Recent reviews by Kaz

Its a masterpiece, Not many games can drive me to explore as usually I go from point A to point B as quickly as possible. This game forces you to explore to find interesting gear and punishes you for not preparing to conquer areas ahead. However, while doing that exploring never feels like a chore. You never feel like "god just let me go through already" the enemy placements will at first, force you to stop and look ahead and make you think about how to challenge them. The game also doesn't hand you any wins, there are no participation trophies here, everything you collect in this game you earned. whether it be 10 souls from killing a rat or it is a boss weapon that you forged from beating the boss that took you 50 tries to beat.

The enemy design is very simple at times with wyverns, rats, skeletons etc. but at other times it is also very intriguing and some of the most abstract designs in video games with bosses and other major enemies. This is a plus as when you see a very unique design in the game it serves as a warning, and it also drives your curiosity to find out how it fights but more importantly, how you can beat it.

This game also makes you feel like an adult, it tells you the controls and nothing else. Everything you need to figure out on your own. You need to explore and find things that tell you where to go, whether they be NPCs or the description on items. The only thing limiting you in this game is your drive to explore and learn more about the world.

Let me paint a picture for you:
You've attempted this fight 30 times each time falling short. You make your way back to the boss arena, you've mastered the area before it maximizing your health entering the boss fight. The music kicks in, a beautiful orchestra accompanied by a choir of operatic chants. The stage is set, you know all of the bosses moves, you know exactly how the fight is going to go, you planned your strategy ahead of time, you use your buffing item that you learned the boss is weak to by reading the texts in the game and inferring with the knowledge you've accumulated over countless battles. The only thing to do now, is execute your plan to perfection. You start out strong dodging his moves and weaving in some counter attacks but you get a little greedy and get punished for it. your down, but not out. you fall back to recover but the boss doesn't let up. he keeps pushing you and you find yourself crumbling under the pressure, your plan is faltering. You pull off some miracle dodges and the boss finally calms down enough for you to stabilize. you get your bearings back, the buffs wore off but you still have plenty of life You start taking it slower, only going for 2 hits when you feel you can go for 3. slowly the boss is whittled down. The health bar is so low now. only a couple more hits and its over. you push your advantage you dodge aggresively. you swing, swing, swi- the boss counter attacks, waiting for the moment you got greedy and he hits you hard. your down to your last legs. both of you 1 combo away from death. the blood is pumping, the fear of having to do this again, the adrenaline of being so close to victory everything is telling you different things you cant get a thought into your head without contradicting it. "play safe, run in, dodge and counter, bait an attack" all of your options are in your head, the bosses hasnt done anything as if hes waiting for you to crumble under your own fear so he can finish you off. Then as the music swells, he charges in. the move you've seen countless times before, the move you've sworn to never die to again comes. you know exactly how to dodge it, where to optimally position your self after it to guarantee a counter hit. You feel it in your soul. you dodge, counter. its not enough your one hit away, the boss charges up his next attack, its coming, you have no time to decide what to do "dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ?" in under a second this one question bounces in your mind countless times you give in to your instincts and right as the bosses weapon is going to hit you, you swing your weapon and strike him down. You've conquered not only the boss but your doubts as well, you overcame it. the relief kicks in its finally over, the battle is won, but more still awaits.

This is why dark souls is a masterpiece

Dark souls II is a departure from the souls formula in the worst way possible.

Before going into the negatives I would like to say the positives

Its Different
This game breaks so many of Dark souls rules that it can be a breath of fresh air, so many things are different from game mechanics, travel, level design that you can't deny that it isn't just a copy and paste of DS1 it is a completely unique game.

More Understandable Story
In DS1 you are near forced to read lore on gear you gather in order to actually understand what is going on. here there are actual people around that build the lore of the story. the addition of the fire keeper dialogue adds enough direction to make you feel enticed to go places and kill bosses other than "This is a game I must explore" hearing someone describe a place and then arriving their, and filling in the context clues that THIS was the place they meant was actually really fun and kept me intrigued

Visually appealing bosses
In true DS fashion they kept the bosses the main attraction, almost all of them are extremely unique and incredibly intricate designs for the time. each's moveset always had a moment where I went "THEY CAN DO THAT?" which speaks not only to the creative direction of the game but the way they superseded the technology they had at the time

Creative decisions
This isn't really about the game but if you weren't aware this is the only game that miyazaki DIDN'T work on. I think stepping away and seeing what others could do with the game you created is an interesting idea that not many others would even think of doing. many would be to afraid to be shown up or even to scared to watch their baby get ruined, miyazaki took this chance to see what others could do so that he could get new ideas and come at his next games Bloodborne and DS3 with completely different views.

However this game is ROUGH

Changes
This game tried too hard to change from DS its apparent that they wanted DS2 to stick out, to be remembered but it tries too hard to do that completely changing mechanics that were hard wired into DS like the weight system and Invincibility frames added an unwanted level of difficulty, in a wrong way. Often times the difficulty that I imposed on myself was never "could I clear this area" it was "do I want to" this often lead to me blitzing past mobs and getting chased by up to 8 creatures at a time, this was fun for me. what wasn't fun was when I was forced to sit there and pull agro from each creature because the fog wall doesnt give me invicibility frames anymore (Shrine of Amara).

Difficulty
DS2's difficulty is actually unnacceptable for a souls game. Now I know what you're thinking "But you just said you had a hard time navigating the places right before the fog walls" to which I'll agree, those were often the HARDEST PART OF THE GAME. which is awful. Dark souls was known for its boss fights, in Dark souls the BOSS was the hardest part of an area (most of the time, shout out pinwheel) on your first playthrough of DS by the time you beat the boss you were able to expertly maneuver the area from the bonfire to the boss with taking minimal damage. not because it was easy, it was because you died to the boss so many times. you had run the same stretch 20+ times in some cases. I beat every DS2 boss within 3 tries. This is not a "oh my god im too good for this kiddy game" moment. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck at souls games, its why I love them. it took me 55 tries to beat quelagg in ds1 and it took me 183 times to be Malenia in Elden Ring. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck and I 3 tried every boss in the game. at no point did i feel accomplished in beating a boss, at no point did I feel accomplished progressing past an area. To me that is unnacceptable

Level design
I've been over this already but it is a big concern for me that It will get misconstrued, I am not against HARD boss fight entry areas. I just feel it wasn't executed right. most of the time Boss entry ways consisted of 6+ enemies that would either have really fast attacks or a monstrous HP bar. these enemies never really worked in sync to kill you, infact often times It was easy to manipulate the AI because only 2 would take an aggro position against you while the rest remained defensive. It never felt like they belonged in a room with that many enemies. It felt like they knew the bosses were too weak, so in order to artificially inflate the difficulty and keep the overall death numbers closer to the original they just filled rooms with enemies right before the boss. This could of easily have been fixed by making 1-3 really strong enemies right before the boss or giving back I frames to fog walls.

Visuals
SO i said that all the bosses are visually appealing and that is true, however everything in this game (except human non hollowed character models) looks horrendous, every single thing in this game feels like it has a weird foggy filter on it. If you pop any of these designs into Dark souls they'd be near top of the list in visuals for a boss. here they all look muddy and faded. the contrast of this game is nonexistent everything melts together into really ugly blobs of color. there is no real definition on anything and I very rarely (if at all) found myself looking at a place and being like "wow its beautiful"


Overall I would give Dark Souls II a 4.5/ 10

Its a masterpiece, Not many games can drive me to explore as usually I go from point A to point B as quickly as possible. This game forces you to explore to find interesting gear and punishes you for not preparing to conquer areas ahead. However, while doing that exploring never feels like a chore. You never feel like "god just let me go through already" the enemy placements will at first, force you to stop and look ahead and make you think about how to challenge them. The game also doesnt hand you any wins, there are no participation trophies here, everything you collect in this game you earned. whether it be 10 souls from killing a rat or it is a boss weapon that you forged from beating the boss that took you 50 tries to beat.

The enemy design is very simple at times with wyverns, rats, skeletons etc. but at other times it is also very intriguing and some of the most abstract designs in video games with bosses and other major enemies. This is a plus as when you see a very unique design in the game it serves as a warning, and it also drives your curiosity to find out how it fights but more importantly, how you can beat it.

This game also makes you feel like an adult, it tells you the controls and nothing else. Everything you need to figure out on your own. You need to explore and find things that tell you where to go, whether they be NPCs or the description on items. The only thing limiting you in this game is your drive to explore and learn more about the world.

Let me paint a picture for you:
You've attempted this fight 30 times each time falling short. You make your way back to the boss arena, you've mastered the area before it maximizing your health entering the boss fight. The music kicks in, a beautiful orchestra accompanied by a choir of chants. The stage is set, you know all of the bosses moves, you know exactly how the fight is going to go, you planned your strategy ahead of time, you use your buffing item that you learned the boss is weak to by reading the texts in the game and inferring with the knowledge you've accumulated over countless battles. The only thing to do now, is execute your plan to perfection. You start out strong dodging his moves and weaving in some counter attacks but you get a little greedy and get punished for it. your down, but not out. you fall back to recover but the boss doesnt let up. he keeps pushing you and you find yourself crumbling under the pressure, your plan is faultering. You pull of some miracle dodges and the boss finally calms down enough for you to stabilize. you get your bearings back, the buffs wore off but you still have plenty of life You start taking it slower, only going for 2 hits when you feel you can go for 3. slowly the boss is whittled down. The health bar is so low now. only a couple more hits and its over. you push your advantage your dodge aggresively. you swing, swing, swi- the boss counter attacks, waiting for the moment you got greedy and he hits you hard. your down to your last legs. both of you 1 combo away from death. the blood is pumping, the fear of having to do this again, the adrenaline of being so close to victory everything is telling you different things you cant get a thought into your head without contradicting it. "play safe, run in, dodge and counter, bait an attack" all of your options are in your head, the bosses hasnt done anything as if hes waiting for you to crumble under your own fear so he can finish you off. Then as the music swells, he charges in. the move you've seen countless times before, the move you've sworn to never die to again comes. you know exactly how to dodge it, where to optimally position your self after it to guarantee a counter hit. You feel it in your soul. you dodge, counter. its not enough your one hit away, the boss charges up his next attack, its coming, you have no time to decide what to do "dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ? dodge or hit ?" in under a second this one question bounces in your mind countless times you give in to your instincts and right as the bosses weapon is going to hit you, you swing your weapon and strike him down. You've conquered not only the boss but your doubts as well, you overcame it. the relief kicks in its finally over, the battle is won, but more still awaits.

This is why dark souls is a masterpiece

there is a certain point as a gamer where you find your self diving into degeneracy just to see if you can comeback out again and if you can make it through this series of games and comeback out you sir are a truer soul than me.

games have a few bugs but none are ever game breaking and each entry into the series gets better and better showing an actual drive for improvement as opposed to shoveling out a hentai game for money.

great art
replayable
Challenging
simple

If you like grinding out gear so that you can do optimal damage in raids this is the game for you

is good game

(In my first payday 2 heist and sees cloaker)
HOLY SHI-THWACK
well than this is officially the best game on earth