Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (2015)

7.5/10

Da sam se, nekim slučajem, susreo s dvojkom prije nego s jedinicom, vjerojatno bi odustao prije nego bi ju i zaigrao. Port s konzola je jako loše napravljen. Prvo, bilo je jako teško uopće pokrenuti igru, nešto se stalno rušilo, pa problemi s rezolucijom, pa je onda zapinjalo, pa je išlo prebrzo. Uglavnom, sve se to dalo riješiti, ali sam morao potrošiti jedno 2 sata da sve namjestim kako spada i usput skinuti i third party program, jer bez toga bi bilo skoro pa nemoguće igrati.

Osim toga, velika boljka, koje nije bilo u jedinici (Remasteru), ali zato je u dvojci, a zatim i u trojci, je to što za kontrole piše kao da igraš na ĐOJSTIKU. Recimo - press L2 ili press Y ili press X. I to je u početku jako zbunjujuće, jer onda moraš ići gledati po optionsima koji je to gumb, a i tamo je sve nekako tulavo napravljeno tako da ni tamo ne piše direktno... Uglavnom, smor.

Okej, to su najnegativnije stvari. Dakle, loš port. Ali sama igrica ko igrica (nikad igrice neću zvat igre, jebite se) mi je, u usporedbi s jedinicom, možda tu negdje ili mrvicu slabija. U jedinici me jako očaralo to što je svijet velik, ali gdje god ideš, nekako je povezan i uvijek se vratiš na početak. Nevjerojatno dobar level design. Ovdje je sve više nekako napravljeno tako da ideš naprijed, iako ima i nešto tog backtrackanja. Nije loše, ali je lošije od jedinice. Borba mi se čini bolja u dvojci, a i neki quality of life improvmenti, poput toga da se odmah može teleportirati od vatrice do vatrice, su mi igru ipak učinili boljom. Sorry, znam da je fora da igra bude teška, ali to što moram hodat do pet vatrica prije ručno nema veze s težinom, nego sa smorom.

Sama priča je zbunjujuća, odnosno gotovo pa nepostojeća, osim ako detaljno ne čitaš sve tekstove s itema i svega. Nisam se previše zamarato tim, nego sam nakon što sam ju prešao pogledao odličan lore video na jutjubu koji traje 2 i pol sata i sve do u detalje objasni. Velike preporuke za to, stvarno je fantastično napravljen, kao da film gledaš.

Gameplay je brži od jedinice, nema tog nekog kao input laga, a bossevi, iako vizualno tu negdje s jedinicom, su ovdje, s pokojim izuzetkom, ipak teži. Manus iz jedinice mi je i dalje najteži boss u cijelom serijalu, a ako je on 10/10, ovdje ih je bilo tipa tri 9.5/10. Fora mi je i sistem da možeš neprijatelje ubiti 12 puta i onda se prestanu respawnati, jer kao i u jedinici, i ovdje se natrag do nekih bosseva trči i po minutu, minutu i pol, a kad su po putu i iritantni neprijatelji brzo se čovjek naživcira. Ako baš skužiš da ćeš na bossu provest sate i sate, izdvojiš onda pol sata, 45 min, ubiješ 12 puta mobove i voila. Sve u svemu, iako je sad ispalo da sam uglavnom srao po dvojci, uopće nije toliko lošija, samo je duža i teža od jedinice. Da je port dobar bili bi al-pari.

DEX Build, Aldia ending

It's near impossible to say anything that hasn't already been said - and arguably, anything about game dev that wasn't taught to a generation by this game - about Dark Souls II. The boss design is uninteresting, the Adaptability stat is idiotic, enemy placement in SOTFS makes the initial runs annoying and the boss runbacks infuriating. The weapon durability system is miserable and I ended the game with an inventory stuffed full of useless items and untouched weapons, solely because the one (fairly boring) sword I found was optimal for Dex.

The level of copium exhibited by the fans who call this the best of From's output is palpable. Artificial difficulty doesn't make it a better game, it's just fully less fun to play. Admittedly, it's my last Soulsborne title, but it feels very grey and tepid by comparison to its peers.

That said... the reveal of Vendrick is astonishing, the power stance system (though too opaque) is fun, and the lore and locations remain compelling. Even From's most mediocre title is a comfortable 6/10 - they just make games real good.

Unlikely I'll revisit it. I don't regret my time, but I would happily replay any other Soulsborne, including Demon's Souls, before replaying this.

I had a blast with Dark Souls 2 when it first released. I was excited to have a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. It was challenging and without thinking too hard about the level design I didn't see many flaws. It was more of the challenge that originally drew me into the series. There were more levels that felt lazy in design and the bosses suffered from mostly devolving into "Large Armored Knight," but graphically it was a huge step up despite the controversy surrounding the graphical quality pre-release. Scholar of the First Sin (SoTFS) fixed this issue by enhancing resolution and frame rates. While I think there is merit to SoTFS, I don't see it as the definitive version based on some decisions on enemy placement. It was absurd to charge gamers full price (maybe there was a slight discount?) if they already owned DS2, but that's pretty standard marketing. The main priority behind SOTFS was profit.

I can't speak about all the specific changes made between SOTFS and the original release, but some changes were improvements while others felt straight sadistic. For example, the bon fire near the Lost Sinner no longer has three archers who will immediately start firing at you when you reset at the bon fire. They removed two archers and the remaining one will ignore you until you get close. This was a good change. A bad change was adding a drake in front of the boss door to Ornstein... you are forced to fight it with bows and combat with bows in general is terrible in the series and not really viable. Fortunately Ornstein is an optional boss but does gate keep a covenant.

The biggest change between DS and DS2 is in the healing system and how this radically changed the balance of the game play loop. I won't breakdown the differences since it has already been well explained by many others, but essentially life gems added a means of constantly regenerating your health which removed the necessity of tightly balanced gauntlets that needed all/most damage to be predictable and avoidable in order to feel fair. Instead, DS 2 will throw tons of enemies and ambushes at you making it challenging and sometimes near impossible to avoid damage. What keeps this from feeling cheap is the life gems. They are cheap to buy and you can hold 99 of them. Estus is included but honestly could have been removed and it may have been an improvement. You would still need to rest at bon fires to repair gear (which honestly degrades too fast). The change to degradation was interesting but could have used more tweaking in my opinion. I think equipment durability could have been removed entirely and it would have been a net positive. Nothing meaningful is ever done with it. There are a few edge cases where enemies or environmental hazards will break your equipment but these set pieces were never enjoyable or challenging in a good way.

As I have dug deeper into the design of these games over time, the biggest flaw in DS2 is in world and level design. The forest of the giants, Lost Bastille and No-Man's Wharf have similar inner looping maze-like designs that was common in DS though I would argue never reaches the same quality. Excluding these levels, the quality in design takes a sharp plunge and we're left with a bunch of linear combat encounters. It's a shame how little effort was made to make each level connect. Sadly, the lack of effort and inclusion of warping at the start of the game strongly discourages exploring and learning level design. The satisfactions I felt when taking the elevator from Undead Parish or climbing out of the bog back to the fire link shrine were never matched in the entire run time of DS 2. Clear thought was put into where locations were in relation to each other in DS, but DS2 breaks this on almost every turn. Heide's tower is a great example where you can see it on the horizon of Majula, yet the way you get there makes its location impossible. It's the lack of these details that prevents immersion while playing DS2.

There are a few nitpicks such as the obnoxious pulsating blood vessel filter included in every boss fight cinematic or the excessive unnecessary bon fires (such as the one in Huntman's Copse after you knock down a tree to form a shortcut...); overall, it was a fun action game but lacked the substance of DS. The combat (the focus of DS2) is not what drew me into the series, it was the world building and immersion. The DLC is where DS2 shines.

It honestly felt like the DLC was designed by a completely different team. All three DLCs return to the maze-like design of the original DS and include significantly fewer bon fires focusing more on short cuts for progression. There are plenty of hidden bon fires that reward thorough exploration. Each DLC features different atmospheres and mechanics that shake up game play in interesting ways. You have an earthy underground city, an ashen coated tower and a frozen castle.

The underground city introduces switches that need to be hit to manipulate the environment. It forces you to experiment and view your environment in subtly different ways. Sadly this mechanic isn't expanded upon meaningfully as you progress through the level, but was an interesting shake up. As you plunge deeper, there are more switches you need to hit, but the end result is lackluster in comparison to the first act of the DLC. Instead, these switches will either remove spikes on the floor or open secret doors. I like how each new mechanic is introduced in a relatively safe way. The armored ghosts are first introduced with their backs to you and directly next to the armors you need to destroy making this a fair encounter. Once you figure out you need to destroy their armor, you know to look for it later in the levels and since the armor doesn't respawn it doubles as a clever and unconventional short cut since killing these knights becomes significantly easier. The bosses (excluding the triple NPC fight) are great. Elana is an improved Nashandra encounter. She can summon Velstadt making this a frantic but fair fight. Sinh is one of my favorite dragon fights in any video game. He fights like a dragon would, utilizing his flying and poison fire based attacks. It's exhilarating and satisfying to bring him down. While the content is overall great, there are a few terrible sequences in the game. The other optional boss is a lazy fight with three NPCs. It's a slog to get through as you have to play safe to slowly whittle them down. The worst part of the encounter is the gauntlet leading to them... you are bombarded by a horde of enemies in a room riddled with petrifying spewing urns... it's a sadistic piece of shit and note remotely clever or fun to maneuver through.

The Brume tower is visually striking. The new mechanic it introduces are the ashen idols that will buff and sometimes heal nearby enemies. You are given limited wedges to remove these which act as a clever "short cut" much like killing the ghost knight's armor. The tower is a maze that is satisfying to explore and inner loops on itself. Much like the previous DLC, the new mechanics are introduced in safe environments before making their implementation too complicated. Fume knight is a great boss encounter that is tough but fun to learn. Sir Aloone is decent, though can be completely trivialized by using a shield. The Blue Smelter Demon is pure laziness and what makes this fight even worse is the terrible gauntlet you have to subject yourself to in order to reach him... if it weren't for the smelter wedges you get from him, it wouldn't be worth it...

The frozen castle introduces a frozen mechanic where halfway through progression the level completely changes encouraging you to re-explore the whole area. It's a cool concept where the level becomes tougher rather than easier to explore since a group of enemies were previously sleeping, but now will get up and attack you. it's a great way to test your environmental awareness while fairly shaking up the level. There's an extensive winter wasteland segment that was close to brilliance. I really loved the concept of running aimlessly through a vast and nebulous winter desert. Large structures will naturally draw you to them as you explore. I would love to see this concept expanded upon in later games in the soulsborne series. What holds this place back from being great are the randomly spawning reindeer of death. One on one they are tough but fair, but sometimes you can get screwed and multiple will spawn on you creating only misery. This would be fine if there was a bon fire somewhere in the winter desert. As it stands, if you die you spawn far back to an old bon fire and need to suffer through the cinematic of entering a coffin to re-enter the desert to start all over. What further compounds this issue is how stupidly hard the boss is for the area... it's not a fun or fair fight... The other two bosses are good, though not the best out of all the DLC.

Overall, while I thought the DLC was a massive improvement over the base game, each one featured incompetent sequences and one terrible boss. Still each was fun to explore and led to satisfying moments when new short cuts were unlocked. Each introduced a new and interesting mechanic that shook up game play.

I first played Dark Souls 2: SotFS in my freshman year of college, and I remember walking away from the experience feeling more hollow than I do now, at the end of my college career. I had nothing positive to say about the experience, and literally couldn't fathom how anyone could enjoy such a cheap, ugly, and forgettable game. I couldn't even bring myself to start the DLC, which everyone praised as the best part of the game.

I held onto this train of thought until my younger brother mentioned he wanted help playing through the whole game, to which I re-downloaded it, and made a new character. I was going to give my worst enemy a second chance.

Here, at the other end of the Dark Souls 2: SotFS tunnel, having beaten the base game again, and all the DLC for the first time, I can firmly say that my younger, and more cynical self was a moron, but this game still drives me to drink.

At its core, Dark Souls 2: SotFS has a different base than the rest of Dark Souls, and a different Focus. The game prides itself on providing plenty of options for the player to create builds, experiment, and try out new strategies with a character, even outdoing Dark Souls 3 and 1 in my opinion. In addition, the game offers some of the best exploration, area gimmicks, and aesthetics that Dark Souls has to offer. (Crowns off to you, Crown of the Sunken King) When Dark Souls 2 SotFS would put me into an area that required me to adapt to the environment or learn the puzzling secrets of the area, I was having a blast, especially with friends by my side to discover them with. I also want to briefly mention that the story and lore, while disconnect from DS 1 and 3, is really fun, and the game has a great cast of characters to find and interact with, though many of them do not have as strong arcs as the characters from Dark Souls 3.

This is where the positives end for me, there was a lot that bogged down my experience. While combat provides plenty of options, it still feels slow and clunky to me, I constantly feel like my character is wadding through a vat of butter to do any actions. Many attacks just don't seem to carry any weight to them in the animations, or effects. In many areas of the game, it felt like the developers wanted to increase the difficulty from the Original Dark Souls 2, so they threw in hordes of enemies that would aggressively pursue you, forcing the player to either bottle neck the enemies through a doorway, use arrows to pick off enemies from a distance (This was time consuming especially) or attempt a mad dash for the fog door. (Which almost never worked, rightfully so) No matter what I did, I felt like most fights forced me to play unfair, or force me to spend a long time picking off enemies from a distance. These hordes never felt fair or challenging, just a nuisance meant to shut up players who complained Dark Souls 2 was too easy. The enemy placement honestly is my biggest grip with the game, and I think with less hordes and more enemies meant to catch the player off guard or challenge them, the game would be dramatically improved.

Second biggest problem with the game, is the lack of interesting or creative bosses, The game went hard on making the areas difficult with excessive enemy placement, but could not design any tough or challenging bosses. (with the exception of the Smelter Demon, and most of the DLC bosses. Bless Sinh, Fume Knight, and Sir Alonne) A major part of my love for Dark Souls 3, where it lacks in exploration, it is replaced with some of the best fights in the entire series. The decent fights in dark souls 2 can be counted on one hand.

Third Major complaint: certain area gimmicks are just painful. The Black Gulch for example, is an area that punishes you for simply existing by poisoning you. The only way to avoid being poisoned, is by spending forever destroying the little statues that line the area. These respawn after death, and is incredibly frustrating, throwing the great design of other areas out the window. The game has a couple of areas like this to offset the great areas.

I have other smaller gripes, like the forgettable music (Aside from Majula, which I find myself thinking about from time to time), the murky graphics, Soul Memory, but these do not deserve the same amount of time I spent talking about my other issues.

At its core, Dark Souls 2: SotFS has some great ideas, that I wish Dark Souls 3 learned from, but still leaves so much to be desired from the overall feel of the game, the enemy placement, certain areas, and the bosses. But in retrospect, I honestly had a good time, but whether it was because the good of the game was able to narrowly outshine my list of gripes, or because I had my best friend playing with me, is up to you. I am glad I gave this game a second chance.

Final Score: Strong 6

So, the journey which I started in August 2018 is complete (well it is for me anyway). All bosses down, with the final boss (the 2 cats) beaten today.....

I think my poor "undead chosen" needs a well earned rest, and I think I'm going to leave her right here at the bonfire....

....Adiós "chosen undead" !

and I think I need a small Souls vacation before i tackle DS3.

So, having finally beaten the Fume Knight a few weeks back and having momentarily managed to prise myself away from WOW Classic, I come across this dude... Sir Alonne.

Christ almighty this dude moves in fast and then hits hard. I basically get about 1 hit on him and then he just completely owns me.

I guess that DS2 for you.

I will never touch this game ever again. I got all achievements and I still wasn't having a lot of fun even during my last minutes with the game. This game is a load of mixed bags. I'll go over the main negative points briefly.

Terrible world design, areas aren't even interconnected. Instead, you get multiple linear paths to collect 4 Great Souls. Some area transitions don't even make sense, looking at you Iron Keep. Oh, you're in a poisonous valley? Ride an elevator and now you're in a volcano. There are some people that claim the character "loses memory" because of going hollow but I don't buy it. It's just bad game design.

The movement feels too floaty and the deadzone is locked to 8 directions. That's right, you can only properly move in 8 directions. Want to make a subtle turn? You can't unless you mod the game, which soft-bans you from online, so you're just better off not modding it. Even Dark Souls 1 with its slow and "clunky" movement feels better than this. Omni-directional rolling IS better than DS1's 4-directional rolling but the trade-off isn't worth it.

Too many bosses that are low in quality. Dark Souls 2 has a very "quantity over quality" approach to boss battles. Also have fun fighting The Pursuer during the entire game. Not so "The" Pursuer after all huh? There's like a dozen of these dudes.

Overall, is this a game worth skipping? Maybe. I gave it another shot after finishing Sekiro and the only way I was able to get into this game was by playing it with a different mindset.

"This is not a Souls game."

That was my mindset. On the positive side, Velstadt, Darklurker and Sir Alonne were great. Yeah. Only 3 of the 32 bosses were enjoyable for me.

I had heard the stories before playing about how Dark Souls II was a disappointment so I wasn't expecting much when I started the game shortly after finishing my first playthrough of Bloodborne. However, it didn't take long for the game to click and I fell into that classic Soulsborne rhythm.

The game runs in a buttery smooth 60 FPS on PS4 although even with the graphical enhancements it clearly looks like a game from the previous generation. The combat remains as addictive as ever even with the slower paced gameplay compared to Bloodborne .I also found the the co-op & PvP had a much better implementation over BB as I was able to join up with a buddy much quicker than in my BB run.

The story, while cryptic, does its job. As with other Soulsbornes games, the barest of lore is given out, leaving the rest to item descriptions and pure conjecture. You are the Bearer of the Curse; an undead hollowing who has long since completely forgotten their life and loved ones. You make your way to the kingdom of Drangleic in order to find a way to break the curse and regain your humanity.

One point of contention is that the environments are thematically similar to previous games and have an overall layout which can only be described as nonsensical. You travel from a poisonous swamp area to a large tower. At the top of the tower is an elevator which brings you straight up into..... a volcanic area which is geographically an impossibility based on the previous area. However, this does not detract from the addictive gameplay loop so it didn't bother me during my playthrough.

Being my first Dark Souls game (I had already completed Demon's Souls & Bloodborne at this point), I was just as satisfied with the game as I was with the other entries I played. It simply another great game in what is quickly becoming my favorite franchise.