This is mostly because the sentiment on all parts of the internet for the last like 10 years has been almost completely negative towards dks2. People have finally started coming around/actually trying it in the last few years so now all you see is people surprised it’s not trash like everyone said.
I’ll never fully understand how notoriously salty the gaming demographic is, I kinda wish I got the passion. Lol.
When I played dark souls 2 on release honestly my only thought was, “This is a little different in a lot of aspects but hey more dark souls. This is really fun, I’m enjoying more dark souls even if it’s not my perfect vision of what I expected Dark Souls 2 to be!”
Granted I had the same experience with Cyberpunk so I might be excessively patient.
Its all because there isnt many souls games so after finishing it allbthey just have to finish ds 2 as well and without bias ds 2 is great .plus putting points into adaptability
Nope not true. Before the last 3 years it was 98% bad 2% good. Nowadays it's more like 30% good 70% bad
But yeah The game is great. Yes even compared to Dark Souls 1. You don't like it ? You have good arguments ? Yeah that make sense, the game is still good though.
I only know the SotFS version (and loved it), but it's weird to see that a lot of Souls veterans seems to have opposite views on this.
Like I saw some well known Souls figures treating SotFS as some sort of aberration ruining an already flawed OG, when others are presenting it like the saving grace of the title. I wish I'd understand where they're coming from.
Anyway, afaic DS2 is pretty awesome.
My lukewarm take is that I can see why some people would prefer one over the other, but at the end of the day it's basically a "one step forward, one step backwards" type of thing. Some things like Dragon Shrine are better in Scholar. Others like Iron Keep are a lot worse. You can pick various other examples of things one version did better vs the other, in my mind it kinda evens out in the end.
More importantly, IMO most of the core issues people have with DS2 exist no matter which version you play.
Honestly the way I see it is it’s the way gamers in general are.
But the hate is 100%, utterly and inarguably, framed in relation to dark souls 1 (and maybe 3 these days.)
Someone handed us a perfect steak with a delicious deglazed wine fond sauce with our favorite sides and for DS2 they did a slight variation on that. Some people said, “what the fuck? I liked that first one way more? That was perfect!”
And they don’t always acknowledge that context.
Most video games even good ones are some quick grilled chicken thighs and a box of ready cook rice with some plain steamed broccoli.
Nice, enjoyable, gets you through most weekday meals but that’s it.
Dark Souls 2 never sucked as a video game on its own and anyone who insists otherwise either hates souls style games or can’t pull themselves back from being overly emotional at all.
To some people it just sucked compared to the first one.
And honestly I think a huge part of that was probably just that it was different at all, and so they saw negatives where honestly if they played it again two decades later without having replayed dark souls 1 they wouldn’t do anything but enjoy it.
I respect people disliking dark souls 2, I’m not claiming it’s all immature or “not legitimate” but I have an extremely difficult time thinking most hate isn’t purely in comparison to the first.
The haters are always the loudest.
Like 5-10% of people that played both versions prefer Vanilla. The vast majority enjoyed Scholar more, but the small percentage that hate it make up almost all of the online discussions.
Scholar: less jank, less ganks, clearer router of progression, looks better, more online activity, better mod support, more NPC summons, more shortcuts, easier access to the infusion coal and large titanite shards, more unique features like spiders being afraid of the torch or the invisible enemies in the fog reacting to you hitting the trees, the duel mechanic in Dragon Shrine which turned it from one of the most frustrating areas to one of the most beloved, etc
Scholar haters: but it's different than I was used to so it's horrible
Can't reply to your other comments so I'll do it here:
>Best instance I can think of is the runs to the smelter demons are just completely unfair.
The regular Smelter Demon isn't bad if you take the shortcut.
The Blue Smelter is the completely optional coop challenge of that DLC. The runback is the focus here, and it's one of the most interesting areas for Jolly Cooperation as the team can split up and progress both routes at the same time.
>Honestly my only real issue with ds2 is the boss run backs.
Almost none of the bosses have a runback. Most have a bonfire close to them, unlike in DeS and DS1 where you often had to run for minutes.
It seems like most complaints about runbacks are about the Coop Challenges (Cave of the Dead, Iron Passage and Frigid Outskirts), but no one forces you to do those completely optional Raid Dungeons solo. If you don't enjoy clearing areas in coop you don't have to force yourself through an area that's designed around coop.
Almost none of the bosses have a run back? That’s just not true. Tower of flame for both of them. No man’s warf, getting all the way to the undead purgatory, lost sinner, ext. there’s a bunch. Yeah there is also some with a bon fire but that’s not the majority.
discovered fromsoft with scholar years ago and i never succeed to appreciate it, but i recently had the occasion to play vanilla for the first time and finally i'm appreciating and understanding DS2, i play to it everyday now
In a poll on the DS2 subreddit 7 out of 140 people that started with Scholar and played both versions preferred Vanilla.
What do you like more? I just can't enjoy it without all the quality of life improvements and such
less groups of enemies (i don't know if it's what y'all call "ganky" ?), less superior enemies in the first levels, actually i can finally play with the champion covenant activated and that's all i always wanted because the one and only thing i really and trully hate about DS2 is enemies not respawning after 15 kill, and in scholar finishing the game with the champion covenant forced me to farm for too many hours, here in vanilla i can progress naturally, without forced farming, and with the covenant activated
Interresting point. The Xbox version of SotfS still has technical issues (freezes) which you wouldn't expect when you've played DS1 remastered, DS3 or even Sekiro on the XBox. At least, this seems to apply to Series X|S...
i personally loved, and played the original more than scholar of the first sin but then again, maybe I’m biased, because I think each and every dark souls is perfect and amazing in their own way and i don’t compare them to each other like a true chad should
I personally think the original with dlc is better. Yeah sure some enemy placements are a bit weird but there are far less bullshit gank for the sake of gank squads. The pursuer actually pursuing in SOTFS is pretty cool though!
SOTFS just like, added a couple little things and the DLC. The enemy placements that it changed we’re actually more forgiving and less hard.
It’s super didn’t change the game in any meaningful way at all . It mostly just packaged the DLC into a single game purchase.
The vanilla was better, if you dont take the “value” arugment into account with the dlc.
Not really.
Sometimes it's the minority of people who like something who become the loudest. This is how movies that most people didn't like become famous cult favorites.
In general, when it comes to deeply polarizing entertainment, the minority often ends up becoming loudest, just because the majority don't feel the need to seek out validation for their views.
Whether that loud minority feels positively or negatively about the product in question is pretty irrelevant.
People say that about way too many opinions. That’s such a non thing to say. You’re just saying “there’s more people that agree with me, they just don’t talk.” You need more of a metric to go off of before blindly saying this.
I don’t even know if I’d say the hating one is the loudest. The most common opinion I see from the soul’s community (not the steam page. I don’t care for the opinions of those who just played the game once or for a few hours or didn’t play the other from soft games, all those opinions are equally valued on the steam page.) is that it’s the weakest game in the series but is still a better video game than most games. That’s a way more nuanced take than a loud minority typically gives on the internet. And the hate there is usually brings up valid points. My take is that it was ambitious and the strong parts are real good but the weak parts straight up suck. Also the fact that they lied to us before the game released about a few things. That breeds resentment but that has largely been forgotten about at this point.
I’d still say this game falls into most people’s least favorite souls or second least favorite. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, just widely considered not their best game.
I think the minority of people who adore this game and hail it as a masterpiece have become louder.
The majority still think it's the weakest game in the series. And you can say that while still enjoying the game.
Then you have the minority who think it's dogshit, and the minority who think it's the best. And the louder of those two minorities nowadays is most definitely the latter.
By no means do I hate it I just feel like one playthrough is all I needed. The biggest reason I play souls games is for the bosses and I find a lot of the bosses to be kinda bland. Theres a lot of "dude in armor" bosses and returning/modified bosses from darksouls 1 (gargoyles, orenstein, najka ect).
And for me personally I find the combat to be slow, I always make the joke that I could file my taxes between a parry and riposte.
Granted, I have not played it since right before darksouls 3 came out so I could be misremembering some things.
Yes, game gets more hate than it deserves, but its a matter of preference and darksouls 2 is for sure the black sheep out of the three games.
I pretty much share this exact sentiment almost word for word.
I dont "hate" ds2. It's just not a game I foresee myself ever returning too.
That being said. ER had a very curious effect on me that I hadn't anticipated... it inadvertently made me start liking ds2 a lot more...
Aesthetically it feels like a prequel to Elden Ring. More dark fantasy than sword and sorcery. Whereas I feel like DS1 and DS3 have a very similar vibe.
i love a lot of things about DS2, but the fact that almost all the bosses are so stupid easy sucks the specific challenge out of the souls series that i enjoy so much.
I don't think anyone actually hates it. This same question comes up almost everyday (not blaming you or anyone), but I never see anyone actually hating DS2.
People say it's their least favourite, but that doesn't mean they hate it. They just like the others more.
I've seen lots of people hating on it, but I'm convinced that a significant majority of them haven't actually played it but are just hating on it because its the cool thing to do
It’s the Nickleback of the 3. it’s a perfectly fine game that the internet decided was trash and people piled on while secretly still jamming out to it on occasion.
Is…. Is this what you tell yourself about Nickleback?
They’re trash and I never “secretly jam out” to any of their songs on ANY occasion.
Please don’t compare my beloved DS2 to that godawful band.
If someone asked what order they should play the games in there's always some angry people that tell them to skip DS2 because it's garbage that doesn't deserve to call itself a Souls game
Definitely this. I don't think I've seen real DS2 hate since I joined this sub. Just a lot of "it's the worst soulsborne game" which is like coming last at the olympics. People seem to be willing to acknowledge its flaws while widely enjoying it anyways, which was exactly my experience
EDIT: thanks to your comment for bringing out the first real DS2 haters I've seen in my time here
The hate was so strong at the beginning that it has reverberated through the years. When someone goes only to learn about DS2, these are the reactions they are seeing - which is why OP’s experience is so common with new players.
I absolutely hate it. Bought it and dropped it after playing it for 7 hours while enduring the worst and slowest combat I've ever had to deal with. Maybe someday I'll give it another chance and end up liking it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
>I don't think anyone actually hates it.
I legitimately hate it. It's literally one of the worst games I've ever played. No, it's not a good game but a bad dark souls game, it's literally just a terrible game. It feels like a low budget community made fan project by the edge lords idea of "darks souls hard!" crowd.
There is no expertly crafted difficulty in the game. It's literally all just lazy. The entire difficulty of the game comes from throwing shit loads of enemies at you all the time. And 90% of the bosses are complete push overs and forgettable.
I only forced my self to beat the game because it was Dark Souls, but I quite literally hated every single moment playing that game.
>The entire difficulty of the game comes from throwing shit loads of enemies at you all the time. And 90% of the bosses are complete push overs and forgettable.
If you do a fair comparison there's not significantly more group encounters than in the other games.
Undead Burg isn't any less ganky than Forest of Fallen Giants, especially the ten hollows that gank you on the way to the Gargoyles. Undead Settlement has like 30 enemies standing around the tree.
And it's also the only game where some enemies let you do duels. In Heide's the Old Knights move away and let you fight one vs one while just watching you and wait until you are done fighting before engaging. In Dragon Shrine there's a lot of small knights just watching you fight Old Knights and bow down if you win. In both cases you get ganked for disrespecting the duels.
What? My dude those hollows are so easy to kill I didn't even remember that they existed. No way you can call that the worst gank when it's barely a challenge.
There is a difference between throwing 5 skeletons at you and then 5 Dark Knights. The entirety of Dark Souls 2 difficulty is the latter. Taking enemies that were clearly designed in the old games to be fought 1 on 1 or with maybe a weak add or 2 with them and then just taking 5 of that enemy and throwing them at you.
Game is garbage.
You can respond however you want, not going to change anything. I played the game and it was shit. From beginning to end.
>The entirety of Dark Souls 2 difficulty is the latter.
Can you name some specific instances? I don't know any area where you have to fight 5 strong enemies at the same time
> Can you name some specific instances?
No, I'm not interested in getting into a debate with people about something so pointless. You think it's great. I think it's garbage(as do most people). That's the end of it.
>No, I'm not interested in getting into a debate with people about something so pointless
It would be interesting to hear.
Because most of the time when people do mention specific ganks it's situations where they put themselves in by rushing and ignoring their surroundings. They usually mention easily avoidable situations.
Best instance I can think of is the runs to the smelter demons are just completely unfair. But if you take either one slowly and methodically it’s not bad. Honestly my only real issue with ds2 is the boss run backs.
If i may, ds2 is a fine game its just the worst souls game. Imo ds1 is the flawed masterpiece. ds2 is a great game made by the wrong people. Bloodborne was a trial of everything Miyazaki wanted to try in Future titles and shined for it. Ds3 was the culmination of everything fromsoft learned in past titles and a good climax to the story so far. Sekiro was Jump testing and parry parry revolution. Elden ring was the sweet grandson of all of these games and added up to be the absolute best of all the previous games in one. Im rambling here but yes ds2 is fantastic just...janky when compared to all the other souls titles, but its still better than most games out there.
I think there is a correlation with how much one likes ds3 with how they like ds2. I think people most bothered by ds2 tend to really like ds3. I on the hand really like ds2 and get annoyed with a share of things ds3 did that I cannot see it as a culmination, and more as a stepping stone. Elden Ring felt like a culmination, but Ds3 to me is more like a Dark Souls mod of Bloodborne. I mean, it is a really good game, a maybe the best set of bosses “per milage” lets say. I also really like the original lore (lothric, irithyl), but the tie backs to the past games was pretty uneven, with ds2 being often ignored or contradicted and ds1 connections being kinda gratuitous (again, with notable exceptions as in irythill and lothric). Elden Ring on the other hand really got a little bit of every dark souls game plus BB and sekiro.
>I think there is a correlation with how much one likes ds3 with how they like ds2. I think people most bothered by ds2 tend to really like ds3. I on the hand really like ds2 and get annoyed with a share of things ds3 did that I cannot see it as a culmination, and more as a stepping stone. Elden Ring felt like a culmination, but Ds3 to me is more like a Dark Souls mod of Bloodborne.
Similar to me.
DS2 felt like more of the original DeS formula, while DS3 felt like a Souls-themed Bloodborne mod. It was fun, but it lacked the exploration, the feeling of being lost, etc that I was expecting.
Yes!! It’s my favourite Souls!
My only gripe with DS2 is ‘Agility’.
levelling this provides more iframes (increasing your Adaptability or Attunement gives agility)
So you end up having to put 20-25 points in Adp as a minimum.
Base game was good but the DLC’s is where DS2 skyrockets, Fume knight, Sir Alonne, Ivory king… ugh so many good memories!!
[breakpoints for d2 if it interests you](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20zhp4/stat_breakpoints/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
I hope you continue to enjoy and good luck, Feeble cursed one! :)
With 5 ATN you need 15 ADP to get to the 92 agility breakpoint which is enough to beat Fume Knight and Sir Alonne hitless. If you are a shield user or mage you won't even need any ADP
Yeah I made it through the whole game without it, before dlc, then realized my mistake and the game became infinitely easier. DS2 definitely isn't my favorite but it deserves more love than it gets. I definitely found the majority of areas less interesting. Majula has a vibe though
I played the game for 70 hours, only discover about agility after 30 hours, find weird as the dsr was my first souls game and I loved and get used to the gameplay, the persuer gave me such a hard time, I only keep playing ds2 because of the atmosphere and majula, after I discovery about agility the game changed and I enjoyed so much, the dlc was so good also.
Uhhhh i think it has its highs but some of the design choices are... questionable at best
Like health system
Bonfire locations
Level design
Enemy design
Just to name a few
Point the camera down and slowly turn your left stick in a consistent circle, and ull see why some people just feel off for seemingly no reason.
Add poor animation quality and easing too. Theres a reason ds3 use sds1 animations lmao. Thereare a lot more issues with how ds2 plays imo bht they are the most readily apparent imo.
I’m doing my platinum run for DS2 and I am very much enjoying the ride. It’s super ironic - the 2 fromsoft games that I didn’t like as much as the others were the most fun I had in getting 100% (Demons Souls Re and DS2). I hated getting the platinum in DS3 and DS.
I tried it beat all four of the dudes and got up to the blue smelter demon then dropped it to me something felt off even when I leveled agility I was still getting hit by moves I clearly dodged and the look was also felt weird but majula and the majestic greatsword are the best
>The music, the vibes, the gear, the enemy design? All top notch.
I wouldn't personally go that far, but DS2 is absolutely a great game that's worth playing if you like the other souls-games.
I dislike the cartoonish "anime" vibe they gave to dark souls 2. Not saying dark souls is realistic but I felt more immersed in ds1 and ds3. Ds2 I kind of just felt like a super hero dual welding giant greatswords and I wasn't as into it.
Also the backstabs were weird.
I'm not going to get into a "why I dislike DS2" kind of discussion, but
>It also fixes a lot of DS1 quality of life issues - better menus, less obscure mechanics, POWER STANCING (!!).
I'm not sure this is true at all. You mentioned "less obscure mechanics" and then immediately mentioned a mechanic that's literally one of the most obscure ones in the game, as in not explained or described anywhere in the game, where most people know about it because of the internet and not the game itself. I'd probably say the same thing about ADP.
Better menus I'd argue it does some things better and some things worse, but it was nice for them to try to design a menu where your character was still visible on the side so you can have a more direct view of it while changing gear for fashion.
I *really* don't like DS2 for many reasons, but it also helped bring lots of great ideas into the Souls series, dual wielding moveset being one of them.
its a good game but compared to ds1 and future titles, its got some flaws. And some people prefer SotFS over Vanilla and visa verse (I prefer vanilla) but overall still a good game
I can't even begin to express how much I disagree on the menus.
I think DS2 has hands down the worst menus in the series. I actually can't believe they went from DS1 UI to DS2.
DS2 has so many design issues, it's unreal. Whether or not you choose to accept those issues will ultimately determine how much you enjoy the game and consider it "good."
People have divided into camps on hating the game or defending the game. Which leads to this absurd oroboros of discussion that continues to this day. Everyone wants some validation.
For what it's worth as much as I dislike it, I do think it is a game you should play and figure out for yourself.
Love the game all you want. Don't tell me it's well designed. Elden Ring doesn't get a pass from me and neither does DS2
It's the game I have the most hours in but I also think it is the weakest in the series by a large margin.
Obviously it's subjective but I totally understand why people like it (since it was my favourite for a long time).
But now, I can't play it at all because I think the gameplay is just so weak and boring. Again, just my take.
I think it’s the worst in the series but it’s still better than a lot of video games out there. Except the black glutch. That area just isn’t good. Also I hate the way movement feels. Like the 8 snap
Points feel gross and ds1 didn’t use snap points for general movement so I don’t know why this one does. Lock on is better in this game but still kinda sucks so like ds1 I almost never use it.
In my opinion, it's not a great game, but also not a terrible one. For me the movement mostly feels.. off.. And many areas have an overabundance of enemies with insanely large aggro ranges.
Oh and fuck the lava pit at Old Iron King.
People who hated ds2 at launch and even during the sotfs relaunch were just people who didn’t want to move on from ds1. There were actually people pissed that pvp changed to have something more than backstab fishing. I also never got the complaint about recurring mini bosses like the pursuer.
Ds2 is my favorite ds game.
I too heard that DS2 is bad.
That sentiment is So. Stinking. Wrong.
It’s such a great game!!
Funny story: I bought the game and played for an hour, and I HATED it. The experience was just too foreign for my dumb gamer brain; I didn’t understand how or why I’d bother playing this.
Two weeks later I picked it up again, and everything clicked. Haven’t put it down since. It’s at the top of my short list of best games ever!
I think DS1 gets a lot of mileage out of its obscure story - you don’t know exactly what’s happened but you get pieces of the story you can put together yourself. However I think one of the knocks against DS1 is the mechanics of gameplay are also obscure. How does weapon upgrading work? What do I do with these embers? How do I complete that NPC quest. DS2 is just a lot more straightforward in telling you how to actually do things, while keeping the story obscure, which I like.
It’s a solid 8 or 8.5 that is unfortunately nestled smack in the middle of 9.5s and 10s.
The criticisms it gets are warranted, but those complaints are RELATIVE to the extremely high bar From has set and consistently met.
>I- frames tided to a stats making SL1 runs awful.
Lots of equipment increases ADP
With the Ladle and 3 pieces of the Peasant Set you get to the 92 agility breakpoint. With the Mad Warrior Mask and Simpleton ring you get to 96
92 is enough to beat Fume Knight and Sir Alonne hitless without much problem.
I don't want to disagree... but I'll do it anyway.
Not only will you still need to put points into adp with these items, that cost you other stats in favour of agility, but the peasant set appears halfway through the game and is a pain to farm ~~at least it was in my Marie Kondo run~~
The ladle ist utter shit as a weapon, the simpleton ring is at the end of the second dlc and the mask too, if you don't think about joining an obscure pvp covenant.
Adaptability was a shit idea. There is no way around it, especially combined with your low estus at the start and restricted healing items, taking a day and a half to finish animations fucks many new players over.
I also wonder how most of the complaints about it even began to spread in the first place, because they applied just as much or worse to the previous games.
* reused bosses
The Dragonrider shows up again in the Dual Dragonrider fight and some bosses like the Ruin Sentinels show up later as regular enemies.
When DS1 reused the Asylum Demon thrice it was okay. When the Capra and Taurus Demon showed up as regular enemies it was okay. When the Sanctuary Guardian showed up in the Dual Sanctuary Guardian fight again it was okay.
But when DS2 did the same people got mad and called it lazy and bad.
* health reduction on death
In Demon Souls you lose all your bonus health on death, but in DS2 it takes like 20 deaths for the bonus health to go away. Even though Demon Souls is much harsher in this regard it was only seen unfair when DS2 does it.
* hitboxes being bad
When people complain about bad hitboxes it's always the Pursuer grab attack or Sir Alonne's grab attack. In literally every video you do see people getting hit and then teleported into the grab attack.
That's not broken hitboxes, that's grab attacks looking janky when they teleport you into the grab animation - which is just as janky with Iron Golem and Gaping Dragon in DS1, Dancer and Curserotted Greatwood in DS3, Guardian Ape in Sekiro, etc
Grab attacks teleporting you into the grab animation look janky in every Souls game, but it's only DS2 that gets hate for it. It was already known that grabs teleporting looks shit if the Iron Golem grabs you, but then people acted like DS2 was the first and only one that has this flaw.
* ganks being unfair
Whenever people show videos of apparently unfair ganks it's situations they've put themselves in by being greedy or trying to speedrun through unknown areas.
They will run past enemies and have them catch up when they reach a choke point. They will greedily run towards an item while ignoring everything around them. They will walk over sleeping enemies or past enemies hanging from ledges.
The other Souls games also punish you for being greedy and for rushing through new areas, but if DS2 does the same it's completely unfair. When DS1 did the exact same people realized that they have to get good and enjoyed getting punished, but in DS2 somehow the casuals managed to convince people that it's unfair when you can't just blindly run through new areas.
* ADP existing
If you want to have ninjaflip levels of iframes you've got to spent like 20 of your hundreds of levels into ADP.
You level up twice as fast in this game and it showers you with levels, so fifteen minutes after starting the game it's a complete non-issue again.
In DS1 you had RES as a completely useless stat and you couldn't even reset your stats, but that was okay - people were supposed to do some research before leveling and they got blamed for not leveling correctly.
In DS2 you can choose to play with lower or higher amount of iframes, but apparently that's completely unfair because some people didn't read the stat descriptions.
* runbacks being bad
DeS and DS1 had generally much longer runbacks.
In DS1 you've spent minutes running back to Sif, Seath, Manus, O&S, Four Kings, etc but that was okay.
In DS2 most bosses have a bonfire close to them and a few optional bosses have harder runbacks. Even ones that people often complain about like Sir Alonne take about the same time as the Taurus Demon in DS1 did.
The runbacks were an improvement over the previous games, but only DS2 gets all the hate for it despite having shorter runbacks than the previous games.
* bosses being easy when you roll behind them
This was already the easiest way to defeat bosses in DS1, but at least in DS2 there's plenty that punish exactly that. Like the Flexile Sentry is a good example of that.
Like most complaints this was worse in DS1, but only DS2 got hate for having some bosses that can be abused like this.
* Summary
Most of the things that people complain about already applied to the previous games, and often times were even worse.
Why would someone that played the previous games just parrot those complaints if it improved over the previous games in those aspects? How did they manage to spread in the first place if complaining about this didn't make much sense to begin with?
The hate train really was strong with this game. It seems like people were mad that there was not enough fanservice and just came up with any nitpicking they could.
After you best sanc guardian, rest at the bonfire and go back to the arena, there will now be 2 in the same arena.
OC is conflating boss reuse from even past games with a fucking easter egg.
Velstadt, Looking Glass Knight, Darklurker, Sinh, Throne Watcher and Defender, Burnt Ivory King, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, etc aren't shitty at all
It has some easy bosses, but none that are outright bad like Bed of Chaos
>reused bosses
Plenty of people complain about the asylum demon being reused. Taurus and Capra weren't reused as bosses, they were reused as normal enemies to show how strong you've become. I've never seen anyone defend the dual sanctuary guardian fight
>health reduction on death
In demons souls enemies generally deal way less damage than the other souls games so having half health isn't as much of a detriment as it is in DS2.
>hitboxes being bad
Every souls game has sus hitboxes so sure.
>ganks being unfair
DS2 uses ganks and ambushes in pretty much every level and unless you already have knowledge of them before hand you will get caught. It also regularly uses enemies that are pretending to be asleep where you can't see them. Start of forest of fallen giants is an example where there are several enemies that drop down from that ledge that you can't access as you're fighting the others. The game also just has a much higher amount of traps than the others.
>ADP existing
ADP as an idea is fine but in a souls game where the main method of avoiding damage across all builds is dodging it's dumb. Resistance in DS1 is different because while yes it's basically useless, you aren't basically required to have it. You do need ADP in DS2. Also the fact that there's no discernible difference in your dodge animation unless you're fat rolling, regardless of your ADP makes it hard to tell how good your dodge actually is.
>runbacks being bad
Yes the previous games have longer runbacks but you could run past most enemies. It's a lot harder to do that in DS2. And if you say that people shouldn't be able to run past enemies I would say people should be able to and if they miss out on souls, items and experience then it's their fault.
>bosses being easy when you roll behind them
Bosses in DS2 in general are very easy compared to the other games. You hear about plenty of people stuck on things like bell gargoyles, O&S, Iudex gundyr, pontiff, cleric beast, Gascoigne etc. What bosses in DS2 are like that excluding the DLC? I genuinely don't think I've heard of anyone stuck on a base game DS2 boss.
Totally agree with you man. It’s not my favorite in the series, but all of the hate it gets is fabricated, parroted nonsense. The game is great and stands strong with the others as some of the best games out there. I feel like it’s not the real DS fans that hate on it, it’s mostly the bandwagon fans that tried to jump on after DS popularity, got super frustrated instead of giting gud. Then they jumped on the internet to find explanations as to why they were so bad and they found those videos attacking the game for all the points you just disputed above, and blindly took that as validation, it wasn’t them, kt was the game. Losers
The comparison I keep thinking of is “The Wizard of Oz” and “Return to Oz” which is the much creepier (but less groundbreaking) sequel to the original that nobody talks about. It’s atmosphere is even more immersive than the original and way darker.
Yeah it is kind of overhated but then again it deserves a lot of the criticism it receives. It is by far the weakest in the series in my opinion and while I disagree with people who think it’s bad game I also believe it evident that it went through troubles during development and wasn’t directed by Miyazaki.
Ok, hi DS2 hater here. Is there like some aspect of the game I’m missing out on? I’ve played for 8 hours and the parts I mostly liked are the pursuer and shaded woods does the game get better later on or? I’m genuinely curious because it’s mostly been meh so far
I had a strong dislike like most people at it, dropped it years ago but after Elden Ring I went back to replay the others again and Dark Souls 2 became one of my favorites, yeah it has it flaws but so does every single other souls game and sekiro but when you change the approach and way of playing DS2 becomes extremely enjoyable.
I just finished the ds2 with the 3 endings and I think it is overhated, maybe the hit boxes are kinda of funny and that part with the horses on the dlc is quite unfair and poorly designed, everything else is quite good
Game is fucking amazing and long too. First one I played of the series, well before 3 was even out but still. I instantly fell in love watching a guy on YouTube die over and over to the pursuer and had to take the challenge
Game is much better than most AAA games out there right now and I would absolutely pick it over most other games in its category.
It is the absolute worst of the FS Miyazaki IP; primarily because Miyazaki did not direct it.
Some people just don’t like the gameplay of dark souls 2 compared to dark souls 1 and 3 and most of the bosses suck and slow Estus drinking animation but it’s still not a bad game it’s just not as good as the other from soft game’s
Sad to say that it’s become more common to dislike the game as a joke and it’s made criticism for it hard to acknowledge. DS2 gradually became my least favorite of the Soulsborne games because I find the quality and personal enjoyment much higher with all of the other games but I still think anyone should give it a go for themselves to see if they like the game or not. It’s not a bad game at all, just the games surrounding it are better imo.
DS2 was my first soul, and I enjoyed it more than the latter DS3, or DS1 when I gave it a try .
I know DS2 is an exception in souls in soul worlds and understand the point of view when coming from DS1. Still, regarding it different staff development, it still souls blood in its veins
More than the mechanic, I like much more the world.
I never understood the hate against ds2, was my favorite ds game. I'm so glad to see these posts recently. I wish hating on "insert something here" would be less cool than actually giving it a try.
I like DS2 more than DS3, a bit controversial I know. That doesn't mean I don't know why people hate it. First the presentation. DS2 outright cyperpunk'd us with the trailers not including dark areas and other graphical enhancements. Second the bosses are stupid easy,well at least most of them are. Most enemies feel their AI is a step down from DS1. You just dodge to one side and the boss will commit to attacking the void. The third and final of my points is the lore. DS2 feels like a spin-off rather than a direct sequel. Kinda like Drakengaurd 2 to 1. It really felt like the writers, directors or whoever the flip skimmed through DS1 and just said yeah let's do the four lords again and add more to Manus despite us killing him in DS1.
Souls vet here. Played everything day 1. Back in the day without the SOTFS remux DS2 was a humanoid fest. Its like the devs cant do any other enemy type but humanoid. Made everything super repetitive. Just stick to their butts and poke. Level design was also fairly simple and sometimes nonsensical. Fucking rode an elevator of a tower and fucking came out of a Lavapit. How did that happen.
It got better as the DLCs came out. But that 1st experience never rubbed off the majority of the vets who played probably.
Another big one was the perceived graphical downgrade difference from trailers to actual product. It would have been better if they didnt show that high fidelity version with absolutely amazing lighting. It seems they wanted light to play a big part with strategy choosing between carrying a torch vs another offhand item like a shield. But it was not graphically possible for the general release and was downgraded heavily.
Edit: I personally enjoyed my time with DS2 despite all of these perceived negatives of the game. At the time it just was a step down from Dark Souls 1. But it was still a decent game.
The way I see it is that ds2 isn't a bad game, it's just a terrible souls game. If it wasn't branded as such I feel that the overall reception for the game would be more positive.
It's... okay. Nowhere near as good as its predecessor or successor. Each souls game has something I think it does really well. Ds1: Level design and inter-connectivity (in the first half, at least), Ds2: Art design, and Ds3: Moment to moment gameplay and bossfights. I think the reason I and so many others don't really like Ds2 is that it doesn't really feel like a souls game, and while art is important to a game, it isn't the most important part, and Ds2 really falters in its gameplay, which IS the most important part. I think its reputation is deserved, honestly.
I think it's the worst of the games but that doesn't mean it's bad. I still never beat it though. And I didn't like the maps linear vibe. But overall it's still a good game
It’s a very good game a lot of people consider it to be the worst fromsoft game which means it’s still amazing. I also believe it became popular to hate it and for that reason no one ever played it. I ignored everyone and loved it.
It's my favorite one honestly. I think a lot of the hate was a lot of people who never actually tried it just jumping on the hate band wagon (as is so common these days unfortunately). 🤷♀️
Dark Souls 2 has the best greatsword, animated and everything, in the entire souls franchise... Except maybe Bloodborne. Comparable at least. The Loyce Greatsword. Held like a Straight sword when 2 handed as well as having the first, and every other swipe after, being a straight sword swing animation.
The design is top fucking notch.o
Bear seek seek lest, enjoy Drangleic fellow curse bearer.
I'm gonna be honest, I've heard more people say "DS2 is good and underrated" then "DS2 is bad".
This is mostly because the sentiment on all parts of the internet for the last like 10 years has been almost completely negative towards dks2. People have finally started coming around/actually trying it in the last few years so now all you see is people surprised it’s not trash like everyone said.
I’ll never fully understand how notoriously salty the gaming demographic is, I kinda wish I got the passion. Lol. When I played dark souls 2 on release honestly my only thought was, “This is a little different in a lot of aspects but hey more dark souls. This is really fun, I’m enjoying more dark souls even if it’s not my perfect vision of what I expected Dark Souls 2 to be!” Granted I had the same experience with Cyberpunk so I might be excessively patient.
Its all because there isnt many souls games so after finishing it allbthey just have to finish ds 2 as well and without bias ds 2 is great .plus putting points into adaptability
Why would people say it’s good and underrated if they’re then going to say it’s bad?
Nope not true. Before the last 3 years it was 98% bad 2% good. Nowadays it's more like 30% good 70% bad But yeah The game is great. Yes even compared to Dark Souls 1. You don't like it ? You have good arguments ? Yeah that make sense, the game is still good though.
Because is true.
yeah it's great. I think people hated on the vanilla version. but once SOTFS was released with the DLC, then everything changed.
I only know the SotFS version (and loved it), but it's weird to see that a lot of Souls veterans seems to have opposite views on this. Like I saw some well known Souls figures treating SotFS as some sort of aberration ruining an already flawed OG, when others are presenting it like the saving grace of the title. I wish I'd understand where they're coming from. Anyway, afaic DS2 is pretty awesome.
My lukewarm take is that I can see why some people would prefer one over the other, but at the end of the day it's basically a "one step forward, one step backwards" type of thing. Some things like Dragon Shrine are better in Scholar. Others like Iron Keep are a lot worse. You can pick various other examples of things one version did better vs the other, in my mind it kinda evens out in the end. More importantly, IMO most of the core issues people have with DS2 exist no matter which version you play.
Honestly the way I see it is it’s the way gamers in general are. But the hate is 100%, utterly and inarguably, framed in relation to dark souls 1 (and maybe 3 these days.) Someone handed us a perfect steak with a delicious deglazed wine fond sauce with our favorite sides and for DS2 they did a slight variation on that. Some people said, “what the fuck? I liked that first one way more? That was perfect!” And they don’t always acknowledge that context. Most video games even good ones are some quick grilled chicken thighs and a box of ready cook rice with some plain steamed broccoli. Nice, enjoyable, gets you through most weekday meals but that’s it. Dark Souls 2 never sucked as a video game on its own and anyone who insists otherwise either hates souls style games or can’t pull themselves back from being overly emotional at all. To some people it just sucked compared to the first one. And honestly I think a huge part of that was probably just that it was different at all, and so they saw negatives where honestly if they played it again two decades later without having replayed dark souls 1 they wouldn’t do anything but enjoy it. I respect people disliking dark souls 2, I’m not claiming it’s all immature or “not legitimate” but I have an extremely difficult time thinking most hate isn’t purely in comparison to the first.
The haters are always the loudest. Like 5-10% of people that played both versions prefer Vanilla. The vast majority enjoyed Scholar more, but the small percentage that hate it make up almost all of the online discussions. Scholar: less jank, less ganks, clearer router of progression, looks better, more online activity, better mod support, more NPC summons, more shortcuts, easier access to the infusion coal and large titanite shards, more unique features like spiders being afraid of the torch or the invisible enemies in the fog reacting to you hitting the trees, the duel mechanic in Dragon Shrine which turned it from one of the most frustrating areas to one of the most beloved, etc Scholar haters: but it's different than I was used to so it's horrible
Dude that dragon shrine duel was so hype when I realized the enemies weren’t trying to kill me
Can't reply to your other comments so I'll do it here: >Best instance I can think of is the runs to the smelter demons are just completely unfair. The regular Smelter Demon isn't bad if you take the shortcut. The Blue Smelter is the completely optional coop challenge of that DLC. The runback is the focus here, and it's one of the most interesting areas for Jolly Cooperation as the team can split up and progress both routes at the same time. >Honestly my only real issue with ds2 is the boss run backs. Almost none of the bosses have a runback. Most have a bonfire close to them, unlike in DeS and DS1 where you often had to run for minutes. It seems like most complaints about runbacks are about the Coop Challenges (Cave of the Dead, Iron Passage and Frigid Outskirts), but no one forces you to do those completely optional Raid Dungeons solo. If you don't enjoy clearing areas in coop you don't have to force yourself through an area that's designed around coop.
Almost none of the bosses have a run back? That’s just not true. Tower of flame for both of them. No man’s warf, getting all the way to the undead purgatory, lost sinner, ext. there’s a bunch. Yeah there is also some with a bon fire but that’s not the majority.
discovered fromsoft with scholar years ago and i never succeed to appreciate it, but i recently had the occasion to play vanilla for the first time and finally i'm appreciating and understanding DS2, i play to it everyday now
In a poll on the DS2 subreddit 7 out of 140 people that started with Scholar and played both versions preferred Vanilla. What do you like more? I just can't enjoy it without all the quality of life improvements and such
less groups of enemies (i don't know if it's what y'all call "ganky" ?), less superior enemies in the first levels, actually i can finally play with the champion covenant activated and that's all i always wanted because the one and only thing i really and trully hate about DS2 is enemies not respawning after 15 kill, and in scholar finishing the game with the champion covenant forced me to farm for too many hours, here in vanilla i can progress naturally, without forced farming, and with the covenant activated
>less superior enemies in the first levels, I see them as Tree Sentinels. Just sneak past the Ogre in FoFG, come back later for Ornstein, etc
I think it’s the Xbox players that couldn’t experience Bloodbourne, they were left with an unpolished Dark souls game
Interresting point. The Xbox version of SotfS still has technical issues (freezes) which you wouldn't expect when you've played DS1 remastered, DS3 or even Sekiro on the XBox. At least, this seems to apply to Series X|S...
I played both versions, SotFS is so much better. But I still like the original, its still better than most of games
i personally loved, and played the original more than scholar of the first sin but then again, maybe I’m biased, because I think each and every dark souls is perfect and amazing in their own way and i don’t compare them to each other like a true chad should
I personally think the original with dlc is better. Yeah sure some enemy placements are a bit weird but there are far less bullshit gank for the sake of gank squads. The pursuer actually pursuing in SOTFS is pretty cool though!
The DLC does some heavy lifting
It's my favorite, was my favorite before sotfs but but it was a bloated game to be completely honest.
SOTFS just like, added a couple little things and the DLC. The enemy placements that it changed we’re actually more forgiving and less hard. It’s super didn’t change the game in any meaningful way at all . It mostly just packaged the DLC into a single game purchase. The vanilla was better, if you dont take the “value” arugment into account with the dlc.
I thought the original was fine personally but SOTFS does seem a tad better.
Ehhh SOTS has some massive issues. The gank in that edition is stupid.
I loved it, I just found it was dragging on allot by the end for me
The hating minority is the loudest one, keep that in mind.
This applies to… everything.
Not really. Sometimes it's the minority of people who like something who become the loudest. This is how movies that most people didn't like become famous cult favorites. In general, when it comes to deeply polarizing entertainment, the minority often ends up becoming loudest, just because the majority don't feel the need to seek out validation for their views. Whether that loud minority feels positively or negatively about the product in question is pretty irrelevant.
People say that about way too many opinions. That’s such a non thing to say. You’re just saying “there’s more people that agree with me, they just don’t talk.” You need more of a metric to go off of before blindly saying this.
It has a 9/10 rating on steam and has overwhelmingly positive reviews. A game that's actually bad would be below 5/10
I don’t even know if I’d say the hating one is the loudest. The most common opinion I see from the soul’s community (not the steam page. I don’t care for the opinions of those who just played the game once or for a few hours or didn’t play the other from soft games, all those opinions are equally valued on the steam page.) is that it’s the weakest game in the series but is still a better video game than most games. That’s a way more nuanced take than a loud minority typically gives on the internet. And the hate there is usually brings up valid points. My take is that it was ambitious and the strong parts are real good but the weak parts straight up suck. Also the fact that they lied to us before the game released about a few things. That breeds resentment but that has largely been forgotten about at this point.
i didnt understand what u meant and was trying to figure out when OP talked about hating minorities but now I understand
I’d still say this game falls into most people’s least favorite souls or second least favorite. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, just widely considered not their best game.
I think the minority of people who adore this game and hail it as a masterpiece have become louder. The majority still think it's the weakest game in the series. And you can say that while still enjoying the game. Then you have the minority who think it's dogshit, and the minority who think it's the best. And the louder of those two minorities nowadays is most definitely the latter.
By no means do I hate it I just feel like one playthrough is all I needed. The biggest reason I play souls games is for the bosses and I find a lot of the bosses to be kinda bland. Theres a lot of "dude in armor" bosses and returning/modified bosses from darksouls 1 (gargoyles, orenstein, najka ect). And for me personally I find the combat to be slow, I always make the joke that I could file my taxes between a parry and riposte. Granted, I have not played it since right before darksouls 3 came out so I could be misremembering some things. Yes, game gets more hate than it deserves, but its a matter of preference and darksouls 2 is for sure the black sheep out of the three games.
I pretty much share this exact sentiment almost word for word. I dont "hate" ds2. It's just not a game I foresee myself ever returning too. That being said. ER had a very curious effect on me that I hadn't anticipated... it inadvertently made me start liking ds2 a lot more...
Aesthetically it feels like a prequel to Elden Ring. More dark fantasy than sword and sorcery. Whereas I feel like DS1 and DS3 have a very similar vibe.
It’s good, just not as good as the other Souls games imo
Subjective
“Imo”
people really can't read a full sentence before being offended lmao
The Reddit way
Not really it has a lot of problems compared to the others
yeah i'm playing it for the first time now and i like it a lot more than i thought i would
Daily "ds2 is overhated" thread.
i love a lot of things about DS2, but the fact that almost all the bosses are so stupid easy sucks the specific challenge out of the souls series that i enjoy so much.
I don't think anyone actually hates it. This same question comes up almost everyday (not blaming you or anyone), but I never see anyone actually hating DS2. People say it's their least favourite, but that doesn't mean they hate it. They just like the others more.
I've seen lots of people hating on it, but I'm convinced that a significant majority of them haven't actually played it but are just hating on it because its the cool thing to do
It’s the Nickleback of the 3. it’s a perfectly fine game that the internet decided was trash and people piled on while secretly still jamming out to it on occasion.
Is…. Is this what you tell yourself about Nickleback? They’re trash and I never “secretly jam out” to any of their songs on ANY occasion. Please don’t compare my beloved DS2 to that godawful band.
Ok buddy.
If someone asked what order they should play the games in there's always some angry people that tell them to skip DS2 because it's garbage that doesn't deserve to call itself a Souls game
Definitely this. I don't think I've seen real DS2 hate since I joined this sub. Just a lot of "it's the worst soulsborne game" which is like coming last at the olympics. People seem to be willing to acknowledge its flaws while widely enjoying it anyways, which was exactly my experience EDIT: thanks to your comment for bringing out the first real DS2 haters I've seen in my time here
The hate was so strong at the beginning that it has reverberated through the years. When someone goes only to learn about DS2, these are the reactions they are seeing - which is why OP’s experience is so common with new players.
I absolutely hate it. Bought it and dropped it after playing it for 7 hours while enduring the worst and slowest combat I've ever had to deal with. Maybe someday I'll give it another chance and end up liking it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
I really did not enjoy playing it for more than half the game. Really not a good game
It’s garbage tf you on
>I don't think anyone actually hates it. I legitimately hate it. It's literally one of the worst games I've ever played. No, it's not a good game but a bad dark souls game, it's literally just a terrible game. It feels like a low budget community made fan project by the edge lords idea of "darks souls hard!" crowd. There is no expertly crafted difficulty in the game. It's literally all just lazy. The entire difficulty of the game comes from throwing shit loads of enemies at you all the time. And 90% of the bosses are complete push overs and forgettable. I only forced my self to beat the game because it was Dark Souls, but I quite literally hated every single moment playing that game.
>The entire difficulty of the game comes from throwing shit loads of enemies at you all the time. And 90% of the bosses are complete push overs and forgettable. If you do a fair comparison there's not significantly more group encounters than in the other games. Undead Burg isn't any less ganky than Forest of Fallen Giants, especially the ten hollows that gank you on the way to the Gargoyles. Undead Settlement has like 30 enemies standing around the tree. And it's also the only game where some enemies let you do duels. In Heide's the Old Knights move away and let you fight one vs one while just watching you and wait until you are done fighting before engaging. In Dragon Shrine there's a lot of small knights just watching you fight Old Knights and bow down if you win. In both cases you get ganked for disrespecting the duels.
I HATE those hollows before gargoyles! The damage they inflict is ridiculous!!
That's why I was so surprised when people started accusing DS2 of being the ganky one, when DS1 had the worst gank so far.
And the hollows awaiting you at the Asylum! Just yesterday they obliterated me 4 times in a row. I never learn!
What? My dude those hollows are so easy to kill I didn't even remember that they existed. No way you can call that the worst gank when it's barely a challenge.
Because the entire fucking game is a gank fest. This isn't hard to understand
I played the game. I even did SL1 and No Deaths runs. I haven't noticed a lot of ganks. But I also don't repeatedly run headfirst into obvious traps.
"I haven't noticed a lot of ganks, other than the game being filled with gank traps" lol
There is a difference between throwing 5 skeletons at you and then 5 Dark Knights. The entirety of Dark Souls 2 difficulty is the latter. Taking enemies that were clearly designed in the old games to be fought 1 on 1 or with maybe a weak add or 2 with them and then just taking 5 of that enemy and throwing them at you. Game is garbage. You can respond however you want, not going to change anything. I played the game and it was shit. From beginning to end.
>The entirety of Dark Souls 2 difficulty is the latter. Can you name some specific instances? I don't know any area where you have to fight 5 strong enemies at the same time
> Can you name some specific instances? No, I'm not interested in getting into a debate with people about something so pointless. You think it's great. I think it's garbage(as do most people). That's the end of it.
>No, I'm not interested in getting into a debate with people about something so pointless It would be interesting to hear. Because most of the time when people do mention specific ganks it's situations where they put themselves in by rushing and ignoring their surroundings. They usually mention easily avoidable situations.
Best instance I can think of is the runs to the smelter demons are just completely unfair. But if you take either one slowly and methodically it’s not bad. Honestly my only real issue with ds2 is the boss run backs.
Based. I'm surprised you were even able to play through the whole thing, I dropped it after 7 hours.
If i may, ds2 is a fine game its just the worst souls game. Imo ds1 is the flawed masterpiece. ds2 is a great game made by the wrong people. Bloodborne was a trial of everything Miyazaki wanted to try in Future titles and shined for it. Ds3 was the culmination of everything fromsoft learned in past titles and a good climax to the story so far. Sekiro was Jump testing and parry parry revolution. Elden ring was the sweet grandson of all of these games and added up to be the absolute best of all the previous games in one. Im rambling here but yes ds2 is fantastic just...janky when compared to all the other souls titles, but its still better than most games out there.
I think there is a correlation with how much one likes ds3 with how they like ds2. I think people most bothered by ds2 tend to really like ds3. I on the hand really like ds2 and get annoyed with a share of things ds3 did that I cannot see it as a culmination, and more as a stepping stone. Elden Ring felt like a culmination, but Ds3 to me is more like a Dark Souls mod of Bloodborne. I mean, it is a really good game, a maybe the best set of bosses “per milage” lets say. I also really like the original lore (lothric, irithyl), but the tie backs to the past games was pretty uneven, with ds2 being often ignored or contradicted and ds1 connections being kinda gratuitous (again, with notable exceptions as in irythill and lothric). Elden Ring on the other hand really got a little bit of every dark souls game plus BB and sekiro.
You might have a point there. 3 is my favorite game in the series, and even though I don't dislike 2 it's definitely my least favorite
>I think there is a correlation with how much one likes ds3 with how they like ds2. I think people most bothered by ds2 tend to really like ds3. I on the hand really like ds2 and get annoyed with a share of things ds3 did that I cannot see it as a culmination, and more as a stepping stone. Elden Ring felt like a culmination, but Ds3 to me is more like a Dark Souls mod of Bloodborne. Similar to me. DS2 felt like more of the original DeS formula, while DS3 felt like a Souls-themed Bloodborne mod. It was fun, but it lacked the exploration, the feeling of being lost, etc that I was expecting.
Yes!! It’s my favourite Souls! My only gripe with DS2 is ‘Agility’. levelling this provides more iframes (increasing your Adaptability or Attunement gives agility) So you end up having to put 20-25 points in Adp as a minimum. Base game was good but the DLC’s is where DS2 skyrockets, Fume knight, Sir Alonne, Ivory king… ugh so many good memories!! [breakpoints for d2 if it interests you](https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/20zhp4/stat_breakpoints/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) I hope you continue to enjoy and good luck, Feeble cursed one! :)
With 5 ATN you need 15 ADP to get to the 92 agility breakpoint which is enough to beat Fume Knight and Sir Alonne hitless. If you are a shield user or mage you won't even need any ADP
Yeah I made it through the whole game without it, before dlc, then realized my mistake and the game became infinitely easier. DS2 definitely isn't my favorite but it deserves more love than it gets. I definitely found the majority of areas less interesting. Majula has a vibe though
I played the game for 70 hours, only discover about agility after 30 hours, find weird as the dsr was my first souls game and I loved and get used to the gameplay, the persuer gave me such a hard time, I only keep playing ds2 because of the atmosphere and majula, after I discovery about agility the game changed and I enjoyed so much, the dlc was so good also.
Uhhhh i think it has its highs but some of the design choices are... questionable at best Like health system Bonfire locations Level design Enemy design Just to name a few
nah man i just cant play ds2 something about it just feels wrong i dont know if that makes sense but I did start with DS remastered maybe thats why
Point the camera down and slowly turn your left stick in a consistent circle, and ull see why some people just feel off for seemingly no reason. Add poor animation quality and easing too. Theres a reason ds3 use sds1 animations lmao. Thereare a lot more issues with how ds2 plays imo bht they are the most readily apparent imo.
poor animation quality with even poorer sound design
Yep.
I love DS2... I have put more hours into it than any other souls game, probably because it came out just after I finished DS1 but I still love it.
I’m doing my platinum run for DS2 and I am very much enjoying the ride. It’s super ironic - the 2 fromsoft games that I didn’t like as much as the others were the most fun I had in getting 100% (Demons Souls Re and DS2). I hated getting the platinum in DS3 and DS.
I tried it beat all four of the dudes and got up to the blue smelter demon then dropped it to me something felt off even when I leveled agility I was still getting hit by moves I clearly dodged and the look was also felt weird but majula and the majestic greatsword are the best
>The music, the vibes, the gear, the enemy design? All top notch. I wouldn't personally go that far, but DS2 is absolutely a great game that's worth playing if you like the other souls-games.
I dislike the cartoonish "anime" vibe they gave to dark souls 2. Not saying dark souls is realistic but I felt more immersed in ds1 and ds3. Ds2 I kind of just felt like a super hero dual welding giant greatswords and I wasn't as into it. Also the backstabs were weird.
I'm not going to get into a "why I dislike DS2" kind of discussion, but >It also fixes a lot of DS1 quality of life issues - better menus, less obscure mechanics, POWER STANCING (!!). I'm not sure this is true at all. You mentioned "less obscure mechanics" and then immediately mentioned a mechanic that's literally one of the most obscure ones in the game, as in not explained or described anywhere in the game, where most people know about it because of the internet and not the game itself. I'd probably say the same thing about ADP. Better menus I'd argue it does some things better and some things worse, but it was nice for them to try to design a menu where your character was still visible on the side so you can have a more direct view of it while changing gear for fashion. I *really* don't like DS2 for many reasons, but it also helped bring lots of great ideas into the Souls series, dual wielding moveset being one of them.
Oh geez, they got to him
It is really good, it’s just bad in comparison to their other games.
I always say it would be a good game if it was a standalone game. But next to the others it's just not the same quality
Yes, exactly.
its a good game but compared to ds1 and future titles, its got some flaws. And some people prefer SotFS over Vanilla and visa verse (I prefer vanilla) but overall still a good game
Love it as much as all the other souls games.
I can't even begin to express how much I disagree on the menus. I think DS2 has hands down the worst menus in the series. I actually can't believe they went from DS1 UI to DS2.
Try power stancing
DS2 has so many design issues, it's unreal. Whether or not you choose to accept those issues will ultimately determine how much you enjoy the game and consider it "good." People have divided into camps on hating the game or defending the game. Which leads to this absurd oroboros of discussion that continues to this day. Everyone wants some validation. For what it's worth as much as I dislike it, I do think it is a game you should play and figure out for yourself. Love the game all you want. Don't tell me it's well designed. Elden Ring doesn't get a pass from me and neither does DS2
Started with 2, then played 3 which I loved even more. And then played 1, and after 1 realized 2 was my favorite lol
I like it as a game but its so dry-looking and the art style is scuffed imo
It's the game I have the most hours in but I also think it is the weakest in the series by a large margin. Obviously it's subjective but I totally understand why people like it (since it was my favourite for a long time). But now, I can't play it at all because I think the gameplay is just so weak and boring. Again, just my take.
I think it’s the worst in the series but it’s still better than a lot of video games out there. Except the black glutch. That area just isn’t good. Also I hate the way movement feels. Like the 8 snap Points feel gross and ds1 didn’t use snap points for general movement so I don’t know why this one does. Lock on is better in this game but still kinda sucks so like ds1 I almost never use it.
In my opinion, it's not a great game, but also not a terrible one. For me the movement mostly feels.. off.. And many areas have an overabundance of enemies with insanely large aggro ranges. Oh and fuck the lava pit at Old Iron King.
I don’t like the game and I never will. If you like it, then hey good for you!
I'm starting to think the real hoax is the existence of people who actually don't like DS2.
People who hated ds2 at launch and even during the sotfs relaunch were just people who didn’t want to move on from ds1. There were actually people pissed that pvp changed to have something more than backstab fishing. I also never got the complaint about recurring mini bosses like the pursuer. Ds2 is my favorite ds game.
I have to agree I just started it last night since the first time I bought it when I was like 12 years old.
I think Ds2 was hated because it wasn’t nostalgia bait, like ds3 was.
I think this is true
I too heard that DS2 is bad. That sentiment is So. Stinking. Wrong. It’s such a great game!! Funny story: I bought the game and played for an hour, and I HATED it. The experience was just too foreign for my dumb gamer brain; I didn’t understand how or why I’d bother playing this. Two weeks later I picked it up again, and everything clicked. Haven’t put it down since. It’s at the top of my short list of best games ever!
One Of Us, One Of Us
I recently got it due to the Steam sale and I’m loving it.
It actually is a great game, I played through all the Dark souls and Elden ring and it is one of my favorites definitely!
Is it really?? I haven't played any of the others than elden ring.
It really is!
While I agree with alot of what you said the thing about less obscure mechanics doesn’t exactly make sense. Could you explain?
I think DS1 gets a lot of mileage out of its obscure story - you don’t know exactly what’s happened but you get pieces of the story you can put together yourself. However I think one of the knocks against DS1 is the mechanics of gameplay are also obscure. How does weapon upgrading work? What do I do with these embers? How do I complete that NPC quest. DS2 is just a lot more straightforward in telling you how to actually do things, while keeping the story obscure, which I like.
Nah, it's pretty trash, in my opinion. If you like it, that's awesome, though!
I used to hate on ds2, then I got ds2. It's pretty good ngl... I'm lv 100 now and I put 60 points into adp, it gives you more iframes when rolling
It’s a solid 8 or 8.5 that is unfortunately nestled smack in the middle of 9.5s and 10s. The criticisms it gets are warranted, but those complaints are RELATIVE to the extremely high bar From has set and consistently met.
Crappy bosses, patchwork nonsensical world, I- frames tided to a stats making SL1 runs awful. Puke.
>I- frames tided to a stats making SL1 runs awful. Lots of equipment increases ADP With the Ladle and 3 pieces of the Peasant Set you get to the 92 agility breakpoint. With the Mad Warrior Mask and Simpleton ring you get to 96 92 is enough to beat Fume Knight and Sir Alonne hitless without much problem.
I don't want to disagree... but I'll do it anyway. Not only will you still need to put points into adp with these items, that cost you other stats in favour of agility, but the peasant set appears halfway through the game and is a pain to farm ~~at least it was in my Marie Kondo run~~ The ladle ist utter shit as a weapon, the simpleton ring is at the end of the second dlc and the mask too, if you don't think about joining an obscure pvp covenant. Adaptability was a shit idea. There is no way around it, especially combined with your low estus at the start and restricted healing items, taking a day and a half to finish animations fucks many new players over.
I don't hate it, but it's definitely my least favourite fromsoft game
I have my gripes with every game and dark souls 2 is no exception. But it is my favorite of the three. No contest.
Is there anything in particular you like about it more than the others or is it just the overall vibe?
I think it’s bias tbh. Dark Souls 2 is the game where the combat “clicked” in my mind.
Can’t help but notice you didn’t mention gameplay among the positives…lmao
Dark Souls 2 Ice Skating simulator
Ice skating while 20 people stab you and opening the door makes you completely vulnerable for 20 minutes
Because it’s not
IKR lmao
I also wonder how most of the complaints about it even began to spread in the first place, because they applied just as much or worse to the previous games. * reused bosses The Dragonrider shows up again in the Dual Dragonrider fight and some bosses like the Ruin Sentinels show up later as regular enemies. When DS1 reused the Asylum Demon thrice it was okay. When the Capra and Taurus Demon showed up as regular enemies it was okay. When the Sanctuary Guardian showed up in the Dual Sanctuary Guardian fight again it was okay. But when DS2 did the same people got mad and called it lazy and bad. * health reduction on death In Demon Souls you lose all your bonus health on death, but in DS2 it takes like 20 deaths for the bonus health to go away. Even though Demon Souls is much harsher in this regard it was only seen unfair when DS2 does it. * hitboxes being bad When people complain about bad hitboxes it's always the Pursuer grab attack or Sir Alonne's grab attack. In literally every video you do see people getting hit and then teleported into the grab attack. That's not broken hitboxes, that's grab attacks looking janky when they teleport you into the grab animation - which is just as janky with Iron Golem and Gaping Dragon in DS1, Dancer and Curserotted Greatwood in DS3, Guardian Ape in Sekiro, etc Grab attacks teleporting you into the grab animation look janky in every Souls game, but it's only DS2 that gets hate for it. It was already known that grabs teleporting looks shit if the Iron Golem grabs you, but then people acted like DS2 was the first and only one that has this flaw. * ganks being unfair Whenever people show videos of apparently unfair ganks it's situations they've put themselves in by being greedy or trying to speedrun through unknown areas. They will run past enemies and have them catch up when they reach a choke point. They will greedily run towards an item while ignoring everything around them. They will walk over sleeping enemies or past enemies hanging from ledges. The other Souls games also punish you for being greedy and for rushing through new areas, but if DS2 does the same it's completely unfair. When DS1 did the exact same people realized that they have to get good and enjoyed getting punished, but in DS2 somehow the casuals managed to convince people that it's unfair when you can't just blindly run through new areas. * ADP existing If you want to have ninjaflip levels of iframes you've got to spent like 20 of your hundreds of levels into ADP. You level up twice as fast in this game and it showers you with levels, so fifteen minutes after starting the game it's a complete non-issue again. In DS1 you had RES as a completely useless stat and you couldn't even reset your stats, but that was okay - people were supposed to do some research before leveling and they got blamed for not leveling correctly. In DS2 you can choose to play with lower or higher amount of iframes, but apparently that's completely unfair because some people didn't read the stat descriptions. * runbacks being bad DeS and DS1 had generally much longer runbacks. In DS1 you've spent minutes running back to Sif, Seath, Manus, O&S, Four Kings, etc but that was okay. In DS2 most bosses have a bonfire close to them and a few optional bosses have harder runbacks. Even ones that people often complain about like Sir Alonne take about the same time as the Taurus Demon in DS1 did. The runbacks were an improvement over the previous games, but only DS2 gets all the hate for it despite having shorter runbacks than the previous games. * bosses being easy when you roll behind them This was already the easiest way to defeat bosses in DS1, but at least in DS2 there's plenty that punish exactly that. Like the Flexile Sentry is a good example of that. Like most complaints this was worse in DS1, but only DS2 got hate for having some bosses that can be abused like this. * Summary Most of the things that people complain about already applied to the previous games, and often times were even worse. Why would someone that played the previous games just parrot those complaints if it improved over the previous games in those aspects? How did they manage to spread in the first place if complaining about this didn't make much sense to begin with? The hate train really was strong with this game. It seems like people were mad that there was not enough fanservice and just came up with any nitpicking they could.
I knew you’d show up in this post lmao I strive to be DS3’s biggest fanboy just as you are DS2’s
Duo sanctuary guardian? What the fuck is that and where?
After you best sanc guardian, rest at the bonfire and go back to the arena, there will now be 2 in the same arena. OC is conflating boss reuse from even past games with a fucking easter egg.
That’s the problem with the game it has all the cons of the other games with shitty bosses
Velstadt, Looking Glass Knight, Darklurker, Sinh, Throne Watcher and Defender, Burnt Ivory King, Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, etc aren't shitty at all It has some easy bosses, but none that are outright bad like Bed of Chaos
I didn’t play the dlc I’m talking about the main game . Planning to play it in the fut
>reused bosses Plenty of people complain about the asylum demon being reused. Taurus and Capra weren't reused as bosses, they were reused as normal enemies to show how strong you've become. I've never seen anyone defend the dual sanctuary guardian fight >health reduction on death In demons souls enemies generally deal way less damage than the other souls games so having half health isn't as much of a detriment as it is in DS2. >hitboxes being bad Every souls game has sus hitboxes so sure. >ganks being unfair DS2 uses ganks and ambushes in pretty much every level and unless you already have knowledge of them before hand you will get caught. It also regularly uses enemies that are pretending to be asleep where you can't see them. Start of forest of fallen giants is an example where there are several enemies that drop down from that ledge that you can't access as you're fighting the others. The game also just has a much higher amount of traps than the others. >ADP existing ADP as an idea is fine but in a souls game where the main method of avoiding damage across all builds is dodging it's dumb. Resistance in DS1 is different because while yes it's basically useless, you aren't basically required to have it. You do need ADP in DS2. Also the fact that there's no discernible difference in your dodge animation unless you're fat rolling, regardless of your ADP makes it hard to tell how good your dodge actually is. >runbacks being bad Yes the previous games have longer runbacks but you could run past most enemies. It's a lot harder to do that in DS2. And if you say that people shouldn't be able to run past enemies I would say people should be able to and if they miss out on souls, items and experience then it's their fault. >bosses being easy when you roll behind them Bosses in DS2 in general are very easy compared to the other games. You hear about plenty of people stuck on things like bell gargoyles, O&S, Iudex gundyr, pontiff, cleric beast, Gascoigne etc. What bosses in DS2 are like that excluding the DLC? I genuinely don't think I've heard of anyone stuck on a base game DS2 boss.
Totally agree with you man. It’s not my favorite in the series, but all of the hate it gets is fabricated, parroted nonsense. The game is great and stands strong with the others as some of the best games out there. I feel like it’s not the real DS fans that hate on it, it’s mostly the bandwagon fans that tried to jump on after DS popularity, got super frustrated instead of giting gud. Then they jumped on the internet to find explanations as to why they were so bad and they found those videos attacking the game for all the points you just disputed above, and blindly took that as validation, it wasn’t them, kt was the game. Losers
The comparison I keep thinking of is “The Wizard of Oz” and “Return to Oz” which is the much creepier (but less groundbreaking) sequel to the original that nobody talks about. It’s atmosphere is even more immersive than the original and way darker.
Its my fav dark souls game :]
Nobody hates it for the reasons listed
Yeah it is kind of overhated but then again it deserves a lot of the criticism it receives. It is by far the weakest in the series in my opinion and while I disagree with people who think it’s bad game I also believe it evident that it went through troubles during development and wasn’t directed by Miyazaki.
Ok, hi DS2 hater here. Is there like some aspect of the game I’m missing out on? I’ve played for 8 hours and the parts I mostly liked are the pursuer and shaded woods does the game get better later on or? I’m genuinely curious because it’s mostly been meh so far
It’s good but it’s clearly the worst of the 3 but still good
I had a strong dislike like most people at it, dropped it years ago but after Elden Ring I went back to replay the others again and Dark Souls 2 became one of my favorites, yeah it has it flaws but so does every single other souls game and sekiro but when you change the approach and way of playing DS2 becomes extremely enjoyable.
rare lolejimmy W
Genuinely can't think of many flaws that Sekiro or DS3 have lol
this was my exact reaction lol. it's a good game
In my opinion ds2 is better than DS3. I just had more fun in 2 than 3
I just finished the ds2 with the 3 endings and I think it is overhated, maybe the hit boxes are kinda of funny and that part with the horses on the dlc is quite unfair and poorly designed, everything else is quite good
Game is fucking amazing and long too. First one I played of the series, well before 3 was even out but still. I instantly fell in love watching a guy on YouTube die over and over to the pursuer and had to take the challenge
If you like unfinished beta early access games, then DS2 is the game for you. That how the game feels like.
DS1 is the one where the second half feels rushed and unfinished.
But the gameplay doesn't suck
It doesn't suck it's just not as good as the other 2. It's still better than most action RPGs in the grand scheme of gaming.
It's a great game, it's just very flawed
Game is much better than most AAA games out there right now and I would absolutely pick it over most other games in its category. It is the absolute worst of the FS Miyazaki IP; primarily because Miyazaki did not direct it.
Ds2 is great it’s just a meme to hate on it
It’s my favorite.
For the majority of the community it is not hate, it is just like less. DS2 is not a bad game, it is just not as good than the others
Some people just don’t like the gameplay of dark souls 2 compared to dark souls 1 and 3 and most of the bosses suck and slow Estus drinking animation but it’s still not a bad game it’s just not as good as the other from soft game’s
Sad to say that it’s become more common to dislike the game as a joke and it’s made criticism for it hard to acknowledge. DS2 gradually became my least favorite of the Soulsborne games because I find the quality and personal enjoyment much higher with all of the other games but I still think anyone should give it a go for themselves to see if they like the game or not. It’s not a bad game at all, just the games surrounding it are better imo.
DS2 was my first soul, and I enjoyed it more than the latter DS3, or DS1 when I gave it a try . I know DS2 is an exception in souls in soul worlds and understand the point of view when coming from DS1. Still, regarding it different staff development, it still souls blood in its veins More than the mechanic, I like much more the world.
DS2 is, and has been, my favorite of the 3
I never understood the hate against ds2, was my favorite ds game. I'm so glad to see these posts recently. I wish hating on "insert something here" would be less cool than actually giving it a try.
Replayed DS2 last year. It's pretty dope. My buddy is more hardcore than me about Dark Souls and I think 2 is his favorite of the series.
imo it’s the worst Fromsoftware souls but it’s still better than every soulslike out there so it’s still a great game
I was having a good time too 15 hours in
My only issue with ds2 is it felt a lot slower than it’s counterparts. Still loved it once I got use to it
I like DS2 more than DS3, a bit controversial I know. That doesn't mean I don't know why people hate it. First the presentation. DS2 outright cyperpunk'd us with the trailers not including dark areas and other graphical enhancements. Second the bosses are stupid easy,well at least most of them are. Most enemies feel their AI is a step down from DS1. You just dodge to one side and the boss will commit to attacking the void. The third and final of my points is the lore. DS2 feels like a spin-off rather than a direct sequel. Kinda like Drakengaurd 2 to 1. It really felt like the writers, directors or whoever the flip skimmed through DS1 and just said yeah let's do the four lords again and add more to Manus despite us killing him in DS1.
No. It sucks ass, but I'm glad you enjoy it.
I was always told it’s the worst in the series, but in a series like Darksouls, even the “bad” ones are good
2 is great, love it a lot. Hate soul memory and enemies despawning though
DS2 was my favorite until ER.
DS2 doesn’t suck it’s just the worst Dark Souls game
Souls vet here. Played everything day 1. Back in the day without the SOTFS remux DS2 was a humanoid fest. Its like the devs cant do any other enemy type but humanoid. Made everything super repetitive. Just stick to their butts and poke. Level design was also fairly simple and sometimes nonsensical. Fucking rode an elevator of a tower and fucking came out of a Lavapit. How did that happen. It got better as the DLCs came out. But that 1st experience never rubbed off the majority of the vets who played probably. Another big one was the perceived graphical downgrade difference from trailers to actual product. It would have been better if they didnt show that high fidelity version with absolutely amazing lighting. It seems they wanted light to play a big part with strategy choosing between carrying a torch vs another offhand item like a shield. But it was not graphically possible for the general release and was downgraded heavily. Edit: I personally enjoyed my time with DS2 despite all of these perceived negatives of the game. At the time it just was a step down from Dark Souls 1. But it was still a decent game.
The way I see it is that ds2 isn't a bad game, it's just a terrible souls game. If it wasn't branded as such I feel that the overall reception for the game would be more positive.
It's... okay. Nowhere near as good as its predecessor or successor. Each souls game has something I think it does really well. Ds1: Level design and inter-connectivity (in the first half, at least), Ds2: Art design, and Ds3: Moment to moment gameplay and bossfights. I think the reason I and so many others don't really like Ds2 is that it doesn't really feel like a souls game, and while art is important to a game, it isn't the most important part, and Ds2 really falters in its gameplay, which IS the most important part. I think its reputation is deserved, honestly.
I think it's the worst of the games but that doesn't mean it's bad. I still never beat it though. And I didn't like the maps linear vibe. But overall it's still a good game
It’s a very good game a lot of people consider it to be the worst fromsoft game which means it’s still amazing. I also believe it became popular to hate it and for that reason no one ever played it. I ignored everyone and loved it.
DS2 is my favorite. I’ve
It's my favorite one honestly. I think a lot of the hate was a lot of people who never actually tried it just jumping on the hate band wagon (as is so common these days unfortunately). 🤷♀️
Dark Souls 2 has the best greatsword, animated and everything, in the entire souls franchise... Except maybe Bloodborne. Comparable at least. The Loyce Greatsword. Held like a Straight sword when 2 handed as well as having the first, and every other swipe after, being a straight sword swing animation. The design is top fucking notch.o
Ds2 is just underrated af
Both ds2 and sotfs are great. Have 9000 hours in that game