Ok great, thank you.
Just my own perspective, but I usually leave the dragon alone. But there is nothing bad about killing him.
I would do the DLC or memories now. But the Throne Room fight ends the basic game so I always save it for last. The memory trip gets you objects which make another fight easier. A fight you probably already may have tried.
After conquering the Memories (such a cool story/game mechanic) and putting Vendrick out of his misery (which is ultimately what that fight felt like), I thought I was hot shit, so I set off to go blow through some fire salamanders to get a few goodies (including the last remaining DLC key).
…, yeah. Fire Salamanders. NOT EASY. I ended up having to do some serious cheese (picking off a few from above with arrows) and a lot of running. I love how these suckers, who you see in the first hours of the game, end up being super fearsome beasts that even my endgame specced character had a hard time dealing with.
Now it’s DLC time!
Dark Souls 2: SOTFS (minus the DLC) completed!
There is a sense of momentum near the end of these games that I felt even more acutely with DS2, and the DLC was starting to feel like a bit of a slog, instead of an amazing set of new areas, so, knowing that the game doesn’t immediately throw you into NG+, I decided it was time to finish off the core story.
Boss fight. Boss fight. Boss fight.
The end of this game isn’t messing around!
The Throne Duo was more of a speed bump, which I’m thankful for. I brought in Vengarl after I saw what the fight was all about, and he did his job as a meatshield to the best of his abilities. He fell as I finished off the Watcher, and I tipped my helmet to him (I’ve been wearing the helmet he gives you for most of the game).
Nashandra (I love the design of her in her true form, one of the coolest looking bosses in Dark Souls) took a bit more work (and a costume change), but once I had enough curse resistance to buy myself a few more seconds of wailing away at her, she went down as well.
The third boss was a surprise. I figured Aldia wasn’t finished with me, but I wasn’t expecting to have to fight him. One more costume change, and a lot of fire resist later, I eventually got my fireball dodging down, remained patient, and won.
I’m pretty happy with how the final encounters played out. Super tough to have to do multiple boss fights back to back to back, but each one had only a few mechanics to master, and allowed me to change up my gear (I love when a game does this) to make the most of all my loot hunting.
The end of the game would have been that much sweeter if I wasn’t invaded right in front of the king’s door on my way back to fight Aldia. I got predictably owned and lost 150k souls.
The final act of DS2 was easily the best part of the game. I had a rocky go with this one, and even after 50 hours I still feel the combat to be a bit off, but the story was very strong, as was the world of Drangleic. You could feel FROM stretching their legs with this game, trying new things, experimenting with old mechanics. It was clearly an essential part of their development as a game company, and you can see a lot of DS2 innovations show up in subsequent games.
If I had to do it over again, I think I’d skip the SOTFS edition, and just play the original version. I think a lot of what they did to “remix” the game failed, and added to the feeling of being punishing for punishment’s sake.
Gonna give it a breather and focus on DS3, but I’ll be back to complete the DLC.
Three Souls games down, three to go. What a year.
Having three DLC and playing them back to back is probably a little much.
Glad you enjoyed it. That’s another nice thing about the game. Dark Souls runs out of gas after Anor Londo (at least after the first play through). Dark Souls 2 gets better, though the highs still aren’t that great.
Yeah, I think it was smart to front-load DS2 with the great soul gathering, leaving the back half free to explore the more interesting characters and story bits.
The entire run post Shrine of Amana was wonderful. As were the boss fights.
Not sure how far through DS1 I am (I think maybe slightly more than halfway), but I am already planning on going through this when I’m done. It will be, weirdly, the last of the Souls games I will have played through (although I got up to No Man’s Worf before). My order:
- Demon’s Souls
- Bloodborne
- Dark Souls 3
- Dark Souls
- Dark Souls 2
All in about 7 or 8 months, I imagine, by the time it’s over. I bought Demon’s Souls way back in fall of 2009, and (some of) the others at various times, but it’s taken a decade for them to click with me. The internet most assuredly helps.
Play the version with the DLC. Scholar of the First Sin.
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:
- Dark Souls
- Sekiro
- Dark Souls 2
- Bloodborne
- Dark Souls 3
- 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.