Review

I don't play RPGs. I think there's a fundamental part of my brain that doesn't understand them. I've only played the Mass Effect series for about an hour, Skyrim for slightly longer than that and I tried playing Final Fantasy VII when it was first released and hated it intensely. So what am I doing reviewing a game like Dark Soul 2? One simple reason: I love it.

The first Dark Souls has been a game that I've returned to consistently ever since its release over two years ago. My save game currently sits at around 12 hours playtime and I've still only got as far as Undead Parish – an area you would probably be able to run to in about 10 minutes from where the game starts. This is the type of thing that would normally make me give up and play something else, but there's something about the structure that keeps dragging me back.

I found Dark Souls II to be slightly easier than the first, but that's not to say it's easy in any way. I have still died many many times. Some of the concessions made to make the game more accessible to newcomers actually do make progression a lot quicker. Die too many times in a certain area and the enemies will slowly stop respawning making it easier to fight your way through. To balance this out, your maximum health will get lower with each death and the only way to restore this is to find and use a Human Effigy, which don't appear very often.

I like the fact that you can now fast-travel back to any bonfire you have previously visited so you no longer have to back-track through large sections. This also allows there to be an area that acts like the central hub from Demon's Souls, where you can buy and repair weapons as well as level up your character – something which it took me a few hours to work out. Having to travel back here to spend your hard-earned souls gives you a little respite but it ultimately starts to get tiresome.

Visually, the game has a real mixed bag. Some of the locations are stunningly beautiful whereas other sections considerably less so. Before playing the game I'd seen some gameplay movies where it barely looked like a current-gen title at all. However, the variety is much greater than it was in Dark Souls and this makes you want to explore more just to see where you end up next.

So why do I like Dark Souls 2 so much? Well, it's because it doesn't really seem like an RPG at all, more of a slower and more tactical action game. Although I hate repetition in games, I have no qualms about fighting my way through a section for the 20th or 30th time, and that's because every single death is my own stupid fault! No other game since the original Silent Hill has filled me with so much dread at the thought of simply walking down an unexplored corridor. Reaching the safety of that next bonfire quickly becomes as addictive as trying to perfect a track on Trials Evolution.

You don't have to understand everything in Dark Souls II to love it, and you certainly don't have to be good at it! You just have to like games.

About the Review

Platform

Microsoft Xbox 360

Developer

FromSoftware

Publisher

Namco

Released

14th March 2014