this is going to the be the oddest fucking comparison you'll hear between this and DS1 ever... but, my feelings on this compared to DS1 are like my feelings on Tyler, the creator's IGOR vs Call Me If You Get Lost. i think the former is a much more focused and cohesive work of art that i adore and like to think about a lot (DS1), while CMIYGL has a LOT more and feels a bit less like that lightning shot that worked so well, meaning theres a lot of stuff im like "its alright" on, but like the sheer amount of stuff i REALLY like means that it actually possibly maybe edges out IGOR for which album i like the most (therefore DS2 > DS1 maybe).

People keep defending this game by saying, “well it’s not a bad game” and they are right. Dark Souls 2 is not a bad game. I also hate Dark Souls 2.

This is a terrible sequel and that’s why I hate it. A good sequel expands on what was good in the first game, and improves what was bad. DS2 doesn’t do that.

The gameplay is such a mess both in level design, and especially combat. It’s actual bullshit at times. I’ll use the Heide Tower Knights as an example. Their attacks have little to no windup, making dodging needlessly difficult and parrying next to impossible, some of their attacks can pretty much magnetize to you, and you gotta fight them in groups. Coupled with the awful hit boxes that plague the whole game and you’re not exactly in store for a fun time.

SOULS-LIKE GAMES ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR YOU TO ENGAGE MULTIPLE ENEMIES AT ONCE UNLESS THE ENEMIES IN QUESTION ARE DESIGNED TO BE FOUGHT AS A GROUP OR DUO!

If this game wasn’t labeled as a sequel to one of the best games of all time, I’d like it way more but sadly it isn’t. Do yourself a favor and just skip to DS3.

I've had a dream recently. I was driving around my neighborhood, but it was different. Vastly different. I wasn't looking at houses, I was looking at abandoned buildings. The more I explored the neighborhood, the more decrepit it became: Houses became remains of a destroyed, rotting victorian era building; establishments that were nothing but wood and the occasional gothic imagery; memories that never were, would manifest in the form of ones you would never know its full history.

Dark Souls II is exactly that dream.

Drangleic is a world that once was. You just happen to explore its end. People fight for scraps of its memories, as if there's something to salvage from what calamity has already claimed. A demented kingdom is all you will find. I fear the concept of dementia, but I'm also morbidly curious by it, much so the concept of death itself. Exploring it for the first time, I've never really realized how much these morbid curiosities are why I've enjoyed Drangleic as much as I have. I just thought it was a cool world. It's crazy how stories can be told mainly through visuals and you could totally ignore the meat of it and still get the message.

Dark Souls, as a series, explores death in different ways. Where the first one's thematic is death and how we cling on to life (perhaps a bit too much), Dark Souls 2 gives us death, and how it will eventually make us all forgotten. To me, death only comes once you're no longer remembered. In other words, you cling on to those memories, no matter how much they're degrading.

Oh, right, this is a video game. Oops.

Dark Souls 2 is also my first souls-like game. It's a game that formed me as a souls-like enjoyer. I'll always tell people to start with 2 with a win-win situation of "If you liked the others better, then at least you started with the worst and built it up. If you loved this game from the get-go, then you got a new favorite in your hands". Balance is weird in this game: it throws many bones at the player. It's much easier to get a hang of the game and breeze through it, unlike 1 and 3, and Elden Ring. But that's why it's so much fun. I get to play without stressing too much, I allow myself to get hit more often due to the existence of lifegems, and so on. It feels so much more dynamic and I got to play this game multiple times, with different play styles each time.

I've never played the Scholar of the First Sin edition, and from what I've heard, it's even more of a "gank squad central" game than before. I never had an issue with enemy placement in the original, but if it's accentuated in the new version, then I'd hate to try it out, lest it ruins my perception of this game being the best one of the series.

I'm not here to start wars about which Dark Souls is better, but I will say this: Don't trust a person who will go out of their way to tell you unprompted that Dark Souls 1 is the best one. They probably only play it for the PvP.