Werewolf Jones
Gold Member
The bosses fight like Bloodborne bosses but you lack the speed and mobility. It's not a well designed game at all. lol.
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Mozzarella
Member
I would say some Nioh 2 levels were pretty good. Like the Golden Castle and that area where you lower water and explore more, forgot its name but some Nioh 2 levels were pretty good.
Nioh 2 has better combat for the player, but the enemy and boss design is inferior to Souls, and the variety is also inferior.
I was getting tired by beating the same Oni over and over in Nioh 2, and all new loot i get is just different colors, its Diablo system.
It's still a good game.
Also its kinda a rip-off from Souls so its not as inspired.
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March Climber
Member
It's because of the choice of color palette/color grading. With some small adjustments it can look just as fantastical as DS 2 and DS 1, but for some reason they decided to use a gray color grading/color tone with every environment in the game, which makes it feel more cohesive but way less fantastical.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
I would advise people to launch ds3 on pc. 4k60 looks fantastic with this game. It is better looking than Elden Ring in some places
March Climber
Member
Console or PC isn't what I'm referring to. Compare a screenshot between Elden Ring and DS 3 and you'll see what I mean. Screenshots of DS 3 look way more washed out in comparison. It was an odd artistic choice they made and I don't know why they did it.
Edit: Maybe this link below can explain better than I can. This user on reddit tried to make DS 3 more colorful with some good examples(a few bad ones) and it makes a big difference.
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FingerBang
Member
I finished all souls games and for the sake of me don't get how people rate 2 higher than 3, let alone put it as the best in the series. I get it's a matter of taste but god did that game frustrate me with the enemy placement that made no sense and the bland environments.
It's not a bad game and the DLCs are better than the main game, but god, no, I'm never playing it again. I only finished it a couple of years ago, even though I started the game twice before. I had to push through to start enjoying it and yeah it was okay, but still dead last on the list
It's not a bad game and the DLCs are better than the main game, but god, no, I'm never playing it again. I only finished it a couple of years ago, even though I started the game twice before. I had to push through to start enjoying it and yeah it was okay, but still dead last on the list
Rodolink
Member
yes is part of it but not the whole reason though.
worldwithpyramids
Member
Those look terrible. This is why I never trust people on the internet talking about HDR, brightness, contrast or color in video games.
March Climber
Member
It's the only thing I could find online of someone trying to make the game more colorful. Yes, it's crude and amateurish, but it helps to get a point across about DS 3's artistic choice.
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
What’s more persistent than an Elden Ring fan? Why, a Dark Souls 2 fan, of course 
DS2 was still good, it just felt so unpolished compared to DS1. Bullshit collisions, roll i-frames tied to a stat, and bad performance on consoles were a problem (also, ‘member equipment deteriorating twice as fast on PC at 60 fps? Oh, I do). Enemies spotting you from a mile away and never losing aggro unless you reached the other end of the galaxy was pretty shit (I will never forget Lost Bastille and Shrine of Amana), as was the sudden obsession with gang attacks and stuff like FIVE fucking gargoyles at once because nobody had trouble with two in the first game, nu-huh.
Still a better game than DS3, though, and a good game in general, if oddly balanced - blunt damage was always good, I did a whole run with the base wooden club. It was incredibly open in its progression, so much that my cousin and I went two completely different routes through the game. Shields were still worth a damn, the variety of builds was amazing, and Majula is possibly the best hub Souls ever had.
DS2 was still good, it just felt so unpolished compared to DS1. Bullshit collisions, roll i-frames tied to a stat, and bad performance on consoles were a problem (also, ‘member equipment deteriorating twice as fast on PC at 60 fps? Oh, I do). Enemies spotting you from a mile away and never losing aggro unless you reached the other end of the galaxy was pretty shit (I will never forget Lost Bastille and Shrine of Amana), as was the sudden obsession with gang attacks and stuff like FIVE fucking gargoyles at once because nobody had trouble with two in the first game, nu-huh.
Still a better game than DS3, though, and a good game in general, if oddly balanced - blunt damage was always good, I did a whole run with the base wooden club. It was incredibly open in its progression, so much that my cousin and I went two completely different routes through the game. Shields were still worth a damn, the variety of builds was amazing, and Majula is possibly the best hub Souls ever had.
Stamps1646
Member
Still one of my favorite Souls games, even with it's map design and ADP feature.
To this day it has one of the best NG+ features I've seen in Challenging/Souls type games.
To this day it has one of the best NG+ features I've seen in Challenging/Souls type games.
Pejo
Member
Dark souls 2 was only bad because of the jarring area/biome transitions, the ADP stat, soul memory, and some of the enemy placements. SotFS fixed some of it, but not all. It had the most build variety and build viability than most other Souls games.
I still personally prefer it to Sekiro or Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3, despite tons of content and improved mechanics, was an unjoyable rollspam fest where they tried to jam Bloodborne into a Souls game.
Elden Ring is probably my favorite game of them all though. Still haven't finished it so I can't comment on ultra late game stuff, but so far it's absolutely exceeded all expectations in all areas.
*edit*
I still personally prefer it to Sekiro or Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3, despite tons of content and improved mechanics, was an unjoyable rollspam fest where they tried to jam Bloodborne into a Souls game.
Elden Ring is probably my favorite game of them all though. Still haven't finished it so I can't comment on ultra late game stuff, but so far it's absolutely exceeded all expectations in all areas.
*edit*
Totally forgot about this. Changing the bosses and adding new stuff for NG+ was great.
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Shifty
Member
Being real, my issue with DS2 is purely down to feel. Something about the act of controlling your character just feels weird and off compared to the rest of the games in the series, but I can't put my finger on it.
I seem to remember the backstab system being fiddled with so you have to connect a startup animation instead of simply position -> R1 -> sorted, but the wrong-ness goes beyond just that.
I don't imagine playing it right after Bloodborne helped at all either.
I seem to remember the backstab system being fiddled with so you have to connect a startup animation instead of simply position -> R1 -> sorted, but the wrong-ness goes beyond just that.
I don't imagine playing it right after Bloodborne helped at all either.
Tomeru
Member
Where?
LectureMaster
Member
While Nioh 2 was my favorite game last year and I genuinely recommend it to people, Nioh 2 has much more differences than commons compared to a souls game. It shines in combat depth and rpg build possibility. Souls games' core experience is exploring the delicately crafted world, which Nioh 2 definitely falls short.Elden Ring players should actually play Nioh 2, the best souls game out there.
LectureMaster
Member
I never feel I enjoyed Dark Souls II less than any others in the franchise. It was a pretty magnificent experience. The beginner forgiveness you could say is less than other installments but if you played other souls game you basically know all the tricks to circumvent a lot of hurdles.
Quezacolt
Member
Not for me. Replayed every souls game, except dark souls 2.
when i first played it, while i didnt think it was an awful game, lots of things bothered me.
Bad bosses, bad hitboxes, awful color pallet for most areas, outside of stuff like Majula, enemies ganking you constantly, Shrine of amana, adaptability, being unfairly hard in many areas.
I dont get the people that say "at least it was better than dark souls 3"
How so?, sure, you can say dark souls 3 was playing it safe, but at least made most things well, it's a better designed game.And really, someone said DS3 wasnt a big jump from DS2 visually... most areas in that game are true works of art.
I can only understand DS2 being someone's favorite if it was their first souls game, or if they just prefer it's pvp. for everything else, the other games in the series are infinitely better.
when i first played it, while i didnt think it was an awful game, lots of things bothered me.
Bad bosses, bad hitboxes, awful color pallet for most areas, outside of stuff like Majula, enemies ganking you constantly, Shrine of amana, adaptability, being unfairly hard in many areas.
I dont get the people that say "at least it was better than dark souls 3"
How so?, sure, you can say dark souls 3 was playing it safe, but at least made most things well, it's a better designed game.And really, someone said DS3 wasnt a big jump from DS2 visually... most areas in that game are true works of art.
I can only understand DS2 being someone's favorite if it was their first souls game, or if they just prefer it's pvp. for everything else, the other games in the series are infinitely better.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
Worst From game. Still fucking love it. DLC is fantastic.
skit_data
Member
The DLC areas are great, some strong Zelda vibes in the Sunken King DLC.
I’m of the opinion that DS2 should’ve been named something else than Dark Souls 2. If it would’ve been launched as a From Software game named something else it would’ve been praised much more by the community.
skit_data
Member
Mostly on twitter, some people streaming it. It might not be a rejuvenation on a grand scale but people making memes about shared aspects of Elden Ring and DS2.
Some people in the community playing Elden Ring saying ”strong DS2 vibes”, myself included.
lyan
Member
The backstabs startup can miss which makes pvp more fun and technical but I can see it makes pve more difficult/frustrating for many.
iorek21
Member
In retrospect, I have no real favorite in the Souls franchise, love them all equally, but some are inferior on a few aspects to each other, and that’s okay.
DS1 has that trashy Bed of Chaos level; DS2 has inferior bosses, but more diversity in levels (that sometimes make no sense at all); DS3 is too linear etc.
But yeah, Elden Ring reminds me a lot of DS2 in its expansiveness, the world feels a little less post Apocalyptic than other games as well.
Unrelated thing: I really wanted ER to have a Sen’s Fortress/ Brume Tower “Puzzle Dungeon”.
DS1 has that trashy Bed of Chaos level; DS2 has inferior bosses, but more diversity in levels (that sometimes make no sense at all); DS3 is too linear etc.
But yeah, Elden Ring reminds me a lot of DS2 in its expansiveness, the world feels a little less post Apocalyptic than other games as well.
Unrelated thing: I really wanted ER to have a Sen’s Fortress/ Brume Tower “Puzzle Dungeon”.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
There's nothing especially wrong with DS3 (well maybe the half baked NG+ cycles and identikit endings) but its unambitious and safe for a FROM game.
DS2 at least tries a whole bunch of ideas to keep things fresh and interesting. Its messy and rough around the edges in places but its always imaginative, and is a true outlier in the series insofar as it finishes way stronger than it starts.
People also need to make allowances for certain areas being specifically intended for particular use-cases. Multiple themed PVP arenas, the co-op focussed extreme areas like Frigid Outskirts, puzzle/strategy heavy areas like Brume Tower and so on.
One thing that's always bugged me is the complaint about multi-boss encounters, so-called "gank squads". As if one on one battles with knight/swordsman-type single enemies should be the totality of DS combat. The game has a bunch of encounters like that, and fights like with Sir Alonne or the Fume Knight are among the best and most challenging in the series. Crowd-control fights are good too though, especially as the basic move-set requires investment into mobility and reactive options, which the game highlights by giving over a whole stat -the infamous ADP- to enhancing flask consumption and i-frames.
DS2 at least tries a whole bunch of ideas to keep things fresh and interesting. Its messy and rough around the edges in places but its always imaginative, and is a true outlier in the series insofar as it finishes way stronger than it starts.
People also need to make allowances for certain areas being specifically intended for particular use-cases. Multiple themed PVP arenas, the co-op focussed extreme areas like Frigid Outskirts, puzzle/strategy heavy areas like Brume Tower and so on.
One thing that's always bugged me is the complaint about multi-boss encounters, so-called "gank squads". As if one on one battles with knight/swordsman-type single enemies should be the totality of DS combat. The game has a bunch of encounters like that, and fights like with Sir Alonne or the Fume Knight are among the best and most challenging in the series. Crowd-control fights are good too though, especially as the basic move-set requires investment into mobility and reactive options, which the game highlights by giving over a whole stat -the infamous ADP- to enhancing flask consumption and i-frames.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I really disliked DS2. Coming from the amazing interconnected world of DS1, DS2 felt like shit, like a bunch of hallways coming out of Majula. Boss design is also shit, being mostly dudes in armor, and the graphical downgrade just before release was the icing on the cake, making some areas of the game look like utter shit.
Oh and fuck adaptability.
Oh and fuck adaptability.
mcjmetroid
Member
But again in terrible levels.
Larxia
Member
But, that's the thing I don't get. I mean I totally agree with you about the level design, I was originally very disappointed that it was like that after Dark Souls 1, but the thing is, only Dark Souls 1 is like that, Dark Souls 3 has exactly the same issue as 2, but with even less variety in its environments, so I don't get why DS3 gets a free pass while DS2 is hated for that, since only Dark Souls 1 (and only the first half of it until anor londo) did the interconnected world really well.
I think Dark Souls 3 is even worse because the main hub isn't even connected to the world at all, you're just using a teleport, and a lot of places need specific scripts to get to, like other teleports, long elevators and other things.
At least DS2 has amazing gameplay, much better than 3, better PVP, more variety.
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mcjmetroid
Member
Bloodborne is my least favourite followed by Dark Souls 3.
I think like some people said the colour grading and environment variety had a LOT to do with it.
TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Dark Souls 3 feels kinda like a journey. Zone progression is linear, but it makes sense, something that doesn't happen in DS2, a game in which you can go from a castle to a volcano just by taking an elevator. Game world is a total Frankestein monster, and it shows. Besides DS3 still has lots of shortcuts and interconection, but it does it inside the same area, instead of doing it between areas.
Why do you think gameplay was better in 2? I thought 3 felt better, a bit too fast for my taste maybe but I guess that's the Bloodborne influence.
RafterXL
Member
You ever do something and have a great time and then get on the internet and realize you weren't supposed to be having fun and that the thing you did was constantly hated on? That's Dark Souls 2.
I loved my entire playthrough. The hate is unwarranted, and I 100% believe that most of it is the snowball effect to the point where people who have never even played it will parrot the negativity.
I loved my entire playthrough. The hate is unwarranted, and I 100% believe that most of it is the snowball effect to the point where people who have never even played it will parrot the negativity.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
I don't like the change... looks like sweetfx galore
Let the game be the game. Just adding more vibrancy is is not really doing it.
btw - are servers for ds2 on pc still dead? are they ever fixing it ?!
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slade
Member
You can play Nioh 2 and then Nioh 1. The second game is a prequel set before the first. It has a few mechanics that make it easier then Nioh 1. Both games are really good though. I spent a few months playing through both last year. These games are the best alternative to From's Souls series and while they are mission based, some of the levels are designed really well.
Larxia
Member
I agree about windmill to hell transition, it's ridiculous and I never understood why they even accepted that, they should have just made some magic portal or whatever if they were too lazy to think about something else, anything else than the elevator lol. But outside of this specific example, I enjoyed the world and locations of DS2 in general.
I prefer DS2 gameplay for multiple reasons, an obvious one being the amount of builds / weapon types you can have, it was really rich and deep, and DS 3 wasn't as good on that point, it removed the twinblades which I really loved in DS2 for example. Another reason is that I think DS2 feels better, it's faster than DS1, but the overal animations, weapons and gameplay were fitting with this faster pace.
In DS3, the game was faster, but it felt like it tried to be closer to DS1 at the same time, so you have a core experience closer to what DS1 was, but with the speed of Bloodborne, which was supposed to be a shield-less gameplay, and the result is something that felt weird and very "floaty" to me, kind of like if you modified the speed in DS1 but if it wasn't originally intended for that.
And a final reason is related to the overall balancing of the builds and also PVP. DS3 is faster, a lot faster than DS1 and maybe even DS2, but it's not just that, all builds no matter their type and weight will still be very fast and control like what used to be light weight / dex builds in the older games, and because of this there's absolutely no advantage, speed wise, to play a dex build in DS3 anymore, because someone with a heavy armor and big 2 handed weapon will be almost as fast as you with your lite clothes and dagger. It made the PVP quite ridiculous, less interesting because you just had to use raw strenght and nothing else. I understand not everyone care about PVP, but I feel this also impacted the single player experience, even if to a lesser degree.
I don't think Dark Souls 3 is a "bad" game, I just think it's the worse Dark Souls (I haven't played bloodborne nor Elden Ring yet, waiting for PC performance improvements on that one). I still finished it and played it for quite a well, but I didn't love my experience with it, and what bother me the most is how this episode is praised while Dark Souls 2 is hated, even if they share some of the things people complain about, I feel like there is some unfair judgement around this.
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remember_spinal
Banned
Seems to be reigniting interest in bloodborne if anything. It’s been trending the last 3 days
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Fully engaged
Banned
Dark souls 1 sold a chunk on switch in Japan when Elden ring released.. so maybe From should think about porting their old games to the New Switch hardware when it comes out?
Reizo Ryuu
Gold Member
This bridge has ruined bridges for me in anything that's remotely soulslike.
Koenigssee
Member
Absolutely.
I'm rolling with my 99 ADP and my trusty old Mace in SotFS right now.
Can't wait to hit the DLCs, only played vanilla version before.
I'm rolling with my 99 ADP and my trusty old Mace in SotFS right now.
Can't wait to hit the DLCs, only played vanilla version before.
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Boots_the_God
Member
Great atmosphere? Lol agree to disagree there. I'll go back to it at some point. Hopefully it's aged well.
FunkMiller
Gold Member
Said it before, say it again, if Sony don't release Bloodborne remastered on Ps5 and PC, they are fucking idiots. The untapped VAST potential for sales on that game is incredible. It's the best FromSoft game aside from Dark Souls. Has millions of sales in it.