Both Dark Souls games and Demon’s Souls leave the player to figure things out on their own. Which is fine, but players can kill off important NPCs, or miss them entirely, messing up the whole game for them. Dark Souls II even leaves you to find the NPC who you use to level up with and she’s tucked around a corner, gazing out to sea. It’s even more confusing if you played the first Dark Souls, where you leveled up at bonfires. On top of this, the effigies you use to become human – which you need to do to summon other players – need to be used in the menu, not at the bonfire where you get a prompt to burn them. Burning them stops people invading your game, which happens when you’re human, so you’re basically just setting them on fire at this point.
Some people claim to like this ambiguity, but really they probably went off and read a Wiki.
Dark Souls 2 remains a divisive entry in the landmark RPG franchise, but Hidetaka Miyazaki believes it led to the success of Elden Ring.
DS2 was fine. While there was a bit of recycling assets or ideas for bosses, it was a bigger more open Dark Souls. The Fume knight boss is one of the hardest bosses in the series until Sekiro and Elden Ring were released.
The problem with Dark Souls 2 was the same problem when a different director takes over for a sequel to an outstanding movie. It typically (there are exceptions) doesn’t have the feel and vision of the previous movie.
I wouldn’t say Dark Souls 2 is terrible. Had Dark Souls 1 never been a thing and we got this, I think it would have been praised more. The problem is it didn’t have the Miyazaki touch to it and felt pretty derivative. The soundtrack is a banger though.
I like DS 2, might even be my favorite of the 3. But it's a hard sell, there's so many obscure things you need to do to make it an enjoyable experience. So always find it hard to recommend, but it is worth the trouble.
TheGamer writes, "Some weapons resist the test of time."
You might not be able to believe this, but Dark Souls is a pretty tricky game on the PlayStation 3.