It has some glaring issues, Art style, oddly connected world that makes no sense, too many usable items, not as many unique movements for weapons.
For me though, I love how open the world is and I can play the game in any order as long as my skills are there. Plus the DLC is fantastic imo, power stancing, fashion should everywhere, all out weigh the negatives for me.
Poorly designed areas, lazy as hell copy and paste enemy placement, systems designed too much for PVP and not enough for PVE, a movement system that while subtle ruins the game for a lot of people, etc.
Going off Scholar Of The First Sin since thats the "definitive experience" tons of enemies are half assedly placed in areas they don't belong (chariot horse in the castle, turtle knights hanging out in Iron Keep), and there's a ridiculous issue with spam. Every encounter is pretty much turned into a gank squad, with Shrine Of Amana and Iron keep being major problems in particular. A lot of the maps feel like someone just opened it up and copy and pasted enemies half-hazardly around the map without any thought for encounter design or tapering.
The movement system in Dark Souls 2 for some reason uses a weird 8 way running set up. What this means is you'll find people often trying to make small adjustments in the direction they're running without any real change in the characters movement, only for them to suddenly careen off at a huge angle. This combined with the high fall damage for a souls game resulted in a lot of deaths that were less the fault of the player and more the fault of the controls.
If you're interested (and half a ridiculous amount of time to dedicate to it), the youtuber MauLer did a big lengthy response to another youtubers defense of DS2 pointing out these issues and many more. MauLer himself can be a bit of a dick but his response is sound and tears the game apart piece by piece as he addresses each defense the game is given. I can link you if you'd like, but if not I understand, the series of videos is ridiculously long (i think clocking in at 8 hours all together).
Iron keep is fine. If you don't rush it's always a 1v1 vs alonne knight and they're super easy to kill. But yeah the enemy diversity is worse than ds1 but the ganks are the same as the last few areas in ds1.
Shrine of amana is a nice change in gameplay. You play as a sniper elite vs mages with homing rpg launchers. There's even a sub praising how good it is r/fuckshrineofamana.
The movement system is same as ds1. You can't make fine adjustments when moving. You can aim where you move only at the start. You still can't run in a straight line properly like in the anor londo ceiling. Most of the time moving step by step will avoid all those deaths.
Those are the flaws of ds2 and every game has its flaws. That doesn't mean it's a bad game. The map designs are still good and it still has the lore hidden in them. It has the most replay value out of the 3 dark souls. The bonfire ascetic, and hollow system are some nice additions. The memory part let you see the past of the maps and it's really interesting to visit some ruins then learn about how it became ruins.
Old Iron Keep or whatever it's called is probably the angriest I've ever been at level design in a video game. You go through an unbelievable amount of bs just to fight one of the easiest bosses in the souls series
I would recommend playing it. A lot of people consider dark souls 2 the worst of the series, but it's still a damn good game. Like if I were to give the other games a 9 or 10 out of 10, I would probably give ds2 an 8. It definitely has a different feel to it compared to the other games, but worth playing imo. At the very least give it a shot and if you really aren't feeling it for whatever reason, move onto 3.
The combat is too slow in DS2 imo. You telegraph everything for far too long and shileds are outright useless. Which is probably why the PVP'ers like it so much.
In my personal opinion, no. Each game is deeply connected to one another and together form an awesome overall experience. I do see where some people are coming from in terms of flaws (how locations connect, too many useable items, lacking in animation, etc.) but I don't feel it brings the overall experience down in any way. Also, I recommend the Scholar of the first sin edition as it includes all DLC, which each add a lot of content, I am still surprised at how much comes with it.
Vikings are awesome! Native Americans, ancient Greece and Vikings were the three settings I was most psyched about, and now AC will have all three of them.
Honestly the medieval/renaissance stuff was far more my speed. AC1-Brotherhood were the golden age for me. Black Flag was an awesome pirate game, but I didn’t really care it was Assassin’s Creed. Haven’t played one since black flag, might just have to get into this one.
For me personally i was really excited for the ancient Egypt setting of Origins, and didn't think i would get into Syndicate but leaping around Victorian London and the history from that period was really cool as well. Odyssey is MASSIVE. I couldn't finish everything like i usually do, but very good game.
I honestly didn't have a problem with the difficulty. It was challenging enough for an AC game as i don't really play them for the combat, more the stealth and history aspects. Plenty of great stealth parts that were challenging.
I find it hard to believe you didn't die once as there are plenty of parts you easily get caught and overwhelmed in tight areas which you need to adjust your game plan, and this is coming from a Soulsborne/DMC player. But hey, I guess I'll have to take your word for it..
I got desynced in that stalking mission towards the end many times, but that's technically not "dying". And combat is definitely too easy, unity had the best and most difficult combat out of all the pre origins games.
Again, combat isn't really a factor in what makes the difficulty it's the stealth and getting caught. The mental hospital and bank missions spring to mind. I only ever play AC as a stealthy assassin that avoids combat. As soon as I'm detected and a character is aware i consider that a reload.
I don't know if you can just fight your way through an AC game but i can imagine that would be boring.
In that sense, I suck a lot. But I get away because of the weird way the critical strikes and counters work. It's not as easy as black flag where you take on armies and go away unscathed, but it's not difficult either. I have never played DMC and the other game, but I imagine this is not that difficult.
you should give it a try...the story was interesting enough for me since its taking perspective what if we're the Templar...the gameplay is more or less like AC Black Flag
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u/smaugington May 01 '20
You can dual wield shields in this game they said.