From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[Multidirectional]

I replayed most of DS III over last couple months, after playing through Lies of P. It did make me appreciate DS III a bit more, as it's no doubt a superior game to this so called "best non FS soulslike". It's at least a solid 7/10 game, can't call it shit by any means. However I still like it the least out of trilogy. I played it right after replaying DS II and yeah improvements in smoothness are obvious but it's not enough. There's something captivating about Dark Souls I and II that I just find mostly missing in III and improved presentation ain't enough to make up for it.

 

[Machocruz]

Being "smoother" is given a lot of reverence out there, seen as an objective improvement in a sequel, above many other considerations. Almost by default, the more twitchy the better the gameplay and controls are apparently. Slower, heavier, or otherwise constrained movement is a "flaw". I had problems with DS2 movement feel and animation, but 3 was not the solution. Well, with DeS and DS1 there wasn't a problem to begin with, but I guess those are now too "clunky" as well.

 

[Silverfish]

Can you faggots stop turning this into an Us VS Them thing with souls games?

Sounds like someone is on the losing team.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Being "smoother" is given a lot of reverence out there, seen as an objective improvement in a sequel, above many other considerations. Almost by default, the more twitchy, the better the gameplay and controls are apparently. Slower, heavier, or otherwise constrained movement is a "flaw". I had problems with DS2 movement feel and animation, but 3 was not the solution. Well, with DeS and DS1 there wasn't a problem to begin with, but I guess those are now too "clunky" as well.

The PC port is bugged. It can be fixed.

 

[cvv]

I don't hate DS3 at all, but it's laughable that someone would suggest that it's the highlight of the series.

DS3 is just "zoomer's first Dwark Swouls

I only treat DkS3 like it's a piece of shit during comparisons with other FS games.

DkS3 gets rolled on by all other Souls games, this is true.

I must echo the prestigious friends cvv and Lutte bashing DS3 level design.

I'm really heartened I'm not the only one to see the problems with this game. Spending any time on strems or reddit you'd think you're going crazy, judging from all the "DS3 teh graetestest!1!!1" comments.

Just goes to show how stupid and shallow most people are, even within the relatively prestigious souls community.

 

[Ryzer]

The reason 2 and especially 3 lack any of 1's charm is because the dudes involved literally did not want to make them.

I've always been skeptical of this claim since two of the three series Miyazaki's launched since Dark Souls caught fire have just been Souls in a different setting.

And even import things straight from the previous games. Elden Ring has something like 10 asylum demon, Omen Killer are Capra Demon, Bloodhound are Boreal Outrider and yet this is what he said in an interview a long time ago:

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/...ls-3-could-be-the-last-game-in-the-series.htm

"I don't think it'd be the right choice to continue indefinitely creating Souls and Bloodborne games. I'm considering Dark Souls 3 to be the big closure on the series. That's not just limited to me, but From Software and myself together want to aggressively make new things in the future...Dark Souls 3 is an important marker in the evolution of From Software."

Miyazaki is a weasel.
The big closure for soulsborne eh?

People and especially codexers have accepted the same recooked Souls soup for years, that their games never innovate.
What do you expect? That they will suddendly make a new game? when Dark Souls with a new coat of paint sells like hotcakes, it's obvious they will make 0 effort as they did since Demon Souls.

 

[Machocruz]

Spending any time on strems or reddit you'd think you're going crazy, judging from all the "DS3 teh graetestest!1!!1" comments.

Just goes to show how stupid and shallow most people are, even within the relatively prestigious souls community.

And even then, I only ever see praise for the aforementioned smoothness, bosses, and maybe the visuals. Little to none for covenants, build variety, itemization, fashion, level design, non-boss characters. Imagine DeS -DS2 and hardly or never seeing praise for Latria, Astrea, MiB, Blightown, Majula, ToG, Brume Tower, CoC, Darkwraith, bonfire ascetics, etc.

 

[cvv]

And even then, I only ever see praise for the aforementioned smoothness, bosses, and maybe the visuals.

Because there isn't anything else. Under the hood the game is a godawful mess but normie retards don't care.

(To be fair, on my first run I didn't care either... or rather didn't notice coz much smooth, such bosses)

 

[ferratilis]

This game was very well received on release, I remember so many streams on Twitch were focused on PvP. It also helped that it was the first 60fps Souls experience on PC (not taking DSFix into account), and had (and still has) amazing build variety. It was a few years after release that the targeted hate campaign against this game started. It was around the time when those longform youtube analysis videos started, a bunch of faggots jumped on the hate bandwagon and they're riding it to this day. They also happen to be more vocal about it than the people who like the game. DS2 is great, and I love returning to it, moreso than DS3. Not that DS3 is bad per se, it's just that DS2 is more fun.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Just goes to show how stupid and shallow most people are, even within the relatively prestigious souls community.

I was talking to someone who got into the series with Dark souls 1 yesterday and I realized even they missed out on the peak Souls community. We were discussing how the meme of 'Demon's souls was a failed project Miyazaki took over and saved'. It got an English release with a full colour and quite large guide, a cardboard sleeve and was translated at all. An assumed failure doesn't get that kind of release. As a young man I spent a lot of time around the weeb gaming community so I could play Japanese mecha games. Demon's souls English community was very similar in that it was a group of guys who were playing niche titles like Super Robot Taisen Original Generation or trying to fight with Japanese only releases and GameFAQS to understand Gundam strategy games using only a text file translating the menu options. Demon's souls community was ultra respectful to each other in a way I've never seen any community before or since. Spoilers were considered a complete taboo and with streaming just taking off many of us would lurk on Twitch and see others play through the game after we beat it. They weren't PVP streams or fight clubs or any of that shit. It was dudes playing the game for the first time or revisiting it for fun. All of this meta fight club, build variety, can you beat X souls with Y limits didn't exist yet. The closest was 4-1 was the agreed upon PvP invasion zone because it was an open area with 1 enemy to kill. The game was niche, the community was very protective of not spoiling any thing, not helping people even if they wanted their handheld and protecting the sense of adventure Demon's souls uniquely gave. There was a real sense of community and that we were playing something special to be treasured and respected. It wasn't some small indie shitty weeb game no one else was going to play but slant eyed faggots and the handful of losers willing to slog through Wonderswan games with sprites that didn't even move.

And then the games journos got hold of Dark souls 1. It might have been E3 or another big trade show and Dark souls sweeped the media coverage across the board. It was just the undead berg with a few preset builds but it was enough to have months of articles hyping it up. It was THE HARDEST GAME EVER AND GAMER BROS BETTER RESPECT BEATING THE GARGOYLES. There were so so many fluff pieces how Dark souls was so depressingly hard and only a sadist would play it, but you couldn't put it down. All of the git gud shit starts with game journos hyping the game to fuck and then the PC release happens, the bosses combat becomes the template we still have in Elden ring and the community is totally overwhelmed to such a degree is does a 180 in it's mentality. No more respect for the game, no more sense of adventure. It's fight clubs, twitch chatters acting as a personal guide to streamers and every issue is 'git gud' instead of 'Yea, it's tough but keep your eyes open, there's a few easy windows if you're careful".

Demon's souls was never a presumed failure. It was an international hit on par with Shin Megami Tensei at the time. presumed failures that under sell don't get international releases and those that do to make money back don't have additional material in the box. It fucking sucks to see the original origins of the series be chinese whispered into complete bollocks blowing smoke up a thieve's ass and what the people playing it have become. You can call me a fag, but early demon's souls community was a real fucking gem and there will never be anything like it again because anything remotely like it will immediately be dog piled by Dark souls 3/bloodborne style fanboys who simply cannot let an organic community form around anything because they've turned this games into a personality and even worse, a fetish.

What do you expect? That they will suddendly make a new game? when Dark Souls with a new coat of paint sells like hotcakes, it's obvious they will make 0 effort as they did since Demon Souls.

They made that Vr Fairy game and no one played it.

This game was very well received on release, I remember so many streams on Twitch were focused on PvP. It also helped that it was the first 60fps Souls experience on PC (not taking DSFix into account), and had (and still has) amazing build variety. It was a few years after release that the targeted hate campaign against this game started. It was around the time when those longform youtube analysis videos started, a bunch of faggots jumped on the hate bandwagon and they're riding it to this day. They also happen to be more vocal about it than the people who like the game. DS2 is great, and I love returning to it, moreso than DS3. Not that DS3 is bad per se, it's just that DS2 is more fun.

This is kind of the reason for the rant at the start. I feel sorry you guys didn't get to experience what I did with my souls journey. It was like playing Stalker pre-/v/ memes about it. And in many ways Dark souls 3 is the Stalker 2 of the whole situation. Those long essays didn't help but there were complains week 1. Mathew Mattosis ripped the game to shreds by giving a really negative review about it early on. But fans didn't engage with media until quite a while after release due to all of us knowing you should play the games as blind as possible. He said it was still better than everything else out there but it has some dumb flaws, which I think we all agree on. From didn't improve what needed to be so it's not the great game it could be, but it's still a very good game despite it's flaws. Youtube Essays and streaming anal rimming are later internet problems and it's the lore channels from 3 onwards that really push the experiencing souls games by proxy thing. Most people didn't care about the lore originally. those channels were content for secondaries and they played the games after watching all the lore videos and others play it first.

Any one got the time to compare souls games credits? I would be interested to know how many people worked on Demon's Dark souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. We give the directors too much credit and I bet we could find specific designers and interviews that might reveal who the real workhorses are and maybe follow them to other game series to find other special games worth playing

 

[cvv]

Demon's souls was never a presumed failure.

When people talk about DeS being a failure they mean the development. Apparently game was in a dev hell until Miyazaki took over and completely rehauled it.

And it was also a commercial and critical flop after the initial release in Japan. I sold p. badly and got 7/10 from Famitsu. Only with time it started to grow into a cult, first in Japan, then the US.

it has some dumb flaws, which I think we all agree on. From didn't improve what needed to be

DS2 improved MASSIVELY over DS1 systems-wise - armor, poise, split damage, weapon enhancements, PvP, best hub in the series, covenants, NG+, bonfire ascetics, respec (even gender change lel), humanity/invasion mechanics, grid-based UI, multiple item use, covenants, hard mode (champions stone), build variety, powerstancing.... and even that list isn't complete. Just tons and tons of improvements.

But yeah, there were problems with it:

- the world design - by far the most serious problem, linear instead of interconnected; people loved the latter, From gave them the former for some reason... and then again in DS3
- there was no Izalith or Demon Ruins but individual levels didn't have the DS1 heights
- soul memory - an attempt to improve matchmaking which made it worse
- ADP - another well-intentioned experiment that mutated horribly
- teleporting from the get go - the first step on From's long road from hardcore beginnings to appeasing crying and bubbling normies; people often say the best thing about DS1 was the level design but that's wrong; the best thing was the fact that you couldn't teleport around like a retard for the first 2/3s of the game

 

[Hell Swarm]

When people talk about DeS being a failure they mean the development. Apparently game was in a dev hell until Miyazaki took over and completely rehauled it.

This is the story and I don't buy it. You don't give a game in dev hell to a random faggot and expect them to save it. Japanese work culture wouldn't allow it and it would just get cancelled instead.

Poise is a mistake. It's like iframes. a crutch bad game designers user instead of properly balancing hit boxes.

 

[cvv]

When people talk about DeS being a failure they mean the development. Apparently game was in a dev hell until Miyazaki took over and completely rehauled it.

This is the story and I don't buy it. You don't give a game in dev hell to a random faggot and expect them to save it. Japanese work culture wouldn't allow it and it would just get cancelled instead.

Yeah it always sounded p. bizarre to me too but it's not like we can jump back 20 years and become flies on FromSoft's wall.

 

[Max Damage]

So, I have cleared all great lords except for Freja with minimal Agility so far on my SotFS run (Swordsman, melee only, light load), it seems like you can delay leveling ADP at your leisure if you're not going for greedy late rolls, don't think I've noticed any major drawbacks aside from fumbling a couple rolls through Iron King's sweeps, even managed to kill a bellbro. Now that I'm near lvl 100 and got all the softcaps I aimed for, I think I'll start pumping ADP so my chugs aren't slower than gems anymore.

 

[Hell Swarm]

So, I have cleared all great lords except for Freja with minimal Agility so far on my SotFS run (Swordsman, melee only, light load), it seems like you can delay leveling ADP at your leisure if you're not going for greedy late rolls, don't think I've noticed any major drawbacks aside from fumbling a couple rolls through Iron King's sweeps, even managed to kill a bellbro. Now that I'm near lvl 100 and got all the softcaps I aimed for, I think I'll start pumping ADP so my chugs aren't slower than gems anymore.

I didn't know ADP influenced flask speed. I always got it to a medium roll and left it alone. Guess that's why fags cry gems are better when I always found the heal too slow.

 

[Max Damage]

You can run a bit further and still chug safely, just need to keep the delay in mind. I mostly use estus before lifegems/charms.

 

[ghostdog]

I almost finished all DLC stuff with vanilla DS2. All except the 2 pets in Frigid Outskirts. A shame it leaves a bad taste at the end of an otherwise very enjoyable trio of DLCs. I mean, all those "special DLC dungeons" were kinda crappy and the gank-squad battle was another troll boss, but at least you could come back to it rather quickly. Having to run again through the whole fucking Frigid Outskirts is probably the worst design decision they made in this game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Have you considered winning instead?

 

[Max Damage]

so this is how it feels to gank, poor fella followed me into dead end room, realized too late he's stuck between me and rats, no chugging possible

 

[Strange Fellow]

I almost finished all DLC stuff with vanilla DS2. All except the 2 pets in Frigid Outskirts. A shame it leaves a bad taste at the end of an otherwise very enjoyable trio of DLCs. I mean, all those "special DLC dungeons" were kinda crappy and the gank-squad battle was another troll boss, but at least you could come back to it rather quickly. Having to run again through the whole fucking Frigid Outskirts is probably the worst design decision they made in this game.

Twin cats is the only Dark Souls boss I haven't beaten. I did the run up to it once and said fuck it, I don't have time for this shit. Never regretted it for a second. Crown of the Ivory King is otherwise my favourite DLC of the lot, so I just pretend the frigid outskirts don't exist.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I almost finished all DLC stuff with vanilla DS2. All except the 2 pets in Frigid Outskirts. A shame it leaves a bad taste at the end of an otherwise very enjoyable trio of DLCs. I mean, all those "special DLC dungeons" were kinda crappy and the gank-squad battle was another troll boss, but at least you could come back to it rather quickly. Having to run again through the whole fucking Frigid Outskirts is probably the worst design decision they made in this game.

Twin cats is the only Dark Souls boss I haven't beaten. I did the run up to it once and said fuck it, I don't have time for this shit. Never regretted it for a second. Crown of the Ivory King is otherwise my favourite DLC of the lot, so I just pretend the frigid outskirts don't exist.

It's funny how everyone has trouble with different things. For instance, the only Soulsborne boss I haven't beaten (never summon) in the From games is Orphan. Fuck that fucking thing. I've been meaning to go back and try it again though, I could probably get it, I usually just get irritated and finish my playthrough.

 

[Ryzer]

Git gud.

Orphan of kos filters plebians like no one else.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I almost finished all DLC stuff with vanilla DS2. All except the 2 pets in Frigid Outskirts. A shame it leaves a bad taste at the end of an otherwise very enjoyable trio of DLCs. I mean, all those "special DLC dungeons" were kinda crappy and the gank-squad battle was another troll boss, but at least you could come back to it rather quickly. Having to run again through the whole fucking Frigid Outskirts is probably the worst design decision they made in this game.

I would recommend suffering through it just to have done all bosses at least once. It's an awful area and the boss fight is stupid but you may as well. A decent build can cleave them in 2.

It's funny how everyone has trouble with different things. For instance, the only Soulsborne boss I haven't beaten (never summon) in the From games is Orphan. Fuck that fucking thing. I've been meaning to go back and try it again though, I could probably get it, I usually just get irritated and finish my playthrough.

I never got Kos's reputation. Can you explain why you find it so hard? The sharks were much harder IMO. I found Kos to a pretty basic boss all things considering. His phase 2 is shit but once you learn to dance with him he's quite reasonable and sadly not very special for an end of game DLC boss. A lot of boss difficulty comes from play style. Some bosses massively punish two handed weapons, others one hand weapons and we hit walls that way. I'm all about learning to dance with bosses where you dodge right, get a hit then dodge again and everything is paced out perfectly so you're always moving, always repositioning. While I've seen heavy weapon users donk bosses into oblivion over and over and they're never changing position just looking for the next roll.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Demon's souls was never a presumed failure.

When people talk about DeS being a failure they mean the development. Apparently game was in a dev hell until Miyazaki took over and completely rehauled it.

And it was also a commercial and critical flop after the initial release in Japan. I sold p. badly and got 7/10 from Famitsu. Only with time it started to grow into a cult, first in Japan, then the US.

Gamespot played a big part in Demon's Souls becoming popular in the west. Back then they were still relevant, about as big as IGN, and they awarded Demon's Souls GOTY. That brought alot of attention to it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

It's funny how everyone has trouble with different things. For instance, the only Soulsborne boss I haven't beaten (never summon) in the From games is Orphan. Fuck that fucking thing. I've been meaning to go back and try it again though, I could probably get it, I usually just get irritated and finish my playthrough.

I never got Kos's reputation. Can you explain why you find it so hard? The sharks were much harder IMO. I found Kos to a pretty basic boss all things considering. His phase 2 is shit but once you learn to dance with him he's quite reasonable and sadly not very special for an end of game DLC boss. A lot of boss difficulty comes from play style. Some bosses massively punish two handed weapons, others one hand weapons and we hit walls that way. I'm all about learning to dance with bosses where you dodge right, get a hit then dodge again and everything is paced out perfectly so you're always moving, always repositioning. While I've seen heavy weapon users donk bosses into oblivion over and over and they're never changing position just looking for the next roll.

Not 100% certain, but it's probably because I don't memorize anything, I play completely reactively and I'm shit at rhythm style mechanics. I just mention this because I saw this one guy completely trivialize OoK by careful positioning and timing, it was actually insane.

I've soloed Melania multiple times with different builds, killed the shark guys straight without using shaman bone blade, etc. so I don't know. Something about it sees me getting beaten to death with a placenta, repeatedly.

Anyway, I haven't fought it since beating Melania and Gael, both of which I suspect are harder fights, so if I ever fire up the PS4 again, I'll probably give it another go.