This caps out at 50%, though a ring found later increases the cap, and the only way to regain this is to return to human form by consuming a human effigy item. In addition to dropping all your souls, you’re also going to be penalized a portion of your maximum health for dying. The biggest change is how the game handles death, which happens a lot. Dark Souls II does introduce some new elements to the tried and true gameplay. For instance, wearing heavier armor certainly offers more protection, but it slows you down, even hampering your ability to dodge effectively. But all of these elements are being driven by stats that balance themselves as well. You have essentially what’s almost a third-person fighting game with a complex relationship of parry, blocks, staggers and positioning, and you’ll need to be skillful in order to succeed. Similarly, the gameplay reflects a lot of these ideals. There are a lot of choices to weigh up as well – for instance, bosses drop boss souls which you can either cash in for a large sum of regular souls or utilize in the crafting of powerful items. When you’re stacked with souls the tension naturally rises and each encounter is a little more hazardous because of the risk, but on the flip side you’re much freer to explore and get in over your head when you don’t have a bunch of souls to lose. If you can retrieve them without dying again you get them back, but otherwise they are gone forever. The souls you collect are both your experience points and currency in the game. The whole system of souls is really what pulls it together. Dark Souls II loves to pull you in two directions with its mechanics of checks and balances. While the Souls games are constantly praised for their challenging difficulty, and Dark Souls II continues this level of challenge – I chalked my first death in less than a minute – I feel that it’s this core of duality that’s really at the heart of the whole experience. It’s an essential compromise that let’s the game find it’s niche as both an RPG and as an action game. It’s a dark-fantasy world rich with details and part of the joy of this minimalist style is the sense of discovery when something clicks, but if all that is just getting in your way of cracking Hollow skulls then the game is perfectly willing to step aside. Dark Souls II is still a game where narrative takes a bit of a back seat. To that end, you’re going to need lots of powerful souls, and many a fellow undead has traveled to Drangliec in the promise of such. Once again, your player character is an undead, attempting to fight their curse and stave the effects of becoming a mindless Hollow. You may even run into some familiar faces, and lore junkies of Dark Souls will certainly get a kick out of tracking down the spiderweb of in-game information and trying to piece it all together. However, instead of Lordran you’re now in the kingdom of Drangliec, with little details and reminders of the greater setting found all over. Dark Souls II is a perfect sequel to Dark Souls.įor starters, unlike the jump from Demon’s Souls to the original Dark Souls, Dark Souls II specifically does take place in the same world as the last installment. To keep things fresh, this is peppered with a mix of new elements, from improved graphics and game engine to a better designed starting sequence and new mechanics. Dark Souls II hits its mark dead-on.Įverything that made Dark Souls into a cult success carries over: complex game mechanics, punishing but fair gameplay and a richly detailed setting if you dig a little deeper. The ideal balance likely lies somewhere slightly left of center, mostly the same as the last outing but with just enough difference to stave off complete familiarity. Change too little and you’ll get grumbles about having simply released the same game as last time. Change too much and you’ll have fans crying foul over the newest chapter losing sight of what made its predecessor so good. A good sequel is often a surprisingly difficult target to aim for.
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