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I was just gifted dark souls remastered but was told to just skip dark souls II. Is it any good?
It's very good, however they took a lot of risks with the design that many hardcore souls fans dislike, although a loud minority still tout it as their favorite. It has a reputation as the black sheep of the series, but if it wasn't compared to the others, it would be considered one of the best games out there, in my opinion.
If you get hooked on the souls-like formula and can't get enough of it, I'd recommend checking DS2 out. If you want a smoother experience, you could just skip to DS3.
Honestly DS1 and DS2 are very unfriendly entry points into the subgenre and can be quite punishing. I played the entire first DS following a guide step by step because I didn't see the appeal. DS2 I read a guide instead and did it all myself and was starting to get it but not really. DS3 is the first one that feels like a modern game, where fun is the priority and it doesn't expect you to have 20 hours to beat your head against an area or boss. DS3 you can complete entirely alone (although looking up stat soft caps is always a must for me).
It's definitely the odd one out of the trilogy, but if you can approach it with an open mind it's actually a fucking sick game. It's just a little weird.
Some consider it the best in the series. Some despise it. Definitely worth playing it to see for yourself. It's okay if it's not to your liking, but don't let anyone tell you their opinion isnworth more than your own.
Me personally, I think they did what a sequel is supposed to do, and jump off from the original with new ideas and mechanics, instead of just repeating everything the original did. Some of it worked, some didn't, but it's a success in my book just for being creative.
Both games have pros and cons, but imo DS2's cons far outweigh the pros. DS1's cons are at least confined to the end of the game, and it's DLC more than makes up for it...while DS2's cons pervade the entire game and its DLCs. (DS1 doesn't share a storyline with DS2, so don't feel pressured to play them in order or one at a time)
In DS2 they take control away from you by snapping your movement to angles, which is really annoying when combined with their decision to put an emphasis on platforming. They frequently resort to enemy spam, both as bosses and just around the world... Thrust attacks can't be aimed far enough up or down to hit small enemies without locking on, and locking onto them aims the camera so far down that it makes the horde encounters even more annoying... (Almost) the entire game is trivialized by giving you effectively infinite spammable heals early in the game. The animations don't have the same feeling of weight as DS1/3, as if you're not really making contact with the enemy (and vice versa). The world is basically just 5 linear paths from the hub area, and that's not necessarily a bad thing I guess but I do think it's less interesting than DS1's interwoven world. Your i-frames are tied to a stat you level up instead of your weight, which makes all "good builds" more homogeneous, and to add insult to injury they never even explain the stat to the player. The game has its upsides too, but these are my reasons for quitting after ~35 hours. Here is a more detailed review of the game.
For DS1: The game has a lot of issues after the first half. The Demon Ruins starts and ends with boss fights which are the only 2 fights in the game that I can comfortably call unfair. Tomb of the Giants is extremely dark and annoying to navigate even after you get the lantern. The Dukes Archives is great at first but the crystal caves are gimmicky and annoying, and it ends with an absolute pushover of a major boss. New Londo is by far the most annoying area, filled with enemies you can't hit without using a consumable (but you can run through the entire area pretty easily if you figure out where to go) and it ends with another gimmicky boss fight that severely punishes you for not doing enough damage fast enough. And all of these areas are required to go to the final boss, and tbh it's annoying enough just trying to remember how to get there when it's your first playthrough. While I could write 10x more about the good things about the game, this is already a long comment... but there's a reason DS1 earned its reputation as lightning in a bottle in spite of its late-game flaws.
My issues with DS2 stem from the enemy spam, the low boss quality, the overall floatiness (slow HP regen even from estus, movement, etc), the areas don't feel like Anything special.
I think the vibe and the ideas behind the game are cool and I think to myself every once in awhile "maybe I should revisit the game" then I see a vid of gameplay and realize that's not for me lol.
The fact that the areas to visit are also just the branching paths from your hub also feels kinda bad. That said Majula is incredible and they Completely knocked that out of the park.
I did finish DS2 but gave up during the DLC since those areas are so unfun IMO.
I think it's a skippable entry if free time is a huge luxury but if you like dark souls this is Definitely still dark souls.
It needs a remake tbh. If they let From Software have another go at it but put Miyazaki and the rest of the DS1/3 crew on the job this time, we could get a genuinely great experience in Drangleic.
Honestly the only motivation I still have for playing DS2 is so I can credibly refute the contrarians I constantly find in Dark Souls communities after that Hbomberguy vid dropped.
From my understanding, a lot of people appreciate the vibe. It's also designed in such a way that you kind of need to use different tools to complete different sections and you need to be methodical as compared to DS1/3 where you can get by blitzing past every enemy.
I think another issue I had was that once I cleared one branch, since you can do them in Sorta any order, you end up being over leveled IMO.
I would say it's on par with DS1. But if you have no prior experience with souls games, I'd maybe consider starting with DS3 or Elden Ring. That said, I played them in release order and enjoyed all
Ds2 was a 10/10 game. Unfortunately ds1 was like 25/10 making ds2 look like dogshit in comparison. If it doesn't bother you to ride a 2 minute elevator upwards to an underground lake of fire though (or other "they clearly didn't think about the map or ambient storytelling" moments the game has), ds2 is great. I will never stop being salty about it though, I have never been let down by a game more than I was by ds2 on release