Dark Souls II
The sequel to the popular game Dark Souls by From Software. It was released for consoles on March 2014 and for PC on the following month. If you're unfamiliar with Dark Souls, its a dark fantasy action RPG game where you play as a being called the cursed undead. The opening cutscene tells you that you are branded with the curse and you seek to find the the supposed cure for it. You are taken to a forsaken kingdom called Drangelic. This post will be my thoughts on this game so there will be some spoilers of the game as well as Dark Souls 1!
Since this is a sequel game, the world is the same as the first Dark Souls, but you learn soon that its in the future. Some bits of the previous game comes up although its not terribly important to the main story to know the previous game's story so its not necessary to play the first game to play this though I do recommend it. Otherwise much of the gameplay is the same such as the covenants, items, and so on. There are a number of difference most of which are good compare to the first game such as more healing items. Not only do you have Etus Flasks (which are limited) you have life gems which are items you find throughout the game. There are no Humanities in Dark Souls 2 as it is replaced with an item called a Human Effigy that will turn you human again. When you die and turn Hollow you will have your maximum HP lowered. And each time you die without reverting back to human your appearance will be worse (lose you hair and such), and your HP will lower even more up to half. Leveling is the same as Demon's Souls where there is a maiden NPC who will take your souls to level you up. This game is pretty much Demon's Souls and Dark Souls combined. This maiden also will level your Estus Flasks with Estus Shards you find in the game. Even though there are Fire Keepers in the game they don't really serve any purpose as they did in the first game. Parrying and backstabbing is a little more difficult to execute and the animation for them is not as epic as Dark Souls at least from what I've seen. Illusionary walls are a little different in that you can just press the talk/examine button to open them instead of attacking. None of them open up any hidden areas so they're just to lead to loot. There's a new type of hidden walls where are these 3 squared face looking thing called Pharros Contraptions on walls. You need a Pharros Lockstone to open them, and they mostly have treasure but some have small items or change something to the environment. The lockstones are quite limited so definitely think twice before using. You can get more if you join the Rat Covenant and there are two areas that have tons of Pharros contraption, but they all are traps to set up for luring in players. There's a very useful ring call Ring of Life Protection which keeps your souls and humanity after you die! However it breaks so you have to repair each time you die for 3000 souls which can be annoying. One annoying thing about this game is how easily your equipment breaks. Equipment rarely ever breaks in Dark Souls but in Dark Souls II my sword break after killing 15 enemies. There are more differences but I won't list them all.
Like with Demon's Souls the first major town you come to is the main hub. This is where the maiden will always be and the npcs you encounter will eventually move there. Unfortunately none of the npcs really interested me as much as the ones in Dark Souls did. The main town is called Majula and from there is connects to other areas of the game somewhat like Demon's Souls. The maiden tells you to seek the king so you traverse through the ruins of Drangelic and learn more about this once great kingdom. Some find navigation to be easier than Dark Souls, but I found it almost as difficult. The areas are not as maze like as Dark Souls and some are even quite small. There's also a lot more bosses especially optional ones. Some areas don't even have a main boss which confused me at first. Having the souls of these bosses do not play any real significance as just defeating them is enough to finish the game. The areas are not anything new or exciting as they are quite similar to Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. The first area is called Forest of Fallen Giants which isn't really a forest its a ruined fort. You will find these tall creepy humanoid like trees that have the option to examine, but results in nothing. It be good to keep these in mind as they are the Giants and a very creepy looking one at that. Not at all the same kind of giants you see in Dark Souls. After beating the boss there you go back to Majula and head to Heide's Tower of Flame on the opposite side of town. There's an optional boss there called Old Dragonslayer, and woah wait he looks exactly the same as Ornstein from Dark Souls but with dark magic! After defeating him you can talk to an npc to enter the Blue Sentinels covenant which is similar to the Darkmoon covenant in Dark Souls. Later you learn about the "pale one" and doing strange experiments resulting in creating monsters. Its quite obvious they are referring to Seathe the Scaleless. Yes, there are hints of the four lords from Dark Souls in this game which I hear people are speculating that Drangleic is Lordran though there's no real hard evidence to prove it since a couple of npcs have said countless kingdoms risen and fallen in the same land. There are some npcs that say that Drangleic used to be called something else though it really could be anything. When you play in new game plus the bosses drop an extra soul which are definitely the four lords. Whether they reincarnated or taken its hard to tell.
This game has only been over for a little over a month so the lore is still probably being learned by fans. Heck, there isn't a full complete set of maps yet! The story of the king Vendrick is more interesting when knowing the lore. It wasn't very interesting to me in my first playthrough and from watching others. To me I found it to be quite too similar to Demon's Souls whose story is also about the downfall of a famed kingdom. Though there is a much bigger picture to Vendrick's story, and some of the npcs repeat this that there is a cycle involved with the cursed undead. If you think about it the story of this game is quite like Dark Souls with defeating bosses and taking over the throne of the previous ruler. Perhaps this really is a cycle of kingdoms after kingdoms. Like with Dark Souls the rise of the undead is implied to mean a new ruler (the player) will take the throne so finding a cure for the cursed undead seems a simple a logical way to prevent it. Whether Vendrick wants to stop the cycle or prolong his rule like Gwyn who knows. He meets a women who warns him of the Giants across the sea which persuaded Vendrick to invade them and took their "prize." The giants were very upset about this and attacked Drangelic. One of the last areas of the game is called Aldia's Keep which obviously held some questionable experiments. From Aldia's Key and Hammer item info we learn that Aldia is Vendrick's older brother and they both sought for the truth. Connected to Aldia's Keep is Dragon Aerie where there's dragons everywhere. In Dark Souls dragons ruled the landed and the Four Lords defeated them all so in Dark Souls 2 they are somehow revived and we could only assume it was Vendrick and Aldia's doing. There you meet the Ancient Dragon who gives you an item to look into the memories of the giant trees from the beginning of them game.
This looking into memories is the time travel bit though its not like the DLC in Dark Souls since its just memories rather than actually going back in time though you can get items there. You can also look into a non-giant's memories which is the huge stone dragon in one of the boss's areas. There's a boss in one of the memories. After that you can go fight the final boss which is the queen. Since an npc and her soul's description says she's born from the dark people are speculating she's a part of furtive pygmy/Manus from Dark Souls who is the forgotten 5th lord. Unlike Demon's Souls and Dark Souls you don't a choice after defeating the boss so it cuts straight to the ending cutscene and the credits. It is a little disappointing but it makes sense since it doesn't matter what choice you make since its all the same with the never ending cycle. After the credits you go back to Majula instead of starting over a new game on NG+! So you don't have to put off fighting the final boss to finish up anything you missed which I really like. Going into NG+ and beyond you can get new items and more difficult enemies. Think the big thing really is obtaining the Four Lord souls which you can actually use a Bonfire Ascetic on NG to get.
There's isn't some super secret areas like the painting world or Ashen Lake in Dark Souls which is a shame since I really like that aspect. There's not special items for cutting off a boss' tail either! Also none of the npcs will go hollow on you like Dark Souls. There is a traitor npc and a assassin npc which aren't really as troublesome as the ones in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were. They just invade you and don't play a threat to the other npcs. The new thing in the game is being petrified which replaces curse with it killing you. There are some npcs and monsters that are petrified and you need an item to revive them back. The item is quite uncommon. There are a few npcs who you meet a few times during your game if you follow their questline. Two of them have a backstory and another two are out for each others' throats in a way. The ones with a backstory you need to summon them for boss fights. and have them survive to fully complete their quest which takes effort. I have failed and had to use a ascetic to do it over.
I have gone back to play Dark Souls which seems rather old after playing its sequel. The story to Dark Souls is far more interesting, but I do really enjoy the gameplay for Dark Souls 2 as its a lot smoother and refined. Also being able to warp to any bonfire at the very start is so very nice. Overall I do recommend this game!
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