Dark Souls 2: "Other Take" Review. 5/10

I thought this was good. Might as well post it.

Gamespot's been doing these "other take" and "updated" reviews, and I'm totally okay with that. This one caught my interest though.

I haven't played it myself, but I wonder what people think that did play it. Is he coming from a reasonable angle, or is this just fishing for hits?

Review

Comment section is going!

Damn I was going to get this game, but this guy gave it a 5, so it's complete garbage and not worth a minute of my time.

LOL Just joking, I was never going to get this game.

Lets see why this got a 5......

I'm sure this will go over well

they should do a retake on donkey kong, but they probably won't because it won't get too many clicks

Sounds about right.

Oh man they are desperate to get some site traffic going.

Interesting take, but he doesn't seem cut out for RPGs at all if he thinks the levelling system is confusing.

He didn't even finnish the game. Anyway... Sounds like he's saying levelling up is both necessary and a waste of time. Thats just weird.

The goods should be the negative. The combat is pretty poor when you can only hit them once after their attacks. Then you have bosses taking forever to beat by their high defense and health as well the amount of damage they do. Its ridiculous that normal enemies can do more damage than the biggest boss in Dark Souls 1 and I run with the Wanderer set in that game. The sad part is I rather play this game than most games recently released.during the holiday.

Then you have the stamina regen being slow even with the ring equipped and bosses and enemies taking only a second to recover. I don't know why game sequels with different directors have a hard time figuring how the mechanics work.

Mw3

Ninja Gaiden 3

Resident Evil

You name it.

very generous score

More generous than the Rockets >:P

@_Matt_

Well to be fair it is confusing if Grinding hardly makes a difference but not grinding puts you behind the curve. I mean if it was my 1st time and I just got insta killed or have to wear an enemy down then I too would assume boosting my stats would yield a noticable result.... Most people eventually learn they should level up their equipment not their character, Character leveling seems to act like a buffer/modifier, something the game should make clear to the player BEFORE they sink 20 hours into it.

That doesnt even make sense. Its like you losers aren't even trying with your Rockets insults.

Gamespot is really getting pathetic. Why would you let a guy who hasn't even gotten halfway through the game right a full blown review for it? His complaints are just incredibly idiotic. He tried burning the human effigy at the bonfire to restore his humanity? Ugh, did he not bother to read the item description where it tells you "consume to restore humanity" and "burn at a bonfire to keep unwanted visitors [other people] away?" Why would I trust the opinion of someone who didn't even have a basic grasp of the game?

I love how people in the comments section are all guffawing over themselves--"yeah! Finally a Dark Souls review that sticks it to it for not being a fucking breezy, hand-holding game!! YEEEAHH!!" Fucking gamers these days; go back to your shitty corridor TPSs filled with cutscenes and giant arrows telling you where to go all the time. Is that elitist to say? Yes, and I don't give a shit because you people just plain fucking suck at gaming. Gaming is all about overcoming challenges, not watching a movie.

@Lulu_Lulu:

The problem with that is the good equipment are not available early in the game. In Dark Souls you can get lucky if the Dark Knight drops a weapon or get the Balder Side Sword in the beginning of the game.

I thought this was just traffic-bait, which it still is, but I thought it'd be pandering to the peeps with angst for DS2 but a hard-on for DS1. Turns out it's just a newcomer getting lost, which is totally believable. The game tried to be accessible, but still fails miserably. Some of the complaints felt like he wasn't paying attention fully though, which is a big mistake in a Souls game.

He only faced 5 bosses too, and probably missed a ton of bonfires/shortcuts by the sounds of things. So yea, weird that his review was even given space. What's the point? In 20 hours of playtime, he didn't really learn to play. And while leveling isn't that important, how he is still stuck doing small damage is beyond me.

@cfisher2833

Its not that simple... Many games have the capacity to be even more difficult than DarkSouls. The problem with Dark Souls is it has an extremely high skill floor yet its skill ceiling isn't much higher than its skill floor meaning its a difficulty game to learn but not so difficulty to master thanks to the short skill gap. as opposed to other games that have low skill floors and high skill ceilings.... This means its easy to learn and get into but mastering it will be a challenge, other games also have difficulty settings that allow you to adjust its skill gap. Truth be told.... 60 hours is all it takes to master it.... Every hour beyond that is just memorizing or trial and error.

It seemed reasonable, but scoring a game that's not finished is dumb. Just write the review and leave out a score.

I'd give it a low score right now (like a 6 or 7) but not because of his points, more just because I've not managed to gain a single ounce of enjoyment from the 13 hours I've put into it. None of the areas are interesting so far, none of the bosses are interesting, the new healthy system is dumb and every enemy is stupidly aggressive which means you have to walk around everywhere at 1 mile per hour just so you don't get mobbed by 300 people if you walk too far round a corner.

I enjoyed Dark Souls once I got into it but this just isn't doing anything for me.

@ZombeGoast

Well that sucks.... But thats what Dark Souls is all about. ;) or so I hear.

@cfisher2833: Gaming is about having fun. Some like challenges others like movies. Not everyone likes the same things you do. This also isn't a "full blown review" it's just a second opinion. In no way is it supposed to be a complete review to replace the original.

Damn him for having an opinion that differs from my own!

Oh man... seems like they pulled poor Justin away from CoD and forced him to play Dark Souls 2 and write a review on it.

I've also seen this reaction with my friends who don't like games like these, and they have totally hated Dark Souls. It's definetly not everyones cup of tea.

No, it doesn't. The difference between Dark Souls and most RPGs is that in Souls games there aren't trash mobs that are merely there for to make you feel good about yourself because you were able to rampage through them while barely paying any attention. Any enemy can kill you if you're just carelessly rushing through. Dark Souls requires patience and focus, not tons of skill.

" I tried burning human effigies at bonfires to restore my humanity and get my health back, but it didn't seem to have any effect. And I really wanted to know when I'd learn to use the magic I'd bought from a merchant a while back."

The guy knows absolutely nothing about and this review is based on the fact that he knows nothing. Maybe if the idiot read what burning effigies really does he wouldn't be so fvcking terrible.

Whoever wrote the review is completely clueless how to even play the game.

But DS > DS2

I was expecting to see a review by a DS1 fanboy but I was disappointed.

Anyway, it seems that this guy wants every little detail explained to him. It doesn't take too long to understand the game mechanics, just a few hours of gameplay should be enough. You explore your character's capabilities in battle, and this isn't a bad thing, just a different approach.

While it's obviously 100% clickbait why this even got posted.

Dark Souls isn't a series for everyone, many people enjoy being able to get lost/confused/challenged and not have the game pop up and hold their hand through the difficult times. Some people enjoy having to puzzle the story together themselves it's not "Indesipherable" it's very open ended and let's the players craft their own opinions and allows the community (I know shocker that a mostly single player experience has a community) to build up a knowledge base and share it with others.

The Souls series is a unique one where the developers craft a world and unleash the players into it with little to no knowledge of it's mechanics, story, or even reason for it's existence. Players are giving a string of the story to follow and have to peice together what the hell happened like how a real person would have to in the situation, they will end up with their own version of the story that may be innacurate but it's "Still real to me damnit!".

There is a type of player that thrives in this environment, it's not made to be a game for everyone and that's why it can be so damn good. Many games have the problem of trying to pander to every person on the planet and they end up being unable to focus on any type of audeince so the game comes out being bland, lacks depth, challenge, that other playes would find to be a hinderance or confusing.

Christ look at Call of Duty, the game is sucsessfull because it's generic, they know how to pander to the every-man. Does that mean that it's the only great FPS out there?

Nope.

Why do you still think tons of people still dick around on the original Counterstrike?

In short, I agree with his review in some areas the game isn't made for everyone and he has every right to be a grumpy guss about it. However what the Souls series does is it knows it's market, and caters to them amazingly. I'd give Dark Souls 2 a 7-8 but not because I dislike the game itself it's amazing but there really is alot of polish that the game could have to make it amazing.

If the rumors are true and project "Beast" is Dark Souls 2, hopefully we will get to see the polish on graphics, lighting, mechanics that the series desperatly needs.

This is like me giving a sports game a bad reveiw because I don't understand the rules of the game itself....

This guy was using a longsword for the entirety of the game.

It's obviously a troll-bait review (something GameSpot does about once a month or so), but I'm loving the elitist responses to the reviews. It's fucking hilarious seeing people in the comments sections scream "NOOB!" and "GO BACK TO COD, YOU CASUAL!" like they're somehow better for an enjoying a "hardcore" game. It's the same shit anyone that doesn't gush with love for the Souls games goes through whenever they say they don't like the damn game.

I don''t think I need to tell anyone this, but that was an absolutely horrible second look mired in ignorance.

Seems like a joke review. I understand if people don't like the Souls games but this? Come on...

"The game's simple stamina system makes sense, but it almost forces you to die to figure it out. Attacking, running, and pretty much every other action use some portion of stamina, but I expected that I'd be safe and able to recover while hiding behind my shield. Not only does defending make stamina refill more slowly, you also lose stamina when deflecting incoming blows. That's not a problem in itself, but it would've been more satisfying to have those facts clearly laid out instead of trying to figure out why I was still getting slaughtered by enemies despite having a sturdy shield to defend myself."

Anybody with half a brain should figure that out within like 2 seconds. How clearly does he need it to be explained? And this...

"Dozens of levels and significant equipment upgrades later, and the enemies who formerly took three blows to kill still took three blows to kill."

...sounds like a flat out lie or a huge amount of stupidity. All in all it was painful to read.

Eh I would probably agree with him in some ways, but he should just make this as a blog rather than a review with a score if he hasn't done so much in it. Demon Souls was so hard to get into for me that I just couldn't continue after multiple tries, and I doubt the Dark Souls games will be any different.

It's sad times :(

god forbid games be abit oscure in their intentions, challenging and non-handholding.

I like the subtle way the souls games give you information and story.

Modern gamers are all about "walk down this single corridor...... beat a boss which is explained beforehand and has save states at every hit ... then watch cutscene" ... the sony first party way.

Sounds a bit like me after first trying Dark Souls 1 for the first time. Then I came back and realized how wrong I was.

He does make some valid points though, the fact they don't explain how/where to level up is really stupid

If anything this shows that the Souls series can't really introduce new players and instead have to survive off the elitist fanboys.

I don't see this as a review for the game, i see it more as review of the players performance. This reviewer did 5/10 on Dark Souls 2. For shame.

We really pissed him off the other day with that, lol.

Exactly.

The developer assume you play Demon and Dark soul it has aspect of both game. If you have not play one of them, then will be confusing. If you not play either of them...

But yes game has many problem. Half team missing from other Soul game.

You did?

Providing another take is a "desperate" means to get traffic? Sounds like a conspiracy. SW never fails to amuse.

Reviewer is a ceritifed idiot. This is 100% clickbait.

There are legit criticisms for Dark Souls 2. You could give it a 7/10 because of Soul Memory alone. But those cons are stupid reasons that hint that the reviewer needs to git gud.

The Emerald Herald is right at the first bonfire in Majula, I have no idea how you would not know how to level up if you tried talking to her.

Wow.

Think I skimmed over that bit...

But just wow.

The item even has a description saying what it does... AAAND it warns you that burning it has irreversible consequences.

Yes it does. It goes to show Gamespot has once again picked someone out of left field on their staff who's not into these kind of games, to play it, suck at it and give it a second hand low review score for clickbait.

Pretty much.

I mean I have no qualms with people if they decide it's worth 5/10, but ONLY if they give it that score with it being a game they are genuinely interested in, and at least try to understand it; and only if they have given it sufficient time and attention.

None of this seems to apply to our reviewer here.

Why didn't GTA online get a 5 in their other take review ?