Talk:Emerald Herald/@comment-3224216-20140215184211/@comment-1855630-20140314182310

I do consider her a "ripoff". Maiden in Black was a demon, and a very powerful one, which gave her the ability to manipulate souls to increase someone's power(level you up in game terms). Emerald Herald is just some woman with a feather, and said feather has nothing to do with souls anyway. And yet she has the same power? Furthermore, there was no undead curse or bonfires in Demon's Souls; there is the same curse and bonfires in Dark Souls 2, but somehow the ability to level up at them is gone? Yet another thing: returning to Nexus to level up wasn't annoying because the warp stones were few and far between - basically you only got them once you defeated a boss - so by the time you returned to Nexus there usually were new people to chat with, or old people with new things to chat about. In Dark Souls 2 bonfires are as common as they were in Dark Souls, yet you have to go back to Majula _every_goddamn_time_ just to level up.

Basically what I'm saying is this: there is no reason why Emerald Herald should even be in the game. There is no storyline reason(literally any NPC could tell you that the goal is to "kill four dudes" and "meet the king") and no gameplay reason(since you can warp between bonfires from the beginning, every bonfire is a leveling spot just like in Dark Souls - except unlike Dark Souls you have to go through the extra hassle of warping to Majula to actually do it). She is quite clearly in the game ONLY because someone at From Software said "wouldn't it be cool if we had a chick like in Demon's Souls who levels you up". And that IS a ripoff. So what "From Software" made both games? Games are made by people, not company names. And it is quite clear that Dark Souls 2 was made by quite different people than Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. Emerald Herald as a pointless nostalgia character is just one of many examples of this.