This game has good level design?

The level design in this game is quite terrible, I'm confused why you think its good. Besides the fact that the world map makes no sense, and you can't see things you reasonably should be able, the design is so bloody linear. Very few parts of the map feels open to exploration besides, follow da path.

Also you are correct. This game is filled with forgettable bosses since they are mostly just dudes with heavy weapons. It is so disappointing.

Also, I just want to say it again. PvP is so screwed in this game. If it isn't patched to be fixed, the game will be dead.

 

The fact that levels are stacked on top of each other like that is not actually a problem. The actual problem is that the levels themselves aren't interesting.

Sinner's Rise is a perfect example of everything that's actually wrong with this game's level design. First, it has no significant shortcuts (using a key will let you walk around some enemies, but that does not constitute a shortcut). Second, its bonfire is right next to some heavy crossbow snipers that aggro immediately when you get up. Third, the actual area itself is a long straight line, largely through water with those stupid fucking exploding mummy things.

The boss is pretty great, but the area is terrible.

EDIT:
Another good example of a Dark Souls 2 area that probably should have been scrapped or heavily rethought: the Shrine of Amana. It's a gorgeous area, which you can't enjoy because playing it is a massive slog of walking through water and dodging homing magic from mages that can outrange a Hunter's Blackbow. They nerfed the homing, which is necessary, but man what a massive shithole.

 

I havent reached Amana yet to comment, but I can talk about Sinner's Rise. Your feelings here are quite justified, but I dont entirely agree. It is true that design wise, the level isnt very interesting and somewhat tedious. But when you look at it in a larger context, its the culmination of a large area that I had spent lots of time exploring (Lost Bastille) and while it was tedious, it didnt take a lot of time to get to the boss from the bonfire. You really cant consider Sinners Rise without also looking at the Lost Bastille, its the final fight of that area.

Basically its a small area designed to allow you to decompress after a big area, and prepare for the boss ahead. I didnt really have any issues killing the enemies (especially mummies, I had no trouble with them), and I found the approach to the boss after the watery hallway was really scenic.

For some reason I'm finding it hard to put what i think into words here. I just think that it isnt terrible game design, just not excellent game design which stands out in comparison to some really extraordinary levels. And this small failure stands out compared to Dark Souls 1, which had top notch levels pretty much everywhere.

Personally, I Just got to Drangleic castle and so far the gameplay and levels have all been really fun including Sinners Rise. The part I'm disappointed with is the story, which is nonexistent. You walk into Drangleic without any reason and no motive is presented later. You're cursed, and the npcs talk about and demonstrate the curse but its not linked to the plot at all. The Green Maiden tells you to see the king, but I have no idea why I should do that. Also the lore seems very eclectic. There just doesnt seem to be a point to it all.

 

There is some truth to that. However, you don't know it yet, there are three other areas that are effectively long hallways filled with difficult enemies before a boss. Hell, even Heide's tower, when broken down, is four rooms connected by three hallways.

Some of the levels are okay, but that's all they are at best.


On an unrelated note, I am very annoyed the enemies in the Flexile Sentry NG+ fight aren't anywhere else in the game. They seem interesting, so why they aren't featured anywhere else is baffling.

 

Sinner's Rise is just an example of a level design problem that happens throughout the game to varying degrees. It has no significant shortcuts - very few levels have shortcuts at all, let alone significant ones - and this is because the level is a straight line, which is everywhere in this game. So many areas in DaS2 are just straight lines. Sinner's Rise has the worst bonfire in the game, which, surprise: weird, problematic bonfire placement is everywhere in DaS2, too (see: the Huntsman's Copse bonfires that are three feet away from each other, the Soldier's Rest bonfire that aggros two Ironclads upon attempting to leave the room, the fact that right outside Straid's Cell there are a bunch of explosive mummies - in the same room as a merchant - for some dumb reason.)

I enjoy Dark Souls 2 a lot. Once you get past the agility problem, it's mechanically very interesting. The problem is it's not balanced well and it has a lot of really boring levels. Areas like the Lost Bastille and No Man's Wharf are the exception, not the rule.

 

If you play as a rat you can pull people into your game and kill them.

Granted, it doesn't have Solaire so...
Eh. If you enjoyed the earlier installments and have the cash to spare- go ahead and give it shot. It's worth the 30-50 hours for at least one run through.

fair warning, the console versions had (have?) some server issues that made it next to impossible to summon/ be summoned.

 

PC is fine, what I would recommend anyway.

As for the story, I enjoyed it - though most of it is hinted at in dialogue and sidequests and out of the way places, etc etc - follows the ending of DaS where someone sacrificed themselves to the kiln to hold back the darkness. If you don't want to play the original Dark Souls then a wiki walk would help, though it's not really needed for actual gameplay unless you want specific information about certain gear or crafting guides.

Gameplay: Eh... fairly harsh learning curve; you get dropped in and killed a few hundred/thousand times until you start to figure out enemy patterns and how to dodge properly. No pausing to speak of, battle continues even if you enter the menu.

Loots: Your gear will break, and break often if you don't pay attention to it.
Depending on what your playstyle, you can work around gear limitations with enough upgrades.
Plan out your stats and you can make just about anything work.

Overall? I think I liked the original DaS more but this game is by no means a bad entry.

Comedic review that sets the stage decently.

TL;DR Losing is fun.

 

Yes and no, it depends.
There is good story, but you can miss it.
See, the Souls storytelling can be summed up in "show, don't tell".

There are mysteries in the games, and as you go through them you'll discover clues to them, (read item descriptions, they convey a lot of the lore. Talk to people.) but where in books, or most other games, finding those clues would be followed by a scene where the character puts two and two together... souls skips that, you do that yourself.

The story doesn't have a lot of conventional storytelling and character interaction, and isn't really what the game is about, but if you pay attention to it while you're playing it, the world is fascinating.

You have a lot of stats to take care of.
At the start, you pick a class, which purely defines your starting stats.
Leveling up is done one stat point at a time, with the universal currency souls. You choose what stat you want to increase, pay your souls, then the stat and your level increases by one.

There is a lot of customization in that regard, weapons and spells tent to have both requirements(you must have x stat) and scaling(effectiveness increases depending on x stat) you also control increasing your hp, your stamina (attacking, dodging, blocking, sprinting) your equipment load (purely your equipped items).

Not in the sense of Borderlands or the like, you won't be pelted with endless junk, but there are weapons and armor to find all over the world. You also customize your gear, leveling it up and also attuning it to an element. It's not the point of the game, like Diablo and the like, but there's a nice variety of gear to hunt down.

In Souls favor though, there's a lot more difference between weapons than in loot-gathering games, different weapons actually have different attacks and fighting styles.


The game isn't bullet hell difficult, more in that it lets you figure things out. Combat generally involves a lot of figuring out attack patterns. An enemy attacks, you dodge, or block, until there's an opening to attack, then you attack and get back on guard before the next attack comes. Beating an enemy generally means figuring out first how to survive each of its attacks, then when and where you can counter attack. That, and/or figuring out cheesy tricks.

TL;DR

In a way, yes, but they aren't the point of the game. The gameplay is, and it's amazing. If you enjoy the actually difficult third person action game, all the other stuff will add to the experience... but if you don't, I don't think it's the sort of game you sit through gameplay you don't enjoy because you like other aspects.

 

Jon, Dark Souls 2 is a game about exploration. There is a large, dangerous world and if you are smart enough and brave enough to find them, you will discover all kinds of wonderful and terrible secrets. The bosses will kill you until you improve yourself, and you will improve if you play the game.

Other players will be a great help to you if you are in a tight spot. However, other players will also prey upon you if they invade or you enter their special areas. PvP is very fun, and there are a bunch of PvP covenants (which are like factions of which you choose one to join, and you can change).

As for the RPG element, your character is totally customizable in just about every way. Stats armor weapons etc, ts all completely up to you. The NPC charatcers you encounter are quite interesting and talking to them will not only give you more story to see, but also reveal many new options like merchants or paths.

Buy it, its good!

 

Yep. You'll pretty much be forced to use a controller.

DSfix is also a requirement.

 

Oh yeah I should have mentioned the controller being necessary.

 

DSFix is great, but I played it on PC and on a console both. kB+M is less intuitive and takes more effort to get into, but when I played the game again later on Console, I found that I liked the precision of KB+M over the smooth control over a Controller.

Eh, the Dark Souls PC port was pretty terrible, and could have been a LOT worse if one man hadn't saved it from itself.

In other news, Hexing is OP, but the Stat requirements are high and it doesn't play well into fusion/mixed builds well at all.

Dark Souls 2 plays well to the old archtype of mages/casters sucking early and raping face later, while in reverse Melee/Armor types do well early and do okay later.

For casters, the main difficulty are the smaller mobs. Many of them fit into the archtype that caster's traditionally hate, that of the speedy agile fighter who gets in your face constantly. Those mobs will be the most troublesome.

For Melee/Armor players, it's the opposite. Lots of Bosses have quite a few mechanics that make being in close combat much more dangerous than fighting them at range. But smaller, 'normal' mobs are rarely a challenge.


I don't, personally, play Dex builds, so I can't tell you where the difficulty for those players lie.

My favorite build so far is Strength/Faith. You get the early game power and survivability of STR builds, but adding FTH to the mix later on puts a nice patch ontop of the melee classes' late-game weakness.

Plus, having the base spell Heal is so fucking useful all game long that I can't imagine playing without it. While it's not quite the same as having 3 extra uses of your Estus flask, it does allow you to save your estus flask uses for when you're actually in the middle of combat a lot more, since you can heal during your downtime with a Heal spell instead of using a Flask (if you're out of lifegems, that is, which are moderately useful.)

Additionally, Great Lightning Spear is one of the most powerful nukes in the game. I've hit mobs for >900 damage with one spear, and even the more resistant bosses often take 150-200+ damage per spear.

That's a lot, on a boss.

Sure, Hex and Sorcery builds can both do that as well, but neither of those have even 1/3rd the survivability that the Melee/Armored that STR gives you.

Honestly, I think Strength/Faith is a little OP.

 

They nerfed Dex builds slightly in DaS2, Katana aren't quite as awesome as they were, the phantom reach was mostly removed.

Though for dedicated discussions on builds and the like, I would have to recommend the reddit subforums.

 

"Slightly."

Dex scaling is 67% as effective as Strength scaling, Dex has no strike weapons in a game where strike is king and all of its good weapons (re: katanas) are restricted to the mid-lategame, bleed got nerfed to the point where it's worthless. Poison's good, but you're better off just killing them quickly with a mace.

They buffed archery, but because iron arrows are limited until the midgame and maintaining ammo is expensive even with wooden arrows (which are terrible), it's not useful until the midgame anyway (which, incidentally, is when you get access to the longbow under normal conditions.)

Dex is really bad now.

E: Well, it's still decently viable, I suppose, but it's not good. It takes way too long to get started, and it doesn't really pay off as much as it should considering the circumstances.

 

Midgame and lategame and such is completely irrelevant to PvP. You'll mainly be playing at later soul levels anyway, so it doesnt matter what 'point in the game' you are at. As for PvE, thats really too easy. The game gives you all the tools you need right in front of you.

Like Shrine of Amana. I beat this the other day (finished my first run today!) with no trouble because I found a lightning shortbow, recognized that i needed a ranged attack and just buffed it to +6 and bought some lightning arrows from wellager. Never died in the shrine except for a boss death.

 

You, uh, kinda missed my point there, then? If you're playing a Dex build, the game doesn't give you the tools you need. They're held back for half the game.

That's a problem.

 

Dude its PvE. You basically need to be retarded to not be able to at least finish the game with almost any build, barring some ridiculous stuff like no weapons etc. Even dex, you can get good weapons like the rapier early on and bows as well. Its just a matter of being mobile enough to avoid damage and return it.

You keep saying 'midgame' like its hard to get to mid game. McDuff sells iron arrows in the Bastille along with pretty much everything you need. Even besides that, what is supposed to give you trouble before you can get a katana? The Alonne Knight katana has S dex scaling and Iron Keep is roughly halfway through the game. I cant believe that dex builds have trouble with corrosive demon or Mytha. Exactly what is so hard about beating the early enemies of the game?