Topic: You Died. The Dark Souls Series Discussion Thread

Speaking of DS2, I heard vanilla has better enemy placements than scholar.

@Yousef- aye but Scholar has 60 frames and the three dlc’s packaged in, all of which are better than base game.

@colonelkilgore

Ahhh, true. Maybe the love for vanilla is overblown then? I saw it in some social circles who really disliked Scholar. And since I already beat Scholar and never played vanilla, I couldn’t help but ask around xD.
I still enjoyed scholar though, and the DLC.

@JohnnyShoulder 🤜🤛

@Yousef- I do get your point (& that perspective which is often mooted around various social media groups) but just feel the overall package of ps4 Scholar is the best overall Dark Souls 2 package (as the ps3 SotFS is still 30fps to my knowledge).

If you fancied playing through Dark Souls 2 again though and you’ve already beat SotFS, yeah why not go with the vanilla to taste-the-difference?

Edit. I could be wrong but I think the lighting in the dark sections that require torch light are dramatically improved in ps4 Scholar too.

@Black_Swordsman As for why I went with cleric — I guess it came down to a few guides I looked over and I liked the idea of starting with the heal spell which is like having a couple extra estus flasks early on. The mace was also touted as a stout weapon which could carry you a long way, even the whole game according to some.
I did a few ‘nontraditional leveling pathways’ to get a jump on grinding to get early access to Hexes and cleric was the best route for that. I haven’t done the Covenant of champions yet, but plan to.

@HallowMoonshadow yes, you’re correct - did wander over to Heide’s Tower but am now concentrating on Forrest of Giants. I’m doing a little early grinding to stay a slightly over-leveled as I’ve been through enough of these games now to know my enjoyment is much higher if I make the game a smidge easier, especially in the early hours. For the most part the game isn’t as difficult, or maybe I’m accustomed to the From style now, but I’m sure it will probably get me frustrated in due time. So far the enemies are soft but they like to throw a lot of them at you from all angles. 😅

@HallowMoonshadow Yeah, since I do like to over-level, I’m bummed about the despawning enemies, ironically enough. So I’m planning to try the Covenant of Champions, although not thrilled that it makes the enemies stronger. So we’ll see.

I’ve read a lot about the change in enemy placement and quantity with the SotFS version. Was there fewer ‘gank squad’ encounters in the original?

I bounced off DS2 a few times, but when it eventually clicked I really enjoyed it. Some fantastic bosses, and the DLC's are great.

I am replaying Elden Ring, thinking about getting a second character DLC ready before end-June. My previous character is pure melee/ strength, thinking of going for dex/faith for this one. I managed to beat Margit at RL1 with no summons or ashes, which I was pleased with. Won't disclose how many attempts that took though

@HallowMoonshadow Sounds like when I tried Dark Souls 1 back on PS3 and just gave up after a few hours. Going back to it years later through the remastered PS4 edition, I made it past the area I got stuck on without much issue and of course went on to love the game.

Weird how these games are often all about timing; as in time period of one’s life as to whether they stick.

@Black_Swordsman Good to see you bested Old Hero and Storm King. Some really unique bosses exist in Demon’s Souls. Some of them are a bit gimmicky, but I really respect FromSoft for the effort. Especially since it was a completely new idea back then. They were throwing a lot of things up at the wall to see what would stick. 😄

@Th3solution Yeah, thank you, old friend. I am more than half-way done with the game now. Just Tower of Latria and Valley of Defilement to do now. I am a bit intimidated by the Tower of Latria, which is where I am now.

Edit: I changed my mind actually, about the order I would tackle the worlds/bosses in, Tower of Latria just seems to be more of a natural fit before Valley of Defilement, the 'Tower' appears to be quite challenging though, so I might hit a roadblock there, even with my op build!

How is your Dark Souls II playthrough coming together?

@Black_Swordsman Ah, yes - the Tower of Latria. I have many recurrent nightmares about that place. 😂

Seriously, I recall it being really tough. I believe that’s where you run into those enemies with squid faces that can use magic on you and if you get too close to them they paralyze you and then leech onto you and suck your health. I hated those guys. 😅

And the general arrangement of the map there is tough to navigate with confusing corridors that intersect and multiple floors that all look the same. Not mention the whole setting is just so creepy. And then there’s a lot of backtracking through it to go back for that mage NPC if you want to save him.

The Fool’s Idol was pretty hard as well. At least for me, I think I died 4-5 times to her before finally coming out victorious. As I recall I had to try and use the environment to shield against a lot of the magic attacks. Also, there’s a critical NPC involved in the level that will be key to success over the boss. (Not saying more to avoid spoilers). Honestly, it’s a level that almost requires using some kind of guide or walkthrough assistance to keep from driving you insane.

So yeah — not my favorite level, that. 😅

As for my DS2 playthrough, not much new to report. I’ve just had limited time so I spent it doing some grinding in Forest of Giants. I’ve got too many real life quests this week. Some of which are almost as annoying as the Tower of Latria! 😜

@HallowMoonshadow Interesting. DS2 came out in a time period when I was taking a break from gaming. Both Dark Souls sequels and the Scholar version of 2 all released unnoticed by me during that time. I’ve shared my experience on here before I think, but I picked up the original PS3 Dark Souls on a whim when I asked the GameStop employee for recommendations for another game like Skyrim. I had just poured a ton of time into Bethesda’s grand opus and was hungry for another fantasy based RPG with dragons, mythical creatures, and magic. He pointed me toward Dark Souls! 😂 Definitely not the same thing as Skyrim! In his defense, he did warn me that it was difficult and was really open ended without much guidance. But still, it was not what I really expected at the time so I didn’t really stick with it. (I then found a more suitable RPG to sate my appetite in Dragon’s Dogma)

Anyways, for some reason I fell in and out of gaming for a little while during the late PS3 and early PS4 era, and when I did play, I was more into TLoU, BioShock, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, Infamous, etc rather than the fantasy genre.

Ah, the memories…

Anyways, I’ve said this many times as well, but I really think that the only reason I’ve become a Soulsborne fan is because of the access to assistance and the copious guides and aids online nowadays. When I played Dark Souls for the first time back on PS3 I was just so easily confused and now there’s plenty of resources at my fingertips if I’m need help figuring out where to go or how to proceed. Hats off to people (like yourself I assume) who played Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls without access to YouTube or Fextralife. 😄

@Th3solution Yeah, it is definitely tough, with the Thief Ring and Photo Mode at my disposal I am playing this level more like a stealth game, I think that that is encouraged within World 3, again, like you said, I can see a bit of the early experimentation of the FromSoft designers that you spoke of, surfacing ,and I am gingerly making progress, got a couple of sets of keys so far and have killed a few Mind Flayers, through the use of stealth attacks, for the most part. 🤣 And, yeah, it has slowed me down a bit, compared to the way I was tearing through the game before.

Best of luck on your real-life quests and let me know how it goes when you start toppling bosses in the game.

@Black_Swordsman (continued thoughts from the other thread) — Yeah, the fire longsword is supposed to be very effective for early and mid-game in Dark Souls 2. Apparently it isn’t enough to carry you through the whole game, so I still am targeting a rapier type build with my Hex casting for when I want long-range combat. I’m trying to decide between the Estoc and the standard Rapier though. I need to do a little more research. The standard rapier seems to get most of the love online, but the estoc has better reach and I think it has a swipe attack to supplement its poking attacks.

But I’m just going to experiment around a little with the fire longsword in the early game, as well as my mace. I started with a specific build in mind but now I’m just all over the place with my ideas. I want to do and try everything. 😅

But to answer your question - Overall the game has been great, even compared to its predecessors. In my opinion it’s easier so far than DeS and DS1. The immediate access to quick travel is partly the reason. It makes it so easy to just run back and forth to spend souls in Majula. They make up for it with spamming hoards of goons at you, but they go down easily and I’ve been able to tactically kite and bottleneck most of the groups with a little planning ahead of time. And having the Dark Orb Hex to keep my distance when I want has been nice. I do feel like there is a certain something missing from the game compared to the other From games, but I might be just imagining that since I know Miyazaki wasn’t as involved.

@Th3solution glad to hear you’re enjoying Dark Souls 2 buddy… not least as I was one of the guys pushing you to play it and not simply jump straight to Dark Souls 3. On the whole I would agree with the general consensus of it being the weakest of the From souls-likes… but it’s up against some pretty special competition to be fair and is still pretty great in its own way.

Looking forward to reading more as you progress further.

@colonelkilgore It is imo the weakest From game but still a good game especially most of the dlc (that Silent hill area can get stuffed though).
My main problem was that Miyazaki games taught you to have patience and observe whereas Dark Souls 2 seemed to rely on gank squads. Too many boss arenas result in you just legging in through gank squads in order to repeat the boss fight.
That isn't to mention the insane tracking that bosses have, too many oversized humans wielding big weapons that can turn on a dime. Also pretty boring bosses (as I say too many armoured humans), I still remember the feeling of entering the tower knight and seeing what a amazing spectacle it was, very few instances of that in Dark Souls 2 and the main one was spoiled in the pre release videos.

Still I'm glad people are enjoying it, I did honestly.

@CaptD all fair assessments buddy… it sure ain’t perfect by any means but I enjoyed it a helluva lot more than I thought I would having listened to the online shade.

@Th3solution Mentioning you here because I just got done with Old Monk and you were interested in hearing about how I fared against the boss. I cheesed matters a bit by playing offline, so he summoned the easy-to-defeat NPC which uses beast claws and magic, took a few hits with the Curse Weapon-imbued Dragon Bone Smasher+2 to down him. How did you fare against the boss yourself?

Does Demons count? Currently doing the remake platinum and I adore it . 12/10

@Mikey856 hell yeah it counts… it started this gansta-****!