The Dark Souls series is an anomaly, as was its success. In an age where every major developer tries to hold you by the hand and make sure that you get to the end of their game with as little frustration as possible, offering unlimited continues and waypoints and easy difficulty modes, Demon’s Souls came out of nowhere and taunted you- dared you- to play it. You were weak, the game was strong, and it wouldn’t flinch from crushing you time and time again until you figured out just what you were doing, you silly, careless, person.
But despite its seemingly unsurmountable difficulty, it also offered unparalleled joy. Learning the intricacies of the combat, finding new challenges and finally besting them- well, in Demon’s Souls more than any other game a win actually felt like a win. You didn’t just beat a boss by whacking away at him for a few minutes, you learned how to deal with it from your mistakes, death by horrible death.
Dark Souls took that old-school formula of making you actually get good at a game and perfected it, making for a bigger, more seamless experience. Dark Souls II is now available and is exactly what fans of the series want- more challenges, more options, and many more ways to die.
Dark Souls II lulls you into thinking things will be much easier this time around. At first you pick your character and customize him or her with the much-expanded creation system. Choosing from a number of different classes (Warrior, Knight, Swordsman, Bandit, Cleric, Sorcerer, Explorer, or Deprived, which is a class for insane people) that sets your stats and abilities accordingly, you set off into the world, a newborn lamb walking into unknown danger.
The first area you travel to gives you a tutorial of sorts, a nice easy place with clear paths and challenges that gives you hints on how to play and fight off enemies. It’s remarkably light for a series that’s known for throwing you in the deep end with no guidance whatsoever. About 20 minutes into my session I walked too close to a cliff and tumbled in. My character died, and I lost everything I had done to that point.
Oh yeah- this is still Dark Souls.
It’s still just as unforgiving, and in a few new ways too. The series is famous for making you lose all the souls you have collected from vanquished enemies when you die, leaving them behind on a bloodstain and offering you a single opportunity to get them back. Of course, they’re inevitably in a location where some awful monster or challenge lies and there’s a good chance that you’ll die again on your way there, and if you do you lose those souls forever. Considering that collecting souls is your only way to upgrade your character and get a chance at fighting tougher foes, it’s impossible to describe how frustrating it can be.
When you die you lose your humanity just as before, but your body will show it more. Each death makes your maximum health lower and lower, until it’s about half of what it’s supposed to be and your character will start to have the appearance of a corpse, green and about to fall apart. It’s not till you use a Human Effigy, which reverses your hallowing and brings you back to life, that you’ll get that life back. They're hard to find or price at a shop, and of course it’s really easy to die once again and start the whole process over again...
After an entire weekend spent with this game I feel like I haven’t scraped the surface just yet. Like the previous games there’s more character classes to try, more locations to explore more thoroughly. The multiplayer servers were only turned on last night, meaning that any reviews you read that came out on the embargo date of midnight didn’t take into consideration that entire aspect of the game. But the bosses are just as fulfilling to destroy, each new location increasingly unnerving as you realize how far you've venured from the safety of a bonfire. After beaten the bosses even show up later in the game as normal enemies, in weaker versions of their former selves, and you can take out any lingering frustration on them that much more easily...
Dark Souls II is the sequel everyone wanted and a perfect entry point for newcomers to the series. Despite the Teen rating it's as alternately brutal and satisfying as you hoped it would be. From Software hasn't backed down on its mission to test you and force you to learn how to play the game and, once again, you'll be happy you did.
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This review was based on the PS3 version from a retail copy provided by the publisher.
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