Just rolled credits. I usually like to yap a lot with my reviews but I really don't want to spoil anything so I have to keep it a bit vague and short-ish.

This game is just a constant stream of mind-blowing discoveries. Every little nook and cranny that I stumbled upon is just so satisfying. And the same goes for every calculated thought/plan that worked.

The level design overall is absolutely impeccable, I never felt so enthralled in exploring every orifice of the game's world. And it's not just because of the highly varied and consistently top notch puzzles, even the moment-to-moment platforming sections just felt great. Not to mention the mysterious atmosphere that the game's beautiful art style bolsters. Easily one of the, if not the, best pixel art style I've ever seen.

And I have to gush a bit about all the tools you get along the way. Everytime I get a new one I always thought "oh my god this is game changing!", and I'm immediately thinking of areas where it would be useful. That's a good tell of how in sync the item designs are with the level design.

What Animal Well has done is not exactly unique, but the way it approaches its concepts feels so fresh, and it creates this sense of grandeur by condensing it all into an absurdly tight and dense package. The game never misses. It is easily the best game of its ilk, and my favorite game this gen so far.

I still have a ton of secrets to figure out, so I'll do just that. Who knows, it could be a 20 outta 10 game by the time I get the plat.

P.S. Rolled credits for the 2nd time and got the plat, doubled my play time from when I wrote this review first haha (12 hours to 26 hours). Collecting all the eggs was incredibly fun. Very interesting and inventive puzzle designs overall. But I have tasted a bit of the so called "3rd layer puzzles" and they're quite unhinged, haha. This game just keeps on giving. Shout out to the folks at the official AW discord for helping with everything after the 15 hour mark, my brain power wasn't enough to keep up. Also, the last 12-13 hours were in one sitting, and considering I get so easily tired these days, that just speaks to how good the game is. Haven't been enjoying a new game to this level since 2020.

What caught me by surprise is how well made this game is. Different types of weapons that excel on damaging enemies in a specific way, elemental effects and environmental hazards, incredibly detailed and disgusting gore technology, well designed levels that feels expansive but not too large, having lock-and-key loot in order to minimize the monotony of backtracking, and so on; these systems work so well by themselves and in relation to each other. It's experly crafted. Not to mention how well they brought the vibes of California to life, and the mostly enjoyable stories of its various inhabitants. I decided not to finish the game because I have gotten my fill of wacky post apocalypse zombie killing. I'm glad I gave this game a shot and I would recommend it to others in a heartbeat.

Like everybody else’s review, this is gonna be a wall of text

With every Suda game I play, I question more and more why I continue playing them. Before playing TSC, I had played Killer7, the three main No More Heroes games, and Killer is Dead with it being the only game I came out of with a fully positive feeling. I find Suda’s writing style to be obtuse, esoteric, and obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious. I don’t feel like he writes compelling characters as most just have a single gimmick they stick to for the entire story or their characterization feels like a mishmash of other characters from media he likes (he’s stated he’s inspired by everything he likes). I feel the worlds he writes tend to not live up to their potential, feeling like he either wasn’t able to finish all the background writing or he thought he did but there’s a lot missing. His newer works also feel masturbatory, he never stops referencing his old works and how freaking awesome! they are, which is funny to me because I think almost all of them aren’t very good

I was really hesitant to play The Silver Case. My friend @Kungfugloves spent weeks shouting about how insane and amazing it is, how “it doesn’t feel like a human wrote it” and how everything feels super unique and interesting. The thing is I hate visual novels. I do not find them engaging, I put gameplay and story on an equal pedestal and visual novels tend to be stripped of the former. As stated, I also do not like Suda’s writing and this is nothing but that. He tried to ease me in by saying one of the campaigns was written by someone else so I’d at least like that one. He bought it for me despite me telling him not to and so I bit the bullet and tried my hardest to go into it with an open mind

I remember watching my friend play this a few months prior to my playthrough and genuinely getting a headache from the UI and backgrounds. I didn't have as much of an issue with it this time around but I do think they're waaaay too busy and a lot of them seem like they're trying to be cryptic and weird for the sake of it. I also found the music to be largely uninteresting, very little of it being downright bad but there isn't a single song that ever stuck out to me and I couldn't even hum a single tune from the game if you stuck a gun to my head

But how did I feel by the end? I think “underwhelmed and frustrated” is probably the best descriptor. The story wasn’t nearly as complex or interesting as I was led to believe. I did have the context that the original release was 1999, but at the same time none of the concepts or story beats felt original to that time period. I’d definitely seen police procedurals of a similar nature as a child with my grandparents that followed a lot of the same beats. Mental clones had been done before in comics and manga well before this. Manic obsessions with serial killers had been a phenomenon for ages.

This game also plays like complete and utter shit. I go into further detail about it in Placebo later in this review but I cannot understate how little I enjoyed the simple act of playing this game. The little exploration you do isn't interesting and takes ages. The puzzles aren't interesting, fun, or engaging, searching every nook and cranny for what you can interact with is actively shit. I cannot and straight up refuse to understand anyone who says that playing this is a good time

The chapter I was most disappointed by was Parade, which my friend described as being “actually crazy, there’s explosions and kidnappings, it’s insane”. Those were present, sure, but the presentation of the game didn’t do the former any good and the latter felt like any other political kidnapping in any other media, topped off with Suda’s esoteric writing that I hate (I know the conclusion is very much easy to understand but the way it’s presented prior to the reveal really rubbed me the wrong way). Runner up goes to Spectrum which felt like an insane waste of time from beginning to end and Lunatics which doesn’t add anything except a miserable conclusion for the five fans of Moonlight Syndrome

I enjoyed Placebo more than Transmitter for the sole reason that the mundane life Tokio lived was more compelling to me than the police procedural of Transmitter. Seeing Tokio’s life descend and him slowly lose his mind as it becomes less clear what’s real and what isn’t was interesting and despite how much more fantastical parts of it were than Transmitter, the grounded tone felt less miserable than Transmitter. I did feel the gameplay was more frustrating though due to the constant back and forth of the three interactables in the room, not telling you which you should do first so you have to constantly trial and error which leads to reading the same lines over and over. I’m told this is a holdover from the original PS1 version but I feel they could have just cut out that spot in the room by the bed if they wanted to

The only other character I ended up liking by the end was Kusabi. I say this because he was easily my least favorite character for a lot of the game. Most of his dialogue early on felt like it was written around the profanity instead of the profanity being written in after, it felt like Suda just discovered the words “fuck”, “shit,” and “goddamn”. I do think he gets some nice development as the game goes on and he effectively becomes the protagonist due to how intertwined he is in everything, but I feel the way he’s more or less dropped at the very end (and how he’s used in the future games now that I’ve played them) is a major misstep

I understand TSC. I get what it’s trying to say. I don’t think it’s an interesting story, I don’t think anything it does is new, I feel it expects the player to never have even considered anything it says throughout its runtime which feels like an insult to the player’s intelligence. I do think the world of the 24 wards is really interesting and had me intrigued the whole time. This game’s world seems downright miserable to live in and the things they hint toward really had me itching for more, but unfortunately instead of any interesting developments I spent the final chapter going up and down ten buildings for some lore that easily could have been consolidated to a drastic degree. Maybe if I liked visual novels more I might have given this a higher score but I don't think that's the case

Most of the criticism I’m writing comes from during and after the playthrough but now that I’ve gone through Flower, Sun, and Rain (terrible) and MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY The 25th Ward (amazing), this game’s flaws mean much more to me because I can see what was possible in this world that has been created and how the establishing framework placed down in this game could have been so much better. I do think it’s interesting how prescient the writing is when it comes to the way government corruption and terrorism are presented, but I don’t think this game is very good in any way honestly

At least it got me to play The 25th Ward

(Finished on 3/1/2024)

Decided to finish this up as I was about to hit '600' played games on here and as it turns out, Final Fantasy 6 is pretty goddamn good.

What do I have to say that people haven't been saying for 30 years? Since I was a kid I've heard nothing but the gold standard for this game, being described as near fine-art levels of excellence with regards to its writing, themes and characters. While I do agree, and I'll go over my own thoughts later, the one thought that stood out finally going through it all these years later was: "man this is just a really fun RPG!".

Leading up to Final Fantasy 6 we had several games that, by all means pushed the rpg genre forward- but to what extent? FF1's D&D like party structure helped mirror the experience of a campaign across a set narrative, while 2 forgoes this, invents a new amorphous stat growth skill system to distinguish party members and rotates across several party members with new 'baggage' in the game's ongoing plot. FF3 forgoes this further by returning to more blank slate characters tackling a 'job' system in which you gradually unlock distinguished jobs, a system that is only expanded on further in FF5- only for the fourth game to stick solely on party members with set classes, a stronger emphasis on the story and more distinguished character arcs. It's a lot of bobbing and weaving between what elements make a Final Fantasy- a topic we see as recently as last year with the release of 16. Early on, however, it was an odd balancing act between thematics, actors and class mechanics- the only thing that stayed relatively static was the iconoclastic future-medieval world and, as Sakaguchi joked: 'blue textboxes'.

I guess by comparison, in the west we at least had a straightforward upgrade from 1 to 2 (4) to what we got as Final Fantasy III (6).


FF6's cast is great- genuinely glad there's a strong mix of characters I already understood were good through osmosis, on top of some surprise stars based on just good they are in battle. Whenever I start an RPG, there's always the thought I have of 'what is my final party gonna look like' and while I had that thought initially this game dashes that thought process pretty quickly. Throughout the first half your party gets split up several times, bringing about their own journeys across the world and meeting new faces throughout. Much of the game is spent divvying up your party either by way of the plot or in the pursuit of several of the games’ character sidequests. I was wondering less and less just how my party would look and moreso what ‘level’ I’d be ending the game at considering how many other characters you’d be palling around with (Around ~35!).

FF7 accomplishes this somewhat similarly, and while I slightly prefer that game’s cast its hampered by a smaller total party, a party size that's one man smaller and the lack of switching out your protag. I love Cloud, we all do -even if you can't admit it- but I do wish I could enter sections just as three of my other members. Here, there’s practically no protagonist. You have 14 total characters by the end of the game and the worst of the bunch are either outclassed or dont have as much use time by the end of the game. Even the primary face on the box art (not Mog, sorry bud) isn’t all that present for most of the game’s adventure. As the game’s second half has our party separate- the character we hone in on isnt Terra but Celes, you don’t have to meet Terra for quite some time in the ruined world.



Honestly I think my biggest complaint is I kinda think there's a lot of fluff spells/skills throughout. It's a weird disconnect coming from 5, which has the capacity to be broken in two, has a lot of moments where you absolutely need a certain party comp on top of quite a weird onboarding process as to what classes are better than others. 6 on the other hand, while not the easiest FF isnt all that complicated throughout most its battles. All things considered I think most of the hardest fights in the game come ‘before’ the game’s actual final boss.

-Strago is a blue mage, now a staple of the franchise...in a game where Gau exists- who is already kind of a pain to understand with all his 'Rage' skills to scroll through and obtain while grinding on the Veldt.
-Cyan is a strong character with a stronger arc...but pales easily compared to Sabin and Edgar on top of coming somewhat after both of these guys. Bushido easily pales in comparison to most of the other character mechanics.
-I don't even really know what Umaro does
-Mog gets points for being a great option as Dragoon but man the Dance mechanic is unreliable

Also while I do like the Esper system a lot I think getting the stat bonus out of levels can be kinda weird when getting back characters you haven’t seen for some time. Once I got to the world of ruin Shadow and Gau were so much squishier/less versatile than other members of the party which kinda put a damper on me wanting to use them regularly. At the very least there’s some pretty good grinding spots for both EXP/AP so its not too hard to get people back on par, I just didn’t feel it super necessary.

Lastly I'll touch somewhat about the story/presentation, but it's somewhat hard to talk about. Namely, its hard to think about something that hasn't already been brought up! I usually don't care about this kind of factor in reviews but genuinely I knew most of this game's plot beats since I was 12. That said, sheesh this game came out in 1994.
The secondary issue in expressing how powerful Final Fantasy 6 feels in this entry's narrative also lies in how much it strides in its world, lore and characters compared to its previous games. 4 pushed the boundaries for how a narrative can be told in this genre, but 6 respects and sits you down on this notion. It's not overtly grimdark, nor too melodramatic- it provides a great deal of whimsy but never edges on cheesy. Its a wonderful blend of fantasy flavors throughout, while offering several highlights that bucked the usual structure of the series up to this point. I strongly envy those that never saw this coming on its initial release.

I'll also admit- I technically played this on the 'Pixel Remaster' version of the game (I just kinda liked this box art more). It's a pretty alright version, although to be honest I figure its not imperative you play the newest remaster. Part of me kinda wanted to check out how certain fights/animations played on the SNES version, and while you can mod the steam version, without these mods you have to deal with some pretty bloated menus and terrible font choices (even with the new update).

Final Fantasy 6, akin to a lot of other titles on the SNES have already had a swath of acclaim since its release and into the years spanning our communication era. It was hard to penetrate what made FF6 so special when first picking it up about 10 years ago, however I'm glad I've not only come around to beating it after so long, but also that I better understand the appeal of FF6 all this time. I expected to come out enjoying the usual things I had heard about the game- the cast, the characters, the music- but finally going through the other 2/3rds of the game I hadn’t previously seen more of it clicked. Every dungeon just has the right amount of new equipment or a new character or a new summon to spice things up, and when the party has so many options to mess around with, FF6 almost never gets stale.

Relogging

I have not broken your heart- you have broken it and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

The Hearts Connected. Despite Everything.

Through Patches Of Violet

Canto 6 Peak

I hate you pjm but good lord your quality for your games is just insanely high and thank you for bringing back ruina/lobcorp difficulty.

Not sure what the deal is but I found this quite a bit harder than every subsequent game in the series. And this isn't my first rodeo ... I 100% perfected FEVER, okay? I'm not used to seeing anything but "Superb" on my first runs, THANK you very much. Seems like maybe the timing window overall is tighter? Also the songs/challenges just aren't designed as well or with as clear feedback as in the later games. Many feel rushed and awkward. Their overall design ethos isn't exactly locked down yet - some of the songs definitely just require light memorization, and that's not something that I can ever say for anything else in the series after this.

Anyway, the joyous infinity that is RHYTHM HEAVEN's charm is present and accounted for in its debut, definitely. A game of constant smiling and rocking out to what has to be the best collection of music on the GBA. Just not nearly as good as any of the later ones.

self-loathing as a broken funhouse mirror, distorting and reflecting back everything you hate about yourself; you see it everywhere; on billboards, on tv, in everyone else. It all seems to reaffirm the ugliness you see in yourself; you can run from it but it'll always be there, right behind you. The only way to escape is to confront the man in the mirror, to look at the twisted parody you've become and choose to do something about it; as max says "It could destroy you, drive you mad. It could set you free"

a masterpiece

(Finished main game on 3/24, abandoned beating last couple of bosses 3/25)

Had to manage beating the last 25% of this game on a Dualsense with a broken left analog stick, privy to send me forward towards an attack I meant to back up from. Rather than wait out the arrival of a new controller or return it for a fix - I just really wanted to get this game out of the way.


Off the heels of Dark Souls 1, FromSoft had managed to get a hot streak going with its 'Souls' titles. DeS and DS1 managed to entice players seeking out new, harder, wilder challenges that overlay a world brimming with deeper scars. It was a turning point in the games industry during the mid to late 7th generation and FromSoft would be right to keep that momentum going with making a follow up to solidify Souls as a series. Somehow DS2 didn't end the franchise, which is one positive I can say about the game.

I already knew going into this that it was the weird cousin of the series and I would say I'm privy to weird mechanics or janky structure, unfortunately I only came to the conclusion that I don't think there's any single aspect of this game I thought rivaling its kin in quality nor scope. While I haven't played all the games in the series I have played the game to release prior and after this: DS1 and Bloodborne, respectively. The series would go on to evolve and morph into several different forms since then, yet around the time of BB's release I remember discourse surrounding the trio regarding the difference between Dark Souls' reliance on being more patient and slower in your approach versus Bloodborne's more aggressive, tit-for-tat, combat. Where Dark Souls 2 lied in this comparison I don't remember. Hell, across the several years afterward I didn't hear much about Dark Souls 2 outside of memes about how Dark Souls 2 is the 'weirdo' one. It was the only thing I really had to base my expectations on, yet really- what isnt weird about Souls games anyway? Regardless of its notoriety (and a fairly shoddy PC port that had issues with my controller), I tried to remain somewhat bright in my outlook and understand what fans saw in SotFS.


As a starter for this Soulsborne I decided to focus a bit more into a Dex-Hex build compared to the Sorcery-Spellsword in ER and the Pyromancer in DS. I will say, if Magic is what you're looking for this is a pretty good entry, having a lot of variety in its spells. Until Elden Ring this seems to be the title with the most variety and ease of access to its spell selection. Hexes are a neat type of magic, basing its strength off the weaker of your Int/Faith, requiring you to level both simultaneously, but soft-capping early. Once you hit the DLCs this stratagem becomes a little less valuable, so I respec'd into a more DEX focus build. I don't tend to focus too hard on combat in these titles although this time around everything feels much more ‘crowded’ and I'll touch on that later but it's usually a good idea to carry some ranged options, or in some fields of magic, an AOE (thank you Dark Fog...). Most everything surrounding the combat feels about the same as DS1 feels, although certain movements/animations feel just a tad off, even for Dark Souls. Certain hitboxes not feeling right, lotta bad locking on…I dont have the chops to elaborate though so it could just be my imagination.


What I will elaborate on, however, is the enemies with which you apply your combative prowess on. Dark Souls certainly has its fair share of notorious enemies, a grand array of memorable jerks that have just that one move that reaches you, attempting to down an Estus. From the literal Dragon Asses parading in Lost Izalith, the Giant Werewolves in Yharnam, the Caelid Dinosaur Crows- the list goes on.

In Dark Souls 2 many of the enemies reflect the fallen kingdom and the surrounding areas, although coming off of Eldenring and Dark Souls 1 you can just kinda categorize certain mook types and aggressions as the game goes on. Where it starts to falter however is in 3 key details:

1) How many enemies you'll be facing
2) Where many of the enemies are placed
3) How persistent these enemies are

Oftentimes Dark Souls 2 will take an opportunity to present a sort of...scenario. One that feels like it sounded cooler in the level designer's head than in practice. Sometimes it's as simple as crossing a certain boundary and a horde of 4 or 5 enemies descending a tower in the distance to meet you, other times it feels more dubious. There's one instance late in the game where several enemies/beasts are caged up like experiments and a third party is monitoring these trapped monsters. The trope of 'the freed monsters turn on their captors' immediately comes to mind as you pull the lever to free these beasts, not realizing that games sometimes aren't that smart and you now have to contend with the third party and several new monsters aggroing onto you from mimics to ogres. I wouldn't mind, and you get some items out of it but it just feels like there were a lot of 'events' that were meant to be scripted out but just clash with the normal, actual game feel of a Soulsborne. I'll get into some of the 'world/area' event mechanics later but for enemies there's often too many in each area of a given map and often just feel too samey for much of the game.

Maybe a good chunk of that sameness across the enemy types is just how often you fight 'ambush' zombies/knights. I feel like for a good chunk of the game its just contending with these somewhat competent, agile Manikins and Alonne Soldiers and Heide Knights. They aren’t unmanageable on their own but they tend to use much more time/effort to take down than I’d like, especially when managing 2 or 4 of them (those damn Alonne Knights…).

Side note, however you get raided in this game way too often. I swear you get about 2 to 3 an area but it's never consistent as to when these guys might spawn, some areas have multiple invaders in the same area, too?? I'm sure there's story significance but I don't really care because invaders have usually been hit or miss in the series, and mostly miss in this game. The amount of times 'The Forlorn' has shown up eclipses the amount of times I died to most every boss in this game, I wish I were joking. That's not a flex on my skill, this person just shows up 12 times to annoy you.

Dark Souls 1 eventually starts to reuse certain enemies but throughout much of the experience you have pretty distinct and suitable adversities up until Lost Izalith. In addition, there weren't too many places that required you to look around corners and be cautious, other than a few in Lower Undead Burg(?). Here it's just a constant swarm of enemies dropping from out of eyesight tunnels, behind corners, and from several, several feet away. I swear the archers have the most absurd range, they will just continue to fire arrows or projectiles from much farther than you'd think.

Ranged enemies aren't the only ones however as close combat enemies, once proc'd, will also be incredibly tenacious in their pursuit. There are several areas in the game in which you'll prefer to just ignore certain mooks lying throughout a segment of the map, perhaps to backtrack to a sidepath you missed earlier. Careful now, several enemies decided to join you while you weren't looking! The Huntsman Copse I swear has the worst end of this, I've had boss runs where somehow the large Hunters chase behind me, even worse if you decide to be responsible and try to tackle the Executioners that ambush you from the cliffs. There are a lot of boss runs that have this issue, hell there's a lot of just 'running' where you pick up weird stragglers. Add in the factors I mentioned above like how many enemies some sections have and it just gets absurd. At least Fume Knight has a sober bonfire...

I think the primary example of this can be seen in the first area of the game, the Forest of Fallen Giants. Quite immediately there's a few details that feel off about the location, for starters there's an ogre just like, walking around? I don't know why. He just kind of ignores you, so you encounter the first group of enemies, one hiding behind the bridge, and deal with them deftly. You climb a ladder and there's just like 8 of them lying on the ground now, and a couple of firebomb tossers on a ledge. If you go out a side path there's also a cliff side with an item but there's just like a guy there. You can proc him 50% of the time and he just drops down and will chase you up the latter and this becomes every area from here on out. Just running through half a level and not being able to catch a break. Enemies that would otherwise feel fine to face just get super tedious and drag down certain areas of the game that much more. Although the area design is generally shoddy, with or without enemy combatants.


Immediately one of the weakest parts of Dark Souls 2 is the map design- a large step down from 1's intricate world. It's only been a few years since finishing Dark Souls 1 yet it's quickly become one of my favorites in gaming. Looking up from Blighttown and seeing the sky, the cliff and the tree of Firelink Shrine means so much. In Dark Souls 2 so many of the areas you traverse just feel so...disconnected and distant. Certain areas reminded me more of Spyro than of FromSoft, there's a certain style to how varied the level theme and structure are and its just not Dark Souls, or Bloodborne for that matter.

Maybe it's how certain areas in DS1 are connected that makes it feel so much more natural. Getting to Andrei’s Shop from the Undead Parish but also that bonfire acting as a hub leading out to Darkroot Garden and also Sen's Fortress feels amazing. In Dark Souls 2 it prefers to take you through tunnels and elevators and other means of transportation to reach new areas, everything is disjointed and unconnected. This comes to a breaking point after unlocking so many areas and just seeing the list of different, separate areas that feel so far apart... even though the Shaded Woods are just a brief walk away. By the end of the game you will have lit flames atop a large stone map, indicating the defeated major bosses of sections and I just can't point out what these flames are supposed to represent.

I guess the upside is there's a lot of openness as to what direction you can go right off the bat. Usually you head into the Forest into Heide's Tower but from there it's kind of up to you as to what 'Great Souls’' you want to hunt down, it just feels a bit more like I'm stumbling upon these more than anything. From what I saw a lot of people ran straight into Sinner's Rise immediately although after seeing the Flexile Sentry, I thought the area was meant for later. I don't know whether to praise it for its flexibility or prod it for its lacking sensible direction. Certainly other games in the series run into this same problem, no doubt. Bloodborne you might accidentally run into Cainhurst, Dark Souls has most of the Tomb of Giants available after beating Pinwheel but nothing much to do until you grab the Lordvessel, Eldenring is completely open world so you can just hit whatever. Although usually the games have been much more balanced or streamlined as to keep players out through other signs or hints than enemies being harder. Going into the Catacombs is already a farcical task until you gather a way to permanently destroy Skeletons and is completely off the beaten path. Bloodborne's manner of madness along with how each area is connected makes it so it's really hard to just stumble into an area with a higher skill ceiling than others.

I really appreciate how easily areas blend into each other in DS1, and admittedly- the lack of fast travel for the first half of the game feels so much more refreshing. Sidetracking isn't really all that lustrous as straying too far from the main objective of reaching Anor Londo -or hell straying too far from Firelink- seems unwise, so the options aren't really there at all. Why are the New Londo Ruins so easily accessible from the start? Well, while its not intentional you are able to grab an early Estus upgrade by suicide running into the ruins, but the ethereal enemies and lack of any clear objective should clue you in otherwise. On top of that it serves as a nice connecting point between an elevator from the Valley of Drakes, another area that acts more as a highway for other areas' off ramps and the upper end of Blighttown.

Dark Souls 1 also prides itself on not having too much of one 'status' to worry about. Looking back there's a lot of areas and enemies that carry status effects of some sort, but as far as I remember there's only really 1 area for each status? Blightown, the Depths, the Catacombs, each have a focus on one status and after those areas are done you don't have to worry too much from then on. In Dark Souls 2 it feels like there's so many traps and statuses just randomly spread around the place. Several places have poison throughout the area like the Gutter and Harvest Valley, lots of enemies will proc bleed if they attack you, basilisks are just randomly everywhere. This gets incredibly annoying in the DLCs, namely the Sunken King areas where a lot of enemies carry stone status and there’s an entire subsection with statues that just hock stone loogies at you.


I don't even feel as though I hate Dark Souls 1's uncooked latter half as much as I hate the boss fight checklist here in 2. Dark Souls 1 opens on several of your late game bosses totaling the world and bringing about the age you now live in- Nito, Seath, the Witch of Izalith and King Gwyn. The hard thing to really compel with these titans is that by the end of the game these are admittedly...odd fights, bar the games finale. Nito is fine, if easier than I had hoped, but Seath is a complete nutjob being a blind dragon with this eclectic BGM and the Bed of Chaos is a complete disaster of a puzzle boss. They're chumps. They’ve fallen off. They're losers- you're coming in to clean their mess, and by the time you reach Gwyn you're probably just as hollow inside as he is. Whether intentional or not, the latter half of Dark Souls 1 feeling a lot more 'broken' does in a weird way resonate with several of your colleagues also going through their own crises- Solaire either completely turns on you or loses out on his sunlight; most of Siegmeyer’s options end in him dying or resigning that he is too weak compared to you. The two endings are either you burning at the kiln and continuing the age of Fire or breaking the cycle and issuing in the age of Dark. Obviously From Soft didn't have all the time or money to finish up much of the late game and it suffers a lot while playing through, but part of me enjoyed the final stretch being as discombobulated and somewhat more ‘open’ compared to the earlier objectives.

Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, the intro this time around involves an old woman spinning a tale about a long lost kingdom of Drangleic and much of the cast will reference this lost kingdom surely. The main objective is given to you by the leveling up maiden, the Emerald Herald: To gather the four flames from 'Great Ones' that are considered to be reincarnations of the four main baddies from the first game. As you obtain the Sacred Flames, you get interrupted by a massive being named Aldia. He gives some vague explanations and lore regarding your role in all of this, somewhat like Frampt or Kaathe. He's fine but spoiler alert you fight him and its pretty middling, kinda disappointing considering he's the titular "Scholar of the First Sin". Dark Souls 1 might have a pretty light story if you just go through it but its creation mythos feels so ingrained in every step of the process from the intro onward that its easy to discern what's going on. Dark Souls 2 has these weird gaps throughout the journey that make me stop and try and remember what the hell is going on anyway. I pretty much had the jist after all, its just not as interesting as I figured. Yes the Lost Sinner has some neat connections especially with regards to items you find in one of the DLCs no I did not see that because by the time I hit the DLCs that boss had jettisoned itself out of my memory banks.


Padding the journey to claim these sacred flames are a swath of middling boss fights. Keeping a mental note in my mind (tierlistmaker .com on one of 20 tabs on the other monitor) I recorded how I felt about each boss with regard to how fun of a fight they are and the ‘pageantry’ surrounding it. Yet there’s a major quantity over quality issue here, especially in the first half of the game. Until you hit Drangleic Castle the two strongest fights in the game are Pursuer and Smelter Demon among a morass of unremarkable, dull or easy as hell fights. It's hard to even appreciate the former because he just shows up everywhere in the following area to ambush you- funny, admittedly but really tiring.

Much of the game's challenge relied more on obscure prerequisites rather than constant player engagement, or at least the 'facade' of a challenging encounter. Dark Souls 1 works excellently to at least present the "facade" aspect, even if it doesn't execute all that well. While Bed of Chaos or Pinwheel are incredibly flawed either in the complexity, or lack thereof, of the fight, or just a couple of terrible hitboxes, they still have some significance or build up that makes those fights feel justified. In Dark Souls 2, fights like the Covetous Demon, the Royal Rat fights, Demon of Song, several Dragonriders Flexile Sentry, hell some of the ‘Great Ones’ just feel like throwaway fights. They feel more like what would become the minor boss fights in the Eldenring catacombs.

Certainly there's some neat lore connecting the events following DS1 to the destruction of Drangleic thousands of years later, everything is just 'awkward'. This is the awkward middle child between the start of the end in Dark Souls 1 and what I understand to be the near total death of everything in DS3. Again, it feels like there's a neat idea on paper but in execution there's nothing really tying myself to this new foursome of foes. Like of all the guys to get Gwyn's shard its the Old Iron King? Man, what a downgrade.

That said Majula is a strong hub, it feels a bit more 'lively' as a hub than most of your other hubs in a soulsborne title. It's not my favorite but it's a pleasant place to bring people to and unlock new shopkeeps. At the very least I understand the jokes about Eldenring being more akin to Dark Souls 2-2 now.


The other thing that gets brought up regarding Dark Souls 2 was that the DLCs were a step above the vanilla base of the game, 3 flavorful scoops on top of everything else!... Well, I guess they aren't wrong, per se. I'll at least say the DLCs feel like an upward momentum from Sunken to Ivory to Old Iron. A lot of these have shades of what would next evolve into Bloorborne's geometry. In particular Eluem's long castle walls blend into courtyards and branching into lower levels/caves. I did really enjoy rolling that snowball down to make a shortcut- didn't enjoy the Frigid Outskirts so much.

I'll cop to it, there were a few bosses I didn't get around to (namely I got so tilted needing to go back through the Pilgrims of Dark area if you die to Darklurker so I just gave up playing anymore, I saw credits sue me) but hell if I was going to go check out the King's Pets in Frigid Outskirts, namely because of how bad the boss run is. Low visibility, large map, constant ambushing by these Kirin type enemies, not even a bonfire on the map so you have to take a coffin loading screen after each death and all this for what I hear is one of the hardest fights? Two of a boss I already fought earlier? Nah.

Crown of the Old Iron King feels the most consistent in its quality, and its probably the hardest which is an odd balance if I had to say. The worst part about Dark Soul II isn't that its hard, its that its obnoxious. Dark Souls I was likened upon its release as a return to retro style, no holds barred difficulty and yet most of the difficulty throughout the first game felt more like tests of patience, skill and a bit of pattern recognition/manipulation. Arriving at Old Iron King felt like a return to this mindset as you tackle bosses like Sir Alonne and Fume Knight, easily two of the games most fun fights.


I don't really pride myself on not liking video games, I think generally I buy and play games that I think I'd enjoy. Critically, I tend to hone in on aspects I enjoy and I tend to be optimistic on titles despite glaring flaws or shortcomings. Opinions are certainly given, flexible, intangible ideas and I just tend to be easier on titles in general, but sometimes its just that hard to really find the points that gave me a rush to my neurons in a game.

In my head I think about how I felt about Pokemon X/Y across the entire spectrum of the series and that's where I think about it being the 'weakest' of the set. It's still in a series I enjoy across the bar and that generation had additions that were at least tangible throughout the later games. I think initially starting Dark Souls 2 I was wondering if I'd feel a similar sensation, a faint appreciation but lacking the right 'punch'. I can appreciate a handful of fights and the generally laissez-faire structure, but otherwise this is a package too cluttered, too unfocused and too halfhearted in its attempts to recreate the magic of its predecessors.

It's sorta hard to place Dark Souls 2, not because of some conflicting feelings but because it feels a bit hypocritical to the pathos of the franchise. While I still wouldn't consider myself an authority of some sort, much of the enjoyment I've had with the franchise comes from the spectacle, the sense and the sortie of its worlds. There's a tug-of-war sensation to the world of a Soulsborne game- when you've conquered an area you mostly just breeze by it without consequence. Here, rather than allowing you to conquer an area- a lot of enemies end up just despawning after beating them after a certain number of times, instead. As if the game just gives up after so many times. The game isn't so hard, nor is it that different on the surface, yet every corner hides just a tiny bit of faux pas- enough to temper my enjoyment much earlier than I would prefer. Dark Souls' 'Stockholm Syndrome' post Anor Londo, while a blemish on the game and a prime example to game developings' tendency to lose steam in the third act, has somehow shone brightly compared to Dark Souls II's Imposter Syndrome-esque design doc.

For god's sake, they tried making another Ornstein and Smough fight, in a game that already has literally Ornstein in it.