Dark Souls 2 [360, PS3, PC] Review

[Golgo]

Interesting, S3M.

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I wonder of they'll check my DS save and vary plot to take account of my dark lord ending

, Mass Effect style?!

I just bought the

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ladder statue off of Gilligan

as I had souls to burn and didn't fancy just levelling up again. Anyone know if it is truly as useless as the item description says?

[Uli]

i highly doubt it. i would have liked some form of acknowledgement however.

in respect to this miniature the guide book says it can be sold to

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sorcerer Navlan as proof of assassination

or whatever.

[Tobal]

From what I can make of the story

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Its all on the same land mass but Drangleic isn't the Dark souls 1 Chosen undead's kingdom but at least several cycles after that which is information given by the npc who trades the boss souls for weapons, the current cycle which Vandreick created by gathering the 4 great souls (the 4 parts of Gwyn) and then finding that wasn't enough to stop his eventual hollowing, his Queen who is pretty much seen a force of great evil gets him to steal something protected by the giants which might help him, which is most likely the Kiln of the First starting the war, the downfall of his kingdom and his hollowing.

The theme seems to be just about repeating the same cycle over and over since Gywn first linked the fire during whatever the dark age was.

[Golgo]

Met that npc last night. He wonders about

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how many cycles have passed since he specifically was petrified, but he doesn't say anything about this being several cycles later than the world of DS1. How could he know anything, he's just woken up?

So it may be as S3M says.

After getting cheesed-off with an embarrasingly early-doors boss that I'd left undone I cracked open my first humanity effigy for a summons-assist yesterday. My first one in 14 bosses, still felt like cheating but it was glorious to lay the spankdown with two of my Heirs of the Sun covenant. Down to my last 18 effigies now, might have to go farm the betwixt witches lol.

[Uli]

let's face it, the devs didn't put much effort in the story. it's basically a mysterious mess of NPC chatter and you can make of it whatever you want.

they better just had you initially told to rescue the Princess - like in the classic 8 Bit Ghosts & Goblins. if a bit simple this would at least make sense

[S3M]

As I mentioned in my previous post it does drop hints in the stories for both ways, a few NPC's have conflicting dialog designed to make you question what the real version of events is. From Software like to keep people guessing or leave it to the player to decide, however I did realise something last night the

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Duke character who they refer to as a traitor appears to be Seath the Scaleless after the The Duke's Dear Freja battle if you look above you after the fight you will see a huge dead dragon trapped in a web, you can invade the Duke's (or Freja's dream?) if you return to here later on in the game to get the ancient dragon soul. In the dream you see a dead dragon in the open in a stone/crystal area. Is Brightsone Cover the Crystal Cave from the first game, it would also explain the odd library room after the boss.

Another thing I noticed is that old Iron's Keep looks a lot like Anor Lonor, now it might just be the artist being lazy but still it's a suggestion, note how you also have to go through a ruined fort to get there. The old ones this time around could also be twisted forms of characters from the the first game, Lost Sinner could perhaps be Anastacia of Astora (pure speculation) but their stories roughly fit Anastacia was a fire keeper who did sin and had her tongue cut out as a result and wanted to be left alone, is it her who tried to relight the first fire as the Lost Sinner? yes the sinner is also a women.

As mentioned it does hint both ways one character said Vendrick defeated four great ones, but doesn't name them. Another said many kingdoms has risen and fallen on this site, however there were kingdoms on the site before Gwyn came to power. So I'll leave it up to you to choose what you want, but Majula and Firelink also appear to be on the same cliff edge based site.

One thing that is certain is Crossbreed Priscilla or the pale one as the crow refers to her, taught the crow people the art of forging a long time ago. King Vendrick reign was also very long as he was a great collector of souls "as one character puts it" which would suggest the player character from the first game (or a character simlar).

The Queen does indeed appear to be bad, but it's really not made clear at all that she is.

Yes a save the princess storyline would have been better, least it wouldn't have been a bad repeat of the first game.

Cleared all the

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giant dreams last nights just debating which of the extra bosses to kill before I finish the game. Don't want to be a arse to the dragons so might just kill Vendrick.

[hudson]

Always thought the "story" of the Souls games were vague on purpose. Making you feel more lost than you already were with the game's systems, weapon development, online, items etc. People may find all this a bit annoying, but I enjoyed the exploration... my findings, my story etc.

[briareos_kerensky]

What does the Mundane upgrade do? I can't see any improvment to any weapon stat, only drops in stat scaling.

[Golgo]

Mundane just resets the item to its default state.

[fuse]

Good info on mundane here: http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/c...dane_infusion/

[briareos_kerensky]

Mhmmm, right now not the best upgrade option, as I have an attunement of 4. Interesting thing however, better for builds that spread stats across the board (or very high level characters...maybe 3rd or 4th cycle without massive grinding?) rather than my current physical build.

[Golgo]

Hmmm...So I was misinformed by the loadscreen hints on mundane. Bizarre.

[Brad]

The nature of the souls games. I chose deprived as my character class in the last game as I was convinced I'd be rewarded at some point. I never was lol

[briareos_kerensky]

Hmmm...So I was misinformed by the loadscreen hints on mundane. Bizarre.

Mundane cannot bring a weapon back to its original status because in the infusion menu you have both options available

[DANGEROUS-3]

Is anyone else having/had issues with the Xbox version crashing in the mansion in Aldias Keep?

The bit with the dragon skeleton, after it died and I ascended the stairs, boom- my console turns off.
Same thing again if I try exploring the doorway under the stairs... console turns off, dead.

WTF?!!!