Whenever conversations about the Dark Souls trilogy comes up, Dark Souls II is inevitably placed at the bottom of the totem pole, chastised for breaking away from what many believed was integral to the experience. You could say it’s sort of the black sheep of the trilogy. It was under different direction (Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura as opposed to Hidetaka Miyakazi, creator of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls), had a new team, and just didn’t really feel like a follow-up to its predecessor in small ways that added up to something big. It took risks that to someone just walking by might not seem like anything drastic, but sort of flipped the script of what players had set in their heads of exactly how a Souls game should play.
I’ve been a passionate fan of this genre (I guess it’s a genre now?) since its inception with Demon’s Souls back in 2009, and I honestly believe Dark Souls II gets a bad rap. I’d go the other way with it and argue that it’s actually one of the better games of its ilk and a lot of things people consider weaknesses I look at as strengths. Basically, Dark Souls II deserves better.
Right out of the gate, Dark Souls II sets out to establish its own identity. It doesn’t want to use the first game as a crutch, relying on references and familiar territory. This is something Dark Souls III is guilty of, at times almost feeling like an apology for how Dark Souls II deviated from the status quo. I still love the final installment of the trilogy though, because of course I do. Dark Souls II instead throws you into an entirely new world while subtly maintaining thematic consistency with the trilogy as a whole. It just doesn’t hit you over the head with it. Like the first and third games, everything revolves around humanity, hollowing, and “linking the flames” of the world. It’s the wrapper around this that sets Dark Souls II apart.
Where Dark Souls had the kingdom of Lordran, Dark Souls II has Drangleic. It’s huge and arguably more varied than its predecessor. The word that comes to mind is dense. In the end playtime is probably similar to the first game but there’s probably twice as much to see packed into those 40 to 60 hours. No one area seems to go on for too long; they’re spread out well enough that you’re hitting new, distinct places at a steady clip, and even if you start to grow tired of one area you’ll probably be hitting something new sooner than later. And while it might sound like quantity over quality, there’s legitimacy to (most of) these areas’ inclusion thanks to FROM’s almost obsessive attention to detail through world building.
My one incredibly over-analytical gripe that to any sane person couldn’t matter less is that geographically the world of Drangleic doesn’t really make any sense. I’m pretty sure taking an elevator up a windmill couldn’t actually bring you to the center of a fiery volcano, but then what do I know? Maybe it’s magic, or maybe it just really isn’t important.
If you can suspend your disbelief of mountains stacking on top of empty valleys for long enough you’ll find some intricately and deeply thought out lore that honestly might even do a better job of world building than Dark Souls, establishing new ideas while still drawing ties to Lordran without being too on the nose. Subtlety in these games is key and Dark Souls II handles itself with a pretty deft hand. Maybe the most passionate fans of the first game write it off for departing from that narrative, when in fact that throughline is there, just obscured. But as a result it tends comes off less like an actual sequel and more of its own thing. Being the middle chapter I think this is acceptable, especially since Dark Souls III would go on to more directly tie itself to the first game and bring things full circle.
A good example of story building in Souls games is the enemies that inhabit their worlds. It’s rare for someone to exist for the sole purpose of getting in your way or to look cool. FROM Software *love* to tease their fans and give them a breadcrumb trail of snippets here and item descriptions here, begging to be pieced together in a 40 minute YouTube video that people like me can watch because they’re not smart enough to do it on their own. This obviously applies to bosses as well. Boss fights are kind of the thing in Dark Souls. They’re all unique, bombastic set piece events and the thing that stick with you most. Dark Souls II feels like the team at FROM knew that, and maybe took it too far in what sounds like the right direction. Dark Souls II has a lot of bosses. If you include the DLC, it has 42 compared to the first game’s 26. That’s a massive increase, and unlike the game’s varied environments, the bosses do suffer from quantity over quality syndrome. Some of these fights are pretty straightforward (strafe to the right, dodge, attack, repeat) and don’t always live up to the absolutely inspired standard set by Miyazaki and his team. This isn’t to say they’re all bad, and in fact some stand out as some of the series’ best. You’re just bound to run into a dud now and then when there’s so many.
Numbers are fun and all, but just talking about how much of something a game has over another doesn’t really give any insight into how that something plays. Why do the most loyal Dark Souls fans seem to recoil at the mention of this game? What the hell could it mess with that was so important? Well...
I-frames. The fucking I-frames.
I’ve played through Dark Souls to completion probably dozens of times. Start to finish, DLC, everything. It’s the video game equivalent of eating comfort food or watching Parks & Rec on Netflix for the 500th time. No matter what, I can always boot it up, start a new game, and still lose hours upon hours playing it. And when you’ve become that intimately familiar with a game, you start to really understand how it operates. More importantly, you also notice when it doesn’t operate how you expect it to.
I-frames, or invincibility frames, are the individual frames of animation in which your character is impervious to damage while rolling or dodging through enemy attacks. There are variables within this framework based upon your equip load and how quickly you’re rolling as a result, but it’s something that over time becomes second nature. You can know when to dodge an attack based off the enemy, their animations, and what the equipment you’re wearing. It’s a numbers game, and numbers never lie. It’s that irrefutable truth that set a lot of fans up for disappointment. Dark Souls II looked at those numbers, laughed, and threw them in the trash. And to make things more dire, there were even more variables to keep in mind, even tying your I-frames to a stat in the game. Needless to say, people weren’t exactly pleased with this change. It might seem completely arcane if you’re not familiar it with the concept, but it symbolizes how Dark Souls II threw fans for a loop and is one of the easiest thing to point to when you need to boil down the why of the game’s reception.
It didn’t stop there, though. Hitbox detection, the point at which an enemy attack will hit you in the head or simply go past your shoulder, became more loose and difficult to predict. Estus flasks, your main source of healing, were suddenly difficult to come by and healed you over time and instead of all in one lump sum. Weapon durability now actually mattered and you could find yourself in situations without a weapon if you weren’t prepared. Linking up with other players was now determined by your “soul memory” (the accumulation of all souls you’ve acquired) rather than a more straightforward character level. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Any one of these changes in a vacuum would sound benign, but for a lot of people they come together to make Dark Souls II not feel like, well, Dark Souls. I on the other hand would argue that all of these changes and more - some valid, some more maybe more subjective - are of the philosophy that a sequel doesn’t have to just be more of the same. Dark Souls II could have just taken the framework of its predecessor wholesale, hit it with a new coat of paint, and call it a day. It’s not uncommon at all for this industry. Instead it formed its own identity, approached things differently, and still found itself under the Souls umbrella. It’s not a lesser game for being different, it’s just that. Different. And I honestly respect it a hell of a lot for not being content with simple being “another Dark Souls”. I’ll take an experimental game that maybe disappoints over something safe any day, and it’s only all the better for me that Dark Souls II doesn’t come across as a disappointment at all.
So enough of what Dark Souls II changed for the “worse”. What about the things you’d be hard pressed to call a step backward? It would be reductive to say Shibuya and Tanimura made changes just for the sake of differentiating their sequel. There are legitimate steps forward that move the series forward.
A good example and a big selling point at the time was dual wielding. You could hold a weapon in each hand in the first game but it, well, didn’t really do much for you. Now, with the proper stats, you could wield two weapons in synergy which would open up entirely new movesets (based on the weapon type) and increase your damage output. It gave melee focused builds something different to experiment with, and it wasn’t just that. There’s a ton of armor, weapons, spells, stats, and potential character builds compared to the first game. It’s just… more, without just being fluff. And unlike the first game and its final act, Dark Souls II feels like a finished product without any obvious signs that development was rushed or content was cut. The original Dark Souls suffered from copy + paste enemy designs, placement, and a general feeling that the final stages of the game were slapped together without the same care and attention as the first two acts. This issue never really rears its head in the sequel, and it feels much more unified and consistent throughout.
Of course, not everything you add to a sequel can always work out. Another major selling point at the time was the dynamic lighting system. FROM was very enthusiastic about the potential here, promising environments shrouded in utter darkness that would force you to bring a torch with you if you wanted any chance of navigating them. It was a novel idea but - while technically in the final product - to say it lives up to those promises would be generous at best. The times you actually need a torch are few and far between, but hey, at least it makes the bonfires look cooler. That’s something, I guess?
I’m currently replaying Dark Souls II with a friend who recently decided to dive into the Souls world, which is what initially prompted this reflection on the game as a whole. The Scholar of the First Sin remaster on PS4 and XB1 follows the example set by the sequel’s original release, taking the foundation and expanding it. Rather than simply settling for a resolution bump and more stable framerate, Scholar completely reworks the framework of Dark Souls II’s journey, adding context to the lore and narrative as well as providing new questions for enthusiasts to piece together answers for, and even mixing around enemy placement within the world to better fit with the narrative playing behind the scenes. It’s rare for a remaster to go to lengths beyond just “Please buy this game again”, but I suppose that’s kind of Dark Souls II in a nutshell.
Ever since I first played Demon’s Souls in 2009, this new genre birthed by FROM has held an incredibly special place in my heart. They’ve become some of my favorite games ever, and ones I can revisit any time and still find value in. And until now I’ve always considered Dark Souls to be the pinnacle, the standard to meet. However over time I’ve also come to terms with nostalgia and how it can color our opinions. My undying love for Dark Souls is undeniable, and while I will continue to happily replay it over and over and over, I can’t help but contemplate that, well, Dark Souls II might just be better.
Not exactly the outcome I was expecting going in.
Kommentare