Lets end this forever

DS2 > all other souls games

Because it refined the formula,
has more content and levels are far more diverse & puzzle-like.

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Let's not get too crazy here OP.
DS2 has a million and one problems. But you know what i'm left with?

Good magic system and objectively, the best story out of the three. First half has you meandering about but with SOTFS and the Crowns, it's on par with the original and maybe even exceeds it in some respects.

I think DeS is better objectively but I like DS2 the best

one of the few things i liked from das2 was the magic and das3 had to go and ruin it

making these threads every single day won't make it true user

>Because it refined the formula

Ok well it didn't, at least not in enough areas but even if it did you need more than that to rise above a sequel especially for a Dark Souls sequel, these games are not trully loved because of dual wielding or "more content" they are loved because of their ability to completely pull you into their world, many people play Souls/BB like they were children again, completely enthralled losing hours on end in the world. The issue I have with DaS2 is that it was the first time I had played a Souls game that my mind started to wander, not straight away but after a while I got tired of the game, it went on and on and each area just seemed bland, full of annoying enemies or built purely as a gauntlet, the bosses werent interesting and the dodging felt inconsistent. I wanted to get the game over with and thats pretty sad for this series.

This game is like a Mario game with its stages

>water world
>lava world
>giant world
>sand world

The thing that made the other games good is that you felt like you were walking around a real world. You'd see anor londo way above you in the distance and eventually you'd get there. In ds2 you beat a boss, walk for a bit, cross a bridge, and you're in a completely different environment that doesn't even make sense based on where you just were. Also,

>climb up a giant tower to beat a poison snake bitch
>go UP in an elevator
>somehow come out to a castle drowning in lava

The world design was 200% retarded

Still dont know what version i should play

sotfs

its a bait thread

>climb up a giant tower

You only visit the base of it.

DS2 is like the COD entry of the series. I know tons of people who have never touched a souls game but DS2.

What are you smoking. No Dark Souls game has ever felt like a "real world" and I don't know why people think that just because the levels don't flow into each other in ds2 that its a bad thing. The whole point of the DS universe is that time and space are distorted hence you being able to die over and over again and quite frankly DS2 had the best variety and best made levels despite them not all flowing together.

Although it might seem clunky at first compared to the other 2, the movement is actually the most consistent and you have the most build/playstyle variety out of all the games.

Most content, most bosses, most enemies.

Objectively DS2 did everything better than DS and DS3. Demon's probably is a better game in comparison cause the atmosphere and originality of it and Bloodborne also does both of those things well but DS2 hands down wins the Dark souls universe

you guys keep saying this but the vaunted interconnectivity of the world always falls apart later in the game.

for Dark souls 1 it's after you place the lord vessel and for bloodborne it's once you leave yohrnam.

Am I saying dark souls 2 is better then 1 or Bloodborne? hell no, but keep in mind that in these great games (1 and bloodborne) they lose their best quality later on (except nightmare of mensis that was pretty satisfying)

Who started the meme that the DLC was good

>one optional area ruins the entire DLC

It's the three best areas and bosses in the entire series bro

This, and anyone who disagrees is reddit.

Firigid Outskirts was fantastic you pleb

I bet you didnt like the Valley of Defilement either

You wanna say "scholar of the first sin right > all other souls games" right?
Because that I agree with.

>inb4 hurr the game had x problems
Yea so had every souls game. DS1 is piss easy and clunky in comparison, plus the shittiest pvp, and 3 butchered half the formula, while simply rehashing the other half(inlcuding areas.) 2 or Sotfs is the only game that well rounded at the end.

Counterpoint: DS2 is the worst game in the series.

It had a few good ideas and it had a lot of content, but it suffered from an utter lack of direction. The game just threw a million ideas at you without ever seeing the idea through. They would just halfass it and move on to the next one.

How many areas amounted to a string of box-shaped rooms and hallways?
How many bosses felt like they could have just been regular mobs with extra HP?

Its not a bad game, but it easily stands out as the worst in the series. The only people who disagree are the autists who convince themselves that more = better

(OP)
Counterpoint: DS2 is the worst game in the series.

It had a few good ideas and it had a lot of content, but it suffered from an utter lack of direction. The game just threw a million ideas at you without ever seeing the idea through. They would just halfass it and move on to the next one.

How many areas amounted to a string of box-shaped rooms and hallways?
How many bosses felt like they could have just been regular mobs with extra HP?

Its not a bad game, but it easily stands out as the worst in the series. The only people who disagree are the autists who convince themselves that more = better. The game is overflowing with mediocre filler.

I mean, did anybody actually enjoy fighting half these bosses?
>Dragon Rider
>Copypaste Dragon Riders
>Copypaste Ornstein
>Copypaste Gargoyles
>Copypaste Sentinels
>Copypaste Smelter Demon
>Copypaste Lud&Zullen
>Skelly Lords
>Covetous Demon
>Prowling Magnus
>Old Iron King
>Rat Vanguard
>Najka
>Defender & Watcher
>Nashandra
>Ancient Dragon
>Vendrick

DS1 is the worst in the series. Took everything from demon's and made it worse in every aspect in regards to items, bosses, UI, combat.

World is really bland and only Anor Londo looks good. Horrible direction and most people don't even play past Lordvessel cause they think the game is over and it wouldn't even matter cause it sucks dick past that point.

It's not the hardest souls game, it has the worst UI, it has the least content, feels the worst in regards to movement, has the least amount of content, and the least amount of build variety. Only reason people praise it because it was their first souls game almost universally

autism

>DS1
muh atmosphere
>DS2
muh PVP
>DS3
muh bosses

>it has the least content
autism

DS3 had the best bossfights in the series
DS2 had the worst bossfights in the series

If you disagree with either of those statements, you are blatantly shitposting

>quite frankly DS2 had the best variety and best made levels despite them not all flowing together
That belongs to DS3 though.

>Most content, most bosses, most enemies.
The only part about this that improved the actual game was the build variety

It does though

>DS2 had the best variety and best made levels
What the fuck are YOU smoking?

Outside of the dlc, 90% of the areas in DS2 were just hallways and box-shaped rooms. It completely lacked the organic design, sense of scale and use of vertical space that I had come to expect from Souls level design

Nice OP!

its irrelevant when 90% of the content in DS2 is mediocre

What kind of feeb looks at a game and thinks >hurr, there's more so it must be better!

Name one area in the game that was actually just a hallway and box shaped room

>at least one person in this thread will unironically defend this
DaS2fags, everyone

This 90% of content being horrible meme makes me think that the people spouting it never actually played the game

The bosses are the best part.
Shulva and Brume were complete ass with bullshit enemies. Nothing wrong with Eleum Loyce though. I think it was the only good dlc overall.

What are all the amazing areas in the first dark souls that everyone harps on about?

The garden area was pretty meh, undead borg and the parish place was ok I guess. Blight town is more frustrating than anything.

>Things Betwixt
>Heide's Tower
>Harvest Valley
>Balck Gulch
>Belfry Luna
>Drangleic Castle
>Shrine of Amana
>Aldia's Keep
>Undead Crypt
>Cave of the Dead
>Iron Passage
>Memory of the Old Iron King

Some of them have pretty skyboxes, but it doesnt distract from the design of the stage itself. Its honestly easier to name the areas that weren't just made up of hallways and boxes

Those ice hedgehogs were just wheel skeletons without the speed and designs that made wheel skeletons fun

I said "mediocre", not horrible. Don't put words in my mouth like a cunt.

>b-b-but the iron keep doesnt match the mining area and it triggers my autism

The 3 on the left are just objectively terrible games with almost no deeming factors.

Nice bait post.

>It completely lacked the organic design, sense of scale and use of vertical space

>It has more content.

DS2 fags in a nutshell.

>Aldia's keep
>hyped up by looking cool from the outside
>inside is feels more linear than FF13, since at least there the hllway curved around a bit

Stuff like weapons and armour improved with each game so it definitely has that over the first.

As are the 3 on the right

Everything from Firelink Shrine up until Anor Londo is probably the best designed area in any game I've ever played. The amount of thought that must have gone into it is staggering. Every area builds atop eachother in such an organic and logical way, but never at the expense of the level design itself. I've honestly never seen another game attempt.

If DS2 is Mega Man in 3D, then DaS is Super Metroid in 3D

Lol what copypaste are you getting this from cause belfry luna is the only box and thats cause its a tiny ass area.

Things betwixt is the tutorial level and was better than ds1 tutorial. Heides tower was literally a bunch of circular platforms so the opposite of what you stated.

Black Gulch has tons of vertical drops and secrets using the darkness to cover them.

Drangleic castle im not even going to respond to that cause its so funny to think its a square

Shrine of Amana was literally a water maze with old ruins

Undead Crypt I will concede has a lot of square rooms but its a crypt and felt like a dungeon crawler to me

Don't remember cave of the dead or iron passage and memory of the old king is far from that lol

Remember the enemies locked in cages that they could just fucking smash whenever they want. Every time we have this thread i remember something else about ds2 that just reminds me of how fucking terrible it is.

You realize they just built off Firelink Shrine in different directions and they force found a way to connect the areas right. Not very difficult. There is a castle, a bog, a cemeteary. And then you get flown by a magical bird away from said castle to the only good area in the game

>
>Heides tower was literally a bunch of circular platforms so the opposite of what you stated.
its a fucking hallway

>Black Gulch has tons of vertical drops and secrets using the darkness to cover them.
its a fucking hallway

>Shrine of Amana was literally a water maze with old ruins
its a fucking hallway

And Drangleic Castle is probably the most disappointing stage I've ever played in a Souls game. Nothing about the design makes sense. Its not a castle, it's a string of ridiculous obstacle courses. It felt like something out of DMC, not Dark Souls.

It really annoys me how 2 and 3 moved away from the atmosphere of the 1st game in a way I can't even really explain. Like they kept the themes of the story. Just listening to the menu theme of the first game is enough

youtube.com/watch?v=L6JH0EfTIKw

It feels like something that would be completely out of place in the other two but it works so well here. It's gentle, relaxing, melancholic, nostalgic. It's so great.

BB/DS1 > DeS > DS2 > havent played 3

DS2 was good game but easily the worst of these.

That's were the door that just outright kills you with no warning is too, right?

I've tried to remove most of DaS2 from my mind so I can't remember if it was there or somewhere else.

you have zero idea what you're talking about

>le earthen peak to iron keep transition xd
you people are worse than lorefags. do you really get hung up on such stupid details?

also, i can trivialize the dark souls 1 world using 1 word archetypes too
>lava level
>forest level
>castle level
>cave level
>swamp level

>Not very difficult
And yet still the B-team couldn't manage it

>Remember the enemies locked in cages that they could just fucking smash whenever they want
great design there, Aldia

>Good magic system and objectively, the best story out of the three. First half has you meandering about but with SOTFS and the Crowns, it's on par with the original and maybe even exceeds it in some respects.
honestly this
DS3 is fun but why the fuck couldn't they finish the fucking story instead of rehashing everything from ds1

None of the transitions to or from those areas felt jarring.

>they force found a way to connect the areas right. Not very difficult.
Well this really makes me appreciate the other two games that couldn't even scrounge up the effort or the brains to do this, since apparently its so easy.

I don't remember any doors like that, do you mean the chests?

What is untrue about that post

Does it make the game better having shortcuts that lead back to the beginning everytime? It doesn't really make a difference to me.

The one that has the rhino monster behind it and he bursts through with no warning when you try to open it

Ahh yeah that was annoying. Not to mention there's a hidden bonfire up there behind the most non descript illusory door. Made running back there more annoying once I found it.

>None of the transitions to or from those areas felt jarring.
This

You start off in a city, then as you descend you go to the lower city gutters, to the city sewers and finally to the disgusting pit that the sewers drain into.

In DS2 there is minimal relation between areas. They're just random ideas that B Team decided to mash together.

That's the same as the dragon burning up the bridge the first time you run across it. DS1 has tons of moments like that that straight up kill you if you haven't seen it before

>not very difficult

That moment in my first playthrough where you get in the elevator in Undead Parish and wind up back at firelink is still, to this day, my favorite moment in all of gaming. Nothing got me more excited that a) I had a path back to the hub, and b) the level design was so masterful that they made me double back without even noticing. That game is level design and shortcut porn.

DaS2 lets you warp to any bonfire so the b-team didn't bother to make anything that wasn't just a straight line, since why bother?

You know what i am grateful for?
DaS understood that NOT EVERY FUCKING CHEST HAD TO BE A MIMIC

HOLY SHIT MIYAZAKI WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Nobody thinks the game is shit literally because there's a shoddy transition. It's easy to mock and meme on because it's such an obvious and glaring oversight that they made absolutely zero attempt to justify (even in the "fixed" version of the game). At best it shows how much of a fucking mess the development of the game was. At worst it makes it seem like the developers didn't give a shit about the game they were making. Both options are damning

except the bridge is covered in charred corpses and you literally see the dragon swooping in to attack

The events are not comparable

I don't mind if people say it's their least favourite, but saying its a bad game is just a shitty opinion.

DaS2 that is

How often do you need to get completely btfo in a single day OP?

>dragon lands in front of you earlier in the level
>bridge is all charred and littered with dead bodies
>dragon literally cannot kill you with one hit if you're at full health, even with 1 VIT
Yeah that's totally comparable to
>random door with nothing to distinguish it when every other door has been safe

You can go through the entire castle, gutters, sewers area in like 10 hours. As much as lots of autists here like to defend, DS story sucks and the atmosphere gets boring after about 5 minutes of the same shit over and over again. The games are fun because of the combat/gameplay. Sorry you guys can't wrap your head around the fairy tale/mario like world of DS2 but it has the most enemies and most fun combat. Story and atmosphere actually made more sense in 2 than 1 because of all the time distortion shit anyway

>chared corpses and you see a dragon which doesn't give you enough reaction time to avoid the fire makes it totally fine!

also if you suspected a dragon how does someone who's never played the game before can reasonable avoid it? same goes for capra demon

I'm not going to say the game was absolute garbage, but there were quite a few things that really detracted from the whole thing, like the fact that durability is absolute ass and a lot of the areas are way too stretched out. Shrine of Amana comes to mind. I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy getting sniped by homing magics from miles away while trudging through waist deep water.

As someone who has played and completed Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, my list from best to worst has to be:

Bloodborne > DS2: SotFS > DS1 > DS3 > DS2 at release

Tell me your first playthrough that you did not get killed by that dragon. Or you must be Sherlock Holmes and walk at a snails pace through the whole game. The dragon may not instakill you but it knocks you down and will stunlock you till you are dead

Obvious bait is obvious.

People bitch about DS2's level design, but it's only inferior in that it's not Dark Souls. It is, however, exactly the fucking same as Demon's, just seamless. Majula is the Nexus, and every area you go to can be divided into sub-areas (for example, Huntsman's Copse is 2-1, the poison valley is 2-2, Earthen Peak is 2-3, and Iron Keep is 2-4, ending with a boss).

Meanwhile, DS3 goes backwards, and includes none of the lessons learned from Demon's, Dark or DS2. It's linear as fuck, and there's no interconnectivity. Yes, DS2 gives you warping from the get-go, but it's never NECESSARY. Is there any other way to get to Lothric from Firelink without warping? Absolutely not. Nothing.

The individual level design is pretty good, but play through the game more than once, and it becomes almost painful how railroaded it is.

>It felt like something out of DMC, not Dark Souls.
You just described a feeling I could never quite put my finger on. Thanks.

Dont forget the cool weapons man

The chime hammer for hexes + vestadt's hammer plus bellhead
Its hilarious

this guy gets it. Dark souls 1 had best atmosphere but dark souls 2 has best gameplay variety, dark souls 3 gameplay for PVE is great but it's PVP is trash.

>hasn't played DeS
opinion discarded

DaS1 > BB > DeS > DaS3 > NioH >>>>>>>>>>>> DaS2 = SotFS

>more diverse
>90% of enemys are armoured guys

my favorite bell bro build used hexes, vestadt hammer, bellhelmet, and that miracle casting mace weapon from crypt with ruin armor set, was loads of fun

I honestly don't think I did. I got hit by it, but it doesn't kill you in one hit and after that I figured out how to b8 it out. But that's besides the point, I died plenty of times to lots of things, but it always felt like my fault. The bridge in DaS has enough hints to where it didn't feel unfair, whereas that door in Aldia's Keep has literally zero hints. Dark Souls is a series that supposed to reward situational awareness, like noticing how dire the bridge looks, not randomly kill you for no reason.

This board is going to be so sad without new souls game to discuss.

Mizyazki pls.

I had the exact same feeling when i decided to backtrack my way from Anor Londo back to Undead Settlement. Holy balls, is it a straight damn line.

Lets be real here, Demon Souls was an overrated niche game that was released in the wrong era. It's essentially a beta of Dark Souls.

Also, Nioh isn't even a From game, but if I had to list it, it'd be 2nd.

There are back to back ogres that smash through doors when you get too close.

The variety is kind of lacking in DaS3 and the bonfire warping does ruin most chances it has of having decent level design.
In contrast to Dark Souls 1 areas also really feel like levels. Even the items in DaS1 had at least some character to their placement sometimes whereas for the most part the item placement in DaS3 either makes little sense or only in an immediate way.
It has been ages since I've played DaS1 though so I'm probably only remembering the best bits like Sens (Even though I know the game inside and out), whereas DaS3 had to suffer a complete playthrough that included the dlc and its terrible level design.
Memories of flimsy one way doors and moments of "why can't I just climb this" are still fresh.

great, so how does situational awareness mean I have take guranteed damage from the dragon, or suffer damage from gravelord nito fight with no wy to negate it outside magic builds?

how is situational awareness supposed to help a new player deal with capra demon?

Yes, it's better than just being able to teleport from the very beginning.

>It is, however, exactly the fucking same as Demon's
I disagree

The DLC areas felt like they could have been individual archstones, but most of the vanilla stages felt completely underwhelming compared to a DeS stage. It was the game that set the standard for Souls level design afterall. It had open, complex areas with a fantastic sense of scale and use of vertical space.

The only vanilla DS2 area that matched the level of complexity was Lost Batsille.

>most enemies
Yeah, I liked that boss that was a big guy with a tracking overhead. Or occasionally multiple big guys with tracking overheads
>most fun combat
Yeah, being able to stock up 99 healing items *really* made the combat feel tense and important. It's great how the game doesn't reward not getting hit since healing is effectively free instead of the very limited resource it was in DaS1 and BB (to a lesser extent)
>Story and atmosphere actually made more sense in 2 than 1 because of all the time distortion shit anyway
>Earthen Peak to Iron Keep isn't supposed to make sense guys
>the level designers were just retending to be retarded

you moving the goalposts

the point is that having an ogre behind the door with literally ZERO indication of this was bad design

Do you honestly disagree? Or are you just being pedantic.