The final battle is now upon us. There would certainly still be something to discover here and there, but I am tired, tired of battles. I want to rest… I want to sleep, I don’t want to be part of this existence anymore. My last trip to Eleum Loyce made me think a little. I envy the priestess who was allowed to rest there. At the same time, the chaos frightened me, so many souls in this world that never find peace and always have the same routine for years or centuries. Eternally at war, eternally in battle…. am I in hell? Is this what awaits those found unworthy?
Am I unworthy? Why do I have to fight the same enemies again and again, why do I come back, why the others?
Why do I have no exit? Above all, why am I alone? No colourful hustle and bustle, no other souls having fun and laughing. Only torture, death and struggle. And then when you’ve been beaten or hit someone, they come back. That doesn’t make any sense. A victory or a defeat is worth nothing…. it is revised here in the next second.
Oh Lord help me, give me a light, a spark to follow. I am alone and do not know where to go.
I will go, somewhere and think. Find a meaning, a pattern, an explanation for this treadmill of suffering.
OOC: I know there are two more addons, but I don’t want to play the other addons. I found Eleum Loyce very challenging and I had to concentrate so hard not to make a mistake that the fun was lost. I just wanted to get through Eleum Loyce and finish the final boss. I hardly had time to enjoy the environment because you are constantly put under pressure. Of all the Dark Souls parts, I always have the feeling in the second part that I am not wanted in the game. Everything is against you. One trap is nastier than the other. As if the developer was thinking, how can we make the player’s experience even more unpleasant. As if the developer/designer is looking over my shoulder and laughing up their sleeve at every misstep on my part.
I love Dark Souls 1 and 3, but the second one really fails to excite me even after a long time. The environments and ideas are nice, but the game mechanics are often the main problem. You hang somewhere, the camera doesn’t let you see everything properly or you hang your toe on a ledge and can’t get away. The combat itself is very undynamic, when the opponent hits you, you almost always get the follow-up hit. Combos from the opponent can rarely be interrupted, the stamina scale from the opponent seems to be infinite (if available at all). Whether I have Poise on top or not hardly seems to make a difference.
It also bothered me that the bosses didn’t shine with sophistication but rather with additional adds. In general, the game shines through constant groups of opponents, maybe it was easier to code because you don’t need a lot of intelligence for the players opponent, you just use mass. It’s the duels against individual opponents that appeal to me. Playing with each other and trying to find and use weak points. With several opponents it simply doesn’t matter, you’re busy running away or pulling the opponents out of the group. It’s a shame somehow, Dark Souls 2 has good beginnings, but somehow it falls completely out of the trilogy.
The cleric itself was very disappointing as a class. I probably thought hey, he was cool in Elden Ring, he was cool in Dark Souls 1 and 3, maybe in the second one. Fiddlesticks, I wasted my points in Faith and got nothing for it. The healing is useless in combat, the lightning rarely does good damage on bosses and the self buff (one) is not worth the investment in points. It would have made more sense to put the points into life, strength or payload.
Dark Souls 2 seems like a beta version to me, even after a long break.
I’m still hoping for a Dark Souls 2 remake that fixes the problems with the handling and graphics of part 3 or even Elden Ring…you can still dream.
