Before requesting Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (DSII:SotFS) for review, I checked with our resident Souls expert, Eric Layman. Check out his in-depth reviews for Dark Souls II, and it’s three DLC packs: Old Iron King, Sunken King, and Ivory King. Having already poured over 180 hours into Dark Souls II and its DLCs alone, and being focused on Bloodborne at the time, he gave me the greenlight. In the past, I had tried Demon’s Souls and the original Dark Souls, but did not stick with either. Having now cut my teeth on Lords of the Fallen, I finally “got it.” And by that I mean, I now understood the appeal of these Souls games, but, that’s not to say they’re perfect or should be attempted by anyone who doesn’t have a strong will, patience to match, and (most importantly for me) time to burn.
So if you’re essentially new to the Souls games as I consider myself to be, what’s the big deal about this series? Well, developer From Software has about mastered the concept of punish the player up front, but reward them for their patience. These games will test more than just your skill, they will test your resolve. I learned in Lords of the Fallen that you just have to get over the hump — there’s going to be a turning point when the difficulty does get better; the game won’t get easy as that would be missing the point, but for me there was a noticeable difference in difficulty between hours, say, five and ten. Anyway, not to get too much off topic here, but this game, this franchise, makes it abundantly clear that it’s not for the impatient.
These core elements are of course unchanged in Scholar of the First Sin, but, much of the game itself has significantly changed since the original release. All updates and patches are here. All DLC content is here. Enemies have been re-located, making the game different from the very start for those who experienced it already. Multiplayer integration now allows up to six players (formerly four), and the Forlorn invader is included. New story elements, including NPCs to help flesh out the story, and some re-worked item descriptions, help provide a more robust experience. On the PS4, the game runs in 1080p, is usually if not constantly at 60fps, and sports updated textures and lighting effects.
A lot of these changes are lost on me — I never played DSII so I can’t tell the difference in enemy placements or new NPCs, and truthfully the visuals are not earth-shattering. There is also a lot of chatter about a potentially serious bug in the durability of weapons that’s due to the game now running in 60fps as opposed to 30. Apparently weapons degrade twice as fast. I will say that I have noticed some weapons breakdown somewhat quickly, but to this point I can’t say for certain if that was by design or a (fixable?) bug. I can say, however, that the weapon degradation has not proven to be a major problem for me as I usually have enough weapons in my inventory to go around. As for the graphics, they’re solid, but it’s evident the PS4 was not the native platform. Still, DSII:SotFS looks very good, and the smooth framerate is really nice given how important time-based actions are in combat (i.e. evades, blocks, and strikes).
Looking back at my notes in my progress thus far (I have not completed the game at the time of this writing), a few issues I noticed include “long” load times. Bloodborne suffers from similar issues oddly enough, but for a game that came out a year ago, on last gen, the load times should have been better. It’s not uncommon to wait a good fifteen seconds to load back to your last bonfire, and since you’re going to be dying so much this becomes a nuisance pretty quickly. No, it’s not going to keep me or most people from playing, but it does cut into the fun and immersion of the experience and it feels like a better job could have been done — maybe a bigger install to the PS4 hard drive could help. Another nag, more of a minor one, was that I got an error once for not exiting the game properly. I regret I did not take better notes, but it was basically a warning that said I didn’t leave the game correctly and that I believe save game trouble could occur. I also had a night or two in which the servers for the game appeared to be down, denying all multiplayer functionality including the messaging system. Honestly? I didn’t miss the multiplayer component, messages and all.
On a more general level, I still think the gameplay could use some adjustment. The lock-on system is a bit clunky when you’re dealing with multiple enemies at once and this effects the camera. Having to lock-on/off in the heat of battle is not as smooth as it should be. Fall damage and the insta-deaths from falling into water is one of many irritating ways to die; at least your lost Souls are placed at the edge of the fall so that you have a chance to get them on your next respawn, but could this not have been handled better? Maybe adopt something like a Darksiders system in which if you fall off the edge you get docked some health but do not die (unless your health is already low). Not having a Pause function is puzzling as well; even when you are navigating your inventory or the general game Options there is no way to pause the in-game action. I think that’s a weird choice to make, and while there are plenty of safe areas, you know, I expect the ability to pause whatever game I’m playing.
Now for a bit of true heresy that Soul fanatics are sure to disagree with: I wish DSII:SotFS would have included some optional toggles for how the game handles certain elements. For example — I don’t care what game it is, if every time I respawn I lose all of my used consumables, potentially all of my unspent XP, and I have to fight every enemy again (and again) is just as exhausting and annoying as it was with Demon’s Souls. I’m a busy dude; time is precious. Additionally, a life-long pet peeve of mine, for any videogame, is having to redo segments. On the flip side, doing that in a Souls game is essential because you’ll get most of your item drops and XP (souls) from fighting these respawns. But it’s draining, and boring, and I wish I had the option to curtail that repetition somehow, either by allowing quick saves or frequent checkpoints or what have you. Literally grinding through the same sequence a dozen or couple dozen or more times before I find the next bonfire takes away from the enjoyment and works primarily to taint my experience of the game.
Despite the struggles and dislike of some of the design choices, DSII:SotFS is still worth the investment financially, and more importantly, in the time it demands. I enjoy the premise, the story, the environments, the characters, the RPG depth, and the persistent sense of dread and doubt that the player has to contend with and champion. Not many games in my experience have been able to take me to places so low and so high on the emotional scale. But you know what? For where I’m at right now, and looking at an ever-increasing backlog of games, I would trade some of that for a more efficient and fun experience.
To the summary…
