I just played... Dark Souls 2

Never have I felt so Hollow (haha, get it?)

A new world to explore (and die in)

                Have you ever fallen for someone? Become so mindlessly engrossed in another human being that he/she begins to dominate all the thoughts in your mind, become such an omniscient presence in the canvas of your mind that you begin to feel like he/she is like an infection scouring your brain? Furthermore, have you ever wanted to just say something, perhaps blurt out your feelings, so bad that you felt a little pin oscillating in your heart, constantly pricking it?

                So, I am going to steel my nerves and make a confession to Dark Souls 2, and I will do so because I happen to love videogames more than any potential soul mate.

Dear Dark Souls 2,

                                            You are a disappointment.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Yours sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Me.

What impatience nets you. 

                Let’s just say that stating the above was more painful to me than stating any confessions of love to any girl has ever been, and ever will be. You see, before I played Dark Souls I was like a zombie living in the mindless eternity of utter darkness (to put it lightly), and then Dark Souls came along and filled my life with a great sense of hope and light… which is deliciously ironic considering the tone of the game is anything but hope-filled and incandescent. But it made an impact on me, and it was only natural for me to await Dark Souls 2 heart a-throbbing, a rose in one hand and rose-tinted glasses in the other. Of course, consoles got the game considerably earlier than PC, which meant I had to become a hermit living off the charity of others and averting my eyes from gadgets and internet, which was like trying to avert your eyes from a kitten pawing at your legs.

Hope you like meeting old friends.

                But with great strength of will, I persevered and managed to do something I wish I could have done 100% with Dark Souls, I went through Dark Souls 2 blind.

                First things first, even though I consider the game to be a disappointment, it is not a bad game. It’s still a perfectly functional, enjoyable game with its share of interesting experiences to be had, it’s just that it’s competing with its predecessors and has one fatal flaw.

PTS!

                Generally, if I was to be with my soul mate I’d like to talk openly and honestly, instead of beating around the bush and trying to play with words like a cat with ribbons and laser lights. So I’m just going to talk about Dark Souls 2 honestly: its greatest flaw is its lack of innovation (and brilliance).

It's always disappointing to annihilate a boss on your first attempt.

                Now, you might say “But it’s not fair to compare something to its predecessors. It should be judged on its own!” To which I reply “shut up, that’s not how it works.” The ethics of comparing sequels to its forerunners is another discussion for another time in the invisible matrix of future possibilities.

The message system is as amusing and cryptic as ever.

                For those who don’t know: The Souls series (Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 and the upcoming Bloodborne) are a series of action RPGs by Japanese developer From Software. They are rather notorious for their punishing nature, ambiguity and emphasis on being more like a videogame from the days of yore, evoking games such as the classic Castlevania series, Megaman series and Metroid series. Rather than holding your hand like so many games do these days, and placing flashing pointers to keep you from getting lost; the Souls games give you a light nudge in a certain direction and then throw you into their worlds. The games reward patience, perseverance, discipline and a knack for studying your enemies and environments. They also feature some of the most innovating multiplayer integration into games, ever, from being able to leave messages on the ground (using limited words and phrases) for other players to read in their games (allowing you to help or harm players with them – you could say ‘ambush ahead’ before an area where two foes leap from the shadows – or you could say ‘try jumping, treasure ahead’ before a fall that will certainly kill the player), you can also be summoned to another player’s world to help them against foes and bosses, or even invade other players as a foe to oppose them.

A wholly unimaginative boss by Souls standards

                I’m going to start things off with the big and stompy part of the game: the boss fights, and I suppose saying ‘big and stompy’ here is appropriate considering that’s how over 65% of the bosses work. See, I’m going to make a biased assumption that they had two people designing the bosses for this game. One guy really loved God of War, and the other guy really love Dynasty Warriors. If I were to use arbitrarily meaningless calculations I’d say that around 65% of the bosses were big and stompy, 34% of the bosses involved number advantages/swarms and the remaining 1% were everything else. The big stompy bosses utilised slow, devastating attacks that can annihilate you if you don’t listen to the painfully obvious warnings they give you. The number-centric bosses generally just had numbers as their greatest strength, to annoying fault; design-wise, they all shared a basic flat and dull template which centred around you managing their numbers, or remaining aware of your surroundings… and this design is only good on paper and even then for only a boss or two, not a great majority of them. This leads to a fundamental flaw in Dark Souls 2, the fact that it seems to look at its predecessors and use them as their foundation principles.

Hope you like 'em big and stompy.

Hope you like 'em numerous and EVERYWHERE

                The Souls games have the same basic gameplay, an emphasis on learning the threats posed against you, while also learning the limitations of your character and what he/she can do. While that remains the core fundamental, the things around it changed a great deal and were toyed around with in Demon’s and Dark Souls. Dark Souls 2, on the other hand, seems to liberally copy from its two predecessors, taking the ideas and re-envisioning them. While it has its moments, everything here is comparatively dull, be it the environments, the foes or the bosses.

That Club really clashes with that armour... Fashion Souls problems. 

Ready for my close-up!

                As expected of what is arguably a self-damaging ‘safe’ sequel, the core mechanics are relatively unchanged, though critical hits have been rebalanced to be more, err… balanced. In previous games, Backstabs and Ripostes were devastating for enemies, dealing immense amounts of damage while also rendering you immune during the animation. While they could only be performed on select foes, they trivialised those foes to a ridiculous degree. Now, they are harder to pull off and no longer render you completely immune, making them more of a risk/reward move as opposed to the ‘reward’ moves they (especially backstabs) were. Additionally, dual-wielding is now a reality, as you can enter a ‘power stance’ that lets you use special attacks when equipping two weapons of the same kind (provided you meet some requirements), and I’d have to confess that using this stance can be incredibly enjoyable as you can turn yourself into a mindless whirlwind of death, though in true Dark Souls tradition, if you leave your mind behind you aren’t going to live long.

The Shrine of Amana was easily the most atmospheric and intriguing area of the game, too bad its hazards were lazily designed.

This looks... familiar.

We have a rather unimaginative lava castle, a dull gloomy crypt and stereotypical pirate bay as some of the environmental highlights, while the more interesting locales are essentially inferior versions of areas in past games. There are some interesting areas, the game isn’t completely bereft of intrigue, but the best of these pale beyond discernable reason when compared to areas like New Londo, Tower of Latria, Anor Londo, Lost Izalith or Boletaria from previous games. Additionally, the individual areas in this game are incredibly short-lived, generally lasting for a few hours on your first-time through, and probably just an hour on subsequent playthroughs.

NPC summons are available to make many boss fights easier, though their 'questionable' AI can make their usefulness questionable in some fights.

On the plus side of design, the armour sets and weapons are beautifully designed and have their share of uniqueness and visual flair, especially thanks to the existence of cloth physics, which make capes look so hypnotizing you wouldn't want to wear them out of a fear of being unable to leave your house or go to work without a glorious cape flowing behind you - give me a moment as I readjust the bed sheet I tied around me. Additionally, I have a feeling that the team behind the armours went overboard and designed too many which led to many being left out, which led to the boss team taking pity on them and deciding to incorporate them in the bosses in some way.

Rawr! For Jolly Cooperation!

Which takes me back to the bosses, and just how many of them are ‘armoured figures’, and if memory serves then every second boss was an armoured figure. Now my statement isn’t armoured with solid evidence, but I can armour it with the impression the game left on me, and that’s a whole lot of people in armour. In all honesty, I half expected to eventually find myself in an area that actually took place inside a giant suit of armour, inside which I’d have to fight enemies in suits of armour. Did I mention that excessive armour is not just restricted to bosses, and that half the enemies are variations of ‘armoured figure’? Did I mention that when I close my eyes I now see armoured figures everywhere, jiving to the hums of my disappointment?

The NPCs are flat-out boring compared to Dark Souls 1. The voice-acting is exceptional though.

If Dark Souls 1 was more of an exploration of existentialism via the exploration of the nature and nuances of ‘purpose’, I suppose I could stretch my pretentious muscles, take on a monocle and say that Dark Souls 2 too explores existentialism, but does so by looking into the nature of dullness and lack of stimulation in life. Though what I’m saying here is that the inherent comparative dullness seeps wholeheartedly into the characters, who can’t even begin to hold a candle to those in Dark Souls. Once again: sure, there are some interesting characters, but they still follow this game’s emphasis on dullness.

Ranged attacks, in whatever form, are ridiculously helpful this time around.

Like its predecessor, the game isn’t impressive visually, and while it makes up for this with its art style and flair, it is going to fall short artistically when compared to those that came before it. Though, on the plus side, it can run beautifully on PC and it’s quite the treat to play a Souls game at 60 fps since I’ve always been ready to trade a kidney or two to somehow be able to play Dark Souls at 60 fps.

In PvP remember to bow first, kill later.

Instanced duels are a form of PvP available to certain Covenants.

We humans sure got some bad rep.

The story lacks the depth and raw ambiguity of the first game, and is closer to being Demon’s Souls as a more ‘straight-laced’ game, which is not ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ inherently, all other games tend to be straightforward after all, but what made Dark Souls so memorable was the sheer amount of hidden lore, hidden stories, hidden interpretations, hidden truths, that were concealed from the common player, waiting to be discovered by those who paid attention and raked the depths. Of course, the depth of lore in Dark Souls 2 doesn’t even compare to Demon’s Souls, so forget about lengthy comparisons to Dark Souls.

"Crazy story, this one time I was terrorizing this bridge, but then this dude shot my tail till it fell off!"

Despite how much I’m rambling and criticising the game, it’s still a good game, an enjoyable game, that I had a pretty great time going through blind. It’s just that the game suffers from a crippling lack of ambition, a lack of innovation, a lack of depth, making it a step back more than anything else. It does a lot right with its New Game+ (with exclusive items, enemies and encounters), but that fails to redeem it in the long run.

Number of deaths: 1st playthrough (up) v/s 2nd playthrough (down). Food for thought. 

                All these flaws can perhaps be traced to the fact that Miyazaki, the ‘main man’ behind the Souls games, was not in direct charge of Dark Souls 2, and it shows. What blew my mind in Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls was their sheer innovation, like two shafts of light in a world where everything was just the shadow of another. Unfortunately, Dark Souls 2 is just a shadow of its glorious brethren. 

Time taken to beat the game - 1st and 2nd time- puts things into perspective just a bit