Staff Blog: Love Dark Souls, Hate Dark Souls 2

Love Dark Souls, Hate Dark Souls 2

On 02/02/2015 at 09:44 PM by Casey Curran

Last year, I finally got into Dark Souls and loved it. I loved the world, the combat, the challenge, the exploration. Maybe I just needed a bunch of failed attempts to get into Demon's Souls or a burnout on overly cinematic games caused by Uncharted 3 and Assassin's Creed 3. However, when I finally got around to Dark Souls 2, I was in denial for a little bit until I beat a boss and realized that I was just getting frustrated, not being able to enjoy the stuff I loved about Dark Souls.

First off, there's the depleting health. My god I hate this decision. In Dark Souls there is really only one way to cut your health bar, getting cursed. This does not come in until about 8 hours into the game, however, when you'll be good and ready for it. Dark Souls 2, meanwhile, decided every time you die, you'll lose a small chunk of health until you're at half health. You can restore your health bar back to normal, but the items which let you do so are finite.

Dark Souls to me is less about the player leveling up their character and more about the player themselves getting better. Don't get me wrong, every time you level up matters a lot, but you also learn patience, enemy attack patterns, when to expect a trap, always to be alert of your surroundings. You could give the player a level 40 character, he'd still probably die at one of the earlier bosses (which I faced in the teens/early twenties).

I might die a lot, but this is gonna be epic!

But, Dark Souls 2 instead punishes you every time you die. The feeling that I can go approach an encounter even better the next time is hard to find when I can take fewer hits. I can't count the number of times I made it to a bonfire with zero healing items and just a tiny sliver of health in Dark Souls 1. In 2, these moments would not exist. Add to it that the items are finite, and I'm worried either I have to spend most the game annoyed at how I'm crippled or with the fear that I may not be able to tackle the final boss at the top of my game.

Then there's the disappearing enemies. If you kill an enemy enough times, replenishing your health and Estus Flashks bonfire will stop respawning them. This at first seems like a relief, especially if they're between you and a very tough boss. However, it instead presents a bigger issue. The soul system has not been touched, so if you die, you still lose your souls and have to recover them at the spot you died at. Die again before you recover them and they're gone for good.

In Dark Souls, this system was great. It added challenge to the game and made me actually fear death. However, dying was not the end of the world. I could still recover them and if I lost them, I could always just kill more enemies. In 2, however, it felt like I lost out a lot. Like this may cripple me for the end of the game. This caused me to overlevel myself, grinding without having fun in order for me to have less fun figuring the area out as I could take out enemies too easily. Because I'd rather lose 20,000 souls in Dark Souls 1 than 2000 in Dark Souls 2.

Oh great, another chance for me to lose more health

These choices feel like counter-intuitive game design. Like some people at From Software only cared about challenge, not how to make it fun. Choices in game design made to be different from something that exists rather than what fits the game best.

I could maybe forgive these if Dark Souls 2 had something great to offer me, but it doesn't. The world didn't feel alive like Dark Souls 1's, it felt like a collection of video game levels. Not just that, but over half of them felt like less fun copies of Dark Souls 1 areas. Bosses weren't terrifying monsters so bizarre looking I have no clue to describe them, they're giant soldiers. Dark Souls 1 kept those guys delegated to minibosses, giving us the true creativity to real bosses.

Does this hamper my excitement for Bloodborne? No. Bloodborne has a new take on combat with design choices which complement the new gameplay rather than keep what Dark or Demon's Souls had. Bloodborne is in a new kind of area with new kinds of enemies full of creativity. Bloodborne looks like the game Dark Souls 2 should have been.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

02/02/2015 at 09:49 PM

I couldn't get into Dark Souls 2 either. Pretty game on PC though, for sure.

Casey Curran Staff Writer

02/02/2015 at 10:05 PM

I'll take that ugly, but fun as hell Dark Souls 1 any day.

Blake Turner Staff Writer

02/02/2015 at 09:57 PM

Damn. Don't play Demon's Souls, you have half your health for most of the game, and the only way to get it back is to beat a boss haha.

I didn't mind depleting health in DS2. Mainly because there's a ring you can get early on that stops it going under 75%. Also, the Human Effergies are fucking everywhere. I didn't skimp out on them and I had about 40 when I finished the game.

Keep in mind, though, this is the B team. Miyazaki isn't behind it, and excuse the pun, but he's kind of the sould of the series. He's back for Bloodborne.

But yeah you're right. Dark Souls 2 is inferior in almost every way. Dark Souls 2's DLC is a different matter entirely though. They seemed to have realised their mistakes, crafted more dynamic, open ended levels that feel coherent and are filled with lore. The problem is slogging though the rest of the areas to get there.

There are still some cool boss fights, and the multiplayer has never been better, so I mainly just dip in for that.

02/02/2015 at 10:04 PM

Yeah, that drove me nuts in Demon's Souls 2. That ring sounds like a great thing, but still, that idea just pisses me off. And maybe there are enough effigies, but just knowing they're finite was enough to get me stressed in the game. I just have so much more fun with Dark Souls anyways.

02/02/2015 at 10:15 PM

Demon's Souls isn't as bad though, since it feels more like you double your health for a short while after beating a boss rather than feeling like you lose half when you die. Demon's Souls seriously comes close to beating Dark Souls in some ways. Some of the Boss fights blow Dark Souls out of the water, and there are areas where the atmosphere is so thick you swear you're playing medieval Silent Hill. Seriously, Tower of Latria gives me goosebumps, and Miyazaki is apparently basing the feel of Bloodborne around that area.

asrealasitgets

02/02/2015 at 10:10 PM

I think most DS fans disliked DS2, myself included. For me it's DemonSouls>DarkSouls>DarkSouls2. I've talked about this all before, but for me the appeal of Souls is the darkness and horror and I felt like Demon's is the darkest. As for gameplay, Dark Souls is better for exploration, while I felt like DarkSouls2 was too multiplayer focused. I didn't hate DarkSouls2, just wasn't my favorite.

Also, I usually try to play through like a zombie with no health and I don't care about souls either. Stuff I learned from Demon's.

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/02/2015 at 11:08 PM

I've never played it, so I have no frame of reference, but I'll give up on a game that seems to be hard for the sake of being hard pretty quick.

02/02/2015 at 11:12 PM

The game requires you to invest time into learing how the game works. You aren't going to instantly hit and win everything like every other AAA game that's out there. That is part of the appeal of the game. It's as hard as older NES games were that required skills. I'm horrible at the games and even I was able to beat them all.

02/02/2015 at 11:31 PM

I like old NES games that are hard, but there's a difference between that and games whose only goal is to fuck with you. Again though, I have no frame of reference for these games in particular, so who knows? Maybe I wouldn't see it that way.

02/02/2015 at 11:43 PM

I wouldn't say Dark Souls 1 is like that at all. It's more about learning and making sure you as the player get better. I actually feel that's a huge issue with many NES games, they're mostly hard just so they can artificially make the game longer.

mothman

02/03/2015 at 08:34 AM

I bought the LE version of Demon's Souls after borrowing the Korean import from an acquaintance. I loved the game but I'm so bad at action rpgs and worse when they are difficult. I killed the first boss but since the game gives you little in the way of direction I gave up soon afterwards. I think it was the phantom who killed me after I'd been harvesting souls for two hours who ruined it for me. I started playing off-line but where's the fun in that?

Anyway I have all 3 games available to me. My son likes them but I think he started Dark Souls II and quit after a couple of hours. I never asked him why.

bullet656

02/03/2015 at 08:56 AM

I'm a huge fan of Dark Souls, and while I like the first one more, I still had a great time with Dark Souls 2.

I was concerned after first reading about the depleting health, but in actual practice I didn't find it that bad. In fact, I think it made me better at the game. If I was on a boss that I was having difficulty with, I'd keep practicing until I could almost beat it with half health, then I would just use an effigy and destroy them. Also, I was already kind of used to the health thing with Demon Souls. I also ended the game with plenty of leftover effigies, but I admit that was because I was so conservative, which did cause me some stress throughout the game.

I can understand the concern with the disappearing enemies, but I actually used that to my advantage too. Sometimes I would purposely go to areas with large numbers of enemies, kill them all, run back to the bonfire, then repeat. This would both help me with leveling up and then make my progress easier once they disappeared.

I do completely agree that the world was nowhere near as good as it was in the first one. I loved how the world was so interconnected in DS1. DS2 did just seem like a collection of levels with a hubworld. I guess in that way it was also similar to Demon Souls, it just tried to hide it a little more.

xDarthKiLLx

02/03/2015 at 08:49 PM

I like all 3. Theyre all genius.

KnightDriver

02/04/2015 at 03:41 AM

I still have to play Dark Souls 1 and 2. I want to really badly too. Demon's Souls kicked my butt and burned my mind, but I loved it anyway. The dark mood is perfectly grim.

PixlBit

Love Dark Souls, Hate Dark Souls 2

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