greetings from majula
i admit i didnt like DS2 at all after finishing the first one back in 2020. i think i just went down the ‘wrong’ path or one that felt more difficult than it should be even for DS… diving back into it this time and i’m appreciating it much more.
#ds2crew
I want to play Elden Ring but it’s nice. Like I smack one of those trumpet players in Leyndell and show them how I can cleave a pillar in two or blow up a building with glintstone. You know intimidate them a little and tell them how I’m actually here to make the place a little bit better for everyone so seeing that maybe they should play a little jazz music for everyone and maybe hide a rune for once like a game of hide in seek or something instead of making me slay for it.
I might have to give it another go. I also didn’t like it even though I played the heck out of it. I also did not appreciate it’s difficulty. Especially some of the DLC areas.
ds2 is the only one of the series that is genuinely foreboding to me. really great atmosphere, even if it has some of that stank.
am i tripping or is DS2 much more colorful than DS1? i quite like the change and the environments benefit from it greatly imo
DS2 is dark souls made by people who like playing dark souls
original recipe ds2 is better than scholar of the first sin but it’s still a great game and the only from game i’ve actually finished, even with the hundreds upon hundreds of hours i’ve played across their oeuvre
What is the Dark Souls made by people who don’t like playing Dark Souls…of videogames?
i wasnt aware the original vs SotFS had some significant differences. so in general terms is the consensus that DS2: SotFS is an inferior “directors” cut of the original?
dark souls
i think it’s more of a “some parts better, some parts worse” situation
Stardew valley i guess
To my knowledge, the most significant difference between the original version and Scholar of the First Sin, I mean, not including the added content (and I’m not talking about the DLC areas, I’m talking about the other stuff) is the layout of enemies, which is not different in some areas, but very different in others.
Also if I remember correctly, it’s not that Scholar’s overall enemy placement is unique, it’s that, the enemy layout that is now the default in Scholar was actually a sort of “we present you with a new quest” NG+ style remix available after starting NG+, with, iirc, some places deliberately made to be more dangerous because of the presence of certain hard enemies or extra enemies, or even perhaps just things like shifting around points where enemies are hiding to ambush you, so you get a kind of second shot at experiencing the areas as if they are new. To a certain degree, anyway.
It has been too long since I played Dark Souls II for me to remember if the two different layouts were really all that different, so, I don’t even know if anyone saying that the original enemy layout is strictly better is doing so in good faith. However, regardless of whether there’s a substantial difference in quality or craft between the original enemy layout vs. the Scholar layout, it’s undeniable that the original version has two enemy layouts, and Scholar only has the one–there’s no change in enemy layout between NG and subsequent NG+ runs anymore. You can’t experience a contrasting playthrough with Scholar.
I’ve always thought that was a bit baffling, because it seemed like such a natural way to make the NG+ more exciting without actually changing too much. I am hardly a ride or die member of the #DarkSoulsIICrew but I absolutely am in the sense that it seems like it more meaningfully designed its NG+ experience as something distinct from a fresh playthrough.
DS2 is dark souls made by people who like playing
dark soulsking’s field
this is very useful context. thank you. i’ll just keep playing this since im having a good time — figured i’d ask in case there was something missing from Scholar that folks on here think is an essential part of the experience.
Every time you #ds2crew, syzgy is out there playing shadizzle of the erdtrizzle
Leaving messages on DONKYMLK that won’t upload to the server for some reason cause no one is seeing any group messages… I saw some Summon Signs from Fextralife dudes though
I’m continuing my gradual quest through Bloodborne and last night I defeated the Celestial Emissaries and Ebrietas. I feel like I kind of just slop through the bosses in this game. Not that they’re easy; it’s more like I’ll play very correctly and carefully then get beamed into the ground, but then the next try I’ll just be rolling around throwing out dumb attacks at bad times and get the win. Even when I get the job done, I don’t truly feel like I’m mastering all the reads and patterns, I’m just Homer Simpson-ing my way through damage, flopping around like a scared idiot, getting the camera caught on every part of the boss’ big, sloppy body, and then hauling it into phonebooth range and trading damage, rolling out, healing, and then doing it all again.
I want to be clear that I don’t think this is bad! It’s actually pretty fun, especially when it works.
I think it feels especially funny to me because most of the normal enemies in the game are all about careful reads, precise timing, exact spacing, that sort of thing. The bosses, then, are usually not just a different game activity from the normal game but a whole different kind of game activity. I guess this isn’t such a weird thing, and a lot of games have bosses that function a bit differently from normal encounters, but in Bloodborne, they are just so different; the normal fights feel like Olympic fencing whereas the boss monster fights feel like drunken brawls. If anything, the NPC hunters feel closer to an extension of the skills you’re actually using for the bulk of the game than most of the bosses do (though, I will admit there are some exceptions like Gascoigne).
This is probably obvious, but I’ve never run across anybody saying it explicitly nor ever quite noticed it myself. I think it extends to other games in the Souls series. It may be a little more pronounced in BB, though, because the enemy designs lean more into the abstract and alien (I couldn’t tell you exactly which of Ebrietas’ body parts were attacking and which are not half the time) and because the game is more generous with heals than many in this series, so just standing in the pocket and trading damage is ultimately less of a stupid strategy.
I platinumed that game but keeping my distance and charge attacking with the twohanded poleaxe. I never felt like I quite got the bosses either. Amigdala in particular. It felt like I was sprinting around s as much as dodging for most of them.
