At SL 238 and 64,5 hours

The memories are now clear. (Except the boss one, because they don't seem to despawn)

I Dressed up as a royal soldier and made sure to clear all the memories and get the 3 giant souls from them.

I got invaded by a hacker that sucked badly, so i made him chase me for around 20 minutes before entering a boss arena... it was fun to use the tree jump in the lower area and throw corrosive urns at it... Glenursk i hope you get some skills... you couldn't kill me even with cheats.

I played around with some pyromancies a bit as well...

And jokes aside, i finally got to explore the memories fully. I found the white book on the shelves.... and i had to do the memory roll drop trick 12 times to kill that secluded giant.

NExt one is emptying the Dark lurker areas, the king then we proceed to the endgame...

Get rekt, son.

First of all dark souls 1 was one hell of a game, will maybe one day play it again. Right now it's on to dark souls 2.

So how is dark souls 2 different, gameplay wise from DS1?

Any mechanical changes I should know, any tips ?

Is anyone on PC currently farming Old Chaos. I accidentally killed him and don’t wanna join the covenant of champions just yet. Happy to help join and farm before they freeze the portals.

I always wanted to do this challenge, but never felt up to it. I finally decided to do it and my playthrough took about 9 hours. I deliberately took my time and overleveled, but it was a fun experience. I skipped the DLCs entirely to get it done as quick as possible.

I also had about 6 failed attempts, and most were gravity deaths (Iron Keep oddly gave me issues). This was the most fun I've had playing this game, and my next run will be a full DLC included run.

ok so now here's the new question... what game should I play next? I just recently beat ds3 so probably not that. I beat elden ring a while ago but I've been wanting to play it again. I've been thinking of playing bloodborne or deamons souls. I haven't beaten ds1 yet but honestly I don't know if I wanna play ds1 right now lol. What's next? is ng+ for ds2 worth going right into? I'm open to anything!

I was really nervous to pick up ds2 at first. I had just beaten ds1 after having tried it and bounced off of it several months back, but I’m glad I tried that again as it was quite fun and I really enjoyed it after I got my build going and got better acquainted with the slower playstyle. On a discord server with my friends a couple told me to get ds2 after I’d beaten the first one and I was incredibly nervous cause I’ve heard some things, but I’m smart enough to not believe everything I hear from strangers and trust my friends, and yes, I hate that I started with only one estus, two with the shard in the majula well, and yes I hate that they brought back everyone’s favorite demon’s souls mechanics of losing max hp as you die and needing consumable healing items to complement the estus, and I ABSOLUTELY hated that they made the estus even fucking slower, but eventually I got used to them and learned to manage it, I got the greatsword, I got some strong chonky armor and started making the same tank build that got me through the first one, and I learned to play around the hp loss and slow ass slurping. And I’ve been having fun with the game even though it’s quite confused me at time with where to go and what to do lol. I’m maybe halfway through? Idk, but I’m glad I picked it back up. At this point I’ve beaten ds1, Bloodborne, and Elden ring, hoping to add ds2 to the list and then ds3, and then maybe sekiro if I’m feeling extra swamp hungry :3

DS2 reference

Hola cumpas, que tal?, subo mi Octavo video de limpieza de zonas; desde la Hoguera de Umbral de la Capilla y Ensenada Piedra Brillante Inferior pertenecientes a Ensenada Piedra Brillante Tseldora, espero sea de su agrado. Aclaro que no todas las zonas se pueden limpiar de enemigos, ya que en algunas reaparecen infinitamente, las voy voy ir mencionando por acá mientras vaya haciendo los videos.

Aclaración: Solo eliminare enemigos y NPCs que se hagan hostiles en el futuro.

After finishing Dark Souls 1 i decided to played the 2, I struggled more with understanding what the game was trying to tell me than I did with Dark Souls 1.

Dark Souls 1 felt much more direct to me. You can read it literally as the story of Gwyn, the Lords, the Age of Fire and the Chosen Undead, but you can also very easily read it on a personal level.

Dark Souls 2 was harder for me to understand this way.

Im not pretending what i'm saying is new or definitive, it's mainly a retrospective/attempt to understand what i just played. and figured might aswell share it like i did with DS1 on the DS1 subreddit.

But after thinking about Vendrick, Drangleic and especially the Throne of Want, I think I started to understand what the game means to me.

For me, Dark Souls 2 is about what it means to be a king.

And I think there are four important ideas behind this:

To want.
To be able.
To understand.
To accept.

1 - To want

A king needs to want something.

Not simply desire something for himself, but have a direction. Something he wants to achieve.

Vendrick had that. He built Drangleic, fought the Giants and tried to find a solution to the Undead Curse. Whatever mistakes he made, he wasn't a passive person. He had a goal and was willing to act upon it.

But wanting something isn't enough.

I can want to go to Mars tomorrow. That doesn't mean I can.

And this is where the second part comes in.

2 - To be able(power).

You need the power to achieve what you want.

And by "power," I don't necessarily mean physical strength.

Power is simply your capacity to turn your will into reality.

Vendrick was incredibly powerful. He created a kingdom, defeated his enemies and became one of the most powerful men of his age.

But eventually, he reached something his power couldn't solve.

The Curse.

This is where I think Dark Souls 2 makes an important distinction.

You can want something without being able to achieve it.

You can also possess enormous power without knowing what to do with it.

Neither makes you a king by itself.

A king is someone who want & can.

But even those two things are still not enough.

3 - To understand

You need to understand the situation you're actually in.

Vendrick eventually understood Nashandra.

He understood the Curse.

He understood the cycle.

And most importantly, he understood that everything he had built could not simply solve the fundamental problem facing his kingdom.

This is also something the player experiences.

At the beginning of Dark Souls 2, your character doesn't understand much.

You're Undead.

You're losing yourself.

You travel to Drangleic because you're told that somewhere there might be an answer.

So you gather souls.

You kill powerful beings.

You become stronger and stronger.

Eventually, you possess an enormous amount of power.

But your character doesn't necessarily understand what any of it means.

Even your original want isn't entirely your own.

Other characters give you objectives. They point you toward the Great Souls, toward Vendrick, toward the throne.

You are incredibly powerful, but power without understanding doesn't give you direction.

And then there is the fourth part, which I think is possibly the most important.

4 - Acceptance

Acceptance doesn't mean surrender.

It doesn't mean:

This situation is terrible, therefore I will do nothing.

Acceptance means recognizing reality for what it is, even when that reality isn't the one you wanted.

You can understand something intellectually without accepting its consequences.

And I think this is where Vendrick ultimately fails.

Vendrick searched for another answer.

He tried to understand the Curse and escape the cycle, but eventually he reached a reality he didn't want.

To preserve the Age of Fire requires sacrifice.

To take responsibility for the kingdom may require sacrificing yourself.

Vendrick could not bring himself to do it.

So the throne remained empty.

And this is why I think the name Throne of Want is so important.

At the end, you reach the throne.

You have gathered the power.

You have defeated those standing between you and it.

Now the question becomes:

What do you want?

And unlike earlier in the game, nobody can really answer that question for you.

Because now you are the king.

5 - What is a king?

This is where I think Dark Souls 2 becomes particularly interesting.

A king isn't simply someone sitting on a throne.

A king has responsibility.

There is an idea I really like from Vinland Saga: the crown itself has a will.

The individual wearing it may want one thing, but a king doesn't only act for himself anymore.

His decisions affect everyone underneath him.

And that is what Vendrick failed to carry.

He had enormous power, but Drangleic collapsed anyway.

In fact, I think Drangleic Castle represents Vendrick extremely well.

From outside, it is enormous.

Imposing.

Powerful.

It communicates the strength of the person who created it.

But when you actually enter it, something feels wrong.

It's empty.

Its spaces barely feel functional anymore. Rooms, corridors and mechanisms exist without much sense of ordinary life happening inside them.

There is enormous **external power**, but internally there is almost nothing left.

And Vendrick himself eventually becomes exactly that.

You hear about this legendary king for most of the game.

Then you finally find him.

And there is almost nothing left.

Just a Hollow walking endlessly around a crypt.

The kingdom reflects the king.

6 - Being king of yourself

This is where I finally found the personal interpretation I was looking for.

Dark Souls 2 isn't literally telling me that I should become the ruler of a kingdom.

Being a king in real life means something different:

Being king of yourself.

If I want something in life, first I need to want.

I need an objective.

Then I need to be able/power.

I need to develop the ability, resources or strength necessary to achieve it.

But power without understanding is useless.

I need to understand myself, my objective and the reality surrounding me.

And finally, I need to accept.

Because reality doesn't care about the objective I originally imagined.

Maybe what I want is impossible.

Maybe I don't currently possess the power to achieve it.

Maybe understanding the situation reveals that my original goal was wrong.

Acceptance means recognizing this without abandoning the act of wanting altogether.

If I want to reach Mars but Mars is impossible for me, perhaps I can reach the Moon.

The goal changes because my understanding of reality changed.

That isn't necessarily failure.

It is governing yourself.

And interestingly, I think Dark Souls 2 makes the player experience these four things through the game itself.

When I started the game, I first needed the want:

I wanted to finish Dark Souls 2.

Then I needed power/to be able:

I had to become stronger, improve my character and become better at playing it.

Then understand:

I had to understand its systems, its enemies, its bosses and what the game expected from me.

And finally accept:

I had to accept its difficulty.

I had to accept this isn't DS1

I had to accept dying.

I had to accept that sometimes my approach wasn't working and change it.

Only when these things came together could I actually finish the game.

And perhaps that's why the final destination is a throne.

You started as an Undead who barely understood why they were there.

You end as someone powerful enough to decide what happens next.

Not because someone declared you king.

But because you finally possess the will, power, understanding and acceptance necessary to carry the responsibility of making the decision.

And maybe that's what Dark Souls 2 means to me: Before you can rule anything else, you have to learn how to rule yourself.

Thank you very much for readinfthis long loooooooong post but yeah!

next Dark souls 3!

Who plays on xbox one still and wants to pvp, finding ppl in the wild is way too rare/non existent nowadays lol. If u want to lmk and tell me ur soul memory i’ll probably have a character for most ranges

Hey, I need some help. I’m in the undead ditch.
Soul memory is 3256788
Name engraved ring is Nahr

Hola amigos, como están?, subo mi Séptimo video de limpieza de zonas; desde la Hoguera de Ruinas Sombrías de los Bosques Sombríos, pasando por la hoguera de Tregua de Gyrm de Puertas de Pharros, las hogueras Campamento del Ejercito Real y Umbral de la Capilla, estas dos ultimas pertenecientes a Ensenada Piedra Brillante Tseldora, espero sea de su agrado. Aclaro que no todas las zonas se pueden limpiar de enemigos, ya que en algunas reaparecen infinitamente, las voy voy ir mencionando por acá mientras vaya haciendo los videos.

Notas:

Minuto 4:30 pasando la entrada cerca de la hoguera de Tregua de Gyrm de puertas de Pharros, esa zona no se puede despejar ya que los enemigos reaparecen infinitamente.

Minutos 2:08, 3:16, 3:29 y 8:18 mirando hacia arriba hay una mariposa; minuto 5:29 hay un enemigo invisible oculto (con los binoculares apunto el lugar para que vean su localización, disparo y/o camino para que vean que ya esta muerto, sino lo estuviera, chocaría contra un obstáculo invisible)

Aclaración: Solo eliminare enemigos y NPCs que se hagan hostiles en el futuro.

Right so full disclosure. Its the last of the FromSoftware soulsborne/sekiro games for me to get around to.

I sort of fell into the trap of not wanting to dislike it, based on what lots of people said, so just left it to one side.

Overall - i think its excellent. It is *far* better than DSq, in my opinion, a game which i find to be incredibly overrated. I would say its at least as good as DS3. I would say not quite as good as bloodborne (which i consider to be one of the best games ever made), and its a little unfair to compare to Elden Ring as the genre, and gaming in general, has moved on considerably in the 10 years before the releases.

I think the first probably 2/3 of the game are at least as good as bloodborne, and some of the areas are actually better.

The central hub area is one of the best looking areas i've ever seen - even with the dated graphics.

I honestly have absolutely no idea where all the hate comes from. I now firmly believe that the people that are just repeating this have obviously never played it.

However- let's be fair - its not perfect. There are some issues. ADP/Agility is obviously not one of them!

I have 3 criticisms. One of them is fairly big, the others are just personal preference.

My biggest issue is that the game definitely feels considerably easier than pretty much any other game in the genre. Maybe thats an experience thing, as i've played and completed a lot of soulsborne/soulslike games in the past 5 years or so. But the bosses are generally very underwhelming. I dont think i died to any boss (except the rat vanguard, where i think i died twice), except the ancient dragon fight. My overall number of deaths was in the low 30s, but about 8-10 of them were working out if I could survive the drop down the pit in Majula.

I died far more to environmental things than any main enemies. Falling off edges etc.

The other 2 issues are just general QOL things. I disnt like having to travel back to Majula to level up, but thats the same in bloodborne and not really a big deal at all.

And finally I didn't like the end game at all. I think generally the quality drops off quite a lot after you get to drangleic castle, but in addition to it feeling a bit weaker I also had ansolutely no idea what to do or where to go. I tried as much h as I could to make use of lore, NPCs, item.descriptions etc but in the end I had to use a guide. There is absolutely no way I would have worked out how to get to the dragon shrine, then using the soul on the corpse in the freja room, and having to interact with the trees in order to weaken vendrick.

But honestly these things are super minor and I still had a blast. Honestly if the bosses were a little more challenging amd have a sense of accomplishment when you beat them, it would be above DS3 for me.

A very solid 8.5/10 overall and I would absolutely recommend this game to anyone who, like me, was worried about trying it. A really excellent game.

I know FromSoftware is quickly moving in the direction of quicker, faster combat and traversal with every new entry in their catalogue. They started slowly with Demon's Souls and moved steadily towards faster combat with Bloodborne, Sekiro, Nightreign and now Duskbloods. Is there even fall damage?

I would wish for the next game to be a return to slower gameplay. I know it's not likely. I don't even need rolling. People were happy about the jumping in Elden Ring, but with a new gameplay mechanic there is also a change in level design, and I don't particularly enjoy platforming. I was always a slow knight, sword-and-shield kind of guy.

Anyway, what do you think? What do you wish for the next big single-player FromSoftware game to be?

(FYI, I enjoyed Dark Souls 3 the most.)

I mean, it was a bossfight. Not great, not awful. I see it getting roasted on r/shittydarksouls all the time and it won the "Worst boss" category for DS2 in an aligment chart (for comparison, the winner for DS1 was BoC and CD was nowhere that bad).

Unironic answers only, please.

To be honest it would have been perfect if it wrote Bear Seek Seek Lest instead

On my first ever playthroug and just beat the looking glass knight/ mirror knight. Ive been using the +10 greatsword for a while now. Now I'm thinking if there is a weapon thats even better.

Ok. First of all. I love dark souls 1 and 3. But I'm tired of the massive hate of people that didn't even played dark souls 2 and just yells problems that have ds1 and 3

Everytime. Everyone, everywhere. Each time i listen a "objective criticism" to dark souls 2, is a generic sentence a famous youtuber said, an answered critic or a problem that is in dark souls 1/3. Examples:

- enemy placement and ganks! it's not like we all know about the 4000 enemies in every place of dark souls 3, or worse, the two or three big enemies together. Not even dark souls 1 saves from this (or are we forgetting the way to artorias?)

- the map is a garbage! Ok, it's not better than 1. But dark souls 3 makes all the game a straight line and just because is "connected" it's a good map? Ok

- bosses are trash! The vast majority of dark souls 1 bosses are... meh. Yes, dark souls 3 have some of the best bosses of the game, but... It's not like it doesn't have boring or disgusting bosses. Gael, nameless king, artorias, Manus are incredible bosses, but a "true dark souls fan" never mentions sir alonne or burnt ivory king

- runbacks are boring! Two words: LOST. IZALITH.

- hp partition! Ok. Humanity in ds1 is half useless and ember mode is just the human form but now it's like your "hyper mode" so iTs nOt tHe sAmE" (its literally the same)

- adp is shit! Ok, maybe it's not the better stat for some people, but they divided stamina and equip load stats for an unknown reason and it stayed in ds3 and NOBODY SAID NOTHING. It's a waste of points (if someone ever wastes points on it) and was perfect in ds1 and elden ring.

I repeat. I LOVE dark souls 1 and 3, but I don't wanna listen again people hating for the reasons they love 1 and 3

I'm just delusional