Game EXP: Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (PC/SD)

 

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin

Systems: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Release Date: February 5, 2015

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment & FromSoftware
Developer: FromSoftware

This is going to be a short article (I of course say that now) because we have already talked about Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin multiple times already (here, and here) and while I do not have a lot more to say about a game that is eight and seven years old, there are some aspects about the game I want to address, as well as how I played the game, my experience playing it, if you will.

Let me start off with how I perceived the game prior to playing it for the first time back in 2017 and then again in September 2022.  I had heard back in 2017 that Dark Souls II was the black sheep of the Souls games but I could not have told you exactly why, only that it was apparently different enough that people did not like it as much as Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls III, or Bloodborne.  I think the only thing I can definitely recall hearing was that DSII did not play as fair and that traversing through areas was not as tight as the first DS.  Being a fan (after several unsuccessful attempts) of Dark Souls, I was a little let down by what I had been hearing, especially about how the various areas were connected.  Then I watched Happy Souls, sometime before playing for the first time back in 2017, and apparently because I was weak-willed, I interpreted how traversing between areas in that video as how it happened in-game; if you are not familiar with Happy Souls, the animation showed movement between areas like a parody of an Indiana Jones movie and if you have not seen an Indiana Jones movie, then DM me and we will figure out a way to fix that.  It turns out that it is likely that people were upset about being able to fast-travel from the start whereas, in DS1, it is a mechanic you unlock close to the end of the game.

So I was wrong on the map-moving and general dogging on fast-travel for a couple of reasons.  First is because of Majula and how it ends up becoming a central hub for you, growing from a desolate waste of a village to a semi-bustling hub of commerce, magic, and ladders.  It is also the only place you can level up so I found myself traveling back there very often to level up.  And upgrade my gear.  And buy spells.  And repair broken equipment.  And talk to people.  There were paths back to Majula, but the way I played a lot of the early levels, that would have meant a lot of backtracking through empty areas and doing a lot of running through some beautiful scenery.  So I admit that I fast-traveled fairly frequently because some areas are large and sprawling, while others offer only one-way routes with no ability to backtrack to the beginning of the area (looking specifically at you DLC stages).  I also leveled up a lot.  As in, a lot, a lot.  I finished the base game at level 195 after 127 hours.

When I say I played Dark Souls II on easy mode, this is what I mean.  Especially in the early stages, I would clear out the area to the point where enemies would no longer respawn, partly to make the path to the boss a little easier, but I also found that by the time I finished exploring all the way to what looked like a boss fog door, I would have a host of souls that I could use to level up, and since souls in Dark Souls II are somewhat limited (excluding Bonefire Ascetic to a lesser extent, and the Company Champion's Covenant), I was somewhat averse to charging into a boss fight with 20,000+ souls when I could just head back to the nearest bonfire to head back to Majula to level up.  Or in some cases, I might be a few thousand souls short of being able to level up, so I would backtrack to the bonfire to travel to another area where I had not eliminated every enemy yet.  And then level up again.  I genuinely do not remember leveling in the first Dark Souls being this easy in terms of the number of souls needed to level up, but I could be wrong.  I was also not against summoning computer-operated NPCs to help out in boss fights, especially Lucatiel when available, but I was not against summoning two additional NPCs as I was more focused on progressing through the area than I was on attempting boss fights over and over and over and over again.  Plus I was not as concerned about losing out on earning more souls for not having summoned NPCs helping out.  That being said, I did not initially make the connection between being able to summon NPCs and having your humanity restored until I failed the fight against the Ruin Sentinels and approached the area with my humanity restored to bring my HP back up to max.  I found that I could summon Pilgrim Bellclaire who I admittedly used as fodder and a distraction during my next three attempts.

My character build, because that is really all anyone ever cares about, started out as an Int/Dex build that changed to an Int/Str Sorcerer build which became more of a quality build by the end of the game for a couple of reasons; although I did find multiple definitions of what constitutes a "quality build."  At some point around the time I was starting to visit Heide's Tower of Flame (before taking on The Pursuer on the rampart) I realized that I wanted to wear armor that offered better poise than the lighter and medium grade sorcerer styled armors but the heavier armors required additional points to go into Vitality so that I could wear heavier (and poisier) armor and use heavier weapons.  And with heavier weapons, comes a higher Strenght requirement, so that had to go up as well.  And let us not forget about our friend Adapatibility to increase those infinity frames while rolling because when you are rolling, you do not have time to parry; I don't think I parried once the entire game.  I ended up leaving my Dex in the low 20s because I found that a lot of my gear did not require that attribute and I only leveled up Faith when nothing else leveled up enough stats and when it would still increase my magic damage, although that seemed capped once my Int reached 50.  I also rarely leveled up Vigor because it would often only increase my max HP by 30 whereas I felt that having other stats increase offered a better option for surviving fights and dealing damage.

For gear, I bounced around a bit until I found the Drangleic armor set and that became my default armor for most of the game until I went up against The Old Iron King and needed something beefier in terms of fire defense, and then I wore the Alonne Captain Armor for most of the game.  Only after getting my Vitality up did I switch over to various pieces of Vengarl's Armor set, which I wore through the end of the game.  I did try experimenting with weapons a bit, but once I found and started upgrading the Craftman's Hammer, that was my melee weapon.  For casting spells, I stuck with the standard Sorcerer's Staff because it scaled so well compared to other staves I found.  Once my Int was up to 50 though, I switched over and upgraded the Staff of Wisdom to +5 and then infused it with Magic for that extra oomph.

I went through parts of each DLC area, making it to Sinh in the Sunken City but did not defeat him after a couple of attempts and trying to find good poison-resistant armor.  I also made it just past the second bonfire in Frozen Eleum Loyce before attempting the Sunken City again.  I made it a decent way through Brume Tower, getting past the third bonfire and into some horrible caves filled with lightning-throwing asshats. After these many failed attempts at Brume Tower, I decided to just go and give what I thought the end-game boss in the Throne of Want.  Just outside the fog door, I summoned both Vengarl and Benhart.  We all fought the Throne Watcher and Throne Defender, although Vengarl died during that battle.  So a weakened Benhart and I took on Nashandra although he died in the process, but I was not too concerned as he did help me bring her down to about half health, but oh boy that curse effect.

I did not participate in any voluntary invasions and of the two to five times I was invaded by hostile players, I might have defeated one.  Invading or being invaded was never a mechanic in either Dark Souls or Dark Souls II (and presumably in any of FromSoftware's games), which is probably why I played a good portion of the middle game in offline mode.  I did like that there were scripted invasions though as a lot of them could be cheesed either by using magic or simply by using any shield with a 100 rating in damage reduction and staggering an opponent after hitting the shield; although this did not always work against invaders like the occasional Forlorn or Jester Thomas.  I did feel though that FromSoftware went a little overboard with all of the PvP-focused areas that were essentially dead ends and while some of the areas were very cool looking and added a bit to the lore of the game (although I still need to do a deep dive into the lore of the game), once I discovered that the Undead Purgatory, Doors of Pharros, Grave of Saints, the Belfry Luna and Sol were all PvP oriented areas, I had no further reason to really explore those areas; except to visit Gavlan on occasion.

I do not know if I would claim that I got gud at Dark Souls II.  I mean, I did use the different avenues the game offered me to finish the main game.  I spent 127 hours playing, leveling up to 195, and died 349 times.  But hey, I did beat the main game, and I can say that.  So I did.

I know that there are some things that I am inadvertently leaving out, but that is going to happen when one tries to write a condensed article after playing a game for 127 hours.  There are some story points that were left unresolved that I do not know if they are covered in any of the DLC areas, such as The Pursuer.  Like, I have read the theory that they are the protagonist from the first Dark Souls, but there was no resolution with how frequently they showed up.  There was just the last encounter in the same room as the Smelter Demon, but that specific location did not feel like there was any special significance, but I could be wrong on that as I know that Dark Souls lore is deliberately vague; yes, I know about the two Pursuers being in the thrown room in Drangleic and that is just stupidly nuts.  Then there was the seemingly random-ish noble guy standing in a study after the fight with The Duke's Dear Freja; was that The Duke?  I think I will just watch a lore video.

So yeah, I really enjoyed Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, even if I did not finish all of the DLC areas.  I think part of that came from going into the game thinking that I was not going to like it based on what I had heard on the Internet prior to the first time playing, and then this time.  I am looking forward to Dark Souls III, but I might take a break to play something a bit shorter where I won't end up sinking another 125 hours into a single game.  But these games are a lot of fun.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

P.S.  Told you this was going to be a brief article.