Dark Souls II

 PC
User Score
7.2

Mixed or average reviews- based on 3117 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,992 out of 3117
  2. Mixed: 521 out of 3117
  3. Negative: 604 out of 3117
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  1. Quariq
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    I picked up the first Dark Souls on Steam and liked it, the only problem i had with the game was the controls for PC. Now with the release of Dark Souls 2 we were promised a more polished PC version with better graphics and - here is the big one - working controls. So did they deliver? Short answer NO , Long answer NO. Default controls are near unplayable , controller buttons everywhere "I picked up the first Dark Souls on Steam and liked it, the only problem i had with the game was the controls for PC. Now with the release of Dark Souls 2 we were promised a more polished PC version with better graphics and - here is the big one - working controls. So did they deliver? Short answer NO , Long answer NO. Default controls are near unplayable , controller buttons everywhere " press A to this , press B to that" . But dont worry , just rebind your keys , right?? NO. Trying to rebind the keys is painfull at best and once you are done you are left with a half decent experience. I loved the first Dark Souls and plot/gameplay wise Dark Souls 2 looks promising. But as a PC gamer i feel cheated and lied to when it is blatantly obvious that no extra effort was put into making this a positive experience for PC gamers.… Expand
  2. deszka42
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    The game is a fantastic port, let's start with the worst and advance to the less interesting problems:
    -the game refuses to start up (crashes with white screen) for TONS of people
    -even when it starts the new game loading screen freezes -game freezes when intro needs to be playing -people who got banned in other games received a ban for dark souls 2 (absolutely unheard of) -the    The game is a fantastic port, let's start with the worst and advance to the less interesting problems:
    -the game refuses to start up (crashes with white screen) for TONS of people
    -even when it starts the new game loading screen freezes
    -game freezes when intro needs to be playing
    -people who got banned in other games received a ban for dark souls 2 (absolutely unheard of)
    -the controllers connected to pc refuse to work
    -the keyboard+mouse controlls refuse to work
    -the keyboard controlls are **** even when they work: holding shift prevents you from clicking etc...    … Expand
  3. Pablo_Dourado
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    I am here to represent the over 1k players from steam who is not getting any help from developers of the game, we get a random bug that dont let us play the game, we are trying to get attention over our problem for more then 50 hours since the release and nothing at all, we decided to yell our voice to another sites, we are making a critic not about the game itself because we cant EVEN logI am here to represent the over 1k players from steam who is not getting any help from developers of the game, we get a random bug that dont let us play the game, we are trying to get attention over our problem for more then 50 hours since the release and nothing at all, we decided to yell our voice to another sites, we are making a critic not about the game itself because we cant EVEN log in, we are here to tell how disappointing is the support from the developers.
    We paid for that we deserve the same thing as others, but seens the primary atribute to play the game is have the luck to get a copy without any bug, i will never spend my money on products of your company again!    … Expand
  4. Gorshum
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    I imagine this would be a really fun game if it worked. I trust in their ability to make a fun game. The problem is that for many people the game does not work at all. When you try to start the game it pops up as a white screen then crashes within 10 seconds. So far the only workarounds have come from the community and even then they don't always work. Considering they supposedly 'built itI imagine this would be a really fun game if it worked. I trust in their ability to make a fun game. The problem is that for many people the game does not work at all. When you try to start the game it pops up as a white screen then crashes within 10 seconds. So far the only workarounds have come from the community and even then they don't always work. Considering they supposedly 'built it for the pc first' this kind of thing is really unacceptable. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to play the game we payed for. We didn't pay $50 so we could troubleshoot/beta test their game. We payed for a product and we currently have no access to it despite it being released. If you're thinking of buying this game for PC, don't. Wait for them to fix whatever they screwed up. There is no point in buying it now unless you want to play 'Waiting Simulator: Broken Edition'.… Expand
  5. Zhael
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    I was so excited to play DS2 this morning but found myself shouting at the screen in under 5 mins.

    The graphics are awful - games released 3 years ago look better. The sound is awful - walk through long grass and it sounds as if you're rattling through your cutlery drawer. But worse of all; the controls are awful. On screen hints tell you to press the green 'A' or the blue 'X'.    I was so excited to play DS2 this morning but found myself shouting at the screen in under 5 mins.

    The graphics are awful - games released 3 years ago look better.

    The sound is awful - walk through long grass and it sounds as if you're rattling through your cutlery drawer.

    But worse of all; the controls are awful. On screen hints tell you to press the green 'A' or the blue 'X'. Want to go up a ladder? In every other PC game you walk in to a ladder and start to climb. In DS2 it's ctrl-left click. Why would they make it so awkward? I tried to swap weapons and ended up consuming a good portion of the healing stones.

    Another bad part worth mentioning is the combat. It's .... awful. You can lock your target by pressing the middle mouse button, but it doesn't really make much difference. I created a cleric and armed myself with a great big metal mace and picked a fight with a little old lady cooking a meal (I'm very brave, I know). She beat me to death with her ladle. Not once but many times. So many times in fact I had to roll a new character to get past the point.

    In short this is not worth buying on the PC. For the consoles maybe, but not the PC.    … Expand
  6. sheva7
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    This game is so ****ing hard that i cant even launch it. I guess they deliver the difficulty they promised. Yeah, the 0 goes to the company, not to the game.
  7. DefiantMaledict
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    Dark Souls 2 is all about challenge, they said. Well, the only challenge this game is posing now is how to make it work properly. PC will be lead platform, they said.
  8. redtwister
    Apr 27, 2014
    0
    Broken and awkward! I can't jump, among other things that don't work right. The controls are terrible. I actually am contemplating asking Steam for a refund it is so bad. Betas of other games are better than this "finished" product.
  9. sodapopcan
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    they don't even put the pc controls on the menus. and even if they did i cant even start the game to see the change because of the crashing. this was a bad buy.
  10. 1993Gamer
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    I'm amazed how can such a bad port receive so good reviews.
    I can't even play the first 15 minutes of the game with mouse+keyboard, the game does not respond correctly to any of my controls inputs, is this a bad joke?
    Wortst pile of garbage I bought this year yet. If you value your money stay away.
  11. WskOsc
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    Dark Souls 2 is currently an unplayable mess for many, and plagued by bugs such as terrible keyboard/mouse controls that lag pretty badly.
    The game gets a 0 out of 10 not only for being unplayable/broken but also for a lack of proper support and communication from the developers, as well as how long it's taking them to issue a fix.
  12. Merdique
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    This is one of the worst PC ports I have seen in years. The game can be somewhat configured to use a keyboard and mouse, but the interface does not acknowledge this (which generates a lot of confusion while playing). Many of the bound combinations are geared to console playing. Just terrible. Got sick of playing it after a few hours. Save your money. Wish I had...
  13. ctrlaltwalsh
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    Game Remains Unplayable, Crashes when starting up. Game developers and publishers need to realise they cannot release a product which simply does not work, this is not a problem specific to my (Frankly Standard) computer configuration.
  14. the_reality
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    The first thing you encounter is a door. A prompt comes up "press B". This door proves to be a unquenchable bastard. I've tried all the common keys WADS QEFR. Nothing. So I tried attacking the door. Nothing. I can't get past it. I should have listened when then said Dark Souls 2 was just a hard as Dark Souls 1. I find myself puzzled as I look at my Dark Souls 2 for PC box for some clue onThe first thing you encounter is a door. A prompt comes up "press B". This door proves to be a unquenchable bastard. I've tried all the common keys WADS QEFR. Nothing. So I tried attacking the door. Nothing. I can't get past it. I should have listened when then said Dark Souls 2 was just a hard as Dark Souls 1. I find myself puzzled as I look at my Dark Souls 2 for PC box for some clue on how to get past the door. Nothing. No Clue. I have to resolve that his game is too hardcore. Too Hardcore to the point of not being fun anymore. "Atmospheric dungeon, crawling, fearsome enemy encounters". Namco needs to realize that making a game hard doesn't make it fun. Sadly with less money in our pocket and critics giving scores in the 90's the joke is on us.… Expand
  15. RainbowPieFiM
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    This game don't work.
    The game crash everytime you enter, and the company dont launch a fix, 3 days after his launch.
    Thanks for stole my money!
    Ah, and the game doesn't have a pc controller instructions, is a BAD port from the console version.
    $50 for a bad port.
  16. AHerdofCats
    Apr 25, 2014
    2
    After hearing about the problems the first Dark Souls game had on PC, I put off buying it until I knew that some of its problems had been fixed by the developers or modders, or that there certainly wasn't going to be any further improvement. I was disappointed to find that it only showed the XBox controller buttons in place of the keyboard commands and it took some rebinding to getAfter hearing about the problems the first Dark Souls game had on PC, I put off buying it until I knew that some of its problems had been fixed by the developers or modders, or that there certainly wasn't going to be any further improvement. I was disappointed to find that it only showed the XBox controller buttons in place of the keyboard commands and it took some rebinding to get keyboard and mouse rebound to a functional set-up but I was ultimately treated to a fantastic game. The atmosphere in Dark Souls, as well as its environmental storytelling and bosses were all phenomenal, and I've sunk many long hours into the game.

    I've therefore been waiting with a great deal of excitement for Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls was a rushed port in response to high PC player demand so some problems were expected, but surely there wouldn't be any with Dark Souls 2, which was developed for PC simultaneously ... Wrong! The Xbox controller prompts are back. The default bindings are appalling, and many keyboard buttons can't actually be bound for no apparent reason. The controls are laggy in a game were rapid responsiveness are key. There's also the more minor issue of the massive downgrade in the lighting of the game, which hopefully may be fixed at some point for PC.

    In short, this is once again an embarrassingly bad port, and I'd advise waiting for fixes from the developers or modders before getting it. What I've played of the game itself seems great, but it's simply not a finished product and I object to being sold games in this condition.    … Expand
  17. aberjams
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    The game will not load on my pc, and a lot of other peoples at that. There is no Tech support to call, there is no disclaimer that it may not work, and there is no refund. Its a very shameful process. That I wish I was not a part of.
    If you are buying this game, you are gambling with your money.
    It may not work, and there is nothing you can do about it.
  18. Uxz
    Apr 26, 2014
    1
    Had to spend 4 hours trying to get past the infamous "White screen" which crashed the game at launch - the only way to get past was unplugging the monitor while launching it, replugging when it was in the menus.

    Anyways the GAME! I enjoyed Dark Souls 1 but this has clunky Controllers, feels like there is alot of delay and a frustrating camera that does not navigate well - running    Had to spend 4 hours trying to get past the infamous "White screen" which crashed the game at launch - the only way to get past was unplugging the monitor while launching it, replugging when it was in the menus.

    Anyways the GAME! I enjoyed Dark Souls 1 but this has clunky Controllers, feels like there is alot of delay and a frustrating camera that does not navigate well - running backwards does not turn the camera round, just the character - falling off a Cliff by accident while "kiting" a boss because the camera does not show where you are running -is not my kind of fun.

    Another frustrating thing is that the menus has XBOX 360 (!!) buttons and keys in the menus - so you have to Guess which keys correnspond to those on the keyboard - making it worse if that you cannot rebind all the keys in the game, making the game quite unplesant if you use a keyboard and mouse - thankfully I do have a Controller - but it still feels very clunky when moving, it feels like Your character doesn't have fluid movement but rotates/moves at an 8 axis.

    Also a warning to whoever has a VAC Ban: Dont buy, you will NOT be able to acess the game servers even if you were banned 10 years ago!    … Expand
  19. ogisha
    Apr 27, 2014
    0
    The game is awful. Enemies moves are too predictable. Maps are terrible too, its just a lot of tight corridors. Your character moves like a snail, it takes two hours for your character to response to a pressed button. Its hard in a way that is unfair which is not something to be praised. DO NOT BUY.
  20. FPAwpers
    Apr 25, 2014
    0
    This game might be good, might be. But I can't to play past the first 20 minutes? Why? Because the controls are **** unplayable on keyboard and mouse. I refuse to buy extra hardware i.e. a gamepad because a company is inept at providing a decent service and lied saying that it could. otherwise I wouldn't have bought this piece of **** in the first place.
  21. Utran
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    still not able to play due to the problem of the hdmi if I had the tv and monitor connected error, and so far the company has not done anything already nearly 200 pages of complaints on steam and nothing yet. shameful
  22. Andrew_Paterson
    Apr 27, 2014
    1
    I seldom give games low or high scores unless they are uttlery outstanding in some way.

    Dark Souls II is an outstandingly bad console port. I assume. I haven't managed to start it yet as it immediately crashes back to the desktop. Couple this with feedback that keyboard and mouse controls are broken and that modding the game to fix it is a bannable offence and there's not a lot    I seldom give games low or high scores unless they are uttlery outstanding in some way.

    Dark Souls II is an outstandingly bad console port. I assume. I haven't managed to start it yet as it immediately crashes back to the desktop.

    Couple this with feedback that keyboard and mouse controls are broken and that modding the game to fix it is a bannable offence and there's not a lot left.

    A sincere pity that Dark Souls II is pile of trash because I really, really, really enjoyed the first one.    … Expand
  23. ARurouni
    Apr 26, 2014
    4
    It's a great game whatsoever, great playability but I see some flaws in it: sometimes my attack, almost touching the enemy doesn't do any kind of damage on the hollows and the bug that wasn't fixed till now take me away from playing it in my big picture HDMI TV that turns out to be a real letdown.
  24. Nogard123
    Apr 26, 2014
    3
    What a horrible port,its even worse then the dark souls 1 port IMHO .
    I would spend my money on something else if i where you.
    The biggest problem people seems to have is getting pass the start up crash.
    Yeah they promised a better port,the game isn't even working for some people,skip this pile of .... or if your realy hell bound to buy it wait for them to fix all the problems.
  25. Sky-Moondrift
    Apr 26, 2014
    1
    Relative to the time of release, DS2 for PC is somehow an even crappier port than its predecessor, It looks bad, it sounds bad and yep, it plays like utter ****

    Funny thing is I saw this coming a mile away, so of course I didn't buy it. A company that knew the original Dark souls was a pathetic excuse for a PC release NEVER BOTHERED TO PATCH IT!! After all this time, Of course they will    Relative to the time of release, DS2 for PC is somehow an even crappier port than its predecessor, It looks bad, it sounds bad and yep, it plays like utter ****

    Funny thing is I saw this coming a mile away, so of course I didn't buy it. A company that knew the original Dark souls was a pathetic excuse for a PC release NEVER BOTHERED TO PATCH IT!! After all this time, Of course they will treat PC gamers like idiots again for the sequel.

    Its the exact same deal this time around- What you pay for is the dregs of an average console game, that looks and plays like a ps2 game, even the sound is atrocious, I couldn't stand to play more than an hour of this insulting trash.    … Expand
  26. Bittersweet
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    Dont bother buying this broken piece of garbage, from software should be ashamed... With tens of trials I only managed To play just once... That just Sad for a game that was supposed to go out later than the console version to tune It better...
  27. bombrero
    Apr 26, 2014
    2
    I still remember how frustrated I felt when the first Dark Souls came to PC, and it was THE worst port I had ever played on pc (and I have a long history with BAD ports). Luckily for me, there were a bunch of fans that fixed the company work for us gamers without asking for a single penny, so I ended up enjoying the game I had bought (half of my money should have been to those guys whoI still remember how frustrated I felt when the first Dark Souls came to PC, and it was THE worst port I had ever played on pc (and I have a long history with BAD ports). Luckily for me, there were a bunch of fans that fixed the company work for us gamers without asking for a single penny, so I ended up enjoying the game I had bought (half of my money should have been to those guys who fixed the game), and I remembering me thinking "they wont do this again, right? The backlash was pretty hard on them" well yesterday I bought this game (the sequel) and I'm already feeling like I will need those guys who fixed the first one again! Really?. For starters, it doesn't initiate if I have my controller plugged onto the pc, it just crashes, so I cant play it with my controller (not that I would like it but, It's the recommended way right?), amusingly enough, it doesnt seems to matter if I have my nostromo plugged into the pc or not (I tried unplugging it, plugging it with the controller, plugging the controller alone, etc) and guess why it doesnt matter? because it doesnt recognize it. So that leaves me out with traditional keyboard and mouse, so ok. I try to start the game: CTD!, try it again, CTD when I first move! I'm starting to have a Deja vu from the first game (which had several graphics problems that luckily those fixes from those saviors fixed for me, which made my game CTD), so I use Nvidia control center to deactivate several graphics options (rather force them) and the game stops CTDing. Yay! Who needs graphics, right? well turns out the controlls are a damn mess. Better than the first one, but not by far. So I end up getting really pissed and as a result I come here to warn people that if you buy this and have the astonishing luck that it works like intended, you will have to deal with camera and key binding issues that will have you dead not because the game is difficult, but because you will feel paralyzed by the control system.
    So, I'm planning to get a refund on this garbage and move on to something better from another company, a company that doesnt have his fans fixing their games for them... Oops It seems there are none of those nowadays.    … Expand
  28. gregorybaxter
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    After working for 40 hours to get this game to launch, the few minutes I played were terrible. Even as the game feels like a PC port, it doesn't even feel like they tried. Sure, the game looks better than the first one, but I wouldn't care if it looked terrible. The gameplay is what matters and that's what they completely broke. BESIDES not being able to even launch the game. GG.
  29. DSfan2874
    Apr 26, 2014
    0
    Do not trust any reviews with a 10/10 score. Look at the steam community forum page and you'll see that over 2500 people can't even launch the game they paid for. And there is no ETA for any fix at all. If you feel like playing the lottery to know if you can even launch the game, then by all means, go ahead and spend that hard earned 50$ in cash.
  30. Diksta
    Apr 25, 2014
    0
    I can't believe I wasted my bandwidth downloading this utter junk. So I plug my Xbox 360 controller in, it doesn't do anything (apparently this is a common bug), all the hints are for a controller so I have literally no idea what to press. I get told to press my left stick, but no idea how to do this on a keyboard. This game is so broken it is a bad joke. This is unplayable on the PC.I can't believe I wasted my bandwidth downloading this utter junk. So I plug my Xbox 360 controller in, it doesn't do anything (apparently this is a common bug), all the hints are for a controller so I have literally no idea what to press. I get told to press my left stick, but no idea how to do this on a keyboard. This game is so broken it is a bad joke. This is unplayable on the PC. If I could rewind time to this afternoon I would SO NOT PURCHASE THIS PILE OF EXCREMENT!!… Expand
  31. augh18
    Apr 27, 2014
    0
    Remember those old-school NES games that were insanely difficult, not due to design, but because they were technically broken? That's what "Dark Souls 2" is. Not only is it obviously a terrible PC port despite claims that PC was the lead platform (then why do enemies in the distance only animate at 30fps, why is the UI so obviously designed for console, why is M&K functionality stillRemember those old-school NES games that were insanely difficult, not due to design, but because they were technically broken? That's what "Dark Souls 2" is. Not only is it obviously a terrible PC port despite claims that PC was the lead platform (then why do enemies in the distance only animate at 30fps, why is the UI so obviously designed for console, why is M&K functionality still garbage?), but the game itself plays worse than a "Souls" game ever has.

    This is likely in large part due to this being the first "Souls" game that isn't made by the original "Souls" team. If you need more info on this, google it, but bottom line is "From Software" felt that the "Souls" franchise had become successful enough that the people who made it good could do... whatever they're doing now, and the next entry (Dark Souls 2) could be made by "From Software's" B-Team.

    Playing as Melee is pretty much broken this time around, as enemy tracking is impossible to outpace. In DeS/DS1, you could see them winding up for an attack and roll out of the way, but now they spin on a dime and do not stop their facing until their attack has landed. So, instead of rolling when you see the attack coming, you have to roll during the window right before the attack lands, which is much, *much* more punishing, and *far* more difficult to execute. DeS/DS1 were punishing but fair, DS2 is punishing for the sake of being punishing.

    Gone as well is the tactical one-on-one combat, not just because of the above, but because of the game's tendency to throw entire rooms of enemies at you at once. In DeS/DS1, you could lure enemies off large packs to make them easier to handle, or if you alerted one enemy in the room you would only pull that enemy and *maybe* whoever was nearby. In DS2, if you trigger on enemy, you trigger every enemy in the room. This makes the focus on co-op much heavier, as you're going to *need* two other people around you spamming attacks just to clear more areas.

    The vast majority of boss fights are copy-pasted from DS1, and the "new" boss fights are just bosses that look new but use mechanics that anyone who's already played DeS/DS1 will immediately recognize.

    There's also the issue of item durability. In this game, your weapons are going to degrade at a much faster rate, and the only way to restore them is to use extremely rare and highly expensive Repair powders, or resting at a bonfire. This means that, more often than not, your favorite main-hand weapon is going to be rendered unusuable before you reach the next checkpoint. There's also a bug in the game that makes it so swinging your weapon through enemies who are in the "dying" animation, or swinging your weapon and having it clip a co-op phantom, will cause it to degrade at 300% the rate as well. These two combined make for a more naggy, OCD melee-combat experience.

    This is also the first time I've played a "Souls" game and felt like it needed a map. "Demon's Souls" was split into 5 seperate worlds which made it easy to keep track of things in your head, "Dark Souls" was open world but everything fit together very cohesively so again it was easy to keep track of things. "Dark Souls 2" feels like they threw a bunch of zones together and didn't care about how they connected to each other, they just wanted them there. Navigating is an absolute chore. It's entirely possible to be exploring your first time, and find yourself stuck in areas where the only way to get out is to die by jumping into a chasm/pit, or returning to a bonfire (with a spell or item). "DeS" and "DS1" had *some* of this as well, but not nearly to the extent that "DS2" does.

    The "Souls" series is all about overcoming unpleasant surprises, but the only unpleasant surprise "Dark Souls 2" delivers is that of a mishandled entry in a beloved franchise, with the only feeling left afterwards being that of wasted time. "From Software" decided they could save money by hiring lesser talent to make a game that'd get success by brand name alone. And sales-wise, it probably worked, but from now I'm going to be far more leary when I look at the next title from "From Software".

    It's very disappointing to recognize what "From" has done here, because it means that the "Souls" franchise will never be as good as it used to. Yet for how good the last two games were, there was still a lot of room for improvement, and now we'll never know how good this series could've been. Like everything else, it comes down to the people in charge intentionally ruining something so they can increase their profit by a few percent. Once that starts, there's no going back. If they feel like they have "f u" money after just two big titles, then quality from here on out is only going to get worse for "From" titles.    … Expand
  32. Brutusbf
    Apr 27, 2014
    0
    Worst game i ever bought, they said it would work with keyboard + mouse but that's far from being true. They didn't even take the time to change the menus to show which keyboard button is bound to whatever (you still see Xbox buttons). I consider this game a scam. Very lazy console port. Avoid this game until it's fixed.
  33. Insaner
    Apr 25, 2014
    0
    What a huge, huge, HUGE, H U G E, H-U-G-E, disappointment!!
    It's a bare console port down to the bones!! Controls are clunky, keys rebinding is a nightmare, there is an horrible delay that plagues the mouse's movements, I found at least 3 breaking bugs, and, at times, the game doesn't even start running!!
    Beware! Leave it alone. Save your money for something that is worth them.
  34. Xipe93
    Apr 26, 2014
    4
    This game is so overrated(which i don't understand why) that people can't see how flawed the game is.The only thing good with this game is that it is challenging.
  35. RealCritical
    May 23, 2014
    2
    And once more time we have the same situacion, metascore : 10, user score: 6.9, so I asked why this and I downloaded the game... the conclusion : 2

    Why? Because Dark Souls 1 were very good game, but this... what is this? Boring game, lineal gameplay, and very short... I don't know why these days the games are going worst.
  36. Loserking
    Apr 26, 2014
    3
    This game seems like it has a lot of promise but the developers literally did nothing to make this PC playable. They don't give you the functionality of binding whatever keys you want to on your keyboard. For instance, to use an item I cant just change it to a key. They have an array of choices I can change too, none are what I wanted of course. They are all ctr+Left click, alt +LeftThis game seems like it has a lot of promise but the developers literally did nothing to make this PC playable. They don't give you the functionality of binding whatever keys you want to on your keyboard. For instance, to use an item I cant just change it to a key. They have an array of choices I can change too, none are what I wanted of course. They are all ctr+Left click, alt +Left click, shift + left click... Why wouldn't you just make it completely customizable to place whatever key you want, that is rule 101 for PC. This is apparently meant for a control on PC, which is just stupid, but as someone who doesn't have one I don't want to go spend money to play a game after I already spent $50 bucks for the game itself!!!

    The weird console controller layout of the controls for PC makes the actual game barely playable. It doesn't seem that hard yet, the biggest struggle I find is the fact that the controls are impossible to navigate when reacting to enemies. The main reason I die is because I can't control the character enough to react to the game itself which is the worst problem you can have for a game. Another obvious flaw is the fact that when your going through tutorial area in the beginning all of the helpful signs are still in console controls! So you can't even translate to what in the world I'm suppose to do on PC to get that to happen. They even have the menus in the game still on console controls. Obvious this game is not meant for PC yet... Nothing is hard its just lack of responsiveness and control for the user....    … Expand
  37. jheinone
    Apr 25, 2014
    4
    The controls are really, really borked in the PC version. Felt like something that existed 15 years ago.

    All hints and tips in the tutorial are for controller players, so unless you use that, you are screwed, or you just have to man up and randomly mash buttons to see what goes where in the mapping... Not very helpful to know that "B" or "LS"-button does something on the controller if    The controls are really, really borked in the PC version. Felt like something that existed 15 years ago.

    All hints and tips in the tutorial are for controller players, so unless you use that, you are screwed, or you just have to man up and randomly mash buttons to see what goes where in the mapping... Not very helpful to know that "B" or "LS"-button does something on the controller if you are using mouse & keyboard.

    tl;dr:If you use keyboard + mouse combo, don't even bother.
    Graphics and general feel is so-so.    … Expand
  38. Bobblebeheader
    Apr 27, 2014
    1
    Wow... Just wow... And not in a good way.

    Let me just say this: the game is a very bad port from console (Xbox) to PC. Especially the controls and thus the gameplay have suffered, and since that is the bread and butter of any game it just breaks Dark Souls II. It's clunky, it's non-responsive, it's broken.

    That really should be all you need to know not to buy the game at this point.
  39. farshal
    Apr 25, 2014
    0
    Game is fine, no word for it. But PC release ? Absolutely garbage. "Stop Working" problems , HDMI - DVI problems , multi monitor problems , standart scaling problems ... etc.

    They say "this time Pc version will be good version for this game" ... They did not keep promises.

    On steam community page , people want a refund ... pathetic !
  40. dell193
    Apr 27, 2014
    1
    Unplayable with mouse and keyboard. They didn't even take the time to translate all keymapping hints to a keyboard input. And on top of that, when you press a button it litteraly takes ages for your character to actually do something.
    Graphics are very bad aswell, yet i wouldn't mind if you could actaully play the game. Getting infos in this game is also a pain in the ass.
  41. SolomonKane
    Apr 25, 2014
    3
    Sell me a Finished product.

    Why do I keep wasting money on "just released" games for PC??? Do NOT buy this for PC. Great graphics, but crashed on opening intro and then the first time I tried moving. The PC interface was super annoying. If you assume that it wouldn't be that hard to make the interface PC friendly, you would be wrong. Yuck. As a first time player of Dark Souls - I had    Sell me a Finished product.

    Why do I keep wasting money on "just released" games for PC??? Do NOT buy this for PC. Great graphics, but crashed on opening intro and then the first time I tried moving. The PC interface was super annoying. If you assume that it wouldn't be that hard to make the interface PC friendly, you would be wrong. Yuck.

    As a first time player of Dark Souls - I had no idea what anything represented. Tutorial maybe? I want my $60 back.    … Expand
  42. Vasot
    Apr 26, 2014
    3
    FREAKING AWFUL very overrated game especially for PC do not listen to pro-reviewers that give a 9.0 or 10 to this abomination. The graphics are a joke they are not as bad as the first game but still are bad with a lot of blurry low quality textures and polygon designed animations that even in the highest graphic settings remind me some old games from 2002 as for the gameplay feelsFREAKING AWFUL very overrated game especially for PC do not listen to pro-reviewers that give a 9.0 or 10 to this abomination. The graphics are a joke they are not as bad as the first game but still are bad with a lot of blurry low quality textures and polygon designed animations that even in the highest graphic settings remind me some old games from 2002 as for the gameplay feels lacking and amateur programming work, it is almost unplayable and annoying if you try to play with a keyboard and a mouse (i am not going to waste my money to buy a gamepad just for one title). It is a very very overrated title and extremely overhyped from stupid paid game site and from reviewers that have been paid to promote this as the best RPG in the world do not fall into their hype and into their propaganda or you will regret your money. save them for buying The Witcher 3 or for Dragon Age Inquisition at least or some other future title… Expand
  43. MeKrika
    Apr 27, 2014
    1
    This is the worst game I've played in years,words can't describe how miserable this experience was.
    This game has THE WORST hit detection ever.
    Boss fights are really cheap because instead of good AI the morons at namco decided to make the AI balls but their HP and damage infinite so they can instakill you with 1 or 2 attacks.Dodging and blocking is horrible most of the time dodging    This is the worst game I've played in years,words can't describe how miserable this experience was.
    This game has THE WORST hit detection ever.
    Boss fights are really cheap because instead of good AI the morons at namco decided to make the AI balls but their HP and damage infinite so they can instakill you with 1 or 2 attacks.Dodging and blocking is horrible
    most of the time dodging will kill you and blocking is even worse,most of the bosses can go through your shield and stagger you.the game is saying ''f**k you'' to everybody who wants to play offline without other dipshi*s coming and killing them,50% of the time you will be getting useless online items that you have 0 use in offline,most of the bosses require you to summon somebody which you can't do wile you're offline, so in 5 (or less) years when they shut down the severs you're pretty much f****d.The port this time around is even WORSE than the last one more pop-in and the lag is even worse i ran the last game at a stable 25-30 fps i run this one at 40-50 but every few seconds the fps drops to less than 10 for a few seconds this gets especially frustrating when fighting a boss ( i surpass the recommended system requirements)and still no keyboard and mouse mappings.It's good that when you kill an enemy a certain amount of time they stop respawning but if you die and fail to retrieve your souls a few time in a row i could spend the whole game like a ginger.So overall is This game worth the money ? Hell no.Not even a rent.Maybe after 10 patches the game could possibly be half-decent/playable but in it's current state you must avoid it at all cost .    … Expand
  44. Iluvatar21
    May 30, 2014
    3
    Re-review: Dark Souls 2 is by far the best in terms of content and PvP but where it suffers (at the cost of the soul of the entire series) is in the enemies. Basically they are the same and to compensate for this the devs have added more of them, twisting the original Souls formula from 'fair because you learn' to 'overwhelming until you break through the wall or run away'.

    Dark Souls 2    Re-review: Dark Souls 2 is by far the best in terms of content and PvP but where it suffers (at the cost of the soul of the entire series) is in the enemies. Basically they are the same and to compensate for this the devs have added more of them, twisting the original Souls formula from 'fair because you learn' to 'overwhelming until you break through the wall or run away'.

    Dark Souls 2 is not a worthy sequel to the series and the hardship is not worth the time.

    =========
    HOW I RATE: 10-9 score: perfect or near-perfect don't exist; 8 score: one of the best games ever. Top score; 7-6 score: great but not one of the best; 5-below score: serious flaws.    … Expand
  45. GatoVillano
    Feb 19, 2016
    1
    terrible graphics. no story. everything can kill you like you were nothing, and then you lose all your progress. Character creation is terrible. The gear looks awful. The controls are counter intuitive. There are still no way to pause the game (so if you have a life, forget this game). You cant even select the difficulty level. Give a extra super elite difficulty level for the gameterrible graphics. no story. everything can kill you like you were nothing, and then you lose all your progress. Character creation is terrible. The gear looks awful. The controls are counter intuitive. There are still no way to pause the game (so if you have a life, forget this game). You cant even select the difficulty level. Give a extra super elite difficulty level for the game fanatics to shut them up and make them feel like they were atlease half of a man playing your game in their mother's basement. And give us a casual setting for the people that come back from a hard days work and just wanna chill and relax.… Expand
  46. Benjamint22
    Jul 2, 2016
    1
    I strongly dis-recommend this game.
    I don't mind hardcore games, I don't mind extremely hard games that require me to retry the same part hundreds of times.
    But dodging a monster for it to be able to turn towards you *during* it's attack is unacceptable for me, but that's the least of an issue with this game. The PC version is not made to be played with a controller. But the PC version    I strongly dis-recommend this game.
    I don't mind hardcore games, I don't mind extremely hard games that require me to retry the same part hundreds of times.
    But dodging a monster for it to be able to turn towards you *during* it's attack is unacceptable for me, but that's the least of an issue with this game.
    The PC version is not made to be played with a controller.
    But the PC version is not made to be played with a mouse and keyboard either...
    All the graphics recommend controller buttons, yet it is impossible to customize the controls on the controller.

    I desperately wanted to like this game seeing all the good reviews I saw of it and when I began playing, I already expected it to be hard and likely very frustrating, but I certainly did not expect the many flaws of the game and the lazy developers.

    To finish it all off, the game is online and you can get banned for modding even though it's mainly a single player game, no thanks.

    I regret my purchase, maybe it would've been worth it for 2$ but certainly not 28$.    … Expand
  47. GAGMR
    Jul 13, 2016
    2
    After playing it for more than 100+ hours combined through Steam & other means of playing it I can safely say that it is terrible & it will always be terrible. The game itself griefs you in its overall design. It's like, that **** at a party who's just there to be an **** He wants to make you have a bad time, piss you off & **** your girlfriend while you're tied down forced to watch.After playing it for more than 100+ hours combined through Steam & other means of playing it I can safely say that it is terrible & it will always be terrible. The game itself griefs you in its overall design. It's like, that **** at a party who's just there to be an **** He wants to make you have a bad time, piss you off & **** your girlfriend while you're tied down forced to watch. That's pretty much DS2 in a nutshell. A hard game for the sake of being hard & an **** for the sake of being an **** **** this game in its entirety… Expand
  48. sabaothkelly
    Jul 30, 2020
    0
    Dark Souls 1? Masterpiece.
    Light Souls 2? What a PIECE of TVRD, ¡seriously!? There are too many enemies and bosses doing s**t that is just just random, absurd or jank. Honestly, it's just barely above "Lords of the Fallen" trash mechanics.
    Dark Souls 3? Amazing.
    Sekiro? Very Good.
  49. Hexen-Slayer
    Sep 16, 2020
    4
    This is more DULL SOULS than DARK SOULS, as the creative heads of From Soft all went to make the outstanding BLOODBORNE, it seems they left the graveyard shift to throw together this abysmal sequel.
    I don't get the "professional" reviewers, this one has a higher metascore than the original and it is so much worse in EVERY aspect!
    - level design: gone is the level design with the clever    This is more DULL SOULS than DARK SOULS, as the creative heads of From Soft all went to make the outstanding BLOODBORNE, it seems they left the graveyard shift to throw together this abysmal sequel.
    I don't get the "professional" reviewers, this one has a higher metascore than the original and it is so much worse in EVERY aspect!
    - level design: gone is the level design with the clever connections and shortcuts, this is as linear as it gets
    - enemy design: copy & paste Ornstein. You fight like 4 variations of him within the first hour of the game. Many other enemies and bosses are copy & paste jobs as well. No boss really is memorable
    - atmosphere: lacking! The dark and sinister yields to a lighter and brighter world that does not hold the candle to DARK SOULS I, it doesn't even come close!
    - clunky combat: what the hell did they do to combat? It feels awfully clunky compared to DARK SOULS 1 & 3! Something is just off with the jerky movement.
    - terrible port: mouse & keyboard controls are terrible - unplayable. Graphics have not been improved either. As lazy as ports get
    - DS 1's addictive gameplay: gone! DARK SOULS was addictive. You died and died and died and died some more, yet you kept coming back. DARK SOULS II? Never finished it. Never will. There's no motivation here. Everything you see in DARK SOULS II you've seen in DARK SOULS I, just much much better
    - bad gameplay mechanic: if you die, you lose a portion of your max. health. This stacks, unless you use a limited resource. For people who are already struggling this is an unnecessarily frustrating mechanic

    Bottom line: of the DARK SOULS series this is by far the worst. The "Enhanced"? Edition known as SCHOLAR OF THE FIRST SIN doesn't make it much better. DARK SOULS III is just slightly better. Of the two I recommend NEITHER. Stick to DARK SOULS I, the Remastered version is the one to go, that's the version that should have been released in the first place. IF you should get DARK SOULS II then the SCHOLAR OF THE FIRST SIN is of course the one you want to pick up.
    4 out of 9 (Below Average)    … Expand
  50. cat15
    Jul 6, 2021
    0
    This game has the worst hitbix in the franchise, just play dark souls 1 or 3 instead
  51. lanman61
    May 9, 2014
    0
    This is crappy console port from a lazy developer. I'm a PC gamer with keyboard/mouse and the controls are clunky. They can't even bother to change the controller pad prompts onscreen. with the game working against you prepare to get frustrated as you will die often. The graphics, even at ultra high settings, are nothing special. Terribly disappointed. Erased it off my hard driveThis is crappy console port from a lazy developer. I'm a PC gamer with keyboard/mouse and the controls are clunky. They can't even bother to change the controller pad prompts onscreen. with the game working against you prepare to get frustrated as you will die often. The graphics, even at ultra high settings, are nothing special. Terribly disappointed. Erased it off my hard drive after a few hours.… Expand
  52. torongo
    May 10, 2014
    4
    To begin with, the first Dark Souls was a great game, and I liked it very much. I was hyped for the sequel, but after playing it a hour or so I've changed my mind about it. I've spent about 30 minutes to figure out where to go in the first place. In the first game, there was only 2 ways where you can go - up and down.
    Combat system from Dark Souls? Excellent. Combat system from Dark Souls    To begin with, the first Dark Souls was a great game, and I liked it very much. I was hyped for the sequel, but after playing it a hour or so I've changed my mind about it. I've spent about 30 minutes to figure out where to go in the first place. In the first game, there was only 2 ways where you can go - up and down.
    Combat system from Dark Souls? Excellent. Combat system from Dark Souls 2? Freaking garbage. Now you **** if you ran out of stamina in mid-fight, and if there is more than one enemy -- then you are **** twice. Only one life flask, level up only from that girl, decreasing health when you die too much and so on. If you call that "more difficult" - you're wrong.    … Expand
  53. Calriel
    Mar 27, 2015
    0
    Absolutely steer clear of this game if you're a true PC Gamer like myself. Do NOT fall for reviews on Gamespot or even my beloved PCGamer.

    This game is really a console game. You get constant messages with "press this console button" and it is up to you to delve into huge lists of incomprehensible key bindings to try and figure out which button they meant, what it is on your PC and then    Absolutely steer clear of this game if you're a true PC Gamer like myself. Do NOT fall for reviews on Gamespot or even my beloved PCGamer.

    This game is really a console game. You get constant messages with "press this console button" and it is up to you to delve into huge lists of incomprehensible key bindings to try and figure out which button they meant, what it is on your PC and then it ends up not doing what you think it is supposed to do.

    If you are looking forward to click "control + mousewheel", then "shift + double click right mouse button" and still not getting it, or painfully trying to re-do an entire list of dozens and dozens of key bindings, this is your game.

    The fact that the graphics are not at all what you'd hope for such a recent game.... that the controls, inventory system and menu options so cumbersome... and that the voice acting is poor and the script inane at best, make it that it is a struggle to even get through one hour of this nightmarish endeavour.

    Avoid like plague. And I don't say that often. But seriously. No.    … Expand
  54. WilliamWesker
    Aug 2, 2019
    0
    DS 2 is not even a true "DARK" game, in order to have the title of DARK SOULS in it, the 2013 DEMO of the same is, but the final version is definitely not. It has texture with a very poor quality in all its versions, including the one of PC, especially considering that it is a game of 2014, & in 2015 there were already games like The Witcher 3, which makes DS 2 to look like a game of aDS 2 is not even a true "DARK" game, in order to have the title of DARK SOULS in it, the 2013 DEMO of the same is, but the final version is definitely not. It has texture with a very poor quality in all its versions, including the one of PC, especially considering that it is a game of 2014, & in 2015 there were already games like The Witcher 3, which makes DS 2 to look like a game of a half a decade before the 2014, because of the difference with regard to the quality of textures between the two, something that it is really pathetic & embarrassing for the DS 2 piece of work. It allows the player to warp between Bonfires from the beginning, which literally murder in cold blood a great deal of immersion & exploration in it. The enemies are very badly misplaced in the levels. The animation of the sequences in the attacks are just terrible with respect to the lack of inmercion that it causes, to a player. Its system focuses on punishing the player when the same dies, at resurrect it with less life, instead of encouraging it to self-overcome, which is one of the main philosophies of the DARK SOULS series, Hidetaka Miyazaki himself confirmed that philosophy for the series. The writing level of the game is very poor. The NPCs are extremely depressing, & constantly encourage the player to surrender during the dialogues, instead of encouraging the player not to become Hollow, as they generally should with indifference responses like on DS 3 & ESPECIALLY in DS 1!… Expand
  55. tallem
    May 6, 2014
    1
    So first off, I played a total of 15 minutes and probably killed 4 enemies, this review has NOTHING to do with gameplay.

    I just could not get myself to play this game, everything about this screams of port. First off, the menus, they almost made me quit the game within a minute of launching it, they are probably the worst I've encountered in a game to date, nothing more to it. The    So first off, I played a total of 15 minutes and probably killed 4 enemies, this review has NOTHING to do with gameplay.

    I just could not get myself to play this game, everything about this screams of port. First off, the menus, they almost made me quit the game within a minute of launching it, they are probably the worst I've encountered in a game to date, nothing more to it. The options are for some reason even worse, to get to half of them you need to load up a save or in the case that you don't have one, start a new game. The UI has the buttons of a 360 controller yet the game does not work with mine for some unknown reason (yes it works in Steam big picture mode and in other games).

    The graphics are overall also quite "meh", lighting effects and some textures look good but a lot of animations are horrid and as I got to the character creation menu I was seriously doubting that I was playing a game released in 2014.

    Overall this just feels like an unfinished product and I am legitimately sad that I spent my money on it.    … Expand
  56. sclark13
    Mar 25, 2015
    0
    I've always been a supporter of From Software. I bought Demon's Souls when it released in Korea because I wasn't sure they would release it in the states. When it did release in the states, I bought it again for my friend who loved playing it at my house. When Dark Souls came out, I bought it for the PS3 and played through most of it, and when they released a really bad port of it on PC II've always been a supporter of From Software. I bought Demon's Souls when it released in Korea because I wasn't sure they would release it in the states. When it did release in the states, I bought it again for my friend who loved playing it at my house. When Dark Souls came out, I bought it for the PS3 and played through most of it, and when they released a really bad port of it on PC I bought it again just to have it on a preferred platform. I bought Dark Souls II for PC on pre-order partly because of the atmosphere that was advertised, but when it actually released I found it was a gimped version with barely any dynamic lighting, no SSAO, and low-res textures. I even paid full price for DLC in-spite of my anti-DLC stance, just to show them there is a market for their games. Finally the developers are putting out a version of Dark Souls II that promises to fix and optimize these issues, but instead of giving me that "fixed" version as a free patch, they are telling me and all the other players who have supported them that they want another $30 or more for that privilege.

    They are charging current PC users to unlock the improved performance that we were promised when we first bought the game.    … Expand
  57. FirStie
    May 11, 2014
    4
    This is the most overrated phenomena in video game industry to this day. Don't get me wrong: I prefer to play games on high difficulty, I appreciate the challenge, but only when the game is decent, fair and rewarding. This game is neither of that: terrible controls, off-key hit detection, clumsy combat system, lack of any balance, and, of course, the infamous "hardcore difficulty" set byThis is the most overrated phenomena in video game industry to this day. Don't get me wrong: I prefer to play games on high difficulty, I appreciate the challenge, but only when the game is decent, fair and rewarding. This game is neither of that: terrible controls, off-key hit detection, clumsy combat system, lack of any balance, and, of course, the infamous "hardcore difficulty" set by default, rendering any newcomers helpless and confused - even if you'd like to learn to play better, it just doesn't let you.
    It is an unpopular opinion, but I've got to spill it out: this game is awful. It's not worth it. The cult created around it is just hipster kids trying to go hardcore. I'm afraid you are doing it wrong.    … Expand
  58. nikolche
    Oct 6, 2016
    0
    If falling into pits all the time makes the game hard then sure, it is extremely hard. Seems like the main focus of the game is to piss you off. Like playing super Mario on the Nintendo. Could have been much better.
  59. Tassadaritze
    May 27, 2014
    0
    Who thought it was a good idea to change dodging to this piece of crap? Dodging is no longer rewarded if you can time it well, all that matters is that you get out of the range of the attack. No timing needed.
  60. Nus
    Mar 24, 2015
    0
    Awful game.
    Demons Souls and the first Dark Souls and Bloodborne is much better than this. Don't bother with this,
    This is the worst Souls game and nothing can fix that.
  61. moneer
    May 3, 2014
    0
    Crap port for PC. To open door press "Green X Button". Don't have a green, red, yellow, or blue buttons on my keyboard. Hate games that exhibit this kind of laziness. User interface is confusing and settings don't take (sometimes).
  62. Kraks
    May 9, 2014
    3
    Everyone seems to be talking about the controls and other technical issues on the PC, so I will instead talk about the actual game.

    The game itself is bad enough to deserve poor reviews. As others have mentioned, the open, interconnected, beautifully woven story and world from the original is gone. Instead, you get a very closed in, maze like, and contraption filled mess that barely    Everyone seems to be talking about the controls and other technical issues on the PC, so I will instead talk about the actual game.

    The game itself is bad enough to deserve poor reviews. As others have mentioned, the open, interconnected, beautifully woven story and world from the original is gone. Instead, you get a very closed in, maze like, and contraption filled mess that barely stitches together a world.

    The "quests" are just a mess, because there is almost no required order for anything. While I enjoy the open world and found that the ambiguity of the first one really helped pull me in, that isn't the case with Dark Souls 2. Ambiguity is replaced with obfuscation and plot holes. This means that even pouring enough into the game to play through it multiple times (100+ hours, easily) will still not lead to the results one might expect for some of the quest lines. I hate using spoiler sites, but when you have a game that hinges every bit of story progression with the NPCs on minutiae, you can't help but go looking for a friendly helper to make sure you're not having to start another new game because you didn't talk to the dwarf at X first instead of at Y....seriously? He doesn't even tell you where he's going at any point, just a "see ya around".

    As for difficulty, there really is none. The bosses in DS2 do not show nearly the same level of challenge as Artorious, Kalameet, Furtive Pigmy or even 4 Kings. They are all much slower fights. They can all be easily beaten by anyone choosing to play a caster spec. Melee players may have a little harder time, but definitely nothing on par with even Ornstein and Smough from DS 1.

    I could go on, but I will end this with my complaints about the online aspects of this game. First, the PVP isn't PVP. It is mostly griefing. Getting jumped by some random guy who comes in completely healed, completely geared for PVP, and has many other advantages, every 5 minutes while you're trying to progress the story line is just not fun. Disconnect so you can save yourself from possibly losing all your souls and the game will punish you. FromSoft relies on their famous ambiguity here as well, not telling you jack about this punishment until it is too late. Hey FromSoft...I paid for your game, let me play it how I want. If the PVP is so amazing and so desirable to such a huge amount of your fan base, you should have no issues finding enough people to voluntarily join in without also forcing those of us that enjoy the coop to participate in said farcical PVP (read: griefing).

    So another option is to play offline, right? Not really. You play offline at all during a play through and you can kiss achievements for that play through good bye. Start over time, again. And again, FromSoft does a horrible job of notifying people about this.

    I loved Dark Souls 1, even on the PC, and even with GFWL. At least with GFWL I could chat with people I played with without being required to use creepy and invasive voice chat. I'm not letting some random stranger 12 year old into my home, FromSoft. Are you out of your mind? The best thing about GFWL summoning not working all of the time was that I actually got to enjoy the game. Being invaded once an hour or two wasn't a big deal. Being invaded literally every other group of mobs in NG+ is just harassment, and quite frankly shows the maturity level of those developing this series.    … Expand
  63. toomany
    Apr 30, 2015
    0
    Perhaps the laziest port to PC I have ever seen. This game is not playable with a mouse and keyboard. I do not care about the rich story or dense lore if I am unable to move through the game without hitting alt-shift-leftmouse while hitting ctrl-scroll key at the same time. It may play well in a console, or with a game pad, but all the introductory directions ask for gamepad input whichPerhaps the laziest port to PC I have ever seen. This game is not playable with a mouse and keyboard. I do not care about the rich story or dense lore if I am unable to move through the game without hitting alt-shift-leftmouse while hitting ctrl-scroll key at the same time. It may play well in a console, or with a game pad, but all the introductory directions ask for gamepad input which can be done with Vulcan neck pinch contortions on the keyboard. Fourty minutes of frustration, and now it is in the trash.… Expand
  64. Not_Casual
    Feb 9, 2015
    0
    Since from software is shafting the pc users by not giving us a free upgrade to the scholar of the first sin, I am changing this rating to 0 for deceptive marketing.
  65. lm324
    May 11, 2014
    1
    I've given this game 5 days, but I give up it blows. The pc port is terrible, controls are the main problem tooltips do not update to the keybinds you select they always reference xbox360 controls. It should not take an hour to figure out how to use a damn torch either. It is not fun, it is not and rpg, it has a lousy tutorial and horrible help system . If u bought it read the wiki forI've given this game 5 days, but I give up it blows. The pc port is terrible, controls are the main problem tooltips do not update to the keybinds you select they always reference xbox360 controls. It should not take an hour to figure out how to use a damn torch either. It is not fun, it is not and rpg, it has a lousy tutorial and horrible help system . If u bought it read the wiki for a few hours if you haven't don't bother.… Expand
  66. tranxhdr
    Jun 4, 2014
    4
    If you're not a fan of the first game, don't expect anything different. I can't really understand why the media rated this game so high. It's a typical Japanese hacknslash action rpg where respawn checkpoints are horrendous and you get hundreds of enemies coming after you even on normal mode!! You can skip this game, you won't missout on anything.
  67. thereallyoldher
    Apr 27, 2016
    4
    The game is not supposed to be played with keyboard+mouse. You have to google how to play this game with keyboard and mouse and download and run some scripts before you can play this game using a regular gaming PC. I am quite sure that the people who are giving this game anything above 5 are doing so for non-PC version of this game. The least the game developers should have done is to showThe game is not supposed to be played with keyboard+mouse. You have to google how to play this game with keyboard and mouse and download and run some scripts before you can play this game using a regular gaming PC. I am quite sure that the people who are giving this game anything above 5 are doing so for non-PC version of this game. The least the game developers should have done is to show the correct key-bindings (instead of a triangle) while interacting with the environment. These are the reasons that I doubt I will ever be finishing this game.… Expand
  68. Tgc
    Oct 19, 2015
    0
    This game on PC is completely unplayable. Huge input lag, displaying console gamepad keys everywhere even I've setup game with mouse keyboard, random crashes and other **** game experience. Last time this bad conversion from a console I've seen in 90s. Maybe it's better on console, but on PC I definitely don't recommend it.
  69. Sunrunner37
    May 3, 2014
    0
    This game was so horrible that it made me create a meta critic account to share.

    * Graphics - mediocre at best * User interface - HORRIBLE... tooltips for consoles everywhere and it took be 10 minutes just to figure out how to save the video settings. * Movement/Keybindings - Terrible... no thought into porting to the PC. You can't execute all actions flawlessly with the mouse and    This game was so horrible that it made me create a meta critic account to share.

    * Graphics - mediocre at best
    * User interface - HORRIBLE... tooltips for consoles everywhere and it took be 10 minutes just to figure out how to save the video settings.
    * Movement/Keybindings - Terrible... no thought into porting to the PC. You can't execute all actions flawlessly with the mouse and keyboard. The camera was clearly not meant for the keyboard as it gave me slight motion sickness(something I've never had a PC game do.)

    Worst console port I've ever seen... don't waste your money.    … Expand
  70. BrecMadak
    May 4, 2014
    0
    Do you wanna witness how we were lied with your own eyes, then check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOmWf4oSav8
    This is the biggest scam in pc world gaming of our time, you fooled millions but not me 'Fom Software' ! No buck from me !!
  71. Bawaga
    May 1, 2014
    1
    I rarely come to Metacritc to do reviews but I had to warn all PC gamers out there. I can't believe I bought into the hype. My friends who have consoles were raving how good Dark Souls 2 was. WRONG. This game is a terrible PC port filled with bugs. The graphics are chunky, the voice acting sucks, and most of all it's really hard to play with a mouse + keyboard. I spent my first hourI rarely come to Metacritc to do reviews but I had to warn all PC gamers out there. I can't believe I bought into the hype. My friends who have consoles were raving how good Dark Souls 2 was. WRONG. This game is a terrible PC port filled with bugs. The graphics are chunky, the voice acting sucks, and most of all it's really hard to play with a mouse + keyboard. I spent my first hour rebinding keys over and over to get them to work somewhat. I would rebind the keys and game would still be somehow be mixing up the old bind with the new binds WTF. ____________________________________________________________________________________________

    The game is hard not because of the monsters but because it's very hard to control your own character. More than half of my deaths were caused because my character was not responding properly to the keybinds. If the enemy gets too close my character would sometimes swing his weapon through him and miss. WTF Too many clipping issues to count. I gave up after 5 hours of sheer frustration. Save your money and avoid this piece of garbage PC port at all cost.    … Expand
  72. avil172
    May 5, 2014
    0
    terrible like the first one, ...except for the good weapons and armors....user score is the real score and thats a little overrated because the critic reviews affected this one.........problems could be minor, but lets not ignore the crap combat.....and dodging 4 times to attack one time is called a challenge?? thats skyrim a.k.a dark souls 1 crap!
  73. mattyo620
    May 3, 2014
    0
    Ridiculously bad hit detection, no way play with friends (white soap stone + name engraved ring is a JOKE), random pauses and glitchy attacks/blocks/movement. Terrible controls (you have to press space+shift+middle mouse to jump WTF?). The game suffers from consolitis (TERRIBLE porting on this game) no time was spent polishing this into a PC game. Dont waste your time and money.
  74. AiurDJS
    Jul 5, 2015
    0
    Overrated trash game. Never buy this crap on PC, it's a waste of money. With graphics from 1989, no storyline, **** controls on M+K, the only thing going for it is the atmosphere because of decent ambient sounds and music (except for the footsteps sound, it's terrible). Characters look like pieces of wood on the ultra settings. Clunky character movement is praised to be the best combatOverrated trash game. Never buy this crap on PC, it's a waste of money. With graphics from 1989, no storyline, **** controls on M+K, the only thing going for it is the atmosphere because of decent ambient sounds and music (except for the footsteps sound, it's terrible). Characters look like pieces of wood on the ultra settings. Clunky character movement is praised to be the best combat system ever because it's just simple. All you do is use strong attack, weak attack and roll around. If you want a good game just buy The Witcher 3, not this ****… Expand
  75. Wishdokkta
    Sep 7, 2014
    3
    An excellent concept, pretty well drawn but with a couple of major flaws.

    1. It is a console port. Sadly, the PC version has been lazily coded, all of the console buttons remain almost essential in order to enjoy the experience, mouse and keyboard are next to useless. A real disapointment leaving me thinking the PC version was a pure "cash-in" on the part of the developers. 2. You    An excellent concept, pretty well drawn but with a couple of major flaws.

    1. It is a console port. Sadly, the PC version has been lazily coded, all of the console buttons remain almost essential in order to enjoy the experience, mouse and keyboard are next to useless. A real disapointment leaving me thinking the PC version was a pure "cash-in" on the part of the developers.

    2. You will receive next to no help. You are on your own with this - there is virtually no tutorial and no intuitive help at all. Oh there are some guides in game on what to press but...you guessed it....they are all console buttons.

    Overall, a game that is undoubtedly great on PS3/Xbox, but PC gamers should avoid it. Extremely over-rated.    … Expand
  76. mogy142
    May 1, 2014
    3
    How the hell are people enjoying this abomination of a game? They go around telling people it a 10/10 game, do they even know what 10/10 stands for? It means a perfect game with no flaws, apparently theres no flaws with Dark Souls 2 then? Get real and open your eyes. The graphics suck and are so dull for a 2014 game, it looks like a dog **** on a disc.

    Here are facts about lazy    How the hell are people enjoying this abomination of a game? They go around telling people it a 10/10 game, do they even know what 10/10 stands for? It means a perfect game with no flaws, apparently theres no flaws with Dark Souls 2 then? Get real and open your eyes. The graphics suck and are so dull for a 2014 game, it looks like a dog **** on a disc.

    Here are facts about lazy gameplay mechanics that you cant deny out of your ass. Any kind of decision you make in this game when in combat, stamina is consumed based on what you do, which is great because it secures that decision, but when you make a decision realistically, for example to correctly dodge an enemy or boss's attack and that boss/enemy's body is auto aiming towards your every exact location your going to dodge and land in in precisely, Its like the developers didnt want you to dodge, so shield yourself right? then your stamina gets destroyed and enemy can hit u even more easier. How can you honestly have fun in a game that has every enemy/boss's attack animations land with 100% accuracy (even the slow swinging attackers) in every move you make and leave you with 1-2 hits at most before you get clobbered by the enemy ?

    its not the difficulty, its the lazy mechanics, you 12 year olds that are giving this 10/10 wont understand what the difference is between correct and well thought out hard mode difficulty and lazy hard mode. Here ill summarize in the following scenario:

    Well thought out difficult setting: A boss has made the decision to attack, he attacks me and its too late for him to swing in your exact direction since I dodge right on time, he has left his back vulnerable therefore i can attack more then twice before i back off, so the boss turns around and does a different attack making me wonder how to dodge but i try anyway and just as he attacks, i roll and his attack hits the area that was originally targetted.

    Current lazy difficult setting: A boss has made the decision to attack, so right as he does, I dodge but his body is still auto aiming towards me as hes landing his attack instead of landing it where he should of missed originally. His back is almost never vulnerable, after he ends his attack animation, i have 1 or 2 attacks at most to do to him, as he recovers fast enough to repeat the combo again while auto aiming his every move towards my dodging points, so really all I find myself doing is running from him so much im too busy to notice when to attack.

    Oh yea real fun difficulty you got there, have fun with these cheap gameplay mechanics which you are too blind to understand the clear differences in.    … Expand
  77. kyle242gt
    Apr 28, 2014
    0
    Another zero just because of the horrible control setup. How they can call this a PC version is beyond me. Shameful. Didn't even get past the tutorial. These clowns need to know PC gamers use keyboard and mouse, not a gamepad.
  78. MatrixDev
    May 4, 2014
    0
    I really want to play this game but it's just a total garbage on PC. I don't know how first one worked (as far as I know it was nearly unplayable) but the second one is really bad. I don't care so much for graphics (yet it could be something more than a decade old looking and without shadows from beta trailers) but interface is just total crap!!! nearly no support for mouse, noI really want to play this game but it's just a total garbage on PC. I don't know how first one worked (as far as I know it was nearly unplayable) but the second one is really bad. I don't care so much for graphics (yet it could be something more than a decade old looking and without shadows from beta trailers) but interface is just total crap!!! nearly no support for mouse, no auto-tooltips, even ESC key works like ♥♥♥♥ - most of the time it doesn't move you to previous screen. But even this is not so critical. Constant lag from when I click mouse button and I see action on screen.
    In shot words - game is probably good but is extremely crappy port. Maybe after tons of patches it will became better.    … Expand
  79. panoszafas
    May 1, 2014
    0
    Those who play this as their first souls game....It's fun
    But compared to the previous two games this is just a cheap,uninspired imitation...end of story.
    Really surprised that so few people are saying this....It's soooooo obvious if you are a hardcore fan of the series. Looks like some completely different team tried to copy dark souls and demon souls without really understanding what    Those who play this as their first souls game....It's fun
    But compared to the previous two games this is just a cheap,uninspired imitation...end of story.
    Really surprised that so few people are saying this....It's soooooo obvious if you are a hardcore fan of the series.
    Looks like some completely different team tried to copy dark souls and demon souls without really understanding what made those games different and interesting.Huge dissapointment    … Expand
  80. NotPaidToWrite
    Jul 31, 2015
    3
    Two names: Ancient dragon and King Vendrick.
    You don't know them now, but you will know them once you play.
    Have fun holding onto a leg for a full thirty minutes with these two just to win. The pvp is broken. That's something you'll run into a lot of people saying. That's something you'll run into in game too regardless of what you do. I could go on with it and how it is, but if    Two names: Ancient dragon and King Vendrick.
    You don't know them now, but you will know them once you play.

    Have fun holding onto a leg for a full thirty minutes with these two just to win.

    The pvp is broken.
    That's something you'll run into a lot of people saying. That's something you'll run into in game too regardless of what you do. I could go on with it and how it is, but if googling ""dark souls 2 broken pvp builds"" in hopes of finding character builds to get better acquainted with pvp ---to only get results of people complaining about pvp with satire 'mlg' videos won't convince you that pvp is a joke, then I certainly won't convince you, so go ahead. Have fun getting hit from a sword being swung 20 yards away as the person suddenly teleports behind you with the power of raw unfiltered lag.

    Hackers are a big deal. Hackers can **** with your game. Hackers can also ban you from playing. So that's a fun possibility.

    Summoning others for co-op can be a pain. Some people think it's either soul memory or soul level that scales with who you can summon. You won't really know without looking it up and taking an opinion; and that's most of Dark Souls 2. A few areas you'll just get invaded over and over and killed by someone who desperately needs a new router or better connection. So good luck getting someone to fight that ancient dragon with you without getting killed before you reach it.

    Some enemies are just flat out annoying. I get it that the developers want the game to be harder than the first dark souls but it doesn't suit the system. If you ever played the first dark souls, then imagine what it would be like if a humanoid enemy locked onto you and just kept swinging a club every second non stop while running at you; just no breaks on its train. After a swing will be another within a second flat. Or imagine white knights that swing in a 360 angle every second with a large hit radius as if they had unlimited stamina.

    There's difficulty and then there's annoying. They can be beaten. Everything can. But I rather do something else than spend hours of gathering and looking up info on the internet, making a build, and going through hours of item hunting and researching just to beat a boss, while getting attacked by unbeatable lag players and hackers, just to continue on with the rest of the game's content. Taking the time to build a house for someone without getting paid will feel more worth it.    … Expand
  81. Geekcrux
    Sep 5, 2014
    3
    My friend constantly raved about how this game was so great because it is challenging. I agree that it was very challenging at time. What the developers of this game forgot to put in this game was fun.

    I beat the game (minus the ancient dragon) and other than a sense of achievement in over coming the challenge, it was not fun. I do not feel relaxed. If anything the more I played this    My friend constantly raved about how this game was so great because it is challenging. I agree that it was very challenging at time. What the developers of this game forgot to put in this game was fun.

    I beat the game (minus the ancient dragon) and other than a sense of achievement in over coming the challenge, it was not fun. I do not feel relaxed. If anything the more I played this game the more despair and stress I developed. When it was over I was happy. Not happy because the game fulfilled me but happy that I can uninstall it and never play this game again.    … Expand
  82. mselene
    May 11, 2014
    4
    I really do not understand the praise this game gets. Don't kid yourself: this isn't a PC game, it's a console game that's been ported to PC, and not particularly well. While most people talk about how difficult and "hardcore" the game is, I found most of the difficulty to come from the awful controls, not the gameplay. Let me repeat that because I can't stress it enough: the controls areI really do not understand the praise this game gets. Don't kid yourself: this isn't a PC game, it's a console game that's been ported to PC, and not particularly well. While most people talk about how difficult and "hardcore" the game is, I found most of the difficulty to come from the awful controls, not the gameplay. Let me repeat that because I can't stress it enough: the controls are -awful-. Awful. Ranged combat is a joke - their idea of making it "difficult" is that you aim without a reticle and unless you get the game to "click" and recognize the target you are trying to aim at - which is difficult and random, and has no visual queue to let you know you've done it - you miss wildly, wasting ammunition/spells that are rather precious in a game like this.

    If you can get past all that, you'll probably enjoy the game. And if you are a sadist, you may even praise the terrible controls and aiming as somehow making the game "hardcore". As for me, I just wish I could get my money back.    … Expand
  83. Chewieflakes
    Jun 3, 2014
    0
    Abomination. Don't bother with this game if you're a fan of Demon Souls and Dark Souls (1). If you like bandwagons and wanna hop onto one, then go ahead buy it and tell all your friends you're a hardcore gamer because you bought it on Steam. The game is plagued by input lag on the controls, VERY laggy menus, and PvP that lacks an OUNCE of balance. A group of wild monkeys would have thoughtAbomination. Don't bother with this game if you're a fan of Demon Souls and Dark Souls (1). If you like bandwagons and wanna hop onto one, then go ahead buy it and tell all your friends you're a hardcore gamer because you bought it on Steam. The game is plagued by input lag on the controls, VERY laggy menus, and PvP that lacks an OUNCE of balance. A group of wild monkeys would have thought through pvp and pvp balance better than From Software. Also, it's important to note just how ugly the game is. The art style is so incredibly bland, generic, and boring that you'll never care about the world or it's history in the least. People confused challenge with mindless frustration. Timing dodge rolls for different enemies is not a challenge, it's boring frustrating.… Expand
  84. BrutalBran95
    Oct 16, 2014
    0
    console port what else can I say anything thats a console port is flat out awful and doesnt get anything more then 0 from me its just a money grab and a screw you pc gamers im glad i didnt pay for this if you get what I mean even with a controller it doesnt fix its many problems which has already been said no point repeating
  85. Khyrian
    Jul 30, 2014
    0
    I can't fathom the number of tens that this game has garnered on PC. Even after patches, it's unplayable without a 360 controller, and with one, the control system is still bizarre and laggy. The graphics are state of the art for something that hit the market in the mid 90s, the sound is laughably bad, and the writing is up to the par that one would see in a remedial grade 8 English class.I can't fathom the number of tens that this game has garnered on PC. Even after patches, it's unplayable without a 360 controller, and with one, the control system is still bizarre and laggy. The graphics are state of the art for something that hit the market in the mid 90s, the sound is laughably bad, and the writing is up to the par that one would see in a remedial grade 8 English class. It's been said that one needs to sink at least one gameplay into the title before discovering the depth of challenge, fun and novelty; there's a term for that: horrendous game design. I can understand a rating over five for those who find this to be their cup of tea, but those who are giving perfect scores need to invest in a head check.… Expand
  86. optimus111
    Dec 28, 2014
    0
    TERRIBLE! Never even got a chance to play. The mouse and keyboard controls are broken. Publisher actually RECOMMENDS you play with an x-box controller ... ON A PC!
  87. Hobbit
    May 1, 2014
    1
    I've played a lot of video games, and I'm okay with a degree of difficulty but after four days of trying a melee character and just dying over and over and over with no progress this just wasn't any fun. No easy mode to get to learn the game the first time thru, no way to sell gear gathered during repeated deaths to get some better basic gear. No real way to warm up to this game,I've played a lot of video games, and I'm okay with a degree of difficulty but after four days of trying a melee character and just dying over and over and over with no progress this just wasn't any fun. No easy mode to get to learn the game the first time thru, no way to sell gear gathered during repeated deaths to get some better basic gear. No real way to warm up to this game, disappointing waste of money for me. Can see how hard core gamers might enjoy the challenge but would think some form of difficulty scaling so others who buy the game and just want of play in offline mode could get something out of it would be a nice feature.… Expand
  88. Piggles
    Jul 4, 2014
    0
    This is the real hardcore game that hardcore gamers play. OK. Lets actually call this what it is. Trial and Error. Apparently that's "Hardcore". Well OK.

    I'll expand: So you come to something you haven't seen before. It'll kill you. over and over again. Till you learn what to do. Like a QTE without the screen prompts. Once you know what to do for these - Then you can deal with    This is the real hardcore game that hardcore gamers play. OK. Lets actually call this what it is. Trial and Error. Apparently that's "Hardcore". Well OK.

    I'll expand: So you come to something you haven't seen before. It'll kill you. over and over again. Till you learn what to do. Like a QTE without the screen prompts. Once you know what to do for these - Then you can deal with these - no problem. And you proceed - Till you meet the next thing you don't know - and nothing you learnt from before will help - because they'll just throw a game play mechanic into the bin that you had been relying on or maybe they'll make a new mechanic you obviously don't know about that doesn't work anywhere else but you need to use now. And so on. And so on. Trial and error. The boss fights are a Joke - they are QTEs without screen prompts that last for 5 minutes - this is not an exaggeration. If you like being frustrated. . or if like doing the same thing over and over again. . step on up. I think it is actually total garbage, (game play wise).

    This game looks lovely - aesthetically - the terrain graphics are rubbish though - but the characters are gorgeous. I love the Lore. it is better than Game of Thrones. The move set for the weapons is awesome. But. . That's about it. And that's actually a lot of really great stuff in there. i'd loved for them to have played Mount and Blade - and then they'd really know how to actually make a decent "Hardcore" game. In parts this is actually a plat-former. . . I mean - really. . . Hard jumps - you start from the camp-fire if you die - you need to do these one after another and you die if you miss one. Good luck!

    You will get invaded and die instantly to cheat-engine / twinks. Nothing from DS1 was improved here. If you waste a single soul on something you don't need then you will be sub-optimal in PvP against normal opponents - and you will die because of it - skill has nothing to do with it. In DS1 if you were hitting someone and doing no damage - or they could one shot right through your Havel's shield - you'd think they were cheating. Not in DS2. Like I say - you build PvP or you don't. And if you haven't because you were just playing the game. . . . Then you will be invaded and you will die. (VAC isn't fixed yet and personally I think it won't be now. . . And people who didn't want banned for cheating before. . . well - they've been playing for almost three months now without VAC - 4 by the end of July - and they don't give two hoots about a ban now because they won't even still be playing in another month regardless - so yeah - cheat engine is coming back big style. Twinks with gear passed down to circumvent the Soul Memory mechanic is a big deal)    … Expand
  89. Nevextra
    Aug 13, 2014
    3
    This feels cheap giving this game a bad score for the very reason the first was so famous but i can't in good conscience praise this game the developers forgot how to make a good game the first game used difficulty as a means of immersion part of the story and it lore was so thick you needed an axe to cut through it and understand it all, but this is just not in the same ball park ofThis feels cheap giving this game a bad score for the very reason the first was so famous but i can't in good conscience praise this game the developers forgot how to make a good game the first game used difficulty as a means of immersion part of the story and it lore was so thick you needed an axe to cut through it and understand it all, but this is just not in the same ball park of quality the difficulty is there for its own sake imposing and obnoxious the game them in a blindingly dumb move it is also not there as enemies with stop spawn after an allotted amount of deaths making it impossible to farm items, armour or weapons off enemies on any meaningful way the bosses are not memorable in the slightest and the weapon movesets for certain weapons are just weird, but all that that aside the worst sin the game commits the nerfing of rolling you know the action you use to evade attacks and necessary for two hand weapon well instead of defined tiers and set invincibility frame between them your invincibility frame are tied to multiples stats killing the feasibility of two hand builds. The job endurance of dark souls 1 has been spread across two stat making it harder to make melee builds. The number of groups in the game has been increased no doubt to serve the difficulty of the game. The covenants are inferior also multiple covenants are complete busted because the developers didn't add items for support the covenants in dark souls 1 all covenants required the player to offer items to rank up and ALL items could be farmed in dark souls 1 unlike this game and its broken farming and if that wasn't bad enough some covenants mandate pvp interaction to rank up, in dark souls 1 the online was there to support the singleplayer and the atmosphere the game wanted in this game the multiplayer is left to fend of itself and the controls aren't meant for pvp you can take a dune buggy to a race track but don't expect to beat a track car.
    I could go on and on listing all my problems with the game and all the things that make it inferior to dark souls 1 are all to serve a difficulty the game undermine with its own mechanics.

    So in summary:
    Unnecessary difficulty (that game breaks itself)
    Broken farming (leads to pseudo RPG limbo)
    Broken covenants (lack of permanent item make this rare)
    Weird weapons movesets (personally issue (sue me))
    Clunky leveling stats (makes unduly hard to level efficiently)    … Expand
  90. kotgaf
    Jul 9, 2014
    3
    I really enjoy hardcore games sometimes.
    But...
    Don't say a f*****g word about hardcore when talking about this game! Control on PC is totally broken!
    After all - average graphic, terrible interface,bugs, poor amount of ingame information - what, you call THIS hardcore?! You'd better try to win ADOM, you know.
    Hardcore and stupidity isn't same thing.
  91. HunterKiller945
    May 8, 2014
    0
    this game is a slap in the face of pc gamers! they didn't even replace the button icons with keys! and the landscape graphics look really bad. 2004 bad.

    this port is just lazy! i don't recommend this game be bought on pc at all.
  92. PixelCheese
    May 2, 2014
    0
    Lies, lies everywhere. this was gonna be a good port they said.... what a load of crap. Dont believe those critics that score this game 10/10. You've got to be blind to score this game 10/10 or time traveled from 1990s.
  93. tritium_3
    Apr 30, 2014
    0
    Did the critics actually play the released PC game? or did they get some other version? because if they actually played the PC released game on steam, and still think the graphcis are "rich", then they are clearly delusional. Huge graphical downgrade. game looks nothing like the e3 footage. Game was clearly rushed and not tested. GUI is clunky, controls are trash, gameplay is choppy,Did the critics actually play the released PC game? or did they get some other version? because if they actually played the PC released game on steam, and still think the graphcis are "rich", then they are clearly delusional. Huge graphical downgrade. game looks nothing like the e3 footage. Game was clearly rushed and not tested. GUI is clunky, controls are trash, gameplay is choppy, graphics are unbearable. Hey from software, THIS IS 2014, why does your game look like its from 2005? Completely unacceptable to have a game that is 10x worse graphics than its previous game released in 2010. what the **** were the developers doing? why release a game this horrible? dark souls 1 was a masterpiece, Dark souls 2 is a get rich quick scheme from FROM software to take advantage of the tremendous legacy of Darksouls and the dedicated fan base. they completely disappointed me, and many other people with releasing this pile of ****. Critics are either bribed from the software companies, or they clearly havent played the Steam released version of the game at all.

    DO NOT BUY FOR PC.    … Expand
  94. TBAAGamer
    May 2, 2014
    0
    This gaem is to hard.
    It's really, really hard, I can't enjoy a game this hard
    this is liek, japan levels of hard.
    Nope, this gaem is to hard, it's bad because it's hard.
  95. Docteur
    Jun 22, 2014
    0
    A 0 might seem peculiar to players who encountered the rare, rare case where the game works fine. But let's say it does;
    stop selling us products you made for consoles.
    You have to make something for PC players that is not only porting the game, but adapting the gameplay! Why is there on earth XBox360 buttons prompts in the menu!? "Press B to open"? Who are you kidding? I'd really    A 0 might seem peculiar to players who encountered the rare, rare case where the game works fine. But let's say it does;
    stop selling us products you made for consoles.
    You have to make something for PC players that is not only porting the game, but adapting the gameplay!
    Why is there on earth XBox360 buttons prompts in the menu!? "Press B to open"? Who are you kidding?

    I'd really like if you could provide us the same experience as everyone else; you know, since we're paying, too.

    This is a broken game in all its glory, with so many flaws I wonder how the pro reviewer played.    … Expand
  96. dvzon
    Jul 4, 2014
    1
    This game has a lot of potential but it's trash in the end. You will be dying more than playing. Nothing wrong with dying, but when you die because the controls and controllers are so god damn quirky, and unpolished, it's frustrating and a huge issue with the game.
    The movement controls are awful because it's not seamless or smooth, and this comes into play when you have to battle or kill    This game has a lot of potential but it's trash in the end. You will be dying more than playing. Nothing wrong with dying, but when you die because the controls and controllers are so god damn quirky, and unpolished, it's frustrating and a huge issue with the game.
    The movement controls are awful because it's not seamless or smooth, and this comes into play when you have to battle or kill an enemy mob. OH MY GOD, you will hate it. If you have ever played a smooth movement controlling game like WOW, diablo 3, call of duty, battlefield or any other high polish game with extremely smooth and seamless movement controls, YOU WILL HATE THIS GAME!
    Every time you engage an enemy or a boss you are praying your attacks will hit because you have no idea what the range is. You have the option of locking into an enemy or not locking. Either way you are **** If you lock into an enemy your character will move but not where you tell it to move and it looks like he developed a case of severe dementia because even though you are telling it to move away from the attacking enemy, this is all happening while you are getting beat up by the way, he stays around it, move towards it or just sits there. If you choose not to lock on to the enemy, pray to god that you can land hits. You will press to attack, somehow, even though you are facing the enemy, you attack air and your attack misses.
    Also, you will find that whenever you are about to engage an enemy, somehow they get to attack you first, EVEN THOUGH YOU PRESSED YOUR BUTTON TO ATTACK WAY BEFORE THEY STARTED ATTACKING YOU. This game is buggy as hell! and of course...you die!
    This game is all about progression yet they make it cheatingly impossible for you to progress. There is this thing called souls which is like in-game currency, which you can use to buy pretty much everything in the game. You can collect as many souls as you want! but if you die, you lose them all. After you die you can run back to the spot you died and re-collect them at once! great! BUT...BIG BUT! if you somehow die again after you just died, ALL THE SOULS YOU SPENT HOURS COLLECTING CAN NOT BE COLLECTED AGAIN so make sure to just die once...just once because the game doesn't give 2 **** about your spent time.

    If you want to spend hours progressing and then spend more hours trying to re-collect the souls you lost because you died, and then on the way to re-collect the 100k souls you worked very hard collecting you couldn't kill that guy with 1 knife because your attacks kept missing him because the game controls SUCK! hey, be my guest!

    trash game, don't waste your money.

    Spent over 50 hours playing and trying to like the game, but im no massochist..    … Expand
  97. Philbo
    Jun 4, 2014
    4
    I'm new to the Dark Souls franchise. I was taken in by the overwhelmingly positive reviews and a few videos I watched. I've logged 9 hours in the game and can say with a great deal of certainty; this game is NOT 'open world' as I was lead to believe. Not even kind of. Calling a game 'Open World' is almost all you have to tell me to compel me to pull out my wallet. Needless to say, I wasI'm new to the Dark Souls franchise. I was taken in by the overwhelmingly positive reviews and a few videos I watched. I've logged 9 hours in the game and can say with a great deal of certainty; this game is NOT 'open world' as I was lead to believe. Not even kind of. Calling a game 'Open World' is almost all you have to tell me to compel me to pull out my wallet. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the "vast open world" (quote from the Steam description) of Dark Souls 2. I'm really only writing this review to clear up the apparent confusion about what open world means in a game.

    If you can look off in the not too far distance in a game and see terrain that you cannot travel to.... the game is NOT open world. In Dark Souls 2, I'm constantly faced with rocks, cliffs, fences, etc. that guide me down a very narrow path. What's on the other side of those obstacles? Nothing, because it's not open world. Open world means; you hop over the fence and find your own way to point B. It means there's not just one or maybe two ways to reach point B, but TONS of ways with plenty of side adventures along the way. There are a few wide open areas where I can see far off areas that I can travel to.... and those areas are covered in water hazards still forcing me down a straight and narrow path. (I guess if I could swim, I could swim past all the giant sentry dudes instead of fighting... and we certainly can't have that now can we?) There is no real exploring in Dark Souls 2. That's my gripe. There's only one path to really follow. That's not to say that you won't overlook a cave entrance covered in bushes, but that's console-style exploring as far as I'm concerned. The only way I can think of that they got away with calling it "open world" is the lack of loading screens between the very well defined zones. That's it.

    All in all, Dark Souls 2 does have some very neat features and is very challenging. I'm just upset about the verbage used in so many descriptions I read before spending $50. If you're going to call Dark Souls 2 "open world", you may as well call Devil May Cry, Fable, and God of War open world as well. If you want to know what an open world game really is, play Skyrim, Fallout 3New Vegas, any GTA game, or DayZ (if you like pain).    … Expand
  98. goodgoy
    Sep 6, 2014
    4
    At the time of writing, Metacritic ranks Dark Souls II as one of the top 100 PC games ever released, with a critical reception comparable to that received by landmarks such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and the original Deus Ex. However, unlike the aforementioned masterpieces, and contrary to what this game's advocates would have you believe, this is a game which is certainlyAt the time of writing, Metacritic ranks Dark Souls II as one of the top 100 PC games ever released, with a critical reception comparable to that received by landmarks such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, and the original Deus Ex. However, unlike the aforementioned masterpieces, and contrary to what this game's advocates would have you believe, this is a game which is certainly unworthy of its hype. Discounting the issues resulting from what is essentially a quick and dirty console port (which are detailed extensively in many other reviews), the game soon reveals its many lacklustre gameplay aspects.

    This series' main claim to fame is its relentless difficulty; however, Dark Souls II seldom presents any challenge containing what could be regarded as "legitimate" difficultly. That is to say, all that is needed to overcome any given enemy is to exploit its very predictable AI; to learn its attack pattern, and by extension, learn when to move, when to dodge, when to block, when to attack, etc. and repeat until said enemy is defeated. The only other difficulty comes from plain unfairness in the NPCs' advantages over the player; enemies are able to attack the player through walls and through other enemies with no consequence, have infinite ammunition, often have an extremely disproportionate amount of health and/or damage potential, and so forth.

    By resetting enemy spawns and returning the player to the start of an area upon death, the game could appear "hardcore" to a gamer growing up playing games with checkpoints and regenerating health, but this does not add any inherent difficulty to the actual gameplay; it only serves to increase the gameplay time without increasing progression, and thus increase tediousness and frustration. Neither of the two aforementioned elements (predictable AI, often with an unfair advantage over the player, and a reset of progress after failure) are anything new; countless arcade games did the same thing more than 20 years ago. So why has this game attained such an astounding level of critical and commercial success? It certainly can't be from the sub-par visual quality, bland art direction, directionless, pseudo-nonlinear environment, or the brain-dead friendly NPCs.

    The answer is that, prior to the Souls series, console gaming had not seen a critically acclaimed revival of such arcade mechanics, in the skin of a AAA RPG (published by Namco Bandai), in a significant amount of time. In the age of hand-holding and blinking arrows, a game like Dark Souls II is seen as revelatory. Critical acclaim begets hype, and hype begets popularity. And of course, the average "real gamer" is unwilling to call out this game's vapidness in fear of others insinuating that they found the game too difficult, calling their legitimacy as a "real gamer" into question. And so the resounding opinion is that of how glorious the emperor's new clothes are. However, those either secure in their own gaming ability or just not stupid enough to care about such trivialities, and old enough to have owned an SNES, will see games such as this for what they are.    … Expand
  99. odviee
    Jun 20, 2023
    3
    Boring, not fun, the locations and bosses feel like copies from the 1st Dark Souls, feels like an uninspired cash-grab, the DLC I got just spawns way too many enemies in one room so it's only hard that way, the bosses feel underwhelmingly easy comparing them to the hellhole of trying to fight 10-20 zombies at the same time, it's just the worst part without question.
  100. pjmeyer22
    Apr 29, 2014
    0
    When I first played Skyrim, I thought it was pretty hard. Boy was i very wrong about that. Skyrim scales to the way you play. Dark Souls is for hardcore players and masochists only. In Skyrim you can build a damn good stealth character and beat the game. If it is too difficult you can always turn it down. Hardcore is the only setting for Dark Souls 2. Another thing Dark Souls 2 does isWhen I first played Skyrim, I thought it was pretty hard. Boy was i very wrong about that. Skyrim scales to the way you play. Dark Souls is for hardcore players and masochists only. In Skyrim you can build a damn good stealth character and beat the game. If it is too difficult you can always turn it down. Hardcore is the only setting for Dark Souls 2. Another thing Dark Souls 2 does is penalize for everything. Die and you lose all of your souls. Don't die fast enough and you break your weapon. Give Dark Souls 2 a bad review. A From Software employee bad mouths you and gives Dark Souls 2 a perfect 10.

    The first thing you learn in computer 101, is that the keyboard has 105 keys. It is unnecessary to hit Ctrl+Alt+Right mouse button. You only need the space bar for this action. Yet somehow From Software did not Know this. Even worse is they did know and did anyway. You know to make the game even harder. Thank God you can rebind the keys.

    The worst thing about Dark Souls 2 is the storytelling. Apparently everyone has to talk very, very, very, very, very slowly. They have to do it in a cryptic voice. If they have a quest they have to give you little to no information on how to complete the quest. I talked to a guy to see if he had a quest and this is what I got. BLACKSMITH: I........ need ........ to ....... open...... my....... store......... I ........ lost ....... the ......... key.
    Okay can you tell me where you lost the key. BLACKSMITH: I ......... need....... to ..... Oh my God just shut up. There is no quest log and area map. So there is no quest tracking system.After an hour of searching I found out you have to buy it from a witch living in the middle of nowhere. That will be 300 souls please. After all that and completing quest. I am pretty sure I was not rewarded for my efforts. I could not level up because I was 300 souls short. That's when uninstall became my next action.

    Overall Dark Souls 2 feels like an unfinished game. The graphics are from 2005. Which is why FPS gets 60 plus. There is no quest log and there needs to be one. It would have been helpful to have an area map, but there isn't one. It would have been nice to keep the money system and XP system separate. So you don't have to spend souls on repairing items. It would been nice to select your level of play. Wait I forgot who I was ranting to. We are From Software. We are hardcore gamer snob. We do not make games that can be enjoyed by everyone.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Best PC Game of 2014
8
#8 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
12
#12 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
91

Universal acclaim - based on 36 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 36 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 36
  3. Negative: 0 out of 36
  1. CD-Action
    Jul 23, 2014
    95
    This game’s playability puts to shame everything that’s been released for the new generation of consoles. [06/2014, p.54]
  2. PC PowerPlay
    Jun 6, 2014
    90
    The definitive Dark Souls II experience, the latest entry to The Souls series shines on the PC. [June 2014, p.50]
  3. Riot Pixels
    Jun 5, 2014
    80
    If you’re a fan of hardcore games, try Dark Souls 2. It is not as memorable as its predecessor, and yet it is still a phenomenal experience.
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