I was searching for a way of ending this piece on “Dark Souls II” and realized that I haven't dealt with criticism of the game. I have instead talked about what makes the game stand out as my favorite of the souls series.
There's several main critiques of “Dark Souls II” that are repeated in fan communities. While a few of them are unfair, a majority of them have a basis in truth. And while I'm a fan of the game, one of the errors fans make is that they don't acknowledge that many problems with “Dark Souls II” are real.
The most common complaint is the amount of enemies. Some were added for the “Scholar of the First Sin” version, but there are parts in the original game which are just as bad. One of the levels, Iron Keep has an unfair amount of ranged enemies firing greatarrows that knock you into pits of lava. These ranged enemies will harry you and the other Allone knights are just as annoying. Huge groups of them sprint towards you in heavy armor and will wipe the floor with you .
Allone knights with their all black armor and samurai style attacks could have been intimidating foes.But in huge groups, they wind up being irritating. A Black Knight in “Dark Souls” is a memorable foe, which is why you don't suddenly run into 20 of them.
And despite the common complaint that its geography makes no sense, Iron keep is a well-designed level with style. The military pomp of the fortress gradually sinking into the volcano shows the overlap between stupidity and courage.
Why is the balance is so off in many of these encounters? Fromsoftware had progressed in their programming where they could have you fighting lots of complex opponents at once, but it often feels that they were excited to do something because they could rather than because they should.
Part of every “Dark Souls” game is approaching encounters strategically and many of the encounters in “Dark Souls II” can't be rushed into. But run-ups such as the one in Iron Keep are so overcrowded with enemies that playing strategically becomes tedious, as almost any enemy is quickly backed up by tons of his buddies, and the player is forced to flee to the bonfire and regroup.
This is not to say that you can't use the classic Souls strategy of baiting out enemies and eliminating them, but there are so many enemies to eliminate that getting to the boss becomes an exhausting process.Many of these areas, particularly in the DLC are perfect for co-op and indeed Iron Keep is very manageable with a second player. But this doesn't account for a single player experience.
One controversial change that is only in “Dark Souls II” is the extinction system, this was to keep players from overlevelling. I guess that certain players, perhaps overwhelmed by the first game's difficulty would elect to grind endlessly killing enemies and becoming absurdly overpowered.
The extinction system was kind of a compromise. You can still grind by killing the same enemies over and over but after killing an enemies 8 times over, they will go “extinct” and no longer spawn when you reload the area from a bonfire.
This was controversial as it flew in the face of the logic of the first game's systems. In “Dark Souls”, every time you rested at a bonfire the same amount of enemies would respawn (except for mini-bosses). In “Dark Souls II” you gradually ground an area down to the point where every enemy was dead.
My question is is this the intended experience for the solo player? Did Fromsoftware see from player data that many players preferred to grind endlessly, and so created levels where the mechanics were based on grinding?
A fan myth about “Dark Souls” is that you never need to grind. But sometimes you do. You're forced to level up your health or save up for a weapon upgrade, or trying to get a weapon to drop. But in the case of “Dark Souls II”, it feels like certain areas necessitate either grinding or playing with co-op.
Forcing players to play a certain way seems to be against the whole aesthetic of Fromsoftware, which often allows players a lot of freedom in how they explore their games. Two weird choices also take away this freedom by not giving players invincibility when entering a boss arena or opening chests. Not only do you have to fight an absurd number of enemies, you can't run straight past them.
Attempt to sprint into the boss arena and you'll be stunlocked to death by pursuing enemies as they interrupt your animation for entering the fog wall. These choices speak to a strange insecurity uncharacteristic of Fromsoftware desperately trying to finish this game. Instead of allowing you to run through an area if you want; you're forced to fight every enemy one by one. It feels like these choices and the overpopulation of enemies show Fromsoftware trying to force players to play their game in a certain way.
This points to a bigger problem that “Dark Souls II” often suffers from, a lot of the difficulty spikes in the game are more frustrating then hard. Take the end of the Gutter, a sub-area called Black Gulch with hundreds of poison spitting statues. This in the one Fromsoftware game where poison is actually a huge problem. Compared to the other two games in the series where it was annoying but not lethal, poison in “Dark Souls II” rapidly drains your health until you die.
You can methodically break them and rest at a bonfire but die on the way or to the boss and you have to break each one again. Or you can just try to run past them and survive until getting to the closer bonfire. But you're extremely likely to either die from the poison or fall to one of the overpowered NPC enemies who invades in the area.
There's some strategy to this, but it's not exciting or interesting. It's a slog for the sake of making an area a slog. It's a shame too because Black Gulch is actually a nightmarish area with some cool enemies but it's ruined for the sake of difficulty.
That being said, I don't think that every area is like Iron Keep or Black Gulch. But there are peaks and valleys in the design of “Dark Souls II” and many of the valleys are some of the lower ones in the Souls series.
Another common complaint is the hitboxes and there are some egregious examples. These tend to be grab attacks which Fromsoftware loves, but has struggled to make ones that aren't janky. Even the more polished “Elden Ring” has some absurd grab attacks that teleport the player into the arms of Hoarah Loux.
In “Dark Souls II”, if the grab attack of the Pursuer even collides with your character's foot, the game will move your character model onto the brunt of his sword, cursing you (in real life). At the same time, these kind of attacks aren't common in the game but they recur enough to provide proof for those who think the game is bad. Make a youtube compilation of these attacks and it provides irrefutable proof that the game is unplayable.
Player complaints about hitboxes are highly subjective because the fairness of a hitbox is hard to suss out when you aren't the person playing the game. So many times, we've seen Reddit posts where people complain about a hitbox only to show a clip where they clearly got hit.
Hitboxes are related to the ego of the person playing. No one complains that the hitbox of the player's greatsword is actually bigger than it's onscreen model but everyone is quick to complain when they roll the wrong way and die.
Part of the problem was in the initial release, hitboxes were often frustrating due to players not understanding Adaptability which gave the player more i-frames and made you used consumable items faster. Now that more players know to level adaptability, it's obvious that most of the hitboxes aren't as bad as initially thought.
Players starting out with much stingier hitboxes than the starting class of the original “Dark Souls” were often caught by the trickier enemies in “Dark Souls II”. These enemies often delayed attacks and had better tracking than comparable enemies in the original game. And if a player began with the thief class, they would start out with the lowest amount of i-frames available in the game. Players had less i-frames and encountered trickier enemies than the first game, so it made sense to blame the game's hit boxes for their deaths.
When Fromsoftware made “Dark Souls III”, they had learned the lesson that players wanted as many i-frames as possible. So “Dark Souls III” had a notoriously overpowered roll, one which was eventually nerfed in 'Elden Ring.”
That is not to say there is not plenty of jank in “Dark Souls II”. But this jank has more to do with a general Fromsoftware jank than this particular game.
As well as these critiques which are based in truth, there are also those that I disagree with. The first is an aesthetic one, that “Dark Souls II” is an ugly game.
While the game is in a different engine than the original “Dark Souls”, it still has the soul of earlier Fromsoftware games, the deliberately drabness that Fromsoftware gradually abandoned.
That’s not to say that “Dark Souls II” has the minimal anti-aesthetic of the original “Dark Souls” but it's closer to it than any game in the series. The green moss and aged stone, the torches burning in darkened rooms all contribute to a despairing atmosphere. “Dark Souls II” is less iconic than the original “Dark Souls” but it has a green and brown funk of its own.
Is it then ugly? If that these critics think so, we would have to ask if the original “Dark Souls” was an ugly game. Maybe, but ugliness as a deliberate aesthetic choice is different than accidental ugliness born from ineptitude. “Dark Souls” was ugly like a brutalist building is ugly. The brutalist building is ugly because it challenges accepted form for a greater function. There's a purpose to the ugliness, just as “Dark Souls” uses its grim aesthetic to create a dying world.
But “Dark Souls II” tried something “Elden Ring” would perfect; creating beautiful environments out of desolation. While “Dark Souls II” has the cold stone environments of the Lost Bastille, it also has the over-the-top gorgeousness of Madjulla or Dragon Aerie. Obviously Madjulla is recognized as one of the greatest hub areas in the whole series. Heide’s Tower of Flame evokes a great city that has been worn away by the sea to ruins above water. And Shrine of Amana combines lush natural serenity with deadliness.
As Fromsoftware becomes a company that's part of the gaming mainstream, its aesthetic has become more part of that mainstream. At one time, the deliberately bare and bleak environments of “Dark Souls” or “Demon Souls” made them stand apart from the florid high fantasy of other video games. And as the games gained more graphical fidelity, Fromsoftware chose interesting ways to avoid pure prettiness, like the desaturated tones of “Dark Souls 3” or the underwater blue of “Bloodborne”
With “Elden Ring”, Fromsoftware has figured out a way to keep their signature style while fitting into the gaming mainstream, and this should be applauded. But at the same time, like many developments which made Fromsoftware a more popular company, these developments have made them stand out less in the current gaming landscape.
So I personally miss the kind of anti-aesthetic of the early souls games, it maybe was pushed as far is it would go but it had an understated grace to it.
Weirdly, many people claim that “Dark Souls II” doesn’t have any interesting levels. This is because people confuse the world design of the game with the level design. Upon release, many people were disappointed by the abandonment of the interlocking open world of the first “Dark Souls” and disliked how disconnected the world of “Dark Souls II” was.
But as “Dark Souls III” was more disconnected and linear in its world design, this has mostly been forgotten but the impression that the levels were less interesting has stuck around .
In fact many of the levels are disliked because they stand out . Many people hate Brightstone Cove Tseldora but in all of Fromsosftware, desert biomes are pretty rare. Its a case that whenever “Dark Souls II” does something different, it instead is used against it as not feeling like “Dark Souls”.
The whole ecosystem of Earthen Peak with its honeycomb design is creepy. You gradually travel through the mines where poison is extracted, to the factory where it is processed finally burning a windmill and bringing the machinery to a stop.
No Man’s Wharf is really the only time Fromsoftware has even created a pirate themed level, even though most of their games are set at times when pirates are not unlikely.And the transition to the mercenary viking enemies to the terrifying apelike Darkstalkers as you ascend to the highest cliffs is very effective.
Huntsman’s copse is also a great area. This nasty scrubby bit of woods full of robbers, murders and torturers has a feeling like wandering around a dangerous city park on a chilly night. So I don't think its entirely fair to claim that the game doesn't have interesting levels. If anything, the game once again took greater risks with its levels and was not rewarded for taking those risks.
People often are critical of “Dark Souls II” bosses and this might be somewhat fair. “Dark Souls II” bosses are as simple as those in the original “Dark Souls” while also lacking the iconic quality that the Taurus demon had. However, it is overlooked is that with the release of the “Dark Souls II” DLCs, that Fromsoftware showed an improvement in their boss design.
The two best boss fights in “The Crown of the Iron King”; Fume Knight and Sir Alonne were complex in their moveset and AI. This was a leap forward not only from the base game but everything they had done beforehand.
Even the base game of “Bloodborne” (released after “Dark Souls II” but was created at the same time) didn't compare to the complexity of some of the bosses in the “Dark Souls II” DLC. In fact, “Bloodborne” is maybe even more mixed in terms of the quality of boss fights in the base game.
It was not until Bloodborne’s “Old Hunters” DLC that we got fights such as Maria and Orphan of Kos which showed the kind of complexity that Fromsoftware would continue innovating on. These fights added to the reputation of “Bloodborne” but strangely Fume Knight never helped the reputation of “Dark Souls II”
The base game of “Dark Souls II” shows a movement forward from “Dark Souls” bosses culminating in the DLC bosses. But much like the iteration of “Bloodborne”; it has some terrible bosses. I think these terrible bosses stand out more because “Dark Souls II” has so many more boss fights than “Bloodborne” But amongst this dross are also some classic boss fights.
The Pursuer is a good example. He is a pretty simple boss but the relentlessness of his simplicity can be tough when you first are learning the game. His moveset is easy to learn but difficult to master because making one mistake will put you on your back foot for the rest of the fight
Some of the bosses are elegant in their moveset as “Dark Souls” bosses but trickier, utilizing mixups and delayed attacks. Smelter demon is a kind of armor golem with a burning core. His attacks have a punishing delay that will catch early rolling, so you have to learn his precise rhythm. The fight also has several mix-ups; at first his forward sword slam is avoidable by rolling backwards. But when he stabs himself in his burning core, the blade catches flame. Now the same sword slam becomes explosively deadly unless you are rolling to the forward right.
Velstadt the Royal Aegis is one of the best bosses in the base game, his wide swings have a punishing arc to them. Players trying to roll behind him are likely to get hit by the bell end of his greathammer and this only becomes more dangerous as he imbues it with darkness and casts dark miracles at you.
And another great boss is the Lost Sinner, who kills the lights to gain an advantage as she is blind. If you don't take the effort to relight the arena then her fight can be difficult as she'll pop out of the darkness and catch you with an off-kilter attack.
(Interestingly, both the Lost Sinner and several enemies in the game are very similar to designs in the “Resident Evil” remake. I just put in parenthesis because it didn't fit in anywhere else in this essay)
Even these bosses are easy compared to the standards set by “Shadow of the Erdtree” where learning any boss becomes a struggle. But when we decry these earlier attemots as being overly simple, we are being ahistoric to where Fromsoftware's development was. These fights are relatively simple but more complex than many of the bosses in “Dark Souls”. It wasn't until the DLC of “Bloodborne” and then “Dark Souls 3” that Fromsoftware began to design bosses that people would be stuck on for weeks.
At the same time, this development by Fromsoftware hasn't been without drawbacks. These kind of simple duels with tricky opponents feels more valuable as Fromsoftware has increasingly focused on bosses with long attack chains and flashy movesets. As we are in the midst of their baroque period, there’s something to be said for the clean and classic lines of Dragonrider even though he is incredibly easy.
I don't know if it's possible for Fromsoftware to go back to the simplicity of their early boss design, but it might be worth them revisiting it. They might have gone as far as they can go in the direction of speed and tiny response windows. It might be time to remember something from where they started. If Fromsoftware is to show true mastery, than that can also be affected through simple means rather than overwhelming detail.
Among the many questions raised by “Dark Souls II” is one of what constitutes authenticity in gaming history. The most commonly available version is the revised edition of the game: “Scholar of the First Sin”. After the successful but somewhat questionable “you lied” campaign from fans, Fromsoftware published a revision of the original version. This allowed a graphically prettier game for the newly released PS4 to be rereleased. So many players who are first getting into 'Dark Souls II” are seeing a version that has many more enemies, actual torchlight mechanics and a lot of changes to the areas. It also runs at 60 FPS.
It’s the case that video game history is a constantly changing affair. But “Scholar of the First Sin” is actively rewriting history in a pretty odd way.So we have to wonder whether a factor in the thousands of Reddit posts that express surprise at how hated “Dark Souls 2” is, are partially being tricked by the glossier version of the game.
I took a crack at the original “Dark Souls II” without the remastering of the “Scholar of the First Sin edition” and found it not too different. Some of the enemies are in different places but nothing is that radically different except that the even more primitive lighting engine makes the whole affair look a lot flatter than the more colorful and more shadowy version of “Scholar of the First Sin”. There is also much less incident in the encounter design; for someone who has played 200 hours of Scholar version, there are many rooms that feel desolate without the touches that Scholar added.
Even the version I played has been updated, although not completely, so it’s pretty much impossible to recapture the version of “Dark Souls II” that originally came out, save getting it on PS3. Of course this is often the case with games that need extensive patching after release. Very few people are going to remember the original “Cyberpunk 2077” release, they're going to remember the version that came out with the “Phantom of Liberty” DLC.
But while the original “Dark Souls II” can feel barren at times and pedestrian at others, “Scholar” can feel like an eccentric mod by a superfan. Many mods of games like to throw balance out the window, giving players endgame level weapons to compensate for throwing endgame level enemies at them.
As many encounters are well-designed, an equal amount feel overdesigned to a degree of trollishness. Putting a remixed version of the Flexile sentry in your direct path as you try to reach the lost sinner always felt like a cruel move. I’ve rarely even fought it there because the deep water makes it’s moveset tricky to dodge. And even though I know how to dodge around it to rush to the arena, it still is painful.
Encounters seem to be designed to surprise players who have already played the game once rather than wowing new players. “Scholar” was designed perhaps to win over returning players rather than to make sense to people playing the game for the first time.
Especially some of the redesign feels aggressively literal, a boss is called the Pursuer so he should pursue the player relentlessly. It's fun to see the Pursuer pop up repeatedly but it reduces him from a singular menace to an unclear group of foes with random comings and goings. Particularly unfun is an encounter where he materializes in the midst of a group of enemies with crossbows and dogs. This by itself would be frustrating enough, but when you retreat to try to draw enemies to you, he dematerializes unwilling to fight you outside of a crowd. This really is the kind of trollish design that discards the playstyle of the series.
Another decision which is even worse is taking the Heide knights, who were set up as menacing optional mini-bosses throughout the game and putting them all in Heide's tower of Flame. This not only robs the game of recurring tough enemies like the Black knights in “Dark Souls”, but it also doesn't make sense. It was heavily implied in the original game that the Heide knights had left the tower because it was in ruins.
Another argument that “Scholar” was equally rushed as the original release is the inclusion of Aldia as a new final boss. This boss is actually worse than Nasshandra who was already thought to be a dissapointing end to the game.
But overall, it’s hard to argue in favor of the original release besides small issues of balance. The “Scholar” version shows that level design is about enemy placement as much as it is about shortcuts available. And while “Scholar” exacerbates the overcrowding of levels, it also adds more variety to the enemy placement than the base game had. This brings a welcome element of drama that we expect from Fromsoftware, where each enemy is introduced in a memorable way.
Ultimately “Scholar of the First Sin” will be the version of “Dark Souls 2” that lives on, as inevitably the original game will eventually become stranded on older systems. And this revision of history will become fact while the actual game on release becomes increasingly lost to time.
It turns out I'm much like the public as when I first played “Dark Souls II”, I hated it.
I had beaten “Dark Souls III” and had fallen in love with “Dark Souls” and felt like I had mastered the original game. Surely with my superior knowledge, “Dark Souls II” would be a cakewalk.
I proceeded to suffer death after death, in the Forest of Fallen Giants. The spear hollows destroyed me again and again but I somehow made it to the Pursuer, who then started wrecking my shit anew. Incredibly tilted, I wound up contacting Playstation for a refund and was denied as Sony doesn't refund any game that's been played any amount of time.
I wound up arguing with the representative, and he eventually asked me what the game was I wanted to refund. When he found out it was “Dark Souls II”, he got excited and told me: “Oh, you will end up loving this game!”
I'm not sure if he was a “Dark Souls II” fan or he just knew secondhand about the games. I was frustrated by this response but knew he had won the argument, because everyone knows that souls games are the kind of games you hate at first and then can't stop playing.
“Dark Souls II” is now the Fromsoftware game I have played the most so the Playstation representative's argument was correct. I love “Dark Souls II” because of its freedom, its singularity and its overwhelming jank and despair. Fromsoftware have gone onto make much better games but they have never made another game that feels so human, “all too human” as Nietzsche would have said.
And in the most human way, “Dark Souls II” doesn't have a satisfying ending, and neither does this essay.