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. ManHoof
    Jul 29, 2023
    4
    It's the only game in the Souls series I don't want to return to.
    The plot and voice acting are as good as always. The atmosphere is also good. There are small gameplay details that are very interesting. Unfortunately, there are more cons. The color palette is unpleasant to the eye (except of course Majula). The musical themes are definitely not something special in this part. Most of the    It's the only game in the Souls series I don't want to return to.
    The plot and voice acting are as good as always. The atmosphere is also good. There are small gameplay details that are very interesting. Unfortunately, there are more cons. The color palette is unpleasant to the eye (except of course Majula). The musical themes are definitely not something special in this part. Most of the bosses are just garbage. The combat system is worse than even the first part.
    I rate it without DLC.    … Expand
  2. vova22379
    Jul 27, 2023
    2
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
  3. davitolucena
    Jul 7, 2023
    3
    Não gostei gastei dinheiro atua mim a rependo muito por isso pena que o meu dinheiro não volta espero um dia poder voltar para esse jogo
  4. 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.
  5. PunchBunnie
    Feb 17, 2023
    0
    absolutely awful, didn't even end up finishing this game and hands down the worst game in the souls series, and maybe worst game i've ever played
  6. TheAlgerian
    Oct 27, 2022
    3
    I love Souls games
    I love them not because they're hard, but because they're genuinely good games, the challenge is just a really good bonus.
    Dark Souls 2, though, isn't a good game, it's just hard. Other than that it does literally everything wrong. Graphics, gameplay, story, game design, writing, animations, physics, hitboxes, sound, I could go on. Literally    I love Souls games
    I love them not because they're hard, but because they're genuinely good games, the challenge is just a really good bonus.

    Dark Souls 2, though, isn't a good game, it's just hard.
    Other than that it does literally everything wrong.

    Graphics, gameplay, story, game design, writing, animations, physics, hitboxes, sound, I could go on.

    Literally E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G about this game feels like a poorly thrown together fan made game.    … Expand
  7. Shadowxxx
    Jun 14, 2022
    0
    Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash Trash
  8. darksoulskorean
    Feb 6, 2022
    0
    This game is not bad. It has its own pros and cons. But this is by no means worthy of such a high score. Higher than DS1 and DS3? Come on, critics. You guys are suck and just spoiled it. Now no one will pay any attention to what you flirt with.
  9. cat15
    Jul 6, 2021
    0
    This game has the worst hitbix in the franchise, just play dark souls 1 or 3 instead
  10. Game_Seeker
    Jun 9, 2021
    4
    While I did play DARK SOULS 1 (never played DEMON'S SOULS though since I don't have a console and never will) it did keep me occupied for a while although I must admit that gameplay-wise I did not care for it all that much. While I did enjoy the game's dark atmosphere (I love dark fantasy, the only way to go, f*** hobbits and elves) and the cryptic story (that was brilliant) the gameWhile I did play DARK SOULS 1 (never played DEMON'S SOULS though since I don't have a console and never will) it did keep me occupied for a while although I must admit that gameplay-wise I did not care for it all that much. While I did enjoy the game's dark atmosphere (I love dark fantasy, the only way to go, f*** hobbits and elves) and the cryptic story (that was brilliant) the game design was rather poor: focusing on over-the-top bosses with an insane health pool while you go down in 2 - 3 hits is not really my idea of fun, even more so when the combat isn't even tactical but simple memorizing attack patterns of your foes while rolling away in the right moment (in full plate armor!). There is zero depth to that system. The level design, while being intelligently designed (I've never seen levels brought together in a realistic way like this) however places your respawn point in New York, while the boss room is in LA and you have to fight your way through trash mob after trash mob to get there. This is just pi$$ poor design.
    DARK SOULS II comes along and takes a humongous sh!+ into bed. Gone is the dark atmosphere. Gone is the superb level design. Some (moron) at FromSoft must have said: "let's have more bosses!" so you get more than 30 bosses (the original had about 20). There's 3 in one level, almost door to door, which are reskins of a boss from DARK SOULS 1. Get used to it, you'll se more of that.
    To add insult to injury, each time you die you lose a chunk of your maximum hit points, kind of saying to newcomers: "hey you're struggling? Well f*** you!" Yeah, you "git gud nazis can f*** right off. This isn't good game design, this is sh!++y game design.
    The level design is as bland as can be, no more inter-connected world, it seems all the creative heads of FromSoft (not many there to begin with) were on vacation.
    DARK SOULS II is a very poor sequel. All the things that made the first game stand out are gone now. Technically it's been polished up a bit but still looks outdated. Controls with mouse & keyboard (git over it guys, controllers SUCK, they should not exist) are close to useless (was a problem with the original game, too), the camera is terrible. Enemy design is lacking, too, nowhere near as good as in the first game. All in all DARK SOULS II is an underwhelming sequel that does everything worse than the original and nothing better. It should never have been made. DARK SOULS fans will probably disagree and dislike this, but you guys probably didn't read this far anyway.    … Expand
  11. redglyph
    Jan 30, 2021
    2
    This game is a failed console port, for which the controls haven't been completely translated yet, resulting in confusing and awkward handling. The graphics are outdated and very average, even on top hardware, in revenge the framerate is quite good. The world is lacking details, feels really empty, and is reminiscent of mid-90's games when 3D RPG's were first appearing. The story andThis game is a failed console port, for which the controls haven't been completely translated yet, resulting in confusing and awkward handling. The graphics are outdated and very average, even on top hardware, in revenge the framerate is quite good. The world is lacking details, feels really empty, and is reminiscent of mid-90's games when 3D RPG's were first appearing. The story and dialogs are a bit boring to be frank, and despite my keeping an open mind, playing Dark Souls II felt more like a torture than having any sort of fun. Finally, there is no technical support whatsoever, no matter how "as soon as possible" they promise to reply, I couldn't get any help in 3 weeks' time regarding the broken controls and some serious bugs, that's even worse than ASUS or Samsung which are significant references in the matter.… Expand
  12. 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
  13. 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.
  14. StevenTieson
    Jul 9, 2020
    0
    The game is hard for the sake of it.
    Not actually that fun
    The story is poorly told
    The graphics are quite average
    I really do not see what the hype is all about
    Go play Devil May Cry or Dante's Inferno. Way better games
  15. Windolicker
    Apr 21, 2020
    3
    I tried to love this game. I just can't. It also really drives me crazy that there are fanboys who get so bent out of shape if anypne doesn't like this game. Look at every other From Software game.....there is something missing in DS2. I think there is credibility to the "B team" speculation. I have a huge ptoblem with the lore in this game; put of everything I think that is my biggestI tried to love this game. I just can't. It also really drives me crazy that there are fanboys who get so bent out of shape if anypne doesn't like this game. Look at every other From Software game.....there is something missing in DS2. I think there is credibility to the "B team" speculation. I have a huge ptoblem with the lore in this game; put of everything I think that is my biggest problem. I fell in love with the characters from DS1 and all of the lore. DS2 just throws it out and keeps the same framework. I don't even consider this installment to be canonical. DS3 is the true sequel and the only reason it included a few things from DS2 was probably due to the fact that it wpuld be a hive controversy to not include anything from it. Everything about this game seems uninspired. Whereas DS3 and DS1 are masterpieces. Wtf happened?!… Expand
  16. Wiebe
    Feb 27, 2020
    4
    Not a pc game, don't play it if you are a pc gamer, if you like consoles this might be for you, it just wasn't for me
  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. TemplarGR
    Sep 9, 2016
    2
    Well, to get this out of the way first, the port is good. it is playable, but you need a controller. This game is hell with keyboard and mouse. But i won't focus on that, because the main game is trash anyway. Just know that i have played it properly with a gamepad, and my criticism is not about the port.

    If you try to be objective for a moment, and look at this as a piece of software,    Well, to get this out of the way first, the port is good. it is playable, but you need a controller. This game is hell with keyboard and mouse. But i won't focus on that, because the main game is trash anyway. Just know that i have played it properly with a gamepad, and my criticism is not about the port.

    If you try to be objective for a moment, and look at this as a piece of software, comparing it with the competition, you can't help but wonder how can this compare to other AAA games of its era. Graphics are bad, animations and hitboxes are archaic, controls are literally trash. Sound is nothing special, music, what is music? Dialogs are few. The character system is bad and not explained, you can't design a good character without a guide. Enemy AI is non-existant, enemies just stand on their place and just hit you with swords/arrows/whatever. They are just hit point sponges. There are bugs. This game could have been created with 4-5 interns at best. This is no AAA.

    Then we have the supposed "difficulty". Make no mistake, this game is not difficult, it is cheap. Let no blinded fanboy and "hardcore gamer" tell you otherwise. There is nothing difficult with Dark Souls. If it had a proper save system and allowed proper difficulty settings (easy/medium/hard), it would have been much, much easier than other games, because there is literally no enemy AI on this game. If you play Skyrim on the hardest setting, enemies can become HP sponges too, and hit you harder. Same thing, on a far better video game.

    You don't have to be a good gamer to complete this game. I am all for a challenge, but i am 33 years old, and my time is limited. I don't have the time to die 500x times, lose all progress and have to travel all the way again, or grind endlessly in order to beat a boss. That sh1t should have died in the 80s/90s. This is not difficulty, this is tedium. Difficulty is trying to beat a hard AI in chess. Having to grind to win a boss or die repeatedly to learn its patterns, is just a way to waste hours of your life for no reason. It is just BAD DESIGN. A proper human being, that means not a basement dweller, has no time for this sh1t.

    Last but not least, there is no reward for suffering to complete this game. The story is trash, the lore is trash. You have nothing to gain by completing this, other than "bragging rights". For me, if anyone, and i mean, anyone, comes to me and tells me that "he is a hardcore gamer because he wasted hours of his life dying cheap deaths in order to finish a non AAA console port", it is a litmus test for being an idiot. "sure bra, you completed this abomination, what a life accomplishment you made!" All the while normal people play real games to relax for fun. They accomplish things were it really matters, in real life, not in a trashy video game made to torment them and waste their time. Time is precious and short on this planet.

    I can't explain the high scores of this game by reviewers. Typically, the metacritic scores it has achieved are reserved for classics and masterpieces, and this trash is not. Also, typically, Japanese games have become garbage in the PS3 generation and afterwards. Repetitive trash with low production values. From software was a small japanese developer never known for any good game prior to this. So how come they made it? I believe it is a combination of "marketing" (read:bribes), younger gamers' inexperience and vanity, and Stockholm syndrome. Sony and Japanese gamers/media, have every reason to attempt to push this cheap trash as a "masterpiece" in order to make a comeback in the industry. They don't have the budgets/expertise to compete with western AAA, with a few exceptions, so they get "creative" promoting obsolete design as a virtue. Professional reviewers don't want to score it lower to not be called "n00bs" and told to "git gud". They typically never finish their games, they almost always play on easy, but somehow they adore Dark Souls... Yeah right... Kids with no accomplishments in their real life, are eager to show off by finishing this turd, and then go online and tell everyone and their dog about it. And they call anyone who won't suffer this garbage "a casual". Most of those kids have completed this game by sheer repetition and grinding, or with guides and cheats. Yet they want to keep the appearence of having fun with it, because admitting this is trash, will make them having to admit they wasted their time and what they accomplished is nothing special. Or maybe they are kids, so they don't value their time. Probably the reason for the whole popularity.

    I have even seen a best game ever list on us gamer, putting Dark Souls on No1 spot. That is after the release of Witcher 3... Calling it a master piece and work of genius. My God, the emperor has no clothes. Are these clowns getting paid to write this?

    Waste no time with this series of games. Next time someone calls you a "casual" for it, just laugh at his face. This fad will be over soon.    … Expand
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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.
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 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.
  31. 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.
  32. 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!
  33. toddzy
    Nov 26, 2014
    0
    This is ported to the PC. I found it impossible to learn as I played because the on-screen tips (that tell you which keys to press) were applicable to the console it was meant for. While I could look up the key bindings in the menu, the game doesn't pause and the key bindings were bizarre e.g. Left Alt + Left Shift + C, instead of just a single letter. I've never felt so confused playing aThis is ported to the PC. I found it impossible to learn as I played because the on-screen tips (that tell you which keys to press) were applicable to the console it was meant for. While I could look up the key bindings in the menu, the game doesn't pause and the key bindings were bizarre e.g. Left Alt + Left Shift + C, instead of just a single letter. I've never felt so confused playing a game. I tried getting used to it and adapting for 30mins, then I gave up. Waste of money. Very disheartening. 0… Expand
  34. bjaz
    Nov 15, 2014
    3
    Understanding the story is most tough job while playing this game
    Will enjoy the game first time,but after sometime players will get board & go to sleep
    Also This game is not well optimized for pc but console
    It's a REAL disappointment for a RPG game
  35. Amiga1200
    Nov 6, 2014
    3
    I tried to play this game on PC but was unable to do so. First of all there is an issue of resolution that I do not have while playing any other game. To make the game resolution acceptable I had to zoom the screen with my monitor settings because the game did not allow me to do so. So I spent about 30 minutes adjusting the screen. Then came the graphics which looked like it was made 5I tried to play this game on PC but was unable to do so. First of all there is an issue of resolution that I do not have while playing any other game. To make the game resolution acceptable I had to zoom the screen with my monitor settings because the game did not allow me to do so. So I spent about 30 minutes adjusting the screen. Then came the graphics which looked like it was made 5 years ago. But the hell with it - let's see the actual gameplay. Well ... and it came to controlling the hero. I really tried to play this game but the control system felt utterly choppy and tiresome. If the difficulty of the game is determined by simply bad control system then I am out. I also tried to play FIFA 2013 on PC and I also dropped this **** out for the same reason.

    If companies can't port games from consoles to PC then they should not see it for full price. Do not try to sell garbage or unfinished products to customers. I do not understand the positive comments on this piece of crap - I really can't. There are some many games that are not buggy and have acceptable flowing control system. Why support this unfinished crap ?

    The game challenge is based on choppy and broken control system - that's the was I see it.    … Expand
  36. 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
  37. Praesi
    Oct 14, 2014
    3
    PS "Gamer" who gave the PC Version a 10 are pathetic.
    Dont trust any Score above 5.
    The PC Version of this Game is a horrible Mess. Ugly Grafics, pathetic Controlls. On top, FROM Software showed us "Ingame Footage" that doesn´t exist, the Final Version dont look even close to that. FROM are Liars, nothing else. Every PC Gamer with Demands should make a huge bow around this technical    PS "Gamer" who gave the PC Version a 10 are pathetic.
    Dont trust any Score above 5.

    The PC Version of this Game is a horrible Mess. Ugly Grafics, pathetic Controlls. On top, FROM Software showed us "Ingame Footage" that doesn´t exist, the Final Version dont look even close to that. FROM are Liars, nothing else. Every PC Gamer with Demands should make a huge bow around this technical nightmare.    … Expand
  38. waltari
    Oct 5, 2014
    0
    Poor port of a game that has nothing to offer except the usual "being undead" thing story cliché.
    First thing that scared me was the x-box bar and interaction panel with A, X, Y, B and such stuff, so i was like, well nothing it perfect, lets go further.
    After spending about 45mins in settings trying to tweak the game so its graphics doesnt look like 2004 i gave up on that. Well some    Poor port of a game that has nothing to offer except the usual "being undead" thing story cliché.
    First thing that scared me was the x-box bar and interaction panel with A, X, Y, B and such stuff, so i was like, well nothing it perfect, lets go further.
    After spending about 45mins in settings trying to tweak the game so its graphics doesnt look like 2004 i gave up on that.
    Well some games dont need the pimp graphics since they have good story and are well playable, isnt it? Not in this case. Even after remaping the keyboard controls from scratch, i was basically unable to control even the basic movements like jumping, dashing, weapon switching. After first 2 hours of the game i was so desperate that i called a friend of mine and borrowed x-box 360 controller.
    Now i was actually able to play.
    To play the most boring RPG i ever bought, literaly.
    So this game is basically something that doesnt offer anything new. All one gets is a usual, unplayable w/o console controller, RPG parody that looks like ass even on max details with story soo boring that you'll fall asleep after like 4 hours of playing if you somehow manage to survive that long.    … Expand
  39. JetLagg
    Oct 4, 2014
    1
    There's not much to say that the other PC gamers haven't already said. The port is unbelievably bad. 2 second delays for mouse attacks, tutorials that give you the console controller instructions rather than the keyboard and mouse. It took me two hours just to get the game functional. Long story short, don't buy this for the PC.

    The atmosphere and visuals are awesome. The challenge    There's not much to say that the other PC gamers haven't already said. The port is unbelievably bad. 2 second delays for mouse attacks, tutorials that give you the console controller instructions rather than the keyboard and mouse. It took me two hours just to get the game functional. Long story short, don't buy this for the PC.

    The atmosphere and visuals are awesome. The challenge really makes the scope of the game seem incredible. In that sense, I'd compare it to Zelda II (one of my favorite games of all time). However, Zelda II is the far superior game. While I can appreciate a challenge, far too often this game felt more tedious than challenging.    … Expand
  40. EmpireNO
    Sep 28, 2014
    4
    I was a huge fan of Demon's Souls, I even loved Dark Souls despite the abysmal port. Now several years later I had higher hopes for DS2, it is better but these guys really don't know anything about PC and how a game should work on PC. My niggles are too many with this game.
  41. 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
  42. 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
  43. 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
  44. proutek
    Sep 1, 2014
    0
    Game is hard. That's ok and I have not problem with that. But if I die constantly due poor controls and have to press zillion buttons for just simple jump attack then there is seriosly something wrong with developers.
  45. bmairlot
    Aug 24, 2014
    0
    This game is real crap and junk ! I should have read these reviews before wasting money. It is simply unplayable. Graphisms are ugly, key bindings are nonsense for PC, ... What a disappointment.
  46. Squerol
    Aug 24, 2014
    0
    Most dissapointing game ever made, quality loss like in Gothic 3 vs Gothic 1/2... Bad game mechanics, combat is godly awful (unintuitive, slow and buggy), bad level design and world, bad game background (where the atmosphere and characters gone?), general world, art, bosses and enemies design (its like From Software didnt make that game, which is some true), bad composed music (that bad,Most dissapointing game ever made, quality loss like in Gothic 3 vs Gothic 1/2... Bad game mechanics, combat is godly awful (unintuitive, slow and buggy), bad level design and world, bad game background (where the atmosphere and characters gone?), general world, art, bosses and enemies design (its like From Software didnt make that game, which is some true), bad composed music (that bad, that I even dont remember any track), broken PvP and overall, game is made just for "commercial". And about difficulty... It cant be hard not because "its hard", but because the game mechanics are broken... Not like intuitive first DS. I dont reccommend playing this, fans of Dark Souls 1 cause You will just destroy and erase that game from Your memories... 0/10, developers didnt putted any effort here...… Expand
  47. deltaop007
    Aug 22, 2014
    0
    One of the worst ports in recent history, it even leaves the abysmal Watch Dogs behind. First of all the key bindings are all locked to the 360 controller. I had to mash every single key to open the door before those old ladies cut scene. Secondly, the game crashes inexplicably at various points. I have the machine to run it at the highest settings without a hitch yet it is agonizinglyOne of the worst ports in recent history, it even leaves the abysmal Watch Dogs behind. First of all the key bindings are all locked to the 360 controller. I had to mash every single key to open the door before those old ladies cut scene. Secondly, the game crashes inexplicably at various points. I have the machine to run it at the highest settings without a hitch yet it is agonizingly programmed for failure. I gave up on this game after around 40 minutes. Believe me, this game is crap.… Expand
  48. 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
  49. 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
  50. Denistzur
    Jul 30, 2014
    3
    This game is the most ANNOYING RPG game i ever played (and i'm a huge fan of Skyrim and WoW) Where in those games things went smooth and reasonable, here everything is crappy, EVERYTHING : respawn mechanics are bad, key binding are just terrible and after 3 days i sent a mail asking to money refound: i'm done with this crap
  51. Ivan665
    Jul 26, 2014
    0
    The PC port of Dark Souls II is just bad. The interface and controls are not prone to any customisation, and the interface is unintuitive. This is not and RPG game!!! Period. There are 28 GREAT RPGs released in the last 15 years, not counting any expansions and the MMOs, if you want an RPG, play some of those. This game doesnt have the essentials like a map, journal, party, real towns withThe PC port of Dark Souls II is just bad. The interface and controls are not prone to any customisation, and the interface is unintuitive. This is not and RPG game!!! Period. There are 28 GREAT RPGs released in the last 15 years, not counting any expansions and the MMOs, if you want an RPG, play some of those. This game doesnt have the essentials like a map, journal, party, real towns with merchants and quests. The item pool is really small. A couple of NPCs here and there and thats pretty much it - a big effing desert with lots of textures and little substance!!! This game is unengaging. The story is bland. The world is dead, theres nothing to do really, except exploring boring levels that look spectacular from afar, battling patches of tough enemies here and there, and killing bosses. Thats the whoe game - adventure with action and RPG elements. Theres more action than RPG. The game is not hard!!! Its simple. Mechanics are simple and easily abusable. The challenge comes from that, that there is very little info in the game on mechanics, no real map, no journal, lore or quests, and the player needs to figure what to do on his own, which is not going to happen because he has internet. Its just stupid to think otherwise because we are not living in 1998. Once you learn the drill, you are guaranteed success. All the challenges that the supposed "pros" are blabbermouthing about boil down to this - slow down your pace, dodge and have patience!!! You will see some people talk about depth and nonsense like that, when the game is really just mutilating the player of a map and a journal, to distract him from its simple mechanics, boring world devoid of meaning and towns, lack of content, items, and poor story. And the game is truly ugly, it looks like a late PS2 game, art direction should go back to graffiti sketching.… Expand
  52. 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.
  53. iansarmy1
    Jul 8, 2014
    3
    Bare bones fantasy role playing/fighting game, with ugly graphics and no story or characters worth mentioning. Some people like it purely for the very challenging combat and character creation elements, but there is absolutely nothing else going on in this game to make me want to come back to it after dying a few times. Most negative reviews focus on the poor quality of the work done toBare bones fantasy role playing/fighting game, with ugly graphics and no story or characters worth mentioning. Some people like it purely for the very challenging combat and character creation elements, but there is absolutely nothing else going on in this game to make me want to come back to it after dying a few times. Most negative reviews focus on the poor quality of the work done to optimize this game for the PC, but its not worth buying on any system unless you just want to grind through some gratuitous fantasy combat.… Expand
  54. 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
  55. 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
  56. 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
  57. Cyliann
    Jun 15, 2014
    0
    A gem of a game. Dark Souls has the most deepest and mysterious story&plot that exists, far exceeding ones told in books by having so much needing to be borderline decrypted by devouted fans of the title while also accompanied by the most extreme difficulty I have ever seen in video-games. Yes, far much more harder than Ninja Gaiden.

    But is it the right kind of hard? Unfortunately for    A gem of a game. Dark Souls has the most deepest and mysterious story&plot that exists, far exceeding ones told in books by having so much needing to be borderline decrypted by devouted fans of the title while also accompanied by the most extreme difficulty I have ever seen in video-games. Yes, far much more harder than Ninja Gaiden.

    But is it the right kind of hard? Unfortunately for many, many cases, It's not. The game either insists on changing the most basic rules one can get accustomed to with random elements (For example, certain foes will stagger, stopping whatever they're doing when they get hit can vary If you get in a critical/weak hit or If they skip into an animation lock, gaining immunity to stun) and when It's not throwing odd-balls, It is instead introducing you to the horrible physics. Got close to a corner with your characters foot? Have fun sliding down a pit at the speed of light. Nudged an oddly-shaped rock? Have fun warping around wildly and uncontrollably as you're trying to fight monsters. Playing the game with the mandatory FPSfix? Have fun falling through the ground whenever going down ladders or evidently getting your account banned by GFWL for daring to play the game at an acceptable 60 FPS.

    And when It's not fundamental engine problems, It's instead the basis of the design decisions on how they decided to make cladding yourself in any kind of remotely heavy & sturdy armor turn insanely useless real fast by utterly dropping the ball when balancing the three character factors which are Offense, Defense and Mobility. You can completely drop Offense and Mobility in favor of defense (AKA taking less damage) by cladding yourself in the most heaviest, upgraded protective gear available in the entire game... And you will still have situations where monsters will utterly slam you for 1500-2000 damage instantly (75-90% hp). Especially If they are using magic, leaving the only reliable way to take any significant reduced damage in shields... Which anyone can wear given that they have enough strength.

    And even then, specializing seriously in shields is impossible since they do the minimal amount of damage possible in the game while still taking a good 30-90% chunk from magic. So what's the best mean of defense you ask? Rolling. Yup. And the lighter you are, the better your rolls are. Which means the one with the most mobility is the one with the best defense in Dark Souls. It's a disgusting, inexusable design neglect and the developers have at the very least admitted to this being the case since they are completely changing it in the upcoming Dark Souls 2.

    The best advice I can give you is to buy this to a console (although the game also lags on there in form of bad optimization) or mod the hell out of it on the PC and get into it with little of the form of expecting genuine, good difficulty.    … Expand
  58. MageValerie
    Jun 8, 2014
    2
    This game is literally unplayable on PC. I wish I could actually review it based on I don't know, playing the game? The controls are a nightmare to figure out, and barely work once they do. I've experienced freezing and crashing beyond any other game I've ever played. How about next time a game doesn't work for PC, DON'T RELEASE IT ON PC. Serious waste of money.
  59. 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
  60. 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.
  61. jafarx
    Jun 3, 2014
    0
    bad game no fun at all. i play 1 hour and take it back to store. this game just no fun you cant do anything in it without falling victim to cheating bs
  62. 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
  63. giacomobertoni
    Jun 3, 2014
    0
    this game is not made to be difficult. just made to make ppl deal with an oldgame style bugged game. its just bugs on bugs and u just have to deal with them to like the game.. we are not talking about difficulty.. seriously the saga and the story are great.. the gameplay tho is really trashy bugs everywhere no translations on some points and glitches to be done in order to get an easy waythis game is not made to be difficult. just made to make ppl deal with an oldgame style bugged game. its just bugs on bugs and u just have to deal with them to like the game.. we are not talking about difficulty.. seriously the saga and the story are great.. the gameplay tho is really trashy bugs everywhere no translations on some points and glitches to be done in order to get an easy way out.. GG this came is really bad imo :S… Expand
  64. 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
  65. sliderh2o
    May 28, 2014
    4
    I normally go with the critic ratings when it comes to reviews. That was a mistake bigtime ! The players have it right on this game! 9.2 critics rating is completely wrong. This game looks pretty, but if it's game play you like this isn't your cup of tea. You know why this game is hard? Because the controls are a joke, that's how they made it hard. I don't mind hard, if the controls wereI normally go with the critic ratings when it comes to reviews. That was a mistake bigtime ! The players have it right on this game! 9.2 critics rating is completely wrong. This game looks pretty, but if it's game play you like this isn't your cup of tea. You know why this game is hard? Because the controls are a joke, that's how they made it hard. I don't mind hard, if the controls were responsive but there not. I give this game a 4 because it is pretty, but shame on the critics for getting this one wrong! I wasted $50 listening to them, should have listened to the players.… Expand
  66. soulhunter
    May 27, 2014
    1
    game looks promising but the control is crappy. why dont they design it for pc user? just like a bad copy paste work from console. its a waste of money
  67. 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.
  68. 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.
  69. DelMann2
    May 21, 2014
    4
    I finished DS1, game was fun, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Not this time. There are quite a lot of bugs, game got "cheaper" - 360 dodge hits, through wall hits. You can't fight in tight spaces with certain weapons and the game is a piece of cake with spells. (from what I've seen and heard)

    Unbalance and glitches are the main issues at the moment - and of course - if you are a determined    I finished DS1, game was fun, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Not this time. There are quite a lot of bugs, game got "cheaper" - 360 dodge hits, through wall hits. You can't fight in tight spaces with certain weapons and the game is a piece of cake with spells. (from what I've seen and heard)

    Unbalance and glitches are the main issues at the moment - and of course - if you are a determined keyboard user, you might have a bit of problems.

    Few patches down the line and the game could be on a pedestal again, but it simply doesn't have the feel like the previous game had. I don't believe I will ever enjoy it as much as its predecessor.    … Expand
  70. Marc269
    May 21, 2014
    2
    what a rip-off. i have never felt so cheated by professional opinion. metascore of 91? close to skyrim?
    next time i will check the user score before buying. the graphics are 2005, the handling via mouse and keyboard feels like solving rubik's cube on a bull ride. maybe a good buy for frenetic fans.
  71. Lamps
    May 18, 2014
    2
    I was fooled by the excellent reviews this game recieved. It is not an excellent game, especially on PC. I am literally going to say the same thing that everyone else who gave this game a bad review said. I only made it to the first town outside of the tutorial.

    At first, you cant play the game because you will literally need to establish your own key binds for keyboard/mouse. All of    I was fooled by the excellent reviews this game recieved. It is not an excellent game, especially on PC. I am literally going to say the same thing that everyone else who gave this game a bad review said. I only made it to the first town outside of the tutorial.

    At first, you cant play the game because you will literally need to establish your own key binds for keyboard/mouse. All of the tutorial messages display the XBox controls, so you dont learn any keys from the tutorial. It took me 1 hour and some internet research to rebind the keys. That is because you have no way of knowing that Shift+Left click is the equivilant to XBox 'A', so no matter how many times you rebind your keys the settings wont save until you look up on the internet how to hit 'A'.

    There is no explanation of whats going on at all. There are creatures in the tutorial I was unable to beat, even after looking up online how to beat them. There is no quest log or map, so you had better remember what you were supposed to be doing. If you talk to a person, they dont necessairly give you any info until you stand there and talk to them over and over and over... If they had something important to say why wouldnt they just say it?

    Having the XP and money system the same is garbage, on my first, second and third attempt at a new game I didnt even understand that I had been forfeiting all of my characters experience by dying after I had allready died.

    I can see that the game has merrit, but I genuinly did not enjoy the game and I really tried to give it a chance. I am a huge RPG fan, and I dont mind being thrown directly into harms way, but you shouldnt need to research walkthroughs and wiki's just to understand whats going on.

    Also, I laughed at someone elses review on here, I was still unable to light my torch even after looking up how to do it - didnt care to figure out what the PC equivilany to the XBox 'Y' was.

    Try this game before you buy it, or you may be sorely disappointed.    … Expand
  72. duffeknol
    May 17, 2014
    0
    Screw this game. I'm dying not because it's hard, but because of terrible controls.
    Oh wow you want to just edge a little to the left? Let's fall off this cliff.
    Also it's never a good sign when you have to spend the first 20 minutes of the game actually configuring your controls. I think 'jump' was something like shift+click+click mousewheel. The hell is this, a flight sim?
    0/10. Unplayable.
  73. Malathion
    May 17, 2014
    1
    I've never played a Souls game before, but I like challenges so I tried this .... thing:

    Graphics: are an absolute catastrophy. As others have pointed out here, it's about worthy of 2010. And yes, I did max out the settings. Gameplay: This game was never designed to be played on a PC. All the key-bindings, the menus structure and their behaviour, the HUD layout, everything is about    I've never played a Souls game before, but I like challenges so I tried this .... thing:

    Graphics: are an absolute catastrophy. As others have pointed out here, it's about worthy of 2010. And yes, I did max out the settings.

    Gameplay: This game was never designed to be played on a PC. All the key-bindings, the menus structure and their behaviour, the HUD layout, everything is about as bad as it can get. The mouse is laggy, controllers aren't recognized, it crashes A LOT. Nothing in this gameplay is intuitive. Maybe they developed the port using just a gamepad.

    Audio: I think they just bought "Disney's best of' sound effect 1994"

    Story: Seems to be pretty cool, but it's impossible to enjoy considering all the gameplay faults and the weak graphics. This is where I give one point to the game.

    Pro-Reviewers: Were all invited by Namco to spend some luxurious holidays on some exotic island.

    Time to delete this "thing"...because it's not a game.    … Expand
  74. macishiryu
    May 16, 2014
    0
    I played for over 70 hours because I was on vacation, but were the most wasted hours in my games. The game has no natural difficulty, but it's programmed to annoy you. The jump system is ridiculous (and you need it), the enemie blows cross the walls, their arrows are guided like a rocket, some enemies seem to have unlimited stamina. The game forces you to take full rounds by scenariosI played for over 70 hours because I was on vacation, but were the most wasted hours in my games. The game has no natural difficulty, but it's programmed to annoy you. The jump system is ridiculous (and you need it), the enemie blows cross the walls, their arrows are guided like a rocket, some enemies seem to have unlimited stamina. The game forces you to take full rounds by scenarios because the character does not climb one rung at 10 cm. Anyway, there are so many absurdities that people confuse with difficulty. But it is not. It is an artificial difficulty, programmed to kill you compulsively, with a annoying and unfair manner. Technically, same the others. Almost no music, no character voice and personality, minimum story, outdate graphics, and believe: NO HDMI/TV SUPPORT!!!… Expand
  75. Damazig
    May 15, 2014
    3
    Again, same crappy port, and the game itself isn't my style, why?:

    -Same boring encounters -Confusing / boring story/ bad voice acting. Dark Souls 2 does not even try to do a decent job in telling you any kind of a decent story, nor does it have character interaction and the Voice Acting is a lot worse than anything out there recently. -Repetitive gameplay - Dark Souls gameplay is    Again, same crappy port, and the game itself isn't my style, why?:

    -Same boring encounters

    -Confusing / boring story/ bad voice acting. Dark Souls 2 does not even try to do a decent job in telling you any kind of a decent story, nor does it have character interaction and the Voice Acting is a lot worse than anything out there recently.

    -Repetitive gameplay - Dark Souls gameplay is punishing, repetitive and mainly about timing with the use of the action bar.

    -We all know how crappy Dark Souls 2 graphics are, and how EVERYONE complained about being missled with demos and graphical FX which never entered the game.    … Expand
  76. DaveTheJackal
    May 15, 2014
    2
    Forget what others are saying about the console port re controls, that's the least of this game's issues.

    What it does right: better usability in some ways, with improvements to game-play BUT: Not only is an xbox controller mandatory and there are xbox prompts on the screen AND the graphics are way worse than in previews but the fact that this is the barest of bones port is revealed    Forget what others are saying about the console port re controls, that's the least of this game's issues.

    What it does right: better usability in some ways, with improvements to game-play BUT:

    Not only is an xbox controller mandatory and there are xbox prompts on the screen AND the graphics are way worse than in previews but the fact that this is the barest of bones port is revealed in terms of how spell durations, invulnerabilities, even some actions are timed in the game.

    They do it by using counters decremented each time a frame is drawn on the screen. Not this is a dubious method of programming anyway (haven't these people heard of timer interrupts?) but at least on the consoles, which are locked to 30fps, there's not much of a problem. On the PC however, where frame rates can vary immensely and you have a massive problem. Especially in PVP. It means the way spell effects, melee moves etc work depend on how fast your PC is. Appalling.

    Also: the game world is trash. Unlike the original dark souls none of it fits together, you can't see most areas from most others, even when you clearly should have. They even have the inside of a volcano you go upwards to get to from a tower above which is open sky! So many rough edges I can only think they rushed things and needed more time to finish but instead decided to release what they had.

    So, it isn't just a poor port but the whole game smacks of a quick cash in too.

    Also: They have now removed VAC secured multi-player support so good luck tackling cheaters.    … Expand
  77. D347H
    May 15, 2014
    0
    I tried so hard to actually play this game. I got pretty far, but what bugs me in this game is the poor graphics, the lack of fighting controls, the slow movement of fighting. The game play is like trying to teach a down syndrome math. I wish this had a negative score rating, because this game would be the top -100. If you have a hard time sleeping, play this game, it will put you right toI tried so hard to actually play this game. I got pretty far, but what bugs me in this game is the poor graphics, the lack of fighting controls, the slow movement of fighting. The game play is like trying to teach a down syndrome math. I wish this had a negative score rating, because this game would be the top -100. If you have a hard time sleeping, play this game, it will put you right to sleep very quick. I gave it a zero mainly because it helped me sleep.… Expand
  78. Sjalka
    May 13, 2014
    3
    3/10 - but in that case i do not claim to be very objective at all, because i knew from the start that this was not "my kind of game"

    so why did i test it? - well to see what all the hype is about. - but more to the point... presentation is a mixed bag. setting and atmosphere is decent, graphical fidelity is average but does look outdated in parts. the player character model is    3/10 - but in that case i do not claim to be very objective at all, because i knew from the start that this was not "my kind of game"

    so why did i test it? - well to see what all the hype is about. - but more to the point...

    presentation is a mixed bag. setting and atmosphere is decent, graphical fidelity is average but does look outdated in parts. the player character model is horribly aweful despite plenty customization options. however enemy models range from average to excellent.

    the idea and difficulty is nothing that really influenced my rating, because i reckon people only pick that title up when they expect a gruesomely hard game and would be disappointed if it did not deliver that nearly frustrating degree of difficulty.

    what i did not like ( PC version )

    - a horrible UI - character management is aweful. UI and management is geared towards consoles and there has not been a single efford ( or so it seems ) to streamline it for PC

    - bad controls - and by that i mean controlling the character felt unintuitive. for a game that punishes every mistake you make, i d expect having a character that reacted instantly to any player input.

    - bad camera ( sometimes ) - again, for a game where precission and timing is vital, i felt like i d need a much better overview of the situation.

    so i cannot subscribe to the mantra "hard but fair" - because it was ( for me ) riddled with controlling and UI problems. i am quite certain that players who play on consoles or are used to a controller ( i am not, i never got the hang of it, i use mouse+keyboard ) have a greatly different experience.

    i can see the great potential of challenge and achievement there though, but it is not for everyone, that is for certain.

    postscript:

    if they fixed the UI for PC keyboard players to actually do the PC justice, it would be a 5/10 - if the controls and reaction time was improved, certainly a 8/10 - even for a more casual gamer.    … Expand
  79. 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
  80. 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
  81. CharcoalBurst
    May 11, 2014
    3
    This game has great reviews, it's the hype of the moment. It has ugly graphics for a 2014 PC game. Even Bound By Flame that just came out and is developped by a small studio looks way better. We won't even talk about the interface that is ugly as well. The physics engine is a disaster like the other game I mentioned and brings us back to Morrowind. It just doesn't feel right, polished.This game has great reviews, it's the hype of the moment. It has ugly graphics for a 2014 PC game. Even Bound By Flame that just came out and is developped by a small studio looks way better. We won't even talk about the interface that is ugly as well. The physics engine is a disaster like the other game I mentioned and brings us back to Morrowind. It just doesn't feel right, polished. Looks like the only good thing this game has is its high difficulty, allowing it to last for hours and hours. Pretty sure that you'll die a ton of times due to the horrible physics of the game and not to the monsters' skills.

    There is a 150 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content.    … Expand
  82. 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
  83. expellite
    May 10, 2014
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Worst RPG of my life, definitely. Maybe this title has impressed Kevin VanOrd, but I hate it. The most important thing that pains me is that there's no friend or companion and there are some silly cat-like merchants! I didn't like the concept of the game. Enemies walk like zombies and in the first look you think you're playing Resident Evil. The is difficult insanely, and it's not a merit. You will die and die and die til you drive crazy and for what? You die for nothing cuz this game doesn't deserved to be played hours and hours. Gameplay is not that good. Voice acting is terrible and there's no lipsync in game (except cutscenes which are terrible too). At least Skyrim (The Great RPG) with that buggy visuals looked great and entertaining but this one ... I don't know what to say. To be frank the game didn't make me pleased. I felt all alone in its dark world. Enemies don't look alive, they're like puppeteers. Boss fights are insanely hard and you'll die before than it has withdrawn its weapon. Every critic pans Bound by Flame but I found it far better than this Sick Souls. Don't squander your time. Play Child of Light for a second time instead of this. I can't believe I bought this game.… Expand
  84. 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
  85. Jethro177
    May 10, 2014
    0
    Just to reiterate many other peoples views, this is the worst game I've played in a long time. If you ignore the fact it looks over 10 years old the game is still terrible.
    There is no real customization over the unbearable control system, you can swap a bad key binding for a worse one, in fact no effort has been made what so ever to port this to PC, all the on screen control hints have    Just to reiterate many other peoples views, this is the worst game I've played in a long time. If you ignore the fact it looks over 10 years old the game is still terrible.
    There is no real customization over the unbearable control system, you can swap a bad key binding for a worse one, in fact no effort has been made what so ever to port this to PC, all the on screen control hints have xbox symbols.
    The voice acting is OK but the terrible graphics make it hard to watch.
    I feel lucky I had a chance to try this before buying. What a heap of s**t.    … Expand
  86. 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
  87. 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
  88. 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.
  89. MadJaples
    May 7, 2014
    4
    What do you mean it's only worth FOUR!? HEATHEN!!

    Well it's only worth four, simply because these bastard devs keep producing (and I *do* notice it is distinctly from the Japanese end of the market and it's **** annoying as HELL) these games that look so damn good, sound great, have godawful long FMV sequences so it's as good as renting a friggin movie, only to discover....the controls    What do you mean it's only worth FOUR!? HEATHEN!!

    Well it's only worth four, simply because these bastard devs keep producing (and I *do* notice it is distinctly from the Japanese end of the market and it's **** annoying as HELL) these games that look so damn good, sound great, have godawful long FMV sequences so it's as good as renting a friggin movie, only to discover....the controls on the keyboard **** really.
    No really they are, and worse still, when you pull up the controls list, it's all displayed in the most un-user friendly manner possible, with a mixture of colour co-ordinated key press on gamepad you don't have, with letter press on keyboard you DO have, and that simply has to be probably THE most annoying thing about **** ports. And that's why it's a **** port.
    If you have a controller, all power to you, because you'll probably actually be used to twiddling yer thumbs on two sticks and pressing all of 8 or 9 buttons on a controller, but once again, this friggin annoying annoyance destroys any credibility of those who produce these games without much in the way of thought as to what sort of people are going to play their game. This is not a singular issue, it is becoming far too commonplace now, and it has to stop.

    It's people that produce games like these that are probably some of the reason people choose to obtain their games illegally instead of paying for them!

    "THINK! MCFLY! THINK!"    … Expand
  90. 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
  91. 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!
  92. Cioby
    May 4, 2014
    0
    The game is not as hard as fanboys would like you to think. It's just total crap, with "high" difficulty that "punishes" you when you die. The graphics is almost the same as the first game of the series. The sounds are crap also. You don't even have to play much to notice it, from the first interaction with the world, you can hear how **** the grass sounds like. This isn't a scary gameThe game is not as hard as fanboys would like you to think. It's just total crap, with "high" difficulty that "punishes" you when you die. The graphics is almost the same as the first game of the series. The sounds are crap also. You don't even have to play much to notice it, from the first interaction with the world, you can hear how **** the grass sounds like. This isn't a scary game either. Encounters are crap. This is a 2009 game, made for console players, those are the ones probably kissing their asses & the paid people who post "critic" reviews. The combat is slow and dull, the controls are bad considering a PC user can use a lot of keys to do whatever he wants without complaining of the assignments.
    Oh yea, let's not forget the "hentai" look that characters have, my harvester of souls, my warrior, my murderer looked like a f***** Japanese kid from FF or Lineage. I'm sure most people consider those awesome, I don't. It's not even an appropriate look for someone who is taking his victim's soul.
    My advice, if you're not a console fanboy, used to bad/old games, stay away from this game.    … Expand
  93. Dethstar
    May 4, 2014
    2
    PS - To Bandai and the paid for marketeers flooding this site with reviews. You might want to pay for native English speakers first. If your going to do it then at least make a proper effort. Then again, at least your consistent with your scam of a game as this probably took about the same amount of effort to create as some of the pidgeon English reviews they have been posting here andPS - To Bandai and the paid for marketeers flooding this site with reviews. You might want to pay for native English speakers first. If your going to do it then at least make a proper effort. Then again, at least your consistent with your scam of a game as this probably took about the same amount of effort to create as some of the pidgeon English reviews they have been posting here and elsewhere on the net.

    The first portion of the game is a long intro in which your mean to create your character. Unfortunately being an utterly **** console port (one of the worst I have seen) it is unplayable for me as try as I might the game will not recognise the letters on my keyboard so I cant create a character. Simply gives character unrecognised errors for everything. This in itself is not so bad if I had not been ripped off, spending 50 Euros on this terrible example of just why console games will never be as good as something designed for PC specifically. The field of view and aspect ratio during play is absolutely awful making it look like your watching everything through a small slot like a postbox.

    So I sent a message to Steam where I brought it. Despite UK and EU statutory law concerning sale of goods they sent me to Bandai. Bandai just do not respond at all. So not only did this game cause me to drop it, it cost a long term relationship with steam as well as they treated my with utter contempt for asking me for my money back ignoring the fact that the contractual relationship for sale of goods is between us. Passed it to the consumer protection agency and they are dealing with it. Also passed the story on to UK independence party campaigners to use if they see fit to indicate how corporations ignore EU law.

    There are claims that the game is beautiful etc.. Well, while your looking through that little slot it is a bit hard to tell as your characters arse takes up quite a lot of the screen real estate and there is little room to gauge how nice it might look. The quality of the art work reminded me of the witcher 2 but the field of view here was unplayable if your not limited by playing on a console.

    Perhaps some PC gamer modders will make this playable someday but it is not worth paying for as it is.

    So, this game was actually so bad, and the company behind it's support so poor that it cost me a 6 year relationship with a vendor I used to like.

    Sorry to digress but the outcome indicates how poor the game actually is.    … Expand
  94. 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 !!
  95. 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
  96. 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.
  97. 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
  98. 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).
  99. Bortx
    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). You have to do some mouse gymnastics to get them to take. Graphics are poor and dated. For console standards this might pass but for PC this is 5-7 year oldCrap 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). You have to do some mouse gymnastics to get them to take. Graphics are poor and dated. For console standards this might pass but for PC this is 5-7 year old tech. Story is confusing and nonsensical and expect to die all the time. This game is nothing but frustration. I don't see how anyone can enjoy this unless you have hours of time to waste and like to inflict pain on yourself.… Expand
  100. 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.
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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

All reviews »
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.
    Read full review
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