Dark Souls II Critique - General

[QUOTE=Thlis;44607769]Oh god, His point on multiple bosses a thousand times over. You aren't being fucking clever when you stick 5 gargoyles in a small area that 1) You can fall off but they cant 2) Can attack through each other 3) Has an actively hostile PVP zone right infront of it You aren't being clever when you stick 20 rats in a room with lock on mechanics equivalent to that of a N64 game. Warping absolutely ruined the tension of the game. After every boss fight I was 100% confident that there would be a bonfire less than a minute afterwards. I agree entirely on the fire tower. Once I had gone down both paths I was stunned by how little there was. Also has anyone actually determined whether or not adaptability does anything? I remember getting shat on for saying the game didn't clearly describe itself regarding it.[/QUOTE] Adaptability speeds up animations and increases the number of active frames in non-attacking animations. So you chug estus faster, you roll faster with more invincibility frames, you may parry faster but I haven't tested parrying very much. It also increases your natural poise if it is lower than endurance and vice versa. Warping also made bonfire placement fucking lazy, there are a few decent bonfires like the Cardinal Tower or Undead Lockaway which serve as a hub for the area, but there are far too many bonfires which are too close together and in useless areas. Like the first two bonfires in Huntsman's Copse which are 15 seconds apart at most once the shortcut is unlocked.

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I agree with his points but I think he's being too harsh on some of them, and he seems to have a bit of nostalgia goggles on imo

[QUOTE=Sift;44606145]I love his videos but this one felt like he was being way too harsh. Keep in mind I haven't even played Dark Souls 2 but he contradicts himself numerous times and it's really odd. He complains that bonfires are too close to boss doors, and how demons/dark1 made you run a gauntlet to get back when there's just hallways in 2... then a few minutes later he complains that there aren't any shortcuts straight to the boss and they make you run a gauntlet in some places. Stuff like Solaire as well, in the first game I recall it being implied that he created the great lighting spear miracle- so shouldn't the item description continue to reference that? There's a ton of connections to the first game so getting mad at a brief, vague mention of solaire is really banal. Also I heard the cat tells you about the stone covenant if you talk to it enough, discrediting another statement. I dunno, this just seems all over the place in quality.[/QUOTE] I thought his point was that the shortcuts are interesting things to explore to make those who do explore feel rewarded. But they are pointless in DS2 because it's so close to the end goal or something, idk I haven't played DS2, but I still like watching his stuff.

he makes some really good points like the torches being useless, weird plot, jarring area placement (iron keep being above earthen peak wtf) and other stuff that i didn't really notice, but a lot of his points are over exaggerated or just plain wrong. also he doesn't mention any of faults with the other titles. in fact he literally doesn't mention [I]anything[/I] good about dk2 which makes it look like it's really bad when it's actually a major improvement from the previous titles by far, in my opinion. i feel like a lot of the changes come down to taste though so i can see why some people don't like the new health items, travel system, bonfires being far from boss rooms, etc. but i see all these things as improvements. there's nothing i hated more in dark souls 1 than travelling ridiculous distances just to get to a boss.

[QUOTE=BuDSpOoNce;44611396] in fact he literally doesn't mention [I]anything[/I] good about dk2 which makes it look like it's really bad when it's actually a major improvement from the previous titles by far, in my opinion.[/QUOTE] It's a critique, the point of the video was to talk about the flaws or the problems. This wasn't a review.

Boss fights disappointed me the most in DS2. They feel rather cheap and unimaginative indeed. Overall I hate bosses in any game that have senseless minions distracting you. DS1 bosses were a lot more memorable too. If they wanted to go "throw many enemies at once" route, they should've improved lock-on to compensate for that.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;44612523]Boss fights disappointed me the most in DS2. They feel rather cheap and unimaginative indeed. Overall I hate bosses in any game that have senseless minions distracting you. DS1 bosses were a lot more memorable too. If they wanted to go "throw many enemies at once" route, they should've improved lock-on to compensate for that.[/QUOTE] maybe more imaginative, but not very fun. remember asylum demon, the boss that literally appears 3 times? the capra demon who's entire fight success boils down to if you can dodge the dogs in the first 2 seconds. ceaseless discharge who you can cheese and get him to kill himself. crossbreed priscilla who's invisible most of the fight. the four kings which is the exact same boss one after another complete with an invisible time limit. iron golem who falls off the boss arena half way through the fight. seath the scaless which you can defeat by hugging his side tail the entire fight. the bed of chaos. it definitely had same amazing boss fights though like orchard and smores, sif, gaping dragon, artorias, etc. but there were loads that were pretty terrible, no matter how memorable they were. dark souls 2 has it's fair share of unimaginative and dumb bosses as well but don't try to make it out like dark souls doesn't. personally they both feel pretty equal, i just wish dk2 had less minion boss fights though and more creative ones like the demon of song.

I agree with the majority of points in the video. I actually stopped playing due to some of them. I got up to Iron Keep and lost interest due to the retarded layout of the keep and dying so many times I couldn't co-op

Very interesting insight. Great video.

[QUOTE=BuDSpOoNce;44612799]maybe more imaginative, but not very fun. remember asylum demon, the boss that literally appears 3 times? the capra demon who's entire fight success boils down to if you can dodge the dogs in the first 2 seconds. ceaseless discharge who you can cheese and get him to kill himself. crossbreed priscilla who's invisible most of the fight. the four kings which is the exact same boss one after another complete with an invisible time limit. iron golem who falls off the boss arena half way through the fight. seath the scaless which you can defeat by hugging his side tail the entire fight. the bed of chaos. it definitely had same amazing boss fights though like orchard and smores, sif, gaping dragon, artorias, etc. but there were loads that were pretty terrible, no matter how memorable they were. dark souls 2 has it's fair share of unimaginative and dumb bosses as well but don't try to make it out like dark souls doesn't. personally they both feel pretty equal, i just wish dk2 had less minion boss fights though and more creative ones like the demon of song.[/QUOTE] i like how people completely ignore how terrible most of the bosses in demon souls were. almost all of them were terrible random monster people who dont look like actual bosses and just a large npc. the only ones that werent were at the very end of the game aka the false king, penetrator, and the old hero. literally every other boss was like the asylum demon, large but mostly easy with huge wind ups or cheap moves. or they were just human npcs. dark souls had the same problem but not nearly as bad, loads of gimmicky strats and just plain luck except for a select few bosses. and imo warping at the start is an extremely good thing since no more trecking back and forth to places like in Dark souls till you got the lord vessel. literally the only thing i liked about demon souls over the dark souls series is that estus flasks and spells werent so dumbed down and it made low level runs nearly impossible, meaning less people walking around with endgame stuff at the very start of the game.

[QUOTE=codemaster85;44614040]i like how people completely ignore how terrible most of the bosses in demon souls were. almost all of them were terrible random monster people who dont look like actual bosses and just a large npc. the only ones that werent were at the very end of the game aka the false king, penetrator, and the old hero. literally every other boss was like the asylum demon, large but mostly easy with huge wind ups or cheap moves. or they were just human npcs. dark souls had the same problem but not nearly as bad, loads of gimmicky strats and just plain luck except for a select few bosses. and imo warping at the start is an extremely good thing since no more trecking back and forth to places like in Dark souls till you got the lord vessel. literally the only thing i liked about demon souls over the dark souls series is that estus flasks and spells werent so dumbed down and it made low level runs nearly impossible, meaning less people walking around with endgame stuff at the very start of the game.[/QUOTE] adjudicator? flamelurker? fool's idol? man-eater? did you forget the pain already? [editline]22nd April 2014[/editline] wait no, adjudicator was trash.

[QUOTE=Thlis;44607769]Also has anyone actually determined whether or not adaptability does anything? I remember getting shat on for saying the game didn't clearly describe itself regarding it.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure adaptability is an absolute necessity if you plan to use rolling for defense. I suspect this is why I had such an easy time since I followed advice to actually put points into adaptability. People sometimes have trouble with hitboxes and feeling like they should have dodged an attack that they didn't. Meanwhile I frequently got the opposite feeling. For a split second I would instinctively know that I had rolled too early, but then I'd make it anyway. Adaptability, yo. [editline]22nd April 2014[/editline] Which isn't a good thing, imho. The system of the first game is preferable since you know exactly what you should be able to pull off with your current equipment load. When it comes to things like dodging, you shouldn't be allowed to have a stat based advantage, dodging should be universal save for the equipment load penalties.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;44607893]absolutely agree on the locking on enemies nonsense so many attacks do it for no fucking reason this guy is 100% correct on every point he made, and dark souls 2 is a colossal disappointment compared to DS1 and Demon's Souls.[/QUOTE] Really no All this shit reminds me of the same stuff bioshock infinite went through a month after its launch Everybody jumped on the bandwagon of over-analyzing and critiquing the game because its in vogue to do so for a game that was critically approved and everyone said was really good when it came out. I still think Dark Souls 2 is better than the first game in MANY aspects. On other aspects DS2 is about equal to the first game. And on some aspects its worse. Wait, what was that last point? Something was worse than the first game? Therefore the whole game must be landslide worst than the first game and therefore the game is highly overrated? Shit lets get this on youtube and make big revelations. I'm not going to disagree with his points in the video. Everything the video (and most of the critique of Dark Souls 2) is totally valid. The problem is a matter of severity. Almost everyone is bringing up points such as these as to why Dark Souls 2 is objectively a pretty disappointing/bad game, when you are literally just using blinders to come to that conclusion to focus on flaws instead of enjoying the game as a whole for what it is and what it actually does better. This industry wide cynicism that is popular right now where everything must be "debunked" and "overhyped" is getting a little annoying. Videos like this are the [I]worst[/I] of this fad. They focus entirely on negative aspects of the game, make every negative aspect equal in severity (almost everything mentioned in the video is pretty damn minor at best, but he builds it up as if a key component of the game was ruined), pretend the previous games in the series were perfect as you fail to mention any of their flaws, and then fail to mention any of the improvements. I wouldn't mind a video like in the OP if it was closer to what CinimaSins do - they critique and point out the flaws in movies but its done all in good fun and they realize that a lot of what they point out are very nitpicky or not really that big of a deal. Things that are good to note as to why nothing is perfect, or to what the next game should aspire to fix. Their videos aren't done with the purpose of undermining what they are critiquing to try and convince everyone that it objectively sucks. If people took an actual balanced approach to critiquing dark souls 2 you'd find yourself in a situation where maybe 20-50% of the game is objectively better than the first, 20-50% of the game is objectively the same/on par with the first, and 10-25% of the game is objectively worse. These percentage vary depending on how high of importance you rate each aspect of the game. Almost all the downsides for Dark Souls 2 are hilariously minor at best but people love to pretend the entire game was about only those downsides. Really the only valid critique of the game that isn't stupid minor/not-actually-a-fault is that the world design simply isn't as good as Dark Souls 1. The level design overall is pretty damn excellent, as is the variety of environments - I'd almost rate it much MUCH better than Dark Souls 1 in that aspect. But how the world was made is definitely worse and it cheapens the setting a little, especially with so many frequent teleporting bonfires. I think you are seriously kidding yourself with some huge rose colored glasses though if you think that such a thing makes the game "disappointing" or "the worst in the series", especially since to do so you'd have to ignore the fact that the super shitty areas in Demon Souls and Dark Souls (i.e. Izalith/demon ruins) never existed. I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is legitimately better than Dark Souls 1. What I'm saying is I'm tired of people doing negative critiquing for the sake of negative critique, especially since its [I]so easy to do this[/I] when the game is critically well received. It that whole logical fallacy and flaw in human psychology where its much easier to see the flaws in an otherwise perfect gem, then if the gem was overall much more imperfect in quality. I'm not implying dark souls 2 is a perfect gem - I'm implying that its silly to think the game is bad compared to the first two games when you only focus on the flaws and never consider the flaws of the first game. The video in the OP assumes that the first dark souls was flawless (it wasn't), that demons souls did everything right (it didn't) and that the things improved in Dark Souls 2 never happened (they did). The worst thing that dark souls 2 does is that its a more normalized experience compared to DeS and DaS1. There aren't any really shitty areas unlike the first two games, and there is a LOT more in the content department, but the best high points just don't go as high (a lot of the other high points do and even exceed though, armor design being one of them). This isn't bad at all in my eyes. It just doesn't do the game any favors. [editline]22nd April 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=BuDSpOoNce;44612799]maybe more imaginative, but not very fun. remember asylum demon, the boss that literally appears 3 times? the capra demon who's entire fight success boils down to if you can dodge the dogs in the first 2 seconds. ceaseless discharge who you can cheese and get him to kill himself. crossbreed priscilla who's invisible most of the fight. the four kings which is the exact same boss one after another complete with an invisible time limit. iron golem who falls off the boss arena half way through the fight. seath the scaless which you can defeat by hugging his side tail the entire fight. the bed of chaos. it definitely had same amazing boss fights though like orchard and smores, sif, gaping dragon, artorias, etc. but there were loads that were pretty terrible, no matter how memorable they were. dark souls 2 has it's fair share of unimaginative and dumb bosses as well but don't try to make it out like dark souls doesn't. personally they both feel pretty equal, i just wish dk2 had less minion boss fights though and more creative ones like the demon of song.[/QUOTE] This Why does everyone say the boss design was amazing in Dark Souls 1 compared to dark souls 2 when the reality is most of the bosses were average or below average in the first game. Again the worst thing Dark Souls 2 does is that is normalizes this. There really aren't any shitty bosses in Dark Souls 2 at all. However there aren't many bosses that really had an impact on you like in the first game. Ornstein+Smough, Artorius, Kalameet are the three that come to mind as some of the best bosses in that game. And the latter two were in DLC. Dark Souls 1 had a very small handful of really awesome bosses buried under average to shitty bosses. Dark Souls 2 has a very large handful of decent-to-above-average bosses, and pretty much just that. You think Dark Souls 1 had awesome bosses just because you remember the small amount of actually awesome bosses while forgetting the rest of them.

Really I feel like DS2 suffers from a lack of direction, like the devs weren't entirely sure of what they were doing or weren't willing to fully commit to their design decisions. Level designs are basically linear pathways with side rooms, bosses are unmemorable/uninspiring. Soul memory completely fucks over pvp'ers, which shows a disconnection between the devs and their fanbase. Stats suffer from poor balance, like the vagueness of APD or how infusing with buffing of the same element does stupid damage, or the negligible effect of damage scaling off of stats.

[QUOTE=KorJax;44614983]long ass post[/QUOTE] you're using the term "objectively" listen to yourself, you're talking about a videogame. ds2 is not "objectively worse" or "objectively better" than DS1, DaS or any other game. this video is a guy explaining what he finds disappointing about a sequel to a series that he clearly loves, he says right at the fucking start that he still finds DS2 a whole lot better than any other game of the past year or two. just because you think that "Almost all the downsides for Dark Souls 2 are hilariously minor at best" doesn't mean that anyone else does, the people agreeing with this video suggest that there are people who do not agree with you at all, me included. in fact, [B]read the fucking description of the video[/B] "After finding myself let down by Dark Souls 2 I wanted to talk about many of the problems I had with it. This is a critique, not a full review. Some positive details are omitted, for instance I like the health reduction when hollowed. That said, my overall feeling is one of overwhelming disappointment." it's fucking clear this is a guy making a video about what his [B]personal[/B] qualms are with the game, and that he's simply bringing up stuff that he DISLIKED. throwing around terms like "objectively" in this case is just utterly meaningless and before you throw out the whole "earlier in the thread you said the guy was 100% right and the game was colossal disappointment!!" i assumed people would have the intelligence to understand that I'm stating that I think this guy is 100% right, and that I found the game a colossal disappointment; because attempting to "objectively" say anything regarding the quality of gameplay is fucking absurd

[QUOTE=KorJax;44614983]Really no All this shit reminds me of the same stuff bioshock infinite went through a month after its launch Everybody jumped on the bandwagon of over-analyzing and critiquing the game because its in vogue to do so for a game that was critically approved and everyone said was really good when it came out. I still think Dark Souls 2 is better than the first game in MANY aspects. On other aspects DS2 is about equal to the first game. And on some aspects its worse. Wait, what was that last point? Something was worse than the first game? Therefore the whole game must be landslide worst than the first game and therefore the game is highly overrated? Shit lets get this on youtube and make big revelations. I'm not going to disagree with his points in the video. Everything the video (and most of the critique of Dark Souls 2) is totally valid. The problem is a matter of severity. Almost everyone is bringing up points such as these as to why Dark Souls 2 is objectively a pretty disappointing/bad game, when you are literally just using blinders to come to that conclusion to focus on flaws instead of enjoying the game as a whole for what it is and what it actually does better. This industry wide cynicism that is popular right now where everything must be "debunked" and "overhyped" is getting a little annoying. Videos like this are the [I]worst[/I] of this fad. They focus entirely on negative aspects of the game, make every negative aspect equal in severity (almost everything mentioned in the video is pretty damn minor at best, but he builds it up as if a key component of the game was ruined), pretend the previous games in the series were perfect as you fail to mention any of their flaws, and then fail to mention any of the improvements. I wouldn't mind a video like in the OP if it was closer to what CinimaSins do - they critique and point out the flaws in movies but its done all in good fun and they realize that a lot of what they point out are very nitpicky or not really that big of a deal. Things that are good to note as to why nothing is perfect, or to what the next game should aspire to fix. Their videos aren't done with the purpose of undermining what they are critiquing to try and convince everyone that it objectively sucks. If people took an actual balanced approach to critiquing dark souls 2 you'd find yourself in a situation where maybe 20-50% of the game is objectively better than the first, 20-50% of the game is objectively the same/on par with the first, and 10-25% of the game is objectively worse. These percentage vary depending on how high of importance you rate each aspect of the game. Almost all the downsides for Dark Souls 2 are hilariously minor at best but people love to pretend the entire game was about only those downsides. Really the only valid critique of the game that isn't stupid minor/not-actually-a-fault is that the world design simply isn't as good as Dark Souls 1. The level design overall is pretty damn excellent, as is the variety of environments - I'd almost rate it much MUCH better than Dark Souls 1 in that aspect. But how the world was made is definitely worse and it cheapens the setting a little, especially with so many frequent teleporting bonfires. I think you are seriously kidding yourself with some huge rose colored glasses though if you think that such a thing makes the game "disappointing" or "the worst in the series", especially since to do so you'd have to ignore the fact that the super shitty areas in Demon Souls and Dark Souls (i.e. Izalith/demon ruins) never existed. I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is legitimately better than Dark Souls 1. What I'm saying is I'm tired of people doing negative critiquing for the sake of negative critique, especially since its [I]so easy to do this[/I] when the game is critically well received. It that whole logical fallacy and flaw in human psychology where its much easier to see the flaws in an otherwise perfect gem, then if the gem was overall much more imperfect in quality. I'm not implying dark souls 2 is a perfect gem - I'm implying that its silly to think the game is bad compared to the first two games when you only focus on the flaws and never consider the flaws of the first game. The video in the OP assumes that the first dark souls was flawless (it wasn't), that demons souls did everything right (it didn't) and that the things improved in Dark Souls 2 never happened (they did). The worst thing that dark souls 2 does is that its a more normalized experience compared to DeS and DaS1. There aren't any really shitty areas unlike the first two games, and there is a LOT more in the content department, but the best high points just don't go as high (a lot of the other high points do and even exceed though, armor design being one of them). This isn't bad at all in my eyes. It just doesn't do the game any favors. [editline]22nd April 2014[/editline] This Why does everyone say the boss design was amazing in Dark Souls 1 compared to dark souls 2 when the reality is most of the bosses were average or below average in the first game. Again the worst thing Dark Souls 2 does is that is normalizes this. There really aren't any shitty bosses in Dark Souls 2 at all. However there aren't many bosses that really had an impact on you like in the first game. Ornstein+Smough, Artorius, Kalameet are the three that come to mind as some of the best bosses in that game. And the latter two were in DLC. Dark Souls 1 had a very small handful of really awesome bosses buried under average to shitty bosses. Dark Souls 2 has a very large handful of decent-to-above-average bosses, and pretty much just that. You think Dark Souls 1 had awesome bosses just because you remember the small amount of actually awesome bosses while forgetting the rest of them.[/QUOTE] I would agree that purely as a game, DS2 is definitely an improvement over 1. I don't think MM is even disagreeing with that, though he has some very legitimate complaints in that regard as well. The issue is that what's gotten worse are all of the delicate things that make DS a compelling and interesting story. The world makes no sense, the characters and lore are just retreads of the first game, the design is just plain boring. See, that's why you have people saying the bosses in DS1 are so much more interesting. It's not because they were necessarily better designed, but because there was something behind them. Seath, Gwynn, Ornstein and the knights of Gwynn, Sif, Quelaag, even ones like Ceaseless Discharge and Gaping Dragon. They all had stories behind them, they all added to the world and the tone in some way. What does the Smelter Demon tell us about the Iron King? What's the story behind Jabba the Hutt or the Medusa? Does it matter if nothing fits together anyway? Again, it's explicitly labeled as critique. He's going over the flaws in the game because he doesn't feel they've been properly articulated. I'm guessing he thinks it's praises have already been covered in great enough detail, and I would agree. I don't see why anyone should bother wasting their time saying what's already been said. And what the fuck is all this about it trying to undermine the game or convince people it objectively sucks? Who gives a fuck what people think? I think it's a great game, and I agree with all of the points in the video wholeheartedly. Disappointing does not mean bad, it means a step down, and he explains in intricate detail why it's a step down. [editline]22nd April 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=No_0ne;44615130]Really I feel like DS2 suffers from a lack of direction, like the devs weren't entirely sure of what they were doing or weren't willing to fully commit to their design decisions. Level designs are basically linear pathways with side rooms, bosses are unmemorable/uninspiring. Soul memory completely fucks over pvp'ers, which shows a disconnection between the devs and their fanbase. Stats suffer from poor balance, like the vagueness of APD or how infusing with buffing of the same element does stupid damage, or the negligible effect of damage scaling off of stats.[/QUOTE] I think we never really understood what it was that Miyazaki's role was, and what he brought to the Souls series that made it stand out so much from everything else. I don't think it's so much that he was a brilliant designer, though he very well may be. It's that he thought about all of the things that no one ever thinks about in these game, y'know? He gave his team a general direction and let them just sort of run on their own. But what he did that was important was stitch everything together into a sensible and meaningful world. Remember how you could see Lost Izalith from the Tomb of the Giants? How Ciaran's ring was at Artorias' gravestone, how the Princess covenant miracles were dropped by the shivering scylla? All those minor details, some of which were probably a little time consuming to pull off, that contribute to that feeling of a consistent and dynamic world? That's what we're missing. Without Miyazaki, I don't think there's anyone left in power who cares about those details. And those details are what make Dark Souls Dark Souls and not just action fantasy dungeon trawler #9. The thing is, it's totally fine if it's action fantasy dungeon trawler #9. That doesn't make it bad. Not everything needs to be this lovingly crafted super rich archaeology simulator. But there certainly are more of the former than the latter, and it sucks to think there's now one less.

[QUOTE=KorJax;44614983]Your opinions are wrong because...[/QUOTE] Dark souls 2 is bad. I would rather play Demon Souls and I disliked Demon Souls. The level design in the game is utterly bland to the point where it can be considered objectively bad. [QUOTE=KorJax;44614983]I'm not saying that Dark Souls 2 is legitimately better than Dark Souls 1. What I'm saying is I'm tired of people doing negative critiquing for the sake of negative critique, especially since its so easy to do this when the game is critically well received. [/QUOTE] Maybe people are critiquing it because they are tired of pretty damning things about the game being completely swept under the rug. [QUOTE=KorJax;44614983] Again the worst thing Dark Souls 2 does is that is normalizes this. There really aren't any shitty bosses in Dark Souls 2 at all. [/QUOTE] No, there are. There definitely are. I'd argue most of them are.

[QUOTE=KorJax;44614983] Why does everyone say the boss design was amazing in Dark Souls 1 compared to dark souls 2 when the reality is most of the bosses were average or below average in the first game. Again the worst thing Dark Souls 2 does is that is normalizes this. There really aren't any shitty bosses in Dark Souls 2 at all. However there aren't many bosses that really had an impact on you like in the first game. Ornstein+Smough, Artorius, Kalameet are the three that come to mind as some of the best bosses in that game. And the latter two were in DLC. Dark Souls 1 had a very small handful of really awesome bosses buried under average to shitty bosses. Dark Souls 2 has a very large handful of decent-to-above-average bosses, and pretty much just that. You think Dark Souls 1 had awesome bosses just because you remember the small amount of actually awesome bosses while forgetting the rest of them.[/QUOTE] Have you forgotten about Sif, Quelagg, Gaping Dragon, Nito, Seath, and the Four Kings? Dark Souls 1 had much greater variety in boss designs, and they were much more imaginative. Dark Souls II bosses are mostly just big dudes with swords or shittier versions of Dark Souls 1 bosses.

Still, I believe it's definitely the best game to enter the series on.

The feeling of a boss being a boss was gone for me IMO personally etc It feels like a boss in DaS2 isn't a boss; it's a bunch of these vaguely connected things becoming a somewhat challenging thing that is worthy of BOSS status. I.e LASER SPIDER & the add crew. Big rat dog boss & the add crew. Boss that consisted of a bunch of trash mobs. Other boss that consisted of 56 gargoyles attacking you at once. Double boss in one boss room. The guy in the video made a point similar to this I think; you're playing a copy of Dark Souls someone built after killing Ornstein and Smough and nothing past them. It's in the music, the combat, the bossfights... so fucking weird. Still liked it though. 1v1 combat was improved but that meant nothing when half of the game consists of you fighting 3-2 dudes per room.

As soon as I saw that the various locations were disconnected visually, the game lost credibility for me. I totally agree with what the guy says, especially at the beginning when talking about the difficulty. It's still an amazing experience gameplay wise up until Shrine of Amana and later on. The plot makes no sense.

My only actual problem with DS2 is how absolutely fucking broken PVP is. I'm using Havel's armor +10, King's Ultra Greatsword +5, and a big ass shield, and I get killed in three seconds by a guy wearing Wanderer's armor and dual-wielding daggers.

[QUOTE=Whatsinaname;44626900]Have you forgotten about Sif, Quelagg, Gaping Dragon, Nito, Seath, and the Four Kings? Dark Souls 1 had much greater variety in boss designs, and they were much more imaginative. Dark Souls II bosses are mostly just big dudes with swords or shittier versions of Dark Souls 1 bosses.[/QUOTE] The thing about Dark Souls 1 is that there are far fewer bosses, and a lot of the bosses are more memorably unique (partly because there are less of them), but a handfull of them didn't really play out all that great. Can you honestly say the Gaping dragon was a cool boss fight to play against beyond just how he looked? Not really. I really like Sif, but a lot of what made that boss fight memorable was the setup, not the actual fight. I think a lot of the bosses in DS2 play out better than the ones in DS1, even if they aren't as memorable encounter-wise. It doesn't help that there are SO MANY more boss fights in DS2, so the impact of fighting a boss is less "unique" as it was in DS1. I don't really see this as a downside- I like fighting bosses.

[QUOTE=DudeGuyKT;44611447]It's a critique, the point of the video was to talk about the flaws or the problems. This wasn't a review.[/QUOTE] A critique is in essence a review dunno why you guys think that a critique is purely focusing on the downfalls of something, it's just a deep look into something.

[QUOTE=KorJax;44633129]The thing about Dark Souls 1 is that there are far fewer bosses, and a lot of the bosses are more memorably unique (partly because there are less of them), but a handfull of them didn't really play out all that great. Can you honestly say the Gaping dragon was a cool boss fight to play against beyond just how he looked? Not really. I really like Sif, but a lot of what made that boss fight memorable was the setup, not the actual fight. I think a lot of the bosses in DS2 play out better than the ones in DS1, even if they aren't as memorable encounter-wise. It doesn't help that there are SO MANY more boss fights in DS2, so the impact of fighting a boss is less "unique" as it was in DS1. I don't really see this as a downside- I like fighting bosses.[/QUOTE] but again, the point is that the bosses aren't just bosses. They're characters with backstories comparable to any of the NPCs, and they fit into a cohesive world. The only bosses in DS2 that really have "stories" to speak of are the four big ones. But it's pretty slim pickings even there, and past that they're kind of overshadowed by the whole cycle of reincarnation thing that basically says "yeah none of these people are actually important". Think about the big 4 in DS1. All of their areas were built around them, multiple items in the game referenced who they were and what they did. The Bed of Chaos wasn't just some lone monster at the end of a corridor in some dungeon somewhere, it was surrounded by the results of it's creation. Same for Four Kings, or Seath, or Nito. Not only did they all have stories, but those stories explained the topology of the world around them. If Dark Souls 2 fleshed out as many bosses as were fleshed out in DS1, but still had more non fleshed out obstacle ones, I don't think you would see people complaining. The problem is that you have more bosses, and yet practically none of them are actually ever referenced outside of their soul descriptions. Except like, Vendrick I guess.

[QUOTE=Whatsinaname;44626900]Have you forgotten about Sif, Quelagg, Gaping Dragon, Nito, Seath, and the Four Kings? Dark Souls 1 had much greater variety in boss designs, and they were much more imaginative. Dark Souls II bosses are mostly just big dudes with swords or shittier versions of Dark Souls 1 bosses.[/QUOTE] I haven't had a chance to play DaS2 yet, but those bosses from DaS weren't anything too neat. I think the coolest one there had to be Seath, and that's only for his backstory.

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;44633250]A critique is in essence a review dunno why you guys think that a critique is purely focusing on the downfalls of something, it's just a deep look into something.[/QUOTE] But he explicitly was just focusing on it's faults and shortcomings. Maybe critique isn't the precisely correct word to use, but there you are.

The buildup to Nito was literally "woo look at this creepy skeleton lair, woo look at these skeletons, woo its the grand moff skeleton!" for how much everyone cheered Nito on, and how cool the backstory makes him out to be, Nito in DaS was one of the most laugably tragic examples of a 'cool' boss I've ever seen. Hell, the fight isn't even difficult because of him, the skeleton spam is what really makes that fight somewhat tough. [editline]24th April 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;44633295]But he explicitly was just focusing on it's faults and shortcomings. Maybe critique isn't the precisely correct word to use, but there you are.[/QUOTE] Doesn't matter to me what the video was called, the dude tried to defend it as being a 'critique' when that was largely incorrect. Just trying to point out that calling something a critique does not mean you should ignore its good parts. [editline]24th April 2014[/editline] Also videos built around exposing only shortcomings are cheap ways of trying to get people to believe your opinion. If you want to prove a point, you need to make sure that the downfalls of what you're criticizing beats out the good parts of it. If you don't show the good parts, it's like you're brushing them under the bed and saying "but look at this part i dont like!"

[QUOTE=No Party Hats;44633308]The buildup to Nito was literally "woo look at this creepy skeleton lair, woo look at these skeletons, woo its the grand moff skeleton!" for how much everyone cheered Nito on, and how cool the backstory makes him out to be, Nito in DaS was one of the most laugably tragic examples of a 'cool' boss I've ever seen. Hell, the fight isn't even difficult because of him, the skeleton spam is what really makes that fight somewhat tough. [editline]24th April 2014[/editline] Doesn't matter to me what the video was called, the dude tried to defend it as being a 'critique' when that was largely incorrect. Just trying to point out that calling something a critique does not mean you should ignore its good parts. [editline]24th April 2014[/editline] Also videos built around exposing only shortcomings are cheap ways of trying to get people to believe your opinion. If you want to prove a point, you need to make sure that the downfalls of what you're criticizing beats out the good parts of it. If you don't show the good parts, it's like you're brushing them under the bed and saying "but look at this part i dont like!"[/QUOTE] Yeah, but, again. You know why you're fighting him. He's the evil skeleton leader of the Gravelord covenant. He's the ruler of the dead, the bringer of plague. He did things in the past that had an effect on the world that you can see, and he has an effect on you gameplay wise outside of being a guy in a room you fight. Again, that's the point. In the real world, big bads do things. Seath kidnapped women folk. Bed of Chaos spat out demons. Four Kings fucked up their city so bad it had to be submerged in water. Sif was best buds with Artorias, and you meet him in the past. All of these things are recorded in item descriptions and are evidenced in the world of the game. They all have consequences with meaning to you, the player. What did the Lost Sinner do? Tried to relight the first flame and then got thrown in jail. Iron King built a castle. The spider . . . was a spider. It did spider things. The Rotten smells bad and lives in a giant cave full of poo gas. So far as I can tell, the only one of those four who's referenced outside of their respective areas is The Rotten with his statues, which would be cool if there's any way to figure out anything about who he was or is. uhhh, if he thought that the good parts beat out the bad, i'm guessing he would say that you do realize that good things and bad things are not quantifiable units of measurement, and that different things will matter more and less to different people, right?