Dark Souls II

                                  
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After finishing one of the legendary rpgs ever, Dark Souls 2, I decided to make a review on it. Dark Souls 2 is an action role-playing game developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco Games in the year 2014. It's the 2nd entry in the franchise named Dark Souls. Or you can say it's the 3rd entry in Souls series as a game named Demon's Souls was released before starting Dark Souls franchise developed by the same devs. But devs cleared that these two games aren't same franchise. Anyway Demon's Souls and Dark Souls is well-known for it's large amount of difficulty. But my opinion is that Dark Souls 2 is more awesome than it's difficulty.

Plot and Storyline ::

The game lets the player to control a character customized by the player itself. It takes place in a cursed land named Drangelic. It is a land that is cursed by the undead. You might wonder that what is actually undead. Well, by the game's information undead is a human who is never truely dead. When it dies it will turn hollow. But it can be human again by using a potion named Human Effigy. The story of this game is difficult to understand. It cost me several searches on google to get a bit of this story. You may do the same if it draws your attention. Anyway the protagonist has two objectives. Get souls... more and even more souls (why it needs souls? We will come to this part later) and cure the curse led by the undead. Well, to explain the story I have to say a bit of the ending of Dark Souls 1. (Spoilers Ahead) In dark souls 1 players have the same objectives and in the ending, the protagonist has two choices, either sacrifice yourself to cure the curse or be the king of undeads and rule the world. But in Dark Souls 2 we learn that whatever you do in ds1 ending really doesn't matter. Because even if you sacrifice yourself the curse will be cured just for a little time. In ds2 you have to get on a journey to Drangelic Castle where is the Throne Room located. I don't really know what is this throne room or why you have to go there. And even if I know... I'm not telling... it's yours to find out what he/she does. Does he/she sacrifice itself again for the cure from the undead curse, or something else is waiting.... Many difficulties lies in the path. Many allies will assist you in this journey. But the way ahead is still very hard....

Gameplay ::

As an rpg, it doesn't have much activities like other rpgs. But there is a strange addiction in this game. I don't know what's the reason. In the beginning you can customize your own player character. You can customize it's own face. And of course the class your character will be in. For example:- if you choose 'Warrior' then your character will be trained in melee weapons and heavy armors. And if you choose 'Mage' then the character will be trained in spells and various range attacks with light armors. This game is weird than the most rpgs. It can take sometime for a player to understand the game properly. But sometimes weird can be the best! Throughout your journey the player character's equipment depends on the player. The enemies in this game are not so hard. But underestimating them will be a big mistake. Because when you die you will become hollow and the amount of HP you can retain will be decreasing as many times you die. But a Human Effigy can reverse the hollow and turn you into a human again. But wasting these is a bad idea because the amount of human effigies found in this game is very little. And also you will lose all of your souls when you die. Souls are the only way to upgrade your character, buying armors/weapons or anything that can be done by giving something in return. Well after dying, the souls can be obtained again from the specific place of the character's death. But if you die again before collecting them, all of those will be lost. There are traps everywhere and enemies can ambush you from any direction. There is a great multiplayer system which was desperately needed. There are many covenants in this game. If you join one of these covenants the other players being members of the ccovenant can help you with many things like boss fights. There are offline NPCs who can help you in boss fights but some of them actually makes the fight more difficult. And because you can join only one covenant at a time, other players being member of other covenants can play against you and ambush you in any moment of the whole game. There are several bonfires in the game. Interacting with it will heal you and your equipment but also respawn the enemies near you. There are about 30 bosses in this game. 4 of them has a great soul. And they have got the same great souls as 4 great souls we get in ds1. But we aren't going to that topic now. Let us continue to ds2.

No matter how great is a game, it does lack something... As in Dark Souls 2 there are some disappointments. Because in some ways ds2 didn't live upto it's expectations. Dark Souls series fans were disappointed for some reasons. The first thing is graphics. The graphics aren't as good as the graphics shown in E3. There was an amazing detail of the light and dark. But ds2 removes it and adds repeated textures in some areas. And it was told to be double the harder than ds1. But honestly it was way easier than ds1. Because you can beat most of the bosses in your very first attempt. And despite the game's name starts with 'Dark', there us actually no darkness in this game. You can easily see in dark unlike what was told in E3. The player was supposed to see only 1/2 meters from him/herself while in dark. But they can use a torch and a little extend the area the character can see in darkness. Well, in the actual game you really don't need to use any torch. Some guys were able to finish this game without using the torch a single time. But there are 2 places where you need a torch. But if you go to the settings and increase the brightness instead of lighting a torch, it will easily fill the spot of torch. There is a definitive edition of this game coming this year which will most likely give us everything they showed us in E3. But the game is still great. The graphics is still good and there are more places to explore than ds1. I would like to give it my rating of 9.3/10. Because I'm not really a fan of rpg genre. If I were then I would have given it 9.8/10 or something. Guys who haven't played demon's souls or dark souls may not like it. But I loved it though I haven't played any of Souls series except this one. Just remember one thing if your going to play it that YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.


Minimum System Requirements ::

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2 GHz or Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E8500 3.17 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT, ATI Radeon HD 5870
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 14 GB