After multiple playthroughs of 1 & 3, finally got around to playing SoTFS again, and holy crap does Earthen Peak make me rage. Even knowing where the manikins are going to drop doesn't make them any less cheap. The fire ladies have insta-cast of 1-shot fireballs, and I'm annoyed that I let stupid Jabba the Hut eat my clothes right before I killed him. Have y'all done multiple runs of this game, and do you have areas that you still hate?
Dark Souls II
Game » consists of 12 releases. Released Mar 11, 2014
Blood, souls, and tears are continually spent as players traverse the land of Drangleic in FromSoftware's third entry in the Souls series.
Where did you feel the frustration? - DS2 edition
I've done 4 runs through the game, but there aren't any areas that I actually outright hate. At worst, there are a few areas that I just don't find interesting anymore and have to push myself to trudge through. No-Man's Wharf, The Gutter, and Frozen Eleum Loyce are a chore for me. There are a lot of enemies and encounters I don't enjoy in those areas, and I don't particularly like their art or the process of exploring them.
I actually like Earthen Peak as well as most people's seemingly most hated level, Shrine of Amana. I think Earthen Peak has a pretty interesting layout, with a nice smattering of traps and ambushes, and a good deal of verticality. The enemies also are relatively varied and fun to fight. As for Shrine of Amana, I love its art and atmosphere, and I like exploring it with the hazard of the hidden cliffs and outcroppings underwater. I enjoy fighting most of the enemies there well enough too, including rolling under the long-range spells from the mages, though the encounter with the group of three clerics can be pretty obnoxious with their infinite stamina melee spamming and heal spam.
The only area that I really don't like in Dark Souls II is The Gutter and whatever the name of that area right after it is. I'm not really a huge fan of No-Man's Wharf or Earthen Peak, but neither area is really that long and the parts that aren't great aren't frustrating, just a little tedious. Even The Gutter isn't that bad - it's certainly no Blighttown.
Shrine of Amana can be annoying but, again, it's fine. I don't have much of a problem going through it. Also, I think the Shrine of Amana is just a cool-looking area. I think a lot of the areas in Dark Souls II look cool and interesting.
No Man's Wharf was always a nightmare for me, although it would have been less of a nightmare if I'd ever just found the bridge shortcut. Shrine of Amana is rage-inducing. As far as bosses go, Ruin Sentinels ruined me first time through, but were fine the next time. Elena was a monster. I never beat Royal Rat Authority, Fume Knight or the optional DLC bosses, and I REALLY tried hard with Fume Knight. My frustrations with those bosses were probably mostly from doing the DLC in NG+ though.
Dark Souls II has enough different paths that I never really got frustrated. I would just switch to a different branch and explore that.
Seeing Earthen Peak was a real wow moment for me. I guess the Black Gulch sucked but it was a short area. Ruin Sentinels took me a while but I ended up loving it.
As I've gotten better at the game and watched streamers play it I got into the efficient running of the areas. So nothing was really frustrating. The way to Sir Alonne can be annoying to run quickly, but since that fight is more fun to not take damage to him, any damage you take before that can be ignored.
The only exception I would hazard to call objectively frustrating is horse fuck valley.
No Man's Wharf, The Gutter and Shrine of Amana are, without a doubt, my least favorite areas. They weren't difficult, just frustratingly not fun. Dark Souls II already had the most slip-and-die areas of any Souls game, but those areas took it to a whole new level by exacerbating the issue with darkness and sight-obscuring water, forcing you to go from a slow-and-steady careful walk to an annoying snail's crawl. I honestly think I died more times to falling deaths than to enemies during my playthroughs.
Still, I think Dark Souls II gets more hate than it deserves. Most people seem to feel it's the worst in the series but, even with those shit areas, I still really enjoyed the game.
That gauntlet leading up to Smelter 2.0 is a prime example of everything wrong with the the level design in Dark Souls 2. Just godawful.
At least it was optional so I never have to do it again.
Shrine of Amana is without a doubt the most frustrating part of that game. Instant death pits, slowed movement, enemies with homing shots. There is nothing in the game that frustrated me more.
My first and only time through DS2, I had the most trouble with Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower of Flame. The first two areas. You start out so weak compared to DS1. Two, maybe three Estus Flasks. Horribly low damage output. Very low life. After Heide's, I found the game only got easier. Except for bosses. They remained almost uniformly cheap and annoying. Blue Smelter and Fume Knight almost gave me a hernia. Dark Souls 2 is my least favorite Souls game by a long shot.
Earthen Peak is way worse in SotFS than in vanilla DS2. Those Manikins just pop out everywhere. Even knowing where some of them were hiding and sniping them down in advance, I still died a bunch of times there. (Although I didn't have a problem with the fire ladies one-shotting me.) I think it's the only area that I liked significantly less in SotFS, in most other areas I quite liked the changes they made.
Probably the beginning.
The low damage, the wonky hitboxes during rolling (will this hit me or not? do I have i-frames anymore? This hit me but that didn't? Ok) and the enemies with stupid tracking and I'm like "yep, this'll be an ordeal". Haven't played Scholar yet but vanilla was almost unpleasant.
Never frustrated. DSII is probably the best Souls game. I really, really want to like DSIII, but for some reason it's not doing much for me. It might be fatigue on my end. I can recognize it's a good game.
Also, if you know where the dudes drop from, how can they still best you?
@sinusoidal we are on opposite sides of this argument. I think Fume Knight is one of the best Souls bosses ever. DSII is also probably my favorite Souls game and the DLC of DSII is without a doubt the best Souls content there is.
I don't recall getting frustrated with any specific area, honestly. Nothing compared to Blight Town, at least. I personally found Dark Souls 2 to be far and away the easiest of the three.
That being said though, that final, final boss though (the Scholar or whatever) can go fuck himself though. I leveled up the bonfire nearby to kill some of those giant gold knight guys, not realizing it also leveled him up, and man oh man, even with like 3 summons I still couldn't pull it off and had to walk away. Still haven't gone back.
Shrine of Amana was horrible the first time through....then I re-specced to a high-dex archer/sword lady and it was cake. But yeah, first time through with no decent ranged attacks on my person, that was the worst.
Going through the game on multiple playthroughs now, I have to say the part I dislike the most is the front door of Castle Drangleic...it's a long run to get there and there is this red phantom with an enormous hammer that he waves around like a toddler with stick of candy floss.
Scratch that, the worst part was Dark Lurker (Pilgrims of the Dark questline). Rock hard boss unless you do massive magic damage (I didn't), tough run to the boss. Took me hours. Had to re-spec. Got the re-spec badly wrong because it was midnight and I was tired. Had no more soul vessels. Almost cried when I beat it.
It's been a while now, but as far as I remember I was easily the most frustrated in the Iron Keep, with the gauntlet of long aggro range katana boys, Smelter Demon and turtle knights galore. Second place to Shrine of Amana (which out of the context of being actively upset, I hate a bit less) and the Dragon Aerie was some horseshit.
I'm surprised the Gutter still gets hate. Black Gulch I understand, because it's simply no fun. But Gutter is just kind of a vanilla blighttown. It's easier, it's less bullshit and the game actually runs at a decent framerate. I've never had any issues there aside from being slightly bored by the dark grey.
The Ivory King DLC - Lud and Zallen. Jesus christ, I raged so hard at that point. Not only is the boss fight one of the most aggravating (for me personally), but add to that, that after every wipe, you had to trek for 5-10 minutes through the snowstorm, taking care to not get ambushed by charging ponies. I still enjoyed the DLC overall, but man, that place really put my patience to the test.
The very beginning areas. Went back to it recently (just pre-3) and remembered why: the movement feels so sluggish compared to the other games. Factor in having seemingly next to no iframes at the start, being given almost no Estus in the early zones, how slowly you heal, the way enemies can easily stagger-lock you, and the weird feel of the backstabs, and that game always throws me for a loop when I first boot it up. After I settle into a rhythm it's fine, and I think the game as a whole is decent - maybe pretty good, even - but I just doubt I'll ever fully get over that initial weirdness each time I go back to it.
I feel Dark Souls II has the weakest areas (though DS3 offers strong competition) but I don't find any of them particularly overbearing. My problem is that I don't find the combat in this game fun, same as DS3 but for pretty much the opposite reasons.
If I had to name some real stinkers, I'd go with the run to Blue Smelter Demon, the Dark Lurker areas (the boss I like though), and Iron Keep (which is harmless if you go slow, but absurdly boring).
Early in the game, I couldn't stand the run-up to and subsequent fight with the Executioner's Chariot. It's near impossible to just run by the enemies, you pretty much have to pick them off every time if you want to make it to the boss. Then after that, I often died in the fight because of ridiculous hit detection, where I'd magically lose ~80% of my health by just not quite pressing up against the walls in the alcoves.
The run to the Blue Smelter Demon is also pretty bad, and honestly, the areas before the extra bosses for the other DLCs are pretty bad too. They played a big part in my decision to not even bother with the bosses after a few tries (aside from Alonne who thankfully was a great boss), on top of the fact that they're all lazily-designed and frustrating fights.
The Pursuer (for repeatedly showing up early on). The Gutter was annoying. As was Harvest Valley. I actually enjoyed No Man's Wharf and the beatings I took in the Tower of Flame at the start.
@mgalchemist: The run to the Executioner's Chariot is the answer to one of the worst portions of a Souls game in the series.
The Gutter is the worst overall area in the game IMO. Just from top to bottom, everything about that area is awful. The Black Gulch (if you want to count it as separate) is almost as bad, though. It's just not as long.
The Shrine of Amara pre-patch was infuriating, though it's not nearly as bad at this point. It does overly punish builds without some kind of ranged attack option, though.
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