In Defense of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

hello there ladies and gentlemen this video has been created as an addendum to my response series and it can function very well on its own the point of it is to provide a genuine defense of Dark Souls 2 or more accurately a genuine assessment of why Dark Souls 2 is a good game without focusing on any negatives a defense for the game if you will Dark Souls 2 is a strong third person action fighter at heart with a medieval world skinning the RPG focused progression of events with resource management and character interaction peppering over the gritty and meticulous combat the game's many elements punishing those who do not take heed of the options and benefits available the game is a foray into player options boasting a huge amount of freedom to become powerful within a player's preference choose each of the available paths from the get-go and you'll end the game feeling like a god assuming you could defeat the challenges along the way but let's get a little more specific you could be using magic hexes miracles pyromancy or dual wielding heavy to light long swords daggers spears twin blades and even builds that support a huge variety for shields you can pursue them all and find a rewarding set of benefits for each the game boasts a huge amount of pathways to take and this isn't simply limited to weapons defences and items alone this extends to the world itself it is set before you as a will to conquer by exploration and destruction of your presumed enemies all of this creates an environment that gives the player such a rewarding and immersive world that you could very well find yourself getting lost in the wonder the sheer variety and options for the player is undeniable and something that other games of the same genre can't come close to boasting but on top of that there are plenty of NPCs and locations to find all of these meaningful benefits throughout the game this makes the exploration something rewarding and exciting rather than a chore as it can be in other games but exploration doesn't stop being fantastic there the world itself takes you from a very specific color palette Advanta sea world to yet another very quickly you are able to experience worlds of splendor and decay worlds of cavernous danger to the open or from larva to ice dark to light rotting to plain old die the game as a result has a huge amount of content taking an enormous amount of time to travel through as long as you explore and find all of the secrets hidden within the world on top of the basic idea of fighting through a world while exploring each of its secrets and wonders you are given the opportunity to manage your weaponry and items alongside your health and resistance but on top of that light your ability to see effectively is given a form of resource your path is levied against you as something you can choose to make clear but at the detriment of your own power this is all about encompassing a large-scale resource management experience within a massively free and rewarding set of combat options topped with a world that changes at a whim and hides incredible secrets Dark Souls 2 has very individual mechanics such as power stansson which allows you to attack with dual weapons and an increase in damage and flair this is just another benefit the Dark Souls 2's combat system offers in terms of nuance and freedom pursuing a dual wield is very much its own reward the campaign itself is huge you get such a widely varied and long-lasting piece of content that is well worth the price of admission but incredibly on top of that Dark Souls 2 offers a new game plus mode in which every enemy is provided a buff in some way shape or form be it additional health damage or accompanying mobs there are actual changes made beyond the first new game as well as you progress you'll be given rings items and opportunities unavailable in the first run making the experience last just a little longer in terms of new events an interesting aspect is the bonfire aesthetic this allows you to selectively push sections of the game into the new game+ equivalent and reap the rewards of it this adds a huge additional level of build freedom as you can find exclusive items early but it allows you to battle previously appreciated bosses once again speaking of bosses the game boasts a whopping 42 overall boss fights that vary from the smallest and seemingly harmless to the huge and terrifying you will never lack for the world having a drought in this department Dark Souls 2 is home to some incredible boss fights that test your skills and knowledge with some involving multiple enemies having status effects operating with very unique attack patterns whilst others test your reaction time to a tee the PvP is now at its refined making summoning very easy in several sections of the world are devoted to player on player action but more importantly the depth associated with the system is undeniable there is a strong community and matter still forming around the different builds being very strong and weak depending on what players understand about each other an ecosystem has congealed around challenging each other to become the greatest warrior and Drang lake and you are rewarded by reaching several tiers within covenants by defeating other players all of this isn't even covering the huge amount of content from the DLCs that explore amazing worlds that are completely interconnected and absorbable facing unique informatica ly suitable challenges offering new mechanics and set pieces that are breathtaking with some of the most engaging bosses of the entire game some might argue that with the DLCs this is one of the greatest game experiences available overall these incredibly diverse and rewarding systems serve as the meat but the game is set as the content within a vehicle of woe and despair as you explore the folly of rulers long dead or dying and their own failures when it came to erecting and destroying their civilizations before and within their rules you will find plenty of opportunities for your very own meaningful introspection the game presents you with a tragic tale that shows that it is doomed to occur throughout the lands specific to the game but perhaps even to our own world there may very well be a lot that people dislike about Dark Souls 2 but ultimately there's a hell of a lot to love and the game itself is fantastic okay everybody who loves dark souls2 should probably leave now the video is over for you guys because all of that is how I would muster a defense of Dark Souls 2 if I genuinely believed it was a good game and my evidence is for it as presented moments ago are things I genuinely believe about the game well with with some things left out and some things outright ignored hopefully it should be made clear however that you do not need to reference anything but the game in question to make a defense for it I'm not directing that message at anyone in particular but I'm sure you understand Harris by the way it's actually pretty easy ultimately I now want to present the counter-argument and bring a conclusion on the game's quality as a whole it's important that you guys know that I know what people love about Dark Souls 2 and what people reference when they talk about it being an incredible or good game of those arguments I presented what I thought were the valid ones now I would prefer to only have to say this once but that's very hopeful like the game as much as you want but when I am discussing measurable functionality and the effectiveness of a project and its aspects your feelings aren't relevant hell it may surprise some that I personally like playing Dark Souls 2 at this point I think it's a fun game though I have to stymie my own feelings when it comes to a more objective assessment as this game has a handful of issues hey ready focus because here we go Dark Souls 2 has a myriad of issues from the ground up that have been affecting many players differently depending on whether they notice and their personal preference on how much it matters I am going to show you what I found throughout each of my playthroughs and explain the evidence that I'm going to provide for those who've been watching the series you are already aware of many but not the worst of the problems the issues will be surface level in some cases and core fundamentals in others so in no particular order let's begin with movement the movement in Dark Souls 2 has changed from the engine up in Dark Souls 1 we were given the standard 360-degree movement that is simply the preferred method of delivery for moving in third-person and that is nothing to celebrate it is absolutely what you should be expecting at the ground level Dark Souls 2 however or at the very least scholar of definitive edition has done something a little different and in all fairness I have to admit here that I didn't catch on to this problem myself it was actually something I found from watching for Tia's playthrough I understood that there was an issue there but I couldn't quite put my finger on it for Tia noticed the same issue but he managed to actually figure out the problem you know it's really annoying it's like I move forward and then I turned slightly to the right but he doesn't turn because it seems like it has a lock on to move like straight forward what he is discovering is that scholar of the first sin employees snap points into the movement this means that there are only so many directions your character can walk at will and this is exemplified while running dude the controls are so dumb it's like I'm locked on and then all of a sudden I do this like super sharp turn so I does it only have eight different ways it can run or something there are eight main directions in total and to better explain this here is 40 amia hours into his playthrough laying it out for us so let's say I am standing here and I'm facing it's like I'm trying to run across this bridge and I'm not going in the exact direction I wanna go if I turn a little bit to the left it's not turning but then all of a sudden it does like a major turn and the thing is like it you can turn a little bit if you find the sweet spot like that that's the least I can turn it but that's like if I'm moving my left analog stick with like great care however like I move it a little weight on I move it a little bit to the right she starts moving to the right then I moved like the same amount again and it does 90 degree turn almost pretty much just over exaggerating I turn a little bit to the left nothing is happening nothing's happening starting to turn turn a little bit more and doesn't ninety degree turn so in case this isn't clear your analog stick doesn't represent a full 360 degree turn it is limited to roughly eight directional snap points this is already bad as a base because it reduces the amount of control a player has over their character but this is horrendous when considering exploration and platforming take this instance where I'm preparing a jump in majula down to the pit and I try to move a little bit to one side in the game snaps to 90 degrees I managed to correct it but this is incredibly frustrating this will come up for as long as you are vigilant of your jumps during platforming sections in this next jump I managed to reach the first increment from turning but not the second one the second may have allowed me to pass the jump had the controls allowed for 360 degrees and the jump would have been possible because I aimed correctly just not far enough to reach an increment how about this clip where I want to walk across this narrow pathway and because of the increments that are present in the controls I have to compensate by going back and four and this makes me zigzag it should be pretty straightforward that this is terrible though it can be changed in the in II files from my knowledge at the very least but it's not over yet they added this weird event that if the game detects that there is an obstacle between the player and a ladder they wish to climb it will prevent them from reaching it until you clear the obstacle it will simply have your character put down their weaponry link wish control from the player and begin the waddle dance as much as this is annoying to deal with at least an argument can be made for the fact that you shouldn't be trying to approach a ladder while an enemy is in front of it but this happens even when they are clearly out of the way wait what's happening what the [ __ ] this could be extremely frustrating as you can probably imagine on top of those things though there is this weird momentum involved with running and walking during Dark Souls 2 if you try and step off the edges instead of falling you get shot out of the platform you started on and can often lead to your death overall the movement is a fundamentally imperative system that needs to provide full control and response to the player's inputs if they don't then it causes many issues Dark Souls 2's movement system isn't quite functioning in favor of the player you can account for and work around these problems and hell you might even find the system is working perfectly for you but in a game where the precise movement is incredibly important and can determine whether you die in battle or die while platforming and you're provided a movement system that removes the chance of total freedom of movement by forcing incremental changes and weird into actions that can easily cause death this means the system itself is objectively poorly designed especially because making a normal functioning walking around system should not be hard at this point something interesting that they changed in Dark Souls 2 is the full damage it is believed that when they created the drop in majula that to compensate for the fact that players will be able to approach it early they decided to increase the full damage limits this has a knock-on effect of giving you extremely punishing amounts of damage in areas that seem completely unnecessary for instance the beginning of the game with the first spam Bush we talked about previously dropping off that ledge is very punishing as is the drop during the fight with the ruined sentinels despite these areas coming across as opportunities to navigate but the most annoying would be that the problems I just brought up earlier add to this issue when on high platforms the strange incremental movement combined with the fact that as you turn you are pushed forward means that you will be falling to your death often because of the intense fall damage however most of the time you'll be falling into pits regardless this is overall not much of an issue but it does add to the experience of moving through the world the damage increase in general is simply a change but in context it can be extremely punishing think of it what you will anyway let's tackle something far more substantial something that Harris missed in his video and whether or not it was on purpose is completely up to you guys but this [ __ ] is important ADP for those who aren't aware ADP refers to a statistic in the leveling system that you can choose called adaptability ADP alongside attunement will increase your agility among other things and your agility is directly responsible for your iframes iframes are paramount to the souls Bourne series it basically added an option to escape a guaranteed hit while tying it to timing which means that you didn't need to block every attack or back away from the enemy each time they tried to hit you you had an additional option unacceptably risky one but a rewarding one at that this means that about a split second of time after you hit roll several frames of your roll animation render you invincible hence invincibility frames or iframes this amount of time is set to a limit of nine in Dark Souls 1 and depending on encumbrance your animation frames go up which also pushes your iframes up in a sort of ratio this meant that heavy gear gave you a long rolling animation or a fat roll which was the least profitable in terms of being able to avoid damage but obviously meant that you would be carrying a large and beneficial amount of gear which acts as a trade-off in Dark Souls 2 your encumbrance still has an effect on your roll making it slower or faster but that doesn't have any effect on your iframes iframes as I said are now tied to a level able statistic called a DP at base you can have as low as 85 agility on certain bills which amounts to 0.16 6-7 seconds of invincibility frames which is just over a third of what you would expect from Dark Souls 1 this is a tough amount of iframes to deal with ultimately when you're faced with such a little amount you'll be getting closer and closer to the difference not even mattering compared to having none at all though at their highest the iframes reach over triple that which is a different way of providing the stat I suppose however nothing in the game makes this clear whatsoever the description for agility is boosts ease of evasion and other actions the reason this is so incompass that in reality there are certain levels of agility that pertain to the amount of iframes your character will have for example at 85 agility your character will have 5 iframes while at 116 agility your character will then have 16 iframes this is imperative information to a new player and the game is almost purposefully obfuscating the information but it gets even funnier agility will improve the speed in which you consume Estes look at that description again what part of boosts ease of evasion and other actions tells you that this has any effect on healing or consuming Estes the cherry on the cake however is that in Dark Souls 2 Zwicky they state that they do not know the extent of this statistic it is so unclear to players that even years alone with the game has left the community surrounding it confused as to whether there is more to it than what has been found this is because of how purposefully poorly it's translated to the player the fundamental issue here however is that on top of the horrifyingly incompetent way they've translated this to players resulting in the potential progressing through the game blissfully unaware of the handicap that has befallen them iframes are fundamentally more important than literally any other statistic health stamina dexterity and strength pale in value compared to iframes in its early levels and so tying it to a stat meant that once players understand that which they apparently weren't meant to they would plow their opening levels into ADP as a guarantee of receiving the benefit this is fundamentally awful in an RPG with meaningful upgrade choices to make there isn't supposed to be a stat that you value more than another definitively in every build many may feel they didn't need the stat or they like trying to play without it there shouldn't be much of a difficult argument here to swallow but when you have the opportunity to triple the amount of time you spend invincible peer role versus leveling more hitpoints or damage the choice should be very clear if the player wants to help themselves I understand that people do feel differently on this topic you are you know faced with adding small pieces of Health on to your bar or adding more for stamina or you're adding another ten damage to a weapon that's already striking for 200 or you can choose to gain an additional two seconds of invincibility to your role this isn't some small addition as you can see here I am currently on low ADP this means that even when I am timing my roles as close to the attacks as I can I am still susceptible to taking damage but once I level ADP and increase my iframes dodging with the roll becomes extremely easy by comparison now compared with even adding 100 extra hit points there is absolutely no competition because I would rather dodge several rolls than have the health to survive an additional half of one fundamentally then we have a system that both punishes the player by not providing them information that is arguably the most important mechanic to the combat while simultaneously providing a stat that if they were even made aware of it increases this resource nullifying the opening RPG elements of choice by being such a powerful stat compared to others if the game was kind enough to tell you this is an abhorrent addition that can only be described as a fundamental rotting of the mechanics that are extremely important at base but now that has been explained let's move on and return to it at the end so what's next then hitboxes [ __ ] finally what is the point of hitboxes well it's essentially the borderline the whether your character is going to be taking damage now the ideal thing to do with hitboxes is to bind them so close to the presented model of the source of damage but the player is never lied to in terms of what they should be avoiding there are many times you will narrowly dodge a strike and this is because of how tight the hip box on the model is now there is a problem with in Dark Souls 2 already in that it is hard to distinguish wonky hit boxes from issues with a DP and what that means is that if a weapon is on you for the duration of your roll then you will ignore the damage for as long as your iframes will allow but once you are exhausted of iframes you will then take the hit this will often feel very frustrating for players who don't know about it which is very common but for those who do they will be pumping points into a DP to get rid of this as we've covered the point is that Dark Souls 2 are some really well-constructed hit boxes times where you sit there and think holy [ __ ] that's tight however this game doesn't just have some good hit boxes it has a quantum [ __ ] myriad of bad ones and no I'm not talking about the horribly bad ones caused by netcode or ADP either oh come on what this is a separate problem from the other separate problems that can also cause this so let's start simple a basic assessment of a hitbox being good is that the hitbox for the weapon or source of damage is exactly as large and shapely as the model for that same thing this means that the player understands where they need to position their character and account for the enemies and their sources of damage when these things are at their best players are able to make very profitable moves to narrowly dodge and then capitalize when these things are at their worst it is as though the game is actively lying to the player now at the basic level all of from software games can have moments where things don't go quite as planned but Dark Souls 2 is very special exhibit a several times during combat in Dark Souls 2 I found that weapons will actually go straight through targets and refuse to tag them this could be a failure on the hitbox of the sword or the enemy but it results in the blade passing into them even if it is only the tip and no damage is present how did that not hit that is my question and life goes Wow are you kidding me Weiss are my attacks not hitting him this means that the player is punished for performing the correct attack and can mean the difference between life and death conversely there are many moments in which your weaponry can deal damage when it had absolutely no business in doing so Orion is head-on activate his friend - what the way I would explain this one is that the hitbox is much too far forward than the model of the weapon an enemy's end up taking damage when they shouldn't be but it is simply a matter of bad hitboxes regardless because if I slow this one down here you can see the rat in the back taking damage when I was nowhere near hitting him as much as this sort of fault can benefit the player it is still bad craftsmanship next up we have the complete reverse enemies that are hitting you when they really shouldn't be so first of all this is pertaining to the absolutely terrible bonus that projectiles have of escaping through walls what you just shot me through the wall okay which is pretty god-awful in terms of modeling so as soon as I get out in the open this cage does a fire attack oh come on are you kidding me I have to oh my god that is so [ __ ] [ __ ] that is so [ __ ] [ __ ] how do you shoot through the wall can you please tell me that but this also pertains to the same problem I talked about earlier where the enemy weapon is beginning to raise the creature dies and yet the attack goes through despite clearly being unable to have hit you and I still don't know what it sometimes but this fundamentally is about the ability to simply hit you thanks to the extremely chunky hitboxes the enemies will sometimes have hey buddy hey dawn oh that seemed little fun I'm sorry but once again we also have the reverse you will often times not take damage from enemies despite the fact that you absolutely should their attacks can literally go through you and because of the strange way they decided to limit the hitboxes at certain points you'll be coming out unscathed oh I hit him oh that was weird that that didn't hit me if you look carefully at 40 ah here he is literally coming up from an initial role and absolutely being decapitated by the fume knight but in this instance the sword deals no damage now all four of these arguments combined make for a strong case that combat is heavily effected in this game by bad hit boxes but how about a hyper specific example during your time in the last best deal you'll find that you have an opportunity to knock over a barrel now this barrel will explode with just enough force so knocking it off this platform will get you an explosion killing the mobs below however if you knock it off it will blow up and hit you through the floor well no it won't sorry no no it will well no it won't sometimes hell sometimes it won't even blow up so not only are we dealing with another awful hitbox spilling through a wall but it doesn't even always happen it is completely inconsistent let's move over to a different example saralyn is a fantastic boss fight' incredible even but he has one fatal flaw his grab is utter [ __ ] this piece of [ __ ] move manages to drag you up to and including several metres many will try to defend these sorts of things happening by saying the game cancer hit as a successful grab and thus must move the player into position despite this being a stab a stab that if you're on the end of it piercing you like a kebab would make absolute sense it should not be grabbing you when you're behind the [ __ ] hilt nor should you be dragged that far forward regardless of what anybody wanted because it is absolutely stupid visually and punishing to the player beyond their understanding of the situation besides the hitbox on the hilt is absolutely stupid I'm not forgiving about any bad grab in the souls series but this is just the first of many awful grabs in Dark Souls 2 and an easy contender for the worst because it happens so many times per battle and the amount of space you can actually move from the presumed impact to the animation is laughably bad so that's it right no God no there will be an absolute slew of hitbox failures in a minor level throughout the game several interactions where you will scratch your head and wave it off as a little moment of being unfair and that honestly every game has this but the reality is that this game has far far more honestly I had to cut half of the clips that you're seeing for this section out of the fact that I have way too many that show the exact same thing unless we fear you know that if the hitboxes were tight then you would not be taking hits here and that sort of feeling is throughout the game and it essentially is a guarantee that the hitboxes are made rather jaggedly or were just rushed so that's it right no so during your time with the game they won't just be those hitbox errors that annoy you there will be a bunch of them that you simply cannot abide ones that you will rage at or laugh at depending on how you personally react to things what okay [ __ ] hitbox what was that nice nice grab there buddy um oh bugger off the stupid my saw didn't even come close to the [ __ ] Bell but ultimately these ones are so hard to even understand that combined with everything else we have covered on this one topic the hitboxes are basically irredeemable at this point so that's that's it right that's that's it the game really does knock it out of the park when it comes to the worst-hit boxes it has no [ __ ] idea what it's doing this is a selection of what are easily the most heinous and horribly constructed hit boxes in the game basically a cavalcade of seeing the game naked in terms of its lazy and incompetent design these kinds of hit boxes will usually drive you insane and when you get a little angry during gameplay you might misunderstand a terrible hitbox for another one of the other problems that plagued this game but when the hit boxes are this bad you make no mistake in real-time what things and that hit me what the actual [ __ ] what [Laughter] what the second attack attack missed me but the third one hit me that was the dumbest [ __ ] man I was even like I think it was two hits away from killing him too this last one is so [ __ ] awful though when you slow it down it literally shows that few Knights blade in which the damage is sourced is a full two large bodies away from the player-character and yet it deals damage but when played without zoom in motion it looks downright embarrassing for the game there could be an argument to be made about how the body of fume knight dealt the damage as opposed to the weapon that usually does it in this animation but even then for tear is not touching the fume night when he takes damage this is just piss poor [ __ ] design so that's it right well there's one more I have to show you one more that is so blatantly bad I couldn't cut it despite the fact that I know I've made this point several times now but you have to see this can you understand this [ __ ] basically I dodged the attack regardless of my iframes but once those frames are drained I take damage from nothing and if I freeze on the moment I take damage when I'm not even touching him or his blade whatsoever in normal motion though it's a [ __ ] embarrassment honestly this could actually be a lingering hitbox issue or like a ghost hitbox all I know is that that means the game isn't working properly in one way or another ultimately this game has a series of issues with its hitbox is there are so many examples of blatant incompetence when it comes down to the craft that it can't be considered anything but a fundamental objective issue an issue that will actively spoil many of the incredible meaningful battles and tests within the game the souls games have such a fantastic handle on tight hit boxes by comparison Dark Souls 1 offers barely any poor hit boxes by comparison to the embarrassment of Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 offers ones that are downright satisfying to watch it is a real shame that this is yet another issue that slams against the very baseline of expectation for a game of this genre and its ability to provide an experience that it's remotely balanced if you search for bad Dark Souls to hit boxes on YouTube you get a myriad of examples from people who have been experiencing the same issues that I presented here but let's be fair let's search the same engine for Dark Souls 1 bad hit boxes and oh the results are almost all for dark souls2 still whoops this is a serious issue with the game and for Christ's sake it doesn't stop there ai is pretty [ __ ] important in video games it can make or break immersion as well as make or break the challenge at hand you need this [ __ ] to behave as expected basically and Dark Souls 2 has some incredibly interesting issues in this regard this guy can can't get me because you think onto this thing bad eh I am standing in this tent and I'm talking to the [ __ ] CAD so I'm not talking about the fact that the pursuer can despawn during your fight with him because he has an incompetent Lee limited area and I'm not talking about how enemies might randomly decide to shoot directly into the sky for lack of a better target and I'm not talking about the weird movement some enemies can have with absolutely no bloody explanation what okay there flash calm down I want to talk about the thing as a whole with these issues obviously adding to it why don't we first check out how a bot responds to the existence of a ladder just like nope I'm not gonna fight you know this is pretty pitiful but something you can easily chalk up to being a bug right this music I do and GDI good and now we wait you literally nope this seems to be intended the AI to start has a pitifully incompetent aggro requirement that often makes them completely oblivious to your existence whether or not there's an obstruction you can find that you were literally standing right in front of them and they have no idea that you're there do bad these nights are like wait stand still again there's one there oh my god they don't react to me until I until I hit the ground hey guys are you doing my name is Mules Lee oh yeah I know I look fabulous always you've literally dealt damage to them and they simply D aggro out of confusion and for some weird reason one enemy being aggro doesn't alert others to your presence in fact they can get in each other's way a story straight or they just launched matter obviously this is simply a minor issue though so does it get worse yeah let's let's see if these guys are smart enough to realize that I'm on the ledge oh [ __ ] he's like what the [ __ ] how is he doing this I'm taking me in I never want to activate whatever light lever the thing makes this thing move this is just [ __ ] beautiful so aside from the buggy loss of aggro and the weird spasm of movement the AI also has severe pathing issues pathing is very important for AI as it allows them to resemble something of an autonomous entity coming across as a potential threat and the like but in Dark Souls 2 they have trouble maintaining their composure for lack of a better term the train even come into this room so like I literally ran past them now they're like oh we do now we just you know we go bad dude what I was just walking into a wall wow there's a lot of damage [ __ ] okay I found the secret spot guys like I don't know how to get overcome the hump yeah I actually I saw like that that I could ex because of the previously discussed platforming problem there are plenty of elevations and gaps that the AI can't deal with and get absolutely confused bobbing up down left and right but even if that were the only reason it was happening it would be bad but it's worse than that this [ __ ] just happens anyway dragon right thanks dude hey doing buddy it's just nice wanna sit behind you okay we're running away now not to use just running into the [ __ ] wall oh this games so good what you gonna do now you stuck buddy you stuck does it actually stuck could it can jump up it has wigs use it the sad fact is that this AI was created for simplistic grounds and then they were placed into extremely lopsided or rocky ground with no idea on how to deal with it and from chose to not increase their intelligence or abilities they just let it sit as it was they will make an effort to sprint all the way over to you from a ridiculously long aggro range but gets stuck on a wall once they get very close and accept being lost it's ridiculous they can fire Oh oh jeez alright it was a guy he walks off I love this game why'd that back wanna get aggro not the [ __ ] middle one are you going did he just run to the tree so aside from the buggy loss of aggro in the weird spasm of movement and the severe individual pathing issues the AI has a few more problems to the square you stack your entire arm inside Frank where did he go I don't know let's look nobody's God with your summer God job right do you Frank you could this way now go the other way no Frank don't follow me the AI can [ __ ] its own path thing that's for sure but they also conflict with their path thing this essentially means that they will clash with each other a lot of the time when there is more than one of them in pursuit of you and they will actually prevent each other from reaching you though sometimes they can literally just have the typical pathing issues in groups as in they have no [ __ ] clue on how to reach you whether or not they're singular but the game is plagued with this when it comes to groups they absolutely lose their minds when two separate entities have a singular goal there was no attention to trying to have them account for each other like they do in the other Souls games in this they trip over each other and get each other killed but mostly they just have no idea what they're doing this is the most [ __ ] embarrassing boss in a history of everything I'm not even able to move my god hey this will be scary once again if these were the undead parish hollows I mean yeah that's the funny thing love perhaps finding what why why would it be that they don't have anything that prevents this from happening like go around for [ __ ] sake I love the [ __ ] boss music in the background why why is there an invisible wool oh they went around well that's all over so aside from the buggy loss of aggro the weird spasm of movement the severe individual pathing issues and the clashing of each AI is passing the AI has a few more problems the AI has a frightening ly low amount of self-preservation you may have seen it in some of the clips already but they will actively kill themselves when they have absolutely no reason to putting themselves in ridiculous amounts of danger this could be a passing issue combined with an absolute lack of understanding of damage or danger but we know these creatures don't want to die hell some of them have shields and wince upon being hit I'm not interested what in the [ __ ] was that AI what what are you doing there is an argument for the fact that these creatures are hollow and they don't have self-preservation anyway but we all know that the narrative can't save this one and I understand that this is a downright strategy in the souls series for killing enemies but it has never been as blatantly embarrassing and exploitable as it is in this game that's the second type the other ones falling off like that that's all so is that it but the only issues the fact that they have a weird spasm of movement sometimes they can't path for [ __ ] when alone or in groups as they can clash into each other they randomly lose their aggro to obstructions and literally nothing and they have no sense of self-preservation no there's more wait what the [ __ ] look at Frank he's like no no no no [ __ ] I'm in the game's AI is filled with bugs just straight-up bugs that destroy it let's start out a little simple here you'll find that enemies do this weird as [ __ ] sprint on the spot [ __ ] and it's primarily to do with pathing I suppose but they move incredibly fast as if they assume that they just need to move faster to catch up with the player rather than the idea that they are caught on some debris or other enemies or hell just trying to climb a ladder embarrassingly this can happen with bosses too on top of that enemies can use their own bodies to obstruct their view of you and move to see you only to continuously move you with their body and get stuck in a trance but I find it more funny when they can be alerted by the damage other enemies are taking but you are too far away so they struggle to decide whether to do anything about it enemies just flip the [ __ ] out but obviously can just straight up gets stuck on [ __ ] and sprint on the spot once again again not lost on me the luck of not actually alerting the other ones some [ __ ] how did he walk all the way back no he's just oh I got caught really dude what are you what are you doing but it gets worse these enemies literally bug out to the point where they are no longer enemies they simply cease to have functioning AI this happens with a multitude of different enemies for what I would imagine is different reasons but it's not restricted from bosses even they will literally lose aggro and they won't roam they stop being a I so Ilan what up dude some will literally lose it during the battle for no apparent reason some will behave as though there is something better to see inside a wall and lose all sense of being an enemy some seem to literally be stricken with senility and look as if they've forgotten what year it is while others begin to set themselves up and ultimately stand still you can attack them and have it still result in them sitting there having no idea what's going on hitting them seems to almost activate the broken AI like receiving damage damages their brains these AI are downright bugged where you guys going you just keep doing back steps to this guy you can't beat me I am faster than you well this is interesting so it takes a lot of hits but as I'm stupid hey I like all the bloody time now can you what are you doing me what the fact is that no matter what you're doing in the game you can cause this breakage to occur in the AI regardless of positioning damage bosses or Randy's no matter the weapon items or approach they will [ __ ] up and it will usually be pretty funny to be honest because you reach a point where it becomes normal as long as you actually notice it and you just know that these things aren't weird anymore it's just Dark Souls 2 okay he decided to walk the [ __ ] off we're gonna [ __ ] did he come from what hello so is there anything else no actually the AI in total is capable of weird spasms of movement awful pathing both individually and in groups clashing into each other they cannot maintain their aggro towards the player in many instances all of this leads to them killing themselves or at the very least injuring themselves and these things only occur if they aren't actually currently bugging the [ __ ] out ultimately the AI is broken in Dark Souls 2 it is riddled with issues that cause it to malfunction constantly how much this can obstruct the game obviously varies and for the most part the AI is serviceable but it is absolutely badly made and oftentimes very embarrassing to watch when it tries to approach the will the developers presumably designed for it so next up I want to share some ideas and perspectives for a little bit I actually had a few strong criticisms of the bosses within the game in the older parts and of course they had to add gimmicks for some reason a whole bunch of bosses have the ability to heal when in battle I don't know why they pushed this so hard since many players have come out against even having phases in boss fights for the reason that you cannot know going in what resources your foe has until at least getting to the latest stages but with healing this is potentially infinite in that a boss is given a health bar and you are given the opportunities to heal right that's this weird sort of trade-off we have with our assessment of this world well if a boss takes the opportunity to heal it would be great if they balance it by giving you the opportunity to capitalize on them they do this a little embarrassingly with throwing water and defender but every other boss receives health generation as a bonus Luden's Alan get a buff that simply keeps on going madhu stirrer gets a heal surrounding her entire area which is literally played off as unlucky for the player if you end up going anywhere near it the fume knight has the exact same issue for players who do not destroy the statues that surround his area but the real fun part of this is that you can't get all of the smelter wedges without having killed the fume knight you can accidentally [ __ ] yourself over to the point we won't be able to destroy all of the statues in fact if you choose to explore the entire place from above to below which two of my friends unfortunately decided to do you will lose all of the wedges at the point of reaching the last one from the few Knight the very worst however is the fact that the looking glass' knight can summon a human player that can not only heal themselves but also heal the boss this is a massive oversight to say the least and is actually part of why keeping pvp out of the campaign is something I am vehemently in support of despite the cool factor it makes the fights harder sure but I feel as though it makes the fights unbalanced and you can't really prepare your resources versus theirs effectively or at the very least as effectively personally I would prefer giving them more health in general than giving them these weird healing opportunities but you may very well enjoy these personally outside of the looking gar tonight one of course being that it's incredibly unfair to the player regardless this would be a criticism on top of the bosses in general which if you would like to see those stick around and some time stamps shall be provided now to switch gears quite significantly I want to talk about the RPG aspects of Dark Souls 2 that are often celebrated in terms of player choice we covered how a DP is a monkey wrench in terms of localizing a player's choice to one from many but there is a double whammy of nonsense in Dark Souls 2 and that is the overabundance of souls and thus levels as long as you play relatively carefully and Bank the souls of what you kill while moving slowly and carefully through the game you will be pushed to cap out all of the stats you actually needed and then sort of splurge on extra stuff now the positive of this is that the weaker players will be able to get the power they want whether or not they lost a rather large amount of souls however the backfire of this is that you will literally be stacked four levels by the time of entering the first few DLCs and you'll find yourself spending what remains of your points and whatever you feel may be necessary this is very different in the other games of the series and the one that seems to be the most conservative is blood-borne blood-borne makes you highly responsible for your choices and which stat you pursue will likely be the only one you manage to max out during your first playthrough while in Dark Souls 2 you can usually hit the hard caps of three stats without focusing farming of any kind you had to be careful with your choice the one bill do you pursue is powerful the same as in Dark Souls 2 but you are defined as a particular power while in ds2 you can be multiple things at once one of my builds ended with being a tanky quick strong resilient agile mage with hexes and miracles and the accompanying levels for it but ultimately didn't even feel special all I am saying here is that the lack of focus on defined builds punishing players for trying to absorb everything is something I love about more grounded RPGs I suppose I would call it balanced like you can't be the best sorcerer if you're also wielding and slamming down the biggest strength weapons or building super tanky buy limitation of the levels but this is honestly just two ways to approach it since in ds2 everyone gets to feel very powerful and that's considered a strong plus for the game and that's okay you can see this sort of design in the crafting materials the game makes it abundantly clear that you don't need to be responsible with your choices titanite slabs are the very last required resource to push certain weapons to their final form in that tree but the game provides them to you in droves you can push as many weapons as you want to the final form I push the one weapon I actually want it to its last upgrade and I had 13 slabs left over that's ridiculous in blood-borne the base game provides one blood Rock in the environment and then requires the equivalent of 60 human effigies if you want to purchase them this meant that you needed to be sure about your build and what you wanted to pursue it made the choice very meaningful he dropped the titanite slab and another tonight slab they drop titanite slabs this [ __ ] game and another slob what a tight night's lab from one of these dudes um what where the [ __ ] that I just got a slab wires get to slabs once again this is down to the person on what they prefer the more hardcore and creative of the audience will prefer making the most of limitations and min maxing while the more casual player will prefer the overabundance of materials to work with them to try multiple builds at the same time so yeah that's more of a personal commentary from me than anything else also side note did anyone else think the description on this ring was [ __ ] stupid like purely from the perspective of actually being able to use tangible information this is just dumb I thought it was just some poison versus dialing ring is that sometimes deflect spells only sometimes though now since we're on the topic of items what's with human effigies first I would like to say that I am completely against the idea of knocking off health for every time a person dies it's a [ __ ] [ __ ] idea to continuously punish the player for failing beyond what comes with a standard death losing your souls is more than enough punishment trust me I didn't like it in Demon Souls and I don't like it in Dark Souls 2 in the way that M burring gives you health seems like a way better system in Dark Souls 3 giving you a bonus for as long as you stay alive like maintaining a combo or something ambering feels as though they took your base health and gave you something extra if you kept your streak going well in Dark Souls 2 it reduces it to a minuscule amount if you're not careful but we can drop that for now and focus on how it tends to play out in the game my personal issue with effigies is that players who are new to the game have a strong chance of running out and suffering for it there isn't much a player can do when they run out of these things since the vendors who sell them are very few and far between so that as a result just seems to be punishing for the sake of punishing on the flip side you have the veteran players who grab the ring for it as quickly as possible nullifying 50% of the effect and then you have them playing through the game without using effigies after all effigies act as tokens to attempt dark liquor or generally veterans just don't seem to feel the need to use them outside of maybe a preparation for a boss with everything working as you would imagine in the game these things seem almost pointless in that this raelia state where players ask themselves do I use an effigy now and get full bar back or do I continue to lose health in order to preserve my effigies and move on I think that's what the developers were going forward this but I felt it didn't work out that way whatsoever especially when you brought in the ring that made those decisions extremely rare obviously that's just my perspective of the mechanic and it's irrelevant or overly punishing nature but I am sure that many enjoyed the balance if it really did work out for them that way I think that's a stupid mechanic it's like yep if you're a new player like luckily I'm not a new player like I've played a lot of Dark Souls 1 and 3 but if you're a new player your health part is gonna become even smaller making the game even more difficult so let's come back to some more objective issues the repair system was a bit of a joke in Dark Souls as a series in that you only really have to repair your weapon once every two hours or something and that involved leaving whatever you were doing at the time and walking over to a blacksmith hitting repair and then getting on with the game again in Dark Souls 2 they made it even worse now your weapon degrades very fast but resets for every time you sit at a bonfire for some reason the only thing this does is get in the [ __ ] way 90 percent of the time you'll not even notice there is a system functioning in the background for this when it does affect you however it is monumentally obstructive they made it so that this feature is applicable to your armor and rings for some reason and so now the incredible result is in select moments of the game you can simply lose all of your gear and you'll be forced to go back home before you can continue playing the game I mean you could obviously push through but if you want to help yourself you will go back they have these little set pieces that are built to do this enemies and environmental effects that actively engage in this extremely flaccid and obstructive mechanic you literally just go home and repair it and then continue the game it was annoying in Dark Souls 1 and now it's horrendously put together I hope that in the future we can drop the need for a repair system with these games because even in blood-borne you can tell it's only their out of necessity there is no in-depth and challenging mechanic it is simply there because somehow this is a realistic thing that happens in life that we have to have in this game and so they figure they can have the system for themselves but in a video game it doesn't offer the player anything in terms of a resource to manage because it either happens far too little to matter or so often and bluntly you ask yourself what possible reason this could serve to assist the gameplay now the focus system was touched on in my main series but there is a deeper issue you than simply how it is utilized in the game with battles unfortunately it doesn't quite work properly you see when activating focus there are parameters those being that it will choose whatever is closest or whatever is in the line of sight or whatever's in your characters line of sight or a combination of the lot to provide the most intuitive experience now in my time with the series of souls games this little features worked wonderfully but Dark Souls 2 somebody dropped the bloody ball when designing this thing if it's working perfectly then there's no problem but when it isn't you notice the hell out of it because it'll often get you killed for instance it chooses to target dead enemies sometimes out of confusion but more importantly this thing will decide that it's in your best interest to target enemies that are very far away or completely out of vision to the point where it will not benefit you whatsoever and this happens automatically the best part is it can easily get you killed because of the amount of narrow pathways in Dark Souls 2 now this is something you could turn off in the menu but most players will have this on a default okay you look at that I almost died again because of the target lock system we remain hopeful holy [ __ ] focus no why why would you lock onto something that's behind me do you guys understand just how [ __ ] horrible this is by the way he's on a straight path heading directly for an enemy and instead of targeting that won the game chooses the enemy that was on the back of a bunch of enemies behind him causing the camera to turn causing his forward movement to push him off the platform we're still is that during combat it will choose downright laughable targets when the expected one will be ignored which once again can be the deciding factor in whether you will live or die okay like why would I lock onto the thing that's behind me okay target that guy that's a great idea and down comes the ambush oh my god focused system no don't fall down I don't want that boy I want you to lock onto the guy on the other side of this [ __ ] ravine yes that's the one I wanted to lock on to Jesus Christ why are you locking on to the guy all the way to the bag stop and make it stop just stop oh yes [ __ ] marvelous look at that I uh when when I don't think it can [ __ ] me over anymore it just it just finds another way doesn't it I wanted to kill the arrow guy but no let's let's lock on to the guy behind me the point is that this system when it works is fine but when it doesn't work it is catastrophic to the gameplay it is a fundamental mechanic that is incredibly important so of course they [ __ ] it up also for your notes if your immediate response to this is well I didn't notice anything or I didn't happen to me or I think it works fine then you're missing the point this thing is unfinished and it's causing trouble for select players which makes it an objective problem but perhaps you would like an additional argument for that conclusion the focus system as described in the previous parts of the series is highly conducive to the combat mechanically in Dark Souls we needed to aim the camera and aim our thrust swings and attacks in general and this is something that we get to have in our souls borne games normally but in Dark Souls 2 it doesn't always work what okay that's another thing the [ __ ] lock on in this game like sometimes I will just attack err because I happen to not be facing the boss which I should be when I'm locked on the really funny part is that sometimes the game provides you with hyper focus where you simply cannot miss what yes you just saw that correctly look digest oh god it's so stupid but that is extremely rare because the system doesn't always work properly unfortunately this is yet another inconsistent or unfinished aspect to the game when you're attempting an attack your blade can veer off in different directions despite being engaged in lock-on somehow this will be most common after a roll but can be possible outside of those the system is at its weakest when using great swords and the workaround is directing it with your left analog stick even though the entire point of the focus system outside of camera centering is relinquishing the player of having to aim their attacks in the first place ultimately this occurs quite consistently and with multiple weapons or scenarios in general and you may not have noticed it yourself but it is yet another unfinished system within Dark Souls 2 and it just so happens to be fundamental again this [ __ ] can easily get you killed [Music] no eat ha like how does that miss that is so dumb come on that that [ __ ] me up so hard good job this lockdown system is great not that that's possible yeah okay thank you focus you really did cost me there and they're nice yes that's exactly where I wanted to hit not at all that the person on target like that no why would I want to hit that guy [ __ ] that guy really all right that's great thanks so much oh and just on top of everything they're actually waiting so that they can ambush you and why are you turned this way what the [ __ ] is going on man come on come on game that's like don't purposely [ __ ] me over [ __ ] in hell I knew that was gonna happen what are you doing this [ __ ] lock-on mechanic I swear to god man what no : oh my god great lock-on system are you kidding me stop with the [ __ ] [ __ ] already so yes this is yet another fundamental system that is inherently broken so how about we talk about another one backstabbing nope I'm not talking about the fact that they made you vulnerable during the animation for some weird-ass reason let's let's just start at the beginning so as I understand it back stabs are meant to trigger whenever you are standing at someone's back right as in you are at their back and you hit the light attack and your character engages in an animation that if joint with the opponents they will enter into the backstab animation now that doesn't always happen in Dark Souls 2 and before you make any kind of mistake what I am showing you right now is the times where it does not work the times where you could argue one way or another but as far as I'm concerned plenty of these show an opportunity for a backstab to activate and it comes across as the game falling asleep yeah probably should have got a backstab there game it's gonna be real difficult I'm sure Oh backstab didn't work Oh back stuff didn't work again thank you game how is that not a backstab come on game oh no not this again bad backstab but then good one damnit backstab you stupid bastard could it give me a backstab again and there but you know I don't mind I'm there but you know no mind you know getting back stub the game I see your backs up no okay but this is simply where it begins give me the back step back step give me the back step give me the back step oh god [ __ ] jab at Gary the card to have backstab give me the [ __ ] you not only does the system struggle to activate but sometimes it will activate and yet will completely miss as if the game recognizes that you were in the right position but will take that victory away from you this is because you have to connect with the enemy as well you don't just have to be in the right place which as we have now established isn't even remotely clear anyway Jesus Christ now you get backstabbed maybe if it just [ __ ] worked Jesus Christ and as is the most broken content of this game there is more to it than this I have shown you when the system arbitrarily decides you aren't in the right position or does and still takes the stab away but what about when they give you a huge benefit to the point of providing a backstab when there was no way on God's green earth that it would have been possible what about when characters are literally facing you or you are facing their shoulder and the animation is activated and hitting them in front of their chest grants the backstab no kids this isn't just related to bad netcode and no this isn't related to ADP and no this isn't related to hitboxes this is inherent in the backstab system and occurs locally I do not know what the [ __ ] they were doing when they made this system but they sure as hell [ __ ] it up because you can pull off back stabs when you absolutely shouldn't and you can miss them when you absolutely shouldn't - that was an Okie backstab if I ever saw one all right oh my god that back okay / I'm purposely aiming for the side of him because I know that that's what I need to do to get the back steps to work and at that point how do I even know if the netcode calls PvP to backstab you through the face I'm so confused right now oh that was great I was facing him yeah I might be able to survive this oh oh you so good you backstab me through my own face so with all that being said you may assume that the requirements must be that you're in a certain position near to behind the victim sometimes but then you will also have to trigger the animation but then you will also have to connect the animation and then you have the backstab right right wrong well you know it's funny I've actually gone to the point now where I want a circle strafe wait I just hit him with the backstab but it only it worked like a punch to the face that was a backstab but it failed it was like I'm gonna hit you with my elbow where you going what I just backstabbed him to his face did you see that I would get us the ring I just I just did the dick all right I can't go into the [ __ ] memory because Fawaz invaded great how stop pretending that this system works in some consistent way it bloody doesn't it is a literal embarrassment I don't know how they took the backstab from Dark Souls 1 and [ __ ] it up so monumentally that it works this way but thank God this pathetic system didn't in fact Dark Souls 3 because this is ludicrous you gain the ability to punch people for no damage in the face or the dick for some reason I don't know who designed this but I think you may have spotted a pattern at this point on top of everything else with this shitty system I couldn't tell on my opening playthrough because of the inconsistency whether or not I could backstab certain enemies ok I don't know if you can backstop these guys I certainly hope you can lo and behold I miraculously got my answer at the end didn't let me know oh you can oh my god you can this thing doesn't work properly it is yet another entry into the cavalcade of hilarity that is the design choices of Dark Souls 2 and we still haven't finished yet but I can reassure you that we are now past all of the significant errors in the game it is time for a few smaller fuck-ups I only need to cover these briefly fragrant branches of your were a mistake in Scala they literally locked off areas arbitrarily while also providing both useless items and imperative paths for the game while almost maniacally keeping the information on whether or not a statue would actually lead to these things from the player hell the way you make boss weapons from one of the actual NPCs is unlocked through a statue that couldn't look more useless on top of that there are two branches you can only get by unlocking the correct statues that precede them thus making it possible to lock them off permanently but perhaps the most incompetent part of all of that is that there is a fragrant branch you can only get from completing the albeit small quest from the Scorpion dude but if you decide to kill him as I did on my first playthrough and a friend did then you can't get it and thus you can't unlock all of the statues in multiple ways it is such an embarrassingly stupid system that makes you wonder why they even put it in the game would be far better off with literally no statues but the way they handled it holy [ __ ] next up we have the increase in stagger time on the headshots which is just a weird and frustrating change but on top of that the enemies in this game seem hell-bent on hitting you in between the [ __ ] eyes that was a [ __ ] arrow that did that right in my head there's a guy hiding in off a [ __ ] sake man look he staggered me for so long I always stab him a [ __ ] head Wow frame-perfect stagger I am of course only sharing this as a frustration there isn't anything definitive here but my god getting headshot it can be so [ __ ] annoying what else is there the graphics can [ __ ] up and frankly look ugly as hell like the crows enhancements cops what in the [ __ ] is this five-year-olds [ __ ] attempt at day but some of the choices for depicting certain elements in the world look ugly as all hell but honestly honestly we're gonna calm down the game can look downright gorgeous at times okay I'm not taking that away from the game i I know that people think this game is gorgeous and and you know at times it is but it also has a reputation for being extremely washed out overexposed and sometimes just downright ugly but let's not forget harvest valley and its really cheap decision to have several holes to jump into to get some bonuses and then having one that just kills you sure that wasn't cool you could have used the graphics to do something there game to give us a clue then again maybe I missed something you know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but a subset of graphics would then be the models which for some reason can randomly have aneurysms where the AI is just it just spazzes out and makes enemies do ridiculous [ __ ] I mean you know the weird thing about all of these clips that you're seeing now is that like they're hilarious to me but but the part that gets me is that this sort of stuff happens in Dark Souls 1 all the time because every enemy is a rag doll but in this game they make the effort to sort of freeze when they die but then not all the time as you can see so I don't understand why this happens really but you know it's it's fine it's not even really a problem I actually like these things but I mean like everything else is just inconsistent and weirdly this actually comes in the form of giving you two character death animations sometimes or sliding you across the floor or hell how about enemies getting stuck inside structures that's a [ __ ] weird one innit what but then I got you honestly I never thought those okay yeah but we really are getting too positive here so I may as well share the more stupid [ __ ] with the models right we have poorly cut models in terms of certain hip boxes again preventing you from progressing certain areas which is kind of just embarrassing we have enemies that are able to instantly change weapons like I'm talking literally instantly which is helpful when planning your attack you have the times where you get stuck inside enemies which is as fun as you can imagine but probably the most heinous is when you get stuck inside walls I mean Jesus Christ what the [ __ ] this [ __ ] is annoying but it isn't all that bad it's made worse by being part of a video game version of leprosy I suppose but separately they don't cause all that much damage but they do allow enemies to skid across the floor and bounce up and down but you know don't don't even forget that the part we're like strange model air is happening when they're dying or D spawning though honestly on a surface level they still have the really weird ones like like what the [ __ ] is this what the [ __ ] was that a little dance move you see that wait what also hitbox I pressed for their the whole time just just saying now I don't know if this is in relation more so to the hitboxes or the AI but it can lead to all sorts of things and more so makes me add it to the list of things that are unfinished but hey it's not a big deal really though you can actually use it to your advantage [Laughter] next up is the sound yes even the sound gets [ __ ] in this game though honestly on the whole the sound is pretty damn good like the way a lot of this works is that when you do it right people don't notice you know that whole thing so when things go wrong or when things go incredibly right you end up pointing them out so for the positives we have the titanite lizard making noises behind a wall that convinced me to check it out and then we have the sort of you know suitable sounds for everything in the game and the ambient sounds which again you know they're mostly on point in this game but other than that there wasn't really anything noteworthy for me on the good side of things on the more jarring side however we first have the strange feature or bug with the sound drops every time you pick up an item or scroll through your quick select that's pretty weird right but this next one is much more jarring I think it is absolutely okay to cut out your music and a boss fight when you win but holy [ __ ] try and fade it a little bit because when you cut it so roughly it sounds downright funny but it gets weirder the music's AI seems to be tied to the well-being of a boss this thing is bizarre and I guess you could only find it in Dark Souls 2 but when I stagger the smell to demon listen to the music's reaction to it what the [ __ ] there seems to be a through-line of musical errors for lack of a potentially more suitable term and this sort of inconsistency spreads to the sounds in general I'm sure everybody noticed the strange splashing sounds that occurred in drangleic castle right listen to this splash sound that's absolutely great right if you splish splash in the water then expect a splish Splash sound but if you land on the floor that's wet you shouldn't really be getting the same sound right but this is in more than just the water check out the sound of combustion now check out the sound of an exploding barrel now check out the sound of this particular combustion for some reason the sound bugged out and played the wrong one overall the sound is pretty great in the game but there are several areas where it absolutely is a sloppy affair and it could really use some tweaking at the very least but below because these these things seem as though they are like they're just some cross wires somewhere and a patch really would iron it out now I want to nitpick a couple of things so calm down if you think I'm saying these are huge mistakes they're not they're just annoying when you disconnect from the internet depending on whatever issue you may have the game reduces your overall visibility by half and adds an enormous [ __ ] message in the center of the screen it doesn't care what's happening it just does it this gets very annoying if you actually would you know in the middle of not having great internet this sort of thing is avoided by pressing a quickly and won't even happen for those with perfect internet so it's fine but holy hell next time just put a message in the top right game or why not just have it be something you don't even need to press a four just make it you know a little pop up in the top right that disappears on its own after five seconds anyway what's with the huge unskipable credits from Dark Souls 2 oh yeah you finally finish it hold on let us just you know annoy you just a teeny tad bit more oh my god more importantly however what's with the huge unskipable double credits from scholar of the first sin you literally have to sit through the slow moving list of every last person involved development on both Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 2 scholar of the first sin why the sad part of all of this is that whatever quality of life changes made by the game to reduce wasted time is literally undone by this horrid mistake is that the end original lortell's to [Music] No No are they gonna start all over now lucky you only have to do it once because why would you ever play it again now I said we would get to this all the way back in part three and we're finally going to get to it the B team argument there's a noise a lot of people in terms of an insult but the argument goes the people who made dark souls one great were not present for Dark Souls two's production and that is only something someone could know by being on the development team but Dark Souls 2 and blood-borne were in development at very similar times and so people assume that the more talented members of fromsoftware were poached for blood-borne and left others to fill positions for the development of Dark Souls 2 so let's let's explore it a little bit the creative director from Dark Souls 1 was the very same for blood-borne but not for Dark Souls 2 the lead programmer for Dark Souls 1 was the very same for blood-borne but not for Dark Souls 2 the lead graphic designer for Dark Souls 1 was the very same in blood-borne but not for Dark Souls 2 and to top it off the programming staff which arguably would be the most important section of designing the game have quite a large amount of discrepancies this isn't to prove that these people were definitively worse or better than those who left to work on blood-borne however when the lead programmer lead graphics designer and the creative director go to work on a different project together you would assume that they may well be putting their eggs in a particular basket if you want a detailed breakdown on who was involved in what projects then check out the link in the description I would never use the argument that the B team clearly made Dark Souls 2 and that's why it's bad but I would use it as an insult because a different team clearly made the game and I would simply say that if several of the project leaders were moved to a different project and perhaps those who took their place weren't as prepared for the job it's an interesting topic though and honestly unless fromsoftware defines their teams as a and B then nobody can say it objectively though I think it's meant as a joke against the people who fill positions for the leaders who had moved to blood-borne which as a game is received very highly for the most part by many people and that ladies and gentlemen is the drawn-out and extensive part to all of this it's time for the results now we've covered a lot in this video but there are several arguments for the quality in this game that we're in another series of mine so for the convenience of the potential audience when I bring up certain there will be a number and then a timestamp next to it to tell you where to find the presented argument in the series of videos called response in defense of Dark Souls 2 for example the entire argument for wildlife gems are poorly handled in Dark Souls 2 can be found in part 1 of this series and more specifically the refined argument is at precisely zero hours 41 minutes and 10 seconds of that part so when you see this that is what it means now let's start with saying that we can split a Dark Souls game into four sections or I can at least and it'll be rather arbitrary for me to say this but stay with me the game is constructed of a huge amount of elements that all converge to create the game so I'm going to sort them into elements of four categories and judge from there let's open with combat the combat is sometimes almost as good as you would expect from the souls series but you have to account for the AI being pretty damn buggered the hitbox is being wonky is all Christ the PvP being an inconsistent mess the boss is having half the game via cakewalk and the other half being a disaster judge by whether the other combat systems are currently working combined with their downright bizarre healing opportunities and the piss-poor AI the sheer spam in the world combined with this spamming of terribly made mobs the ambushing the tracking the plunging attack butchering the ridiculous backstabbing and everything being subverted whether or not these systems are functioning by circle strafing on top of a focus system that doesn't always allow you to hit your enemy now maybe if these issues were hard and we were looking at dealing with a lot less of it we could possibly get past all of it but these things are all actively happening at the same damn time and whether you like the combat or not the design behind it as a whole is slapdash and riddled with issues which earns the combat a label of being pretty damn bad next up we have exploration which is mostly functioning without a hitch aside from a little bit of a questionable amount of full damage and the extensive travel time with the open warp from the get-go possibly leading to the linear incompetent boring and rancid world design and several levels that felt as though they were built to annoy you whilst being completely unprepared to explore backwards within the theme is fantastic but the storytelling is as poor as ever while retreading its predecessor and narrative lee obstructing itself in favor of a more streamlined experience this streamlining save time and player engagement with the world yet bizarrely the game has two of the longest elevators in the series to my knowledge combined with an unskipable and unavoidable credit sequence that lasts nine minutes in total and let's not forget their choice to add a cinematic set of black bars that laughably cut off characters heads in cutscenes like did nobody [ __ ] check this overall the exploration is a strong power I suppose with the bad not totally outweighing the good and vice versa though there is a hefty amount to improve on and getting exploration right is not a difficult feat so they should probably avoid putting in a bunch of [ __ ] nonsense as is the pattern with this game next up is resource management which considering the inefficiency of implementation with effigies repair healing and extremely generous amounts of levels the system's at hand are unfinished and unbalanced combined with a strange obsession with terribly designed keys like the fragrant branches of yore and the ferrous lock stones that open up about as many trapdoors as they do real ones you are left with a mostly wonky set of systems that the player is more concerned with figuring out how to subvert than work with but let's go for a double whammy the final quarter of my little assessment being the RPG elements are again bloated with so many options for builds and power that the experience felt far too rewarding for clumsy play why worry about building a strong weapon and spending valuable resources when I could just do that very thing ten times over why spend time meticulously levelling for particular stats when I could just respect at any time and change my entire build on the go every player should be leveling ADP because of the invariably valuable bonuses of it and this is antithetical to a balanced RPG ultimately leading to an embarrassing system that once again relies on you subverting the systems in front of you in fact that ends up being the argument for a lot of these issues Dark Souls 2 brings us an annoying mechanic but provides an additional mechanic to counter it for example you're going to lose health every time you die but you can use an effigy to counter it why not lose the effigies and lose the health loss you're going to lose health every time you die but if you wear this ring it'll counter half of it why not lose the ring and lose the health loss your iframes are extremely limited you can level a DP to improve them why lose the whole ADP thing and provide the base iframes that ADP offers you need to level ADP first you have more levels in the whole game for Dark Souls 2 so you can easily get ADP as a free stats sorted out early why not have fewer levels and provide ADP from the get-go the lock-on system doesn't always lock on your attacks so you simply need to aim it with your left analog stick why not have it lock on the attacks all the time there are several locked off areas and statues in Dark Souls 2 that contain varying values to the point of one of them giving you a mushroom we have also provided exactly 17 keys hidden throughout the game why not have these things be secrets to find and remove the chance of dissolving a useless statue with your limited resources the poison tears through your health extremely fast during the boss fight with Mithra but if you burn the windmill it's gone why not have no poison in the [ __ ] boss room and have no steel that weak to fire now there may be a lot of spam in the game and boss gauntlets are ridiculous but you simply need to kill them enough time so that they D spawn why not just reduce the [ __ ] enemy spam people will invade and potentially beat you down even further to the ground but you can burn an effigy to prevent them from invading why not have them invade when you're human as a risk / reward system like it is in the other games instead of punishing the players who are already [ __ ] losing there are so many decisions that come across as attempts to make interesting decisions within mechanics but ultimately act as blights on the game itself for many players another argument that is often presented is that they kept several aspects from Dark Souls 2 in Dark Souls 3 but this is yet another one that holds little water let's look at what they kept from Dark Souls 2 and dropped from Dark Souls 1 we have the additional two ring slots which is strictly a change it's not an improvement considering it directly depends on how many rings are in the game and what ones are even worth wearing there is the estus flask shards rather than kindling which is once again a change nor an improvement considering that you can make strong arguments for both systems there is the total bonfire teleportation from the get-go which is bloody disappointing in that it likely tied itself to the world being linear once again though less so in Dark Souls 3 then we have crafting changes like infusions and respecting and upgrade trees there are some things in there that anyone can argue for or against I understand that but the argument here isn't whether these things are good or bad let's let's keep that to one side it's the sheer frequency of them okay so let's look at the things that Dark Souls 3 dropped from ds2 to end up more similar to ds1 so we have effigies life gems and abundance of healing items estes healing over time movement adp rolling animation in relation to equipped lode fog will delay weapon repair poison damage fall damage chest traps the mimic appearance mimic behavior gear breaking goof fragrant branches of your ferris lock stone bonfire ascetics illusory wall activation torch mechanics power stance parry animation tombstones for NPCs soaked effect attack lock-on amount of levels to spend enemy respawn limitations plunging attack kick adding mobs in new game+ and back step iframes now I understand that many of these things are good genuinely good things and if it were up to me I would have kept some more things from ds2 in ds3 hell they shouldn't have been removed but there are many downright horrible things that have been removed as well and you can speculate on why each of them would change but the fact that there is more ds1 in ds3 than ds2 by far whatever that definitively means is up to you for the people who are saying that ds3 kept many changes from ds1 to ds2 meaning that they must be better please revise your argument to clarify once again this section was about proving that there's more removed from Dark Souls 2 than 1 in 3 I know that's confusing but we're at the end of the video which means I'm going to try and collate everything that has been said into something understandable the souls Bourne series is a favorite of mine it is such a [ __ ] cool thing that exists a will that is so grounded and beautiful in a realistic way while remaining both challenging and rewarding in its own right tackling extremely meaningful subject matter and wields that remain so distant from our own yet so close with gameplay that brings such a heavy and responsive sense of combating foes levels that challenge your perception and approach every time as you cleave through bosses that pikas tests of your reactions and ability to adapt to your environment such a [ __ ] cool series of games Dark Souls 1 for me was a masterpiece with flaws as most masterpieces are I suppose there were moments where I saw cracks and let downs in what was an incredible ride through what can only be described as a [ __ ] great experience Dark Souls 2 for me was a disaster with highlights moments where I saw a fantastic game through a bog of destructive and painful design what I can say objectively is that with everything considered throughout my almost 10-hour series dark souls 2 is a bad game it sinks below pie it has several incompetent pieces of design throughout many of the most fundamental parts to the game and a hefty amount of them are in its most celebrated features the game is far from finished it's far from refined it's broken in several areas it is far from a completed work and that is after they got a second release of the game which they considered to be their completed work which is more than the terrible ds1 port got the fact is by any reasonable and objective evaluation this game falls short because if it doesn't then hardly any games do because you have to really think to yourself if you are going to argue why ds2 is actually an amazing game then make sure your argument doesn't involve feelings because I don't have time for them now I am relatively tired of the series at this point but I want to share that I actually have a lot of fun playing Dark Souls 2 i can enjoy streams with my community and play the game as i imagined it was intended to be just fine this has not changed my perspective that the game itself is poorly made that all things considered drag it well below the threshold of something I could even recommend though it is undeniable for a fan of the series to give it a shot as it will answer your own questions in terms of where the series went and why people reacted the way they did overall I hope you enjoyed my assessment and perhaps I brought some light onto the things that you were completely unaware of or I pissed you off to high heaven and I can enjoy reading essays in the comments section about how biased I have been either way I shall look forward to trying to respond to you all because this is probably gonna be my most contentious series ever but before I end here I want to address a singular comment from Harris's video which for all of you who have been following this series this is essentially the last part of that series but as I said it functions on its own as well do you remember when he said this Dark Souls 2 does a lot of really great things with play conditioning also things that other critics dismiss as minor tweaks or just don't talk about at all in the blood-borne video my central example was the shield and we might as well start there too because people don't [ __ ] mention this so how come you didn't mention the absolute myriad of issues this game has either where in the hell were hip boxes where was the AI where was the ADP I'm not trying to pour more soil onto his grave but his video was so bloody awful some people have told me it might have actually been parody and that I've made this sort of mistake in responding to it as seriously as I did but you don't understand it doesn't matter because my videos now exist and they stand as a testament to what dark souls2 objectively offers you what you take from that offering is down to the person I suppose so I'm happy either way and besides the whole parody thing would actually explain a lot and everything would make a hell of a lot more sense but if there is one thing to take away from all of this that h-bomb has made an awful video please remember that that should not be the lesson the one thing you should take away from this whole thing is that you should watch these videos the videos that your subscriptions put out all of the people who are so prestigious and loved on YouTube you realize that's like my whole goal on YouTube right like the whole background goal I know I've said it a couple times I want to make sure that it's clear that this treatment that was given to Harris was easily possible to be provided to any of the people that I've listed previously the whole lot of them and I'm being deliberately vague here the whole lot of them put out good and terrible videos now I hope I don't put out terrible videos ever myself because the whole point is that I spend so long on them that I stop them from being terrible in production but people get lazy people slip up they downright run out of ideas or get really greedy so as they're trusting and attentive audience let them [ __ ] know develop a taste as [ __ ] condescending as that sounds but yeah as a closing the purpose of this series as a whole was to respond to and tear down the arguments provided in the video in defense of Dark Souls 2 this was a video made by H bomber guy and obviously I wanted to talk about his quality as a youtuber as well but to finalize that I genuinely think he's pretty good he's very interesting and he's made some really great videos in fact he recently put out one on VHS and that was really good like like really good so you know I just wanted to make that clear that he may have made some poop but he's also made some gold if yeah we're following okay good then finally is a third thing the video was also supposed to critique Dark Souls 2 which for some reason has entered the counterculture as humans love so much you know what I mean it comes out and it's loved by many as as Harris actually pointed out then Matt and several others make critical videos and so the counter to the current objective of saying the game was good was that the game was bad and that overflowed to the point of setting Dark Souls 2 was the black sheep to rot for several years it was accepted as the bad one so now as a counterculture it is popular to defend it to say it's not all that bad look at these videos they're popping up out of nowhere recently everybody's got something to say about how Dark Souls - ain't that bad well it is stop pretending it's not there are so many problems with this game there is a reason it's the black sheep and despite my extremely tiny corner of the Internet I want this pendulum to swing back since the very idea that people hated is because it's not Dark Souls one is ludicrous the fact that it's Dark Souls one sequel gives it far more clout to be loved being supported by its dad if you will imagine this was called Lords of death or kings of a shore in the land of the dead something [ __ ] like that I don't know if it wasn't by from and from the Dark Souls family it would be less inclined to be defended by the fanbase I assure you it would also explain a hell of a lot more if it wasn't actually made by from software ultimately though you guys are welcome to enjoy it all you want just don't tell me the game was well designed after watching all of my videos because it's over it's over I did it it's done I've been working on this series for over three months the references alone were [ __ ] horrible to put together and I have to say a huge thanks to my community for all their help with their own playthroughs discussions I am proof watching of my videos this series was horrendous for everyone involved for different reasons but despite everything it was made and it was rather cathartic for many I certainly hope and honestly I'm being a bit hyperbolic because the process is always entertaining when you put all this stuff together it really is and I did have a lot of fun if you will and that's why I'm gonna keep making videos but I would like to say a huge thank you to Alex Michael Jim Eric Peter and Crowley you lot of the reason my videos of the present and future will be existing in their size and speed and honestly remind me that there are people out there who want my work to the point of paying for it which is pretty [ __ ] awesome and the second I have two patrons with the same name I'm gonna have to start reading out full names the [ __ ] horror so anyway if you guys like my work then please consider throwing a dollar on patreon as that will determine whether I can make videos in the future we have recently hit twenty-five dollars and that is a quarter of the way to my very first goal which is pretty damn neat and genuinely speaking the more I can make on patreon the faster my videos will be able to come out as this could one day be my profession and the money is literally the defining factor in that regardless the patreon is where you can find updates on my current projects that you don't have to pay for them you can just view them in the post section I think it is literally once per two weeks I will just tell you exactly where I'm at in the new project and in terms of a future project you can expect anything from me I'm already working right now probably on the next one because at the point of recording this before having edited the video I have a solid idea of what I want to do but it will be another two weeks by the time at least that you're seeing this so I will be working on it it's this whole time thing anyway this series was completed before any of you saw part 1 is the point and that means I have no idea how people may or may not have reacted to it but I have probably been fishing around in the comments this whole time regardless and I know I mentioned it before but I I think you guys know what I mean now by the tonal shift in part one I was much more of a civil businessman in terms of my approach and by the last part I was back to what I was like in my summer amnesia videos anyway other than all that it's goodbye for now I have a couple of funniest clips that remain and all of them have been shoved at the end of this video thank you all once again for your support and comments but most of all thanks for watching and I'll see you next time yeah a final verdict on what [ __ ] dog those two it's [ __ ] it's not good it's not good and you all know I actually didn't mind the game in the beginning then I saw what Dark Souls is actually and how it's supposed to work you have a we counted them I forgot how many were was like 47 bosses all of them forgettable all of them [ __ ] except fume night was the GHC boss and sir alonne was a dlc wasn't sold on still as a [ __ ] [ __ ] attack you've [ __ ] up back steps who actually work in your favor which is still [ __ ] because it shouldn't be you had those guys like here I was like yeah it's a back step and other times you started back step animation and it just so we all roll away [ __ ] you yeah this is what I would say about this is what we do now goodbye doc Souls see you later what do you farm in like I'm killing a boss whose lot you're gonna love that one boys this is so annoying Brown sauce from from car window in racial attack was from a car window and splatted another vehicle in what police a tree there's a racially aggravated [Laughter] EVP is now at its most refined making summoning very easy in several sections of the world a devoted devoted the [ __ ] we'd these two players to not talk about a VP exactly homework I did didn't talk about it well we don't even know that what isn't it with the fact that they're rag dolls but not totally rag dolls like [Music] whoa whoa like choose each of the available paths from the get-go and you will as a cat oh no as a person oh yeah totally the best one I'm gonna play so much of this no I'm not I love this game I hate this game it's the best game mr. horse game that is not a backstab and that was a backstab this game sucks you oh no no no

Channel: MauLer

Views: 1,422,816

Keywords: Hbomberguy, Harris, Bomberguy, hbomb, Dark Souls, Dark, Souls, Dark Souls 2, Matthewmatosis, in, defense, of, response, A measured, PC, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Demons Souls, video, games, ARPG, Analysis, review, design, critique, fromsoftware, opinion, fact

Id: HR3hbaKTVBs

Length: 106min 45sec (6405 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2017