DARK SOULS™ II: Scholar of the First Sin

This is the artist peak of dark souls games. While gameplay is a little unpolished compared to recent titles, it is still a very enjoyable experience years later.

I recommend to all the people trying to platinum this game to have someone they love close to them while trying, because sometimes the voices will tell you to do a jump

Great game,, some interesting levels but its really fun

If you're like me and are a Souls fan but haven't played this one yet, try it. I'm enjoying it. It's different, not necessarily worse. Having to level up ADP is dumb but you level up faster than other Souls games so it's not too bad.

Well, I just beat the Burnt Ivory King and finished the main game + the DLC's and there is quite a lot to say. TL;DR People should get over themselves hating this game, cause it's not as terrible as people say, but there are a lot of terrible game designs that don't make me enjoy it as much as DS1.

Bad: Runbacks in these games are absolutely horrendous, while some bosses are within spitting distance from the bonfire. The consistency is just really weird. A few bosses are just reskins or they just make two of them cause sure why not? While some are a bit gimmicky while not necessarily terrible. The quantity of enemies within one area does not equal challenging, they just become annoying roadblocks to progression, even if you kill them enough times to despawn. And finally what I think is the worst thing that Dark Souls II has done is lowering your max HP each time you die. Uhhhh excuse me??? This is a franchise infamous for the single fact that you will die over and over again, and now you actively PUNISH ME for doing something that is guarantee to happen? No other Soulsborne game has that feature.

Good: I love the worldbuilding. Much more grand and ambitious, but at the cost of removing the interconnectivity that DS1 is memorable for, which isn't a bad thing. I loved the different boss designs, the enemy designs, and the lore was interesting. NPC's are also solid, and the lockstone and torch mechanic, while a bit gimmicky, were fun to utilize when needed, and I like the expansion of ring slots from 2 to 4.

I would give the game an 8/10, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but it certainly shouldn't receive sooo much hate. Be constructive and analyze what *really* deserves the criticism in this game and what doesn't. Good luck Bearer of the Curse, try tongue but hole

> Come back years later to a game you loved
> Create a brand new character and start over fresh
> First ever invader is cosplaying Henry of Skalitz from KCD
> Greets me before fighting -> oh hell yeah gentleman rules are on
> Last hit each other at the same time in glorious duel
> That's the good stuff, love this community
> Further ahead, get invaded 5 times in a row by the same full-PvP-geared-twink-guy
> Invader Bro goes straight into attacking and emote spams after winning
> Finally get a victory on the guy
> Instantly receive a friend request and got called a cheater

Oh Darks Souls 2, never change...
Henry invader, you were awesome! Hope we see each other again sometime

Dark Souls 2 SotFS is a very fun game with occasional moments of jank and hostile level design. Power-stancing has light and heavy attacks which is notably absent in elden ring. The DLC is definitely the highlight in bosses and level design alike; Eleum Loyce has become one of my favorite levels in the souls series and Shulva's verticality and how plays with it via environmental gimmicks is sick.

Honest Review for Dark Souls 2 after beating every boss and 100% the game

1. The Experience
Ds2 environments are genuinely nice to look at, the weather impacts the total vibe very nicely Drangleic Castle particularly and Heids Tower of Flame. Other than that most of the game is mostly unfun a straight or c u r v y line, every dungeon is designed nicely until reaching the next area. mostly every path follows: c u r v y line towards a boss, long ass elevator, the actual area that makes no sense to the environment before (LOOKING AT YOU DRAGON AERIE AND IRON KEEP). Most levels straight up show to a direct path to the boss to the next area and you dont have to play the game, at all, if you do you can either go through very bull shit level design either walking through grass in which just has a hole with no hint at all, having the difficult curve depending if you do it or not. If you do run straight to the boss, every single encounter will be ass unless you do run the classical mace and rapier cheese, question is, is dark souls 2 softs or dark souls 2 rapier and mace edition? It doesnt make a for good level design, zero reason for natural progression in a curve for the basic player who isnt trying to do everything, another thing is the well shitted upon agility stat, the Smelter Demon isnt even that hard, just level ADPT, why does combat that feels not ass unlocked after going so far into the game? This mean you cannot try out that cool weapon you found because you dont have 50 adpt, its not fun to explore because you cant use it or else the whole experience fighting enemies and bosses will just feel like shit. I understand the appeal of magic in this game after going through it with a melee weapon and spells in the following NG++++ to 100% the game, its night and day, you cant deal with adpt being a problem if you just avoid the probleml, so why bother do anything else, it make more sense than just melee. WHICH sucks because the melee system is actually really fun and cool, weapons are cool, dual wielding is cool, but its ass because you cant because most of you stats are into ADPT so why bother, use mace and rapier, the game is unfun to progress through because of the games design. The DLC on the other hand, are nice unless you havent leveled to a point where you are far past the end of the base game, the damage dealt the the sunken king DLC enemies are just extremely high, and thats running a havel monster build I used for that DLC, The Ivory King DLC was actually fun as a love letter towards how much people just run through the game, progress to make things reasonable, its a love letter to how most people played the game, running through everything. Brume Tower DLC was probably my favourite DLC, because of the boss battles i had the most fun, Alonne was the first boss in the game where i had to focus, it was fun and even more fun to use his gear in NG+. The Fume Knight on the other hand was not as interesting, i blame mostly to my build and level as it lasted 6 hits from the glorious guts greatsword lightning and sunlight blade. Despite that was is a big hitter is just finding and inserting the r o d, and reigniting the entire facility, absolutely fantastic. Note I did Brume Tower, Ivory, and Sunken last.

2. Getting achievements
This was the worst experience ive had 100% a game, someone in their god damn mind thought it was a good idea to lock some spells AFTER 500 PVP WINS, WHY in general WHO WOULD GRIND 500 KILLS. Thank god they did add other ways of unlocking said spells..... BY BEATING THE GAME 4 TIMES. On the other hand the other spells that you cannot unlock this way is through shit ass drop rates. the berserker man in the belfry sol was not bad, BUT SUN LIGHT METALS ARE GENUINELY THE MOST WORST FARM EVER. WHY THE FUCK ARE THE DROP RATES ABYSMAL. 100% the game was learning how poorly designed the level design was, how much content didn't matter, boss completely skippable and irrelevant, ENTIRE LEVELS irrelevant because the boss is in a C U R V Y LINE.

2.5:
I SWEAR 50% of most enemies moves set are locked in NG+ beyond, ive seen MORE interesting combat in my NG++++ run than THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE.

3. Final Note

Ds2 is a mixing pot of design because of its very poor production, from the cut content uncovered by the community this game had such cool concepts and designed that where stitched together in a incohesive mess that has random PEAK design in characters, yet such ass designs in combat and level design. the combat idea for the systems are SO FUCKING COOL but at the same time progression is cucked by AGILITY so good old mace and rapier and no other weapon. I would not recommend this game and im uninstalling after getting all the achievements and this review.

This game is like the good the good and the fugly. The first good is that the ironn keep is a really good area. The vareity of enemies and the ultimate struvcture of the levelk desgin makes it a fun ride trying to cleave through your foes. The 9587324095763498576349857634298576324985763249857y6324o85634985632498576324985763485634298564329856342986534986513249865932184 knights per square inch of acre make it a managble order to overcome the area. The shrine of alana is another quality area. The more enimies of screen the better. But I feel as though the covetous demon was too overtuned. Maybe dile down the diffculty of that particular foe a bit and you have a good game on your hands. I also tpyed gg 47622384632 times when the boss was jsut two of another enemy. Thats my favorute type of boss. The more years go by the more I realized the fire giant and godskin duo would fit into this wide world like a glove, and a lot oof years have gone by.

The most divisive in the series, but personally I really enjoyed this game. I never experienced its launch so I cannot relate to other souls fans.

Personally, it is better than ds1. 10/10 a work of art and a love letter to dark souls fans

game fucking blows dick base game was somewhat fun like 3 areas are good looking and the rest look like my uncles dark black pit of a asshole enemy placement is god awful base game bosses are hella easy then dlc is just straight fucking rape fume knight has some shitty ass hitboxes moans in my fucking ear like hes pontiff or sum horny 30 middle age dad ready to suck and fuck people that say this game is peak are actual retards

edit:sir alonne made up for it. But i will say the game is good just can be a pain in the ass sometimes

Its bitter, it stinks, it hurts, it that ache you get in your neck after sleeping horribly, its that really poorly made coffee that you just keep drinking even though it tastes like the embodiment of a depressing Monday morning. But for some reason, you just keep drinking it, and by the time that cups almost empty, for some reason you end up in love with it.

Its ok, but its not as fun as the first game. I heard that Mizayaki had a small part in creating this game, due to his work on Bloodborne, and it is clearly visible.
- Too easy, bosses have wooden movement, and 2-3 attacks only, most of them in slowmo,
- Mobs spawned in large numbers pointlessly in locations, making the game annoying instead of difficult,
- Players should only raid you when you're human, not at all times, it was also annoying at times.
Still, for an old game, I liked the views of the locations (of course, if I had a moment to look before a horde of mobs flew out from around the corner), also liked the changes in messages left by other players, you can compose quite funny poems, so I smiled more than once when I read one.
I will try to get the rest of the achievements to 100% in waiting for dark souls 3 sale, but unfortunately I would not feel as satisfied with ng+ as I did in the previous game.

Is it a good Dark souls?
No.
Is it a good game?
No.
It's a game with only ideas. Of course power stance and a bunch of weapons is cool and all, but these things are just additions to the gameplay experience, not the core of the game.
Yes, you could probably talk about the lore for 237.4 hours, but let's be honest: that was never the point of the game.
Dark souls is about it's gameplay, most of all. How you interact with the world. However, Dark souls 2 just fails in it's core gameplay, making weird hitboxes (in general, even with ADP the rolling is still bad) and bland bosses.

I don't want to make the same 30 pages long text explaning why DS2 is bad. What I'm trying to say is that the good things about this game doesn't erase the core gameplay.
If I could explain DS2 in one sentence, it would be: "The Dark souls game that people who never played Dark souls thinks what Dark souls is"

It's either you hate this game with a passion or love it like no other

This game is absolute peak (seeing as it was why elden ring is officially called Dark Souls II II that's no surprise), but you HAVE to be prepared for some parts of it being absolute ass and some parts of it being the best Souls experience you've ever had

Highly recommend if you listen carefully... and don't give up, skeleton!

people say it's a bad game and that the bosses are not memorable but i just finished the game and i can definitely say that it's one of the best game i've played in therms of FEEL and BOSSES and it's just such a GREAT game i can't recommend it enough even now 10 years later and aslo the graphics are just too good and vintage like so good

It has quite of a rough start compared to the other games, but its quite enjoyable when you've invested a good amount of time in it. This game gets a lot of hate because of how different it is from its predecessor, but i think that's what makes this game so unique. It introduced some really interesting mechanics as well as moments in the playthrough that you don't really get to see in the other games. The only things I would really complain about is how janky the hitbox can be sometimes and the enemy placements. So far, I've really enjoyed the base game and I'm looking forward to the DLCs. An 8.5/10 for me for sure.

It's good. Hear it is the weakest of dark souls. Aight, I'm not in a position where I can't tell ya guys any flaws that I might didn't know it is, making it worse than previous title as it is my first introduction to dark souls. What I can say from my perspective is it is pretty fun at least I may say. Man, the skedaddle method in sir alonne run didn't work consistently, no way I'm going to wipe all the sir alonne's knights, that's diabolical. anyway,sir alonne died. That's all from me.

Dark Souls II: A Hollowed Experience

Dark Souls II is the black sheep of the Souls franchise, and for good reason. While it retains the core mechanics of its predecessors, it stumbles in almost every way that matters, feeling like an imitation rather than a true successor.
Level Design: Quantity Over Quality

The game is filled with uninspired, disconnected areas that lack the cohesion and environmental storytelling that made Dark Souls a masterpiece. Instead of a tightly interwoven world, we get a series of linear, often illogical locations that feel stitched together with no thought to spatial consistency. Why does an elevator in a windmill take me up to a castle surrounded by lava? Dark Souls was known for its intricate world design—Dark Souls II abandons that entirely.
Enemy Spam and Artificial Difficulty

Rather than offering well-crafted encounters, the game opts for overwhelming the player with sheer numbers. Fighting multiple enemies at once is frustrating, not because of deep combat mechanics, but because the game wasn't designed for it. The overuse of ambushes and cheap encounters make it clear that difficulty here isn't about skill—it's about enduring frustration. Enemies do not infinitely spawn unless you're in the Company of Champions covenant, which is also bullshit.
Clunky Combat and I-Frame Dependency

The controls feel noticeably worse than in other Souls games. Hitboxes are inconsistent, movement is sluggish, and the addition of Adaptability—a stat that determines how many I-frames you have when rolling—forces players to invest in leveling up just to make dodging function properly. This is a baffling design choice that punishes players for no reason other than padding stats.
Lackluster Bosses and Gimmick Fights

Dark Souls is famous for its unforgettable boss fights, yet Dark Souls II delivers some of the blandest, most forgettable encounters in the series. Many bosses feel like slightly modified versions of regular enemies, often fought in boring, empty arenas. Worse still, too many of them rely on gimmicks rather than genuine challenge—whether it's summoning multiple enemies, forcing players into awkward terrain, or relying on uninteresting mechanics rather than skillful combat design.
Souls Memory: A Broken Multiplayer System

The introduction of Souls Memory—a mechanic that matches players based on the total number of Souls they've earned—completely ruins PvP and co-op. Instead of being matched based on level and equipment, you're often thrown against opponents far beyond your power level, making invasions and cooperative play feel random and unfair.
A Hollowed Experience

In the end, Dark Souls II is a Souls game in name only. It lacks the careful world-building, satisfying combat, and masterful boss design that define the series. Instead, it leans on artificial difficulty, poor design choices, and a general sense of inconsistency. While some enjoy its variety and sheer amount of content, it ultimately feels like a shallow, frustrating imitation of what makes Dark Souls great.

Final Score: 2/10

Душна гра з неадекватною кількістю мобів, і дуже тупими не цікавими босами. Найгірша соус лайк гра евер.
Не варто трати на це гроші і свій час.

Don't listen to the propaganda from big soulslike. This game is very good and even tho it's is probably my least favorite of the trilogy it is still better than 99% of the games on the market even compared to modern games. 100% worth playing if you like soulslikes.

despite higher volume of negative reviews of this game in dark souls series i actually liked the game and enjoyed the game environment , story line , boss fights. i agree the controlls on this game is something that everyone is not okay with but i got deal with that in early hours.

This game gets a lot of hate for, in my opinion, no reason. It is not nostalgia talking either. My first souls game was Elden Ring. Then DS1 then DS2 then I played Lies of P and have played "Souls Adjacent Games" How I am roughly halfway through this one and it feels and looks great (It is remastered to be that way) but even so it has been a ton of fun playing through it.

Genuinely some of the worst game design I've ever seen in my entire life. I have no idea how this game even made it beyond the planning phase.

Every area is the same 2-3 enemies copy pasted into every single room. That wouldn't be too much of an issue, if the game had any sense of flow at all. The player movements are so sluggish and weighty, every fight is just "Whoops, I missed a swing. Guess I'll get stun locked to death by these 3 guys."

Don't even get me started on ADP. The most redundant, asinine stat to ever exist. ADP governs rolling and drinking from your flask. At the beginning of the game, your dodge roll has NO I-FRAMES and your flask has a solid 8 seconds of standing still before you can perform another action. I've put THIRTY SIX LEVEL UPS INTO ADP, and still it takes around 5 seconds of being totally still before I can move after drinking. This amazing feat of game design leads to most of your levels being put into this garbage but necessary stat, which literally adds nothing to the game but frustration.

Another great thing: Stamina consumption. It's high. Very high. Two sword swings and a roll at stamina level 28 and you are out. Yet another tack against the already slow feeling.

This feels like it should have been the first Dark Souls, unpolished and rocky on it's feet. PS1 game level of game design. Like playing resident evil 8 with Resident Evil 2 controls. The one Souls game I will recommend AGAINST playing.

I've played this off and on for years, even beaten it a couple of times, including two of the three DLC. I've platinumed DS1, DS3 (twice), Bloodborne, Elden Ring (twice), beaten Nioh 2 and a ton of other soulslikes.

I just can't do the sluggish animations, janky collision and roll timing (and yes, I'm aware you level ADP) any more. I *want* to like this game as I love the series, but it just doesn't feel right.

You know I get the hate towards the game but I feel like it is way too overhated. First parts of the games were really hell but it got more enjoyable as the game progressed. Though comparing to the first game, it feels like they tried to make the game harder by just spamming mini enemies that often is too strong for you everywhere and then got out of ideas at the bosses.

Firstly let me talk about positives especially compared to first game. Item variety is just another level and probably my favorite aspect of this game. There is just so much stuff. But I also hated particular stuff about items too. Poise does not matter much in the PvE, game pushes you to play faster so kinda also pushes you to dex weapons. You might trigger them one by one but it gets boring too. At least they still hit hard. I wish armors did make some actual effect as previous game.

Map design is both good and bad, it feels like they had so much places in their head but failed to connect them properly so you kinda feel like you are teleporting from place to place. They are fun to discover and game does help you a lot with summons in exploring areas too.

Shitty hitboxes and balancement issues are usual just a lot more. I also get the hate towards the agility stat but at least game gives you enough souls. Hollowing system literally sucks and way too punishing. Overall I got harder time with this game than DS1. And I must say I did not enjoy it as much as DS1 either.

Game is not that awful, though it is a real challenge with some bad aspects of the game. But I guess I am happy that I played and finished it. I can suggest this game especially if it has been a while since you played a soul game and crave it.

You probably already know if Dark Souls games are your jam. If they are, this is the most bizarre of the FromSoft canon. While still providing the basics of a doomed world full of twisting paths towards corrupted bosses, and keeping a lot of what made the first Dark Souls such a smash. The game is also a garden of ideas that never made it out of the sophomore slump along with the early versions of concepts that wouldn't solidify fully until Elden Ring. It's even still sprinkled with that Prepare to Die snark that the genre has mostly grown out of. That inventiveness can pay off very well, or ultimately be a miss at times, but it keeps the experience fresh and interesting even for fans who've played a lot of the other titles.

The Scholar of the First Sin edition incorporates the DLC more naturally while also balancing the enemies in a much more difficult way. If you have played the base game, it can be fun and disorienting when the game surprises you, but it does change the game in one big way. Dark Souls 2 is the only entry where enemies that you repeatedly kill vanish from the field and with the increased enemy density and difficulty, it changes the usual Soulslike formula to something more attrition based than skill building. The game doesn't ask that you get better, as much as that you try enough times This is not bad, just different and will probably not be to everyone's taste, even if they like the other entries in the series. Still worth trying and appreciating for its own merits in my opinion.

Dark Souls II is a great time for any fan, but would probably serve as a poor first impression for FromSoft's catalog.

Extremely overhated, game has a few weird design choices and mechanics, but it's still a very good game.

100 percent the weakest souls game and the one i had the least fun playing through, some of the areas are just complete jokes with the amount of mobs attacking you at once, iron keep and shrine of amarna are the worst, most of the bosses were kinda lame aswell with only a handful being interesting, all that aside its not a complete dumpster fire, there are some good moments but its a diamond in the rough situation, i do like that the game has a lot of content but its more quantity over quality, everyones experience differs but i would only recommend this game if you REALLY want to play all the souls games, its not an amazing game but its not terrible either, just very mid. Best part of the game was the 2 invaders that dropped me healing items, dunno who they are but they made the game alot more enjoyable

Was playing through The Lost Bastille. Right before the Ruins Sentinel boss room, I summoned this one guy who I thought was an NPC at that time. Right after we defeated the boss, he gave me 400k worth of souls, a Magic Ice Rapier, Lion Mage armor set, all +10. The following levels were a breeze because of him.

I love the souls community.

Apesar dos comentários negativos que vi sobre Dark Souls 2, decidi jogar para formar minha própria opinião. Nos primeiros minutos, achei a jogabilidade horrível, já que antes joguei Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3 e Elden Ring. Porém, depois de encontrar um layout de controle que melhorava o deadzone, o jogo se tornou muito mais agradável. Agora, com quase 40 horas de gameplay, minha experiência é: um jogão! Ainda bem que não deixei de jogar!

Nothing was as satisfying as roaming around Majula in Dark Souls for me.

(I played this game outside of steam for so long, long ago.)

While might be the "worst"' of the souls series, it's still fine/good as a game. Not great, not amazing, some annoyances at a few elements, but still good. Plenty of things to see/do/build. The level/world design is weakest of the series, but the PVP options are some of the widest. It's not as bad as people say, but also not something I can get if someone puts it as their #1

The Black Sheep among FS Games
I started playing this crap without any expectations, I heard only rumors that it's bad but it definitely outcames anything i would imagine. I fully understand hate on this game and this garbage absolutely deserved it
Tragic and boring locations, automoving camera that for no reason changes your attack destination, enemies that are not meant to be hard but just to make you mad, many frustrating mechanics that are just not needed and the most important - the game itself is not fun.
Terrible experience not worth money and time.

"It's a good game, but not a good souls game" Bollocks, it is Dark Souls therefore it's good.

First of all this is not a bad game by any means, it is a souls game and is an enjoyable one but it has a lot of drawbacks. I honestly hesitated in buying it and even more in playing it while looking at all the hate this game gets and while a lot of the criticism that it gets is at least to a big extent true i am glad that i picked it up and played it.
The game itself has a huge failure in its core design and that being the Despawn mechanic, (enemies despawn after being killed at least 12 or 13 times). The problem this creates is that it is visible how the game design revolves around this. Areas are ganky, paths to bosses are filled with a huge amount of enemies that are stupidly put there, You end up having to be either the best dodger or having to go through the entire thing over and over in order to reach a boss while having some estus flasks. This is simply bad and is even more reinforced by the lack of i-frames on fog walls.
Ganks fill the game and it feels like a chore than gameplay at sometimes when going through areas. The game heavily relies on exaggerated numbers, huge detection and follow radius of enemies and last but not least ambushes. everything is so overdone that it becomes boring and tedious rather than a gameplay of fun.
The areas are disconnected logically and have no cohesion. whilst many are beautiful in their own right they do not maintain a feeling of one cohesive world but rather levels. this takes a lot of the immersion and fun out.
The Bosses are generally weak in their design and not interesting. I do not even remember the 4 bosses that dropped the main souls.... some of them i did not even know where big characters holding these souls....
Ganks are applied to bosses two. It seems that this mentality follows throughout the game and its DLCs.

The story is really good, the controls are meh, a lot of cool ideas exist but nothing is complete. It is a mishmash of everything and feels more like an experiment rather than a complete game. I never had the feeling of wanting to know whats next as i did in DS1 as i knew its a bunch of ganks and ambushes (boring). I did not fear or think a lot about most of the bosses, some i even fought without any effort and first try kill them.
Majula is beautiful. A lot of areas have smart traps and mechanisms to help go through (levers, pads like in IronKeep, barrels..etc) but this is an exception rather than norm.

The end boss is just a joke, Nashandra is one of the worst bosses i fought. pure garbage. Aldia is just hmmm not interesting as a boss at the end... Finishing the game was disappointing rather than awesome and intriguing as it was in DS1.

NPCs are a mix, some are interesting and have a good arc whilst most are just meh.

All in all it is not a bad game per say but it is also not the best of games. I am glad i played it (couldn't believe to finish it) as i will never come back to it again. in comparison i find myself longing to DS1 but disliking DS2.

Apparently DS3 has a lot of cool stuff regarding DS2 but yeah, I recommend going through it before continuing further.

Dark Souls 2 is sometimes called the black sheep of the trilogy. Often considered the weakest of the three, it still has a dedicated fanbase, and I personally had a great time playing it too. This review is mainly for those already invested in the series and unsure whether to try DS2. If you are new to Dark Souls, I’d recommend starting with DS1 or DS3 instead.

Exploring this game was a lot of fun. The world is quite large, with a wide variety of areas to discover, more so than in DS 1 or 3. However, exploration would have been much better if the world had more interconnectivity and better environmental cohesion. Instead of feeling like an interconnected world, it plays more like 5-6 long, linear paths that branch off slightly but never connect with each other in a meaningful way. With so many areas, it is no surprise that there are a ton of bosses. While very few fights are outright bad, most are pretty forgettable and relatively easy. The best fights mainly come from the DLC areas, but overall, the bosses aren’t the highlight of this game. To be fair, I felt similarly about Dark Souls 1’s bosses, just that they are less bosses in that game.

Some mechanics I really disliked include: having to level Adaptability for reasonable iframes (without it ever being explained), the high stamina cost of rolling, the large aggro and leash distance of enemies, and the temporary HP reduction when dying, which can lower max HP down to 50% (or 75% with a ring). And, of course, extra minus points for creating the worst area in all of gaming: the Frigid Outskirts. But none of them are enough to seriously destory my enjoyability once I got used to them.

Despite all the negatives, I had a ton of fun exploring the world and progressing my character into an absolute powerhouse. In the end, I’d say I had about as much fun as I did playing Dark Souls 1, which is a lot. However, Dark Souls 3 remains my favorite by a significant margin.

13 hours into a run, i got invaded by a hacker who, warped my character around, broke my equiptment, killed me, then put like 200 broken items into my inventory causing the game to crash everytime you open your inventory or try to repair your gear. steam won't do anything and we all know this is fromsoft's black sheep title they like to pretend doesn't exist.

Here's how you play Dark Souls II:
1. Buy game on sale or for the full price.
2. Beat at least 3 bosses.
3. Lose patience over the stupidly annoying enemies.
4. Take a year break.
5. Come back to the game as a veteran soulsborne player.
6. Start a new DS2 run.
7. Actually start enjoying DS2.
8. Finish game and realize what you missed out on.

Absolute Kino.

I think people only dislike Dark souls 2 because it's different.

Major changes come in the form of i-frames on rolls and a slower paced gameplay.
#1 Level adaptability/raise your agility stat.
2# most enemies can be spaced or strafed and even rolled at the last second. If you have a functional brain and hands, you can do it easily.
3# Use a shield, they don't suck :)

In terms of slower gameplay.
Now to make a point. The weight in movement & stamina use are things to adapt to. Literally any GOOD gamer knows to adapt to different games, instead of shouting, "OMFG THIS IS BAD, CUZ ITS NOT LIKE X GAME"

It's a different take on dark souls whilst being dark souls.
It has so many ideas and content that ds3 and elden ring fails to copy.

Give it a chance, be patient and don't retaliate when your confused or annoyed.
Embrace what it is to see what it offers you. It has it's flaws, it's not perfect, but damn is it good.

Best souls game i've ever played, probably even best game in general. The level designs and game mechanics are truly so much better than the other souls games. The slow healing, getting hit while going through fog walls paired with the incredible amount of enemies placed around with so many doors that shut again once the area is reloaded, makes the game so much more fun and enjoyable to play and beat. Not to mention the breathtaking, cinematic boss fights, and the fact that there are so many of them. This game offers even more advantageous game changing additions and deeply connected lore that the other games just don't have. 10/10

It's a great game, well made and tempered. It's brothers are just a little more handsome and strong. It's like when ds2 goes to school, he's everyone's daydream guy, but when he gets home, he's the little shrimp.

My personal favorite Dark Souls game. A lot of people hate on this game, but they're doing it without the context of playing it when it first came out (like I did). We had waiting for a sequel to the original DS for a while, and DS2 delivered on everything we could have ever wanted. Power stancing? Awesome. The varied environment? Sick. The PVP scene? Huge!

SOTFS changed a lot about the game, some for the better, some for the worse, but it's worth it to play it at 60fps.

It's funny how comically easy this game is after playing DS3 and Elden Ring though. Put a few points in ADP and you're basically invulnerable if you're at least decent at dodging

A little harder than the first. A little worse than the first. Made me a little angrier than the first. Took a little longer than the first. However, it is still Dark Souls. Praise the adaptability!

It is a very good game. However, it is also the weakest in the trilogy.
The lore is very interesting and the story is very unique. Out of all 3, I probably prefer this one as my favorite.
The combat is fun but it is not as polished as either DS1 or DS2. Magic users will have a harder time in this game compared to other builds. That is not to say a magic user cannot be used. But it will require you to really know how to use that build.
I def recommend playing the game, especially if you have have played DS1 or DS3 (or both).

It was a good game. WAS. Before the latest update when they reactivating the game online feature. It never listed to any of their update patches, but they make the enemy mob and bosses have way too much aggression. Not only aggression, it also affect their speed and make the enemy more inconsistent with their animation, they sometimes hasten their animation or even skipping it. Sometimes they play it slow or even slower than they do in their previous update. They also have tendency to skip their recovery rate after their attacks, make them able to chain their combo and make it harder to know when you are supposed to attack them, making the overall combat feels very messy, inconsistent and unsatisfying.

Aside from the speed and animation skipping. The game armor also feels more useless with the recent update, enemy bosses (and sometimes mobs too) feels like they take percentage of your health rather than fixed damage. Medium armor used to matter more in previous version and can reduce the damage dealt by enemies more reasonably, it also used to give you a bit more poise (the poise number might still look the same, but enemy have way more poise damage now). I used to like Dark Souls 2 since armor feels matter more in the game compared to other Dark Soul games in the series.

The game is different now between recent update and its older version. I can attest it, and it is glaringly shows. Even the DLC area is not spared from this problem. The enemy in DLC feels like they come from NG+7 with their exorbitant damage, it is different compared to their previous update DLC enemies.

This update really hurts the balance of the game, since original Dark Souls 2 is intended to be played a bit slower and more strategically if not more mindful, it also make the difficulty and overall game feeling cheap and artificial. Not only this update affect Dark Souls 2, I feel like the recent update (the online reactivation update) also affecting Dark Souls 3 game balance but to a lesser degree.

Do not buy this game, except if you know how to use SteamDB or other way to revert it to previous version/patches. Play version 1.02 for much better experience, at least it is better (when compare to recent version) in my personal opinion.

Game is looks great the atmosphere is imersive, music is somber, lighting and textures do a good job to create a visual spectacle that plays great on my steamdeck.

Characters and their quests are easy to engage with. Unlike in DS3 I was able to complete them without looking up guides.

Their are obscure mechanics and their impact the gameplay made going in blind a pain. Adaptability I frames, equipload affecting role speed/distance and stam regen, Bonefire ascetics going into NG+, Infusions and weapon scaling, Powerstancing etc. The game became way less frustrating after the learning curve.

Enemy placement and quantity was too much for my preference. It made clearing areas take so much longer than you'd want to spend in them. Enemies will chase you seemingly forever. Despite having the most bosses out of the dark souls trilogy, bosses were often disappointing because the path to get to them was magnitudes harder than the fight itself. (Executioners Chariot, The Rotten, both Smelter Demons and Old Iron king, Demon of Song, Velstadt, Sir Alonne, The Kings Pets.)

The game is a deviation, not an evolution of ds1. Just like all souls games, you have to dig in to find what you enjoy about it.

Definitely the dark horse of the souls series for good and bad reasons, this game has tons of unique things that didnt make it to the final and third game for better or worse.

This game is the slowest game in the franchise making it seem like the pace of attacks and animations are in slow motion. Adaptability is a bad stat and im glad its not a thing for the future games since it kinda ruins blind players eyeframes without really explaining it to them.

If we ignore all the issues this is the game with the most content albeit some "bosses" are absolute jokes and can barely pass for bosses. The ascetic item with the covenant of champions makes the dynamic of farming in this game quite unique and refreshing! Being able to strategize and use ascetics to get more items than intended is very cool.

Not for the faint of heart.

It has been the weakest of the Fromsoft soulslikes that I've played so far (ER, DS1, and DS2), but it is the weakest of a very strong group. This is still a game well worth the price of admission