As a gamer that has too many games on the go at any moment, I couldn't find time in my schedule to tackle a game that would politely be described as bloody hard. While I am familiar with the original from hearsay, I didn't play any of it. From the time that I've put into Dark Souls II, I can wholeheartedly agree with the assessment of the previous game: Dark Souls II is infuriatingly hard.
Most games will have their difficulty established by asking the gamer to accomplish a nearly flawless series of commands, or use a weak control structure to unfairly limit the gamer against an unencumbered opponent. Dark Souls II does neither, it gives you the tools to succeed right from the beginning, but does so little hand-holding that you are thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. With such a brutal difficulty curve, I found the praise to be a little surprising.
The frequency of your failures will be startling. I've died playing Dark Souls II more than I can recall any other game, but unlike most games where I get frustrated by some aspect of the control scheme or the level design, each failure falls directly onto the shoulders of the player, either in a poor attack strategy or entering an area that you shouldn't have been in.
Death as a game-mechanic is an interesting strategy for design – when you are expected to die often, some might take the kamikaze approach. Slam into your opponents with a suicidal rush, if you fail, try from a slightly different angle! Wet, lather, rinse, repeat… right? Wrong. The penalty system for death makes your next approach even more complicated as your HP level is chipped away. So, while you may have taken some experience for your death, you better have gained some valuable experience from it. You develop a sort of gambler's fear. While you don't want to lose everything (again) you can't help but roll the dice and continue.
To compensate for the lack of in-game direction, the designers have an online feature where you can read messages left on the ground from other players. Ideally, you can read strategy or advice from seasoned adventurers to help cross difficult terrain, or figure out how to defeat an especially difficult boss. Instead it's more like chatter in the classroom, where you'll feel no pertinent information is passed along to you and you'll wonder why you bothered to read those messages at all. Unfortunately half the time the messages are right next to areas I'm trying to interact with – good thing the interact button is the same as read the stupid message button…
As you can imagine the combat is the highlight of the game – even the most mundane of enemies can surprise you if you don't use an appropriate amount of care to tackle them. If the rank-and-file enemies can give you a bit of challenge, it follows that the boss characters will be a downright pain in the backside. Beating some of the bosses requires an appropriate synthesis of battle-plan and proper use of your environment. Failure to do so, will result in… well, you know.
Graphics and sound-work are excellent. The environments are lovingly rendered, with the haunting sound track multiplying the tension that will remain in the pit of your stomach as you play. Some of the lighting effects dominate the environments a little too much, and you'll find that you struggle to see some of the edges of paths at times. While this wasn't a consistent problem, but it did come up more than a few times as I played.
All in all, I enjoyed playing Dark Souls II. It certainly forces you to develop as a gamer to progress in the game. Not everyone will be able to suspend their ego for a playthrough, I know that I had to turn off the game more often than not to prevent a particularly nasty swearing session. If you are seeking more of a challenge, I'd highly recommend it; if you get easily frustrated when you're not winning… I'd leave it on the shelf for someone else.
- Tazman
The Good:
- Exceptionally difficult and challenging game
The Bad:
- The punishment system for death and wear/tear just make the game so skewed against the player
- The message system might as well have been called – thing that annoys the crap out of me while I'm trying to search this dungeon
