Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-1961216-20140429234542/@comment-5337347-20140501045648

Why are we being all hipster about two games in the same series?

"The first was better nyeeurrgh."

I started on Demon's Souls, so I always felt that was harder, since it was my first Souls game. Went back later, and "Hey this is easy."

Dark Souls in general was much easier for me due simply to the fact that I was already used to the basic mechanics having played Demon's Souls. By the time DS2 came around, and I'd played literally hundreds of hours of both previous games, of course it seemed easier. All that took getting used to was the slightly changed dodging and parrying. While there's plenty to be said about the lack of variety when it comes to DS2 bosses, with the most common being "Large Armored Thing With Big Weapon", it can be argued that the tracking that bosses and enemies have make it more difficult.

Everything in all of the games telegraphs their moves in one way or another; raising their arm a certain way, or performing a certain action, that serves as our cue to "get ready to fucking move". They have to telegraph, so we know how to avoid them once we learn them. If every attack was instantaneous with no clear indication of what they were going to do, how do you think it would play out?

The majority of people started on Dark Souls, so that game was the one they had to "get used to". A sequel comes out, and people already know how to play? Of course it seems easier, they're already used to the kinds of situations you'll run into, and are used to dealing with them.

As for torches and bright areas; there was only ONE area in Dark Souls that even needed a light source, and that was the Tomb of the Giants, and the Head with Candle/Lightning Bug Hat did fine for that. In Dark Souls 2, there's a number of dark areas, so light sources play a bigger part, but honestly, you can traverse all the areas (at least the ones I've been to so far) without the torch at all. Using the torch makes it easier to see things farther away, and it certainly looks nice, but it's far from necessary.

As someone who never uses summons unless it's an NPC with a "storyline" or a pre-arranged "Hey bro, let's go play Dark Souls," I can't really speak on that front. But if you're using summons for everything, of course you think it's easy. It hardly matters that the boss gets stronger when there's three of you.