Duders. Dark Souls 2 left me kinda cold when it first came out, and I didn't quite understand all the praise it got. To me, it felt like a far less successful version of the first game. Anyway, now with the new DLC out, I decided it was time to give it another chance. Who knows, maybe I just wasn't in the spirit of things the first time around.

Alas...

I picked up on a save file around 15 hours in, and I played it for a few hours. I came as far as to the serpent lady in the windmill, spiteful queen or something like that. In the hours I played, I did not have a good time. So I decided to boot up Dark Souls 1. Was I crazy, or was I right? I'd say I was right, but I guess every crazy person says that.

First off, you just get way too many souls. I feel like my choices don't matter at all, because I just get tons of souls anyway. It undermines the whole idea of leveling up. Maybe this changes later on, but I'm less than 20 hours into the game, and I'm soul level 90 already. That's just silly.

Then there's the movement of it all. I feel that everything is slowed down, and that makes the game feel more sluggish and less precise. Moving around, striking, rolling and using the shield all feel far less responsive than in the first game.

And let's talk about the lore. In the first game, the lore is delightfully ambiguous, if a bit silly. But it feels inspired. I remember seeing the trailer for Dark Souls 2, and I was super hyped. It looked like a kind of Dante's Inferno story in the Dark Souls universe, but 20 hours in, I've seen nothing of that. I'd like for the past of my character to be further explored.

While I'm on the subject of my character, what the hell happened to the character creator? It's impossible to make a cool looking dude in Dark Souls 2, they all just look so amazingly stupid.

Lastly, the most important difference, the world map. The first game feels so cohesive. I truly buy the notion that this is one world. Dark Souls 2 however, feels like patchwork compared to the first game. It feels like they just stitched together random areas, and it's just so jarring to go from one area to the next.

All of these things, combinded with tons of small differences the online play, encumbrance and other things, such as useless mechanics (read; torches), makes Dark Souls 2 feel like a huge step in the wrong direction. I love Dark Souls 1, and I loathe Dark Souls 2. I don't get how they could fuck it up that bad.

Fuck that, I'm gonna run through Dark Souls 1 again.

The DS2 DLC so far feels more like the original Dark Souls than the rest of the game (You can get to it after going through Black Gulch). A beautiful centrepiece with a bunch of intertwining paths and secrets to find.

Though I'm still not a fan of how much it leans on multiple enemy boss fights.

You seem to have posted this to the Demon's Souls page, so I moved it to the Dark Souls page.

Also, I agree, Dark Souls is superior.

I agree. I dumped about 40 hours into DS1 and decided after beating it that I would pick up DS2. I played it for about 5 hours and haven't played it since. It seems... bland. Sure, the visuals are incredible, but I don't know, just doesn't feel the same... this being said, I would totally watch a Dark Souls 2 Vinny and Alex playthrough!

The majority are going to agree with you. Me however I liked Dark Souls II more than the first in fact... I've never bothered to finish Dark Souls I because it bored me so badly.

The immediate availability of fast travel single handedly killed the game for me.

Yup, it's a shame that DS2 wasn't as good as DS1. I wanted to like it, but almost 40hrs of it and I can't make myself finish it. My first time playing DS1 I beat it, as soon as I did I started New Game plus to play through it again.

You can never go home again..

O.o

Demon's Souls is better than Dark Souls?

I really liked it. I preferred DS1 overall but thats not meant as a disparagement to DS2. That first game is a hard one to measure up to.

That could just be your stats and equipment choice. I kept my equip load at around 50 to 55 and my agility at something like 96 or 98. It felt like it did when I played Dark Souls. When I was using a 70% load and had lower agility everything was off.

The bosses all move slower though, which is a problem because it made them so easy that I defeated around half of them on the first try.

Other than that I agree with everything you've said.

I don't think that is a particularly controversial opinion. I have my issues with the second game, mostly revolving around its bosses and level structure, but I think I can sum it up as "they took the mysterious enigma known as Dark Souls and turned it into a well-made video game."

Yeah maybe. I just remember when DSII first came out, the general opinion seemed to be that Dark Souls II was a mechanically superior game to the first one, and I just can't agree with that at all. The only thing I like more about Dark Souls II is the inventory management.

matter of opinion ... I thought DS2 was WAY better than DS1.

Are you playing on PC with a mouse? If you are, that would explain the sluggish feel of striking and blocking atleast. It is a fact that mouse bindings in DS2 have input lag (there was a huge reddit thread), don't ask my why or why they have not fixed it in updates, but this is how it is. To fix it, you need to use Autohotkey to make your mouse think you are using keyboard binds.

In general though, I agree with DS1 being better. I hate to say it, but DS2 really felt a lot easier.. And in these games difficulty plays a big part of it.

@loafsmooch: Playing on PS3, and I have to say, that version is disappointing. Does the Xbox 360 run as poor as the PS3 version?

@legion_: I have no idea, played it on PC.

Dark Souls 1 felt so finely tuned and crafted. Areas felt like a whole new game and they were all so memorable. I felt like Dark Souls 2 just ran together. I can barely remember what area belonged to what. Not very memorable at all.

Having played through all of the Souls games once, I would say DS2 is a more enjoyable game from a mechanical point of view, and considering that a lot of the brains behind DS1 apparently left after that one, I was overall very impressed with how succesful DS2 was in capturing the feel of its predescessors. With that said, it's not nearly as memorable as those first two games, and outside of a few striking vistas, great little details and a couple of boss designs, I feel like I've forgotten most of the world of Drangleic and its inhabitants. A lot of that has to do with the overall muddled feel of the game. Even in Demons Souls there was a sense of place that DS2 completely lacks in its world-design. The different places felt like Mario-type stages with no connection to one another and not part of a fully fledged-out world.

Demon's Souls is my favorite of the 3. I love all of them though. I think Dark Souls 2 is a more consistent experience, Dark Soul 1 had an incredible first half and a lackluster second half, maybe third. Overall I think I might say 1 is better, but its close. They are both great.

I'm pretty sure Dark Souls 1 being the more superior of the two is a very popular opinion.

ive gone into this alot in other threads and im not typing all that out again,so ill just say this.dark souls 2 beats the other two games in every way possible,that is all.

Good one.

I'm a crazy person that owns all 3 versions (in digital form). The PS3 version is the worst one performance wise. The frame rate often plummets and the load times are abysmal. People will argue that the PS3 version has the best community though.

I think they're about equal.

You gotta admit, once you get the lord vessel in dark souls the quality of the areas, enemies and bosses goes WAY down hill.

@legion_: you see, I am probably one of those people who thinks that Dark Souls 2 is a mechanically superior game. I LOVED running around with dual greatswords like an idiot and actually doing pretty well for myself, even in PVP. It's everywhere else that I think the game falters in comparison to the first.

is this sarcasm my spidey sense is picking up?because if not i dont get what you are trying to say.anyways my original post wasnt typed right,so if i didnt make sense i fixed it.

And Demon's Souls is better than both.

Nah, Dark feels way better.

as much as i disagree that dark souls is better than dark souls 2.i actually would agree with that before i would think demons souls was the best.demons souls is actually the worst in the series for me.

For lack of a better term, Dark Souls 2 seems to be missing the soul that Dark Souls 1 had.

Also, fuck those bosses, right? They are so boring in Dark Souls 2. Dude in armor. Dude in armor. Dude in armor. Dude in armor. Three dudes in armor!!!!

Well, it's pretty hard for lightning to strike twice.

..and hamburgers are superior to pizza, but I still like both.

Then again pizza is really good sometimes...

I haven't played 2 yet, and I didn't read anything in the thread to avoid spoilers, but... don't most people feel this way?

For me, the issue is that DS2 fixed most of the problems DS1 had, but introduced so many of it's own or just didn't do things nearly as well that I don't hesitate to say DS1 is the superior game.

I think the big thing for me is that the bosses aren't nearly as good. There were only two bosses in DS1 I didn't like, and one of them was still pretty cool looking (Pinwheel). With DS2, I guess the Looking Glass Knight was pretty cool, and the Executioner Chariot is the best attempt at a more indirect boss fight yet, but none of the bosses were all that thrilling. Hell, even one of the DLC bosses is entirely made up of pre-existing assets and code, and another DLC boss isn't much better.

I prefer Dark Souls II, and I understand most of the problems people have with it, but what I don't understand is why so many people think it feels slow compared to the first game. Only a few actions are slower, like the Estus recovery speed, the speed at which you raise your shield, and the shield bash speed. Pretty much everything else is faster. You get up to full speed more quickly, you attack more quickly, you even fat roll more quickly. I can see how what is slower can put people of, and I can get why someone wouldn't care for the increased speed in other areas, but I just don't get how people can feel like the game is slower overall.

Dark Souls 2 is the best souls game.

You're right on in all of your reasons.

But not as right as this guy. It's probably because Demon's Souls was the first one out of the shoot, but I had more fun with it than the other two.

@geirr: If Dark Souls is pizza and Dark Souls 2 is a hamburger, what is Devil May Cry?

I really like 2, but in the end I'd agree one is better. It could be the magic and mystery wasn't all that apparent for me a second time around. Regardless they're both some really great video games.

I'll probably go with Dark Souls 2. I enjoyed building my character a lot more in Dark Souls 2 though I have to admit it doesn't have as much narrative intrigue as the setting of the first Dark Souls. Personally I loved that they crammed so many bosses into DS2 because I dig getting a lot of dark fantasy even when it's somewhat superficial. Just show me as many renditions of stuff out of a monster manual as you can muster.

Vegemite

Ive played all 3 of them, and dark souls is the only one I've beaten. I'm never going to beat demons souls because you have to beat a friggin boss everytime you want to get to a bonfire (or whatever they're called in that game). That just didn't feel fun at all. Dark Souls 2 I plan on getting back into, but I really don't like the way the controls feel in comparison to DS1. And from what I've played the boss fights kinda suck.

Can't say I agree with you, but man the castle themed world and the prison themed world were both friggin' amazing, some of the best level design in a videogame I have ever seen. Also the ending of that game really resonated with me.

Dark Souls 2 is only better than the first in PvP, and even then only marginally.

Yep. Nothing will beat that first run through Demon's.

Yeah. All of this.

Dark Souls 2 was never going to live up to expectations so i went in hoping it would be half as good as the first one. Just half as good and it would have been a great game. No point in hoping for more than that when the game has to follow in the footstep of only one of 2 games from the past generation that ranks up there with some of my all time favorites, even competing with nostalgia. That's a tall order to live up too for any game.

But Dark Souls 2 didn't reach even these lowered expectations. It's not half as good, it's not even good at all. The world is terrible, it's flat, disjointed and completely lifeless. The combat feels off. Collisions and animations are atrocious. It couldn't possibly be a more uninspired copy of the original. It's like they found some old design doc for the first game and followed the instructions without ever playing it in the first place. It is easy for a game designed like the souls game to completely crumble with the smallest of changes. Everything needs to be finely tuned with precision for it to work. It worked well in Demon's Souls. It worked almost perfectly in Dark Souls. Dark Souls 2 misses the mark (sometimes by very little) at almost every occasion in every aspect of its design and crumbles.

And Dark Souls 2 is not competing with any sort of nostalgia for the first game. I played Demon's Souls first and loved that game. Dark Souls was good enough to surpass it. It wasn't the magic of discovering a game like this for the first time. It was simply a fantastic game.

I feel like the tuning in 2 made it more fun to play. I'm doing a duel wield run atm and it's pretty cool, also I've heard the dlc for 2 is cool. However 1 with dlc was a far superior experience from a story telling stand point. The world building in 1 was way better. The bosses in 1 were way better. So I have to give it to 1