Support NeoGAF

[Philfrag]

Exactly dude ...to see a Souls fan so vehemently hating this game is strange. Almost as strange as the people who consider it the best in the series lol. It's got so much of the same DNA as the other games though so how can you hate it so much? I can definitely understand being disappointed by the controls and hit boxes tho. To me those are fundamental flaws but then again you can adapt. Speaking of adapt, Adp is really dumb.

I like it for its atmosphere mostly which is magical in its own way. Back in 2014 it was an awesome experience but after Sotfs and then ds3>bb>sekiro>elden ring it is hard not to see it as a tier below them.

Definitely. Its atmosphere is one of the best things about it. Its dream like and weird. It kind of feels like the Majoras Mask of the series. To be honest I've always played the souls games for their atmosphere first. The hitbox issue never bothered me too much though because its actually not too difficult. Not like the others (apart from a few moments in the DLC)

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

It's the best Souls game, especially the SotFS edition.

 

[Soleil rouge]

I also couldn't enjoy it and never finished it. The level design alone was so off putting compared to part 1. Makes it really hard to get into. Not to mention the lame enemies and BS hit boxes.

I got so bored and almost dropped the Souls series entirely after Sekiro. Luckily, Elden Ring brought me back in.

 

[JimmyRustler]

I think it was a solid game but the levels just looked like trash. Like an uprezzed PSone game. I was like…. What year is it?

 

[TheGodfather07]

I played it straight after playing the first and yeah, something just felt off. I put alot of hours in but never completed it.

 

[FairXchange]

I love it, all the dlc was amazing as well.

 

[FoxMcChief]

I liked it more than Bloodborne.

 

[Danjin44]

I liked it more than Bloodborne.

 

[semiconscious]

I think it was a solid game but the levels just looked like trash. Like an uprezzed PSone game. I was like…. What year is it?

i love it when people simply refuse to exaggerate...

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

What game are you referring to?

If I'm following right, when you upgrade agility you not only decrease lag but it becomes a wider i-frame window? What am I missing? Other than starting off probably feeling underpowered, seems like it'd be a lot of fun to become a dodge-God in two different ways at once (decreased lag & wider window)

What you're missing is lag on rolling should be zero from the start like in the good souls games

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Yea DS2 is pretty rough. I've only played the SoTFS version but man does it feel cheap. Too many enemy ambushes, completely forgettable bosses (and too many). It's just meh compared to FROMs other work.

Never understood how ER ad DS2 are the highest souls games, at least per metacritic, when they are by far the worst games in the series.

DS2 and ER scored the highest on metacritc? I never knew that.

 

[Vindicator]

It's pretty annoying sometimes, especially enemies stunlocking the shit out of you, but then I return to Majula and the music starts...

 

[SCB3]

Nobody mentioned hollowing yet?
It’s an objectively broken mechanic in the game, losing max hp without finding and wearing a specific ring is bs.

I’m glad that never continued, otherwise I would have dropped the series.

Believe it or not thats how Dark Souls was originally intended to be, every time you died you lost 1/8th of your HP and needed to find a item to fix it, it was removed a few months before the game came out as playtesters (and journalists) found it too punishing

 

[Quezacolt]

The worst game in the series and the only one i have no intention of replaying.
The hitboxes, the ADP bs, bad bosses, worse level design, awful looking areas (with some exceptions, like majula and dragon aeriee), enemy gank squads, floaty controls, and the list goes on and on. And some of those issues actually became worse with SotFS

How anyone can say this is the best souls game, i have no idea.

It has the best pvp and ng+, i'll give it that, but thats the only thing it does better than the rest.

 

[MagnesD3]

I love it, all the dlc was amazing as well.

Yeah Dlc was excellent.

The Sinh fight is probably one of my favorite fights in the whole series,

 

[HYDE]

insulting ds2 and oblivion?

sir, i say good day.

Tack on any other Bethesda jank and add me to the good day pile…all that shit sucks!

 

[HYDE]

Yeah Dlc was excellent.

The Sinh fight is probably one of my favorite fights in the whole series,

Aava fight was such janky trash to counter any other good fight. An unbalanced B team mess.

 

[Bernardougf]

Yeah .. would still play dark souls 2 before playing ER again

 

[Yoshichan]

you need to shut up

it's far and beyond better than that indie-intern game Dark Souls "1"

 

[HYDE]

It's the best Souls game, especially the SotFS edition.

That actually made the game worse. The PS3 edition with added DLC was barely ok. SotFS destroyed anything the original did decently. Best Souls… haha ok dude.

 

[DeathGuise]

Never forget:

Never fucking forget. God that pissed me off. And everyone was telling me "Lul souls games aren't about the graphics!"

Which is not the fucking point. The point is
1) They lied.
2) The gameplay was TIED TO THE LIGHTING. That's one of the reasons why the game was so bad. Their lighting engine was nuked so they compensated by just tripling the amount of enemies.

Almost as infuriating as the downgrade was people just not recognizing the severity and impact of the downgrade.

 

[HYDE]

I played it straight after playing the first and yeah, something just felt off. I put alot of hours in but never completed it.

This answers why.

Agreed. I don’t even count it as the same as the other Miyazaki games

All of Miyazaki’s game have a certain feel and control. I played it after playing Demons Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, DS3 etc. And it took about 7 seconds to realise this isn’t a Miyazaki game. The roll feels completely different and the art style etc. Even Sekiro had the same feeling and controls in some ways, animations etc.

Good game still but not in the same league as Miyazaki directing it. You can tell the differences

Dark Souls III was the true sequel and had the perfect influence of Bloodborne added to it…that is fantastic fun. DMC2=DS2

 

[Tommi84]

You enter a building with almost NOTHING around, you take the elevator UP and you end up at the bottom of the vulcano with LAVA everywhere.

Yeah, that's what I call GREAT game

Spoiler

no,no it's not

.

And don't even start me with those turtle enemies with SHELL at the back (to avoid being stabbed for massive damage) that, instead of rolling on me and dealing ME damage, just try to turn around to face me

 

[Bekind]

Is this a bait thread or not? do we have to go through this again and again and again? We dont need another civil war between souls games.

 

[MagnesD3]

Aava fight was such janky trash to counter any other good fight. An unbalanced B team mess.

Aava was dope however when they throw 2 of them at you at the end of the Reindeer Nightmare.. that's some Satan shit.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

It’s NOWHERE NEAR as bad as you’re making out, textbook hyperbole.

It’s fine, chill out.

 

[AJUMP23]

I enjoyed DS2.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Its honestly my fave of the actual Souls games.
Never really understood the hate it gets, except the fact that it wasnt made by Myazaki's team.

Too many mobs of enemies and attempts of the game to overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Many stages are literally corridor after corridor. A big obsession in the bestiary being hollow warriors/soldiers/knights and being quite light on the grotesque / alien enemies of the other games.

Elden Ring is not directed solely by Hidetaka Miyazaki. His co-director was Yui Tanimura, the director of Dark Souls 2. Tanimura began pre-production of Elden Ring after The Ringed City DLC in 2017 wrapped up while Miyazaki went on to direct Sekiro (when he was finished there, he joined team Elden Ring).

Many themes and mechanics from DS2 is reintroduced in ER. For example, power stancing and twinblade weapons being two of them. The amount of weapons and build variety is another thing DS2 had, and what ER evolved into. The semi open world of DS2 is what inspired ER to go fully open world. Then you have similarities in the story, such as Godfrey waging war against giants and then being exiled, leading the Queen to rule (King Vendrick suffered the same fate) and so on.

There is the gist of it, but there are a lot more references in the game. Here is a video from Zullie the Witch, explaining more in detail.

Yes

Elden ring is Dark souls II 2.

• Powerstance for the dual wields was unique to DS2 and Elden ring ring brought it back.
• Twinblades were a weapon class unique to DS2, Elden ring brought them back.
• Both use mid bosses as check points for skill/power level
• Also the catalogue of spells being so large it makes better viability of magic builds, much like Dark souls 2 being way more impressive for spellcasting than DS1 & DS3.
• Multiplayer, both ER and DS2 have MP without humanity/ember requirements
• Multiple bosses at once
• Even motherfucking enemy tracking! Elden ring is not without fault there
• Siofra River IS Shrine of Amana, even the well-hidden antler mobs sniping you from hard-to-reach places and covering each other.
• Repeating bosses

And all that you've said too.

I'd like to add the MC's running animation. It immediately reminded me of Dark Souls II.

 

[TropicanaTwista]

DS2 and ER scored the highest on metacritc? I never knew that.

Yupp. I think BB might be the highest if you want to count as a souls games. But if you exclude that and just count the demon, dark souls 1-3 and ER (which let's be real, it's really DS4 gameplay wise). ER and the original DS2 are the highest.

 

[Shut0wen]

Its honestly my fave of the actual Souls games.
Never really understood the hate it gets, except the fact that it wasnt made by Myazaki's team.

Makes me laugh cause a good majority of dark souls 1 team actually developed the game except for different directors

 

[DOW]

I loved it but I would rank it was my least favorite title out of them all. The DLC was some of the best I’ve played.

Iron Keep can fuck off.

 

[skit_data]

It’s not bad, it’s just that it shouldn’t been called Dark Souls 2.

I prefer DS2 over DS3, but I can also see why people buying it expecting anything close to DS1 or DS3 will bounce off.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Makes me laugh cause a good majority of dark souls 1 team actually developed the game except for different directors

That's false.

Not just the director. The lead programmer and lead graphics designer, and many key programming staff that worked on Demon's Souls and Dark Souls but not ds2 did not leave fromsoft and were busy on project beast:

You can see the info in this thread:

Expand op for details

 

[Shut0wen]

That's false.

Not just the director. The lead programmer and lead graphics designer, and many key programming staff that worked on Demon's Souls and Dark Souls but not ds2 did not leave fromsoft and were busy on project beast:

You can see the info in this thread:

Expand op for details

When did i say they left? Demon souls director himself helped them from time to time

 

[NeverYouMind]

Dark Souls II is so good that I am playing it again for the nth time. Because Dark Souls II does what Dark Souls and Dark Souls III don't.

 

[Jadsey]

DS2 was my first Souls game and I adore it.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Because Dark Souls II does what Dark Souls and Dark Souls III don't.

Yeah, it's quite unique at being a bad videogame.

Nah just kidding. If anything this thread is making me want to purchase it again and give it another go. Maybe this time, since I know it's not like the others, I'll be able to appreciate it more.

 

[Cryio]

I liked Dark Souls 2 a lot more than DS1.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Yeah, it's quite unique at being a bad videogame.

Nah just kidding. If anything this thread is making me want to purchase it again and give it another go. Maybe this time, since I know it's not like the others, I'll be able to appreciate it more.

I cannot recommend Seeker of Fire mod for it enough. It improves sound effects and gameplay mechanics enough to make the game feel like a remake. It does change some of the level design and enemies, but unless you are adept at jumping between platforms in the dark or have the nostalgia for the original levels it is not a change for the worse. It does make the bosses a bit difficult, but there is an easy mode mod for that. Makes it so that upgrading health, weapons, and armor is not as big a deal.

 

[rofif]

Definitely. Its atmosphere is one of the best things about it. Its dream like and weird. It kind of feels like the Majoras Mask of the series. To be honest I've always played the souls games for their atmosphere first. The hitbox issue never bothered me too much though because its actually not too difficult. Not like the others (apart from a few moments in the DLC)

The dreamy atmosphere is so idea. I really like it.
If you got to the first Benhart meeting place, he sits there defeated, in this calm peaceful corridor unsure what he is doing. The color palette of autumn really adds to the melancholy.
Or when Lenigrast blacksmith does not recognize his own dauighter but she does.
or when the cartographer succumbs to memory loss and forgets what he was doing.

Most of characters are like that. Such a shame we never got the original graphics version and such a shame that IMO worse sotfs is the more popular version. Original is not even available on ps4/5.

Some shots from original on pc:

 

[Gaelyon]

DS2 is probably my favorite DS. Lots of cool ideas (many reused for Elden Ring), nice atmosphere and graphics, huge content, awesome DLCs. Some area are worse, some are great the game is not perfect but it's the one i played the most of all DS, with Elden Ring. I never understood the hate for this gem ?

 

[rofif]

One question. Do people play with deadzone fix?
I noticed it only few years ago and don't know if it was there on initial not patched release

 

[Drizzlehell]

One of the worst threads I've seen during my current shitting session.

 

[Philfrag]

The dreamy atmosphere is so idea. I really like it.
If you got to the first Benhart meeting place, he sits there defeated, in this calm peaceful corridor unsure what he is doing. The color palette of autumn really adds to the melancholy.
Or when Lenigrast blacksmith does not recognize his own dauighter but she does.
or when the cartographer succumbs to memory loss and forgets what he was doing.

Most of characters are like that. Such a shame we never got the original graphics version and such a shame that IMO worse sotfs is the more popular version. Original is not even available on ps4/5.

Some shots from original on pc:

Damn. I think I'm going to have to re-install

 

[Sidney Prescott]

I actually really like Dark Souls 2 the more I played it. The build variety is some of the best in the series and Majula is my favourite hub. The only part of the game I can't stand is Iron Keep because it's always just so tedious to get through.

It's literally the only area where enemies despawn because I spend so long there fighting those knights.

 

[MagnesD3]

For people who are gonna try Ds2 SotfS from this thread just be ready for Evil, if you dont have any tolerance for it I wouldnt recommend it, its really Evil, it wants you to hate it.

 

[dDoc]

I did sorta enjoy and complete it back in 2014.

In retrospect though it really is a shit game. Atrocious level design as well.

Also the downgrade from the original reveals, damn it still hurts.

 

[LordOcidax]

Is the only one not made by Miyazaki… That's why. DS1 is perfection.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Also, on PC, mod this game. McFly’s RTGI almost makes it look like the original reveal.

 

[FairXchange]

Majula is the best hub in maybe any video game ever, also has the best music.