The immersion in this game is incredible. It's like I can actually feel myself losing my sanity and going hollow

Dark Souls 2 is probably the most controversial game that I ever played. The community is split in half, many people would say it's the best while the others will say it's bad. I've never seen the playerbase split as much as in this case, but I'll try to give it a fair review based on my personal experience. Fair warning: the game doesn't have steam cloud saves so you should back up your files if you take a break to prevent data loss. It also took me over 1 hour to configure the buttons to be usable with MnK similar to DS3 (unfortunately no prompts), so it has the worst PC support, but it was worth the time. NO, you don't have to listen to the fanbois telling you to play with a controller, I never touched one outside 2.5D fighting games and I platinum all of the Miyazaki's games, the best experience is using the input you're most comfortable with.

I'll start with the negatives and I will say that Dark Souls 2 it's objectively the worst received FromSoftware game. This is the last souls entry I tried and I intentionally changed the order I played them based on some recommendations from friends. It has so many flaws in the design that only a true souls veteran will be able to have fun and not rage quit. It is considered harder than the others in the series, but I think that this statement is not true, at least in the grand scheme of things. I feel like the "difficulty" is artificially inflated by the unfair game mechanics such as bigger hitboxes, slow combat, slow healing, no immunity while passing through fog walls, the enemy placement, souls memory, the addition of adaptability that affects i-frames and other weird choices. If you take into consideration the fact that you can have hundreds of healing items, the only challenge is knowing when to find a window to heal yourself, because you'll get stuck in a long animation that most of the times will result in a guaranteed hit. In reality, the bosses are poorly designed (with a few exceptions) and don't stand much of a fight, but the runbacks is what makes them "memorable": Smelter Demon, Blue Smelter Demon, Ancient Dragon, Dark Lurker, Lud&Zallen and probably the list can go on depending on your own experience. While some areas are incredibly beautiful, they are painful to traverse even on consecutive runs, the worst of them for me being Shrine of Amana, mostly because if you don't use a bow you need to close the gap to the ranged enemies that can hit like a truck, while also having non efficient dodges in the water and being careful where you step because the visibility is reduced and you can fall to your death in no time. Speaking of low visibility, the Frigid Outskirts is absolutely terrible, coming in the second place in the bad designed zones category.

This game feels more like an amalgamation of ideas, so there are defenetely some interesting ones. In fact, I strongly believe that Elden Ring could not run if Dark Souls 2 didn't walk in the first place. This is the first time where the dual power stance was introduced and for some reason it wasn't reused until the monumental success of the 2022 GOTY winner. This gives the player a lot more options for different builds, resulting in more playstyles and a higher value of replayability. This mechanic alone might be the best thing that FromSoftware could add to their games and I hope to see it as a baseline of their future products. Another good mechanic that was recycled is the Pharros' Lockstones (Sword Keys) that allows the user to enter optional/hidden areas using a limited item - very clever and nice idea. While the lore doesn't have too many connections with the Dark Souls universe presented in DS1 and DS3, it's interesting enough and it had a big influence over the tarnished story, making it a good experience for those curious to find out how the Bearer of the Curse became a Monarch. I mentioned that the game has some beautiful environment and it would be a disgrace to not make a point about Majula that is the best hub area in any souls game, it's beautiful, it's visually stunning, the atmosphere is amazing and it's really the place where anyone can agree that you can spend hours feeling safe from the dangerous foes that lurk the lands.

While I consider the bosses to be lackluster in the difficulty department (mostly for the base game), those from the 3 DLCs were very challenging and I had a good time defeating them. In fact, if we disregard the annoying runbacks, they are very close to Dark Souls 3 design, which I'm a big fan of. Some of my favorites are the Fume Knight, Sir Alonne, Sinh the Slumbering Dragon and Burnt Ivory King + Aava the King's Pet for having the requirement of exploring the map and finding an item to make it visible to the human eye. Another underrated mechanic that was never reused is the bonfire ascetic that allows the player to respawn any item and boss in an area, but on a higher NG+ difficulty. This can trivialize the entire game by farming specific powerful rings that can only be found in consecutive runs or by farming boss souls in order to overlevel the current world. I wish this could be scratched in other games and allow us to fight again the bosses without starting a new journey or without the need of mods. Speaking of which, another good idea was the addition of different enemies in NG+ and beyond. However, the game already had too much density of monsters by default, but I really think this can work with other titles and result in a unique experience for those who are willing to take the challenge after beating the game once.

Overall, Dark Souls 2 is better than most of the RPG games on the market, it receives a solid 7/10 from me. I can only recommend it to those who already are experienced fans and want more souls content, otherwise I can't see a new player enjoying it.

iron keep and black gulch and dranglic castle and... matter of fact this whole game

overhated

Very different then 1 or 3 but imo its one of my favorites due to its differences and uniqueness over the others. just wish i didnt have to deal with soul memory or at the very least they should of added a password system like 3 or 1 remastered instead of the ring that doesnt seem to help sometimes.

Took me a long time to get through this one, as I think there are a few changes made from the first game that don't work very well. Still a great game with a lot of charm and some really rewarding moments. Definitely recommend playing DS1 before this, but if you're wanting more after that then absolutely pick this one up!

MAJULAAAA !!!

Goofy Souls

"Gavlan wheel, Gavlan deal"

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It's very good. Idk what you schizos are talking about.
If you're a bunch of crybabies and didn't know beforehand that SCHOLAR is ONLY FOR CHADS and you HAVE TO EMBRACE SUFFERING, it's YOUR problem, not game's.
Don't embarass yourself kids and don't touch reviews until you what the vibe of this game is.