From Software's Dark Souls was a game that taught players that there's a lesson behind every mistake, and that not everything worth knowing will be freely given. It challenged players to study their enemies, and to pay attention to the world around them. And while the story seemed threadbare at first, for players willing to read flavor text and listen carefully to NPC dialogue, there was a wealth of lore to be discovered. The game was challenging, beautiful, and haunted my thoughts when I wasn't playing. It is a true gem.
So how does the hotly anticipated sequel stand up?
In short, it's a true masterpiece, worth every moment of the 60 or so hours that the first playthrough will take, and the hundreds of hours that the gorgeous world of Drangleic will inevitably rob from countless players. The gameplay has been refined without being simplified, the graphical presentation is at times absolutely jaw-dropping, and the series' trademark attention to detail has survived the transition from the dark world of Lordran. Newer players will find the early hours to be much more forgiving and the exploration to be more straightforward, while series veterans will have plenty of gear to collect, bosses to vanquish, and secrets aplenty. While it may not be as revolutionary as the first game, it fills the shoes left by its predecessor admirably, and will delight any player on any platform willing to give it the time and care needed to see it through to its conclusion.
There are plenty of RPG's that make bold claims about playing any way you want to, but Dark Souls gives the player an insane number of options for different playstyles, and Dark Souls 2 seems to have tweaked the formula to offer even more flexibility with character progression. Dark Souls doesn't have perks or permanent special abilities like some other role-playing games. Dark Souls offers a robust leveling system that works in tandem with equipment to allow you to craft the character that offers the kind of play you want.
Now trust me. You're going to die a lot playing this game. That's not to say that you are helpless. Far from it. Dark Souls empowers the player in ways many role-playing games strive to achieve. Whether you play with a sword and shield, dual-wield, or use a variety of magic and sorceries, you have the tools to succeed. The only thing that you lack at the outset is knowledge, and Dark Souls is a big fan of hard-knocks learning. Every weapon has a different attack style. Halberds have a large overhead sweep attack. Spears can thrust through multiple enemies in a line. Curved swords like falchions allow for elegant sweeping attacks and whirling finishers. Your weapon choices affect which situations you have more control over and what your strategy will be. The game requires patience to learn the attack patterns and behavior of enemies, and exploit their mistakes or overpower them when the timing is right. Taking an errant hit from an enemy can leave you open to attack from another, afflict you with a status ailment, or knock you off a cliff. Boss monsters often require special tactics and serve as final exams for the skills you've learned thus far. Every new enemy encounter is an opportunity for a new victory.
And your playground for this game is absolutely superb. Dranleic, much like Lordran from the previous game, is a continuous world full of secrets and monsters. On your journey you'll explore dilapidated forts, traverse deadly forests, inch your way through hostile caves, and climb rugged mountains, all in search of adventure, loot, and lore. After the intro and a chat with some lovely women, you go through the mostly optional tutorial area, to yourself on the hauntingly beautiful cliffside village of Majula. A woman dressed in green gives you your first Estus flask and your goal: you want to meet the king, but you must collect four great souls to prove that you have the strength worthy of an audience. That's your impetus for adventure in the early goings. Even within the safety of Majula lurks intrigue and narrative for those who seek it. And a player can easily spend an hour or more in the area around Majula discovering secrets. This is a much more forgiving introduction than the last game, and new players will feel much more comfortable setting out on the adventure, because the different paths offer the right mix of challenge and progression in just about any direction.
What follows is a story that challenges the player. Your involvement and understanding of the lore and characters is entirely up to you. As with the previous game, none of the story's subtleties are going to be given to you. Understanding the fine details requires attention and a keen mind. Many recent role-playing games have a tendency to dump exposition on the player by the bucketload, while Dark Souls 2 paces itself, offering long stretches of grinding gameplay punctuated by a poignant character moment. The characters you meet have real weight to them, as they tend to hide their true motivations, revealing little to the player. Over time, if you are diligent in speaking to these wanderers, you will learn their stories and how they came to be in Dranleic. A knight in search of absolution. A warrior who fell in battle and lives on as a head and a vengeful body, each with different motivations. The characters feel real in this world, because what they don't tell is is often far more interesting than what they do, and the moments when you meet them are often so unexpected, they offer a brief respite from the hostile world of Dranleic.
As you adventure through the world attempting to survive, each kill will earn you souls. As one of the undead, these souls can be used to level your character, or use as the de facto currency with merchants all over the world. While adventuring, you will come across bonfires, and these act as checkpoints and refresh zones. They refill your estus flask and health, and give you the opportunity to fast-travel. The one caveat here is that they refresh the enemies in the immediate area, so any that you've killed will be back. When you die while adventuring you will respawn at the last bonfire you rested at. Death carries a few caveats- firstly you will drop all souls you carry, but if you can make it back to the spot where you died you can retrieve them. Die on the way back and they are lost forever. Second, and more importantly, each death will cause your undead character to hollow. Each death will reduce your maximum health by 10% up to a maximum of 50%. This can be reversed with a rare item called a human effigy. Death is a constant balance between being at full strength and carefully managing a rare inventory item. This mechanic adds a depth to the game lore. As the undead repeatedly die, they begin to lose hope, and they start to hollow, eventually becoming mindless husks. This brings the player and their character closer, as they begin to feel the frantic sorrow of repeatedly dying. It's a vicarious gameplay mechanic that really adds to the sense of place. It sounds unfair, but it adds an immense strategic element to the game and I love it.
The careful design also carries over into the clever and deep online interactions between players. Devious players can invade your game any time in an effort to kill you, and indeed many players focus on PVP combat as a large part of the end-game. The game attempts to pair invaders with players of similar soul level, but with such a wide variety of equipment and playstyles, a player of the same level may flatten you in one blow from a mighty greatsword, or attack you with a speed and ferocity that you couldn't even imagine. Not all player interaction is hostile however- many bosses in the game are exceedingly difficult, and players may opt to enlist the help of others. Players who would like to offer assistance may use an item to paint a glowing summon rune on the ground near a boss chamber or difficult section of the game. Outside some boss areas, you may have your pick of a number of different helpful players, some of which may be able to tank the boss for you in no-time flat. Up to two of these companions may be summoned at any time, and they will disappear upon death or defeat of the boss. Players can only be summoned by someone who is in human form, and if the summoning player dies and hollows before killing the boss, that player has to consider using a rare human effigy to retry the boss with the help of other players. Some NPC's will also leave summon signs near boss areas if you have met certain conditions, and you can even summon an NPC and a human to help with a fight. There are also covenants in the game, many of which are devoted to online interaction- such as a covenant available very early on that will allow other covenant members to come to your aid should you be invaded by another player. These online battle covenants offer a lot of variety to the online portion of the game, and keep things fresh throughout the experience.
From a technical perspective, Dark Souls 2 is a winner on any platform, but you're certainly going to have the best graphical experience on a moderately-equipped PC. My rig has an AMD Phenom II X4-955 and a GTX 670, and I was able to safely max all settings and keep a consistent frame rate throughout the game, only seeing brief dips in certain areas like the dragon aerie. The character models of NPC's and monsters are universally excellent, with plenty of little touches that add a sense of depth and history, and the use of volumetric lighting effects aren't overdone like they are in so many other games. Of course, the game was released on last-gen consoles as well, and I have had occasion to play the Xbox 360 version. While the game is capped at 30 frames per second and has seen significant downscaling on consoles, if a console is your platform of choice, you will still have an excellent gameplay experience. You may not have the fancy graphics, but you're still getting a superb game. One thing that needs to be mentioned is the exquisite audio design. The rattling of armor sounds chillingly real, and the aural sound effects strike the perfect balance to create a world that feels truly alive. The game rarely has any sort of soundtrack, opting to treat the player to orchestrated score during boss fights and in some key areas, which add a weight to these moments that hits the perfect tone. When not engaging with a boss and out adventuring, the game utilizes an excellent aural atmosphere and audio design that begs for a good set of headphones. My Astro A50's definitely helped bri ng the game to life.
While I have almost nothing bad to say about the game, there are a few sticking points for me that need to be addressed. At times there is some geometric pop-in that's very hard not to notice, and while this isn't unusual by any means, it's so jarring in this game because everything else is so polished. The game does use Havok physics, and with that comes a few issues. Gone are the silly moments from the first game when dead enemies would go flying when you walk over them, but if you return to an area with the corpse of an enemy, the physics engine will often cause the bodies to bounce around as they are re-loaded into the level, which is a bit distracting at times, but not a big deal at all. One of my biggest niggles is weapon durability. While I admit that weapons in the first dark souls were nearly indestructible, weapons in Dark Souls 2 are made of cheese, and there is one thing that really bothers me about the weapon degradation in particular. Thrusting my spear through an enemy that is already dead will degrade the weapon by an absolutely staggering amount. To test this, I killed an enemy and then broke my weapon in a few swings by stabbing his corpse. I figure that this may have been put in the game to encourage players to be more thoughtful about how they attack, but having weapons that can barely survive the trip from one bonfire to another is a bit maddening.
Despite those petty niggles, I have no problem giving this game a glowing recommendation. Dark Souls 2 is more than just a game. I find myself thinking about it when I'm not playing. I think about the characters, the world, and the lore that surrounds it all. There are message boards and YouTube video series dissecting item descriptions and NPC dialogue to reach conclusions about the story, and theories about how the other games tie into the plot. The game gives you enough to keep you coming back for more, and it does all this while being fiendishly difficult and simultaneously welcoming. Every victory feels earned, and every secret fills you with wonder. Every conversation had me on the edge of my seat, and every boss had my pulling my hair out, looking for a solution. My first playthrough took nearly 70 hours, and by the end of it, I jumped back in with a new character, ready to see what I missed. It treads ground that will be familiar to any fan of the series, and doesn't reinvent the formula that vaulted it into such high esteem, but it adds enough new, with enough refinements and fantastic moments that it stands proud next to its excellent predecessor. My only regret is that I can never play Dark Souls 2 again for the very first time.