Dark Souls II Review (Revisited)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right, so I figured I would do another revisited post on one of my previous reviews and this will be a revisit of my Dark Souls II review, the RPG action sequel to the acclaimed original. 

So, I will do the usual expanding on sections of the review and my thoughts on the game since my previous review. Now, Dark Souls II is a very divisive game in the Souls series as there are as many fans that love as it as they do hate it. 

So, after this time, what do I think of it? Let's take another look!

And I will quickly mention a little about the story but not too much, so I won't bother with a spoilers warning as such.

STORY 

So, the story is fairly similar to the original Dark Souls, where the playable character is a human who is undead and cursed to never die and eventually become hollow, a zombie like being with no memories or purpose. So, in order to break the curse, the undead travels to the kingdom of Drangleic and is tasked by the Emerald Herald to obtain four Great Souls from powerful Old Ones whose names are forgotten and forbidden. 

And its from here that the chosen undead starts their long and incredibly dangerous journey in their battle to claim the four Great Souls to end the undead curse.

THOUGHTS

As a sequel to the original, Dark Souls II had alot to live up to but thankfully the game makers, Fromsoftware were more than up to the task this time round as DSII while it doesn't quite scale the heights of the original, its still an excellent, entertaining and gripping sequel with plenty of new features and enemies to deal with.  

The game itself also sees many different changes over the original but it does still follow pretty much the same forumla but it definitely has its own look and unique feel all the same. The game also appears to rack up the difficulty level from the original as it is filled with more bosses and even more enemies! 

It is however worth mentioning that it is available in two editions, the vanilla original Dark Souls II and the remastered updated version, Scholar of the First Sin, which features plenty more content some of which very contentious among fans of the series as there are so many more enemies and NPC invaders!

The game was also made by a different team at Fromsoft this time around as the Souls creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki was working on Bloodborne at the time, so he was not available to direct the game (even though he was given supervisor credit). And this does of course account for the change in tone from the other Souls games with much different lore and references to its predecessor and even in its successor. 

GAMEPLAY BASICS
 
As for the gameplay it follows pretty much the same patterns of the original Dark Souls with the third person perspective approach and similar move set such as running, jumping, walking the usual stuff however there are one or two changes still in terms of the controls than before. However one addition to the game is that there are certain areas where the character can use rope zip lines to traverse between different high up areas. 

The player's HUD is similar also with their health bar and endurance bar on the top left although the inventory has been given a bit of an overhaul with items positioned in a more boxed grid, which makes selecting items a bit easier. Then there is the stats screen that shows attributes such as your strength, endurance, vigor (which has replaced vitality to upgrade your health points, or HP) and what level your character is at. This is also where you can level up these stats, which now has to be done through one of non-playable characters (NPC) in the game, Emerald Herald, who is based at the central hub of the game, Majula.

In Majula, the character can come back to rest and upgrade their stats, equipment via the local blacksmith (Lenigrast) and deal with other merchants. It also leads off to other nearby areas, which again shows how the game is quite well connected similarly to the original Dark Souls.   

The player can also make the choice of character like before and select the character's gender, build and class of character e.g. warrior, knight, sorcerer, cleric or pyromancer and similar to the first game each character has their own different characteristics but more on that soon.

HEALTH AND WEAPONS RISKS

Dark Souls II also sees it set the difficulty level a bit higher when it comes to your player's weapons and health this time round because weapons can break much easier than in the previous game where most weapons didn't break at all! Your weapons however can be repaired by one of the blacksmiths in the game or if your weapon is almost broken you can return to the bonfire and it will automatically restore your weapon for you. 

Also if the player dies then their health bar will reduce a little each time they do, which can be reverse but only if the player uses certain items in the game. The player again though can replenish their health by drinking Estus flasks (same as the other Souls games) and additionally they can use a new item called life gems to do the same, which they can do when you are on the move.

HOLLOW VS HUMAN 
 
In terms of the hollowing and humanity process, things are also a little different this time because when you go hollow, as I said above you will lose a little of your health every time you die, however the game uses a new item called a human effigy to restore your player's humanity. The advantage here is that when your player's humanity is restored you can completely restore their health bar but you need to be wary that the process will repeat of them losing their health bar fractionally when they die and become hollow.  However there are also other items in the game that can reduce the amount of health you lose.

RINGS

This brings me onto the rings in the game, which feature a large variety that are spread throughout the game that can be bought via merchants or discovered in wooden boxes or treasure chests during their travels. The rings will have various abilities such as increasing your stamina, your life bar, defenses and resistances to certain things and later on enhanced versions of these rings can be found also that are +1, +2 and +3 in strength. Another improvement in the game sees the player now being able to use four rings at once rather than just the two in the original game, however the rings can also be broken during combat. 

TORCHES

A new addition to the game this time is the use of torches, which come in hand frequently as there are a number of dark or dimly lit areas to be found here. The player can either light their torch at a bonfire or light it from one another flamed source and it can also act as a key gameplay mechanic when fighting certain bosses. You do however need to find a fire source to relight your torch, so you can't equip it and un-equip it at will but the more torches you pick up it will increase the torch time you can keep them lit. 

WEAPONS

Not surprisingly in the game there is a huge selection of weapons to choose from which can be picked up either from the fallen dead or enemies or can be purchased from merchants and blacksmiths.

So, the game features all sorts of melee weapons such as swords, knives, maces, axes, spears, bows and crossbows that can be upgraded throughout the game by blacksmiths who enhance them with the use of different materials. The materials used are the same as in DS1, which are titanite shards, chunks, slabs and specific types of stone that create various effects such as magic, fire or lightning or just increase the overall power of the weapons attacks. There is also a big selection of shields that the player can access that range in all different sizes from small, medium to large shields (or great shields as they are known).

There are also other weapons in the game such as firebombs, which you can toss at enemies from a short distance that will explode on impact, throwing knives, which can be well...thrown at enemies! One thing about the throwing knives is that you can purchase ones that are covered with poision that can kill enemies quicker. In fact this reminds me that poison has a more potent effect this time round in the game as you die quicker if you are poisoned but it can be cured through poison moss. 

As for sorcerers they will have access to their own abilities that involve using a staff (or catalyst) to unleash their magic attacks and pyromancers can use a flame to launch their fire attacks and all of these attacks have various effects. Miracles on the other hand are cast using chimes and these can also be upgraded up to +10 to increase their power (just like the staffs) and effect of the miracles. 

GAME STATS, MELEE, MAGIC, PYROMANCY & FAITH 

Moving onto the game stats, this is where the game's depth really come into play as this is where it really depends on your choice of character and what characteristics they have and again things are very similar here in Dark Souls II. And as an example a melee character, who wields powerful swords and shields will upgrade their strength, endurance and their vigor (which is a new stat, which essentially increases your health bar) and adaptability (helps to maintain their poise in combat situations) to improve their performance throughout the game.

However when it comes to other characters such as a sorcerer, you may depend less on strength and endurance and more on intelligence and attunement where intelligence is used to cast spells and attunement to gain more slots to use different spells at once. As for pyromancy, intelligence wouldn't be a factor to use this but they use attunement that will improve their ability to cast faster. Clerics can probably have similar stats to melee characters with the exception of their key stat which is Faith that is used to cast their spells, which are known in the game as "miracles".

So basically in the game the stats remain much the same with the exception of two new stats of vigor (raises your health bar) and adaptability (increases your poise ability in combat i.e. so you won't stagger when attacked as well as your agility in combat). Vitality however undergoes the main change here in the game, which no longer governs the player's health but more their equipment load and defense.    

COMBAT

The combat system again is pretty similar to the original game where the player takes on enemies either in free flow or they can lock on to a single enemy.  The combat mechanics feature similar attacks such as the typical forward combo attacks but you can also parry your enemies (involves shield bashing them as they are about to strike and counter-attacking them). The backstab however that featured in the original game is now replaced with a critical attack but you can still backstab with certain weapons such as spears. You also have the option to perform a strong attack that inflicts more damage on enemies and there is options for a running attack, which has a similar potent effect.  

As for sorcery and pyromancy the attacks are very similar to the first Dark Souls only the casting speed for sorcerers is much faster than before although pyromancy appears to have only moderately been improved (I think!). You can also upgrade your casting speed via your stats as you progress with your intelligence and attunement but there are also rings that you can acquire than shorten the casting time. The same should go for pyromancers here I think but having not played as a pyro character yet I'm not sure of this myself nor of the clerics abilities in this regard as I haven't played as those characters myself.  

ENEMIES, BOSSES AND NPC's

This time round the game features a lot more enemies per area, which can range from the weaker enemies up to stronger ones. Of course a lot of the enemies that featured in the original reappear here such as hollows in various forms, skeletons, rats, mimics (the creatures that disguise themselves as a treasure chest) basilisks (the big frog-like creatures that can "curse" you with their gas). However there are of course plenty of new enemies that range from the weakest type such as infantry hollow soldiers to armoured knights (the dreaded Alonne knights!) but there are a vast array of enemies here for sure that will not leave stuck for a challenge as they can become very challenging as the game progresses! 

The game also features a much larger selection of bosses than in the previous game where this time round there are 41 bosses in total (which includes the bosses from the DLC content for the game). This is way more than any other Souls game and the bosses are in different forms such as giants, knights, sentinels, dragons, hybrid creatures and of course demons!  

Again the bosses vary in difficulty with some of them being quite easy whereas others are infuriatingly difficult but hey it is of course Dark Souls, so you have to expect that.  There are very few bosses however that can regenerate their health in the game (with the exception of the DLC boss, the Fume Knight, often considered the hardest in the game!).

Then we have the NPCs in the game who you can either interact with for trading and selling items or in the case of Emerald Herald, upgrade your stats with. There are other NPCs that you can also summon to help you fight in most boss fights (but not always!) who often prove very useful in battle and at times you can summon two of them for one fight but you need to be in human form before you can do this. However there also other NPCs that are enemies and invade you throughout the game, who are after your souls or humanity. In the first Souls game you were only invaded when you were in human form but here they can invade you in either a hollow or human state.

GRAPHICS

As for the graphics, well the original version of Dark Souls II was released in 2014 but it was given a remastered update in 2015 when they released Scholar of the First Sin, which featured revamped graphics, some additional enemies and also all the DLC content. As for the graphics, going by the Scholar version, they look terrific and the game's environments look stunning and rich with detail. 

The character models also look pretty good albeit there are more sophisticated looking ones by today's standards and the character's mouths don't appear to move when they talk! But overall the graphics for the game are very impressive and Scholar of the First Sin saw a big upgrade in Dark Souls II's visuals from their original release. 

MUSIC

As for the music, well its another fine score, which is again composed by Motoi Sakuraba with contributions by Yuka Kitmura and its filled with some great passages of music, which can be dramatic, suspenseful and even at times with poignant, such as the "Majula" theme which is the main hub of the game where the character rests.

In fact I think Dark Souls II's score while it might not hit the epic emotional heights of Dark Souls III, it is a more diverse sounding one and there plenty of highlights in there. And such examples include Fume Knight, Skeleton Lords, Vendrick, Old Dragonslayer, Ancient Dragon and the best of all is Sir Alonne's theme, which is easily one of the best tracks in the entire Souls series.   

So, Dark Souls 2's soundtrack is a very strong one for sure and to this day I often give it a listen independent of the game via Amazon.

FLAWS

As for flaws...yeah Dark Souls II does have some.

For starters the game insists on continuing its increase in difficulty over its predecessor but it does it more by bombarding the player with more enemies. Now in itself this could be seen as part of the challenge where but there are many enemies who are actually way tougher than the actual boss they are protecting that you go on to fight! So, there is a quite a bit of inconsistency in the difficulty level here as you get really tough standard enemies and at times dead easy bosses! However sometimes you do get both but the difficulty of the game certainly isn't always that balanced.

In fact further to this point, one of the game's major drawbacks is there are simply way too many bosses and DS2 would definitely have benefited from cutting out about half of the bosses, especially as lot of them are quite easy and not that memorable. And if they had cut down on the naff bosses in the game and concentrated on quality over quantity then I'm sure the game would be better received by the Souls community.   

Another issue is to do with the NPC invaders, who to put it bluntly are a major pain in the ass! Now there are some invaders in the game that are tougher than others but when you are trying to simply work your way through an area and you get invaded AND get killed in the process, it becomes VERY annoying pretty quickly! I mean you get the Forlorn invaders popping up at numerous times when you are trying to get from A to B and even in areas like the Iron Keep (my most HATED area in the main game of DS2!) there are two in-game invaders that appear and then you can get one of these Forlorn a-holes spawning in on top of them as well! So, yeah the invaders are a bit much although most of them were actually added into the Scholar version as the vanilla version of DS2 didn't have half as many.

Another problem is to do with how your weapons, shields and weapons can break much easier than in the original Dark Souls after so much fighting. Now the bonfire does reset your weapon's damage but if it breaks you then have to pay a blacksmith to fix them. Now, this does make things a little more realistic I guess but it can also be a pest when you are trying to fight your way past a big number enemies but to be fair you do have a large amount of weapons at your disposal, so you can always select another one but if its your most trusted weapon then its still a nuisance. You can however get a ring that reduces weapon degradation, so that does help out a bit.

I also cannot forget to mention the problem that existed in the original Dark Souls with the action of drinking from your Estus flask to recover your health being too rigid as you were rooted to the spot when drinking Estus, which hindered you in combat. Well, in DS2 that problem is replaced by the fact that your estus drinking action is even SLOWER than it was before, although the action of it doesn't feel as rigid as in DS1.

So, this means you end up getting murdered more times than not in a fight as a result! In fact for this I have coined my own phrase (which I should try and patent!) which is "Estus Murder" where drinking from your flask too slowly gets you killed!  However, perhaps they kind of addressed this issue by introducing life gems into the game, which the player can also use to restore their health and can do it on the move, which is an improvement over your pathetically slow Estus flask drinking. 

However to be fair the animation of Estus drinking can be sped up by raising your adaptability stat, which also improves your ability to roll through enemy attacks without taking damage (aka as invincibility frames). It is however worth noting that the adaptability stat itself is a pain in that exists and has to be upgraded in the first place as it would be best left out of the game if you ask me to allow for a standard roll and drink speed as in DS1 and DS3. 

And this brings me onto another issue in the game to do with the Estus flask upgrades as here you need to try and locate what is called Estus shards in order to increase the number of Estus flasks you have at your disposal. So, this means you need to locate these shards throughout the game as they are hidden in different areas, which can also be a pain and early on if you only have a couple of Estus flasks its a pain in the ass but to be fair the life gems also help with your health are more accessible.

Update: Again however, on reflection, the estus shards aren't a bad idea because at least once you find them all, you have a set number of estus, which can be refilled at the bonfire not unlike the first DS where you had to continually kindle each bonfire to boost your use to 10 or more. 

Another fairly big problem with the game is the fall damage, which is absolutely RIDICULOUS compared to the other Souls games, it is unreal how much damage you can take falling from heights that not that high up! And in the other games you might take a bit of fall damage when falling a fair height but here it outright kills you! 

The one way you can mitigate this however is to use the Silvercat ring, which is pretty decent at cancelling out a lot of fall damage from higher falls although it isn't a perfect solution. You can also use the fall control spell to reduce fall damage as well but you would need to meet the intelligence requirement to use it. So, yeah the fall damage sucks in DS2. 

Last of all is an issue to do with how enemies progressively stop re-spawning unlike in the original Dark Souls where all enemies respawned in all areas when you rest at your bonfire. Now, this is something of a blessing but also a problem as it makes life easier when you want to get through certain areas and the enemies stop respawning so much but it can also limit the amount of souls you can "farm" in order to upgrade or purchase items. 

So, its kind of double-edged sword that the game has handed you, its good you have to deal with lesser enemies the more times you redo an area but its also annoying you cannot farm for souls as much when they stop respawning. However, this again can be resolved by using the bonfire ascetic item, which allows you to reset all enemies in the area and items but on the flipside they now have more strength and damage output.

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Dark Souls II is an excellent sequel to the original and it offers plenty of new features, weapons and upgrades that are all welcome additions as well as challenging enemies that can provide for a satisfying experience when you have finally defeated them. It also continues the non-linear nature of the DS1 and allows you to full explore a lot of different areas freely, which is a bonus that can allow you access to better items earlier on if you are adept enough at the game's difficulty.

However it has to be said that it doesn't quite reach the dizzying heights of its predecessor due to some frustrating issues with gameplay. Also the game makers blatant attempts to make things more difficult at times by bombarding you with extra enemies is also an issue not to mention the level of difficulty can be a bit inconsistent. And it really has to be said there are too many bosses in the game and not only that but too many of them are mediocre and forgettable.

But if you can forgive its faults and try and not let yourself be too biased by the split opinions of the game, you might just enjoy DS2 whether it be the original or the Scholar version as it is very addictive and can be great fun and its easily one of the most under appreciated games out there. Basically, its a game you need to try with an open mind and not let the reputation given to it by players and audiences get in the way of you possibly enjoying what is a game that is quite different from the others in the Souls series. However, I think is one of its strengths and I still really enjoy it myself regardless of the criticisms leveled at it. 

So, I will finish and rate Dark Souls II:

9 out of 10

That's it for now and I will be back soon with possibly a revisited look at my Dark Souls III review.

Till then, its bye for now!