Recent reviews by Joylica

Pretty much 99% perfect rn. I've never looked forward to boss fights so much, I've never enjoyed the flurry of new weapons, mechanics, and enemies to ♥♥♥♥ up. And, I enjoy the Souls-style storytelling through enemy flavour-text and lore books. Mixing the mystery with the amazing presentation of every layer kept me wanting to descend.

HOWEVER, I know it's a meme and this is a controversial opinion, but the sudden Gabriel visual-novel at the end of Act II felt wildly out of sync with the rest of the game and made my interest in the story absolutely plummet. Everything else is still *mwah* primo, but we definitely didn't need the Gabriel VN when the visual storytelling so far was absolutely amazing.

Anyway, it's not a story-driven game anyway and everything else is perfect so just buy it along with a hair net and butt plug and enjoy your blood bath.

I badly want to love this game because it really fulfills its promise of letting you play out your time travelling fantasies. The first time I went back and stalked my past self - and THEN stalked my past self stalking my past self (and so on) it was magical.

BUT, it's quite buggy, there's lots of rough edges, and it's quite odd when the game occasionally tries to be Fallout for no reason.

If the dev uses their profits to hire some people and refine the game OR make a sequel, it could truly be something really amazing. For now though, this is a really fun experiment.

I poopa my pants

You often have to face Bloodborne enemies as a Dark Souls protagonist, which is very frustrating. I don't know why they didn't bring DS1 poise back to balance it out. Lots of heavy weapons and magic are worthless in certain places due to how aggressive enemies are, meaning your heavy stat investments are just wasted time.

Aside from that it's real good I swear.

I miss you so bad, baby. Gone too soon.

I was prepared for me to die, but I wasn't prepared for you to go baby.

i dont wan a say tjat o could;d pm;y stamd this game drunk buut if you;re drun youll have a much better time
por worse time, i udnno

Bit of a dry experience without friends, but if you manage to get some people on board then it's fantastic. Or at least I assume it is.
:|

The best way to describe this game, relative to the series as a whole, is "worst of the best". It's a solid game, and easily in the higher echelon of games of its type, but suffers from a few problems that put it under Dark Souls I and III.

- The story is practically irrelevant to the series as a whole, focusing on the monarchy of Drangleic rather than the curse of the undead and the cycle of light and dark (although this point is irrelevant unto itself due to most people not really caring about the story)
- The gameplay, rather than being unforgiving but fair like its predecessor, tends to go for irritating jabs for the sake of artificial difficulty. Specifically, the game will go for quantity over quality with enemies in some areas, and also make certain enemies hide until you walk past so they can come out and backstab you, which only works once and is a chore to deal with on reruns.

Fortunately, the story is still interesting enough to stand on its own, and the gameplay still poses a fun challenge, improving upon the original with the addition of omnidirectional rolling, new weapons, upgrade paths, and magic types, as well as all the usual stuff to be found in a good Dank Soul (sexy visuals and music, charm, etc.)

Dark Souls III is a more polished version of this one, however, and the original stands tall with its WONDERFUL world design and story. Like I said, worst of the best. I'd recommend playing this one if you've played the others and want some more.

Dark Souls is probably one of my favourite games ever, and if you give it a chance you'll understand why, but don't buy this and encourage these ridiculous business practises.
If they wanted to port this game to PC, they should have done it before the community had to fix their broken version years ago. Instead, they've given us a mildly "remastered" version that could have been a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ patch to PTD edition.

Quick points:

• Graphics have been "upgraded" vaguely, but many aesthetic choices from the original game have been overridden, making some armours look odd and bonfires are now less mystical for some reason
  
• The original PTD Edition has been REMOVED from Steam, so that they can sell this ♥♥♥♥ for AAA price.
  
• The multiplayer has been effectively ruined by their ridiculous attempt to mitigate people that smack low-level players with high level gear. Weapon Levels have just made it more difficult to find people to fight and/or cooperate with when it wasn't necessary since the multiplayer is optional anyway
  
• There is no new content, nor is anything restored, most notably the endgame content. Issues with the original game are still here, and again, the graphics are the same, making this remaster redundant. It's a glorified patch on the original game.
  
  Do not waste money on this. Instead, I recommend you try to acquire Prepare to Die Edition from somewhere else (GOG, Humble Bundle, physical copy) and use the community patches to fix some of the issues (i.e. the fps). Or, if you do choose to get this version, only get it on sale, or get it somewhere else for far cheaper.

Incredibly rough gameplay wise and disappointing as a Lovecraft tale.

The gameplay doesn't carry enough weight in any particular department to be substantial, whether it be the puzzles, conversations, stealth or combat. The puzzles and conversations are average, while the stealth and (minimal) combat are pretty below-average.

For the first two-thirds or so of the game, the story keeps you relatively engaged, but you'll find your interest sorely misplaced. While cosmic horror is quite difficult to pull off in a visual medium, I was expecting far more creative story beats that used player engagement to create a deeper impact (see: Undertale and KOTOR* for games that do this well). Especially frustrating is the fact that your decisions have very little bearing on the ending, unless you choose an ultra-specific string of decisions. Either way, your ending is still mostly dependent on your decisions literally a minute prior.

I'm harsh because Lovecraftian media hasn't exactly been great, and I had quite high hopes for a video game adaptation. Unfortunately, the game just isn't creative enough to make the story work, nor does the gameplay serve to keep you engaged in any other way.
4/10 (below average)

*(Undertale uses your actions against you to force you to question your own empathy, while KOTOR replicates the Darth Vader plot twist on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ steroids by incorporating you in an incredible way that couldn't be done in a film with the same impact; go play 'em).