Dark Souls 2 Update

Just a quick post to comment on some things I said in my first-look review.

 

I’ve been playing Dark Souls 2 ‘proper’ now. I’m not much further (kept dying, innit) but a larger view of the game is available to me now.

First up, a quick correction to my review. Remember I said that I got into a coffin and nothing happened, then my character randomly became female, which might have been a bug? No bug, just game designers trolling us.

Had I but make a small logical leap I’d have realised that getting into the coffin changes your gender. Just like in real life!

So that corrected, the main difference now to the patches and multiplayer-live game is the appearance of ghostly players and messages.

Now, the former I’m not very keen on. I find it breaks the atmosphere somewhat. You’re doing your thing, then a ghostly image of another player (presumably recorded from some other person’s play) wanders along doing their own thing. They can’t harm you, it’s more like seeing the ghost version of your Mario Kart on a time trial. You can watch what they get up to, if you like, but it’s just a little jarring, because they move like players, not like ghostly NPCs- running full pelt everywhere, occasionally jumping.

Sometimes they scare the crap out of you if they appear suddenly, so I guess that’s something. The first time, in particular. I must say, it is nice to play a game where you’re scared of your enemies because any fight can have a big toll on you. You’re always being careful, because of the high price of death. No hiding behind a waist-high wall to regain your health.

The other thing I wanted to mention was messages- another way in which players interact during a single player game. You can write a message and leave it on the ground for others to find. This is a little jarring too, because in some areas there’s loads of these things and they’re layered onto the ground in a nasty 2D scrawl. It’s a bit facebooky. Don’t need to know.

Having said that, they’re so damn useful. You can only write a message from the words you’re given to combine, so there’s no ‘lol at ur balls lol’. There is the odd gibberish, but mostly, there’s things like ‘Beware enemy ahead’ and ‘Try key to the right’. These are actually great, because of the aforementioned difficulty level. A few times I’ve been apprised of a hidden item or warned of an enemy or trap. I left a couple myself, such as one to let people know that he key to the blacksmith’s shop is sold by the old woman.

Anyway, just wanted to update on those and correct myself. I finally finished Black Flag. Very nautical. Damn you, Legendary ships.