A Measured Response to "In Defense of Dark Souls 2" - General

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;53173879]The reason why Anor Londo is in 3 is lazy fanservice same as the dragonslayer being in 2. Only 3 is completely shackled to its insistence on putting tons of shit from the first game in regardless of whether or not it works. Everything new they created for 3 is half baked and goes nowhere because it has to stop every minute to remind you that the first game was a thing. Hey the boreal valley is cool I'd like to learn more about it oh remember anor londo look its over there behind that cloud [B]I clapped when I saw it[/B].[/QUOTE] Red Letter Media and their fans have truly ruined all discussion on the internet. Now if any sequel has an element from a previous instalment people spout this moronic shit.

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;53173879]The reason why Anor Londo is in 3 is lazy fanservice same as the dragonslayer being in 2. Only 3 is completely shackled to its insistence on putting tons of shit from the first game in regardless of whether or not it works. Everything new they created for 3 is half baked and goes nowhere because it has to stop every minute to remind you that the first game was a thing. Hey the boreal valley is cool I'd like to learn more about it oh remember anor londo look its over there behind that cloud I clapped when I saw it.[/QUOTE] It stops to show you you're in the world of DS1 in the future. DS2 only does it as a call back just because it can while it continues on its merry way of being it's own thing set in the general universe of Dark Souls. The tons of shit from the first game is there because it's a direct sequel. That's the point. Are you gonna tell me Silent Hill 3 doing call backs to silent hill 1 is stupid as well? All I'm saying is it feels far lazier if you throw random popular thing from a series if the game it's in is not a direct sequel. DS3 is a direct sequel so I give it a lot more wiggle room with what it uses for story,plot and callbacks.

Speaking about souls games, DS3 gets a lot of hate for basically doing fanservice and surfing on the successful parts of DS1, but in reality it only reuses Amor Londo and had the main hub called firelink shrine even if it looks nothing like it. But these are both good things, DS3 is supposed to be the end of the Dark Souls series, and homages are acceptable. DS3 has the best boss selection of the DS series, varied and fair and with unique mechanic for each, the only boss fight that seed unfair was Lothric and Lorian. Compare that to the bosses of DS2 which are reskins everywhere or mob congregation fights or DS1, with horrible bosses like the 4 kings (both in attacks and arena) , 3 asylum demon reskins or Bed of Chaos. Not to mention DS3 gave us the best boss in the series: Slave Knight Gael, a fitting ending . The only major nitpick I have with DS3 Is the PvP , since it's way to easy to gank, people can just heal without consequences or just spam roll and wait until they can summon another phantom. However the weapon variety is nice and you could make a good build out of almost any thanks to the arts. I'd say of we were to rank the games DS3 and DS1 would sit at the top, DS3 Because it is technologically and mechanically superior to the other 2, and DS1 because despite all its flaws , it was still a masterpiece in the time it came out.

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;53172979]Dark Souls 2 isn't bad. It's weird, and there are a lot of bad things about it, but there are also a lot of good things. The problem is it just isn't Dark Souls. Originally the game was conceived as a near farcical parody of medieval and fantasy literature. Halfway through production the director ended up being sacked, and they had to figure out how to make something Dark Souls-y with the assets they had. The result is a game with no real characters, no consistent tone, and a completely nonsensical world. I almost suspect that DS2 was never even intended to be a Souls game. It looks like they had some completely different dark fairytale game in mind, and since Miyazaki and the rest of the DS1 team was working on Bloodborne, they decided to turn it into a Dark Souls sequel to capitalize on its popularity. I just can't fathom anyone who's played Dark Souls thinking Don Quixote and his dwarf squire Sancho Panza fit in that universe. Considering how consistent the fairytale theme is in so much of the game, I feel like that [I]must[/I] have been the original intent. honestly if they had kept going down that path and called it something other than dark souls I probably would have liked it a lot more [/QUOTE] For all that you can blame Shibuya, if you look at some of the [URL="http://www.neoseeker.com/dark-souls-ii/concept_art/"]old concept art[/URL], you see lively towns and too fairytale-y things of sorts. Shibuya's vision didn't look like Souls at all and for that exact reason the director change happened as you know already. Having so little time to sort this shit out doesn't help. And i don't see how it would be any better if the game was named differently and every thing that related to Dark Souls taken out. In fact, it would be even worse, i already see it being called a souls-ripoff if that was the case.

Looking at this guy's channel, and wow, he just takes the concept of brevity and molests it with a mallet, huh?

I enjoy every dark souls game in their own respective way, they all do things right and I'm sure as hell glad they don't just play it safe by making them as similar as possible to the original. I used to think DS2 was terrible when I first played it but I didn't even really give it a chance because I was hearing so many people crap on it, when I actually gave it an honest try I found it just as addicting as the first game, and I thought the change of pace was actually refreshing. I just recently got Scholar of the First Sin and have already put almost a hundred hours in it, and its partially due to the fact that it adds and changes enough to make it a new experience for me, as opposed to just remastering the game. It's okay for other people to enjoy something you don't and vice versa, it blows my mind that some people actually get mad when people like something that they don't, just move on. I completely understand why so many Souls fans dislike the game, but I don't let that affect how I feel about it, everyone is entitled to an opinion.

[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;53173890]Red Letter Media and their fans have truly ruined all discussion on the internet. Now if any sequel has an element from a previous instalment people spout this moronic shit.[/QUOTE] Oh come on. We all know that whole thing is a shorthand for the criticism that a movie has something in it from a previous instalment without any greater aspirations than baiting the feelings from better works. [I]That being said[/I] I think it's funny that the origins of that phrase was some weird ass criticism. I mean a Star Wars movie having X-Wings and ATATs in them really isn't an example of that, it's Star Wars, if there's gonna be space battles there's gonna be X-Wings. It's more of an example of basic consistency in continuity than nostalgia baiting.

[QUOTE=RainbowStalin;53173879]The reason why Anor Londo is in 3 is lazy fanservice same as the dragonslayer being in 2. Only 3 is completely shackled to its insistence on putting tons of shit from the first game in regardless of whether or not it works. Everything new they created for 3 is half baked and goes nowhere because it has to stop every minute to remind you that the first game was a thing. Hey the boreal valley is cool I'd like to learn more about it oh remember anor londo look its over there behind that cloud I clapped when I saw it.[/QUOTE] Did you clap too when the Old Dragon Slayer's room looked like Another Londo or that the undead burg was beneath the poison swamp?

One thing that I dislike about talking about Dark Souls 2 is that I never know when people are talking about vanilla Dark Souls 2 and when people are talking about SOTFS. Like I see people talk about awful enemy placement in regards to Dark Souls 2 which always confuses me because I remember it being absolutely fine for the most part. Then I remember that SOTFS exists and it sells itself as "the definitive Dark Souls 2" and a lot of people have probably only ever played with the SOTFS enemy placement, which makes much more sense.

DkS2 is the prequel trilogy of Dark Souls games DkS3 is The Force Awakens

[QUOTE=darkside267;53174039]For all that you can blame Shibuya, if you look at some of the [URL="http://www.neoseeker.com/dark-souls-ii/concept_art/"]old concept art[/URL], you see lively towns and too fairytale-y things of sorts. Shibuya's vision didn't look like Souls at all and for that exact reason the director change happened as you know already. Having so little time to sort this shit out doesn't help. And i don't see how it would be any better if the game was named differently and every thing that related to Dark Souls taken out. In fact, it would be even worse, i already see it being called a souls-ripoff if that was the case.[/QUOTE] I'm still mad we never got that city on top of a giant spider

[QUOTE=P.;53173980]Speaking about souls games, DS3 gets a lot of hate for basically doing fanservice and surfing on the successful parts of DS1, but in reality it only reuses Amor Londo and had the main hub called firelink shrine even if it looks nothing like it. But these are both good things, DS3 is supposed to be the end of the Dark Souls series, and homages are acceptable. DS3 has the best boss selection of the DS series, varied and fair and with unique mechanic for each, the only boss fight that seed unfair was Lothric and Lorian. Compare that to the bosses of DS2 which are reskins everywhere or mob congregation fights or DS1, with horrible bosses like the 4 kings (both in attacks and arena) , 3 asylum demon reskins or Bed of Chaos. Not to mention DS3 gave us the best boss in the series: Slave Knight Gael, a fitting ending . The only major nitpick I have with DS3 Is the PvP , since it's way to easy to gank, people can just heal without consequences or just spam roll and wait until they can summon another phantom. However the weapon variety is nice and you could make a good build out of almost any thanks to the arts. I'd say of we were to rank the games DS3 and DS1 would sit at the top, DS3 Because it is technologically and mechanically superior to the other 2, and DS1 because despite all its flaws , it was still a masterpiece in the time it came out.[/QUOTE] I thought 4 kings were really cool, even if the fight was mechanically basically just a dps race. I think it works thematically, fighting against darkness in #000000 darkness, struggling not to be overwhelmed. I think that fits for a lot of things in DS1. It might just be because its the first in the series or I like that game more, but I feel like most of the fights had more thematic impact.

[QUOTE=SamPerson123;53174315]I thought 4 kings were really cool, even if the fight was mechanically basically just a dps race. I think it works thematically, fighting against darkness in #000000 darkness, struggling not to be overwhelmed. I think that fits for a lot of things in DS1. It might just be because its the first in the series or I like that game more, but I feel like most of the fights had more thematic impact.[/QUOTE] Don't get me wrong, apart from the bosses I mentioned, the rest are pretty good. One of my favorite boss designs are the Gaping Dragon and Seath. Not to mention there are bosses that are very satisfying and fun to fight such as Ornstein and Smough, Sif or Artorias. But then you also get bod ones like the moonight butterfly and the other ones I named. Personally, I believe DS3 has perfected boss designs and fights, which is what make it so good.

[QUOTE=P.;53174395]Don't get me wrong, apart from the bosses I mentioned, the rest are pretty good. One of my favorite boss designs are the Gaping Dragon and Seath. Not to mention there are bosses that are very satisfying and fun to fight such as Ornstein and Smough, Sif or Artorias. But then you also get bod ones like the moonight butterfly and the other ones I named. Personally, I believe DS3 has perfected boss designs and fights, which is what make it so good.[/QUOTE] Ehh, DS3 really lost me with is over-abundance of flail-y enemies and bosses. It's funny that someone earlier claimed that "DS2 wasn't dark souls" when mechanically speaking, DS3 is by far the game that most goes against what the rest of the series represented. One of the things that made Dark Souls stand out mechanically was it's pace, being generally very slow and deliberate while still finding ways to be challenging despite that. Dark Souls 3 in many ways betrays this with it's love affair with enemies that have 7-10 swing attack strings with polearm+ reach, near-perfect tracking, 1-2 tracking forward dash attacks, and sometimes even aerial attacks that effectively give them i-frames, all while ending with an attack that has next to no recovery time so they can go into the next 8 attack string almost immediately to the point where it's sometimes hard to tell that the first one even ended. (Also of course this absolutely ruined PvP because it means that estus has to be instant and rolling has to cost almost literally no stamina)

To understand why DS2 is so frustrating, you need to understand what DS1 did so well. DS1 perfectly crafted its world around its bosses. Even seemingly throw away bosses like the Capra Demon are foreshadowed and explained by the characters, item descriptions, and environments. Every boss has some explanation for why it is where it is, and most bosses have some greater story behind them. Not only do they have stories behind them, but these stories weave together and fit with each other tonally. Quelaag, Quelaan, Ceaseless Discharge, and the Bed of Chaos are all linked together. The same goes for Gwyndolin, O&S, Artorias, Gwyn, and Sif. Seathe, the Moonlight Butterfly, and Priscilla, you could go on and on. The stories of the bosses mesh together with each other and the environment to form a cohesive and living world. Why is Ornstein in DS2 so annoying? Because there's no reason for him to be there. His being there affects nothing. The reappearance of an extremely important character from DS1, something that [I]begs[/I] for the player to ask "why is this here?", supplies absolutely no answer to the question "why is this here?". You could replace him with a generic knight and nothing would change. DS1 trained you to look for secrets, and to pay attention to every piece of information you're given. Going from that to a game where everything is arbitrary and nothing really fits together and there's no point thinking about anything because it's clear that the developers didn't really think about anything either is frustrating. Anor Londo isn't frustrating because it being there affects the world and characters in the game. It's relevant. You're free to not like its inclusion, but at least it's there for a reason. At least it makes sense. [editline]4th March 2018[/editline] And to clarify, when I say DS2 isn't Dark Souls, I mean thematically. Dark Souls isn't just estus flasks and bonfires and multiplayer and action RPG combat. Those things are definitely a part of it, but it's more than that. It's like how Doom isn't just fast FPS combat and key cards and the super shotgun. Doom is also thrash metal, and satanic imagery, and science fiction. It's rock and roll. A Doom game without demons, or science fiction, or sick guitar riffs isn't really a Doom game, even if it plays like one. In the same way, Dark Souls without its themes isn't Dark Souls. That doesn't make it bad, just something fundamentally different. Like how Painkiller is fundamentally different from Serious Sam.

Also DS2 has a mess of problems, inexcusable durability bugs, no proper lighting, some of the worst hitboxes in any title in the entire franchise, as well as how every big enemy had tracking overheads. All of them. Somehow the chucklefucks decided that every big enemy needed a way to spin around instantly and hit you with an overhead. Like, how does that make it through. How in the actual fuck? It looks silly and makes a lot of areas way worse than they have any right to be. Now don't get me wrong, DS3 has oddities, like taking way too much from Bloodborne without giving the player an equal way to be aggressive. In that game it's purposefully designed to have high risk, high reward gameplay. Then when they took that stuff for DS3, took out everything like Visceral attacks or rallying. Like. The fuck.

DS2 is a good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part, but it just doesn't feel like a "Dark Souls" game to me. If you look at it as its own standalone game it becomes much more enjoyable. [sp]Ornstein appearing as a boss in Heide's Tower for absolutely no reason with no explanation still makes me roll my eyes, though.[/sp]

[QUOTE=Nidhogg;53175337]DS2 is a good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part, but it just doesn't feel like a "Dark Souls" game to me. If you look at it as its own standalone game it becomes much more enjoyable.[/QUOTE] Definitely. I first played it literally minutes after finishing DS1 and I [B]hated[/B] it. I came back to it a few years later and ended up sinking even more time into it than DS1 or 3.

I give DS2 a lot of slack because it clearly had production problems and we didn't get a game that SotFS could entirely remake, just alter. So when you fight the Flexile Sentry and the arena slowly floods and slows you down I thought "What a neat mechanic, I wonder if this was meant to be used for other bosses or areas", affecting the gorgon bosses room beforehand (however poorly implemented). So much of the game is 70% of the way to being great. That the DLCs were such high quality solidified my opinions, there's a great game in DS2, it just needed more time. Primal bonfire rooms that aren't monotexture cubes, transition areas that aren't impossible lifts and fixed lighting. I liked the themes of the game. It continues the themes of DS1 without beating you over the head. What is now, is wrong and never should have been. So you learn about Vendrick, he's your Gwyn analogy to start with. Wise king, forged his destiny, banished evil and did a good job. Then Nashandra arrives and it falls apart. This time, the age of Fire waning isn't just a cutscene. The Giants invade, seeking revenge. The Abyss festers in Castle Drangleic, as it did in Oolacile. And to top it off, Vendrick doesn't link the Fire. You get a story that uses repetition and cycles, but isn't so on the nose and obviously winking at you while asking "did you get it?" DS2 isn't a finished game. DS3 is and it reads like a fan fiction and plays like a half-hearted one at that. I know which one I prefer and which one holds my interest more.

ds isn't about cycles From the intro, as written in the original japanese, "then in time there was fire for the first time". The first flame is literally "the fire of beginning". Dark Souls is about slow, inevitable, inescapable, implacable death. The world never "starts over". Kindling the first flame is just that, throwing more wood on the fire. The "cycles" thing is literally just a cop out invented by DS2 to explain its own nonsense.

I'm not super in to the dark souls lore, i like the themes and stuff but usually I just like cool areas with cool boss fights that are fun and dark souls 2 had a lot of really shitty and downright baffling boss fights whereas almost every boss in 3 was cool in its own right and some of them are some of the best fights in the series

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;53175978]ds isn't about cycles From the intro, as written in the original japanese, "then in time there was fire for the first time". The first flame is literally "the fire of beginning". Dark Souls is about slow, inevitable, inescapable, implacable death. The world never "starts over". Kindling the first flame is just that, throwing more wood on the fire. The "cycles" thing is literally just a cop out invented by DS2 to explain its own nonsense.[/QUOTE] The nature of the ending of DS1 invites a cycle based narrative. Why would the chosen undead be a better lord of Light than Gwyn? If publishers pressure you to make a sequel to DS1, DS2 is the logical narrative progression. Why wouldn't the fire fade again and someone else come to try and relink the fire? Or why wouldn't someone see your age of dark and think "some fire would sort this out", or someone learn that the kiln of the first flame is unguarded and act on that? If you make a sequel in the same world then you need some connection to the prior game and DS2 evidently had enough respect to follow the themes of the world while trying to expand the world beyond the mountain of DS1 and some other kingdoms. There's no "oh look Catarina still exists somehow", Mirrah and the giants kingdoms are new places. The world isn't "made over", people just built on top of what was already there, ala New Londo or Blighttown. There's no set time line with dates for the events of the games, DS2 could be thousands of years after DS1, and we've no idea how much time passed between the first undead curse and the first game, but everyone already seems to be dead or long gone by the time we get there. A lot can change in that time, but DS1 taught us that even the mightiest kingdom will fall in time with the fire. You continue the overarching narrative, but you tell a different story. What's wrong about that?

[QUOTE=Eonart;53176691]Finally got to the end of this, honestly worth every second just listening to a well planned analysis but you could tell Mauler himself was breaking apart the further he went: I'd be too if I was responding to someone like that. [t]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/107452346048471040/419810666547904533/unknown.png[/t] What an overly smug twat.[/QUOTE] I think he reached peak human turd when he went [quote=Paraphrased Hbomberguy] Aww thats cute, it looks like MathewMatosis hasn't unlearned using shields yet. [/quote] Paraphrasing that because there is no way I'll find that quote within the 9 hour critique/saga.

[QUOTE=Thlis;53173612]Christ, Hbomberguy is a cunt in the 3rd video.[/QUOTE] He’s always been a cunt though.

[QUOTE=cyclocius;53176226]The nature of the ending of DS1 invites a cycle based narrative. Why would the chosen undead be a better lord of Light than Gwyn? If publishers pressure you to make a sequel to DS1, DS2 is the logical narrative progression. Why wouldn't the fire fade again and someone else come to try and relink the fire? Or why wouldn't someone see your age of dark and think "some fire would sort this out", or someone learn that the kiln of the first flame is unguarded and act on that? If you make a sequel in the same world then you need some connection to the prior game and DS2 evidently had enough respect to follow the themes of the world while trying to expand the world beyond the mountain of DS1 and some other kingdoms. There's no "oh look Catarina still exists somehow", Mirrah and the giants kingdoms are new places. The world isn't "made over", people just built on top of what was already there, ala New Londo or Blighttown. There's no set time line with dates for the events of the games, DS2 could be thousands of years after DS1, and we've no idea how much time passed between the first undead curse and the first game, but everyone already seems to be dead or long gone by the time we get there. A lot can change in that time, but DS1 taught us that even the mightiest kingdom will fall in time with the fire. You continue the overarching narrative, but you tell a different story. What's wrong about that?[/QUOTE] Because linking the fire doesn't start the world over again at the beginning of the age of fire. It isn't a universe reset button. It just keeps the sun turned on for a little while longer. The world just keeps burning itself up, bit by bit, until eventually there's nothing left. The reason that sense of inevitable death is important is that it's a parallel to our own world. Eventually, everything [I]will[/I] die. It can be delayed through great effort, but it [I]will[/I] happen. Persisting in the face of that inevitability, struggling while knowing the ultimate conclusion will be the same regardless of what anyone does, that is where the dramatic weight of the series comes from. It's a subject very few things tackle so directly or so well, which is what makes it so special.

[QUOTE=Thlis;53173612]Christ, Hbomberguy is a cunt in the 3rd video.[/QUOTE] I feel like he's just the left wing equivalent of Sargon. He has these long rambling videos that assume the other side of the argument is up to no good and therefore the argument never ends in a satisfying way and both sides think the other one is an asshole. I was convinced of this when I watched his Sargon video, I noticed a fair amount of criticisms he rightly had for Sargon were pretty easily applicable to him as well.

There are a few places with good atmosphere. I think the tone that Majula sets is very fitting. The torch lighting stuff is good, particularly in The Gutter. When you finish exploring an area in DS you're not afraid of what's lurking around the corner anymore and feel like you've mastered it, and seeing all the torches lit up plays into this really well. There's too much clawing your way to the objective and not enough payoff when you get there though. I don't look forward to many of the areas. I seriously don't know how people who struggle with these games even do stuff like Iron Keep. I know people like the DLC but I thought Frozen Eleum Loyce was pretty shit. Way too much bullshit between bonfires, decent boss gated and made unnecessarily frustrating by the fact that you have to waste time fighting the Charred Knights on every attempt.

[QUOTE=Splarg!;53177315]There are a few places with good atmosphere. I think the tone that Majula sets is very fitting. The torch lighting stuff is good, particularly in The Gutter. When you finish exploring an area in DS you're not afraid of what's lurking around the corner anymore and feel like you've mastered it, and seeing all the torches lit up plays into this really well. There's too much clawing your way to the objective and not enough payoff when you get there though. I don't look forward to many of the areas. I seriously don't know how people who struggle with these games even do stuff like Iron Keep. I know people like the DLC but I thought Frozen Eleum Loyce was pretty shit. Way too much bullshit between bonfires, decent boss gated and made unnecessarily frustrating by the fact that you have to waste time fighting the Charred Knights on every attempt.[/QUOTE] Playing through SotFS, it's [I]obscene[/I] how much better everything looks with better lighting. It's almost criminal how cheap Vanilla DS2 makes everything look. For all I talk up DS1&3, I actually like the dark fantasy vibe of DS2. It kinda reminds me of the Rankin/Bass fantasy movies, where it's this weird mix of light hearted/cartoony and macabre.

[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;53177124]Because linking the fire doesn't start the world over again at the beginning of the age of fire. It isn't a universe reset button. It just keeps the sun turned on for a little while longer. The world just keeps burning itself up, bit by bit, until eventually there's nothing left. The reason that sense of inevitable death is important is that it's a parallel to our own world. Eventually, everything [I]will[/I] die. It can be delayed through great effort, but it [I]will[/I] happen. Persisting in the face of that inevitability, struggling while knowing the ultimate conclusion will be the same regardless of what anyone does, that is where the dramatic weight of the series comes from. It's a subject very few things tackle so directly or so well, which is what makes it so special.[/QUOTE] I know it doesn't, I never said it did? It just in invites the opportunity for someone else to rekindle the fire and have a crack at building a kingdom. But it'll always fail because the fire is always fading and the world is dying. The fire may be brighter now, but it'll fade again and whatever you've built will fall. There's no knowing how much time has passed between DS1 and DS2, millennia could have gone by. Time is convoluted and all that, we're in a different place anyway. There's no reoccurring places like firelink shrine, we're not in Lordran anymore. Different people are in Drangleic, but their fate and the fate of the world is still bound to the first flames flickering. I feel like we're reaching the same conclusion here?

Dark Souls has cycles due to all the rekindling, except it's like putting on a band-aid on an infection instead of getting the medicine. And it happens hundreds of times without this hypothetical person learning anything. By the end the infection has covered their entire ass and is probably about to explode.