The game ain't half bad for a souls-like.

Sure there's plenty to choose from in the genre but this one though a bit clunky in its mechanics and not exactly what one would expect still has plenty enough for the player to enjoy while dealing with the usual adversity that these games are known for.

So give it a chance. I heard even Miyazaki cribbed a few things from this one.

In all seriousness it's a fine action adventure rpg the only issue is it feels substantially different from dark souls 1 and you need to figure it out and meet it on its own terms. If you want more DS1 than this game will leave you disappointed. But met as its own take on the now famous formula... I dare say it succeeds with aplomb!

I landed on not recommending this game, but I went back and forth on it alot. The first time I played Dark Souls 2 was in 2021. I played it for 2 4 hour sittings and never wanted to touch it again. But after enjoying Elden Ring so much I decided to commit to playing the souls trilogy (plus Bloodborne), I then finally gave this game a fair chance, played to the credits and even finished the DLC.

I simultaneously feel glad I did play this while also regretting doing so.

This game hits some highs but it also hits some of this series lowest lows.The issue lies in the fact that this game feels overcooked and undercooked at the same time. This game experiments with a lot of interesting changes, but it also changes some mechanics for what feels like just for the sake of it. There’s a lot of the obvious problems that people have pointed out here thousands of times. ADP requirement, enemy aggro range, inconsistent boss quality, the list goes on and on. For everything it does wrong, however, I feel like it does something right. Graphics and presentation are just as good as Dark Souls 1, power-stancing is a lasting feature that you can still do in Elden Ring even, magic was heavily expanded, again, the list goes on and on.

I look at this game as necessary growth. The absurd amount of mechanics changed did allow the Fromsoft team to learn what works and what doesn’t. Plus the quality of the DLCs is consistently good outside of one key area in the third expansion. I can definitely understand people who still love this game despite all of its problems, while also completely agreeing with people who absolutely despise this game. When it’s good, It’s REALLY GOOD, the quality you would expect from Dark Souls. But when it’s bad, it’s REALLY BAD, incomprehensibly so.

If you want to see the evolution of this series, or want the gamer status of surviving through this rollercoaster ride, give it a try. You might be the one of many who see past its flaws, even. But if you’re looking for high quality gameplay and something to scratch that Soulslike itch after playing all of Elden Ring, don’t bother. You won’t find it here.

Ok let me be honest, Dark souls 2 is not a bad game but at the same time it is not as good as I thought. Reason being the fact that before playing this game I've played Dark souls, which was a masterpiece(a complete package), like I still remeber that I wasn't able to forget about dark souls 1 for a week after I'd completed that game. Like seriously the day I ended that game I was completely empty, it was like I wanted more, I wanted to know more about the lore, the areas, the story behind all those characters, how did we end up in such a place and what not. I literally remember spending hours on research. And that was the best part about dark souls. Now when I played this game and completed it, I was like is this even a dark souls?! Like the story is not memorable, characters aren't intresting and the boss fights!! oh god, why were all those bosses so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy?!! literally it just took me 30hrs (excluding the dlc's) to complete this game, and when you compare that to dark souls 1....dude I literally spent 100hrs on that game the boss battles in 1st game are actual hard and meorable and that's what makes dark souls what we know it for. Hard boss battles, finding joy through frustration and struggle and finding our way through the game. And all that is literally missing in this game, bosses are easy, you already know what you have to do in the game, you know where you have to travel....like it dosen't give players a chance to figure things out for themselves and the good part is that yeah compared to it's predecessor this game has improved on the gameplay, as dark sousls 1 was pretty slow placed game. And the last thing to hate is it's porting like the Scholar of the First Sin version atleast should have had a better port!....They did the same with dark souls prepare to die edition (though it has been fixed in the remastered edition) and now dark souls 2, though it's not a major issue if you get used to the controls but yeah players who are new to the series.....it's often frustrating. My final verdict, the game is not bad but when you play a masterpiece like the dark souls 1 and then hop onto dark souls 2 for the same experience you are just disappointed.