Difficulty has always been a vastly overstated aspect of the Souls series ever since Demon’s Souls hit the shelves for the PS3 in early 2009. Yes, the games are unforgiving in the punishments they dole out to their players for even the smallest errors, but the punishment has always felt fair and deserving. Much like good constructive criticism, or some much needed tough love from a parent, the Souls series always gives players something to improve upon each time the familiar light of a bonfire appears after the “YOU DIED” screen. Dark Souls II, even with its remastered release, chooses instead to do its damnedest to live up to its “hardest game” reputation rather than deliver a well thought out singleplayer experience.
You wake up in the dying world of Drangleic as a cursed undead, fated to forever repeat the cycle of life and death. Your only guide in this hostile world is the Emerald Herald, a mysterious seer who tells you to seek out powerful souls scattered throughout Drangleic in order to cure yourself and the world of the undead curse. Your overarching journey is accompanied by a dramatic tale about the fall of Drangleic itself, a new take on the storytelling from the solely lore-driven story of Dark Souls I. The effort is certainly commendable, and the Scholar of the First Sin attempts to add to the narrative over the base game with more backstory and an additional character, but the plot ultimately falls short in too many areas to be a memorable tale.
Drangleic is enormous—almost to a fault. From poisonous caverns hidden deep underground to lofty peaks that soar far above the clouds, the number of environments throughout the journey is nothing to scoff at. But the immense quantity of levels comes at the tangible price of quality level design. Gone are the interwoven levels and clever shortcuts that engrossed so many players in Lordran, and instead, you’re given straightforward A to B paths. The individual areas look pretty and are beautifully haunting at times, especially with the graphical touch ups in the Scholar of the First Sin, but they are at best boring to play through, and at worst an absolute chore.
In particular, one of the areas was beyond infuriating for me because it is simply a giant, black pit with poison-inflicting, stun happy statues everywhere for seemingly no reason at all. This area oozes of artificial difficulty as the game floods you with hard hitting enemy units while you’re getting stunned for an eternity by the statues—a prime example of Dark Souls II’s laziness in its creative department. Several levels, especially the later ones, just revolve around being rushed by enemies who stun you incessantly while being highly stun-resistant themselves, resulting in a game of chicken as you tediously try and draw their attention one at a time with a bow.
Enemy design is also hugely frustrating, from basic cannon fodder to bosses that have a significant amount of lore behind them. Most enemies have weapons with hitboxes much larger than their models, making for some incredibly exasperating engagements, especially when a single strike takes off half of your HP bar. Contrarily, bosses are acutely underwhelming in both their presentation and gameplay. Although Dark Souls II has quite a few more bosses than its predecessor, most feel like filler fights encompassing a design philosophy that simply overwhelms players with sheer numbers, rather than focused one on one encounters. The Scholar of the First Sin alleviates this somewhat, as bosses such as the Fume Knight, and the Burnt Ivory King have some of the most mechanically and thematically engaging battles in the entire series, but the humdrum bosses in the main game marred my experience with the game significantly.
That being said, Dark Souls II still manages to somehow be a very fun game. The leveling curve has been lowered significantly so that you can spend souls—the currency and experience points of the Souls series—more liberally on your stats, allowing for much wider build variety than the first Dark Souls. Dark magic has been expanded upon significantly, opening up an entire new avenue of magic builds. Hybrid builds as a mage fighter—something that was only attainable through grueling soul farming in Dark Souls I—are actually now fairly feasible within your first playthrough. Still, if your build is not to your liking, you can respec your allocated skillpoints with a special item, so a playthrough never ends up doomed. My favorite improvement lies in the faith-based lightning caster builds that actually allow you to feel like an Olympian god hurling lightning spears left and right, unlike Dark Souls I where lightning based spells were too slow, clunky and expensive to even be used in PvE.
The build variety is especially impressive once you hit the online portion of the game. Dedicated PvP arenas allow you to test your skills against other players without having to awkwardly setup dueling areas beforehand, and the enhanced netcode ensures that you aren’t at the receiving end of some laggy critical strikes or ripostes—most of the time. Joining in jolly cooperation has also never been smoother and even the old option of invading other players to ruin their day has been vastly improved.
Notably, if you’re coming straight from Dark Souls I, Dark Souls II feels very imprecise and “floaty,”‘ in that your character never seems to hold any weight. You can run in circles while swinging a greatsword three times your height, yet putting up a shield or timing rolls seems to take much longer than in the first game. Rolling, in particular, has become pretty finicky with the new adaptability stat that governs how many invincibility frames you receive while rolling, which forces you to relearn your character’s roll timings to dodge attacks whenever you level it up.
After you beat the game, the expanded New Game plus experience certainly seems an improvement to its predecessor on paper. More enemies and new items await you on your second and even third journey through Drangleic, but with messy enemy placement and level design, this becomes more of a chore rather than a refreshing experience. At this point, I’ve finished the game five times on five different characters, but I could never find the time or patience to muscle one of them through the bigger mess that is New Game plus.
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin provides a roller coaster of emotions. The drab level design, plethora of unfair enemies and clunky controls from the original game remain unchanged and continue to test my patience even to this day, but the vastly enhanced leveling and online systems kept me from ditching the game entirely. If the online component of the Souls series has always been a big draw for you, then by all means pick up this game right now. But if you’re looking for an immersive world and an enthralling singleplayer journey, Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin simply lacks the soul of its predecessor.
