Don't Give Up, Skeleton!

"Dark Souls 2 is underrated" is overrated. Do not argue with me on this.

Released in 2014, the initial reception was negative on several fronts. Seasoned Souls fans disliked the sequel's adoption of themes and motifs from the original without fully understanding why they were there in the first place. New players came face to face with the now heavily-marketed "prepare to die" tagline that was baked into the game design. And games journalists were, as expected, unbearably annoying for all the wrong reasons.

More concerning was the drift in area design, enemy placement, and player animations, all crafted to put the player in compromising positions without intuitive explanation. Stepping forward in most areas provoked divebombs and ambushes to an exhausting amount. Hiding i-frames behind the Adaptability stat was unforgiveable and deserves its own article that I couldn't be arsed doing.

Boss design was, for the most part, uninspired and unrewarding. Dude With Sword fights began with Dark Souls 2, and we've never recovered from it since. The soundtrack for these fights was noticeably poorer as well. Diehard DS2 fans - please tell me what the Flexile Sentry battle theme sounds like. I'll wait.

The plot, for the most part, simply didn't exist. You have traveled to Drangleic to undo your curse, sure. But why are you following Shanalotte's suggestion to topple the king and become the new monarch? It's never elaborated on. The opening cinematic suggests that your character stumbles into this train of events "without really knowing why". Well I sure would fucking like to.

NPC plotlines are even worse. "Why did I come to this place? Ehhhghhhghghghghgh..... sure you know yourself." There you go, saved you some time, no need to watch VaatiVidya^[1].

The pre-release demo of the game promised lighting and shadows that the PS3 and Xbox360 couldn't handle. So the downgrade for the release version was catastrophic. Entire areas had copy-paste brightened textures on the walls, and areas that relied on dark lighting to provoke a challenge, simply didn't.

So: why does it have the highest amount of play hours of any EldenShadowSoulsBorne title I own?

The three DLCs, panned before release for pushing the Souls franchise into the Season Pass craze, were broadly very good. Significantly better boss fights, thoroughly designed areas, and a story arcing across all three entries that expanded and improved on the original game's attempts.

As time passed, the issue with the original game's directorship became clear. Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura were both listed as directors for development of the base game. It's unknown whether one held authority over the other, but it's known that the game stumbled through development, up to its release window, with nothing resembling a level of solid fundamental structure, never mind polish. Absolutely dire design like the Shrine of Winter's knee-high roadblock were symptoms of catastrophic miscommunication and disjointed level design.

What's most interesting is that, after release, Shibuya was turfed out, never to be seen again as a director at FromSoftware or any other company. Tanimura stayed on, and was tasked with directing the three well-received DLCs. His later work on Dark Souls 3, and Elden Ring+DLC, neither of which was planned before 2's release, strongly suggests that Shibuya was the problem.

The slightly-more-polished version of DS2 (Scholar of the First Sin), melded the base game into the DLCs, and attempted to correct some of the rot. Some aspects, like the disjointed level design, was unfixable without producing an entirely new game. But, with the execption of Iron Keep^[2], areas and mechanics were tidied up and made more intuitive. This version of Dark Souls 2 is considered the quintissential version, and nobody dares touch the release-version base game apart from ironic YouTube videos.

There is wonderful variety in weapons and armour. While the game has cycled through questionable balance patches^[3], the diversity of player choice in playstyle is commendable. There's some poor weapons, and joke weapons, but you can take an absurd amount of weapon classes and make them work. Powerstancing weapons - wielding two same-class weapons simultaneously with a heftier stat requirement - was a wild approach and broadly loved by fans. PvP was very healthy and lasted for many years.

I think this is the main reason why I keep coming back. It's stupendously easy to pick up this game and try something stupid with it. Plus it's the best Souls games in terms of game-breaking exploits that are comparatively easy to pull off. I always enjoy parrywalking in front of the unenlightened.

I will always enjoy complaining about this game. While playing it, mostly.