and all the weapons you want to experiment with is just objectively bad game design.
So people will blindly trust a person with sexy voices even if they spilled many misinformation. Got it.
As a female myself, it is not surprising at all.
Seem this happen before I assume?
I just started playing sotfs a month ago and i have tbh, its my favorite out of the souls series, yes it may be jank but in my opinion the jank makes it kind og engaging also the bonfire ascetics and how things change in NG+ is a really cool feature i wish stuck around
Imagine complaining about getting too many slabs lol. Bro I love it that I can actually push many of my fav weapons to max. This has always been one of my biggest complaints of the newer souls games, that I have to play many ng+ runs just to upgrade more weapons.
The Covenant of Artorias ring's description says
"It's wearer, like Artorias himself, can traverse the Abyss."
How is that not clear?
M question was how many people figured this out on their own. I guess most people that discovered the ring never read that description or made the connection.
@@Domo3000 Ingward also straight up tells you, that you won't be able to enter the Abyss unless you look for Artorias and learn from his ways. This whole thing is a really bad example on cryptic or unexplaned items.
Well, in my first attempt to switch and die while fighting to four Kings. Was a nice try xD
How is having a lot of upgrade materials bad? It’s better than having to grind the dark wraiths
It's because DS2 bad. That seems to be the main logic throughout his video.
I used to think like that when I first played the game. I tried forcing myself to like it and looked at all the bad parts. After beating the game, I don’t know over like 15 times I like the game. My most favorite part about it is the weapons because how fun they are to use.
to craft the most challenging souls game you have to convince everyone that it's not worth playing@@jackismemeish
keep them coming bro, amazing work
Seriously about those statues. How many of them are essential to dispell to complete the game? There are 17 statues in the whole game and they only in base game areas, not in DLCs. There are 4 statues that block your way and their purpose is making you go extra minute around them or blocking side quest objective (Troll in Aldia's keep, two lion warriors in forest with cursed jars (also if you dispelled one of them then you don't have to do it for the second since they block the same room from two sides), and hollow on the rope bridge in dragons nest). And there are two practically worthless statues' in Aldia's keep near giant basilisk. It's already 6.
The one in the Lost bastille that block your way for ruin sentinels? You can go around them to lost sinner if you pick your path through heide tower.
Others are placed in the path of something either irrelevant like trans-coffin, or in front of the loot that you can easily skip and even find similar things later on. And one is keeping key to Orniphex if you want boss weapons.
So in my memory there is only one statue that you need to take off to complete the game - pyromant girl near Majula, because there is no other way you can go to Vendrick's castle or to Freya or Aldia's keep.
One npc is essential and there is 12 branches that you can get without specific activities and 4 to buy from merchants and 1 from quest. Is it really that bad after all?
It's like you said. Only Rosbeth is necessary, and it's impossible to lock yourself out of unpetrifying her.
So he's acting as if is objectively bad to have some optional items, a boss and small areas to unlock. You know, as if adding more experimentation to the exploration and rewarding players in NG+ for remembering which ones they want to unpetrify for their build is somehow objectively bad.
I'm 100% sure that if that system had been in place in DS1 but was removed in DS2 he would complain that it's gone.
Some of HBomberguy's DS2 takes are a bit strange, but its clear at this point that nearly all nine hours of Mauler's response video could have been summed up with "I didn't enjoy myself as much as with the first Dark Souls." I have enjoyed this series, and very much look forward to Mauler's several dozen responses.
For HBomber my bullshit meter is never exploding as he constantly says "in my opinion" or "I personally think"
MauLer on the other hand presents his own personal feelings as objective facts to debunk the personal feelings of HBomber, which is just making my bullshit meter explode.
@@Domo3000Sounds about right. Hbomber's Fallout 3 video, on the other hand... oh boy. He barely acknowledges that the series went through both a studio and genre change and judges it by classic crpg standards. At least as far as video games go, he was much better at covering things he likes.
Many a True Nerd has a great response, "Fallout 3 was better than you think," which, unlike Mauler's response to Harris, is a good-faith and constructive video.
@@andrewjmichael as an hbomberguy fan even he admits thats one of his worst videos, im pretty sure he even said that he would take it down if that dident seem like him "trying to act like it dident happen" which is fair because i can see people saying that. But his ds2 video is pretty much on point (besides the couple of bad taste jabs IMO) and he makes a good argument for alot of things. Heck alot of the times i see people critising him on it, its mostly taken from maulers video and highly misrepresented. Like how alot of people think that hbomberguy said that backtracking was better in ds2, when he acctualy said its better that they did not account for it, because it ment they could make tighter encounters apporched from 1-2 angles not 6.
@@ZombieKitty321 HBomber was one of my first subs back in the day, and I really like a lot of his videos still, but the Fallout 3 review made me skip on everything he did video game-related thereafter. I was one of the masochists who watched Mauler's entire 9 hour DS2 'response' when it first came out, because at that point I was still in the "let's hear Mauler out" phase. Its clear now that while Harris has grown and matured as a critic in the years since, Mauler has just doubled down on his 'objectivity' nonsense. Shame it took so many years for a hero like Domo3000 to step up and meticulously debunk his BS.
Siegmeyer's quest line was one of the most interesting quest lines in all ds but it's a shame it's too easy to miss, same as lucatiel's
always know its a good day when the goat uploads
That part about soldiers focusing on the giants instead of the player is something i feel is missing from elden ring
There's a spot where a bunch of soldiers are fighting a dragon and they will still try to kill you even when their friends are getting their heads caved in
Yeah, that fight in the DLC was a little silly. You basically have to wait until all the soldiers are dead each attempt if you don't wanna get combo'd while fighting the dragon.
I'll say this about the slab, with DS 2's open nature and the fact you can tackle stuff basically in any order, it can happen often to get a few slabs way before getting close to enough chunks, meanwhile in DS1 (if we ignore the DLC) all slabs feel very aptly placed and deliberate, normal slabs are in two very specific spots, colored slabs are all in a relevant area lorewise for them to be there. What I'm getting at is the slab is the ultimate exploration reward, the game doesn't even require you to get a max upgrade weapon to finish it, thus they felt pretty special. In DS2 it's way more convenient but... Way less special. On that note pointing out the demon and twinkling titanite argument is very relevant, and shows the deliberate lack of care in Mauler's argument since fully upgrading a weapon for any special weapon was always pretty damn easy even in DS1.
Anyway I'm thoroughly enjoying these debunkings, it's refreshing to see the raw data for what it is.
guys let's be honest, ds2 > ds1 > ds3
Real
For me personally it's ds2 > ds3 > ds1 but I can definetly understand liking 1 more than 3
Nahhh. Ds3>Ds2>Ds1. The combat consistently got better with every game, although there is definitely an argument for Dark Souls 2's quirky combat at movement
@@masterduelzero1795 DS2 has more variety than 3, but DS3 has weapon Arts. Both are good in their own way, but I like the variety more.
Yall are crazy for thinking ds2 is the best of the 3
Complaining about the over abundance of upgrade materials is completely moronic and ignorant of all the other games.
In what world is having too many upgrade materials a bad thing? A huge complaint I have with all the other souls games is how they limit upgrade materials for seemingly no reason. Ds2 fixing this in many ways (such as the bell keepers covenant giving upgrade materials when you defeat a tresspasser and making slabs farmable) actively improved upon a nonsensical and dumb system.
I mean even now in elden ring they haven't solved this issue, smithing stones are all buyable, but not slabs.
Complaints like Mauler's just exemplify how video essayers will simply make up artifical arguements and points to intentionally bloat their weak narratives.
Seriously, Bloodborne would be such a better game if there was more than ONE blood rock, being able to respec my stats if I want to do a different build without having to start the whole game again. Not needing shitty PS+ subscription to find the player created chalice Dungeons that allow you to get early late game weapons and good gems
@@YEY0806 Actually there are 2 blood rocks in base game one is in late game location other one you can buy from messengers for 60 insight and third one is in DLC but i agree with you about needing subscription to be able to get some late game weapons early is stupid not to mention second blood rock is gated behind a patch you have to download even in game of the year edition so that would leave you with 2 blood rocks(1 without DLC)
There are also 1 or 2 blood rocks in chalice dungeons but they are in more difficult dungeons so that means griding boring content in order to get to late game dungeons which is not worth doing in my opinion.
@@zouken7880 it just seems like damage control on Fromsoft to give reasons for exploring their mostly shitty Dungeons with reused bosses that would make DS2 blush
While I'm not happy about max upgrade materials still being limited in Elden Ring, the fact that normal weapons upgrade to +25 in that game makes not being able to max everything way less of an issue for me, since you only lose out on 1/25th of your weapon's power increase, rather than 1/10th. The special weapons, on the other hand, still have that issue.
Love you intentionally using disjointed hitboxes in DS1 as an addendum to the previous video lol.
1. Upgrade materials: How much scarcity/abundance of upgrade materials is ideal is a matter of preference. All about how much you value making a meaningful choice in what weapons you upgrade vs the ability to experiment and switch around what you use. Also, the main reason why ds1 makes it easier to fully upgrade special weapons is because they don't have a super rare upgrade material tied to the final upgrade tier, like the slabs for the regular weapons. This assumed prestige likely adds to why their commonality in ds2 would be seen as bad. Tho any indepth analysis of the upgrade system is beyond the scope of this comment
2.I did not know the ds boss music cuts off like that
3.I genuinely thought I had more to say
I always liked it how the music cuts off when you defeat the boss. It always added this "OOFFF" moment to the victory, like you execute not only the boss, but his whole existence, his theme.
Minor correction: i believe if you kill every single crystal lizard in the great hollow (10 if memory serves me right) the last one will always give you a titanite slab.
I happened to get really lucky in my playthrough and got a slab from the darkwraiths minutes after getting the last chunks i needed to finish upgrading my composite bow to +15 lol. That entire playthrough i got really good drop luck though so it was quite the anomaly.
Thanks for the video! Havent played ds2 but it looks neat. Powerstancing sounds great!
Another note about the siegmeyer questline: it’s possible for him to get poisoned and die in the izalith section, so not only do you have to do the fight as quickly as possible to avoid him dying, but you also might have to skip all his dialogue, and then IMMEDIATELY either quit/reload or use a homeward bone. I’m not a huge fan of the more lengthy npc quests in ds2, as they require you to bring weak summons into tough fights with tough runbacks, but the quests in ds1 had some next level shitty moments.
The point Mauler makes about Titanite Slabs really bothers me. So, in a game with a lot more weapon variety than the first, with the option to respec your character a few times if you ever want to change your build, or even just try out a new weapon on the same build, having more slabs so you can max out more weapons is a.....bad thing?
The worst part is that the fragant branch is so easy to get later on lmfao
to finish the game u need ONLY 1 branch of yore, i don't get why ppl go crazy and sh1t on that item lmao
Tbf tho in Ds1 there were at least other kinds of titanite slabs so you could max multiple weapons in NG you'd just have to take a different upgrade path + there were way less weapons in Ds1 so of course they had to change this upgrade system for ds2 and it's good to see how the series developed I like all the games cause they all have quirks and strengths
Nothing is more frustrating in these games than being at endgame and having so many weapons you want to upgrade for different builds and not having enough slabs/ancient stones. I can't imagine how anyone could look at DS2 having an abundance of them as bad.
14:38 casually dodges in the coolest way known to man and wolf
I honestly like having max level upgrade materials being incredibly limited/outright permanently missable if you fail a questline. You *can* just finish the game without a max level weapon and I think having that be a super rare luxury not everybody will have is a great idea. (Can't deny that Dks1 sort of botches this by making unique weapons so easily upgradeable by comparison but I do think it's an interesting game design conversation; I'm in the niche of weirdos that thought it was rad when 1.0 Bloodborne only gave you a single blood rock in the entire game lmao)
That said I don't think Dks2 having materials be more readily available is inherently bad. For a game that has *so many* more weapons than the first, seemingly wants you to be playing with a larger arsenal with the extra equipment slots, *and* also lets you invest those precious materials into armor, it's not hard to see why they'd want to keep the amount of slabs proportional.
Bloodborne, to be fair, is a game with much less things to upgrade by a big margin. That said, all the weapons are so fun that only being able to upgrade one to max sounds like dookie.
@@goncalocarneiro3043despite MauLer claiming that Bloodborne only gives you one Blood Rock you actually do get 5 without farming if you include the DLC and Chalice Dungeons, and can get an unlimited amount from farming Depth 5 Chalice bosses
@@Domo3000 That's way more reasonable, nevermind that.
This series got me to play the Seeker of Fire mod for DS2 and ive been loving it using the zweihander and presuers greatsword powerstancing is so fun
14:39 DS2 Master Domo3000
Be dark souls 2, have some of the most interesting and unique weapons in the dark souls series, have critics say that you should only have 3 titinite slabs meaning you can’t play around with these weapons. Funny how this game that also has a fun variety of weapons, spells and armour is the first one which allows you to reorganise levels. A feature that’d skip Bloodborne and only return in DS3 and later games after that
As someone who only ranks Dark Souls II above Demon's Souls, I really don't understand how these people can make full-on documentaries with the most stupid takes imaginable.
It's like they just like to hear themselves talk, instead of understanding the things that are coming out of their mouths. Complaining about upgrade materials being too generous is absolutely hilarious. I loved saving that 1 titanite slab in DS1 all the way to the final boss because I was too worried I would use it on something I would've regretted.
I'm 99% sure it's "Movie Critic" syndrome. People who spend their lives ranting and hyperanalyzing every little thing (then proceeding to run away and ignore something if they face backlash-- MauLer's controversy with Avatar lol) tend to have overinflated egos and think they're somehow "more intelligent" or "superior" to other people and therefore think their opinion is objective fact. But in reality, as most people know, Movie Critics and Game Journalists tend to be the most obnoxious idiots possible lol
@@inexplicablepresence8274 He didn't ignore it too much, he made a shit video with the Literature Devil excusing away their shit takes.
Thank you for being a real one with defending this game, Dark Souls 2 is my fav out of the trilogy and people bashing it with unfair criticism is really annoying.
20:25 this is probably the funniest thing I've seen in souls
When you finish you need to compile everything into a hours long video. To keep the tradition.
21:37 .... He knows right?
what texture mod do you use for stuff like the catarina armour and grass crest shield, they seem extra shiny
Unmodded. I guess just max quality and/or higher brightness and other anti aliasing
@@Domo3000 wow really, im not remembering the game correctly then, thanks anyway
Ngl I dislike gravestones, they take away from the permeability of your actions
I don't think Mauler's even played DS1 or DS3 at this point.
Gotta admit, Mauler didn't seem this incompetent in the previous response videos, but it's really bad here.
statues and fragrant branches are no problem. you might worry about running out of the item, but you wont. same with lockstones. especially the random single times they show up.
I actually think the issue isn't hitboxes, but feedback. Hit feedback is better in the other games with enemies and the player model reacting stronger to hits, the way how poise works. People expect a certain thing and feel that the hit feedback doesn't give them good information.
I gotta say about the music cutoff in ds2 the bosses can't even have their death animation before the music stops in Ds1 they at least kinda had the music going for the death animation
These videos deserve so much more attention. So many people just accept Mauler’s take as fact simply because he claimed objectivity. He criticizes Hbomberguy for not thinking things through enough and then lies to his own audience by doing the same thing but *for longer*
Speaking of flying enemies, in Demon's Souls, gargoyles can fly and they even don't die from gravity. However, those flying gargoyles were extremely irritating, and From Software decided not to let flying enemies after Demon's Souls truly fly.
Who the hell complains that there are TOO MANY upgrade materials?!?!? They should all be available for unlimited purchase after you've cleared the game, at the very least!
Also: This problem with common weapons being really hard to upgrade in comparison to unique ones is one that is still very frustrating in Elden Ring, actually
19:32 Nice Gwyndolin armor
How many series will you make else?
Don't know yet. There's still several hours of complaints left to sift through
@@Domo3000 , ok, I'll watch it all with enjoying. Defending of DS 2 is hard and interesting mental gymnastics.
Wow you somehow made the mauler videos watchable
I came into this with a sceptical mindset, as I remember largely agreeing with and liking Mauler's videos on Ds2. But it seems I don't remember them well, because a lot of this stuff is actually bullshit. The same goes for hBomberguy though, his video on Ds2 was really not good (and the Bloodborne one where he says Shields are wrong is even worse), but that doesn't automatically make Mauler right.
I mean, I still don't like Ds2, that probably won't change, but Mauler is still spewing a lot of shit here
Man. I wish this response had phoenix wright music all over it. Lol.
I always wondered why I was fine with DS2 and never really had a negative experience like Mauler did. Vids like these show why.
Shame this will be buried in obscurity because this channel ain't getting the views it deserves.
1:29 I mean I only have a sample size of two people from experience, but if you're paying any attention to the dialogue and reading item descriptions you'd know you need something from Artorias to travel to the Abyss. And you know he has a grave in Darkroot Garden.
Personally for weapon upgrades, I think the somewhat limited quantity in DS1 suits it since most builds are set in stone. DS2 is much more open to customization, so the abundance of material is better for it. This is one of the points I wholeheartedly disagree with Mauler on, scarcity is totally opinion based and it would make even less sense in DS2 since you can reallocate stats.
21:40 This is also something I pointed out in his video, it makes sense when you understand the lore but you must admit on a first playthrough, it will look quite strange for hollows to sprint past you to start attacking a tree. I think it would have been better if they simply spawned there attacking it.
But he played DS1 before where the Snake People in the Duke's Archive also sprint past you, so enemies following scripted events to run past you shouldn't have ended up in his video.
@@Domo3000 I don't disagree with the idea , I just think the snake people running away from the Pisaca coming up the stairs makes a little more visual sense than the hollow soldiers. In either case though, he is wrong about it not being intended.
@@kioken101i mean tbh i would argue that its the point. Enemys completely ignore you and go straight for a tree and attack it you would go "thats weird" then later when you get told about the giants and that you have to go through there memorys you have a "Oh thats why they were so interested in the trees and not me" moment, it makes thematic sense and its also setting up for the player to make that connection later, it happens more than once as well.
Man Looking Forward Domo and His Comment to EmberYT DS2 Play through
The ring could give something like ' half of the time'
For the ring.. well it's pretty strongly indicated. Tbh upgrading in ds1 was a pain
For the boss music part, I noticed in your examples that for all the bosses in DS1 there is a very distinct 'boss killed' sound effect that plays when the music cuts out (minus Gwyn, where it plays during the death animation). In DS2, the sound isn't there in the clips shown, so the cut seems a lot more abrupt.
Other players complaining about the branch of yore shortage while im on ps5 and can just use cloud saves