You have died... again. Dark Souls 2 announced

Thats the one I have. Not sure if you can even buy the original now.

I would suggest the opposite. I wish I had played vanilla DS2 instead of SOTFS. I think I would have enjoyed DS2 more if I hadn’t played the harder version.

My order went:

  1. Dark Souls
  2. Sekiro
  3. Dark Souls 2
  4. Bloodborne
  5. Dark Souls 3
  6. Demon’s Souls (currently working on Demon’s souls)

Started in March, will probably be done by October.

I admit it does have some stupid additions, but on the whole I think it is better. Torches are much more important, or at least some light source. Also, I think the DLC are very good. And there is some enemy placement changes IIRC that are good and bad.

It is, with the DLC a long game though. But the DLC contains some great boss fights and so I think they are essential.

I wish I’d played the vanilla version instead too. It sounded less soul crushing. :-P

A few less NPC invasions, the gutter and the area with the Pirates (forget the name) aren’t quite as dark. But at least in that area SOTFS actually gives you a shortcut that the vanilla game doesn’t offer. I think SOTFS also offers a few more NPC summons for boss fights.

It was also interesting to play second because object placement was changed. One key that can make life easier was much easier to find.

I ended up quite liking DS2 but the learning curve was steep, the middle part was a real drag, and the combat still feels wonky to me. And there is so much leveling up you have to do to roll right.

Complaints aside, it’s a worthy sequel and a unique experience unto itself, and for me personally, has the best story.

I think the best part of the game for me is something I have a vague memory of now. It was a circular room, and I fought some kind of medusa/snake type creature, and the room kept filling up with green sludge/poison I think? I just remember that being really bonkers fun and it was one of the few times in the game I had a ton of fun. Sadly I beat that boss pretty quickly so it never etched itself into my memory as well as other lesser fights that I did over and over.

Edit: Here is what I wrote about it 3 years ago in my playthrough. (Wow, it’s been 3 years?)

If you beat the boss while the poison was still turned on you did pretty damn good. There is a way to turn off the poison that makes that boss much easier.

By the way, that area is actually part of the second DLC in Dark Souls 3.

Oooooh, very intriguing. I’ll look forward to that.

No shit? You just provided the push I needed to put my try-hard pants back on and git gud.

Look for windmills and fallen towers.

Coming off of four straight From games, this one does feel floaty. In Things Betwixt I felt constantly in danger of skating off the edge of some dropoff. I don’t recall that feeling last time.

I don’t know, man, this game feels clunky. Donnie, I’m out of my element.

Of course if you insist on soloing Midir all bets are off.

The animations in DS2 are really clunky, it does give it a weird feel. But you’ll get used to it eventually. It does make me wonder what the hell went on during development.

My weapon has a B scaling in dex, I can’t be anywhere near a softcap yet, and yet putting a point in dex wouldn’t raise my weapon damage at all???

Scaling seems rough in this game. Had about 10k souls after the giant guy, enough for a few levels to move the needle on dex dmg. I put them in VGR instead.

Did you get your agility to 105 yet btw? I remember that being my first priority, so that rolling feels more similar to the other Souls games.

No, I haven’t had any real problems with the rolling…yet, and a point in adaptability was not going to change Agility at all, so I have focused on increasing my absurdly small (god damn that hollowing) health pool first.

Yea, the hollowing upon death is a real thing in DS2. It makes it so there is a real penalty to dying in the game. There is a ring available fairly early in the game that helps with that but the fact is if you put some levels into health you will be fine without the ring. Plus you can effigy up for boss fights.

I reached Armorer Dennis and…I may actually just be done. This fight is complete bullshit, and if it’s indicative of what’s to come, I don’t think I have the patience for it. I don’t remember having a lot of trouble with him as a sorcerer, but as a level 30 rapier user it’s completely impossible.

Edit: After reading about other people bitching about him, I ended up cheesing him with the Seed of Giants or whatever it is, an item that spawns in the same room he does. If you’re moving at a normal pace, there’s no way you’d reach it before he was on your ass.

Also, my weapon seems to have horrible, horrible tracking. It will just stab thin air on a followup swipe if the target has moved even a tiny bit. I had a comical moment where I was trying to stab an archer who was shuffling zombielike and just ended up stabbing in a big circle around him because the weapon absolutely refused to go to target.