Dark Souls 2 [360, PS3, PC] Review

[Golgo]

The white soapstone summons thing works really well this time - did a few early boss run assists last night to farm souls. Didn't have to wait more than a few seconds before being summoned by other players (unlike other Souls games where summoning was hit and miss at best). Have yet to be called up for Blue Avenger covenant or whatever they're called yet, though, even though I proudly wear my ring.

[Tobal]

Is

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Belfry Luna

a mandatory area? I'm slightly stuck as to where to progress from here.

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My progress so far has been Heide's Tower of Flame (Dragonrider and Old Dragonslayer defeated first), Forest of Fallen Giants (defeated that giant tree boss and The Pursuer, obtained Soldier Key), No Man's Wharf (defeated Sentry), The Lost Bastille (defeated Ruin Sentinels), Sinner's Rise (defeated The Old Sinner), and now I don't know where to go next. Is it Belfry Luna?

It's kinda weird that you need a Pharros Lockstone as a mandatory item to progress? I don't have one.

You've ended close to my situation spoilers for main paths.

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Pharos can be skipped, seems to be just a place full of treasure and a boss(and pvp area), if you take the stairs on the left at the start it leads to a new area. You'll have huntsman copse open once you've fully spoken to the nun women in heide tower, she then moves to entrance for heide tower in Majula. The other is getting through gutter (from saints grave down the hole in majula, you need a fall protection items or if you make up the poison tower place an npc sell ladders for stupid prices) and in to black gulch. The last place I know of, you'll need a tree yew to get to the forest, through a cave just out side the training area

From what I remember form Belfry Luna

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defeating the bosses leads to a oneway drop to a bonfire and a fight with a phantom for a key to blacksmith in bastille, which also contained some treasure.

through I have no idea where to find this games version of embers the 2nd blacksmith wants.. I got loads of stones for making enhanced weapons but I can't use them, also can't find majula blacksmiths daughter he mentions, I'm hoping if I find her she'll be selling some rare slabs. -- edit found the daughter now! just need to figure out the 2nd blacksmith.

[Uli]

what point is there to go back to the hub world levelling system? i found it very convenient in Dark Souls to level up at bonfires so i hope there is some purpuse behing this decision to let players spend more time in loading screens?

These games aren't about the endings IMO. They are about the journey [/clich?]

true, but a nice satifiying ending doesn't harm the journey experience at all

[Silvergun X]

I decided to go through Belfry Luna in the end.

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Defeated the Belfry Gargoyles solo on my first try. **** myself a little bit at the fact that they just kept coming and the healthbar was barely going down, but then realised that was the combined health of all the gargoyles, and individually they started falling down very quickly. Really nice fight!

Time to get back to work and hammer this again when the kids are in bed.

[DANGEROUS-3]

Need help-

Which key opens the door that leads to the descending lift & Last Giant Boss and where/how do I obtain it?

[Silvergun X]

Sorry for the double post but whoa, regarding Dual Wielding:

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Apparently if you have two weapons of the same type in both your left and right hand, your stats are equals to 1.5x the requirements needed to equip the weapons and you then hold in Y / Triangle, you enter a power stance where you attack with both weapons simultaneously. Is this true?! Is this mentioned anywhere in the game? :O

Which key opens the door that leads to the descending lift & Last Giant Boss and where/how do I get it?

It opens from the other side. You need to go another way around.

There's a door on the other side of the bridge near that door that opens with the

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Soldier's Key, which you get from killing The Last Giant.

[Golgo]

Instructions do indeed mention that certain weapons can be synced/reinforce each other when dual wielding, but makes no mention of precise stat boost.

[S3M]

All aboard the one way train that is Dark Souls II, progress still seems very much one track and I've given up trying to figure out the four split routes in the village and just let the game lead me as after finishing off the

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the lost sinner it granted access to another route from the vilage, given up trying to fall down the well till the game give me the item I need.

Unless the NPC's in the game are selling some magic items from the game I'm not seeing.

Some nice NPC's in

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Shaded Forest and some decent lighting too as it's outside, boss battle was easy enough. The one track road the first path took me down I'm now cutting down enemies like fly and the difficulty has fallen to the way side.

All inside area are still poorly lit and require torches to improve the lighting, base of

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Sinner's Rise was quite bad for this.

In regards to the stone statues

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you need a item to free then.

Lots of reused art asset from the first game now and quite a few enemies too and I've noticed quite a bit of popping with the draw distance textures in the PS3 version. The reuse of monsters breaks with the rules they set for the first project as explained in the artbook so this is a cheap sequel, still it's picked up so I'll leave it at a 7/10 for now.

Equipment forging has been nerf too +10 looks to be the max now, not +15, sigh. Interested to see what's gone on at From Software with this project.

[crocky-chocky]

Ooooh, just had me a properly fantastic boss fight at the ol'

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Undead Purgatory

. A massively satisfying and intense bout that resulted in the unique victory rush that only these games seem to provide. Superb stuff and completely unlike anything in DaS n' DeS.

Met another boss not too long after and managed to scrape through first time. It's always kinda disappointing when you breeze it on first attempt, but managing it with a sliver of health and no Estus was pretty grand.

The boss fights seem to come fairly thick and fast in this actually - I'm tempted to ask how many there are but ultimately I like the mystery. Haven't beat any of the four mega souls yet that's for sure.

Had to chuckle earlier when one of the NPC's called another character a

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'cheeky prick'

. Didn't quite fit in with Dark Souls parlance.

[Silvergun X]

All aboard the one way train that is Dark Souls II, progress still seems very much one track and I've given up trying to figure out the four split routes in the village and just let the game lead me as after finishing off the

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the lost sinner it granted access to another route from the vilage, given up trying to fall down the well till the game give me the item I need.

Unless the NPC's in the game are selling some magic items from the game I'm not seeing.

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Buy the Silvercat Ring from the Cat NPC in Majula. You can use that to go down the well, or when you defeat The Lost Sinner, you can use that fragrant branch to unfreeze an NPC holding onto a lever after Majula, or you can talk to the priest at Heide's Tower of Flame so she relocates to Majula, then spend 2000 souls to get to Huntsman's Corpse or whatever it's called.

That's 3 completely different directions you can do in immediately after you've done the first boss soul. Not exactly linear.

I've decided to join the

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Bell Keepers

and I've just spent the last hour or so

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PvPing in the Belfry Luna

. Great fun!

[Tobal]

Found the 2nd Belfry place.. shorter this time so only got invaded once, managed run away up some ladders with black phantoms and the player after me, shot him in the back with lightning and then used the cat ring to roll back down taking minor damage, he started shooting me with arrows from the top while I took care of the phantoms, then ran a lap with him chasing me lol, soon as I turned the corner I switched to my mace, turned around and smashed his skull as he was expected me to chuck another bolt.

Defeated all four great souls and through my adventuring knew where to go next as I had found the

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4 souls door earlier

, then i got stuck trying to open the door to the castle, till I managed to piece it together from the messages left on the floor... took over an hour at it

Got the ember I need for the blacksmith so i'm now rocking a Thor look in the Drangleic armour(comes with red cape), Viking helmet and hammer with lightning on it.

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I can understand what S3M trying to say in that if you go in one direction, unless you can't beat a boss you'll see it through without finding connections to the other major paths, which is something what DS1 did so well, but I see the reason FROM didn't bother as no really used those shortcuts once you opened up warping, it was a (fun) means an to end and while there are less than a handful connections between the paths there is just no need for them with the warps.

What I see after clearing what I think is most of the game, you get 5 main paths, 3 "locked" at the start but can be opened up quickly with only a bit of progression down the first 2 routes by finding npc's, adventuring for equipment or buying equipment.

[Golgo]

"All aboard the one way train that is Dark Souls II, progress still seems very much one track and I've given up trying to figure out the four split routes in the village and just let the game lead me."

I'm clearly at a much earlier stage and already I'm exploring three completely separate pathways with a further two in sight but currently unavailable and god knows how many locked doors around the place as well. Moreover less than a third of the main locations are available to me - to judge from bonfire warp screen. "One track"?!

[fuse]

I'm trying to keep my ramblings about the game to a minimum so far, but I would agree - criticising the game for being linear seems way off the mark.

[Golgo]

2 online related questions:

1. Why am I never summoned to help out the good samaritan Blue Rinse squad? (If I don't see some action I may ditch 'em for next covenant I come across).
2. Is it possible to coop a boss with a particular mate? (did the old "I'll put soapsign in secret place" gambit yesterday but he couldnt see it).

[Fei Fong Wong]

1. Why am I never summoned to help out the good samaritan Blue Rinse squad? (If I don't see some action I may ditch 'em for next covenant I come across).

You need to join the Blue Sentinels covenant, not the Way of Blue covenant.

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Speak to Blue Sentinel Targray in the Cathedral of Blue. You have to have a Token of Fidelity in your inventory. I think I picked one up in Huntsman Copse. You can also get them for helping others defeat a boss I believe.

2. Is it possible to coop a boss with a particular mate? (did the old "I'll put soapsign in secret place" gambit yesterday but he couldnt see it).

The name engraved ring that you can purchase from Shalquoir (the cat in Majula) helps (available from the start of the game). Every time you put the ring on it asks you to pick a God name which is effectively the server name. If you both pick the same name it obviously results in easier matchmaking.