Dark Souls 2 is the most soulful Souls game. They actually tried something new instead of just copying Demon's Souls with Dark Souls 1 or copyin Dark Souls 1 with Dark Souls 3. They tried doing something new. And that's why you hated it.
>improved combat system thanks to power stances
>experimented with different PvP systems like Soul Memory
>wasn't limited by 'realistic world design', they just wanted to make a fun video gamey game ("nonsensical" bonfires and the infamous Iron Keep elevator)
>had its own world, lore and characters while still making some subtle references to previous titles
>a lot of content for both PvE enthusiasts (tons of bosses, most varied locations out of all Soulsbornekiros and Bonfire Ascetics) and PvP tryhards (an arena)
Dark Souls 2 is the most soulful Souls game...
>no idea how to make difficulty curves work
>just add more mooks
new doesnt mean bad. bad means bad. and dark souls 2 was bad.
yeha the Shaded Woods had so much soul, it really felt like I was playing an OoT romhack
>>just add more mooks
Just like Demon's Souls but it's okay Miyazaki does it, right?
While I think DSII is the worst of the series I think it's a testament to Fromsoft's game design that people are still arguing which of the three is better. They are all different enough that people have their clear favourites and that means that it wasn't complete rehashing.
Also DSIII>DSI>Sekiro>DSII
Haven't played BB.
3/10 bait. Got me angry enough to reply. Now go play a game that's actually good and keep off of Yea Forums.
Both games are better than 2 cope
The lore was dumb, the "improvements" were shit, soul memory is a cancer and the level design is absolute garbage. It does have some good looking areas and armor and a few great enemy designs. It´s "build variety" revolves around different versions of the same weapon with different stats scalling. Also making lightning spear completely useless because Int fags were crying pissed me off. There´s a midway between too strong and trash and they completely ignored it
DSII is legit ass
the PVP "balance" ruined PvE items
Life gems are cancer
world feels shitty and hastily thrown together
not many secrets to discover
etc. I could go on for days
>>experimented with different PvP systems like Soul Memory
Soul Memory was garbage though
I like DaS2 the best because it has the best Magic by far. DaS3 took two steps backwards with spells
The big reason people like the game is that there are tools to make any build work
What's the point when every build plays like the same floaty garbage?
Because you aren’t pidgeongoled into anything. You do whatever you want to do. Most people enjoy personalization and variety
>The big reason people like the game is that there are tools to make any build work
Wat? Are you stupid? Every build is exactly the same in DSII because every char can just do everything.
>not many secrets to discover
are you thinking of sekiro?
DaS2 had a bunch of shit to discover like that abyss diver faction & area
What's the point of playing RPG games?
DaSIII > DaS2 = DaS > Sekiro > SotFS
DaS2 lacked in PvE but shone in PvP
DaS lacked in PvP but shone in PvE
this makes it hard to compare the two
DaSIII shone in both PvP & PvE so it's the clear winner even though I still think DaSII has slightly better PvP
The 3 games are already pretty good but DS2 is objectively the worst out of 3 of them
This
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY GAME
>tried to do something new
>it failed miserably
>but m-muh soul
It's just a subpar game. Accept it and move on.
>he played at the reddit soul level
yikes
DaS2 allowed for the most build variety because they added a new stat that was playstyle defining
you could skip adaptability & go for a more tank & spank build, or you could invest into it & become a slippery snail, however you'd have to sacrifice either health, damage or both for it
the issue is that they took the standard 28/40 DaS build SL & added on adaptability softcap levels onto it & called it the soul level to PvP at
If you did SL80/SL100 DaS2 pvp you'd see how much better it was
>every build is the same
You’re just being willfully ignorant. The entire mechanic of powerstancing adds more gameplay variety than in any other souls game, and all of the Magic is useful. You can even make a viable archer build
Compare that to DaS1 and 3 where magic and archery are completely supplementary and the most viable play style is dumping STR any hitting things with a big beat stick
There's Italian Americans?
There are a thousand reasons why dark souls 2 is terrible but the most important one is that it doesn't have Gwyndolin.
What are you smoking, bows do terrible damage in dark souls 2.
>go for a more tank & spank build,
When poise is completely useless.
>soul memory is a cancer
Why people keep saying soul memory is bad? It's an absolutely fair system which guarantees you won't be invaded by some extremely overpowered enemy.
Only if you're a shitter who uses lock on for magic. Manually aiming with Crystal Soul Spear in DS1 completely shits on people.
That is assuming PVP of course, because in DS1 PvE, magic is so extremely broken why the fuck would you ever play melee, same in demon souls.
>he was too braindead to figure it out
main complaint I saw was you couldn't stay at a bracket without meme ring or save backups
there's honestly no good way to prevent twinks
It sure is great in 3
You're mever going to convince Yea Forums to like DaS2, don't waste your life
>>improved combat system thanks to power stances
accept it already, power stances are garbage.
I went back and replayed it here recently. I don't know why it gets hated on so much. That said I had to take a break because Fume Knight kept dabbing on me.
no i hated it because it was fucking trash
>dark souls 1 gets a pc release
>play it
>love it
>+300h later
>hate it
>second half is complete garbage
>level design and enemy design has one big flaw
>>players are able to run past everything
>dark souls 2 comes out
>production is kinda shit
>but you cant run past enemies
>weapon degration forces players to keep a backup weapon
>>even though its a framerate bug
>bosses are kinda meh
>dlc comes out
>its great all around
>dark souls 3
>literally dark souls 1 in pretty graphics
>sekiro
>dark souls 3 without variety
then i got a ps3 emulator going
>demons souls
>level design is a lot better
>areas split into segments
but the emulator is in early alpha so i havent played much, but it seems better than dark souls 1
>same retard bait over DS2
>pic of Skyrim
accurate
Why?
low IQ post
this, but unironically
the creativity in this game is amazing
lmao, no you just fucking shit at from games
>just did a bow only run in Ds2
DS2 is shit because its barely a sequel its more of a room hack that was never finished. Levels are in many cases straight lines, sometimes with absolutely nothing in them besides hordes of enemies. Most encounters are spam ambushes where the only way to go is to exploit the AI or be horridly overleveled.
Most of it is just recycled DS1 content with a slightly different coat of pain and the few new things it actually has are badly implemented or barely even there(hello torch mechanic and soul golems). The story just largely retreads the first game except with worse delivery and stupid retcons that make everyone from DS1 look stupid.
The damn thing is also buggy and just generally looks drab. If someone told me that DS2 is a beta of DS1 I would believe them because the second game looks like a inferior game.
With Demon Souls and Bloodborne they tried more new stuff though.
Good job buddy I did too. That doesn't change the fact that bows do less damage in dark souls 2 than any of the other games.
>soul golems
bitch never played Elyum Loyce
>stupid retcons that make everyone from DS1 look stupid.
thats because they were
Less damage =/= terrible damage
brainlet
>3 threads up right now claiming ds2 has soul
What's going on?
autist got triggered cause the idea invalidates all his efforts and countless hours spent into fromsoft games
I almost fell asleep. Everything takes twice as long to kill as in a normal playthrough which isn't fun when the bosses have like 3 attack patterns each.
if you know what your doing you can beat some bosses in seven arrows or less.
Again, you just dont know how to play from games.
>Elyum Loyce
A. I played it
B. Its dlc that came out half a year after the main game
C. Even then they are barely a thing and still just another enemy to add to the pile.
>thats because they were
They difference is that in DS1 Gwyn is stupid because he out of fear or arrogance went against the natural order and ended up dooming the world and himself.
After DS2 he is an idiot who couldn't sit five minutes on his ass because the flame just auto reset every couple of centuries without even being kindled. He basically burned himself and his kingdom for fuck all with a side of nothing.
>They tried doing something new. And that's why you hated it.
No, we hate it because they tried something new and botched it completely, resulting in a shitty product.
>improved combat system thanks to power stances
DaS2 has the worst combat of the series. Weapons feel like shit, they're floaty and weight-less, enemies have dog-shit AI and pathing, the bosses are mostly just boring dudes in armor and the ones that aren't are laughably bad (drake, giants, etc) and to top it all off the hit boxes are utterly FUCKED.
>experimented with different PvP systems like Soul Memory
Only a DaS2 brainlet would try to present the indefensible, universally reviled mechanic that is Soul Memory.
>wasn't limited by 'realistic world design', they just wanted to make a fun video gamey game ("nonsensical" bonfires and the infamous Iron Keep elevator)
An absolutely pathetic attempt at defending DaS2's dog-shit world design. Not only is the world design completely impossible and down right retarded at times, but it has been sloppily put together with graphical issues all over the place.
>had its own world, lore and characters while still making some subtle references to previous titles
This is an absolute nothing statement. It had it's own lore and characters. They were also shit.
>a lot of content for both PvE enthusiasts (tons of bosses, most varied locations out of all Soulsbornekiros and Bonfire Ascetics) and PvP tryhards (an arena)
Doesn't matter how full your plate is when you've loaded it up with shit. The Arena was absolute dog shit, and the only reason anyone bothered with it was because there was no un-cracked red eye orb.
You have shit taste, just accept it and stop being a contrarian faggot.
I liked it, BB, and Sekiro. Havent played any other fromsoft games. Hoping code vein is fun. And on PC.
It denies people progressing at their own pace and it's filled with flaws
>Want to buy armor/weapons/arrows? You're soul level will fall behind those who invest solely in stats
>Die and lose 200,000 souls?
>Your soul memory will be 200,000 souls behind some guy that didn't lose 200,000 souls
The people that will have the lowest soul memory the further you go will be twinks and people good at the game, people shit at the game will be outclassed in their soul memory bracket and people are discouraged in spending soul memory or fighting enemies at their own pace, and people quickly found a method of bypassing it with backups so it doesn't affect the more determined twinks that wanted to shit up peoples lives anyways.
The whole system is retarded and later patches made the system more and more lenient before finally adding a ring of fuck soul memory, the whole system was a mistake that they eventually admitted themselves.
I think DaS2 is very underrated on Yea Forums, but you are delusional and probably DaS2 was your first DaS, hence why you have an emotional relationship with it
> They actually tried something new instead of just copying Demon's Souls
DaS2 has the exact same gameplay formula, things like level design and enemy variety and item placement is just not as well designed as it is in DaS1
>>improved combat system thanks to power stances
it didn't "improve" combat, it was just a new, cool mechanic, but when you wasn't using it then it didn't affect anything else
>experimented with different PvP systems like Soul Memory
it was a bad experiment
>wasn't limited by 'realistic world design', they just wanted to make a fun video gamey game
none of the Souls games were, only autist DaS1 puritists think DaS1 had some realistic world. I agree that there should be nothing wrong with more obviously video gamey level designs
>>had its own world, lore and characters
that's nice and all, but people really expected it to actually expand upon DaS1's lore since it was actually pretty interesting. Instead "everything was forgotten".
>a lot of content for both PvE enthusiasts (tons of bosses, most varied locations out of all Soulsbornekiros and Bonfire Ascetics) and PvP tryhards (an arena)
sure, it had the most amount of content. Tho some of the areas felt like they didn't have a lot of work and care put into them so it's a double edged sword
pic related looks actually pretty good for a souls game, might try souls2 out after all
>Soul level
Soul MEMORY made it like that.
"Oh you played the game long enough? Here now get paired with soul level 440 havelynn hex builds :3"
>he didn't back up his saves
yikes
>only autist DaS1 puritists think DaS1 had some realistic world
yup
If the game forces you to back up saves to have fun there is fundamentally something wrong. Soul memory was a neat concept but in execution it just forced you to jump through hoops to connect with people. Initially I was hoping that in NG it would be SM+SL then it would be based on level on NG+ and onwards, which would have been the smart choice to prevent major twinks. Instead it made it even worse, because mules could be at a SL 400 and connect to a guy who just started the game.
Also I don't care what you say about it tying your i-frames to a stat just feels retarded. I want to say I got hit by the extremely loose lingering hitbox because I fucked up the dodge, not because the hitbox lingered for 50 more frames after my dodge's iframes.
>dark souls 2 isn't a bad game
>only souls game in the entire franchise that has a defense force
oh shit here we go again.jpg
Please, the only Fromsoft game that doesn't get a defense force is fucking Eternal Ring, and even then it's because nobody remembers it.
Well duh. Dark Souls II added 100% the amount of soul, III only added like 33% Soul.
didn't 3 add 50%?
>>wasn't limited by 'realistic world design', they just wanted to make a fun video gamey game ("nonsensical" bonfires and the infamous Iron Keep elevator)
It wasn't intentional though. They had to salvage a fucked up development.
>improved
It was the same
>soul memory
People found ways around this instantly and cheating was more rampant
>creative license justifies lazy/rushed level design
Dark Souls 1 had an incredible sense of scale and scope because of how everything beautifully fit together in a logical way, Dark Souls 2 had an incredible sense of where the fuck have I been teleported to now
>references
All the games do this, the story is entirely built and told through subtle exposition
>preferred the PvE campaign
Subjective
>Arena was good
Darkroot garden fightclub was better, but thats my opinion, I just honestly preferred not having sanctioned duels and the honor vibes
>Dark Souls 1 had an incredible sense of scale and scope because of how everything beautifully fit together in a logical way
>Burning volcano right next to a swamp fitting beautifully together in a logical way with giant trees right below all of that
Trolling or retarded?
Hey! An intelligent post!
>>dark souls 3
>>literally dark souls 1 in pretty graphics
wrong
>They difference is that in DS1 Gwyn is stupid because he out of fear or arrogance went against the natural order and ended up dooming the world and himself.
In DS1 Gwyn is the only reason the world still exits by our time, you lorelet collectioner of bridges in Sakhara.
>After DS2 he is an idiot who couldn't sit five minutes on his ass because the flame just auto reset every couple of centuries without even being kindled.
The flame only rekindles because of the method Gwyn used. That is stated quite explicitly.
playing from games isn't a big achievement, you retard.
It's incredibly fucking ugly and sloppy and duct-taped together.
Not "soulful," just devs trying to create the cheapest, laziest, ugliest game they could while knowing souls retards would eat it up and shout down criticism.