Hey all, I'm very early in the game (just died a few times to asshole-face aka: the last giant) and after already losing tens of thousands of souls, I'm contemplating restarting. I haven't levelled up yet due to my wondrous ability to die often to just about everything (I've played the first Dark Souls game as well and only managed to beat Seath after around 120 hours of gameplay - I'm just really bad at games), and I've noticed that enemies in some areas are starting to disappear. What are your thoughts regarding restarting early on? Is it just better for me to tough it out because there's probably many others who have lost just as many, if not more, souls? Or is the lack of acquirable souls and my lack of ability something which could compound and make the game much worse/unplayable later on?

Just to clarify, this isn't in order to have an advantage at online play (I play without internet because I feel complete isolation adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game). How were the early stages of the game for you? Did you ever feel like restarting would be a choice?

If you want to restart, go for it, but when you bank a lot of souls just head back to Majula and level up instead of banging your head against something until you lose them. Also, a lot of bosses give enough souls that you'll be able to level up a lot just off of them. I found the first areas pretty challenging up through the pursuer(mostly it was getting used to the new feel of Dark Souls 2 versus the first one). So with that information, just do what you feel. You'll probably be fine either way. After all, the game is ultimately more about ability rather than numbers.

Whatever works for you really. This would maybe at least give you time to consider a different playstyle? Though as far as souls go, this game is a-plenty with 'em; so long as you remember to start spending them first on the account of your self-confessed lack of skill at the game, you'll be fine souls wise.

If you are not going to play online that means that there can be a finite number of souls you can acquire in your own world at the start of the game. Enemies will despawn after being killed a certain number of times. My advice is to restart and cash in your souls whenever you see that you can level up (stat page shows souls till next level next to your level).

I purposefully kept my character relatively low leveled at the beginning and I'm currently set to beat the game at Soul Level 99 as a Champion in the Company of Champions covenant so I literally can't find enough ways to spend all my extra souls.