Update on Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin

  Been playing more Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin and it's been a mixed bag: there are some concepts that are unique to this, at least compared to DS1 (I haven't played DS3 yet), and with innovation comes risk, ups, and downs.

  To be honest, I don't see any issue with most new things, but they're all very specific and niche, I don't really use anything new but I can see the appeal, most of the time it's just DS1's concepts explored even more, which is quite interesting, while others are original.

 But even though this game is deeper, overall these changes don't change the game. What does change the game is the new enemies, areas, and bosses, and I think those are a major step down from the first game, there are so many bosses, and yet they feel very weak, not in strength because the game relies a lot on that, but in actual content. all the bosses I've killed so far felt empty, boring, and annoying more than anything else.

 In DS1 each boss fight felt unique and epic, each death would make you feel teased and excited for the next attempt and each victory felt rewarding and earned and made you wonder what the next challenge was going to be. Here, each boss only has a few moves, with bad hit-boxes, forgettable music, and uninspired designs.

 There's a lot of core mechanic changes as well, but I feel like they were only used to make the game artificially harder, like giving most enemies fast attacks, lots of poise, more I-frames, and fast recovery from stagger, making most of the player's attacks slow, making parry super slow, taking I-frames away from rolling, not giving any I-frames after being damaged allowing for the player to be stun-locked without any escape.

 This game also suffers from the same issue as Bloodborne, it tries to be surprising all the time, which is just not possible, but while Bloodborne tries to be dark all the time, DS2 tries to be an asshole all the time, by placing enemies around every corner, having traps everywhere, etc. Every time, it never surprises me that an enemy is there, it's surprising how even me knowing, the game always manages to be broken and hit me even with me taking every precaution.

 I'm not the best DS player in the world, but I'm not bad at the games, I know what I'm doing, and yet I seem to struggle every step of the way. Both DS1 and Bloodborne managed to make it feel like every time I died it was my problem, I either didn't do well enough or didn't try hard enough, but 85% of the times I die in DS2 it feels unfair, it feels like I'm not playing the game, the game is playing me. it's exhausting, trying just to be met with an unfair failure, it's disappointing and not fun, it doesn't make me question my ability, it makes me question whether or not it's worth playing.

 Now, this next part is just speculation, I was basically a baby gamer when DS1 came out, I'm not familiar with its history in marketing and how it was received, all I know is DS1 was well received by Demons Souls players and got very popular with other people as well, and I assume it's when Fromsoft got the reputation of making hard games and in an attempt to hang on to that fame they made DS2 "harder" and longer, and that's clearly evident with the achievement "This is Dark Souls" which you get when you die for the first time, it's such slap in the face, why would anyone want this achievement, it's funny, but just for the devs, it means nothing, it's just an attempt at humiliating the player.

 I love DS1's narrative, a story that continuously gives you hope just to rip it away and make you question yourself, your goal, and your methods, it's a beautiful adventure that I'll never get tired of praising. but here, the act of pushing you down is not a test, not a challenge, it's just trying to humiliate you, which I would get if all DS players were the "GIT GUD" type of players, but we're not all like that, and it feels tiring being such a great fan of the first game for giving me an excellent balanced experience and then having the second game spit in my face as if I'm being punished for something I didn't do.

 And that's my main issue with the game, it tries too hard to be hard but it ends up just being annoying, playing this doesn't feel fun most of the time, it feels like a chore which is not what playing a game should feel like and that's a big issue.

 That's all I have to say, for now, I'll keep playing until I've killed every boss and finished the game, I might write more updates regarding this game in the future and possibly a review when I finish it, but I'll figure it out later.

Have a good night. Sincerely,

Spoon.

Second thoughts on Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin

A while ago I bought Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin, except it was a reverse scam, in the box came both the disk and instruction manual of Dark Soul Prepare to Die Edition which everyone seems to agree is a better game.

To be honest, I wanted Dark Souls 1, but I couldn't find it anywhere and once I found Dark Souls 2 I was desperate and bought it right away, turns out I got the game I wanted from the start.

I had an amazing adventure and enjoyed every minute when playing DS1. I'd like to write a review of DS1 in the future, but such a masterpiece requires a very well-crafted review to do it justice and I'm not sure I have the skills to satisfy my ambition yet.

Not so long ago, I bought the real Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin for PS4. I played it for a few hours, but I didn't enjoy it at all, I was really sad about it, it was different from the first game but in a bad way, I disliked all the changes and soon gave up on it.

But, earlier today, I played it, I created a new character and basically speedran in 2 hours what I did in a lot more with my first character and spent another hour exploring new areas. And you know what? I enjoyed it, it still has its flaws, but overall it's still a good game. I now know why I didn't like it the first time, it's not because the game was too different, it's because I was too different.

When I played DS1 for the first time I already knew a lot from the start and was able to have a balanced experience always with that feeling of exploration while also kind of knowing what to do.

When I played DS2 for the first time I went in blind, which is more fun for a lot of people, but, for me, that only works on some games and it did not work on DS2. After replaying the beginning of it I realized this is still a good game, I still prefer DS1, but DS2 is special in its own way, it might not be my favorite, but it's still a Dark Souls, it's still something I can enjoy.

I don't know when I'll get to play again, but until then I'll take some time to learn more about the game so that when I play it I'll be able to have fun.

I'll probably say this again on my DS1 review, but it is an important lesson to learn, sometimes a game is perfect for you, but you never get to see it because you don't have the right approach, don't force yourself to play something you don't like, but if you already spent money on the game why not try different things. Even if you already like a game, you can always find new and more fun ways to play, don't limit the game or yourself to 1 way of playing, it's a game, after all, an interactive experience, if there was only 1 way of doing things it might as well be a movie or book.

But then again, what do I know? Who am I to tell you how to have fun? Just do you.r own thing, I'm proud either way.