Fans of Soulsborne seem to almost uniamously agree that Dark Souls 2 is the black sheep of the series. I took it upon myself to play Demons Souls first followed by DS1 then DS2 afterwards and ultimately DS3. While I can absolutely see why everyone thinks this way, Dark Souls 2 is by no means a bad game.
It definitely has the most glaring issues of any. There are endless video essays on everything the game does wrong verses what it gets right but I still think it warrants a play through. But, maybe just once. After finishing the very, very long Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin edition and defeating every mainline and DLC boss, excluding the Ancient Dragon because who cares; I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game.
The thing about Dark Souls 2 is that is it actually a great game, it’s just that the other two are superior. There are firstly, way, WAY too many boss fights in this game and a good half of them are very forgettable, or nerfed reskins of DS1 bosses. There’s even Gargoyle boss fights on a rooftop but instead of fighting two you fight like 6. It’s really stupid too. It’s just poorly and clunky designed. There’s a hidden Ornstein boss fight where he’s a puppy compared to his epic entrance in DS1 Anor Londo. There’s even this really cool looking Chariot Boss battle that you can discover but its super disappointing when it devolves into a gank fight against more skeletons and a cheap game of Red Light/Green Light.
Aside from the many horrendously designed fights, the game still has some really cool ones. The Fume
Knight was one of the most challenging for me, I might’ve died to him like 30 times but it was a great time. The Darklurker is one of the most strikingly simplistic yet effective designs and Sinh the Dragon felt incredible when conquering. Many people also tend to point out the arbitrarily added Adaptability stat, which is a complete waste of time and energy. You need to level it up to at least 20 before there’s any noticeable improvement in your rolling, which at this point you would know is key in these games. It’s tedious and unnecessary.
Another thing to note due to this stat that you start out with lower. Just because you gained confidence
from beating Dark Souls 1, don’t think that your skill will necessarily translate over to Dark Souls 2 right
away. In terms of exploration and understanding the games HUD and mechanics, yes. But when your skills are put to the test, the game felt like I had to switch gears again, at least earlier on at lower levels.
The game is worth a play through if you wish to see it all. I wouldn’t skip it, maybe I’m just OCD but I like
to be a completionist. There’s still plenty of good to extract from Dark Souls 2 despite some of the lousy
drawbacks. To me however, I have the least desire to go back and replay Dark Souls 2 as a different
character build while Dark Souls 1 and 3 are both much more appealing in that regard.
Praise the sun!
Mikhail
Verdict: 8.5/10