Game Knight Review: Dark Souls 2

I’m fighting against a skeleton wielding a large greatsword in the Forest of Fallen Giants. I roll out of its way to dodge its first attack and immediately parry a second one with my shield. With my enemy off balance, I quickly get in a couple of slashes with my broadsword and get his health down almost to zero. At this point, I’m feeling confident that the fight is almost done as I roll out of the way of the skeleton’s next attack. But, to my horror, I realize too late that I am close to the edge of a long drop. Thus, in ignominious fashion, the fight ends with my character going over the edge and falling to his death.

And all the souls I’ve collected are now lost and cannot be retrieved. 

Mouse flies in one direction, the keyboard flies in the other, and somehow there is a fist-sized hole in the monitor.

It seems that frustration is the currency that developer From Software likes to deal in when it comes to the Dark Souls franchise. And Dark Souls 2 is no exception. Many were the times we became frustrated. But perhaps not for the reasons many who have played, or will play, the game will expect. 

But we’ll address that later.

There were many reasons to like Dark Souls 2. Its graphics happened to be one of those reasons. The game’s visuals were pleasing to the eye, even though the atmosphere was melancholic. PC gamers will appreciate the fact that they can go into the video settings and adjust resolution, texture, water surface, effects, and shadow quality, among other options, to the desired setting to make the game look great. However, I was disappointed at the game’s limited character creation although, to be fair, there are a lot of awesome-looking armor sets that will cover the character up.

Coupled with the graphics was the tone of the game. The land of Drangleic was depressing and foreboding. We never knew what was going to happen whenever we stepped through a door or walked around a corner. As if fighting all the undead, monsters, and bosses in the game weren’t hard enough, traps and ambushes were a staple in Dark Souls 2 that kept us on our toes the entire time. 

There were also many secrets and hidden areas to be found that were not immediately noticeable. This made the journey through the land an enjoyable one since we liked to explore and discover things that would go unnoticed to the casual eye. It also added to the mystique and terror we felt as we pondered the risks and rewards of straying off the beaten path in hopes of useful items and, of course, more souls.

Those souls we collected were the currency of the game. Not only were souls needed to purchase gear and level up, it also helped our undead character, a Knight which is one of eight classes we could pick from, maintain his humanity. As an undead, there was a curse that slowly erases the character’s memories unless they could collect these souls. So we were tasked to collect regular souls and four great souls. While the reasons for this were unveiled as we progressed through the game, we found it to be a rather fragmented and obscure story that was almost forgettable and not very engrossing.

Yet while the game looks good, has a great atmosphere, and kept us occupied and challenged the entire time, there were many reasons we became frustrated while playing the game. Reasons that didn’t have to do with the fact that we would keep dying over and over again. If you play roguelike games, then you will be fine with dying and failing multiple times over. 

But the very first thing that frustrated us were the button prompts. All button prompts in the game were for a controller rather than the mouse and keyboard. For example, we were left trying to figure out what the equivalent of the “A” (Shift + Left click) button for the game was. Because of this, we had to constantly open up the menu and look to see what was the M/KB command to perform certain actions. And for someone who only uses the M/KB configuration, this was a major oversight on the part of the developer. 

As for the M/KB layout, reconfiguring will definitely be required for a better gameplay experience. That is, unless you were born with three hands because the button layout ranges from the WASD keys for movement, to the “O” button if you want to lock on to an enemy during combat, to the arrow keys for scrolling through equipped items. We were also left scratching our heads at the fact that the developer hadn’t even utilized the number keys above the QWERTY keys. If that weren’t enough, we couldn’t even bind any actions to the fourth and fifth buttons of our mouse.

This means that Dark Souls 2 is partially optimized for the M/KB control scheme. From Software needed to do a better job with the M/KB layout and offer an option to switch out the controller prompts for the M/KB equivalent to avoid confusion and frustration from PC gamers. The developer may recommend the controller for Dark Souls 2, but there was no reason to treat the primary way many PC gamers control their games in this way. There is simply no excuse. Not when other third-person action games such as The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (which can be played first-person as well), and Clan of Champions can do a good job of utilizing the versatility of the mouse and keyboard. 

Then there was the issue we had with the game’s combat, a key selling point for the franchise and its acclaimed difficulty. For a game that requires perfect timing to parry an enemy’s attack, or land a blow of our own, we noticed a half-second delay between clicking our mouse button and our character carrying out the attack. While this might be attributable to the fact that the light (one click) and strong (two clicks) attacks are bound to the same key, it once again shows the developer’s error for not properly utilizing the control scheme and an egregious omission on its part. Especially since a special attack like Bash requires the player to press “W” and the light attack button (left mouse button) at the same time. 

Another reason for our frustration was a glitch we encountered in our very first attempt at playing the game. At the time we thought nothing of this glitch, or even considered it such. But eventually we discovered that we could only equip the starting weapon in our left hand and that, whenever we would try to do the same with the right, nothing would register and we would fight with our bare hands. The weapon would be equipped but, as far as the game was concerned, there was nothing there. So when we finally discovered a shield several hours later, we discovered that we could equip the shield in our left, but couldn’t equip a weapon in our right. 

Suffice to say, we had to start the game all over.

While at first this seemed to be a glitch that happened at the start of a new game, we discovered that this was not the case. During another playthrough, we recreated the same glitch simply by equipping a shield in our right hand and trying to equip a weapon in the left. Then, when we switched both items, the glitch returned. Which meant we had to start all over again if we wanted to play as a Knight who wields a sword and shield. 

(Note: We’ve also heard that quite a few players have experienced crashes with the game. However, we never experienced a single crash during our playthrough.)

Finally, we come to Dark Souls 2’s limited combat system. At first, we initially disliked it. It was contrived to create and increase the game’s difficulty that wasn’t necessarily needed. We didn’t like the fact that our Knight had to carry two different types of swords for when we would fight in open or enclosed spaces. For example, a shortsword was needed to fight in enclosed spaces so we could use a thrusting attack while a longsword would be used in order to make slashing attacks that could hit multiple enemies in an open space. Both of these weapons are in the category of straight swords and, according to the description, should be able to thrust and slash. Yet, clearly, that is not the case with the longsword which can only slash.

Maybe we’re just nitpicking. We will admit that as we continued to play through the game, we became attuned to the way combat works. But this is probably a case of Stockholm Syndrome because we can now say that we are starting to appreciate Dark Souls 2’s combat system. 

However, it is nowhere near the best we have ever experienced. Not when we compare it to the combat systems of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy that were mentioned earlier. 

But neither is it the worst we have ever experienced.

Those who enjoy the combat system, however, will certainly like Dark Souls 2 for both its singleplayer and multiplayer campaigns. We were able to work together with other players to fight the game’s bosses or even invade another person’s game and fight them. 

Overall, Dark Souls 2 is a fine game. But it will be frustrating for many PC gamers who use a mouse and keyboard to play (unless modders or the developer itself improves it). It will also be frustrating for those who might not have the patience to learn the ins and outs of the game. But for those who will enjoy it, you will spend a lot of time in the land of Drangleic. Not just by exploring and fighting by yourself, but cooperating with other players or even hindering others when you invade their game.

Score: 7/10

Author’s Note: This review was written for Maximum PC back in April 2014. I still stand behind my review and the score I gave it.

For those who would like to support my work, you can donate via PayPal