Dark Souls 1 vs. Dark Souls 2, and why the sequel is better

[Obscura]

So, CMoon wanted this thread. Here it is.

Full disclosure: I don't think DkS1 is a good game at all. I rate it at 2 stars (out of 5). It's got a lot of interesting ideas, but it's so utterly flawed in execution as to not be generally enjoyable. DkS 2 isn't a masterpiece, but it's a good game that's worth playing; I rate it at 4 stars.

I'll actually break the mold by pointing out the main thing that DkS 1 does better and irritates me a bit in DkS2:

1. Multiplayer framework. Soul memory is a fucking broken system, acting to pair weaker lower-level players against stronger higher-level players. It's literally "reverse matchmaking". Oh, and if you're on your first character and die a lot because of that fact, then the bad Soul Memory sticks with that character forever... in a game that's pushing you into post-game content, either through NG+ or through the DLC, this is fucking terrible. At this point, I generally just jump off a cliff when I get invaded by another player while hollow, because I know that there's literally no way I can win, the deck is stacked against me so much.

Now, as for the millions of reasons why DkS2 is better:
1. The controls are vastly better. Dark Souls 1 had a really nasty habit of delaying inputs by several seconds, sometimes even reversing the order of two inputs in its buffer. Dark Souls 2 does not do this shit. I've read that this is platform dependent, so maybe if I hadn't played DkS1 on PC, this wouldn't have been an issue?

2. Dark Souls 2 feels faster in general. Faster movement, and enemies aren't as content to just sit and turtle behind shields, making you wait for them. Speaking of shields...

3. Weaker shields for most of the game. "Hold LB to be invincible!" has no place in any action game, and luckily, DkS2 goes quite a ways to getting rid of it. 100% damage resist shields for most of the game have high strength requirements and are heavy. Endurance (what you lose for blocking) and carry weight (what you need to use heavy gear) being on different stats helps to make shields weaker, or at least require more of a commitment to that kind of build. DS2 throws more enemy groups at you, which inherently makes shields less useful. Guard breaks are more dangerous than the Dark Souls 1 "kick" thing. Those overhead moves that seem to "glitch" through shields actually end up being a net positive, since in general, anything that makes shields worse will be good for the game.

4. New character system is improved. In DkS1, Endurance effectively controlled your stamina bar, how good your armor was, and how good your roll was. It was basically the "how good am I" stat until the stamina bar is maxed, at which point you put it all in HP because elemental weapons, why not. Breaking stamina bar, carry weight, and roll quality out into three separate stats fixes endurance being the god stat, and then scaling on elemental weapons fixes the "meh, who cares about damage stats" issue. Carry weight behaving linearly until you hit 70% instead of doing the stair-step thing, and not affecting roll at all until 70%, reduces the insane importance that carry weight had in DkS 1, allowing more options in stat placement.

5. Level design is mostly better. I'll admit that until you hit the DLC, there's no levels as good as Sen's from DkS1 (which, despite my overall opinion of DkS1, is possibly one of my favorite levels ever in a videogame), but on the whole, it's better. A lot fewer areas like The Depths/Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith/Tomb of Giants/the forest areas/etc that basically boil down to "here's some rooms, here's some boring enemies, get to it!" A lot more clever tricks and traps everywhere. Very good use of ranged enemies to harass and control player movement in interesting ways.

6. Reduced emphasis on backstabs makes combat feel better. Constantly strafing looked and felt stupid in DkS1, and now it's gone! Hooray! Also works to speed the game up -- see point 2.

7. Less enforced grinding. No more "lol you got cursed by a frog, go grind for 6000 souls before continuing". No more "grind for souls or you can't hit the ghosts, lulz". Enemies will practically throw titanite at you once you're to the correct areas, so upgrading weapons feels less like grinding and more like just making progress to the correct areas, at which point you'll get the titanite you need nearly instantly. I will say that while limited enemy respawns were obviously meant to be another anti-grind feature, they ended up being a net negative, IMO.

8. Dark Souls 1 is baboon-ass ugly, thanks to unsourced ambient lighting (seriously, sourced lighting has been the standard since Quake in 1996, and flat light levels look FUCKING AWFUL with modern texture styles; how on earth did From fuck this up?!?!) and also overuse of that awful greyish-green in the early game. DkS2 is a much better looking game.

9. Dark Souls 2 doesn't permanently lock you out of the entire story if you accidentally fall down Frampt's pit (like I did on my one playthrough of DkS 1). People like to talk about DkS 1 having better storytelling, but it doesn't matter if the game intentionally locks you out of seeing any of it. Oh, and the reveal of King Vendrick in 2 is the single coolest narrative moment out of either game.

10. New mob AI/shared aggro makes the game a lot less tedious. Fighting multiple things at once is a lot more interesting and a lot less tedious than exploiting AIs to pull out one enemy at a time.

And... that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's other things that'll come to me later, but that's what I've got off the top of my head, at least.

[ryu]

Ugh. You realize these are RPGs, and no action games, right? Go play DMC or Bayonetta if you want to go fast and enjoy non-stop action gameplay.

Each of your points has some truth to it though. Personally I like Souls II for the gameplay too, and it sure has some great moments in its story. There's just lots of stuff that isn't so good... like most NPC dialogue.


...

[Mischief Maker]

Severance: Blade of Darkness is better than both.

[Obscura]

Ugh. You realize these are RPGs, and no action games, right? Go play DMC or Bayonetta if you want to go fast and enjoy non-stop action gameplay.

Each of your points has some truth to it though. Personally I like Souls II for the gameplay too, and it sure has some great moments in its story. There's just lots of stuff that isn't so good... like most NPC dialogue.


...

Being an "RPG" and being an action game aren't really exclusive in this case. The DNA of the Dark Souls games has always struck me as being mostly pulled from a lot of old action-adventure/action "RPG" games; Falcom's NES-era titles in particular.

I mean, look at Dark Souls 1's earlygame. Kill two bosses in a big interconnected world to open a gate to a new area? Where have I seen that before... oh yeah, that's Ys Book 1 (and Metroid).

Or look at Dark Souls 2's structure. A hub with four "level-sets" branching off of it, with some minor connectivity of the "get an item down this branch that you'll use down another branch" sort. Do all four of these "branches" and it opens up a largely linear endgame that has bits and pieces down some of the "branches" as well as some new areas. That's basically Legacy of the Wizard's structure.

The Souls games have always struck me this way -- as being attempts at making "modernized" versions of a lot of the old Falcom action "RPG" classics. And I don't think there's anyone who is playing those games primarily for dialogue or story.

[Bananamatic]

I haven't even realized how great the dks2 story was until my 4th playthrough, the part where you meet Vendrick is amazing though it doesn't really hit you how fucked the world is if you haven't been paying much attention to the story

shit things about dks2 though:
Infinite poise enemies, makes the game just annoying at times, some enemies are downright unfair (Drangleic Castle NG+ hammer phantom)
Durability glitches
Scaling sucks ass compared to buffs, blunt and high counter damage weapons completely outclass slash weapons for PvE
Weird poise mechanics in general
Pretty much forced paid upgrade if you want to keep playing online
Trash boss design at times, Ancient Dragon is simply awful and some bosses are completely worthless (Flexile Sentry, Demon Of Song, Lost Sinner, Guardian Dragon, Vendrick, etc.), now that I think of it most of the bosses are pretty lame
Too many weapons locked behind the 4 great soul wall, dks1 let you get most of the weapons pretty fast, boss soul weapons are pretty much relegated to endgame only due to needing a lot of petrified dragon bones to upgrade them
No level connection, everything is a linear path
From has no idea how to balance stuff (Lightning Spears are completely worthless now)
Covenants still worthless
Soul Memory and having no infinite red eye orb

on the plus side:
Lategame areas aren't as horribly rushed as in dks1
Multiplayer connection actually works
Farming isn't nearly as anal, materials are easy to get
Respawnable bosses and areas
Backstabs nerfed


Also:
Greatshields are still broken as fuck outside of PvP, smaller shields are pretty worthless now unless you use certain kinds for blocking spells

Adaptability is the new must have stat, game becomes a much lesser pain in the ass with enough agility

dks1 had no control issues for me, dks2 has issues with the jumping attack and guard break being ridiculously hard to pull off on certain controllers while playing at 60 fps

dks2 would be better if invading outside of duels and bell tower was still a thing, you could make a bunch of different characters on dks1 and go darkwraith and fuck around with people knocking them off ledges and stuff

dks2 just focuses too much on lategame, ng+ and respeccing your current character instead of making a new one and playing the game differently, dks2 wins in lategame and duel pvp, dks1 wins in earlygame (up to Anor Londo, then the game becomes really rushed and pretty lame) and random invasions

[Obscura]

I had some problems with the tighter windows on guard break and jump attack in DS2 at first, but I was able to get used to it with a bit of practice. DS1 also has its share of worthless bosses; Four Kings, Bed of Chaos, Centipede Demon, Ceaseless Discharge, Iron Golem, Seath, and Pinwheel come to mind. I also don't feel like dividing DS1 into "good early half/bad late half" is entirely accurate; The Depths, Valley of Drakes, and the entire forest area (including Darkroot Basin, so actually multiple areas) are all entirely awful. Honestly, The Depths might be even worse than Lost Izalith (not as bad as the Crystal Caverns, though).

[Bananamatic]

it's not tighter, it's broken, the window is just a few frames at most under certain conditions

i use a logitech controller (f310 i think? or something like that) and I couldn't make guard break or the jumping attack work even 10% of the time at 60 FPS, then switched to 30 and pulled it off 10 times in a row

then I saw some people actually pulling those moves off randomly when mashing buttons
it's both a controller issue and an fps issue, and it sucks

depths were ok i would say and valley of the drakes is just a connecting area between 3 major ones

pretty much all giant bosses suck, once you get between their legs they are helpless (except for giant lord who has screwed up hitboxes and a broken camera to make up for it)

[Obscura]

I think it has more to do with your controller than the game. A two-frame window should be enough to perform an input like that successfully almost every single time. That said, I used to own a Logitech F310, and it was a complete piece of trash; when I bought an X360 pad for my PC, it instantly felt better in literally every game I play with a pad.

I mean, hell, the F310 was so broken that even running (as opposed to walking) in DMC4 was a struggle, just because the analog sticks were so awful and the engage on them was so messed up. I can't imagine trying to do a jump-attack input on that thing. By contrast, I actually got the kick and jump attacks accidentally in DkS 1 somewhat frequently on the X360 pad, just from trying to walk forward and attack, so having only a few frames is certainly welcome to me.

As for the depths, ugh, I couldn't stand that area. It's a bunch of big ugly rooms filled with rats that run away if you chase them and if you don't try to attack them they turn to attack you, so it devolves into just chasing down a bunch of eneimes that don't fight back. Then there's the dumb curse basilisks a.k.a. "if you die here, grind for 6000 souls before continuing lol". And then you get a boss that breaks the lock-on functionality and has totally screwed up hitboxes.

[Bananamatic]

it worked just fine with dks1 and had no other issues with the pad otherwise (except for the dpad being pretty much dead already for some reason)

[Squire Grooktook]

Ugh. You realize these are RPGs, and no action games, right? Go play DMC or Bayonetta if you want to go fast and enjoy non-stop action gameplay.

I do not agree. Souls has a unique combat style that is worth playing aside from those games.

[awry]

Nice opinions. Here are my opinions.

1. The controls are vastly better. Dark Souls 1 had a really nasty habit of delaying inputs by several seconds, sometimes even reversing the order of two inputs in its buffer. Dark Souls 2 does not do this shit. I've read that this is platform dependent, so maybe if I hadn't played DkS1 on PC, this wouldn't have been an issue?

This is probably because you played with a keyboard. The PC version handles controller input well as far as I know, and it's the ideal input method for this series anyways.

3. Weaker shields for most of the game. "Hold LB to be invincible!" has no place in any action game, and luckily, DkS2 goes quite a ways to getting rid of it. 100% damage resist shields for most of the game have high strength requirements and are heavy. Endurance (what you lose for blocking) and carry weight (what you need to use heavy gear) being on different stats helps to make shields weaker, or at least require more of a commitment to that kind of build. DS2 throws more enemy groups at you, which inherently makes shields less useful. Guard breaks are more dangerous than the Dark Souls 1 "kick" thing. Those overhead moves that seem to "glitch" through shields actually end up being a net positive, since in general, anything that makes shields worse will be good for the game.

But RPGs are better when they can be played with a great variety of playstyles. So hurting the "hide behind a shield" playstyle makes DkS2 worse, not better. It's silly to just say "that playstyle has no place in the game because I don't like it!"

5. Level design is mostly better. I'll admit that until you hit the DLC, there's no levels as good as Sen's from DkS1 (which, despite my overall opinion of DkS1, is possibly one of my favorite levels ever in a videogame), but on the whole, it's better. A lot fewer areas like The Depths/Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith/Tomb of Giants/the forest areas/etc that basically boil down to "here's some rooms, here's some boring enemies, get to it!" A lot more clever tricks and traps everywhere. Very good use of ranged enemies to harass and control player movement in interesting ways.

The way levels felt may have improved, but the way they were connected felt worse. And how could you think Tomb of Giants and the forest were boring? Those levels had a good atmosphere, and levels don't need traps to be fun.

8. Dark Souls 1 is baboon-ass ugly, thanks to unsourced ambient lighting (seriously, sourced lighting has been the standard since Quake in 1996, and flat light levels look FUCKING AWFUL with modern texture styles; how on earth did From fuck this up?!?!) and also overuse of that awful greyish-green in the early game. DkS2 is a much better looking game.

Sounds like hyperbole to me. It wasn't that bad. But yeah the sequel looked better.

9. Dark Souls 2 doesn't permanently lock you out of the entire story if you accidentally fall down Frampt's pit (like I did on my one playthrough of DkS 1). People like to talk about DkS 1 having better storytelling, but it doesn't matter if the game intentionally locks you out of seeing any of it. Oh, and the reveal of King Vendrick in 2 is the single coolest narrative moment out of either game.

You can still talk to Darkstalker Kaathe if you make Frampt mad, can't you?

10. New mob AI/shared aggro makes the game a lot less tedious. Fighting multiple things at once is a lot more interesting and a lot less tedious than exploiting AIs to pull out one enemy at a time.

Funny, I found myself singling out enemies even more in DkS2, because there are larger groups of them. The combat is not suited to fighting too many enemies at once, especially if you have a non-melee playstyle.

[Obscura]

This is probably because you played with a keyboard. The PC version handles controller input well as far as I know, and it's the ideal input method for this series anyways.

Incorrect; I played DkS1 (and 2) on a pad, as mentioned above.

But RPGs are better when they can be played with a great variety of playstyles. So hurting the "hide behind a shield" playstyle makes DkS2 worse, not better. It's silly to just say "that playstyle has no place in the game because I don't like it!"

The Souls games are action games at least as much if not more so than RPGs.

And how could you think Tomb of Giants and the forest were boring? Those levels had a good atmosphere, and levels don't need traps to be fun.

Tomb of Giants had as much atmosphere as a monitor that's turned off, and it consists of fighting slow-moving damage sponges. The Forest is just a big open area where you fight boring enemies.

You can still talk to Darkstalker Kaathe if you make Frampt mad, can't you?

Depends on how you piss Frampt off; in my case, both Kaathe and Frampt were gone from the game shortly after I picked up the Lordvessel.

Funny, I found myself singling out enemies even more in DkS2, because there are larger groups of them. The combat is not suited to fighting too many enemies at once, especially if you have a non-melee playstyle.

Whenever I aggro'd one guy from a distance in DkS2, he'd usually bring his buddies with him when he came after me. This doesn't happen in DkS1.

[Weak Boson]

I can see how if you view Dark Souls solely as an action game gauntlet get to the boss challenge sort of thing then you might prefer the sequel. But there's definitely more to the first one than that and I actually think it's a huge component of its design - which makes it very special.

I'm talking about the world building, environmental storytelling, the lore, the characters and the fact that the game is replete with clues that let you do the detective work to find out about all of this. I love the way the first game entices the imagination and rewards curiosity.

This might not be a playstyle everyone is interested in, but it's what kept me coming back. The action is very fun, and I enjoyed playing around with the game's systems, but after many playthroughs what's struck me the most is the attention to detail in the game's design.

It's something I know some people see differently. It makes no sense to ask "why is this enemy here?" in Devil May Cry, unless the answer is "so you can have a massive fight!" But it's different in Dark Souls. There are reasons for enemies and obstacles to appear beyond just challenging your combat skills. Maybe sometimes this results in encounters unsatisfying for action lovers, but for me I definitely see a place for it.

In the sequel there was something lacking, though. I enjoyed the improvements made to the combat system and I had fun tinkering with it, but but while the level design might have had better mob placement, but it was a lot less interesting because it lacked any purpose beyond having massive fights. I think there were far more corridors of enemies and fewer explorable nonlinear areas also. Certainly what was there felt spread thin.

I don't think Dark Souls 2 is bad by any stretch of the imagination, but to me the first game is such a perfect coming together of so many things - many of which you don't see in other games - that I view it on a completely different level. I'm not saying every part of it was perfect, or even that it isn't inferior to the sequel in some ways; but what it did have was still good and was orchestrated masterfully.

[Strikers1945guy]

I won't get into detail like everyone else here as I'm not a master at these games but I enjoyed the first game a lot more. Maybe it was just al the anticipation leading up to the original and the sheer challenge. Second game is still badass.

[JBC]

Now let's do a thread about how Demon's Souls is better than both Dark Souls combined.

[Obscura]

I'd have never thought to ask "why is this enemy here?" in Dark Souls, but after thinking about it a bit, I'm not convinced it makes any sense to do so (it's certainly not like a Gothic game in that regard).

I mean, why the hell are there two titanite demons living on the tar-pit floor of a trap fortress? Hell, why are there lizardmen living in that trap fortress? Why is there a blacksmith living right next door to a titanite demon? Doesn't he care that there's a huge lightning shooting demon about 50 feet away? I mean, at least Dark Souls 2 puts most of the friendly NPCs in a town where there's not monstrosities trying to kill everything that walks by, and gives at least one of the others a home in an area that looks kinda like it could be a residential area.

Honestly, aside from the New Londo ghosts, the forest hunters, and the snake-thingies in The Duke's Archive, I can't think of a single enemy that has a reason to be there beyond typical videogame "The Valley of Drakes has drakes! The catacombs have skeletons! The hell-land has demons (and dinosaurs, for some reason)! The crystal caves have crystal d00dz!" themed-level logic, which is also visible in Dark Souls 2 (the Iron Keep has dudes that are made out of metal and wear heavy armor! The undead purgatory has skeletons and necromancers! The undead cryptys has dead things and ghosts! The royal castle has fancy knight-looking enemies! The Forest of Lost Giants has a giant for a boss! Poison-land has enemies that poison you! The wharf has vikings! The area with fancy lock mechanisms everywhere has dwarfs! etc.).

[DEL]

Ok, I wanna list the games with Dark in the name:

Dark Souls 1 & 2
Dark Rift
Dark
Darkness 1 & 2
Perfect Dark
Dark Castle
Dark Cloud
Dark Seed
Darksiders
Darkstalkers
Dark Void
Alone in the Dark 1 to 5
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Dark Salvation
Darkness Within 1 & 2
Dark Watch
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Eternal Darkness: Sanit's Requiem
Necronimicon: The Dawning of Darkness
The Dark Eye
The Guardian of Darkness

^Not that there's a messed-up theme here, naah.
If anyone can add more to the list, that would be appreciated.

[Mischief Maker]

Ok, I wanna list the games with Dark in the name:

Dark Souls 1 & 2
Dark Rift
Dark
Darkness 1 & 2
Perfect Dark
Dark Castle
Dark Cloud
Dark Seed
Darksiders
Darkstalkers
Dark Void
Alone in the Dark 1 to 5
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Dark Salvation
Darkness Within 1 & 2
Dark Watch
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Eternal Darkness: Sanit's Requiem
Necronimicon: The Dawning of Darkness
The Dark Eye
The Guardian of Darkness

^Not that there's a messed-up theme here, naah.
If anyone can add more to the list, that would be appreciated.

Perfect Dark

[BrianC]

Star Wars Dark Forces
Darkwing Duck
Darkman
Journey From Darkness, Strider Returns
Shining in the Darkness

[ACSeraph]

Will I like DS2 if I hated DS1 for being clunky and slow?

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^ 1cc a Castlevania, than come back to Souls. Then you'll get it.

[ACSeraph]

See I like Castlevania a lot though, I've never gotten a 1cc, but I've put effort in and enjoyed the process. So I don't think it's as simple as that.

Anyhow I didn't ask just to make a stealthy swipe at DS, I'm legitimately asking if DS2 might better suit my tastes.

[Ed Oscuro]

^^^ 1cc a Castlevania, than come back to Souls. Then you'll get it.

I shed a tear while reading this post, beautiful

but to answer the question...sounds liek no

[Squire Grooktook]

It's the same combat philosophy to me ;_;

I hear Bloodborne has a greater emphasis on speed and dodging than either games. Might want to look into that.

[Obscura]

I'd could see someone who thinks DkS 1 is too slow feeling more at home in DkS 2, at least for PvE; DkS 2 seems like it allows for a lot more initiative since fewer enemies have shields, and the movement speed feels a bit quicker. That said, the weapon swings are just as ponderous as DkS 1, possibly even a little moreso.

I know some people claim that Demon's is faster than either Dark game, but I haven't played Demon's so I can't confirm.

[Blinge]

Now, as for the millions of reasons why DkS2 is better:
1. The controls are vastly better. Dark Souls 1 had a really nasty habit of delaying inputs by several seconds, sometimes even reversing the order of two inputs in its buffer. Dark Souls 2 does not do this shit. I've read that this is platform dependent, so maybe if I hadn't played DkS1 on PC, this wouldn't have been an issue?

Yeah I think it does buffer inputs if your character is stunned or already doing other attacks. The solution is not to button mash like a scrub and actually press what you want to do. It's not God of War.

4. New character system is improved. In DkS1, Endurance effectively controlled your stamina bar, how good your armor was, and how good your roll was. It was basically the "how good am I" stat until the stamina bar is maxed, at which point you put it all in HP because elemental weapons, why not. Breaking stamina bar, carry weight, and roll quality out into three separate stats fixes endurance being the god stat, and then scaling on elemental weapons fixes the "meh, who cares about damage stats" issue. Carry weight behaving linearly until you hit 70% instead of doing the stair-step thing, and not affecting roll at all until 70%, reduces the insane importance that carry weight had in DkS 1, allowing more options in stat placement.

So your issue is you wanted to carry the heaviest gear at all times and still dance about like an acrobat? The importance of Equip Load was that you had to choose your gear carefully and according to your playstyle. I thought you didn't want to stand around and tank/block hits because that's not a good action game? Well, go for lighter equipment then..

5. Level design is mostly better.

Totally subjective and congrats, you're the first person i've seen to claim this.

6. Reduced emphasis on backstabs makes combat feel better. Constantly strafing looked and felt stupid in DkS1, and now it's gone! Hooray!

Relying on backstabs is your choice - you don't have to play like that. I say this from a PvE perspective because imo they are/should be predominantly single player experiences. PvP is just an added bonus.

7. Less enforced grinding. No more "lol you got cursed by a frog, go grind for 6000 souls before continuing". No more "grind for souls or you can't hit the ghosts, lulz".

'Enforced.' Lol, I've never been cursed by a frog. Git gud.
and 6,000 souls can be obtained in no time at all.

The ghosts in drop transient curses often enough, and there's enough of them scattered around New Londo as pickups to mean you'd rarely have to buy more of them, if at all.

Enemies [in DS2] will practically throw titanite at you once you're to the correct areas, so upgrading weapons feels less like grinding and more like just making progress to the correct areas, at which point you'll get the titanite you need nearly instantly.

*ahem* "lool casul game wtf is diz shit you should have to earn your powerups"

8. Dark Souls 1 is baboon-ass ugly

Maybe this is a PC issue but stop dressing up your opinions as fact. DS1 looks great.
Fine, the PC master race can complain about how such and such isn't optimised but to call it baboon-ass ugly is moronic.

9. Dark Souls 2 doesn't permanently lock you out of the entire story if you accidentally fall down Frampt's pit (like I did on my one playthrough of DkS1)

Get gud. Also you placed the Lordvessel without him, that's what pisses him off, not just falling down.

10. New mob AI/shared aggro makes the game a lot less tedious. Fighting multiple things at once is a lot more interesting and a lot less tedious than exploiting AIs to pull out one enemy at a time.

It's still your choice to exploit that AI. Don't blame your tunnel vision on the game.

DS1 also has its share of worthless bosses; Four Kings, Bed of Chaos, Centipede Demon, Ceaseless Discharge, Iron Golem, Seath, and Pinwheel come to mind.

Christ, define worthless boss.
-Pinwheel is a pushover, yes.
- Bed of Chaos is a bizarre kind of puzzle boss experience and very annoying
The others, man wtf are you talking about.

Honestly, The Depths might be even worse than Lost Izalith

Really don't see a problem with the depths. You mentioned it being ugly; sure is, it's gross.. that's the point. Souls is the successor to the King's Field series, now and then the levels are gonna feel like a slog.

Also to everyone: I don't see the point in reductive arguments about genre like "is it an action game?" "is it an RPG?." It's both, and can even change depending on individual playstyle. Surely pigeonhole discussions are a waste of time anyway.

[Squire Grooktook]

Relying on backstabs is your choice - you don't have to play like that...It's still your choice to exploit that AI. Don't blame your tunnel vision on the game.

Agree with the rest, but these two parts are questionable.

Even in a single player game, exploitive tactics can be a problem, even if they're optional.

I mean, imagine a shmup that has the coolest boss patterns ever...except there's a safe spot in the corner of the screen for all of them. It's "your choice" to use it or not though.

[Blinge]

That example is too extreme, man.

Sure exploitative tactics can be a problem. Is it a problem in DS1? Nah.

[Squire Grooktook]

I can agree with that, but mostly on account that I've never found that many exploitative tactics in Ds1.

Possibly because I went for a more speed/agility centered build? Strafing around people with shields didn't seem all that game breaking to me because my stamina would get depleted from blocking very fast.

This is kind of the problem with discussing this game, I've found. There are so many builds and ways of moving through the game, every players experience tends to be different. Example:

Me: I dunno, I found boss X pretty hard.
Friend: Pssssh, boss X was a push over. I killed him in 30 seconds first try.
Me: Well I guess so. I kind of had a similarly easy time with boss Y.
Friend: What? Boss Y was the hardest part of the game!

etc.

[CMoon]

I will eventually get around to posting a good response to this thread, but that might have to wait until next week. I do want to point out that all my experience is on the ps3, and this might be enough to change one's attitude on the games since From was apologetic about their PC port of dark souls, where it now seems like DS2 was designed for the pc from the ground up.

Very quickly though, I don't get a lot of the arguments and/or they are extremely subjective. My overall impression is that Obscura had a really bad time with Dark Souls and I am curious about how many playthroughs, builds, etc. he tried because a few of the complaints don't really seem accurate, for instance...

9. Dark Souls 2 doesn't permanently lock you out of the entire story if you accidentally fall down Frampt's pit (like I did on my one playthrough of DkS1)

Get gud. Also you placed the Lordvessel without him, that's what pisses him off, not just falling down.

The interaction with Frampt doesn't lock you out of the story. It is PART of the story. It is also worth noting it has no impact on the story ending but just removes frampt as a vendor for the rest of the game. So its an inaccurate assessment.

Also worth noting that long reaching interactions with NPCs are in all the souls games (including DS2), and the idea being that next game cycle you might make a different choice.

On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the same things I list as a negative (artificial difficulty and high enemy density), Obscura lists as a plus. It at least shows how wildly subjective some elements of the game can be.

Really wish I had time to respond at length, but that will have to wait for later.