Dark Souls II

So, I've argued about this game plenty. When in an argument people often force you into defending points you wouldn't normally, any concession they can count as a victory, etc. I need to write a review divorced of that to be less influenced by such things.

I came to this game after beating Bloodborne and it's DLC The Old Hunters. I was told The Old Hunters was made by the Dark Souls II team and because of it assumed like that it'd be more linear and have aggravating mobs like the shark guys with the anchors as well as boss battles as frustratingly hard as Orphan of Kos. I was somewhat wrong.

Linearity is first. While DSII has a central hub that spiderwebs out in directions that eventually dead-end, some a long ways away from where they began. the order in which you progress from this hub is a bit more up to you than in say Bloodborne. In Bloodborne the parts I feel are up to you on when to do are usually optional, the main stuff you must do is generally done in a specific order. The way Bloodborne evokes a Metroid game with its backtracking and shortcuts and so forth gives a feel of less linearity for sure but the range of options for progression in DSII I have found are much larger. For instance getting to the second half of BB requires defeating Rom, there's only one way to reach Rom. Getting to the second half of DSII requires 4 boss souls acquired in any order and can even be 4 of the same boss soul using bonfire ascetics. The second half of both games gets a bit more linear though you can trigger the penultimate DSII fight early whereas Bloodborne's boss battles must be done in order in the second half unless optional.

In Dark Souls 1 Firelink Shrine is like a hub as well and connects the world instead of being a separate area like in DSIII or BB. You can technically go to the catacombs right away but it's so dark and Tomb of Giants even darker it makes little sense. You can technically go to the New Londo Ruins first but you'll come to a point where you need an item attained elsewhere to progress. In Anor Londo you aren't allowed to go to the Duke's Archives right away. Sen's Fortress won't open until two bells of awakening are rung. Basically there are lots of optional ways to go that find a way to stop you or through sheer difficulty discourage your progress.

DSIII is barely at all the sort of connected world the other games are, it has areas with alternate paths and often you can see prior or new areas in the distance giving the world consistency and immersion but it is not at all like any of the others in terms of being interconnected, in fact there's a point where you actually need to return to High Wall of Lothric so the game simply teleports you there because it wasn't built around traveling there any other natural way. So, it's weird to me DSIII gets more praise than II when it's even more linear. Could it be because of all the fan service and how hard it tries to resemble I superficially?

DSII's individual areas often have really interesting alternate routes, hidden areas and so forth. Sometimes you don't even realize how much you missed until you reach Drangleic and it begins to show you undiscovered bonfires. I feel III is mostly good for this, too and Bloodborne certainly is, the first, however doesn't always feel quite on the level of these. It does have really crazy stuff like the Great Hollow leading to Ash Lake from a secret wall in Blighttown but compare the Duke's Archives to the mirror of it in Dark Souls III Grand Archives and how much more there is to do and explore in the DSIII version. Or the Undead Burg vs. The Lost Bastille. I realize one of those is comparing 1 to 3 but part of my defence of II requires me to demystify the original since so many people crap on 2 based on how it relates to the original.

The final points would be that linearity and being interconnected are not inherently bad or good traits on their face and cannot be used on their own as bludgeons against games we hate or ways to prop up those we love without explaining why they work or don't work for that particular game. Is DSII being less interconnected only bad because DSI was interconnected? Does it matter that Demon's Souls was a hub world game, the true first entry?

Now onto the tough mobs. DSII has tough early mobs that are generally optional. From Ogres that are passive until aggro'd to Heide Knights who sit resting until attacked directly the game does have hard mobs right off the bat... if you choose to attempt them. There wasn't anything quite so frustrating for me as the shark guy with the anchor, no I haven't looked up the name, to me they are sharkbois. When you first hit the turtles they're tough because the game invites you to backstab then shows you why that's a bad idea. To me the game is designed to teach you lessons, usually you learn such lessons through dying, it is after all a Dark Souls game. Like the turtle on the bridge who swings at you and blows everything up. Once you learn the trick you can do it. My problem with the sharkbois is there isn't enough to use against them, dodging works sometimes but they also have huge reach and can hit over and over. Parrying only works on certain moves, circle strafing doesn't really work at all, your i-frames don't trigger quite the way they do with other enemies and you often find yourself taking damage when you think you shouldn't. In DSII I always found my i-frames made sense, I also found they weren't always necessary because the game was less in my face and often I could find the space to not need them to avoid attacks. It does attempt stuff like in Heide's tower of flame where you're on narrow platforms fighting enemies but I tend to lure them into more open battlegrounds in such situations, which the option to lure is much more viable in this than the first. In the first some of my only real lures on a level with DSII were the black knights near the start. Yes there is luring in 1 but in II you can lure enemies to a much larger degree I've found because the levels are built around luring.

Orphan of Kos boss fights... no not really. The toughest boss fight for me was probably the Smelter Demon and even that wasn't too bad. Hard but fair is how I'd describe DSII bosses. It has some monumentally easy ones like the Congregation, like how DS1 had Pinwheel, both could not have a boss bar and you wouldn't know the difference. I like boss difficulty so long as it isn't unfair, like say Bed of Chaos. Bed of Chaos would have been a neat boss if going below it and behind to kill the slug was a secret way to kill it and you could actually do damage to it, instead it's based entirely around killing it one way and they then make sure it's hard to do that way while avoiding devastating blows. In DSII it felt far more up to me how I fought the bosses, III is like this as well and BB.

The variety of bosses in DSII is unrivaled in the series as is the variety in locations and themes for those locations. This is part of what makes DSII feel more like you've conquered an epic fantasy journey and on top of all of that it has interesting twists that make you question the nature of such heroic journeys. The Vendrick reveal giving me goosebumps, for instance. In the other games scouring wikis to read lore was required to fully understand the tragic nature of some bosses but in DSII it's right on display for you, the nature of your journey and the problems with it are there without any wiki-based lore page. Here's the great villain you've been after, reduced to insanity dragging his sword about, unaware you even exist

This was also a game that wanted to give the player interesting options from soul vessels, password systems, healing options, the ability to exhaust enemies and so forth. The game was about player choice, because of how often you can level early any build is viable early on leading to more experimentation especially since you can reassign points later if you mess up. This might make it less hard to people who want these games to simply be obtuse and difficult but if you really want that just use restraint? Just don't buy 99 life gems? Don't use soul vessels? It's nice to have these things for those of us who don't think everything should be so hard you want to throw your controller across the room.

What's wrong with the game, though? It does not have full 360-degree movement. This means that while most platforming is optional when done I often miss the mark because it's hard to make fine movements. They compensate by giving you the best jump in the franchise, the longest and highest jump, but you will still miss often. That said it does allow for better rolling and rolling more directions than the first.

There is a big problem with my favorite weapons like the Dragon Tooth or Ultra Greatsword's where their attack that attacks forward and down, with Dragon Tooth 2-handed this is the R2, with Ultra Greatsword 2-handed this is R1. This attack is prone to missing enemies in the most frustrating fashion even when locked on and such a move exhausts significant stamina. The Dragon Tooth's second move if you have the stamina is a spin move that usually makes up for it and the Ultra Greatsword often does this sweeping arc that can also help but this is again something the lack of 360 movement effects. This problem is most noticeable when trying to hit dogs, the worst enemy in the entire series.

The graphics are not what they should be on PC, definitely not what was shown at e3. It lacks atmosphere compared to all other entries due to how bright it is and the atmosphere was in those clips, totally stripped away here. That said it has the best character creator with the most easily made attractive characters. Shouldn't making an attractive character be easy in these since going hollow should make you want your character to look normal again? My pale, ugly wretch in the other games I could care less about being human or hollow.

The soul memory system is silly, I think most people agree on that. Though I've still had more luck summoning in DS2 than I have in 1.

I dunno, I'm trying to be fair but this game is just amazing to me, I've rarely felt a game was so complete, thorough and grand.

The sophomore slump is a common thing across all entertainment mediums. Movie sequels are always embraced with hesitance and albums never seem to match up to their debuts. Where there is a Marquee Moon or a Stone Roses, there is also the Adventures and Second Comings. Burnout is a hell of a thing. This phenomenon isn't as common with video games. This is probably due to the first game being an experimental charade. After all, you don't know what to work off of if you haven't already established the fundamentals of what you are presenting. Video games always carry a little more leeway for improvement. The second game in a franchise always feels like the developers took the foundation of the first game and took the time to improve on every little aspect. Of course, there are always exceptions like Zelda II, Super Mario Bros. 2, and Castlevania 2; games that deviated from the formula of their successful predecessors and faltered as a result. Dark Souls II is a more modern example of a sophomore slump in gaming that did exactly what these classic sequels did.

As soon as Dark Souls 1 caught wind and won everyone's hearts, the series went through a peculiar marketing campaign that focused on the tough difficulty. The remastered PC version of the first game is called "Prepare to Die edition", overtly spelling out what they are trying to highlight. However, the first Dark Souls isn't just a torturous endeavor only for the type of gamer that unironically blends a cocktail of Mountain Dew and Doritos. It's a captivating experience that is filled to the brim with atmosphere, spectacle, and unique organic gameplay that greatly rewards the player once they overcome it. Miyazaki's vision for Dark Souls was uncompromising, but it was much more gratifying as a result. During the development of Dark Souls II, Miyazaki was busy working on Bloodborne. The only involvement he had was overseeing it. Dark Souls II was made by a FromSoft B team, or a FromSoft F team considering the quality of the game (F as in failing grade if that wasn't clear).

Dark Souls II was the last of the trilogy that I played, so I figured I'd play it to round out the whole trilogy. I already knew that this game had a "black sheep" type of reputation, but I assumed that I wouldn't mind considering that it was still a game in a franchise that I adored. I just lowered my expectations for this game. As it turns out, I do not like Dark Souls II. I do not even remotely like Dark Souls II. I thought my experience with the first game tested my limits, but this was on a whole other level. At least my experience with the first Dark Souls turned out to be something that strongly resonated with me. Dark Souls II beat me to a pulp and hung me out to dry. It's a game that feels in essence like the first Dark Souls but doesn't have ANY of the aspects that I love about Dark Souls.

I'm going to support my point of this with the most pretentious thing ever written on this website: Dark Souls 1 is a work of art while Dark Souls II is just a video game. I may have struggled with the first Dark Souls, but it immediately became one of my favorite games because it offered so much more than just a challenge. The world Miyazaki created blew me away with its design and the overall journey was one that was weighted with a bevy of emotions. The spectacle was like nothing I had experienced in a video game. Dark Souls II on the other hand is just a difficult video game. In fact, being a difficult video game is all that Dark Souls II sets out to be. It doesn't have the atmosphere, the spectacle, the density, or the meticulous world-building of the first game. This game was made by people who totally missed the point of Dark Souls and it totally shows in what they created. It's Dark Souls but through an absolutely underwhelming, shallow, and tedious presentation.

Drangleic is the tragic kingdom setting in Dark Souls II. Like Lordran, the flame keeping everything peachy is dwindling and everything in Drangleic is suffering as a result. You, the "chosen undead" have to journey through the world of Drangleic collecting the souls of four main figures to gain access to the big cheese at the end of it. I think it's both funny and ironic that the heavily criticized second half of the first Dark Souls is in essence the entire base of the second game. You venture too far off corners of the map going through about three or four different levels before encountering the boss and hit a dead end. This method of progression seemed underwhelming in the first game, but that was only comparable to the first half. What was deemed as being lazily rushed is now the basis of the entire sequel. How interesting. You also can't choose which order you tackle the Lordsouls in like in the first game. I used to wonder why that is considering each direction isn't necessarily more difficult than the next, but I soon figured that it was because it would take clever world design to make the game seem open world like the first one. This obviously wasn't the case for this game.

Majula is not as cozy as the Firelink Shrine, but I actually quite like it. It is off of a cliff-side near an ocean and it always looks like the sun is setting. The cloaked figure of the Emerald Herald perched on the cliff always looking off at the large body of water is quite beautiful that it could be the basis of a painting. It definitely helps that the score for this particular place is beautiful as well. It's too bad that every area that stems off from it is utter horseshit. Heide's Tower of Flame looks like a graphically upscaled beta area from the 1993 game Myst. The Gutter is essentially an uninspired Blighttown. Even an area as seemingly vast as the Iron Keep is a linear endurance test to get to the boss. The clever individual design of something like Sen's Fortress or labyrinthine like The Depths is never present in Dark Souls II.

Drangelic is also so geographically inconsistent they might as well have implemented a level select feature. Each level stems from a passageway from the hub world until you defeat one of the main lord bosses. Once you beat one, you go back to the hub world and uncover another path. It's hard to say if each passageway has a theme or not. The first one takes you to a forest that isn't even close to Things Betwixt, the dark forest tutorial area. This leads you to a series of ancient-looking architectural buildings that stand in water. This leads to a pitch-black wharf and an array of castles built near the wharf. Overall, it's a tad askew in terms of consistency, but it gets much worse. Every direction you go seems to lead you to another forest area. Huntsman's Copse is a rocky area with a waterfall and Shaded Woods is dehydrated and filled with spirits, attempting to make the level seem moody and ominous. I don't buy that the hub world of Majula is surrounded by different wooded areas because each of these areas is accessed in totally different directions. Are wooded areas considered more domestic and less hostile to ease the player for something like Iron Keep or The Black Gulch? I suppose that's what the developers were thinking because that is how the progression is for every section of this game. The progression never feels gratifying because the geography of the level never makes any sense. In the first game, the descent from Lower Undead Burg to the Demon Ruins is so earned because it feels like you are descending into hell. As you descend further, the environment gets darker, danker, and more hostile. Dark Souls II never captures this spectacle even when the game has you descend a well in Majula taking you to the darker territory as you progress.

The problem is that each area is too short. None of the areas can amount to something like Anor Londo because each level is just a passageway to get to the next one. None of the areas take any time to breathe because they all amount to a race to get to the next one. Each of them may have a single gimmick to them and that is about it. It is emblematic of the overall predicament with Dark Souls II and that is the developers went for quantity over quality. There are about 40 different individual areas in the game and just as many bosses. Quantity over quality was apparently their imperative when they were designing the range of difficulty as well. Dark Souls II was the hardest Souls game for me, but it wasn't because of something like clever like unconventional design. The philosophy that the FromSoft "F team" had was to overwhelm the player with ridiculous amounts of enemies at every corner. There were moments in the first game that did this, but enemy hoards were always made up of weak enemies that could be defeated easily as individuals. Everything balanced itself out. The "F team" of Dark Souls II probably has an onset carpal tunnel from mashing the copy and paste keys for every level. If there is a bigger enemy in a level, just know that there will be an army of him around the corner if not huddled up beside him like a football team ready to make a play. In this context, the play is to run at you with everything they have. Because of this, you cannot run away from anything in this game. I'm going to lose the respect of some Dark Souls players when I say this, but running away from enemies is a legitimate method of getting through some of the levels in these games. It's arguably as challenging as fighting them because the enemies in these games tend to be relentless, but Dark Souls II takes this to another level. You cannot get away from the hoards of enemies in most of the levels. If you try this in No-Man's Wharf, Iron Keep, Drangleic Castle, etc. over 25 different enemies will be on your tail like an angry mob. You might argue that this keeps the player from chickening out, but fighting them head-on is always overwhelming because all of the enemies come in packs no matter how individually strong or weak they are. You can't enter the fog door to get to a boss without being trounced by hoards of enemies. In every other Souls game, encountering a fog door meant you were invulnerable, but Dark souls II decides to fuck the player. This makes the runs to get to a boss from a bonfire one of the most frustrating and tedious parts of this game.

This philosophy of overwhelming the player with absurd quantities was also implemented with the bosses in this game. There are a whopping 35+ bosses in this game, but that's not what I mean by absurd numbers. To artificially pad the difficulty, half of the bosses in this game are gank bosses. I don't mind gank bosses, in fact, Ornstein and Smough are my favorite boss from Dark Souls 1 because both of them balance each other out wonderfully. There is no balance with the gank bosses in Dark Souls II. Every gank boss in this game feels like Gravelord Nito or the Four Kings, but if each skeleton had its own stake in the total health bar and if every king appeared at once. The latter example comes with bosses like the Ruin Sentinels, the Belfry Gargoyles (which is exactly like the Bell Gargoyles from the first game except cheap and obviously derivative), and the Throne Watcher/Throne Defender. The former example comes with bosses like Freja, Looking Glass Knight, and the Twin Dragonriders (this boss is even a cloned gank boss from a solo fight earlier in the game. Is it even remotely surprising that the "F Team" would rehash bosses to pad the game?). I can't even say if I have a favorite boss in this game. I guess an honorable mention goes to the Covetous Demon because he's laughably pathetic (and I always wanted to take a whack at Jabba the Hutt). However, I can easily tell you what my least favorite boss in this game is and it's the Royal Rat Authority. It's another gank boss that takes "inspiration" from both the Capra Demon and Sif fights
from the first game. The main focus of the fight is a giant dog that fights almost exactly like Sif sans the giant sword. The point of frustration is that four small rats will ambush you AND poison you before the dog even shows up. Why did they do this? Because fuck you, that's why. The specific reason as to why this is my least favorite boss is because, for the first time in any Souls game, it forced me to use magic. I am strictly a melee fighter and I've gotten through the other games just fine without using any magic. With the Royal Rat Authority, I saw no other option. It really compromised the accessibility of using a specific build that works for you which was an aspect I loved about the original Dark Souls. Come to think of it, comparing this fight to Sif really puts things in perspective. Sif is a gorgeous, mighty grey wolf that makes you feel terrible for having to kill it. The Royal Rat Authority is an ugly, gangly dog that you want to put down immediately and then taxidermy his mangy ass out of spite. It's almost like a comparative synecdoche between the quality of both of these games. Bosses like these made me do something I didn't do for the other games: skip optional bosses. I just didn't have the drive to care.

What does the game do to aid you in combating their poorly implemented difficulty tactics? Nothing. In fact, if you can't acclimate yourself to it, the game punishes you. Every time you die in this game, your maximum health decreases incrementally until it gets to 50% of your overall health. Are you fucking kidding me, FromSoft? Sorry, I know that this is still the "F team" here, but who in their right mind would think that this was a good idea? The game is already hard enough without giving you penalties for dying. I don't expect the game to aid you for failure, but this is like failing to run a mile in a minute and cutting off a piece of your leg as punishment. It's a whole other level of unfairness. You can alleviate this affliction by consuming a human effigy, but there are only so many of them per area. It certainly doesn't help that the game only starts you off with one estus flask. Why not just make me fight with my bare hands while you're at it? There are these weird life gems that replenish your health very slowly but again, these items are finite. What was wrong with the estus system in the first game? Was it too fair to have the flasks come in multiples of five? If it isn't broken, then don't fix it. Then again, every single aspect of this game is broken, so I guess the estus system had to follow suit.

You could attest to the negativity of this review on the basis that I just suck at Dark Souls. You could be on to something, but I'd still have to disagree. The unfair difficulty isn't the only detractor and I don't think hard difficulty should be one unless it's cheaply implemented and there is no other payoff. Dark Souls is guilty of this in spades, but you wanna know something? There is an easy way to get around this game that I'm not sure if the developers intentionally implemented or this is just a result of their overall carelessness. Magic-users can dominate this game. In the first game, your magic was finite and you had to use it sparingly. In Dark Souls II, all cards are off the table and you can spam almost any spell you want to your heart's content. This is the ideal way to play Dark Souls II as any enemy swarm can be dealt with from a distance. As a result, it makes the difficulty of this game almost trivial. The difference between my melee play-style and magic users is like night and day in Dark Souls II. I shouldn't have to switch my playstyle to breeze through this game. It's so balanced in the other games, so what happened here? Bullshit. Bullshit happened here.

I walked away from the first Dark Souls feeling accomplished and in awe of what I experienced. I walked away from its sequel feeling like I got gang-banged. It just shows me that Dark Souls needs the Miyazaki vision to successfully make a game that is both challenging and substantial. Otherwise, a shallow, boring, and frustrating game is made. This is the Family Guy to Dark Souls 1's Simpsons. Some elements are reminiscent of a quality product, but it fails to understand what makes the other one so meaningful. This game was like the equivalent of performing a pledge for a fraternity where you have to walk ten blocks across town with a pineapple shoved up your ass and you have to do it naked in broad daylight without falling over. Just as you've almost made it, a frat bro kicks you in the balls and you fall over, as a result, making you do the whole thing again, but with a pineapple shoved in your mouth as well. It's just enough to make you drop out of school and become a plumber or something. Dark Souls II is by far my least favorite Souls game and was one of the most unpleasant gaming experiences I've ever had.

It feels weird rating Dark Souls 2 this highly because it's a pretty disappointing game. It's Dark Souls only more manufactured and with less care for the setting and less respect for the player. Drangleic is a painfully dull world compared to Lordran and Boletaria, and with all the patches that took place over the course of its release year, only a few builds were even viable anymore online (Aside: I wrote this blurb ages ago). The boss designs are bad, which is sad because they were a high point of the last two souls games. There are too many sequences of the game that rely on having tons of enemies instead of a legitimate challenge, too. In spite of all this, I can't deny that Dark Souls 2 is a fantastic game in its own right. If I had not played the other Souls games, I would think it might be a second coming of action RPGs. Believe me, I say this in praise of the last two Souls games: Dark Souls 2 only feels bad to me because I love the other ones so much. The main thing Dark Souls 2 has going for it is quality of life improvements, like extra rolling directions, quicker menus/item usage, and fast travel via bonfires. None of that is good enough to make up for what it lacks, but it still shows that polish could have made the previous games even better, which is a little scary considering how good they are. I played through Dark Souls 2 approximately seven times this year, so hopefully that gets across the fact that I think it's a great game in spite of its problems.

It's OKAY but this game was apparently built without its master so it's a sloppy mess on DS I.

You'll want to try it but I'd have to be running pretty dry to play it again at this stage. Should've been so much more.

i appreciate that this is quite a few peoples’ favourite souls game, the amount of content here is nigh unparalleled in the series and because it’s a bit of a black sheep i think people find a uniqueness here that’s not present in any of the other souls games.

but (similar to all other souls games), DS2 is incredibly flawed, just in different ways, and to act as though it isn’t and call it a masterpiece is beyond me. i would sit there and point out design flaws in all souls games for hours because i love them and love to talk about them, but it just feels like the issues are even more prevalent here. sure i overlook them in my favourite games in the same way others do for this one, but where issues are isolated in the others (DS1 - level design in late game areas are lacking, DS3 - level design in early game areas are lacking, Bloodborne - lack of build variety, 30fps, chalice dungeons etc, ER - reused bosses/enemies, some bosses and areas are mid and feel a bit bloated) the issues with DS2 are in its very veins. the game looks and feels kinda like mashing plastic toys together. the movement feels incredibly light and janky, with attacks just looking unnatural and lacking weight in combat. sure it’s a very colourful, pretty and interesting toy box with myriad enemies, bosses, weapons and armour (one of my favourite parts of the game), but when all of the toys are made of shit it doesn’t make them very fun to play with.

obviously i can pile on with the comments about enemy placement, areas of the game being absolutely obtuse in design (shrine of amana) and the world layout being baffling, but i think at its core the feel of the game is what knocks it down a peg. put this game world in the exact same game feel as dark souls 1 and dark souls 3 and i would wholeheartedly accept anyone’s opinion that this is the best one.

Solid but not as good as Dark Souls.

I did have fun with this game, and I loved it, but it really tries to do different than dark souls and kinda Fails in most of the aspects it tries to innovate on.

First the good things, The Story is a lot easier to follow, and I liked it more than the story of Dark Souls, but I couldn't follow the story from Dark Souls as much as I could follow this one and had to google to find out what happened and why it happened.

The game runs on a new engine and even tho it feels unfamiliar at first in the end I liked it more, it feels more smooth and hits connect better. the graphics and locations of this game are a lot more breathtaking than the ones in dark souls the dragon Aerie or the Drangleic castle are so cool, I liked Majula, and I liked it more than the Firelink shrine, it feels more like a base of operation and it's quite literally a town that adds more and more cool characters that change dialogue. generally speaking, its always a good idea to speak to NPC more often as it gets you more dialogue and maybe some more :)

The enemy design of this game is very good, idk if I would say better than dark souls, but it has some great designs, The soundtrack, on the other hand, is mostly nonexistent, you usually don't have any music or it is very quiet and if you have a banger it's recycled out of dark souls, my favorite track is the Old Chaos one.

The Number of spells, the different weapons, and armor, have (at least for me it seems so) more variety and there are just way more.

The new things in this game are a hit and miss, The Warp feature is gorgeous you have it instantly at the start, you can always get back to Majula to change your build and go to the smith, its very refreshing and nice, and generally this game gives you way more ways to change your build as you get so much material in this game that you can just switch on the spot, also the Soul vessel that allows you to respec your whole stats, makes this even better, I love that.

the Hollowing in this game is a state where if you die more, you lose more HP till half of your original HP, I liked this idea because it gives you a reason to use Human Effigy (instead of just for summons) but it also kinda gets on your nerves.

This game even tho it has a lot of bosses likes to focus more on the areas before the bosses than the actual bosses, which makes it so that 90% of the game's bosses are very easy, and you only have a problem dealing with the areas beforehand than the bosses itself, or the way to the boss being filled with enemies.

This does not change with the DLCs, they also have harder bosses, I loved the Themes/Locations and enemies of the DLCs but they have larger areas and less bonfire, some even being hidden, that was ass tbh. The Bosses itself were great, I loved Eleum Loyce, the hardest DLC, the Old Chaos, I wish it was a bit harder, but the whole idea was crazy good. All the DLCs bring CO-OP areas and they are trash solo, I did the first two but Eleum Loyce was too hard so I used all the summons I could get. They also have new Items and this Edition brings more Fluid ways to get to them.

The worse feature of this game is imo dark spirits, they come and invade you and are just a pain in the ass to deal with, it's not even that hard but more of a patience test, I hate it.

also, this game likes to hide things behind illusions, like bonfires. But it also doesn't tell you that it changed the way you get access to these illusions, it's by pressing A and not hitting it lmao.

all in all, this game brings a lot of good things, but also some bad things, the areas are large, the bonfires are sometimes scarred and the bosses are too easy but I still loved this, it has the same charm as dark souls and it was just fun most of the times.