Dark Souls 2 [360, PS3, PC] Review

[S3M]

Cheers briareos so far the

->Open Spoiler<-

Throne of Want is proving to be the best place to be summoned at my level around 180. Why people need help with Nashandra is beyond me, you just kite her round the room shooting a bow at her so so easy. Aside from the curse spores, her only ranged attack is shooting a straight beam of light at you, so easy to dodge and tell when she uses it.

Alot of people seem to be complaining the magic is way too powerful this time around and watching speedrun videos they all use magic to destory the bosses it's not even funny. Weapon attacks do a fraction of the damage of magic and need to be scaled up heavily.

Wasn't like this in the first game, start playing the first game again sooooo much better, combat is far better and the bosses are actually fights and not run behind them all the time.

Armour seems to do sweat FA in the second game as well, might as well take the stamina boost intead, all the speedrunners are doing that I noticed.

Might try the second game as a mage to see how much easier it is.

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm starting to use magic in NG+, miracles and piromancies...probably my Faith is still low to do any decent damage with Lighting Spear, but a full upgraded Pyromancy Flame is incredibly powerful with area spells like Firestorm: yesterday I fried the whole

->Open Spoiler<-

Royal Rat Vanguard

when a +10 Curved Dragon Greatsword wasn't able to kill smaller enemies in one hit.
Probably weapons are counterbalanced by the Mundane infusion, but That woudl require to put some points in Vitality, which are better spent in other stats.

[edit]

->Open Spoiler<-

Nashandra

might be difficult to people because a lot of them are using big swords with light armour (at least in NG and based on people that invaded), therefore not having much protection from

->Open Spoiler<-

curse...get a Cursebite Ring and Nashandra becomes a sitting duck; getting rid of one of the spheres might help, but she'll spawn more anyway.

[ridgeracer]

?25 on Amazon now

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dark%20souls%202&sprefix=dark+so%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adark%20souls%202

Still playing through the first one though...

[briareos_kerensky]

Game breaking bug...FOUND!

In

->Open Spoiler<-

Drangleic castle, where you have to kill (way too many) Royal Swordsmen to open the doors. Got killed in one of the advanced waves, and apparently it was one of the last, if not the last. Either way, I died so many times that the next run, all enemies before the castle were dead, along with one of the Mastodon guards (but not the two Bowmen near the castle doors). Killed everything, waited for 5 mins, nothing comes out. Great. Kill myself, trace my steps, nothing comes out, doors still closed. Quit, exit the game, retry, doors still closed.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!! !
Now I have three options:
1) grab the last save from PSN, thus losing all progress (one boss, some levels, possibly some gear).
2) use a Bonfire Ascentic, thus making the entrance harder (hoping it works)
3) stop playing the game

[S3M]

Game breaking bug...FOUND!

In

->Open Spoiler<-

Drangleic castle, where you have to kill (way too many) Royal Swordsmen to open the doors. Got killed in one of the advanced waves, and apparently it was one of the last, if not the last. Either way, I died so many times that the next run, all enemies before the castle were dead, along with one of the Mastodon guards (but not the two Bowmen near the castle doors). Killed everything, waited for 5 mins, nothing comes out. Great. Kill myself, trace my steps, nothing comes out, doors still closed. Quit, exit the game, retry, doors still closed.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!! !
Now I have three options:
1) grab the last save from PSN, thus losing all progress (one boss, some levels, possibly some gear).
2) use a Bonfire Ascentic, thus making the entrance harder (hoping it works)
3) stop playing the game

This the

->Open Spoiler<-

main castle door, should open when you kill the two archers next to the giant statues? If so the bug was supposed to have been fixed in the latest patch but wouldn't be the first time a developer thinks they found the cause but haven't.

[briareos_kerensky]

The

->Open Spoiler<-

first lock is opened by killing the two archers (triggered correctly), but the second lock is unlocked after killing the horde of footsoldiers that spawn from the right side of the castle (left side facing the gates), and that horde is what is not spawning.

[briareos_kerensky]

Got my save back from PSN and got past that part. Discovered a funny thing:

->Open Spoiler<-

you can cut off one of Freja's heads and it will remain on the battleground for you to play soccer with once the battle is over.

[briareos_kerensky]

Done with NG+...ah, it was much easier than the first playthrough, though a couple of bosses stand out for being particularly cheap, with way too many chances to one-hit-kill you.
Anyway, after building up my knight to a respectable 50 STR/DEX, I went on to build his affinity for spells; at first I focused on getting spells and miracles at around the same strenght, but in the end, I focused on miracles and ended up with two attunement slots and 52 Faith. I had the

->Open Spoiler<-

Dragon Chime

from the previous playthrough, reinforced it to +5 (but didn't infuse it with Lightining), and become a thunder-throwing, greatsword-armed, iron armoured slayer of everything.
Great Lighting Spear at FTH 50 is able to lay waste to all bosses in three to six hits (depending on the boss), and being able to attack enemies at distance without relying on a bow, makes the game absurdly easier. The last boss took eight hits to go down, and I didn't even took any damage. The most troubling bosses are

->Open Spoiler<-

Freja

and the

->Open Spoiler<-

Giant Lord

, because they can kill you with one hit with way too many moves, and

->Open Spoiler<-

Freja seems to have a way too big hitbox on its legs.

I didn't particularly like the overreliance on black phantoms, especially having some of those respawning like normal enemies, weapons don't scale as well as magic, and heavy armours don't seem to give much protection, even physical.

[112]

For some strange reason my trophies do seem to be working anymore since installing the latest patch 1.03. I progress through the game but I don't get that usual ping of achieving a trophy... Could this be a glitch that only I am experiencing? Or have others had this happen?

112

[briareos_kerensky]

I've disabled trophy notifications and I don't care about them, so i wouldn't know...a look at the wiki shows that a lot of those are about finishing someone's storyline and discovering covenants, maybe trophy progression isn't as "steady" as it was in Demon's and DS1?

[112]

Interesting... I was under the impression that you got a trophy each time you defeated a boss, but it hasn't notified me of any since I defeated the last giant... Will see how it goes for now... Not Reid covenants or resurrected myself yet... You don't automatically resurrect yourself after a boss this time, which is annoying... Unless I'm playing it wrong. I have noticed that I can be invaded as an undead, which wasn't possible in previous versions of the game.

Learning more as I go on...

112

[Uli]

i have found an easy way to quickly deal with annoying invaders: wifi-off button!

this game seems to become an endless grind for me. level 90, 68 hours and still wandering more or less aimlessly. last bosses Iron King and Rotten were a pain in the ass - after 10+ tries i gave each one i summoned help and was able to made short work of both in next to no time. so i really don't see the balance here if you prefer to play alone or offline.

[briareos_kerensky]

To be fair, the Iron King and the Rotten are easy bosses to do alone...for the Rotten you also have two NPC summons available. You can play DSII offline (I did for my second playthrough), and in fact, playing offline will make areas like the Grave of Saints and the Doors of Pharros more manageable, every time you step there you'll get invaded/you'll invade against your will (if you activated the wrong trap).

[Uli]

I think gamers should just have the option to enable or disable invasion or PvP respectively.

What do you consider "easy bosses" in Dark Souls? Bosses you defeat in less than 10 tries?

Honestly i suck at fighting bosses but in Dark Souls i really miss a difficulty balance. Fighting the Iron King sucked mostly because the poor camera didn't allow a better view of the narrow environment and the bosses actions.

[briareos_kerensky]

What do you consider "easy bosses" in Dark Souls? Bosses you defeat in less than 10 tries?

The last boss that gave me some trouble was the Lost Sinner; after her, bosses went down in two-three tries, some even in one, all soloed. After you notice that almost every boss is a guy with a single weapon in his/her/its hand, you just start to circle around and wait for the recovery time after an attack.