Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

DS2 is the experimental second entry.

It is absolutely full of interesting, novel mechanics that are used about once. It's a great game and I'm glad it exists because it's why FromSoft took us in the direction DS3 and Elden Ring took.

But it suffers from a few overlapping issues that compound on themselves.

1. You lose max HP as you die down to DS1 Curse levels. You mainly have to use a consumeable to actually reverse it, with only a few ways to mitigate the process. Your failures result in being weakened.

2. You cannot escape PvP without going offline or using the same consumeable item. (NPC invasions continue on regardless.)

3. Your PvP matchmaking is based on total souls acquired, including lost souls: soul memory. Unless you wear an item that prevents gaining souls, the more you play the stronger your opponents become.

This creates a feedback loop that increasing turns people off from the game.

But once you've dumped time into the other FromSoft games and still want something else and more: DS2 is such a great option.

Dark Souls 2 is the worst "souls-like" from From Software and it was still game of the year when it came out.

There’s legitimate issues with DS2 (no game is perfect) but a lot of the initial griping came from DS1 players who had to learn new timings and cope with reduced i-frames, and griefers who hated the soul memory system.

I can, at any time. Suddenly be overtaken by the skin tingling urge to once again attempt the DS2 no death no bonfire run. I've gotten as far as old iron king before being unceremoniously tossed into a tiny hole full of lava.

The run forces you to think about the game entirely differently as you can only repair weapons at bonfires (not allowed), in Majula, or with the rare repair powder. No spells can be used as no spells can be attuned. and souls are absolutely precious. Resulting in an almost rogue-like feel where a random weapon drop can be the difference between breezing through a boss or being forced to switch between your 4 almost broken weapons to get through the last 20%

No enemies ever respawn so you find yourself trudging through empty areas you cleared perhaps twenty hours before to use a lock stone or take on a heide knight for a chance at their lightning sword. Only to perhaps lose precious life or the entire run to an overlooked trap or ambush.

No fast travel so you learn the routes between zones and challenge the oft levied criticism of the disparity between it and the originals world design. Though some routes are genuinely slogs. It does give you a good opportunity to check every nook and cranny to dig the most mundane items out.

My old strategy involved prodigious use of the small white soapstone. An underused and confusing item that allowed you to be summoned for a mere 8 minutes to a hosts world reduced by some amount per enemy killed. (Which if you died it it counted as a death and your run was over.) However completing this summon rewarded a full estus flask, a full heal, and a full repair to your equipped items. As well as a smooth & silky stone.

The primary appeal to use this was when a host decided to take on a particularly deadly section I would simply. Not. Often I would trigger the optional encounter with the pursuer in the forest to start these runs and perfectly parry him something like 25 times to kill him. Immediately ending my summon. But if the host elected to jump to the section of scaffolding over a poison pit full of crossbow hollows? They received naught but a wave emote from me.

I haven't attempted it in some years but I still feel the call sometimes. I just worry that there won't be anyone left to summon me.

The reward for completing this run? A pair of rings that make your weapons invisible.

I quite like dark souls 2. I don't think it's objectively the best, but it keeps me coming back and it's interesting. I've played so much dark souls 1 I can't play it anymore, dark souls 3 never really was my cup of tea and wasn't incredibly long to begin with. Elden ring is great, but the time commitment to a playthrough is kind of off-putting.

Dark souls 2 seems like it's the weird one that accidentally got a lot of stuff right to maintain a slow burn of interest from me over the years.

wait, they made part 2???

i dont get the bad rap for 2. yes ds1 was better in in some ways, but ds2 crushed it in a lot of other ways.

each title is unique. each one has new spins. and all of them contributed to elden ring.

i have no sass for ds2.

Oh wow so contrarian, "Look at me I like the game most regard as the worst of the series". It is the worst of them. Just not bad in itself

Worst of the trilogy, but still vastly better than most other action games. It stands as a testament of the developer's skills; especially when you read about all the BS they had to deal with from BandaiNamco during development. We are lucky that it released at all, and is still a great game.

I love DS2, it's my favourite one out of the series. But do we have to have these baity DS2-related posts here that happen so often on the reddit Dark Souls subs? Every time it's like I'm looking at basically the same comment section on them as the last one. It's so boring and predictable

There are many, many more things that can be discussed around DS2 than how and why most Souls fans either think it's the least good one at best or outright hate it and refuse to play it (even if they've never actually tried playing it once and seeing for themselves) at worst

They're not wrong, but they don't have to be so mean to my child :'c

It was literally made by a different team than 1 and 3, so it's gonna feel pretty different.

Dark souls 2 was great. Especially the ringed city dlc. Really wrapped up the series beautifully.