Dark Souls II Review
ALEX MANN lives to die again. When Demon’s Souls first hit Japan in 2009, Sony had no plans to bring From Software’s brutal title to western shores. It was believed that the vague narrative and lack of instruction wouldn’t float on the foreign market, not to mention the notoriously hard difficulty, but a year and half later the game finally made it our way. As feared, some palmed it off as a poorly translated JRPG, but others reveled in its dark splendour, affectionately recalling the merciless nature of gaming’s retro years. Now, thanks to the subsequent release of Dark Souls, the series has built up a following bordering on the fanatic, a strange community in which gamers band together in defeat. Like soldiers on a battlefield, players worldwide sympathise with each other’s failures, treating those who achieve victory with gracious respect and envious wonder. Some have dedicated their time to deciphering Lordran’s mysterious history while others, those who couldn’t take the heat, aren’t met with mockery or scorn, but merely given an understanding nod. It’s something the gaming world has rarely experienced, a true brotherhood of shared hardships, but as a community grows so too do expectations, and Dark Souls II has very large boots to fill.
GIVE A LITTLE TAKE A LITTLE >> The most brutal new addition to the series is undoubtably the focus on hollowing. Sure, the idea of going hollow has been present from the beginning, but we’ve rarely seen its true effects on our own characters. In Dark Souls II, the more characters die, the more hollow they become. Physically, this means losing a bit of hair here, a scrap of flesh there, slowly decaying until they reflect the very ghouls we’re set to destroy. Yet the most horrifying factor comes from the sudden realisation that, with each death, the health bar decreases, eventually leaving players with barely enough life to survive a single strike. As if that weren’t enough, health replenishment is extremely scarce at first. Characters are created with no Estus to their name, and once they finally get their hands on a flask, only a single health replenishing gulp is left in the bottle. Thankfully, this number can be increased by collecting shards of Estus scattered across the planes of Drangleic, the sprawling world in which Dark Souls II is set, yet such meagre incremental growth means it can be hard going early on in the game.
It’s a good thing From Software aren’t completely heartless (we hope) as they’ve bought in some new functions to allow for these changes. To make up for the cruel Estus trick, Life Gems can now be found on fallen foes, a “one time use” item that restores health and can often mark the difference between life and death at the hands of a particularly tough boss. On top of this, if a character dies enough times around the same bonfire, a few enemies will be removed in order to make player progress a little more achievable. However, like most things in Dark Souls, this comes as a double edged sword, for the same function applies to those trying to excessively farm souls for easy levels. By far the biggest allowance the team have made for players is the inclusion of the Soul Vessel, a droppable item that enables a complete character respec, which means If you’ve poured too many points into a skill you never use, it’s not necessarily permanent. UNDER LOCK AND KEY >> The amount of helpful items a player will receive in certain areas can mostly be attributed to luck in the beginning. Dark Souls II heralds the addition of Pharros’ Lockstones, a rectangular object that can be inserted into one of many sealed locks throughout the land. Upon doing so, players might be rewarded with all manner of treasures, such as a glorious ring or a Human Effigy (a crucial item that reverses hollowing). Sometimes these doors will open a shortcut or even go so far as to reveal a new covenant or hidden boss. On the other side of things, an unfortunately placed Lockstone can lead to a sadistically underwhelming room or, even worse, a deathtrap. Dark Souls offered one of the blackest developer jokes in gaming history, namely the first time a treasure chest rose up and swallowed the player whole, and you can be sure that this sense of humour, as dark as it may be, has been transferred to the latest title.
THE POINTY END >> The Souls series has always boasted an impressive array of weapons, but the amount on offer in Dark Souls II is truly staggering. Not only can players now choose to effectively fight with dual weapons, but no two weapons act the same way, setting grounds for a wide variety of different combat options. A Longsword, for example, will begin its light swing with an overhead sweep, moving to a series of vertical attacks, while the Heide Knight sword begins with an arced slice from the ground up, retaining the horizontal axis for the remainder of its swings. It may sound simple, but having a fresh animation for each individual weapon strongly affects the way enemies are handled, making or breaking an encounter. Old favourites make a triumphant return, such as the anime-sized Zweihänder, but new additions are just as iconic. The Twin Blade, a double edged blade staff, allows you to perform a whole manner of showboating moves reminiscent of a medieval Darth Maul. It may be useless in a confined space, but surrounded by enemies in the open… well, that’s a different story.
Weapons and armour now automatically repair themselves at bonfires, but once broken, must be taken to a blacksmith to repair. This doesn’t carry the same weight it once did (I’m thinking of a particular moment where I, trapped in the middle of Dark Souls’ Blight Town, first found out that weapons could break) as fast travel between bonfires makes long distance trips a much less daunting affair. HEXCELLENT >> A new type of magic, known simply as Dark, enters the fray, with Drangleic drawing those with shadowed hearts towards its shores. For brawlers, weapons can now be imbued with the power of Dark, as is the case with Fire, Lightning, Magic etc, but for casters, it’s a whole new ball game. Hex scrolls play off both your Faith and Intelligence attributes, but what makes them unique is their ability to scale depending on how many souls you attribute to each use. A healing Hex, for example, can heal with greater efficiency the more souls you pool into it, or a Dark attack can be truly overwhelming wen an abundance of souls are used to fuel the flames. Scrolls and weapons are available from those practiced in the arts who, while physically aren’t animated as much as they could be, are voiced exceptionally well, and bestow much more information about themselves and the world than in the previous games.
A WALK IN THE DARK >> In the lead up to Dark Souls II’s release, panic spread when co-director Yui Tanimura’s described the latest title as “more accessible” than previous installments. His words, misconstrued to mean “easier”, had loyalists in outrage that such deep fantasy would suddenly resort to hand holding, feeding players information instead of making them search for it. After spending 40+ hours with the game, it’s clear that this is not the case. Dark Souls II ups the ante in many respects. It’s a solid game that, while being brutally hard, is far from broken. While NPCs are much more talkative now, they only do so to kindle the desire for knowledge, encouraging players to delve into the lore to find the true answers. But most important of all, its clever world design means that when one feels they’ve reached an impasse, there’s always another road to take, encouraging a return when they’ve grown stronger, more skilled, or better equipped to handle the challenges that hound them. I believe this, above all, is the secret to the Souls formula. Hard for hard’s sake is never welcome, but a true challenge? Now that’s something to die for. 9/10 Verdict: A well-paced, immersive RPG that is constantly challenging, but never impossible. As published in Hyper Magazine #247.