A few weeks ago I got the urge to play a Soulsborne. You know the ones, the merciless rock-hard hit videogames popularised by From Software. Your Demon's Souls, your Dark Souls, your singular Bloodborne and Sekiro and Elden Ring and so on. I blame the last one myself, the Elden Ring DLC came out recently and footage of it has been all over my Instagram Reels (I'm not nearly with it enough to use Tiktok) and gosh darn it, it returned me to 2015 when I last tried my luck at one of these games. It is also entirely coincidental that 2015 was the year that saw the release of the game I'll be talking about today. All of which is a very long winded way of saying that I've finally gotten around to playing Dark Souls II this month. Prepare for incoming thoughts on the matter...
First some context. Yes it's been a while since I tried one of these games and I have to say I really struggled when I played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls way back when. These games were crushing, punishing and malicious in a way I really didn't get at all. Don't get me wrong there's a lot to like there in terms of the world, the lore and the general desolate run-down fantasy aesthetic but these are not games that wait for you to play catch up, oh no! These are games that explain very little up front and don't care what you know or don't know before it wipes you out with a minimum of ceremony or build-up. Exposition is minimal here, you will learn more about this world from the item descriptions you will read in your inventory than what you will learn from the few people in this world who are not out to put your ass in the ground.
In case its not apparent from the few of you out there who seemingly haven't played these games, you need to be on edge, always and at all times. A very sudden and very violent end can strike at any moment. What was that godawful thing that just ploughed you into dust? How many heads did it have? Why was it carrying a weapon twice the size of myself and oh dear lord that was a weapon right and not just a part of what I thought was their arm? You get the idea, it's the Soulsborne. There's a high difficulty threshold here which places exacting demands on the player. It is something of a wonder that these games have become blockbuster hits but when you actually dive into it, the secret to its success is not altogether difficult to define.
Playing Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, I think it was safe to say I was not ready for this level of challenge going in. It was the early days of the PS4/Xbox One generation and I was clearing out the backlog of the previous generation of console gaming, you know the more things change and so on. So I went into each of these games with an open mind knowing of their reputation and yes I died and I died and I died etc. I then found recommended walkthoughs for these games which advised on the best way to tackle these games and yet I would still die, die and die again. Now I realise this is much of the charm of this genre, the incremental insight you get into the world and its occupants that progressively allows you to make more and more headway into them. Every enemy encounter can end you and every foe warrants your caution and due diligence. Strike, parry and roll out of the way of those hard hits before stabbing them in the back. I don't think the body roll has ever played a more critical part in any other game ever.
Then there are the boss fights, dear lord the boss fights in these games could be an entire game in and of themselves. They come in all forms, they are usually just a little too big, little too fast and little too savvy for comfort. They hulk, they swoop, they roar and they hit so, so very hard. In terms of aesthetics and mechanics, they are all impeccably designed and very much comprise the main event of why people come to these games in the first place. These are well crafted adversaries who give no quarter and don't particular care for the ongoing annoyance that is your existence at all. Despite it being nearly an entire decade since I played the PS3 version of Dark Souls, I still have some very raw recollections of that boss fight with Ornstein and Smough. That was not good times and I'm still not sure how I bested those two. I will presume it was the power of prayer and leave it at that.
Almost like no other game I can think of, the Soulsbornes capture the feeling of winning by the skin of your teeth like no other. The feeling that you only just got the best of the other guy. That one narrowly timed dodge roll was all that saved you from the seeming inevitability of certain death. I think I certainly recognised or at least could see some of the truth in this by the time I finished the first Dark Souls but playing two of these games in a row drained me and there were other games to play before I would sell off the PS3. So I put these games to one side for a good long while as they continued to grow in status. All was well, all was fine so naturally I had to find some way of putting an end to that.
So there I am in early July of 2024 browsing through all the random games in my library when what should catch my eye but Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin. The reworked 'next gen' edition of the original Dark Souls II which itself was also a product of the 360/PS3 generation. Now I blame social media itself, those boss fights in Elden Ring make for great 30 second videos of people getting increasingly exasperated at their inability to close the deal on them. Maybe my memories of those earlier games lied to me? Maybe, just maybe there's a chance at deriving some enjoyment over what appears to be, on the face of it, a harrowing challenge?
So I loaded up this game, started playing it and what happened next greatly surprised me. You see, this was still a challenging game, almost excruciatingly so at times but somehow I found myself enjoying it. Not only that I've found myself digging into the lore and even more astonishingly, barely using any walkthroughs to navigate the whole experience. Now just to be clear this remains a highly difficult gaming experience. The line between success and defeat remains very fine indeed. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, I struggle to reconcile my earlier experience with this one as there is much that remains the same. I think going into it with the mindset that you are going to be unceremoniously crushed into dust helps if only a touch.
There is an elegance to its brutality, with an emphasis on timing and response. Those boss fights are truly a fraught affair but almost all of them click in some way after the first disconcerting attempt to take them on. Through osmosis by sheer panic you subconsciously absorb their attack patterns and respond in kind. That said, screw the Fume Knight, that boss fight was utterly savage until I learned there was an exploit I could employ to keep him from wiping me out. Anyway where was I? Oh yes, exploits. Cheesing the game seems to be almost an entire subculture in and of itself online. Finding the right cheese at the right time to incrementally increase your odds of surviving might not be the most honourable way of engaging your foe but trust me, your sanity will thank you.
It's a game that pays back on the investment you make with it I think. Investigating the various builds, weapons and armour on offer really helped. I could have perhaps saved myself some bother by having a clearer idea of the build I wanted for my character going in but who needs the extra few dozen titanite chunks anyway am I right? The game does give you options even if it is not too troubled to actually explain them to you. Restore your hollowed self back to your human state and you can summon some backup to take with you into these boss fights. There is the usual to and fro online over whether this makes the experience 'true' Dark Souls but I care not, those guys are coming in with me to take the brunt of it whilst I cower in the corner.
The world remains a compelling one, contrasting serene solitude against a sense of a world that is very slowly dying a death. A sense of monumental decline encroaching onto a once grand vista. Constant allusions to an impressively epic lore and backstory. Out of the few coherent characters you will get a fleeting sense of the grander story being told here but naturally there is a wealth of story resources online about what is unfolding in these games. For those less inclined to hunt for it, I imagine it must seem a little baffling or aloof and I imagine those people don't lose any sleep about it as long as demons are getting smited by their ultra greatswords.
So anyway, I enjoyed Dark Souls II. I know its regarded by some as the least worthy of the trilogy because the guy who directed all the other ones only supervised on this one. I think it works though and more to the point its slower pace might have eased me into the game a little better than the games that came before it. As I type this I have only just completed the game and all its DLC. Basking in the warmth of self-satisfaction I now find myself pondering Bloodborne as all the people who love Dark Souls really loved Bloodborne. Maybe not for my next effort but soon I think. I have made a start on Death Stranding but there will be thoughts on that another time I think. The important thing is, these games may have finally won me over after only a mere near decade away from them. A triumph for reality over expectation befitting our troubled times!
Until next time, keep on trucking!
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