Dark Souls 2: Comparing it to DS1

Screw roman numbers by the way, they're annoying.

So for almost three months straight, I've been playing Dark Souls 2, three years late to the party.  We already know what this series is known for: DS is the hardest game ever made, praise the Sun, Crash Bandicoot's the lost link, my pride is small, yeah we've heard it already.  So, this isn't going to be a review, but rather I want to discuss the differences between Dark Souls 1 and its sequel here.

The first thing that has surprised me was the health system, the trusty Estus Flask was given to me with only an ounce of Sunny D left, the Emerald Herald must've drank it all.  Instead of using Humanity, which is gone now, to burn bonfires to increase uses by 5 up to 20, you have to find Flask Shards to give to the Herald, so it's an incentive to look around every crevices, but even then you can only have little more than a maximum of 10 uses, and compared to the first game, a fully buffed flask doesn't heal as much anymore.  As an alternative, you'll be relying more on Lifegems, found onto the many Hollows of Drangleic.  Furthermore, you remember how when you drank your Estus in DS1, you regained life in about a flash?  Well here, instead of that, life slowly refills in a set amount; this means that while you may get to drink it, a boss could very well just charge and kill you even seconds after you drank it, since your life didn't refilled fast enough.  So, this is actually an evolution from the first game, refilling health is even more harsh than before, and you have to be even more alert to the enemies' attack patterns to not die like a fool, I liked that.

Along this are other, smaller changes.  Remember as well durability, that thing that forced you to repair your armor and weapons on a few occasions?  This again has been heavily changed, weapons now only have a durability of around 40 or so, and the more precious rings are even lower than that.  So, stuff may break more often now, forcing you to take a different approach regarding your equipment.  There's also the new Power Stance, where you can use the weapons on both hands at the same time to increase further your damage output, more ring slots for more customization, and the covenants has some very interesting ideas like one is a dungeon master type of thing.

The layout of the world has been heavily changed; before, most of the environments were interconnected, but DS2 has more straight paths, all with their own sets of levels and lunatic bosses of course.  I prefered the first game's world layout since it encouraged finding hidden paths, I was surprised by how I came about to the back entrance of Blighttown, but DS2's isn't all that bad either, if anything there are still secrets to uncover, such as Darkdiver Grandahl's true purpose.

So yeah, these changes did pleased me, it made DS2 has its own distinct experience instead of being almost too similar to the first game, but still not too different, this is how you should make a sequel.

Sadly though, there were a few things that bothered me, that kept me from thinking I was having as much of a great as I did back in 2013; the original game blew me away because of its high difficulty that relied on swift gameplay, environments that, upon first glance, all made me say "wow", and crazed bestiary.  So, my expectations were obviously high, so this is kind of where Dark Souls 2 maybe didn't failed, but suffers.

The main thing that bothered me were the aesthetics, the game isn't generally ugly, but the environments just feel bland.  In comparison, DS1's Undead Burg is riddled with cramped houses, and when you go to the cemetary in Firelink Shrine, you can see another village down the clift; that game is just so full of details, you could tell there's a lot of life in this kingdom, or at least were.  In DS2 though, in the first fortress, I noticed just how bland the interiors were, there were little to no furniture, and the environments' backgrounds aren't as detailed, sometimes it's just plain mountains or even grey clifts.  Upon reaching the Gutter, you're greeted with... darkness; the point is to light all the sconces so to find your way and not backtrack in the wooden maze, but the first impression was very barebone I must say, and a lot of the areas kind of give that impression as well.  There are still areas that are impressive, for example No-Man's Wharf has a lot of houses with tables, bookcases, and resting Varangians inside, this is what I meant by having life in the world.  It's just that, in general, DS2 didn't impressed me as often as the previous game, there were fewer moments where I said "wow".

The other problem I have is the difficulty, it's been made much easier.  Now, another change that was made was the rolling, which not only you could mid-roll unless you go over 70% of your equip load, but I feel the invincibility frames are a bit more generous this time around.  I don't think this is a detriment to the game though, it did thought me to effectively roll, as before I was just blocking with a fat shield, and I still had to dodge in the proper direction in risk of diving into the back end of an enemy's swing.  I could say rolling was made better in this game.

No, what I meant by the game being easier is that the healing is too generous, the level design is kind of dull at times, and the bosses must've gotten too many hits to the head from the many visitors of Drangleic.  As I've said, you'll be relying on Lifegems when Estus uses run low, but a merchant will be selling these for dirt cheap, and you still find them frequently.  DS1 had Humanities and miracles which also healed, but your character had to stay glued to the ground for quite a while to use these means, which was unlikely to happen during bosses, but using the Lifegems are quick, and you can still move around a bit.  Furthermore, not only are there more types of healing items with other uses such as Crimson Waters, but bonfires are more frequent or at least less spread apart, so there are less areas that are long and arduous, thus less tense.

The level design has suffered quite a lot; what I liked about the first game was how cramped everything was, there was little to no useless space, multiple paths below and above, thus more opportunities for enemies to ambush you in various ways.  In DS2 however, it seems they've opted for more open and flatter environments; I understand that you're often outside, but it removes quite a lot from the challenge when you can circle freely around most enemies.

As for the bosses, as I've said they're kind of dumb this time around, for example the Freja fires an heavily telegraphed laser attack, always starting from its right, so you simply have to run to its left.  The Flexile Sentry, which is an anthromorphic lizard with two torsos looking at opposite ends, you'd think that it'd be unlikely to slip by its other side as they'd attack at the same time, but not at all, only one of the torsos attack at a time, so you can easily trigger one of the sides and attack its other end.  The Lost Sinner, which is one that has a Great Soul, is just a larger humanoid with a big sword, nothing too special safe from that you could light the room to lock on her better as she jumps.  Meh.

There's also the problem that the bestiary is not as interesting as before, you fight less demons, and more humanoids with generally bland armor.  The bosses also suffer, given there are many more than there were in DS1, but there wasn't as many things as cool as, say, the Gaping Dragon or even the memorable duo Ornstein & Smough with their sick armor sets.

Still though, is Dark Souls 2 a bad game?  No, not at all.  I would be lying if I'd say I wasn't the least bit disappointed, but I've never played any other games like this series; maybe it's just me, but games where you play as knights, like Skyrim which I've played a month prior, felt like I was controlling a brick, it's no fun.  DS2 on the other hand still has very fluid gameplay, and even if it's generally easier, it's never unbearably slow, no that would be the absolute worst.  I like this series because you need good reflexes to counterattack with the right timing, and it's an interesting world to be immersed in.

DS2's narrative doesn't directly take upon the first game, but rather there are obscure references to it, such as "people say that the name Havel is that of a kingdom ruined by a barbaric war", I like that, it almost makes playing the two games in backward order interesting.  Like the first game, most of the lore lies in item descriptions, which are full of details and you have to put the pieces together, this is such a fun narrative that doesn't impede on the gameplay, I've seen no other games do that.

I may have issues with the gameplay, but not only is it at least a distinct experience from the first game, but it still has its hard moments, such as the Smelter Demon boss, and especially in the DLCs which are surprisingly good, better than the best the vanilla game offers.

2017/08/22 Edit: Recomposed some of my points better, and gotta remember that the mobile's view with the images can be weird.