The “intentional game design” in question:

This kinda furthers my point. It’s obvious to people who engage with the souls community but outside of that if you just pickup DS2 without doing so you’re not going to know about ADP because the game doesn’t explain what it is. Once again that “intentional game design” kicking in.

If you like DS2 that’s fine go crazy but the cope and defense for its issues is so goofy. We all know if this game was called Lords of the Fallen and not made by FromSoft people would not defend it like this

lol DS2 has its flaws. Of course it does. It has jank. We’re talking about people trying to play it like DS1 and constantly running by enemies when they specifically designed it to not allow that anymore. And they’ll scream “bad game design” because it makes it harder for them

I mean that’s definitely bad game design. Less purposeful enemy placement and more gank squads with no option to run past, making run backs even more annoying and a waste of time than they already are. DS2 is both the most unfair souls game yet somehow still the easiest. Because the actual enemies aren’t well designed or good. Quantity over quality.

@fromsoftserve this is why you play the original DS2 and not the Scholar edition

@fromsoftserve Isn’t that edition not currently sold anywhere tho? Pretty sure only ways to play it is through old gen or emulation

@fromsoftserve I did play it on my ps3 but nah its still up on Steam. Its lowkey harder to pirate this version

@fromsoftserve Lowkey might have to try just to see how it compares

It's really telling you had to go to the one single video essay everyone else uses to try and make a point. Also you should replay the other two games because they also do this

I didn’t get this from a video essay but I’ve replayed DS1 and 3 like 9 times each. Sure they have their cases of bad hitboxes but the issue with ds2 is that it’s most of the hitboxes + stacked on top of the 200 other issues the game has

None of those games are perfect and in fact are each pretty flawed. This is like if we judge the entirety of DS1 by the second half of the game (which is largely unfinished and crap, but that would be stupid to do)

@KaiKai2492 DS3 is extremely close to a perfect game lol

@KaiKai2492 It very much so isn't. Just because you prefer something does not indicate an inherent quality.

@KaiKai2492 It has the best gameplay out of the souls trilogy, the overall boss quality is the best out of all their games, the time sink is manageable unlike Elden Ring. I'll admit I can't make a judgement of Sekiro yet, I'm only past the horse dude, but so far it's worse cus of gameplay.

@KaiKai2492 It has the best npcs AND the most reasonable quest progressions, the map isn't the best out or all their games but it's still amazing as it's in all their games. Personally my favorite lore and story although more so the souls trilogy as a whole and not just ds3.

@KaiKai2492 Yeah I'm sure it is your personal favorite. That doesn't mean it's the "best" though

I don't know man, sounds like skill issue. Especially being hit during the elder dragon fight? Invalidates every point you've ever made in your entire life.

Wdym DS2 is the easiest souls game

You see, it was a joke

A bunch of these are people dodging way too early

I especially love the ones where you clearly dodge a sword thrust only for the game to drag your ass and impale you on the sword anyways 😭

@VoicesInShadows Actual goofy bs 😭

You could spend hours discussing the jank in every souls game if you want. You'd be dumb to imo. Each one offers a great fun experience if you're willing to engage with it. Being stubborn is your own fault not the games. Lvl ADP, fight the enemies or just be better at running idk

DS2 simply filters DS1 players even when you ignore the jank, just dont apply the same logic of running past hoardes of enemies

Even if you go in with the knowledge to avoid most of this, this game has the most anti-hype gameplay ever. (Posting my own gameplay again award)

What makes DS2 bad is that it consistently bungled things that DS1 already did correctly. From directional movement, to the rolling animation, to the feedback in hitting an enemy, to hitboxes, to enemy placement, to the healing system, and so on and so forth.

It's more of a combination of ADP and the player's hit box, the issue is that the player's hit box counts as one big hit box and not smaller hit boxes for the player. So when you get hit in the toe by a grab, it counts as the whole body getting grabbed.

crazy how all of these clearly put the hitbox in the grab attack, which after the movement animation ends, is corrected.

Example of what people in 2014 had to work with when it came to i-frames. "Yeah this stat does some stuff" is all you got. No visual cues given for i-frame changes, no stat telling you this. Nothing.

Sometimes I don't like saying skill issue(including not using proper mechanics and stat use ingame) but man you guys make it hard not to.

I think the game seems to be a buggy mess

Dark Souls 2 is surely one of the games of all time

But hey Sonic 2006 also has a hardcore fanbase so let them enjoy their unfinished games because of potential or something

@KaiKai2492 Insert project 06 here

@KaiKai2492 Project 06 is not sonic the hedgehog 2006 tho

retards still going crazy over throw anim snap in 2026

I love how every Dark Souls 2 meat rider will see this shit and go: "erm you should've leveled up ADP" LIKE IF THE GAME LITERALLY NEVER TELLS YOU THAT LEVELING UP ADP WILL MAKE THE GAME FUCKING WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE

no no no you don't understand, you MUST stagger progression by putting 20 levels in ADP otherwise your experience is like that

remember that anyone that likes ds2 played it as their first souls game and i have never seen anything to the contrary. i played ds2 on release and fuckin hated it

"let me not level up adaptability to clip farm" they're all the same guy

> Bad and straight up illogical level design (iron keep), enemies placement (deadloop gank squads) > "Amazing" hitboxes, clunky movement, funny animation > Miyazaki is not involved with the product (you can understand why those above exist)

Yea, the hit boxes are kinda jank (and yes the teleporting ones are a little insane), but a lot of this video is people rolling too early/late or being too close to the enemy when the attack occurs.

Literally of these clips except the spell through the wall are skill issues lmao you proved their point by posting this

Ds2 is a game where literally everything else works BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. the hitboxes! How!?

‘Intentional” and you are using lock on 95% of the time lol

almost all of the clips are people with probably less than 100 agility misstiming the roll and besides that going into the hitbox, obviously it will catch em 😭 massive skill issue

I REAAAAALLY want to see the adp stat every time this bs clip gets used.

My favorite is the mimic eating you while you're behind it, that was a great moment of cinema

ds2 dickriding fans wouldn't like that bro, you should love the game after lvling APD to 35 or you playing it wrong, oh btw the hit box is the best in the series, oh btw the movement gave you time to think, oh btw the lvl design in this game is peak but don't use logic holy cope

[shows a bunch of usual DS hitboxes that are larger than a weapon up to and including Elden Ring] Yeah, yeah.

aside from the freja one you can literally see the weapons, or shockwaves clip the character model. none of these attacks are unavoidable.

Adaptability just makes the issue worse anyway because it just swaps the game to the opposite extreme by making it a joke. Almost like not having a consistent dodge to balance the game around makes for a super messy fucked up design philosophy and inconsistent difficulty

Not the reddit talking point 😭 if u actually play the game you'll understand the reason people like it is for the way your builds come together and the vast amount of routing you can go for compared to other entries. This is such a surface level way of engaging with the game

You need to skill adp to get iFrames on dodge