Dark Souls I or II, which is better?

Already a thread going. It doesn't have a poll, but there's plenty of discussion all the same.

Uh, no actually. Dark Souls 1's late game actually bored me so much I've never managed to actually finish the game. Dark souls 2 I pumped over 200 hours in completing all of the trophies. I absolutely appreciate the Demon's Souls influence on the sequel as I also prefer Demon's Souls over Dark Souls.

I tried to play Dark Souls 2 again but everything feels wrong. I dunno what they changed, but it feels terrible. I'm talking about moving around, attacking, and the camera. There are problems with the rest of it, but I didn't get far enough to see if those aspects get better. A lot of what I did see seemed very flat, the characters, environments, and monsters. No charm or atmosphere.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls. Platinumed Demon's Souls and almost did in Dark Souls. I fucked up one thing that meant I had to replay the whole game again to go back around and collect one miracle spell to ding the trophy and consequently ding the platinum.

I dunno if it's because I came into Dark Souls 2 hot off the heels of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, which feels fantastic, or if they actually futzed something up between DkS1 and DkS2. I'm not gonna give up on it, but I'm not exactly excited to pick it up again.

I liked 1 better, but 2 is a better game mechanically IMO

1 has way more heart.

2 is better mechanically, but god it's annoying how many dudes with shields are counted as bosses. No personality compared to Dark Souls 1

I think Yatzee put it best when he compared Dark Souls 1&2 to Portal 1&2. The sequel is broader in scope, and refines the formula in some very interesting ways, and is absolutely a fantastic game, but there's just something so *tight* about the original that just couldn't be reproduced.

I'm partial to the first one.

Most of the changes to the math behind the systems are smart. Everything else from PvE combat design to level design to covenants is a step back. DS1 will hold up a lot longer than DS2 will.

Dark Souls III is the best!

@peterh: yeah, that's a pretty good comparison. Another is the Super Mario Galaxy series, although I know a lot of people prefer the sequel.

How? The PVP, the thing that kept dark souls alive for so long is infinitely better in dark souls 2. Dark souls 1 is done at this point. The lore has been analysed to death, everyone who cared beat the game a hundred time, the PvP has been completly deconstructed with optimal/broken builds and the net code is still garbage.

Second one is the better game, mechanics are better, no useless stats anymore, weapon upgrading system is improved, more bosses, more interesting covenants, superior NG+, blah blah. The only thing game one did better was the "connectivity" and that isn't even that big a deal to me.

I think the better game is 2 but I think the harder game is 1. The PVP is much better in 2 as well, and so far seems less broken.

2's systems are all mostly improved.

1 has the magic. That's hard to argue with. I'm torn.

The latter half of Dark Souls 1 is a REAL bummer. It's only the DLC that makes the trek through that game's latter half any fun for me. I think DS2 is more consistent, while 1 hits some higher highs with some of its boss fights & designs / locations & vistas

Also I have to laugh at people saying Dark Souls 1 had heart, or it was pushing the boundaries and doing new things, or it was the first so it just had that "magic"! No, it wasn't the first, it wasn't pushing boundaries, and it didn't have any particular heart. All those things were Demon's Souls.... you know the one that actually did come first? The only significant change from Demon's to Dark is no more central hub and they added covenants. Oh they also made the PVP a lot worse too... The rest was just gameplay tweaks.

@legion_ Genuinely interested in how you think DS1's online features were superior.

Here's why that seems odd to me:

• Messages never worked for me. Not an exaggeration. I played around 1,000 hours of DS1 on both PS3 and PC, if not more, and never had a single message rated. In contrast, my messages still get rated quite frequently in Demon's Souls, and in DS2 each of my 10 messages have over 30 points on my "main" character.
• It's incredibly difficult to get into the "invasion" covenant. Assuming you even knew it existed, getting into the Darkstalkers wasn't easy, and certainly not an early-game thing. This is mainly bad because it limited invasions. DS2 did an okay job remedying this, but it's still not ideal.
• Getting into the Arbiter covenant is also much (much) easier in DS2. In DS2, if you sin, you get invaded. They nailed it. I only ever got invaded once outside of Dark Anor Londo in DS1.
• Dragon Covenant's online component was worthless in DS1. It was just totally broken. No one ever saw your sign. You never saw theirs. If you wanted dragon scales you were looking at a lot of fun hours in the Valley of Drakes.
• Locking the Gravelord Covenant to NG+, on top of the game's already wonky server issues, made interacting with that covenant severely difficult. I think I got Gravelorded... once, maybe. I could be thinking of the time I invaded someone else's Gravelorded game, though.
• Lag. The lag. My god, the lag. I've had my share of "facing a dude directly from a foot away; he's facing me" backstabs in DS2, but it is nowhere even close to as bad as in DS1. It helps that they've made backstabbing a 2-step process and given gear that nullifies backstabs, on top of opt-in region-locking keeping the connections tighter.

All the souls games are fantastic.

For those saying they like 1 better than 2. Have you gone back and played 1 since playing 2? I think most of you would change your vote if you did.

@sterling: I have, and it only made me more sure of my opinion. I could argue that those of you who like DS2 better should do the same thing.

@karkarov: No reason to be rude, no one here has offended you. And for the record, Dark Souls has a lot of heart.

It' a like Oblivion to Skyrim, where Oblivion feels a lot more warm and cohesive than Skyrim. The only difference is that Skyrim is still a magnificent game, and Dark Souls II is a pretty poor game.

I'm really not sure how i'd answer this one. Techinically i'm pretty sure 2 is the better game, but there's a part of me that still lilkes 1 more. Some of changes and stuff are just not to my liking. Also, i miss the old backstab/parrys. It's sad when the backstab animation for swords doesn't actually involve a stab.

Dark Souls II is subjectively better than Dark Souls in every measurable way. Combat, graphics, every single online component, weapon variety, stat allocation, boss fights, environment design, everything. It is a more complete game than broken old Dark Souls could ever hope to be.

The only thing in the first game I liked more than the sequel was the final boss fight. Gwyn is more fun and more of a challenge to fight than Nashandra, at least until you figure out you can parry him. That's it.

Dark Souls has atmosphere, Dark Souls II has everything else.

I am not being rude I am just stating the truth. Dark Souls only actual innovation to the series was the covenants, and I guess R2 attacks having combos. Even today Demon's Souls still has the best online of all three, is the easiest to do a co op run through, easiest to find pvp for if you want it, easiest to invade in, etc etc. It still has the best boss encounters in my opinion (sadly some of them can be cheesed), find me one boss in either of the other two games that has as much impact as Maiden Astrea does? Mirror Knight in many ways is even a rehash of the Old Monk. Too many Dark Souls fans try to pretend that Dark Souls did it all, it didn't, it sucks the staff hated Demon's Souls until it became popular to like it but whatever.

@karkarov: You are being rude. If I tell you I'm laughing at your opinion, I'm being rude. And I think you're in the wrong. Dark Souls is by far the superior game of the three. I pretty much love Dark Souls, while I have no affection for Demon's Souls or Dark Souls II.

Dark Souls had much better environment design. The world was more interesting to explore. The bosses were more interesting and varied.

There weren't many stand-out monsters in DSII. There are a few creatures in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls that really stand out. You had to approach them slightly differently, or they used magic in an interesting way. DSII seems like it has just a lot of areas and enemies but much of it just runs together.

Still a great game. Can't wait for the next.

1 had better atmosphere, and as weird as it sounds a better story. But 2 is a better game. I am tempted to go with 1 being better, but I think that would be nostalgia talking since it was my first souls game. For me they are equal, each does some things better than the other, so I didn't pick either option.

I haven't played Dark Souls 2 yet since it doesnt come out (on PC) for another week. So, since Dark Souls is the best game made in a long long time, I picked Dark Souls.

It's possible (even if unlikely) that Dark Souls 2 will usurp. We'll see.

Cant I love the same? I love them the same , just as I like Demon souls.