Dark Souls 2 Critique

[@TheGraveyarder]

"upon arrival, we go into a shed and more old ladies laugh at us" always gets me

[@TyrellCorp2019]

Pretty sad that we got that after the opening cinematic followed up by Oscar in the original. I seriously felt exactly what he said - as if it was devs just laughing at me because of how frustrating and cheap they made this game compared to the first.

[@isaiah2261]

Now if only someone on KZbin could make a video critiquing your critique so that a different KZbinr could critique their critique of you in a seven hour long series...

[@lucebelmont]

It's actually 10 hours long.

[@OQIF87NREU]

Luce Belmont I’ve now watched this and hbomber’s but I could not fucking handle how utterly excruciating it was to try to listen to the last guy (Mauler?) I spent maybe 15 minutes before realizing it was hopeless

[@d.c.beckendorff1323]

MauLer’s response to HBomberguy is, despite being 9 hours, one of the best and most in-depth commentaries I’ve seen on any game. People constantly shit on it for being long, but if you actually watch more than five minutes of it you’ll realise it’s long because he goes through HBomb’s every point and explores using evidence. It takes ages to be that thorough. Honestly that response is very impressive, probably the best thing MauLer has made and I really respect him for taking the time. Sadly, HBomb decided to be immature and kind of cowardly about it, desperately trying to make sure his fans didn’t take it seriously on Twitter. Sorry mate, your tactics didn’t work for all of us. He did this, despite claiming people making criticisms of him is a ‘good’ thing (he says this in his Bethesda video). I’ve never seen HBomb take criticism well. I used to be a big fan of him but this is one of a few things that’s slowly turned me away from the guy.

[@sunson9522]

@@OQIF87NREU I could barely stand Hbomber smugness through that video, watching Mauler was 10x more bearable and entertaining.

[@CTOOFBOOGLE]

D.C. Beckendorff if something Mauler made is the best anything you’ve ever heard I weep for you lmao

[@glaive120]

"dark souls allowed you to wander into the catacombs or new londor at the start, and trusted you were smart enough to go somewhere else instead" lol brings back memories.

[@dickheadrecs]

glaive120 i killed pinwheel and ingward before finding the burg on my first playthrough smh

[@justanotherblackwhitemicke7817]

When I arrived at Tomb of Giants the first time, it was a "fuck no"

[@dickheadrecs]

Just another black & white mickey Mouse yeah i lost all my souls from pinwheel instantly and rage quit for a few days haha

[@Zanemob]

@@dickheadrecs *Obligitory Git Gud*

[@Violaphobia]

Hopefully you did that once they patched the skeletons to give you souls, otherwise I'm so sorry dude

[@BremerBurschenschaft]

Crestfallen Warrior is a From Software Meme. They put him in every game since King's Field. So What you perceive as Crestfallen The Second is actually Crestfallen The Sixth

[@jellydamgood]

Is that why he's so... crestfallen?

[@SorowFame]

Is Hawkwood Crestfallen the Seventh?

[@darknessml6145]

@@SorowFame I mean

[@giannieditsvideos]

Who would this character be in Bloodborne?

[@justjester5682]

@@giannieditsvideos id say its old hunter yamamura from the dlc but i think he was just a easter egg for sekiro

[@cynicalbrit]

Very nicely put together critique.

[@AttiMatter]

Rest easy, Biscuit

[@tonybamanabonitomatopowers6057]

F

[@Emeraldiouss]

I've never heard of the dude (just checked him up), but it's always sad to see someone go so early.

[@StupidMAN-fh8ch]

RIP

[@elcour]

F

[@jackalma7263]

"King Vendrick should have just defended his kingdom by building more doorways" dead

[@carlosreptile]

actually undead

[@doctorquack-pot4214]

So true....but...Giants exist. I don’t think doors will be too great...realistically at least. Dark souls wise though; yeah.

[@whatsupbossanova]

Noroi *hollow*

[@alexanderstilianov]

*YOU DIED*

[@gregorymifsud5389]

i have humanity if you want

[@Cleve_Crudgington]

Bearer, seek, seek, lest

[@dahkteromar749]

SO true :D

[@configured4357]

More like: Be-se-se-le

[@doctorhunter5553]

Really love that chanting from the nexus keeper while emerald herald just not enough character development

[@leofera1137]

Flashbacks of emerald waifu..

[@m2bexe.calibur468]

@@dahkteromar749 what are you guys talking about?

[@Xune2000]

The Emerald Herald's speech every time you want to level up sheds new light on why Anastasia's tongue was cut out in DS1. Bear, seek, seek, lest...

[@slamislife74]

@Linda Niemkiewicz All the NPCs in DS1, 2, and 3 repeat themselves verbatim over and over once they run out of dialogue, with few exceptions in specific cases. That should be reworked

[@Iankameel]

Shaffan Mustafa a journal in the inventory would sort that issue out. Essentially just for npc dialogue. Then the npcs could say everything once and then stop.

[@RitsuCurisu]

"Shut the fuck up! Do you know what shut the fuck up mean?!"

[@igugigu4952]

Honestly in DS3 firekeeper talks even more.

[@christopherrapczynski204]

@Linda Niemkiewicz even better, deprecate the odds of even hearing dialogue depending on what's been cycles. maybe do it by having an array of ten random numbers, but once a number is chosen it can't be chosen again. So if there's 5 lines and 0 is no dialogue(this number can be repeated), it'd go something like 3, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 4, 0, 5, 0, and there it counts up to ten. After this, 5 is added to the max array size random number size, so it'd do it again but up to fifteen, and so on.

[@Pan_Z]

I think it was explained why Earthen Peak transitions to Iron Keep. I believe that was Willy Wonka's elevator the player stepped into

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Pan Z or or or maybe it's cuz of the time breaking and reality breaking story

[@Pan_Z]

Lemmings-Gaming or maybe it's because the developers just didn't give a shit

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Pan Z dude if they didn't give a shit they would have stop I mean this game almost went into development hell so chill and if the story explains a shit it's cool and my real problem with this game is that they put agility which controls how ur character moves behind a Stat screen and later on the game like dranlake castle too much enemies for those of us who don't use super ultra great swords that hit everything in its path and also if the story explains why it's like that it's okay

[@Pan_Z]

What the fucking fuck?

[@Nutt_lemmings]

Pan Z I was giving multiple opinions in one comment

[@DrMcFly28]

They should make an ultimate DLC for DS2 where you would finally get to fight that pile of rubble...

[@TheKarui]

idk why this made me lol so much

[@phuturephunk]

With an improperly sized hitbox that's half as wide as the screen even though the sword itself will look like a thin piece of concrete veneer that's 6 inches wide.

[@Pan_Z]

But then a second pile of rubble comes

[@HonsHon]

20 Large Humanoids weilding swords with hitboxes that are 20 miles wide and long. You need to use a shield, and you can only attack once every five minutes.

[@looinrims]

Still more consumer friendly than Scholar of the First Sin

[@skele-eleton]

Being in the year 2020 and hearing that "Dark Souls 2 released recently" made me feel old.

[@desupocalypse]

Demon's Souls was 11 years ago.

[@TheMuslimMan1337]

Man that was released 6 years ago. I'm turning hollow as we spea....

[@MangyPL]

Elden Ring will be released 10 years from now.

[@xylonus]

sometimes i got to feel old even though its been couple months

[@Iristhornz]

hearing the tales of dark souls 2 in the post apocalyptic world of 2050 made me feel old.

[@DivineBanana]

Suspension of disbelief already hit me at majula when the blacksmith gave up on life because his tools were locked in a run down building. I walked over 3 steps and there's a massive gaping window that either he or I could easily climb through...

[@cobaltundead]

I can only imagine your reaction when you found out how the road to the castle was blocked off I almost hollowed when I found out

[@DivyeshVartha]

and when you go to him, he says "bring me that key, chop chop" What is this, a video game designed for kids? why is he confident that this random person will be the one to bring him the key, does he know that we're the main character? Its these little things that degrade the overall experience

[@gravitydragon1904]

If I have to guess, they were probably trying to be humorous with that one.

[@fatusopp4739]

@@cobaltundead i didnt go down the path to drangleic and i instead stood in that room trying to find out how to be teleported since i genuinely thought there couldnt be any way that a bunch of rocks would be the thing blocking me from this games anor londo equivalent, so i didnt think drangleic was down there.

[@Zycyzyx]

The way they keep you from getting back to the first bonfire in the Lost Bastille is really gratingly stupid too.

[@Big-Papa-Smurf]

In dark souls 2 the enemies look like theyre having more fun than you

[@bimmer8602]

Lmfao ur lion avatar. When you don't have a tooth pick so you use your tongue.

[@alexadastra3925]

this comment is GOLD

[@jjminor]

I don’t know about you, but I sure as heck had more fun than in DS1 or bloodborne.

[@slugofborg6532]

You've got to wonder what they were thinking when they mapped the area containing the Shrine of Winter. I get the impression the Shrine of Winter would have worked a lot better as something along the lines of a checkpoint in the road, baring Castle Drangleic from the common people. That simple, it would at least somewhat rationalize why the player needs such an enormous amount of souls to pass, "The King's Magic Door says you're not worthy of entering Castle Drangleic, sorry. Come back when you have a stronger soul." ... But who in god's name made the genius decision to make the main road bared off by some easily surmountable rubble, and have the Shrine of Winter put on an *off path* instead? Speaking frankly, it's about 3 different dimensions of design ineptitude. If that archway hadn't collapse, or the player character arrived before it did so, the entire first half of the game leading up to that point would have been rendered *perfectly redundant.* Taking into account a world which existed before the arch collapsed, why is there a Shrine on a hill near the road to the King's castle that opens only to those who have a powerful soul? Looking back to the game at launch, before it became the warp point to Frozen Elleum Loyce, there was nothing precious hidden therein, and furthermore, if there ever was, why would a similar magic door not exist on the *other side* of the gazebo? In a hypothetical situation in which there might in fact something worth hiding to the extent you'd place a door there that only opens to one with the strength of 1,000,000 souls OR the 4 souls of the Ancient Lords, why wouldn't you also put a similar door *on the other side?* As opposed to an *open arch?* Not even a one way door that you could only open if you were on the inside? And it only adds insult to injury when you consider the technical implications that somebody had to map all of this, to create both the initial ruined arch, the path snaking up through the hills, and the Shrine of Winter, and not have either idea pass through their heads; that not only would it not make a lick of sense in the context of the game, but also that it would save a lot of development time to simply remove the redundant path and road block and move the Shrine to the base of the hill where *it* could serve the role of the roadblock.

[@ebinsprolo7844]

+Slug of Borg They've said in the designworks interview that most of the assets of the game were developed when they had other ideas in mind and they had to re-arrange everything because Namco pressured them.

[@LeSoing]

It seems someone forgot about "Sealed by the Lord's Power"

[@CasperDar]

I really want to know how the design meeting went for the Black Gulch. ''So after this area with these poison statues littered about we need a sweet area to lead up to the bossfight, anyone have any ideas?'' ''How about we take those statues and put about 3 million of them all over the fucking place.'' ''Amazing idea, add in some phantom spawn points, enemies that wall off your path and make some of those statues unreachable and it'll be perfect! Oh look at the clock! We've been working on this for about 5 minutes now, time to call it a day!''

[@dotanuki3371]

+Casper Dar Agreed. I'd still take it over New Londo Ghosthouse any day and every day.

[@InfernalMonsoon]

"And when the player destroys them, as soon as they die let's make all of them respawn!!" "Yes!! That's the perfect fair challenge!" Fuck this game.

[@silverzdk]

+Casper Dar Yeah stopped playing at that point, i was like fuck it, and went onto completing 1 again

[@monkiemonA]

+Casper Dar i just ran past it all, it's pretty easy once you know the path and use lifegems accordingly

[@Vekette]

+Reathonax X If I'm having to run through an area because the area is just shit, then that's not a good sign for the rest of the game.

[@Gabrov_]

Me: what brightness do you play at? Matthewmatosis: no

[@ultragamer4465]

Lives on the sun

[@JayTohab]

He really wanted the torch thing to work, didn’t he?

[@TruthAndReconciliation]

Tohab worked in bloodborne, did not in dark souls 2. Brightness aside

[@leonthesleepy]

@RayneMoonfire You mean for bloodborne or dark souls 2?

[@leonthesleepy]

@RayneMoonfire HAHHAHAH true true. DS2 devs prob back tracked on the torch mechanics hard at the last min

[@harrydrake4173]

Without getting too hung up on the visuals, it's amazing how cheap DSII looks compared to Demons & DS1. I know it's probably a lighting issue, but the textures are so bland and washed-out.

[@GamerLord821]

it's not only the lighting that is responsible for this. It's poorly textured, you can literally tell when textures are repeating themselves. Othes souls games had that too but only in areas you're not supposed to be in and so rarely that it's easy to miss. In DaS2 it just jumps straight into your Eyes in almost every level. Also there is less stuff lying around. Less furniture to break, less rubble. Some Rooms even are completely empty. Compare that to every souls ever where the envoriment was so detailed that you could imagine what was going on before you arrived. DaS2 lacks that completely. And the sad part is that the Alpha previews looked way more detailed, better textured, better ligthing and had way more detail in them.

[@Bananahead88]

I think that dark souls 1 is straight up the best looking game of all soulsborne games. While obviously the objective graphical fidelity is better in dark souls 3 and arguably bloodborne, the way that dark souls 1 uses colors and contrasts in the world together with the very well succeeded artstyle and direction just make it so much better looking than any else of the games. Also hopefully this clusterfuck of a comment is understandable, english isn't my native language.

[@B1aQQ]

Arguably Bloodborne? The way the game plays with light is astonishing. Not a single object in the game looks out of place. I died several time because I was staring at the environment and didn't notice the danger. It looks better than DS3 (besides smoldering on the MC - damn, that looks awesome). When I played DS1 I actually disliked the way they used contrast and colors. For me it looks like bad, unfinished shaders, expecially on more 'shiny' objects. That being said, DS2 lighting is a joke and looks so flat. Worst looking game in the series (sunshafts are the best though).

[@Bananahead88]

BlaQ The retarded filters on bloodborne ruin the game's aesthetics for me right from the get go. And the artstyle doesn't really click with me, it feels overly . . edgy.

[@B1aQQ]

BananaSopuli Yea, I guess filters might seem a bit too try-hard to some people.

[@dellorttoguoy4060]

"a small pile of rubble blocks the way in a forest, so rather then climb over it... the character kills 4 of the most powerful beings in existence..." LMAOO

[@numaisreginald3671]

Worse than Ride to Hell fence logic

[@dikasmusha6194]

@@numaisreginald3671 don't diss the best game ever made, Dark Souls 2 will never achieve that level of autism

[@showem9575]

@Linda Niemkiewicz killing 4 of the most powerful beings in existence to surpass rubble is a bit more than a nitpick

[@showem9575]

@Linda Niemkiewicz look up when you're in blighttown next time you play, it's still daytime. besides that, ash lake's setting is consistent when you see it in tomb of the giants, that's not just a "sky" i think. even if what you said was true, none of that is really comparable or relevant to what happens in ds2. this is a problem with ds2 so why are you bringing up ds1?

[@senpaikaroo]

@Linda Niemkiewicz Looking at a model viewer for the game everything is interconnected, your making no sense. (And what do you mean they did not get doors right? If an enemy if literally standing next to your character you can't even open it, you don't even get invincibility frames opening it until late into the animation, this also applies to ladders. Dark Souls 1 doors were FAR from having this issue.)

[@satellite964]

You know what shatters suspension of disbelief? That weird ass weightless walk/run animation.

[@servebotfrank4082]

+satellite964 Yeah! That bothered the fuck out of me when I went back to replay Dark Souls 2. The movement is just really fucking floaty.

[@jjstraka1982]

Demon's Souls feels at least twice as floaty and no one says a word....

[@SomersBugtopia]

+Jonathan Straka Because it doesn't look like a jarring mess, it looks fantastical and strange. DaS 2 looks strange and uncomfortable.

[@asleeveheart6520]

+Jonathan Straka First game in the series, it'll get a few more passes. There's going to be kinks. Problems. You name it. 3rd game in the franchise? There's no excuse for that. Especially after the first Dark Souls fixing a lot of what was wrong with Demon Souls mechanically. DS2 somehow regressed.

[@jimbogreen7029]

it doesn't tho

[@nicholasellis4597]

"Instead of just climbing over the rubble, your character goes and kills four of the most powerful beings in existence" Boy when I tell you that had me CRYING. I remember enjoying this review when it came out, but coming back to it is even better.

[@OtepRalloma]

I must have missed this line, when was it

[@liamcurran5612]

@@OtepRalloma 18:48

[@graylyhen9490]

Thing in video game bad

[@donsolomon1088]

@@graylyhen9490 yeah...

[@GiygasStarman]

@@graylyhen9490 more, like, they easily could've done something with more flare and scope than just some rubble to motivate you to kill some of the most powerful badasses around. It's pretty bad, come on.

[@katiieeardley]

On Miyazaki desiring immersion or atmosphere over difficulty for the sake of it, it baffles me how many people complain about bosses like Micolash or The Maiden Astraea or True King Allant or Gwyn being 'so easy its boring;'. I personally love those bosses and I feel as though they contribute to the overarching atmosphere immensely. I'll use The Maiden Astraea as my primary example because that's probably my favourite boss battle in any game, ever. The art design of the arena tells a story, says without saying, and I know that's a core aspect of souls games in general but its especially apparent here. The music coupled with the running dialogue from both Astraea and Garl is immediately unsettling and eventually becomes self-disgust. If you're the sort of player that exhausts NPC dialogue, you would know that a lot of people have been slandering the maiden... calling her impure, a traitor, a liar. This image of her which is entirely informed by biased and misinformed anecdotes is shattered almost immediately. Throughout the duration of the boss battle, the player is reckoning with the harsh reality that this former image of her is false, that this mission might be morally corrupt (if not morally ambiguous)- that this former cleric sacrificed her human form for the betterment of a rejected society... a selfless act which is twisted by a group of clerics who are taught to be selfless as well. When she says 'take your precious demon's soul' and takes her life, I felt such a strong sense of guilt and disillusionment that has never been met by any other video game. THIS is what it means to make a game when you consider factors that aren't just 'it's hard'.

[@Red-nl4lk]

Your comment completely explains my love of the more novel bosses of demons souls, dark Souls, bloodborne, and sekiro. Criticising ds2 for this is also applicable to ds3 imo. Although I would still say 3 is a great game, just not a good souls game. Unlike what people say for 2.

[@turtlegrenade2757]

@@Red-nl4lk I'd have to disagree with ds3 not being a good souls game. It is a blend of difficulty and challenge. Which is the core of the souls series.

[@Red-nl4lk]

@@turtlegrenade2757 personally I'd say it gets those elements right, but there are other bits that took it in a wrong direction. Stuff like world design, exploration, certain builds being nerfed without extreme stat and equipment investment, and the bosses. Not to say I dislike this game, I fucking love ds3. The level design, the art direction, certain bosses, the lore (for the most part). But there's a ton of things I'd criticize. And please understand that im a bit harsh on ds3 because I absolutely love fromsoftware and I just want them to be better.

[@turtlegrenade2757]

@@Red-nl4lk ds3 was my first souls game so I kinda put it high up. But you do bring up the more outstanding issues with it. I kinda just forget about those issues when I play it lol because it's so fun for me. I think the one point I kinda disagree with is the exploration. It still has tons of the exploration from ds1 but it's held back by the linearity. But different strokes for different folks.

[@Red-nl4lk]

@@turtlegrenade2757 Hm. Yeah. There's still little branching paths like Arch dragon peak, irithyll dungeon, and cathedral of the deep. My biggest problem is the fact I never felt lost or wondering where I was. I appreciate that the team still took the effort to make the world still feel like it made sense for a fantasy setting, but that magic in previous games wondering where the hell you were just wasn't there for me. Also I know the generally accepted opinion is that the bosses are the best in the series but I might have to disagree. Still one of my faves though.

[@Ty_disciple_of_LordJesusChrist]

The hit boxes tick me off the most when you clearly Dodge an attack and then your character teleported 2 ft and got hit and your left like 🙄

[@mikeehrmantraut1899]

gotham hunters I hate the hitxboxes in dark souls 2

[@CondemnedGuy]

My absolute favorite is getting sucked into backstabs from another room.

[@37metalgearsolid]

Yep, happened a lot to me against Fume knight. Another glorious moment was when I saw that a chest was a mimic, I went behind it and started attacking it. The mimic then leaps forward (aka away from me) and I got teleported in front of it and got grabbed.

[@Ty_disciple_of_LordJesusChrist]

@@37metalgearsolid haha first time that happened to me I just shut my whole system down

[@juanpablogonzalez8528]

This happens so much with the "grab" attacks

[@KitsuneYojimbo]

I think my biggest criticism of the game is how unfair the fact that you can still get invaded while hollow, but can't summon while hollow is.

[@CondemnedGuy]

That's just DS2's modus operandi; be as unfair as possible.

[@KitsuneYojimbo]

@@CondemnedGuy That's true.

[@Pan_Z]

I love how Scholar of the First Sin doubled down on this by adding overleveled Red Phantom NPCs that invade you, even while hollow.

[@KitsuneYojimbo]

@@Pan_Z I know right? I mean, I feel like it was fair when in 1 that you couldn't be invaded while hollow, on top of not being able to summon. It felt consistent with the lore of the series.

[@TheSlammurai]

@@Pan_Z Burning effigies doesn't even stop the NPC invaders either. There's no escaping Armorer Dennis and his OP sorceries.

[@inika3]

Soul of the mind, key to life's ether Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended So the world...might be mended...

[@edgarallanpwned6666]

Nostalgia, cant wait for the remake!!

[@youcarrytakeabath727]

Bearer seek seek lest

[@Pan_Z]

@@edgarallanpwned6666 well... it came out

[@donatematchacookie]

Wrong game

[@inika3]

@@donatematchacookie 29:38

[@melon5345]

As much as I love this game, I can't really disagree with anything you've said here

[@VladDascaliuc]

Which is a very good and healthy mindset. Alas, most people lack it.

[@Yuuki_12]

Same

[@edgarallanpwned6666]

@Bazerker nah thats an objective flaw, pressing X/A 4 times to skip dialogue rather than having it play in the background is just time wasting on the player side. Oh look DS3 has reverted back to how it was in Ds1 and Demon Souls, hmmm seems like Fromsoft agrees with Matthew's sentiment. Geez what is it with most DS2 lovers hating anybody criticising their "Magnum Opus"

[@RohanDaDev]

10:30

[@dawn2891]

Bazerker funny then that despite it being a nitpick. FromSoftware went out of their way to fix the dialogue so it runs in the background. Meaning it matter enough to be changed.

[@specknacken6507]

It's funny that even though he sounds nearly the same as in his other videos you can clearly hear that he has a kind of pissed off tone to his voice in this one.

[@Mostly_Childish]

+Arsch Dee His voice is far more stern than usual in this video, that's more than likely why.

[@IIIIIIIIIIIIIIPKIIIIIIIIIIIIII]

Nah check Metal Gear Solid 4... I had a go at him, because he was being far too negative.....

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

P K not really, he was pretty understanding with that game. He only sounded pissed when he talked about Johnny.

[@enigmatic8280]

I'd sound like that too considering how shit of a game Dark Souls 2 is.

[@feeblecursedone2540]

I still find it funny how most people who defend this game believe that those who criticize it think it's a bad game. By all means, it is still a great game, just the worst, or maybe a better term, weakest of the series. The Worst of the Best is still better than most

[@aretlev]

+Hunter Folyer Exactly. I agree with almost every criticism in the video, yet here I am playing the game and enjoying it.

[@Mostly_Childish]

+Hunter Folyer I know right, I don't enjoy Dark Souls 2, and would rather just play 1, but I don't think 2 is all that bad.

[@Chud_Bud_Supreme]

+Hunter Folyer I think it's a bad game. Not just bad for a Souls game, just plain bad.

[@K1llerTunes]

+Son of Tiamat I'd have to disagree with you there. Dark Souls 2 is still a hell of a lot better than most of the usual drivel being released, even if it paled in comparison to the other games in the series.

[@Mostly_Childish]

K1llerTunes My thoughts exactly, it's not BAD, it's just not a good souls game.

[@akmal94ibrahim]

I honestly don't understand why the Hunstman's Copse bonfire and shortcut is designed that way. A useless shortcut that goes from the new bonfire back to the previous bonfire. Who needs that when you already have fast travel? And then they have a perfect spot to put a ladder you can kick down so you can skip most enemies on the way to the boss fight, but nope, you have to run through/kill a bunch of gank enemies everytime you want to go to the boss arena. Would've been a great map design if only they had removed the 2nd bonfire and add the ladder to the boss fight.

[@buttlord2223]

Matt says bonfire warping was probably added early in development, but I don't know if that's right. The Copse bonfires make way more sense if warping was added almost as an afterthought halfway through. Or maybe the level designers just forgot about warping while designing some areas.

[@tyler19348]

"Vendrick should have defended his kingdom by building more doorways" best analysis of dark souls 2 I have ever heard

[@garr123]

Watching this video it's just baffling how much better Dark Souls 1 looks graphically. Is it just the lighting? Dark Soul 2 looks so drab aesthetically when shown beside the original.

[@snowjoeyo]

Yeah, Dark Souls 1 definitely has better lighting effects than Dark Souls 2. It may not have better textures or render distances, but Dark Souls 1 overall still looks more realistic. It also has much more consistent art design too.

[@MRGilD0]

+Hark It's ridiculous, because Dark Souls 1 on my PS3 looks better than a maxed out Dark Souls 2 on my PC. Everything looks so bland. Objectively, the DS2 on PC versions would be the one with a higher resolution, more AA, better framerate etc., but none of these advantages are ever used properly. it just ends up as a bland graphical experience.

[@LizardeyeThePunkip]

+Hark Look at SotFS. It's a whole lot better

[@BubuSnow93]

+go fuck yourself Actualyl Dark Souls 1 has better textures than DS2. DS2 has probably the worst texture work of any game made by a "serious" company in the last 10 years. Earthen Peak still gives me shivers (bad shivers, not good ones :D ) dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98051460/DarkSoulsII_2014_05_02_23_46_57_047.jpg

[@garr123]

BubuSnow93 It's legit baffling how godawful that game looks -- like, from a design perspective I can understand it fumbling because Miyazaki was busy with Bloodborne, but they could have just used the DS1 engine whole cloth and had a better looking game.

[@neoman289151]

I think the overabundance of bonfires and lack of shortcuts was a result of the new weapon degradation crap. If the bonfires were as few and far between as they were in Dark Souls 1, it'd be impossible to make it through an area without your weapon breaking.

[@NabsterHax]

Victor Viridian Then what's the point of weapon degradation at all? I hate my only decent weapon breaking on me as much as the next guy, but can't help but feel this is yet another missed opportunity. There could have been certain weapons with very low durability but some powerful special abilities or stats in general, allowing (but not forcing) some weapon variety in melee only builds without gimping yourself. As it is now you can just pick your favourite all-rounder and never have to worry once about durability unless you go rolling in that orange gunk, never even thinking about using something else because you'd have to invest a bunch of souls and materials into making it worth using.

[@elegantcat1496]

NabsterHax Right. Not to menton te fact that if they wanted the weapon degradation to be so important as a mechanic they should have made the road to the boss battle more easy to cheese. The way they made it looks like they WANTED us to fight our way to the boss over and over. I'm not upgrading 2 weapons just to have a spare sword.

[@AndreCortesao]

NabsterHax this could simply be fixed without the bonfire "weapon fix", i think its stupid that a weapon can't survive a boss fight even if you don't use it before that specific fight (I'm talking about after the first play-through ... , in the first game run i didn't have problems at all). if the weapon didn't automatically fix herself wen you rest, and the durability would be extended to 2 or 3 times the original, having to fix it trough magic/items would make a a good option, the mechanic would be logic and not cheap

[@Morgahn1]

NabsterHax Add to that PC bug with 60fps that makes weapons degrade two times faster as the game was build around 30 fps. \o/ B-team for the win.

[@esideras]

Tomasz Zakrzewski Add to that the fact that SoTFS didn't fix it. The only thing SoTFS did was up the graphics to unnoticable levels and kept adding more enemies as if that wasn't one of the core complaints of the fucking game. SoTFS could've redeemed my faith in the B-Team but completely destroyed it instead.

[@saturnicus6623]

This game has more ambushes and ganks than every other game ive played put together

[@anonymousstout4759]

Yeah I ganged by two NPC red phantom that throw lightning spears across bridge in those shitty graveyard area

[@anonymousstout4759]

The enemy placement and level design is awful in this game despite some are could be potentially so beautiful as example; the Dragon Shrine and Temple of Amanda could be optimised more

[@nate7418]

Play nioh

[@Gas-maske]

@MasterMoonfire Nooo yoU cAnT sAy that Dark Souls 2 iS gReAt ehm it has GrEaT PvP anD PowErsTanCing and ehm is orIginAl unlike DarK SoUlS 3

[@Gas-maske]

@MasterMoonfire I already did and it was really horrible st some points in the Game. So yeah Dark Souls 3 > Dark Souls 2

[@1SWINZ1]

I agree with every word of this video, the main part for me is how forgettable the game was, I spent over a year away from the original Dark Souls, and the game is burned into my brain, I can literally visualise the world and walk around it inside my head, I can remember exactly what enemies are where and what strategies I use to beat them, I can remember my characters armour from different points in the game, which weapons I was using for specific levels etc... I can remember every boss and I remember every bosses name and how I fought it/them, I can remember the name of every area/level.... Dark Souls 2 is a few months old, I completed it in a week and I can barely remember anything about it in detail! But in the original, even after over a year away from it, I can really remember everything down to the tiniest detail without even having to look at the game. And I think that's because everything in the original felt meaningful, the game was so hard that you remembered where the enemies were, what strategies you use on them etc... You remembered the layout of the world, and upgrades/leveling up was extremely meaningful because of the difficulty thus you never forget. I felt that Dark Souls 2 was a walk in the park in comparison, and because of this, leveling up and reinforcing my equipment was almost meaningless and totally forgettable, in Dark Souls 1, upon discovery of a treasure chest or an ember, I'd have a freaking orgasm almost, this is dulled in the sequel to the point of meaninglessness. Just my two cents, I felt like what I was doing had no meaning, awesome video!

[@KrankuSama]

I can't believe how accurately you described how I feel... Glad I'm not the only one.

[@SchwartZero]

Yep, feel the same exact way.

[@mrsun9775]

Same feeling

[@burningsun6755]

yep same for me too the level was so well made twisting on itself i felt like it was real same feeling

[@samsvo4607]

Well I'm not having a "freaking orgasm almost" whenever I find an item, but I am having a blast with DkS2. Different strokes.

[@MrIwont4get]

Very well thought out and valid points about the game. The lack of different enemy types really was quite annoying.

[@oxis77gas]

Try NG+

[@MrIwont4get]

adding black phantoms of existing enemy types doesnt change the fact there is a lack of variety. i can only think of 3 new enemies added in NG+, and two of them are only in boss fights and the other is only in the things betwix.

[@Vicioussama]

oxis77gas Done NG+, was still not that hard. And the phantoms weren't unique, they were like phantoms of Demon's Souls in that the were existing enemies with more damage/health. In fact, DkS2 feels more like a sequel in terms of game mechanics and such to Demon's Souls than Dark Souls. And even then, I'd say Demon's Souls was better.

[@forgiveness999]

“Bro just level ADP”

[@Golem29]

@Daniel Keller Game does a horrible job of explaining how it works though

[@onion69420]

No amount of ADP will help you when the game goes A HIT IS A HIT when they aren't even close to grazing you

[@wuwei473]

@@onion69420 what do you mean?

[@onion69420]

@@wuwei473 there are times when it's a clear miss but the game still registers a hit

[@frawzch.048]

@@onion69420 like in any soul game tbh.

[@isetmfriendsofire]

Dark Souls 2 is kind of an example of flanderization. Focusing on the "git gud" aspect way too much while ignoring others.

[@oopc.2458]

Exactly this. I knew things were going to be bad once I saw the death counter in Majula. It was so completely unnecessary.

[@jacobsb374]

some games for you store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Casual/

[@devynmalu]

@@jacobsb374 aaaaaand you can go fuck yourself bud

[@biterness2323]

@@devynmalu lmao only simps get all sensitive about that simple fact

[@devynmalu]

Black Haze ohhhhh got em. nice job try harder next time

[@jblackmel]

I think this game is good for people who are brand new to the franchise, or who may have played Dks here and there, then put it down. However, I honestly don't see how a person who has invested a lot of time into either, Des or Dks, can ignore the flaws in this game. With me saying that, I'm sure some wise-guy will reply, "You act like Des and Dks were perfect." My response is, "no," I don't think they were perfect. I just think Dks 2 should have been "developed" from the solid foundation already established in the previous titles. I also expected for many of the mistakes from previous Souls games to not be repeated in Dks 2. I hope this will not be the last installment in the franchise. But I do wish, however, that lessons can be learned from the mistakes made in Dks 2.

[@brianrowe2440]

I agree with you 100%. If there is a game for new souls players to get into it would be dark souls 2. But for the veteran souls players who played both Des and Dks extensively putting in hundreds or even thousands of hours this game is a real disappointment.

[@saevvyth]

Don't try to label anyone who likes the game as someone who isn't familiar with the series. That's a low and invalid claim. Many people really enjoy Dark Souls II and they might have put a lot more time into Demon's and Dark Souls than you did. Don't think that just because you don't like it, anyone else familiar with the series also does not. I'm not saying Dark Souls 2 doesn't have flaws, but it did address a bunch of them regarding PvP.

[@jblackmel]

Zevvion Thanks for the comment.

[@jjorden1976]

You are correct. Only people that have never played any souls game would take interest in this game. It really is a poorly designed game. The only people that I've seen that really enjoy the game are those whom subscribe to EpicNameBro.....the biggest sellout of them all.

[@jblackmel]

Zevvion Did you pay any attention to my statement? Never once did I label "anyone who likes the game as someone who isn't familiar with the series." What I said was, " I honestly don't see how a person who has invested a lot of time into either, Des or Dks, CAN IGNORE THE FLAWS IN THIS GAME." As you can see, I never once said anything about the degree to which a person enjoys the game or not. My statement was about experienced players and ignoring flaws.

[@DelayedJet]

I'm glad someone finally pointed out the whole "enemy turns and faces you mid-attack". That always annoyed me about Dark Souls II, because, yeah, it pretty much just means that you can only really dodge backwards and then rush towards him as fast as possible in order to squeeze an attack in--rinse and repeat.

[@blizzardregulus]

Actually, most of the bossess have too much reach to reliably do that. They basically made you focus on boosting your invincibility frames during a dodge roll to negate the heavy tracking and compounded that by making it extremely nebulous as to what exactly increases those frames. I got to level 104 thinking the game just had atrocious hit detection. Granted, the game DOES have janky as fuck hitboxes, but the lack of agility makes it all the more unmanagable. It makes you feel like some of the attacks are just designed to cheat you out of health to make the boss fight more difficult and with the agility mechanic I get the idea that was intentional.

[@jakeinator21]

@@blizzardregulus Yeah, without agility the game is significantly more frustrating, but the game also doesn't make it clear how dodges are affected by agility, which makes for an unfortunate experience for anyone who doesn't read the wiki. I played through the entire game without ever leveling my adaptability because I assumed it was similar to the resistance stat from DS1, which was entirely useless. Turns out, the most useless stat in DS1 is now the most vital in DS2. How was I supposed to know? On my second playthrough I leveled my adp right away and had a much more agreeable experience, but I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from that first playthrough. Plus, even with high adp, the hitbox issues are still enough to be infuriating at times.

[@thechugg4372]

@@jakeinator21 Everything you just said applied to Dark Souls 1, try to get someone to play the game without the wiki, NOTHING is explained.

[@jakeinator21]

@@thechugg4372 I played DS1 blind without the wiki for my first playthrough and it was still a manageable experience, despite the relative obscurity of its stats, because it doesn't place gameplay elements as vital as i-frames behind a stat value. Granted my experience with DS2's stats may have been different had I not played DS1 first, I may not have written ADP off as quickly were that the case. But the fact of the matter is I played DS1 blind and I loved it, and then a I played DS2 blind and I hated it. And lack of understanding of ADP was at the core of my distaste. And I'm not alone in that, I see new threads on the DS2 subreddit all the time from people saying they are frustrated that they take damage during rolls when it seems like they shouldn't. The fact is, DS1's obscurity simply doesn't have the same effect on the gameplay experience as the obscurity of ADP.

[@VladDascaliuc]

@@thechugg4372 I got the Claymore, felt nice and looked cool, saw Strength made it stronger, went Strength, beat the game no problem with a +15 Claymore. Literally nothing unclear there.

[@j3nki541]

the clumping of large enemies is honestly the worst thing for me about dark souls 2, simply frustrating.

[@dorn7523]

@Linda Niemkiewicz The thing is, in 90% of the time those said groups are balanced and enemies can be easily fought. Undead burg and Undead parish's groups are consisted of REALLY weak enemies that can be dealt with in a matter of seconds, for example. In DS 2, on the other hand, you can be easily ambushed by a group of enemies which feel like they really were not designed to be fought in groups, which can cause a stunlock right to the state of death.

[@farlonmuentes6004]

@@dorn7523 90% are balanced.. Like those giants guarding the ember in catacombs? Or 3 skele dogs who could 2 shot you and they were placed in a location with very little sight? How about bonewheels that wont stop inflicting damage unless they slide off you? How about copy pasted capra and taurus demon in demon ruins? How bout the pre patched dragon asses in lost izalith with boss like damage? Are those balanced? Also, about being ganked in any souls game.. Have you heard of a BOW, mate?

[@dorn7523]

@@farlonmuentes6004 Have you also heard of 90% of giant enemies in Dark Souls 2, like those rats with mamoth giants in Doors of Pharos, or maybe you should visit fucking Heide's Tower in SoTFS after you kill Dragon Rider, when FOR NO FUCKING REASON AT ALL every knight awakens and starts killing you with INSTANT attacks and stunlocks, instant 180 degree pivots that SURPASS A FUCKING SHIELD and are supported by a giant knight at every turn as well? Or should I remind you of DLCs in general? Like Dragon Sanctum's dragon asses (Yes, they are also in "PERFECT" DS 2), Brume Tower's ridiculous placement of enemies which can deal up to 80% of your HP in a SINGLE SERIES OF 3 ATTACKS, while also being in numbers of 7 IN A SINGLE ROOM, while being supported by ranged enemies? OH I REMEMBER, how about super sanics in Crown of the Ivory King? Which can kill you in 4 seconds JUST BECAUSE YOU FUCKING STAND NEAR THEM. About the bow point...I have never felt being forced to use a bow in Dark Souls 1, but Dark Souls 2 literally is built around bow, so if I want a pure melee, I can suck a dick? Way to give "Options", From Soft, nice.

[@WolfHreda]

Yeah, large groups of weak enemies is a very different beast from a group of large enemies, whose attack radius is huge and tends to interlock with their friends.

[@WolfHreda]

Oh, and THE FUCKING BELFRY GARGOYLES. There's not a single boss fight I hate as much as them right now.

[@dogquin1001]

For those who have been coming back and commenting recently, Matthew is taken a indefinite break from videos; he is currently developing a game.

[@0uttaS1TE]

Damn, fr? Good luck to him

[@dogquin1001]

@@0uttaS1TE yeah, all his patreon stuff is free if you want to keep up to date

[@orlandofurioso7329]

Hope he does very well

[@Lamentationsofapoory]

I don't have Twitter so someone adding this underneath is super helpful.

[@JKSmith-qs2ii]

And its name is Pagodamonium, uhh I mean Mushido.

[@Jojje94]

the exploding knees outside the bonfire with the spell vendor in the lost bastille is one of the most stupid things i've seen in dark souls 2. what a ridiculous decision

[@jthomcres]

+burningfajitasalt After dealing with that bs multiple times now, seeing other people bash that decision is almost therapeutic.

[@WelcomeTheDamned]

+burningfajitasalt For me the most stupid thing i've seen in souls is The Black Gulch area, every part of it.

[@MRGilD0]

+Mondestrasz Hey, at least it ends quickly enough.

[@MRGilD0]

***** The problem isn't that there are mummies, it's that you unlock a vendor that can easily be killed by the mummies. I'm pretty sure that spawning at that bonfire aggros them too, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[@MRGilD0]

***** They don't aggro? Huh fair enough I guess. Still though, did they really have to program Straid so near to the door? I was hoping that he'd just go to one corner of the cell after you revived him. Even if they're easy to deal with, they still shouldn't exist in the game. They only serve to fuck up a player's day. Especially since they do tons of damage, and its easy to forget about them. Straid isn't exactly someone I visited frequently, and I assume some people's experiences were similar.

[@thefeeblesheep]

One of my favourite things is the fact that I can get +15 weapons in Dark Souls 1 before I even kill the Gargoyles.

[@jakeinator21]

​@Linda Niemkiewicz It is 100% possible. The large ember is in the depths and the very large ember is in New Londo. Run through Undead Burg to Undead Parish, snag the basement key just past the boar, head to Lower Undead Burg, fight Capra Demon, unlock the depths, steal the large ember from the butcher's chest, then take it to Andre. Next run to New Londo, make your way to Ingward, murder the poor fuck, take the key to the seal off his corpse, #draintheswamp, head into lower New Londo, snag the very large ember from its hiding place at the top of the spiral stairs, take it to Andre. Farm large titanite off the giant leeches in Blighttown, farm the darkwraiths in New Londo for all the chunks you need, then if you didn't get a slab off the darkwraiths head to the undead asylum again and kill Stray Demon. Congratulations, you've got a +15 weapon. Now go and wreck the gargoyles.

[@VladDascaliuc]

@Linda Niemkiewicz Why do you even do that.

[@youwouldntremembermeanyway7410]

@Linda Niemkiewicz looks like someone is getting butthurt because he/she just accused someone lying and then got roasted badly.

[@littlemoth4956]

@@youwouldntremembermeanyway7410 How did they get roasted lmao

[@RibosomesChannel]

This critique of Dark Souls II is without doubt the best critique written to date. It is focus on PvE mostly, by implementing more depth PvP critique, this critique would be nearly perfect and reference. Anyway, I wouldn’t expect such precise and time consuming work from relatively small KZbinr. Respect for this. But that kind of critique would have much bigger impact on Dark Souls community if it is made from big KZbin Dark Souls uploader. Unfortunately big KZbinrs don’t care about quality but they rather work on quantity of their content. They just keep admiring the broken game as it is right now, rather than influencing their fans, change their point of view and push game developer/publisher in direction of making better Souls games.

[@mrbrochacho99]

I wonder why people are still getting mad at this video. Literally in the beginning he said he doesn't think Ds2 is an outright bad game and even said that he would rather play it then most others that came out at the time. And even though he goes pretty hard on this game, I feel that any developer who worked on this game and would come back to watch this video only has useful insight to gain and nothing else. He isn't trying to tarnish anybody's reputation here. he is simply giving his thoughts ands opinions on a video game.

[@samuelkristensen6685]

There's been a weird backlash against Dark Souls 2 criticism.

[@nigrum_angelum6655]

Because DaS2's """"enjoyers"""" genuinely believes themselves to be gigachads who can appreciate a single thread of gold in a pile of shite.

[@dopaminecloud]

@@nigrum_angelum6655 Having beaten both the original and remix versions of DS2, there is so much good in these games that it is completely disregarding them as bad that reveals a lack of sense for design. FromSoft is not a perfect studio, Dark Souls 1 is half flaws, half qualities. Yet it is easy to see it's a masterstroke of a game still right? That's because you managed to understand it there and yet got filtered here. It's fine. Most souls fans today would bounce off of Kingsfield hard for example, because it does many different things and its flaws can be very in your face. Yet those are revered titles in their own genre all the same. And you'd be a fool to claim them bad.

[@nigrum_angelum6655]

@@dopaminecloud that's a lot of words just to somehow say that I have a skill issue. The fact that I agree with Matthewmatosis in general regarding Dark Souls 2 vanilla, and to an extent MauLer' with his defense/review/critique of the SotFS should tell that I understand the game enough to recognize that it's still far too flawed when measured against the standard that was Dark Souls 1 and even the OG Demon's Souls, no?

[@dopaminecloud]

@@nigrum_angelum6655 There is no skill issue when you can't see qualities. The ability to experience the good parts of a work is something nebulous, often more relying on your mood at the time of play than any past experience or capacity for discernment combined. I'd say measured against dark souls 1 that dark souls 2 is overall a lot more consistent yet highlights different qualities of the dungeon crawling experience. That is to say, many of the things it does are neither better nor worse, only different. All I can tell you is that dark souls 2 highlights elements that elevate it in parts above anything dark souls 1 managed to deliver in how it handles progressing through dungeons and as that is essentially the core gameplay if you aren't invested in the multiplayer or pattern-grinding of the few bosses that require it, it remains a truly fantastic action rpg. I am only now playing through Demon's Souls so I can't comment on that though I can see the ways in which DS2 is much more like it than DS1 is.

[@ScottJund]

I'm having a blast with DS2 and yet I think this was a fantastic critique; watched the whole thing. A lot of the stuff they did was lazy, though it is still a very fun game.

[@nickzakrath7080]

giant dad Hey now, there's nothing wrong with liking a game, even though it has flaws. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of this game either.

[@JockcoZ]

Im not happy that they jam packed it with like 10 useless bosses. I feel like the excuse they were on a time limit is bullshit seeing as they unnecessarily made the DSII map so huge and packed with useless space that was unneeded. But even with all that. DSII is a good game. They should NOT have done what they did. But I make my peace with it. As I have no plan to ever touch the title again.

[@duroorud527]

aldia doesn't give you a soul

[@Eshtian]

Hey its that dude from DBD. Hi

[@elirocks5397]

@@gael9181 dude, what was that for?

[@LeleSHHHHHH]

"Without really knowing why..." It's the philosophy for the dev team.

[@trutyatces8699]

"This rotting cesspool of oldfolk and Degenerates" Is a perfect sum-up of the DS3 community.

[@giacomorinaldi8803]

Bless you both

[@Lunartic_]

@Linda Niemkiewicz Because that's the point of a hunter.

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

@Linda Niemkiewicz cause that's what hunter do. No further explantion needed.

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

@Linda Niemkiewicz Yeah that's fine. They are portrayed as a speck of dust in the cosmos of things.

[@breakfastbrainz]

Lol people coming here from Gred Good video but i think matthewmatosis's interpretation of miyazaki's quotes is that "difficulty was never the [sole] point, it wasn't for the sake of it." In a way, even saying "difficulty was never the point" is true; feeling accomplished is the point, and the game being difficult is one the many *points/tools* they used to reach their goals if that makes sense. Maybe I'm wrong, but at the end of the day, I firmly believe Miyazaki isn't making games just for the sake of them being hard or whatever. That's why Matt criticized Ds2 in that way, because he thought the ds2 team *was* making it hard for the sake of it. He said that because of the way he percieved the way ds2 handles difficulty differently: as "thoughtless" and "for the sake of it." I hope that was clear..

[@PrincePICHAISUNDARARAJAN]

Funny, I was just checking the comments to see if someone would mention that video. You're right about difficulty being a facet to reach the goal of feeling accomplished, Gred even showed a Miyazaki quote saying that exact thing, ironically enough (and of course, Gred spins his own interpretation and presents it as a fact, among other dubious things he does in that video). It really shouldn't take a genius to understand the point Matthew was making. With that said, he really did not need to provide a source for that quote.

[@BrendonArt]

Paraphrase: "The reason these boss fights are hard is because they are so boring that you want to see if you can get another hit in thus risking death"... NAILED IT. That's what I keep thinking exactly. It happens in DS1 too on certain bosses, but in DS2 this is like a virtue for the whole game. There is no break. The enemies seem to have endless stamina while you have to struggle against your limitations. Completely unfair. Incredibly boring.

[@chaoticstarfish3401]

That's a nitpick. Maybe use less equipment and Cloranthy's ring for better stamina regen and stop being greedy. I don't wanna sound rude or annoyed, but it's that simple.

[@BrendonArt]

​@@chaoticstarfish3401 More stamina doesn't help. You are right, it is a nitpick, so why are you commenting on it? And why do people get so defensive about a damn video game. I didn't even say I don't like the game!!! I just made a nitpick. You said it yourself. So why do you have to make something of it and get so damn defensive about this game. If there is anything is TRULY DO HATE about DS2 it is THIS type of problem, where the community is extremely defensive. You do sound rude. You do sound annoyed. It is obviously an opinionated topic. If you start arguing with other people's opinions you are being rude and annoying. If you find yourself annoyed by other people's opinions about a game, you are rude and annoying.

[@chaoticstarfish3401]

@@BrendonArt Now you're the one sounding rude and annoyed. I know everyone has different opinions and I'm not trying to change that, I just said there are solutions to your problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[@BrendonArt]

@@chaoticstarfish3401 Sorry. I'm having a very bad ... year. I'm sure you can understand :( But I think it's silly to comment on comments sometimes. I was just venting. You are right. Hard work and smarter efforts will make the game easier. But sometimes that's not always what we want to hear.

[@JT044-iz1cv]

The DLC bosses of DS2 are the only good bosses.

[@Robert399]

The first bit is so true. Dark Souls 1 was about learning and overcoming. Even the supposed "bullshit" tricks followed general principles and served to teach you something about the game. e.g. The first time you get chomped on by a mimic, sure it's new but a) you _have_ been taught to be suspicious of items and b) it's in an area where you've been forewarned about traps. Sure there are other cases of bullshit (clipping through walls, Bed of Chaos, Centipede Demon, camera bullshit...) but they feel like the design team made a mistake. Dark Souls 2 is very different: even in the first area it feels like the design team is _trying_ to make you fail. Also, the structure and pacing of the experience is just awful. When you first arrive at Majula, you're basically told "go everywhere and eventually you'll find something important". Now I've read plenty of posts saying "that's intentional", "it's a mystery", "figure it out yourself" (and even "it's an allegory for life"). Being intentional doesn't make something good and none of these excuses fly because: 1) DS1 still achieved that sense of mystery and hopelessness while providing overarching goals (rings the bells => go through Sen's to Anor Londo => lord souls => kiln) and context for specific areas and bosses. 2) That's not an excuse for having no interest curve. Let's just compare Forest of Fallen Giants to Undead Burg/Parish. In DS1, you go through the area learning the mechanics, you've beaten the Taurus Demon so you're on a bit of a high, you head towards the church because that's obviously where the bell is then you hit your first major setback, the Gargoyles. A new player will probably die several times here but after upgrading your weapons or summoning allies, you beat them and are rewarded with a moment of calm and your first goal. It's been difficult but you feel like you've accomplished something. Now in DS2, you swiftly bend over the Last Giant, probably wander around trying to figure out where to go then hit a similar challenge in The Pursuer. And after you beat him you get... nothing. No goal, no change, no sense of why you did any of that. Given this is clearly meant to be the first area, it's a colossal let-down. I really hate all the chest thumping about how "hard" Dark Souls was (as if beating any game makes you a more impressive person...) because it eclipses everything else that made that challenge engaging. In seems in DS2, the design team made the same mistake.

[@calcumalators]

How is centipede demon bad? I see people complain a lot but if you just go to the right you have a reasonably large area to fight him away from the lava

[@Robert399]

​@Linda Niemkiewicz Being told "you won't know why you're doing anything" isn't enough to create motivation. Like Matthew said in the video, this seems like the designers misunderstood how mystery was used (and how it wasn't) in the first game. And about the Pursuer, yes, you're transported to the Lost Bastille. But you have no idea what you're there for and, more importantly, you _still_ have no idea what you were doing in FoFG. The only reward you get is the very gamey feeling of beating a level (even the Drangleic set you're likely to miss if you use the nest straight away). You have no sense of accomplishing anything in the world until you kill the Lost Sinner and even then you don't know why this matters until you try going to Drangleic Castle. I'm not saying every area needs to have an important goal. Transit areas are fine (DS1 had loads) but you need to know *why* you're transiting through them. For comparison, in DS1 you're told that the second bell is in Blighttown "far below" so descending through Lower Undead Burg and The Depths (with *very* deliberately chosen names) feels like making progress. Then you're told than Sen's is the way to Anor Londo. Even in the lategame, it makes sense that to find "the First of the Dead" you should go through the area with all the graves and skeletons and The Witch of Izalith has been associated with fire and demons since the opening cutscene (+ you'll hopefully remember the name "Chaos Witch Quelaag") so going through the Demon Ruins makes sense. The Four Kings you're told directly are in New Londo. The only arbitrary one is associating The Duke's Archives with Seath. P.S. I don't think DS3 handled it terribly well either. The feeling I got arriving in Firelink Shrine was "you know how this shit works by now, get on with it". I haven't played Bloodborne but from what I've heard that approach is thematically relevant to that game + it makes sense in-universe because you're literally employed to hunt the monsters.

[@fioredeutchmark]

Robert R DS2 isn’t about mystery, it’s about the inevitable. I’m pretty sure this whole experience has gone several miles over your head if you agree with anything in this critique. Trying to argue DS1 is anything other than hugely vague is laughable I mean the way you get to lower undead burg is about the least intuitive bit of level/quest design I’ve played in a game post 2006. I mean if anything, what you’re told at the start makes you think you can get to both bells from firelink shrine (which you can’t without the master key) And that’s just miles from the truth. Basically what all these criticisms of DS2 come down to is; YOU don’t want to learn a new game and it’s mechanics. DS2 (with the dlc) has the best 2 bosses in any Soulsbourne game and the best level to boot. Also the design decisions made in DS2 carry through, almost completely, to bloodbourne which is widely regarded among critics and the informed public as the game of the generation/decade so I find it bizarre anyone has this much negative to say about its immediate spiritual predecessor!?

[@Robert399]

​@@fioredeutchmark Trying to analyse other commenters' mental states or motivations is dickish and stupid but in this case I'm happy to return fire. If you think the PLOT, not the lore, of Dark Souls 1 is "hugely vague", clearly you don't understand the difference and this video went over your head. The main plot is a series of clearly expressed goals: immediately Oscar tells you to ring the Bell of Awakening. As soon as you arrive in Firelink, the crestfallen warrior tells you there are 2 bells, 1 in the church and 1 in Blighttown. After you do that, Frampt is waiting in Firelink and tells you to go through Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo. You then give the Lordvessel to Frampt (or Kaathe) who tells you who to kill for the 4 lord souls. Then you go back to the kiln to fight Gwyn and either kindle or snuff out the First Flame (which your respective serpent tells you to do). There's plenty of ambiguity in the *world* but not in the *player's goals* or what you're trying to achieve (note *trying* , not necessarily the outcome). _EDIT: I missed a bit of your comment so, to be fair, yes the path to lower undead burg is arbitrary and annoying. But as I said at the start, these sorts of things feel like mistakes or bad decisions in DS1 whereas in DS2 they feel intentional_ I haven't played Bloodborne so I can't comment on that but to say "the predecessor to a good game must be good" is idiotic. Exactly the same design principles and mechanics can be applied badly in one game and well in the next (Assassin's Creed 1=>2; Far Cry 2=>3; Just Cause 1=>2; ...)

[@jakeinator21]

​@@fioredeutchmark "I’m pretty sure this whole experience has gone several miles over your head if you agree with anything in this critique." Yeah, this is the sentence where you lost me, bud. It's fine if you wanna disagree with matthewmatosis, but pretending he doesn't have any valid opinions/facts/arguments/criticisms in this video, even if you think that Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series, is just plain ignorant. Also, what design decisions exactly are you referring to that were brought over from DS2 to Bloodborne? I find this argument confusing since Bloodborne was more a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls than DS2, especially considering that Miyazaki wasn't even involved with DS2 because he was heading Bloodborne during the entirety of its development...

[@ClockworkTheFrog]

1 year later for scholar of the first sin and the difficulty is even more bs, like wtf is iron keep even

[@larsthomasbremnes6810]

+Clockwork Entirely unproblematic.

[@LizardeyeThePunkip]

+Clockwork Really? I'd think you'd complain about the Brume Tower not Iron Keep

[@PlanetCapeStudios]

+Lars Thomas Bremnes If you enjoy the death of creative difficulty then yes, unproblematic.

[@PlanetCapeStudios]

Lars Thomas Bremnes not the difficulty, the creative ways it was difficult.

[@PlanetCapeStudios]

Lars Thomas Bremnes Its difficult like"Hur dur clump a bunch of difficult enemies together"

[@SuperSupermanX1999]

I know it's probably just your accent, but I loved it when you said "the gutter is the turd time this setting had been used in three games."

[@mamayareborn]

SuperSupermanX1999 * "The gutter is the _turd_ time this setting had been used in _tree_ games."

[@ScootaProject]

SuperSupermanX1999 One of my regular customers at work is Irish, and I enjoy every conversation we have due to that amazing accent. :)

[@TheRealGlooper]

I watched hbomberguy's video before watching this and he makes you sound like a war criminal

[@jackofnotrades4350]

Curious, whats your take now that you have seen both sides?

[@TheRealGlooper]

@@jackofnotrades4350 I still like Dark Souls 2, but now I respect Matt's opinion and now I'm taking every word of Hbomb with a grain of salt.

[@sircallum]

Especially the way he pokes fun at Matt for no reason other than to make him look like he knows nothing about Dark souls 2 is really infuriating.

[@thebuddah1253]

@@sircallum Hbomb barely knows anything about the game himself. Didn't bother talking about adp and ignores so much lore. His video was rushed as hell. Mauler made a good response but be prepared it's long as hell.

[@livingfailure]

@@thebuddah1253 mauler fucking massacred him lmao

[@craigwells4214]

It's not mentioned here but I just want to complain about it: Who the hell on the development team thought it would be a good idea to lock spells like wrath of the gods/chaos fireball behind pvp covenants that require a RIDICULOUS amount of grinding? I mean come on, 500 wins in the brotherhood of blood (and losing a duel docks you a point) in order to get great chaos fireball? Either that or go into NG++ and by that point you'd probably be only playing to get all the achievements, that's really shit lol.

[@rockleesmile]

Man, after many years of discourse I came back to this and it's all still right on the money... and in some ways your critique was even being charitable.

[@ShadowedAgony]

Nick! :D

[@NoahRichard]

It's been a really refreshing rewatch recently with how often "Dark Souls 2" goes trending on Twitter from people calling it an "underrated masterpiece" and so forth. Nothing against people who enjoy it (I don't hate it myself), but it feels like one big gaslight, lol.

[@derpi3438]

Calling it a gaslight feels incredibly right lmao. I used to fanboy the hell out of this game and rabidly defend it, but now I realise how stupid that was. Many fans of the game are way more vocal now and try to push some critiqued things as genius design and stuff.

[@NoahRichard]

@@derpi3438 Oh, absolutely. It's dumbfounding, for example, how often you'll see defenses of the illogical world design/harsh transitions between areas as being "intentionally dream-like to reflect the crumbling world of Drangleic". In reality, it's because the devs were under strict time constraints and were lacking key designers present for DS1/DeS. The idea of a distorted world is a great one, but there's no indication that the designers intended for the levels to reflect it - humans are the ones constantly alluded to as deteriorating, not the world itself. The Earthen Peak elevator is not some big-brain design, it's an elevator that was likely supposed to go down and not up (and into an area believed to originally belong beneath the fiery pit in Forest of Fallen Giants, no less). On that note, what's most frustrating is how many fans "defend" the game by just... mocking the most-repeated criticisms. Making fun of people for bringing up the EP elevator, stuff like that. Because the more people say it, the more ridiculous a criticism it is, I guess? It's so weird. There's nothing wrong with being okay with/ignoring these things as a fan of the game, but so many people feel the need to try and critically defend things instead of just accepting that they're flaws and not minding. I can understand wanting to fight back against the idea that DS2 is a downright terrible game (because it's not), but there's a very vocal portion of the community that seems more concerned with overhyping it than anything.

[@yewtewbstew547]

@@NoahRichard The phenomenon you touched on briefly where people repeatedly and wilfully mock valid criticism is one of my least favourite human behaviours in general. Basically what those people are doing is trying to create a stigma around mentioning said criticism. They know it's valid, and as a result they also know there is no way they can counter it in good faith. So instead what they're trying to do is disarm you intellectually by making you feel embarrassed to use it against them. It is extremely weaselly.

[@pearljaime2]

I couldn't agree more with ya on the tracking and "sliding" enemies have. The giant humanoid with big weapon doing arch attacks being overused argument is also spot on.

[@S3nCh4n]

thanks for mentioning the sliding as the video didnt, having your 2nd/3rd swing miss enemies entirely because they have butter under their feet are frustrating as hell

[@illseeyaonthedarksideofthemoon]

And they have double down in Elden Ring.

[@Thomas.c4647]

​@@illseeyaonthedarksideofthemoonthat they have lol. Malenia hovers in the air for a few seconds and can spin 360 degrees in place before waterfowl dance. Even regular enemies can change 180 degrees mid jump attack.

[@illseeyaonthedarksideofthemoon]

@@Thomas.c4647 The worst example in my opinion is Morgoth and his cane.

[@planetzdr]

Yeah I gotta say the red pulsing effect during Boss cutscenes has me head scratching

[@completegarbage3681]

Dark Souls 1: Here's the Whip Knight. You fight him in a forest. Dark Souls 2: Here's a whip. The item description says that this whip belonged to a very famous knight who has long been forgotten. Dark Souls 3: Here's the Whip Knight, only this time he's called the Whip Warrior and he has different but still similar armour. You fight him in a snowy forest.

[@iamnotinvolved1309]

?

[@Laketwig]

@@iamnotinvolved1309 A whip is a rope that you hit someone with.

[@MrCholoPants3415]

DS3 is the worst of the the entire franchise. DS1 > Bloodborne > Demon Souls > DS2 > DS3 For PvP it's an easy.... DS2 > DS1 > Dogshit > Flaming Dogshit > Flaming Dogshit that fucking heals when you try to extinguish it > Bloodborne > DS3

[@olgaamsterdam]

nice bait

[@moonset9419]

@azio91 True..true...

[@Instig8iveJournalism]

Great vid. re: the graphics, your footage shows pretty plainly just how ugly and boring Dark Souls 2 looks compared to Dark Souls 1 and even Demon's Souls. It's muddy and repetitive, devoid of props, full of unfinished box-shaped rooms and floors. Compare the complexity of world 5-1 in Demon's Souls to "The Gutter," the knockoff shanty town in Dark Souls 2. You say we've never played the Souls games for their graphics, and I think most people can agree to that. But the art of the Souls series was absolutely integral to the lore and atmosphere, which you've noted is sorely lacking. Oh, and you bought the game on console, but for people who only want to play it on PC, the forced delay is an insult. From and Bamco both took a big shit on this one.

[@pissant42]

46:22 "Without Miyazaki directing, this game may as well be fan fiction. The difference being some fan fiction writers would have the good sense not to bring back the spirit of every major boss from the last game" Fast Forward to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, A.K.A. Fan Fiction: The Movie

[@rastyisanerd3686]

Bruh moment

[@n.k.63]

They all are fan fiction and a terrible one at that. Disney could've paid $100 quintillions, but when the movies are less competent and knowledgeable about lore and universe than some teenage fans in their fics, there is just no way to seriously see them as canon.

[@rastyisanerd3686]

@@n.k.63 yeet

[@zoisantonopoulos7999]

@@n.k.63 i saw an article thats states every single plot hole and lore change and the conclusion was that you literally can't have the new trilogy be cannon while the original trilogy is. You have to choose one , they do not work together.

[@lordquaz7154]

True that. There were parts of the DS2 story that felt like a fan fic, but there were certain parts that were very good. The same can't be said about the new Star wars films unfortunately.

[@datanon3059]

Kinda crazy how much of this applies to Elden Ring. Obviously it's not everything, but easily 60% of the gameplay complaints are the same, along with a handful of level design ones.

[@TyrellCorp2019]

If you think this video was revelatory of Elden Ring, you really need to watch his Lost Souls Arts video. Basically predicted the exact trajectory of the series nearly a decade before it happened.

[@corytheweirdo12]

There’s nothing I appreciate more than a well-written argumentative essay

[@ItotheCtotheE]

The part of the video where you talk about the over lay for the boss intros is very funny to me. I've worked in games for 12 years and the decisions made by creative directors is often times perplexing. But they are given ultimate power and are never questioned. This is how things like this happen.

[@k1lkenny]

The single most broken gameplay feature in the game is the ability to repair rings, Never once did i fear dying in DS2 due to being able to repair the Ring of Sacrifice

[@DrFamine]

***** What? But if you die, doesn't it break and vanish like in Dark Souls? Hold on, I gotta check this......Oh god no. No. Really?? Just... ... ... wow. I never knew that. Thank god I didn't, I guess.

[@k1lkenny]

Dr Famine Yep, doesn't vanish, just repair that sucker, and whole game is pretty much broken.

[@LavosYT]

***** Have you played Sotfs? The ring of sacrifice costs around 15K souls to repair now.

[@k1lkenny]

Lavos YT I haven't, but in base game it was a joke.

[@ScootaProject]

Lavos YT Does Scholar of the First Sin change the game in many positive ways? I've seen some of the new enemy spawns, and pretty much "NOPED" immediately due to obvious emphasis on hard, frustrating fights, rather than interesting ones.

[@hafaball]

Just seeing the enemies tracking like that while trying to get behind them still fills me with rage.. lol. Amazing review.

[@dorn7523]

I think this is a really well-built critique. One of my favourites on KZbin for sure. It manages to show how many problems DS 2 have, yet it is still not a bad game, just the least favourite in the series for many. I appreciate Matthew for showing all of the game's problems (or, at least very most of them), I am sure a lot of people can find something new in it, think about it, analyze, make some conclusions. Dark Souls 2, as for me, is not a bad game, just the worst in the series. Sometimes I really like it. Sometimes, my eyes roll into the heaven on how cheaply some of the game's moments are made (seriously, who thought that placing one-shotting ogre in Aldia's keep behind the door that has NO indication whatsoever about danger is a good design?). And, if somebody would like to call me "Miyazaki's fanboy", I can totally call you as well "Tanimura's fanboy", because I can clearly see problems DS 1 have (ENTIRE Izalith etc.), yet it is my favourite in the series. All Souls-games have something unique and good about them, and I do agree on that, as well as all Souls-games have their problems. But it is sometimes just cringy to see somebody showing only game's problems, without showing good aspects. Can't we just enjoy Souls-games by our own ways? Can't some fanboys in Souls-community stop being smuggy elitists, calling other games of the series "Garbage" ? Like InfernoPlus, who can pretend to be a greater smug than HBomberGuy, calling people who like DS 3 "retards". Nowadays, it is really rare to see somebody who enjoy ALL Dark Souls games, or at least respects others' opinions. Which is shame, really. Anyway, I do wish for Matt good time making other critiques, and I thank him for this one.

[@TamaraBloodhoof]

I see your opinion... And will respectfully agree that all games have their upsides and downsides, and that some things are cheap (though the ogre does have a warning through the slats in the door and you can hear both that one and the second gotcha one breathing) but are ultimately able to be called. DS2 is the most methodical, and the gameplay is, quite truly, off-putting to many fans as it feels horrifically different from all the other ones. It's my favourite, but that's due to me having ragequit once, put it down, then come back and felt it click. It's like the Sekiro parrying; until it clicks, the game feels like shit.

[@twistedgwazi5727]

@@TamaraBloodhoof I disagree with your point about the ogre being telegraphed. Sure, you can see it behind the door, but judging off the precedent the other games and DS2 itself set, you'd just expect the enemy to wind up an attack as you opened the door, rewarding you for seeing the enemy beforehand and being ready or rewarding you for reacting quickly. Instead, it basically punishes you for even trying to open the door.

[@TamaraBloodhoof]

@@twistedgwazi5727 I did not say it was telegraphed, I said that it had a warning. I had also mentioned that it was part of the few specific things that I consider cheap in the game and only mentioned some of the minor ways that one could see it coming, however that does not mean that I believe it is well telegraphed.

[@adamswing6115]

Occam's razor, all the games are bad ggs

[@HughGRection]

I'm surprised that people still think pulling the DmC card, "You shouldn't compare it to other games in the series, it's different!", is a valid shield against criticism. I think it's very necessary to compare Dark Souls 2 to previous entries in the series, especially considering that there is no other analogous series to compare/contrast the game to like this. Were it not called Dark Souls 2, I would completely agree that it shouldn't be compared to Demon's/Dark Souls, but once you don "Souls" onto your game's title, you are immediately burdened with the series legacy and past design decisions, whether you want them or not. Anyways, very interesting critique. I'm glad someone finally made a thorough review of the game in the context of it being a Souls game and not just "video game 2014 yes it good unga bunga", I'm sure there's people who disagree though, and that's A-okay too. Still waiting to see what's possible on the PC release in a few days, but I've lost most of my confidence in FromSoft's understanding of the PC platform. Ought to be interesting as the port gets picked apart, though.

[@villainousgrizzly3923]

The problem isn't him comparing. It's his hypocrisy. Example, his complaint for Royal Rat Authority even though fight is the same as Capra Demon in terms of the dynamics of the fight. Kill the small fry and the main bad becomes a joke. Not to mention the boss isn't even mandatory to beat the game start to finish. Throne Watcher and Defender is DaS2's Ornstein and Smough. Only this time you don't have pillars to hide behind and abuse the stupid AI with. What does he do? Praise Ornstein and Smough (a fight full of nothing but stupid AI abuse via pillars) while complaining about Throne Watcher and Defender. The video is full of hypocrisy and makes it hard for me to respect his opinion even if he does bring up 1 good point after 15 pointless bullshit nitpicks. If there was one thing Dark Souls 2 got right and did better than the first, it was the PvE. It's more engaging, intense, and feels threatening. Too many enemies in Dark Souls 1 were backstab fodder and it's mostly because their AI was terrible.

[@HughGRection]

Bytesize Grizzly I think that's exactly the point, I've never spoken to anyone who thought Capra was a well designed boss fight. So why does an even worse rendition of it pop up in the sequel? Capra could have used mentioning in the video, but Capra's poorly designed fight has been beaten with a stick into an unidentifiable goo, it goes without saying at this point, I feel. O&S had the "big, slow telegraphed guy and little, quick guy" setup with a surprise finale at the end. W&D had two small, quick, and aggressive enemies that were an endurance test for all the wrong reasons. O&S was doable in any myriad of ways (roll out of Ornstein's combo and attack Smough who is fairly squishy, or kite Smough out of range and kill Ornstein 1v1, just to name a few), while W&D were both too aggressive to reliably split them up; you simply have to keep backpedaling, rolling, and blocking for a minute until you can land a hit or two in between both of their combos, and then back again. Little skill required, not much brainwork, just an absurdly large amount of patience And you are right, nitpicking is stupid unless it is used as an illustration of something larger and more serious, which I think this video hit square on the head.

[@HughGRection]

Bytesize Grizzly A note: I don't think O&S is a 10/10 boss fight, I just feel that putting them beside W&D is a pretty flimsy comparison.

[@ArctheLadder]

There are similarities between Stupid Sif Apparition and Capra Demon, but the idiotic punishment and tedium is much greater in Dark Souls 2. Capra Demon arguably hinges on surviving the first attack of the boss, either by having a good shield or rolling. This isn't a terribly exciting premise, and running up the stairs and falling down and hopefully not dying to the dogs can be trying, but it's often times a one-and-done affair provided you survive the initial strike. Saying this is the same as a pack of toxin inflicting rats, including one giant poise breaking ripoff of Sif that can one shot you, is incredibly misguided. It's not bias, it's observation. Something Dark Souls 2 doesn't reward much. You know that that pack of rats will always be there, but the solution to killing them is hardly elegant nor will your frustrations be brief. The comparison makes Dark Souls 2 look bad because it is bad.

[@DonnyKirkMusic]

Bytesize Grizzly Pillars don't help when most of O&S's attacks go right through them.

[@mrbrochacho99]

As a person who has put hundreds of hours into this game on my old 360 I can confidently say this is one of the best videos about the game. I love Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and 3 a lot but I agree with pretty much everything he says here. Despite everything he says I still run through this game every once in a while, which is a credit to how good FromSoft is at making games IMO. I wonder if he likes any of the DLC. Regardless, it's very refreshing to see such a honest review.

[@darrenronard2087]

t's really too bad that the conversation around Dark Souls 2 got as acrimonious as it did. Even people that criticize it, like Matthew himself, acknowledge that it's a good game. Unfortunately there was probably no way for people to point out its flaws without seeming like they were totally dumping on it, especially to fans who didn't perceive the same issues. That led to a wildly disproportionate reaction on both sides, where people who had probably played it for hundreds of hours were calling it "trash," while the other side threw accusations about "elitism" and "nostalgia" and so on. Maybe the only effective way to explain what Ds2 was missing is to point to the Miyazaki titles, and just say "that's what it's missing!" Sometimes the only real response to a work of art is another work of art, and when you try to put into words, you end up inevitably overstating your point.

[@callmequaz9052]

Yeh, pointing to other Fromsoft games such as for, example, Dark Souls 1 is a great way to see what 2 did wrong, what it lacked and why people didn't like it. Unfortunately, some people don't understand that and just think that because you liked Dark Souls 1 you hated 2 because you expected it to be the same, which is not the case.

[@863-t9f]

Yea no this game is just kind of shit.

[@rswindol]

I would definitely say it's a bad game. The issues with the controls and lock-on combined with constant spamming of enemies makes it really hard to enjoy. Combine that with ADP, bad level design, nonsensical world design, long aggro ranges, subpar animation etc, I got nothing but frustration from it. In my opinion it fails at nearly every aspect that made Dark Souls and Demon's Souls such great games. Maybe the DLC would change my mind, but I'd have to mod it heavily to fix the most egregious technical issues.

[@Alex-hp2rs]

boo hoo

[@ArguablyTheWorst]

Hbomber guy response was so laughable and filled with personal attacks and lies that the response will always be disproportionate. Theres no arguing with idiots, only obliteration

[@tinchosabala]

Finally somebody gives Oscar the recognition he deserves.

[@R1R1R2]

THANK you.

[@TheDrownduck]

this video needs more views to send the message to the developer, it's very true. this souls series is heading toward the wrong direction motivated by greed and the so call "difficult game" as a lazy gimmick for popularity. disappointed and very shallow of them

[@Arexion5293]

***** Polyphony Digital. They listen to feedback and take it seriously.

[@LumosX]

It's pretty funny that most of this critique applies directly to Elden Ring (though I do like Elden Ring, unlike DS2).

[@_ArsNova]

90% of the criticisms apply to every Souls game after Dark Souls. Elden Ring has basically all the same problems except instead of hallway levels, they decided to ruin online instead.

[@bigsmall2842]

Most of the nitpicky critiques for ds2 can be applied to ds3 and elden ring. Yet people act like there’s a massive difference in game direction between ds2 and those other games.

[@Eshtian]

I hate seeing the Bomber guy comments on this video "Don't use lock on" What about enemies close to the floor like rats and crawling undead in the congregation? Sure a katana will hit them but will a rapier? No. You'd have to aim down which is the same issue as before And that's forgetting about the fact that it means your finger has to be off the dodge button, which makes reacting to enemies harder. "Using a shield" Shields are viable though And you can't say it's definitely less fun And why would the game have a ton of Shields if they weren't supposed to be used? "Git gud" Dark souls 2 is the easiest of the series "Adjust to crowd control" This one is in relation to being used to DS1 combat O&S, Lost izalith, the two ambushes in dark root Several fights in the royal gardens and the Artorias dlc in general with spell casters and melee units put together The boar encounter in undead burg Gargoyles The catacombs DS1 did test crowd control in several different scenarios Lost izalith has luring with the capra (which is a dead skill anyways. What's fun (subjective question) or challenging about shooting, or walking slightly forward and then backtracking) O&S tests managing multiple enemies enemies And finally onto the issue of his statement about tracking Something important to understand about Mathew is that he views these games as an exploration game primarily. Not an action game. The action just needs to be serviceable. But if tracking in combat is better why would it be a problem? It's not, it's about designing torwards exploration. His Turtle knight example is about making the enemy a battle about tactics rather than action, and as such you would need to explore the attacks of the enemy. This attack has poor tracking, I'll walk around behind him. Oh he had an attack that punishes me for being behind him, I'll stay to his side. It's not deep but it's a beginner enemy. As for general tracking, the same follows, smart design, not basic. There's a conflating between lack of tracking and strafe tactics that aren't true. If it was, Mathew wouldn't be complaining because you can strafe enemies. Not all of them, but a decent amount like Persuer for example.

[@deleted6792]

You don’t need to attack the low enemies first (crowd control, prioritize targets). The camera isn’t that slow to angle. You can just tilt it as you enter the attack radius. Hbomb didn’t make the game. Obviously the shields were meant to be used, but they can lead to a bad experience.

[@Eshtian]

@@deleted6792 A. Aiming down defeats the purpose of not having focus. Your just recreating the problem but in a new situation. Also fuck ranged players using magic amirite. B. The prioritization only comes into affect because of issues with the focus besides it cuts down on strategic choice into "do A, then B" rather than giving the player the choice to do one or the either at a pro versus con Cut down the small enemies but deal with the larger enemies being alive for longer or Take out the larger enemies but deal with the smaller enemies in the meanwhile Also consider the gameplay of the fight You kite a bunch if zombies around untill you creat enough distance to actually fight the mages. That's just cod zombies But worse since in cod you actually have to have a grasp on basic movement and map design. It's just luring which is awful design. And that's for all games. Edit: this is after the conversation (the good day comment is the last) But luring is not inherently bad. However in this case it is because it takes a while to lure the slower enemies and it becomes a waste of time. Having the alternative would cut down on that design C. Your right, Shields can lead to a bad experience But so can magic And melee And bows Bomber is basically saying Shields are definitely worse and fuck you for using them despite that not being inherently true And yes Bomber didn't make the game But he still said it taught you to not use a shield When you say a game definitely does something, whether or not you made is redundant. And remember what Bomber said about Mathew? That he didn't unlearn what he learned in the past games? Well clearly he learned to use Shields in those games. Yet he still enjoyed them. So why is Dark souls 2 different? Regardless let's cut this argument down to actually encompass Mathew and not Bomber How does using a shield, in any of Mathew's points, invalidate it.

[@deleted6792]

@@Eshtian I’m not going to argue. We’re not about to get anywhere with this. I’m also likely to misrepresent something, having never played any dark souls game. I’ll just step down, whilst disagreeing. Good day to you.

[@Eshtian]

@@deleted6792 and good day to you

[@deleted6792]

@@connyschulze8074 but the way the game encourages players to use shields is not conducive to that kind of fun.

[@superlosia1234]

The game's lore is also FAR too ambiguous. Piecing together item descriptions and world structure in Dark Soul's was immensely satisfying since it actually made SENSE. Here it feels like the developers ran out of ideas, didn't want to rehash so they instead replaced it with a uninteresting convoluted story that even the clues in themselves are ambiguous...... what's even the point of figuring it out anymore...?

[@maxpropayne3853]

It's not just the major faults in this game that managed to piss me off. Little things, like getting to the fog gate for Throne Watcher and Defender, can easily become a chore for some people. Here's the process you have to go through if you don't want to use the King's Ring during the fight: 1. Walk over to the gate. 2. Go into your clusterfuck of an inventory system. Seriously FromSoft, what the fuck? How did you manage to make going through the inventory even more tedious? 3. Replace one of your rings with the King's Ring. 4. Wait for that slow ass door to open (probably FromSoft's method of hiding loading screens). 5. Go back into your inventory. 6. Equip the ring you want to use for the fight. 7. Hike down the long pathway to the fog gate. Every fucking time. It annoyed the hell out of me, and I only died 3 times against them on NG as melee only. One of those times, it was because I realized I forgot to re-equip my fucking Royal Soldier's Ring, so I was fat rolling through their attacks. Didn't end well. It must be especially frustrating for people who had a really difficult time with them, or if they're a lot harder in NG+. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game for what it is - more Dark Souls with an unpolished narrative, inferior world design, incredibly wonky hitboxes, and a shitload of bosses stuffed in - but why FromSoft? If you HAVE to hide loading times from us, then why not have the ring automatically activate the door if you have it in your inventory? It doesn't even have to be a ring, really. This isn't like the Four Kings, where you had to wear the Covenant of Artorias to traverse the Abyss, which was also kind of annoying but was at least part of the game's lore. As far as I can tell, the King's Ring had no real story significance outside of opening the gates. You could have made it anything; a necklace, a pendant, a magical stone, whatever. Why you chose to make it a ring, and then not even make it necessary to challenge the bosses, is beyond me. On the plus side, it is nice that you can use multiple consumable soul items at once now. It's a shame that you couldn't have done that for ranking up covenants, one of the most annoying things about the first Dark Souls. One step forward, two steps back, I guess.

[@maxpropayne3853]

Another thing Matt mentioned that really bugged me is the feeling of restriction I get when playing DaS2. If I wanted to make a quick PVP character with a Zweihander, I have two tedious routes to go through in order to get one, one of which has a bit of a variation: 1. Heide's ToF >> Huntsman's Copse >>Harvest Valley >>Earthen Peak >> Iron Keep >> Chest near Smelter Demon's fog gate 2a. Forest of Fallen Giants >> Lost Bastille >> Sinner's Rise (to get Fragrant Branch) >> Shaded Woods >> Doors of Pharros >> Brightstone Cove Tseladora >> Farm spiders for Zweihander 2b. Heide's ToF >> No Man's Wharf >> Lost Bastille etc. Meanwhile, I'm wasting materials on weapons I don't even want to use just to get through these places a quickly as possible. I feel as if Dark Souls and Demon Souls did a MUCH better job at placing a wide variety of weapons in places players can reach with relative ease, which made PVP characters pretty easy to create. And with the addition of Soul Memory, DaS2 needed easily accessible weapons way more than its predecessors, seeing as a lot of people seek to avoid the SL 200+ hexing dual wield katana pokefests. Also, fuck whoever thought it was a good idea to make players open to attack as they go through a boss fog gate. I sure do enjoy having to kill every fucking enemy on the way to the Executioner's Chariot to save myself from getting my shit pushed in by five Torturers at the fog gate.

[@CtisGaming]

***** Yeah, that's nice, but in the future it should be automatic when it's in your inventory.

[@afterastrum]

Maybe you shouldn't be playing Dark Souls if you go on a tirade over putting on a ring, a process taking less than 10 seconds.

[@CtisGaming]

***** Or you could just press a button like every other door. Didn't realize you could change it back immediately, thought the door might stop suddenly just to be trolly.

[@afterastrum]

marcus moeby Let me reiterate, maybe you shouldn't play Dark Souls if putting on a ring for a few seconds bothers you. In fact, why are you even on youtube? I mean, it takes *so* long to search for youtube on google, and to find this video? That's at least 10 seconds! 'Annoying as hell' as you put it.

[@NintendanGX]

During my first ever playthrough of Dark Souls II last year, I was baffled at how frustrated I was with the entire experience, especially considering I had enjoyed Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne (in that order) prior to buying this one on a sale. I found myself absolutely frustrated with poor, slap-dash design of the game and ended up despising the entire product after I was done with it, and so I just had to see if anyone had the same issues as me. I was baffled by how much hype was surrounding the game and what I could remember of the gloating reviews of the game, because I did not understand how anything they brought up made the game automatically good. The characters have no tangible weight whatsoever compared to the 4 other games, which is an undeniable fact most people aren't willing to admit when the animations speak for themselves. The hitboxes are largely inconsistent and often lead to bullshit moments where you swear you were behind an enemy and out-of-range as they then warp around and proceed to chomp your face off anyway. Dodge-rolling is unreliable now, and I didn't even know I had to pour my souls into a single stat just to make it work before it was too late and I was already done with the game. The hard-on for spamming enemies in cramped rooms like this is suddenly Souls Warriors when the game was clearly not designed with these encounters in mind. And all of this isn't even getting into the level design, immersion-breaking world map, gimped controls and physics, disappointing DLC and other aspects that have already been covered by now. Thankfully that's how I discovered Matthewmatosis' video right here, as many of the issues he pointed out resonated strongly with me and further helped contextualise my own grievances with the game. I know a lot of Hbomberguy wankers like to accuse people of jumping on the bandwagon, but I came to these conclusions on my own, Matthew's critique simply confirmed what I had feared about the game. I have no problem with anyone enjoying the game despite this, but even after forcing myself to get my money's worth with the game and go after SotFS' trophies just to see if anything would redeem the experience (since that's the version I bought), I never wanted to touch the thing again. I genuinely believe it to be a bad game, no matter what it gets right, the overall game just isn't enjoyable to me by any stretch of the imagination. For anyone who's unconvinced that Hbomberguy's In Defense of Dark Souls II video is terribly-made and rushed (not to mention the amount of unnecessary slandering he does toward Matthew and tries to misrepresent his arguments), go watch MauLer's videos on the subject.

[@gayluigipower]

Well said. Literally what I felt like playing this cashgrab.

[@alanritchie7850]

Maulers stuff is unreasonably long This video here is good enough

[@wasabcwasabc]

TLDR; Casual.

[@ShadowedAgony]

This video is a magnet for uncharitable KZbinrs lol.

[@La0bouchere]

"The years pass, people come and go, but there will always be someone getting triggered by Matthewmatosis's Dark Souls 2 video. As a wise physicist once said, constants and variables."

[@dumpsterstiggy5392]

@@La0bouchere It's ironic that two responses after posting that I was the one who got triggered, lmao. I've cooled off a little since then, but still don't think Gred's presentation of this is good. He takes a slightly softer stance in his comments of "okay, sure he may have been paraphrasing, but Miyazaki never said anything like 'it was a way to pull you into the world'", "but at least I cite my sources", and "subjectivity is implied ;)", but his video is a montage proclaiming "Miyazaki never said those words" to one of the smuggest uses of classical music I've seen to date. He rails on critics for being irresponsible with their words, but now it's just out there that Matthew made up a quote. Yeah, sure the viewer can just watch the video and make up their own mind, as he does link to this video in the description, but let's be honest, only a small percentage are going to do so. He links like 20 videos that are multiple hours long, no one is going to actually take the time to watch any of it if they haven't already. And honestly, an attack on another content creator should have higher standards for caveating and hedging than commenting on a game. His only hedging in the video iirc is "there might be another interview I didn't see", which is just not sufficient imo. Jesus, I'm still triggered, man. It's just infuriating to me, because he goes out of his way to appear measured and respectful at the end of his video, but I can't see the way he treats this as anything but dishonest.

[@PrincePICHAISUNDARARAJAN]

​@@dumpsterstiggy5392 Cool, glad to see someone else expressing frustration with Gred's video. Seriously, it pisses me off when I think of it, it's a pseud acting smug, using the go-to classical "le intellectual" music while he deliberately or unintentionally misunderstands arguments, twists words in a certain way so that they are technically true, but misses the point regardless, argues semantics and acts like it's a "gotcha", and acts and presents himself and his arguments as an authority despite admitting in his own comment section, for instance, that his whole argument about Matthew "lying" was actually his own interpretation-if so, then don't present it as a fact you idiot. It also annoys me because he couldn't even double-check Nietzsche's philosophy and spends way too long "correcting" Feeble King despite that being a an extremely minor reference in his video. Also, "you didn't provide sources!!!11!!1", and not to mention when Gred starts talking about Matthew's other video, he misses the point entirely. Anyway, sorry. I understand how you feel. ;_;

[@La0bouchere]

@@dumpsterstiggy5392 lmao I love that we both came back here after seeing gred's nonsense. I'm still triggered by it too. I really dislike when people present themselves as giving honest, evidence-based reasoning but end up pushing blatant misinformation about what they're talking about. I know people like Gred probably do it by accident and lack of reasoning skills. They do genuinely think that finding a subsection of a quote that happens to reinforce their conclusion counts as "proof", but it's still frustrating to see even if accidental. It's extra dumb since his video was about criticizing other people's argumentation, but his logic and argumentation was even more flawed and he doesn't seem to have the self awareness to realize it, going by his response to criticism. God everything about that video ended up being so much more tilting than I could have anticipated.

[@LurkingAround]

What are you guys talking about? Who's Gred?

[@Luxorcist]

Send this to Bandai/Namco please. let the directors watch it. This really hits the nail on the head. The biggest complaints i have are the Enemy tracking, and the hit boxes. In Dark Souls, when i got hit, I knew it. I saw my character get hit. but in Dark Souls 2 i find myself going " WTF, I WASN'T EVEN NEAR THE GUY!?!?!?" I miss the old Character animations/movement. Dark Souls 2 feels very floaty and loose, and its just unsatisfying when youre trying to be agile. And on the topic of agility, i do not like the ADP stat. a stat that governs my characters basic mechanics is dumb. I shouldn't have to invest soul levels into something that should be standard with every character. Meanwhile, losing stats in more important things like Vitality, or a DPS stat. The levels seem very small in comparison to Dark Souls. the Undead Burg/Parish are 2 different areas, but they share the same aesthetics, making the area seem very large. The Depths also fits in well, along with the sort of disappointing Lower Undead Burg. But in Dark Souls 2, its pretty straight forward. the levels are small, and don't offer much exploration, besides slamming my characters face into random walls, while mashing A to find a hidden door. I like Dark Souls 2, it's different, and it still needs some calibrating and tweaking, But Dark Souls was the Superior game, despite all of the broken fights and flaws it had. I've been playing since Demons Souls, which i loved, But i felt that Dark Souls really improved on a lot of the bullshit things from Demons Souls. Stun locking was the most annoying things in Demons Souls, and its one of the most annoying thing in any game where you lose control of your character (anyone whos played World of Warcraft, or any other mmo probably [pvp] knows the pain), And Stun Locking has returned in Dark Souls 2. I've been mauled to death by tiny piglets and rats because i got stuck on some awkward geometry and stun locked into oblivion. The poise system in Dark Souls worked very well, but it was out of control after a certain point, whereas the poise in Dark Souls 2 seems to be a worthless number in my stats. All in all, Dark Souls 2 is disappointing. Its fun, but not nearly as immersive as the previous games.

[@SunderlandAlexis]

One time I was fighting the Pursuer, and when he made his stupid Curse Inflicting stab attack, I teleported into it and died, even though It didn't even hit me. It looked so lame... Yknow I bet they knew that the Hitboxes had problems, but decided to leave them like that because It made the game harder.

[@Luxorcist]

alexis saldana It doesnt make it harder, it makes it annoying. I would rather the hit boxes be smaller, easy to roll away from, but have the enemies do more damage in general so that mistiming a roll would be costly anyways, but at least at that point you know that you rolled at the wrong time. But in this case, I roll at what appears to be the correct time, and get flattened, or launched, or stabbed with a fucking spear anyways. the footage he provided in the video shows it. Smelt has a screwy hit box on his sword for sure. Its just sloppy .

[@fahn777]

alexis saldana I've had the same happen with The Rotten's grab attack, where I clearly dodge-rolled away by several feet from his hand, only to be teleported and have most of my health taken away. Also, bosses and enemies have stupid tracking, making them very hard to counter in certain situations. Too many times have I died to Old Knights using ultra greatswords because I didn't dodge at the very last second.

[@SunderlandAlexis]

Brock Burch I saw that happen to a friend that was playing on the 360. I laughed so hard man... god it looked so stupid, but then I felt bad afterwards. Man fuck those Old Knights with ultra greatswords, and their stupid cousins the Drakekeepers too, those are even worse because they never seem to run out of stamina. Thank god it's very easy to outrun them (like almost everything in DK2) so I usually never bother with them.

[@fahn777]

alexis saldana Speaking of the Drakekeepers, they are the main reason I never bothered trying to kill the Ancient Dragon. Yes, I have heard he is difficult, but if he kills you then you have to run that entire gauntlet of Drakekeepers and Dragon Knights over, and over, and over, and it takes about 10-15 minutes to kill them all, let alone trying to run past them all. They needed another bonfire on that area, maybe on the ledge with the chest after you acquire the Petrified Egg. Another thing that bothered me is that with enough souls, you can have unlimited healing wares, and even cheat death over and over if you have the Rings of Life and Soul Protection. Only 3000 souls to fork over to never lose your souls or hollow? That's catering to casuals. If anything, something so powerful should A) only be picked up once per playthrough and then lost when starting NG+ (or at the very least cost an insane amount) and B) cost a lot more than 3000 souls to repair. I betcha if that ring cost 100k+ souls to repair, people would be using it a lot more sparingly. Part of the appeal of Dark Souls was managing your consumables, knowing when to take a swig of Estus or save it for an emergency, and the fact that your healing was limited to either learning miracles or making it to that next bonfire. I don't know, maybe I'm just complaining too much.

[@TheOnyxMage]

I'm waiting for your Critique of Dark Souls 3

[@cometcourse381]

+Mike the Man You mean that's how long it takes him to make quality content, whether he is positively destroying a game that deserves it (Dark Souls II) or praising a game that deserves it (Wonderful 101). But still, 5 months is a little excessive.

[@Radical_Rainbow]

He's not going to buy the game until either all of the DLC or its equivalent of Scholar of the First Sin is released. Which, honestly, is the smartest way to go about things.

[@joshuariser8605]

Especially considered how good DaS2's DLC is. I may not like the main game, but man, Yui saved that game with those DLC areas.

[@SolusBatty]

@Joshua As in the DLC was how the actual game was suppose to be, while the initial release we got was just sub-par. And calling it sub-par is me trying really hard to be nice. If you need dlc to make you game good you've failed, especially as a sequal.

[@GoogleRuinsAnythingItTouches]

+UchihaDualStorm that's what I keep saying about destiny to the mass load sycophants on my friends list. after I spend 60 dollars on a shitty meat grinding simulator you will not endear me by saying I can play a slightly above average meat grinding simulator for 40 more dollars.

[@TheSeraphim17]

For every part I love in DkS2 there is something that irks me. This was a fantastic soliloquy of the issues that I have with this game. Great work.

[@maxcallahan7175]

Yeah that's pretty much the same way I feel about the game. And i do hope that you finish that guide Chris, I'm excited about it.

[@nickzakrath7080]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[@TheSlammurai]

Seriously, Shrine of Winter is like Ride To Hell Retribution level in terms going out of your way to do something convoluted instead of doing the realistic thing.

[@OZORxORON]

This is word for word how I feel about Dark Souls II after putting 130+ hours into the game. I can't help but feel immense disappointment as I play the game, no matter how many different ways I play or how much I explore, I can't find myself enjoying the game like I did with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. It's a good game, just not a good Souls game, such a shame.

[@DieselOverGas]

Just wrong lmao

[@OZORxORON]

@ ya know, after 10 years of reflecting, with the passage of time and the benefit of hindsight. I realised I haven’t thought about this game once, so na I was right. Actually, it’s not a good game, I was wrong about that. It was mediocre.

[@DieselOverGas]

@@OZORxORON still wrong lmao

[@OZORxORON]

@@DieselOverGas Na

[@DieselOverGas]

@@OZORxORON ya

[@CI254]

It's interesting going back to this video after playing Dark Souls 3 and realize they actually did do several of the proposed ideas throughout like the soul level/weapon level matchmaking and covenant items not requiring ring slots.

[@RebornGalaxy]

+Cionyl also removed poise, magic sucks, bosses are dudes in armor, not interconnected world as in ds1 hmmm alot better yeah lol

[@Rislear]

+PsyGnosiS it is much better than Dark Souls 2, just disliked the amount of bonfires they had and for some people such as Matthew, the lack of repercussion when switching covenants.

[@RebornGalaxy]

Sup Bryan I agree it's better than ds2 but still think this critique is bullshit, he should make critique video for DeS, DS1,(DS3) to be fair. All these games have flaws and still being awesome not only DS2.

[@gabriele7652]

I don't know about DaS3 but both DeS and DaS1 were a lot better than DaS2, which was really lacking in immersion, smart level design, enemy placement and specially item placement. These were all key factors that made the previous games as good and enjoyable as they were.

[@SDB_Dev]

Just like Demon Souls and Dark Souls then. Recently played all the old souls game again, and they were much easier than I remembered.

[@GetToTheKeyboard]

This video just opened my fucking eyes! You make some very good points about DS2, that I never really thought about ... so good job mate! BUT: You have to admit, that DS2 - with all of your mentioned flaws - is still a very good game. Maybe it's not as great as DS1, but maybe that is too much to ask for. I mean ... how likely is it, that you create a masterpiece 3 times in a row? I still enjoy DS2 very much, but your video has certainly helped me in figuring out, why I don't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed DS1. So thank you ... and praise the sun :)

[@GetToTheKeyboard]

***** Yeah and if I HAD a ps4, I would be very excited :P

[@Bananahead88]

"BUT: You have to admit, that DS2 - with all of your mentioned flaws - is still a very good game." Hey yeah! Oh wait, he fucking did.

[@lake_boi]

gtabro1337 Hahaha Bethesda? You mean what: Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Skyrim? Morrowind was great, Oblivion sucked hard with booooooooring generic fantasy them and lame plot, and Skyrim was ok, but defienetly not a masterpiece. Arena and Daggerfall were buggy and random. There were much more games from them, like "Redgaurd" which was a platformer/action game I believe and that fpp dungegon crawler, but they were nice games, nothing more. Fallouts from Bethesda were weak. ONLY truly great game (except for Tribunal expansion which kinda fucked up with lore) they made was Morrowind. And not a single game from Rockstar is a masterpiece for me. GTA series is great, Max Payne 3 was awesome, but no masterpiece there.

[@Bananahead88]

Vfly3r Gta series is meh.

[@lake_boi]

I'm not a big fan too. I liked fourth one for dark, dramatic and realistic plot with really good and heavy moments. Fifth one was like... San Andreas with better graphics. Too much crazy shit going on. I mean I like crazy shit, but I didn't like it in GTA V. Maybe because I had expectanions for something much more like fourth one. But overall it is very importants series in history of games.

[@enickma910]

when dark souls 1 has bad design, it feels like an accident. when dark souls 2 has good design, it feels like an accident

[@KapitanPazur1]

Probably thats why Dark Souls 2 Scholar of The First Sin is hands down the best Dark Souls game in the franchise.

[@enickma910]

@@KapitanPazur1 gr8 b8 m8

[@BillRevis]

@@KapitanPazur1 LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@SomersBugtopia]

@@KapitanPazur1 You mean the game with an issue on screen literally at all times, with horrifyingly braindead design and no story? Ok boss.

[@senpaikaroo]

@@KapitanPazur1 Hell no, your telling me they re-release the game and they don't: (And yes, this is going to be LONG, I am pissed off that they re-released it like this) -Remove ADP and just give the player normal Estus drinking speed and normal I-frames on roll -Make some new enemies instead of placing an undead horse in the kings castle for no reason Not patching the changes in Scholar in the original because if you do that people have less of a reason to buy the re-release version. -Falconer Run Cycle...I rest my case on that one... -Giving more NPC's actual quest lines. -Changing the Old Dragonslayers location and giving him a bigger role as a proper send off to Ornstein instead of.....A tiny building with an idiot that talks down to you with a single bonfire that is for the guy there then for Ornstein. -Removing that bloody screen effect on bosses...Its literally just taking a texture off, a modder did it himself with little difficulty. Here is proof: www.nexusmods.com/darksouls2/mods/181 -Allowing you to move in 360 degree movement instead of like 8 directions... -Making more tactical enemy placements instead of...Spambushes. -Adding meaningful shortcuts. -Giving you 5 estus to start but removing lifegems and most healing items except small things like Divine Blessings (Also being able to carry 1 divine blessing at a time not 99 of them) I would go on but you guys might think I am desperate or something, so I'll leave it here.

[@deadlywork]

I think a lot of people who defend Dark Souls 2 are also kind of "missing the point". While some people may say otherwise, most reasonable people would argue that both Demon's and Dark Souls (the latter moreso honestly) were very flawed in a lot of ways. I could go on all day about the bullshit drake, the first mimic in sen's fortress, the still good but underwhelming second half of the game (the izalith areas in particular kind of suck), the poorly explained poise and humanity systems, etc. The thing is however that these games also had things that they did extremely well, like their art direction, lore, storytelling, level design (mostly), exploration, etc, and all of these things combined made for games that were more than the sum of their parts. DS2 is JUST the sum of its parts, a game that fixes a handful of the problems from the first two games, but fails in many other areas. while it has good moments it simply does not have the unified vision that the first two games did, and it's more than fair to call the game out on that. Of course, it would be remiss to not mention that the game ending up this way was due to a big problem in development where the first director dropped out of the project and Yui Tanimura had to scramble with the team to repurpose things that weren't working and finish the game, but they simply didn't have the time. Tanimura gets a lot of hate, and I don't think it's deserved at all because from the sounds of it he basically did the best he could with what he had. I haven't gotten to the DLC's yet but their reception makes me think that if he had been in charge from the beginning the game would have been much more polished and consistent than it is presently. However while I don't think the "B-Team" and Tanimura hate is really warranted, I also find that many of the people defending them can be very annoying about it, because they resort to childish insults implying that the fandom gives Miyazaki undue reverence and doesn't criticize the first games enough for their faults, which might happen sometimes, but comes across as very grating all the same. While a game series doesn't always need the original creator to keep making great games (see Devil May 3, Bayonetta 2, neither of which were directed by Hideki Kamiya but are still considered great games and better than their originals by many), and with these types of games the final product isn't solely determined by one person by any stretch, there are just as many game series that have suffered when the original talent was no longer involved, like how Drakengard 2 was a much more boring game because the director of the first was involved but not in charge, or how Silent Hill was left directionless after the fourth game. It's pretty clear that the Souls series is the way it is specifically because of Miyazaki's unique vision. When Demon Souls was first conceived he wasn't on the project and the team had a lot of trouble creating a compelling prototype, they didn't have enough guidance. He was assigned to the project and basically changed everything about it to the game it was today. We have no way of knowing how the game would have turned out if Miyazaki had been at the helm, but if not a better game outright I'm fairly certain it would have at least been more interesting and not so reliant on direct connections to the first game because he understands that kind of pandering doesn't fit Souls. Finally, even though they had problems in development and the dlc's are better (supposedly), that doesn't mean that they should not be held accountable for the product that they put out. the game is what it is and we have to judge that, not what the game COULD have been because it didn't become that.

[@JXZX1]

+deadlywork While your response is refreshingly level-headed and relatively impartial, I have to confess that objections arise in your critique of the 'Miyazaki reverence'. You initially bring up good examples of game series that surpassed their original game without the guiding hand of the director, but this seems to dig a hole for yourself and provide more evidence to the affirmative--that the Miyazaki reverence is something of a valid concept--than the negative you seek to argue for. This is because your first two examples are not equivocal to the Dark Souls dilemma: Drakengard 2 is in many areas a superior GAME to the original, and the absence of an entire team for Silent Hill cannot be compared to a handful of different individuals aiding in the development of a sequel with what is mostly the same team of the previous game (as is the case for Dark Souls 2). My rebuttal with the pure mechanics of your argument aside, I still have to disagree with your conclusions for a number of reasons: that Miyazaki himself seems to have no greater understanding of his own 'unique vision' than individuals like Tanimura, that Miyazaki commits much of the pandering and direct connections supposedly committed by Dark Souls 2, when he directed Dark Souls and its spiritual successor Bloodborne, in a more egregious manner; and, primarily, that the Souls community repeatedly fails to adjudicate the series's many missteps due entirely to an unwarranted respect and devotion for the man's supposed conceit. If you wish, I would be very much willing to expand on my points and partake in a discussion with you. It's not often I see someone in the Souls community who genuinely seems to see both sides of the issue, and although I disagree that about the reality of the Miyazaki reverence, I have to concede that a number of Dark Souls 2 apologists (speaking as one myself) are guilty of leveling the point as more of a one note insult than as the centerpiece of a coherent argument. I think the Souls community has a lot of issues that ultimately hold the series back, and its childishness and myopia are two of the most pernicious of said issues.

[@albertoguarnieri5182]

+JXZX1 Sorry, but from this peasant's perspective that is little more than a world salad.

[@JXZX1]

Alberto Guarnieri Oh, drat! Sorry bout that, pleb. Us and our ivory towers, y'know?

[@albertoguarnieri5182]

JXZX1 No issue taken, sweet boy. Have a good night.

[@JXZX1]

Alberto Guarnieri You too ;)

[@AJKecsk]

EXACTLY my feelings towards this game! I try so hard to like it, and it just keeps reminding me of its terrible design. It's been two years since the game was released, and the weapon hitboxes still haven't been patched to match up with the visible weapon models/meshes. Between that and the ridiculously stupid invincibility frames dynamic (which completely detracts from the immersion of the world), I find myself being damaged more by weapons hitting NEAR me than the ones that actually go THROUGH me. The fairness element is a key point. I've never played DeS, but in DS1 with very few exceptions I couldn't get mad because every time I died, I knew it was my own fault, I made a mistake I could have reasonably avoided. In DS1, with some strategy and intelligence, you could make it through almost any area first time without dying. In DS2, the enemy placement, phony ladders, trap beams or doors, everything clearly gave off the impression that you were meant to die a few times before making it through.

[@windumaster14]

I'm so glad jblackmel commented on this video, otherwise I would have never found it. Everyone in the Souls community seems to love this game, yet whenever I play, it just makes me want to play DkS1. I thought maybe I was crazy, but it's good to know there are others who are severely disappointed with lack of quality and attention to detail in DkS2.

[@jblackmel]

Agreed.

[@TheOutlawSteel]

It's got problems and this guy highlighted a lot of them. DS 1 is only a downgrade from this one in one way and that's the speed and fluidity of rolls. That's really it. Myself? I will be heading back to DS 1 not too long into the future. In fact, I may start a NG on there today.

[@TheOutlawSteel]

Well, and the character creator actually allows you to have a face that doesn't look like you got hit in the face with a bulldozer on DS 2.

[@OnlyTruth_]

The Outlaw Steel yep. DS1 roll animation was wild and i like how they kinda made running more responsive in ds2 but they seemed to have changed the footfall physics. I just hate i missed out on DS1 online era. I'm basically forced to play DS2 since DS1 online is nowhere near as active as DS2

[@aretlev]

I feel the same way until I think of locations like Lost Izalith, and decide that I will just ponder on the series fondly from a distance for now.

[@goldenpants1239]

Came from hbomberguys video and it’s crazy how many things he didn’t include. Edit: well look at the cesspit I’ve created.

[@SinHurr]

@bored weirdo He's basically the best

[@eddy6969100]

@@SinHurr the best at lying and purposefully ignore valid critisism because it wouldn't work with his narrative

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

@@SinHurr The best at filming his girlfriend being banged by numerous other men.

[@looinrims]

Because Hbomb is a fucking hack

[@pogodanderfluff9390]

That's his MO

[@SageofToads]

I feel sorry for the uploader. Some of these comments in the comments section are outrageous.

[@SageofToads]

***** wut?

[@SageofToads]

***** I believe there has been a big misunderstanding on your part.

[@SageofToads]

***** What my first comment was initially taking about was some of the rude and un-constructive criticism he was getting from select few, i.e. things like "lol shut the fuck up and enjoy the game".

[@TrueAnarkii]

***** your sad just so sad!

[@CookieDynamics]

SageofToads He made many good points, though. Ok, I disagree with a few points he made... but that certainly shouldn't put the other points down as well. Which points made you feel " sorry" for him?

[@arenkai]

I started a blind playthrough of Dark Souls 2 this week and felt underwhelmed by the level design and the world as a whole. In the first Dark Souls, each new area was a joy to explore (except maybe Lost Izalith, this felt like a chore to me) thanks to the clever shortcuts and the level design as a whole. But everything feels dull in Dark Souls 2, for example I was dumbfounded when I killed the Lost Sinner and it dropped a major soul, this fight was uninteresting and didn't have any kind of build up so I thought it would just be an optional boss. Same goes for the spider boss (I litteraly killed it a couple hours ago and fail to recall its name, that's how much impact that fight had on me...). Dark Souls 2 feels like a Dark Souls rip-off, not a sequel.

[@arenkai]

Tony Cliffton That basement was a disappointment to me too. I was low on Estus and went back to the bonfire to prepare for a long path descending into the earth filled with skeletons. But no, it was just some cave with a lone ennemy. I dropped the game and bought Dark Souls 3 (it was in last month's Humble Monthly for 10€), and so far the ennemies and areas feel way more interesting than in DS2. But they still kept the hub world design of DS2 instead of going for the interconnected world ala Dark Souls 1. But the level design of the different areas is way better than DS2 imo, so it doesn't really matter.

[@phillach5181]

the bosses are also way too easy and they lack interesting movesets which makes them completely unmemorable especially compared to ds3s

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

It's a shame he stopped playing or he would have encountered the really aggravating bullshit like the brotherhood of Blood requiring 500 wins more than losses or the blue sentinels consuming your token every time you try to duel. The soul vessels and soul memory cause everyone to homogenise into havel wearing, hex spamming, avelyn/santier's spear/katana users and so many items come from new game plus enemies who only have a chance of dropping what you want and don't respawn unless you burn another ascetic. Good luck get the mad warrior set or the monastery scimitar without backing up your save game and using the backup every time it doesn't drop. Hell why stop there. Weapon degradation is based on frame rate so pc users get double the weapon degradation speed. If you're trading boss souls for items from Ornifex or Straid you can't tell what items you already have and what you don't without exiting the menu to go through your inventory every time. New Game + makes the game harder by dumping even more enemy clumps everywhere so even the early game is bloated with taking one attack and backing off. Strength and Dexterity scaling is non-existent so a mage can do more damage with their sword by infusing it with dark and casting resonant weapon than you can with your 40 strength greatsword. The turn local invasions on and off setting does absolutely nothing so no matter how good your connection expect to be backstabbed by a guy in front of you while you're hacking away at him because he's being matched against you from Brazil, Russia or New Zealand.

[@Snoike]

***** You can create builds endlessly by farming soul vessels from giant memories and you get an astetic each time too and adding more enemies instead of improving their AI is just lazy. Learn the game you filthy noblemen.

[@Snoike]

Boss fights don't need new enemies to be hard... want proof? *cough* *cough*... Artorias. They also said that they improved the enemy AI and that was just plain fucking lying.

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

***** New Game + was certainly better than DKS 1 where it just felt tacked on but nobody plays these games to smack the ai over the head over and over so just adding more enemies to every area didn't serve to make it more entertaining but it definitely gave the opportunity to make them tedious. Case in point the road from Huntsman's copse to the arena gets double the number of guys sitting on pillars. They can all be aggro'd and picked off with bows just like they could in new game it only takes longer. The single greatest moment of new game + was seeing Freja appear out of her arena and the life bar appear. This was a completely new encounter and you didn't know what to do. The game needed more of that. Just off the top of my head instead of adding pyromancers who have no lore or plot related reason to be in the Sinner's Rise just give the Lost Sinner the ability to put out the torches. Give the Demon of Song the ability to swing at you while its face is covered so you can't just bait it out over and over. Replace the Old Dragonslayer with the Giant Ornstein version from Dark Souls. When you encounter the Pursuer he should actually pursue you throughout the forest of giants not despawn. Have one of the flying Dragons in Dragon Aerie attack you early on so you no longer feel safe. Replace Nashandra's queen model as she sits on the throne with her skeletal form. All of this would take more planning and effort than lolmobs but it would have made the game far more satisfying for a second run through.

[@Arexion5293]

***** Wandering Black Phantom Black Knights, ones that exist even without being gravelorded. Now that would be one heck of a surprise for New Game Plus. Unless such already exists. Dunno, since I'm still preparing for New Game Plus instead of starting it.

[@IGreyKnightI]

wait wait wait so my weapons feel like sticks because of frame rate?!!?!?!!?! after seeing darklurker i got so pissed off at this game. can't find a decent excuse to say it's not a disappointment

[@matthewmuir8884]

"Misrepresenting the product isn't an acceptable way to treat potential customers" is a statement that needs to be said a lot more often now after games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity that had their very *premises* misrepresented by their respective pre-release marketing.

[@Kurai_69420]

Finally! I thought I was the only one who thought the blood instagram filter in boss cutscenes was dumb. Is there a mod to remove it btw?

[@Thrallking]

+DovahSpy Actually i feel like i remember seeing a mod that did just that on Nexus. Not totally sure though .

[@wotwott2319]

+DovahSpy there is indeed a mod to remove it that includes removing the sfx when the effect appears

[@Slyguy846]

Dark Souls 2 felt to me like what would happen if some fans of the game were given a 'Souls game' creation tool, and they tried putting in what they liked. It just feels like such an amateur project. Very polished, sure, but an amateur project.

[@wombat8812]

***** Wrong. That's exactly what happened.

[@WormyLeWorm]

Laff. All these comments are spot on.

[@WeEzZL]

me Wow. Spot on.

[@kuro_kishi]

me pseudo-Souls game, that is the best way I can describe it

[@Slyguy846]

+Ace132 The interface and marketing seem polished. With the actual game, it feels like an amateur project made in Unity, from the odd, amateur level design (Heide's Tower of Flame is *literally* on-par with the shit I can make in Unity), to the poor, floaty movement, to the poor work on the graphics. Some areas, such as the Sunken King DLC, don't look so amateur, but others, such as the Ivory King DLC; with its white-washed visuals...

[@Michael.Virtus]

I love Dark Souls 2. That's why I've expected to disagree with almost everything in this critique-video. However I ended up watching with interest the whole video and agreeing with almost all the critiques (really smart and truthful). But I'm still loving Dark Souls 2. Because as you said (0:52) it's preferable to most of the other games from the past few years. All this comes to show that the video game industry is in really bad shape these days. So, could Dark Souls 2 be better? Sure. Is it good enough to be enjoyable and preferable to many other games? Personally for me it is. Pardon the flaws and Praise the sun! \[T]/

[@XxMasterBeefxX]

My thoughts exactly. I think that all of his critiques were valid, but only hurt the game in comparison to other souls games. The game still has the combat system and art design I love, so I'm more than glad to play it in comparison to other games. Obviously Demon Souls and Dark Souls are better games, but that's like picking the best of the best. Plus, the improvements to online latency (actually able to parry based off timing and sight now!) make the pvp nut in me very happy.

[@0That_Guy0]

Only got brought here through Mauler’s response series to Hbomberguy. Must say I enjoyed this similar to Mauler’s, although the style is different. Truly a great critique!

[@DanielRI02]

Totalbiscuit shoutout. Nice. This should get you a wave of subscribers. Keep it up :)

[@MrTelboy]

100% agree with all your comments. DS2 isn't a bad game but compared to the other 2 games its definitely the weakest.

[@gleast5599]

Rewatching this makes me want to see what his opinion on Dark Souls 3 would be, because a lot of the stuff he has against this game in regards to all the call backs (and I agree with the majority of it) exist in DkS 3, but I think they handle it quite a bit better, i wonder what his take on it would be.

[@shinsolaire7099]

+GLEast He didn't upload a thing in 5 months, I still hope to see what his thoughts are though.

[@GamerLord821]

I think while DaS3 carried over a few bad elements of DaS2 they are far less noticable since there are so many good things carried over from all of the Souls games. The biggest Issue I personally had was how much of an Dejavu DaS3 felt like. Some of the NPC's that were reused even shared literally the exact same dialogue with few words changed "Touch the demon inside me" -> "Touch the darkness inside me". Firekeeper is Maiden in Black 2.0 That one witch you rescue is Yuria 2.0 Andre is Andre Patches gets a pass cause he's Patches Onionbro 2.0 is there Crestbro is actually quite interesting for once Firelink is a Nexus 2.0 Lothric is Boletaria 2.0 Demon ruins felt like chalice dungeons Irithyl Dungeon is Tower of Latria 2.0 (and a worse one at that) Storm Ruler is here even though it's appearance is quite odd and it doesn't work on other giants other than that one boss. I mean this is really just me being "done that, been there" which isn't really a huge issue and for new players it's a irrelevant issue.

[@gleast5599]

XrosSpirit I have to agree with almost all of those things you pointed out, but I think Firekeeper is better then Bearer,Seek,Seek,Lest (Emerald Herald) and having Andre back I like more then having some new blacksmith. I kinda of dislike that Firelink is like the Nexus, but that's only because I'd like to have had the world work like DkS 1, but I kinda don't think they could pull it off as well as in DkS 1 again (The definitely didn't in DkS 2 )

[@robertsteere7829]

+GLEast my biggest point of annoyance with ds3 is the unnecessary tracking that has persisted between all installments. Tracking has been improved somewhat from ds2, but large enemies still tend to have an unfair amount of roll tracking. Hit boxes are still a problem on downward attacks as well. I've been hit from three feet away by a downward attack both in pvp and pve multiple times. Ds is supposed to be fair. Both of the problems mentioned above betray that feeling.

[@gleast5599]

Not quite sure what to say about this, I understand what you're talking about but, to me personally I think it's less about the actually tracking of attacks. It seems reasonable that the enemies can track while an attack starts up, but as soon as it's active and they're actually attacking is when the tracing stops, which is how I feel it is in DkS 3, because if they were locked into swinging in the same direction they were facing when they hit the start up phase you'd never get hit by bosses/enemies with big swings. What I think the actually "problem" is the way they've timed the 3 phases of attacks on certain enemies and bosses, where the start up is just long enough to scare you into rolling too early, the active frames last and linger a bit too long as to catch you out of your roll, and the recovery isn't really as long as it should be, and I almost feel like it is this way to fuck with people who have played the other games because it seems timed to catch out anyone who would be rolling at the times appropriated for DkS 1. Overhead swings having a hit box that's too wide in PVE is another thing, along with more tracking, put in there to combat circle strafing I seen that the hit box is definitely wider the the weapons but never seen it to be any wider the the width of the front of the enemy itself, and some hit boxes are too long for what they should be. While in PVP all I can say is Phantom Range is a bitch Obviously the real answer to anything in regards to gameplay and not stylistic choice of the series is, git gud, you can learn the new roll times and wide hit boxes, you can account for the tracking, you can play around phantom range, and you can learn that Poise is "working as intended" just that it's intent is to throw a flaming bag of dog shit on your doorstep. To be honest though I don't think the hit boxes and tracking are worse then they were in DkS 2, phantom range has and I think will always be a thing just because of the way the game works and how the internet works, so unless everyone gets prefect internet I don't think there's a fix for it, to me tracking isn't that big of a deal unless it's as visually awkward and blatant as it was with the turtle knights,and while I do think the timings of swings are made to fuck with you the only real problem I have with them is that there are enemies like the Outrider Knight and the Mutated Wolf Beasts that have very little recovery between attacks and are super aggressive. All in all, I stand by my first statement that, DkS 3 has a lot of the same things, problems, nitpicks, that DkS 2 had but I think they made them less worse in regards to gameplay miss steps, except for a few glaring ones like Poise and Armor/Damage Absorption

[@VVENDINGEN]

I came here for insights after playing 100 hours of Elden Ring. I love the game, but have to say that the sheer amount of bosses for all the dungeons, caves, catacombs, etc. in Elden Ring seemingly were made possible at the cost of them having a lot of the same problems as DS2 encounters had. Way to many recycled, unmemorable bosses that you have to fight in some cases up to 10 times, with the later ones being „artifically“ inflated in difficulty by simply doing more damage, adding some status ailment to their attacks, or by simply adding more enemies (or multiple copies of the boss) to the fight.

[@malygos9301]

Now imagine that with dark souls 2 ADP problem 30fps much slower in engine combat and bosses that have hit markers that hit you double the size of your body. I'm on the last boss of elden ring right now and I don't feel like the game teaches you to play it just ushers you torwards co-op and bosses are balanced for that but even still it's a master price compared to the jank that is ds2

[@Omenshaper]

At least Elden Ring has the excuse of being a gigantic open world experience with most of the rehashes being optional encounters. They had a ton of ground to cover in Elden Ring, while Dark Souls 2 feels barely larger than Demon's Souls without the DLCs.

[@leocunha4985]

@@tweeeeeex Sorry but pretty much everything you said is just plain wrong. DS2 is artificially difficult because it constantly pins you against groups of powerful enemies instead of 1v1 encounters, as well as having tons of cheap moments that exist solely to kill you. This is all directly explained by matthewmatosis in the video. In Elden Ring most encounters with powerful enemies can be done 1v1 or trivialized with your horse because you're in an open field, not a closed off room. There's never a single point in that game where you walk into a room and have to fight like 3 or 4 golden knights, nor are there cheap moments that are unavoidable, unlike DS2. Later enemies have scaled up damage, but... that's every souls game. Like yeah, enemies do more damage and have more health later on. That's just basic game design. It's the same DS1 or DeS. Not sure where you were going with that.

[@Yuri-kh8wv]

@@leocunha4985 You're just being disingenous, in Brace of The Hallingtree there are Knights with HUGE HP that does tons of damage while they're in a group, there's also tons of gank fights and gank bosses on the later areas, this one being just an example.

[@malygos9301]

@@Yuri-kh8wv KZbin for whatever reason decided to remind me of this today lol. But yes as someone who also loves ds2 for all it's faults he's just not being honest. I made it to Ng+4 on elden ring before I quit after that it just become are you willing to run rivers or whatever the broken weapon of the month is and face absolutely insane balanced groups. Idk why people are trying to act like it's different elden ring has the exact same problems Ds2 had + it's own.