In Defense of Dark Souls 2

It’s way better than Bloodborne.

As a new fan of the series (I’m currently playing Elden Ring rn and plan to play the rest of the Soulsborne games now) I can kinda understand the lock on argument. Yeah you can just not lock on, but I’ve had a lot of times where I try to attack smaller enemies while not locked on and my model bumps into their model in a weird way or something, and that moves my character and this causes my attack to miss. The Rennala fight (phase one) specifically is where this happened a lot. It mostly happens when there’s a lot of enemies in one place.

I can’t say much since I’m only a new fan, but that’s just been my experience with not locking on in group situations.

There's always one mistake with darksouls 2 redemption videos tbey tey so hard to bash darksouls 1

As someone who had fun with darksouls 2, i never expected people to not actually adapt their gameplay based on their enemies and on the level they are in ? Thats
Super basic

Shocking how dishonest, manipulative, condescending and downright moronic some of the arguments made in this video are. Genuinely made me lose all respect for Harris as a source of intellectual commentary or debate. This video is an actual embarrassment in terms of writing. Harris employs similarly dishonest tactics in his writing that he criticizes others for in his other content.
I saw someone comment that this video made them brush off Matthewmatosis, just viewing them as someone who makes bad arguments, but after seeing Matts video that Harris references here, they realized that it was in fact Harris who was a lying twat and an incompetent writer, something that I 100% agree with. Just a nice story I wanted to share :) kinda comforting that as garbage as this video is, it still managed to expose people to well written and argued content.

I'd love to hear Harris comment on what he thinks of this video nowadays, since I'd really like to go back to respecting the guy, and I'm hoping that he might admit to writing this in bad faith and show a little spine and integrity, from which he might then grow from.

I have no clue who this Matthewmatosis is, but sounds like he is a games journalist...

This video is a prime example of how NOT to structure a persuasive argument

Surprising how one hour-long video can entirely reshape one's views on a game most call 'bad'... Good shit, in other words!
And yeah I'm late, shaddup.

The existence of a stat dedicated for i frames when you roll, and the fact that the default i frames for the said roll is about the same as a fat roll is reason enough to call it the worst souls game.

You know it's a bad video when it has 3.7 million views and only 78k visible likes, I really want to know how much dislikes it has😂

This video isn't even trying to be objective in any way? So why is it on the platform? You didn't defend the game at all😂
Literally at the end of your every sentence there is a "In my opinion"
THAT ISN'T OBJECTIVISM YOU MORONIC DULLARD.

How is this video still up? Doesn't your balding ass have no shame? Trying to call Matthew stupid with a condecending tone was your biggest mistake, the only reason why this video in partucular has a lot of views is because people who are much more smarter analyzers of the media referenced this video in bulk and people came in and had their laughs, delete it, now!

Well said🙌🏽

All I did was scream “SHRINE OF AMANA” and cry the entire length if the video.

One of the worst uploads you have made. Awesome!

bottom line: dudes in armor is boring. i play games to have fun.

came here to place my dislike goodbye.

This was my first Dark Souls game.... Unless you count Bloodborne (I dont. Its a different series get the fuck over it.) And I absolutely fell in love with it....its also the one I never go back to like ever. I haven't played this game in literally years. I need to play it again.

I’d like to play a game these critiques develop, and see how it stands next to the games they criticise.

When will it be ported to switch ?

hearing you talk about the 1v1 duels in dark souls makes me feel like you'd love old (or new tbh) armored core. it has that kind of gameplay where pretty much all of your tough enemies are going to be on equal footing, resource-access-wise.

Tbf I use lockon in group fights and found a way to make it work. Granted, being on pc using a keyboard and mouse while playing the game makes it way easier, but hey, it may work on controller. Lock on to the closest enemy/the ememy ya wanna kill and keep an eye on the other enemies without manually moving the camera, but rather just keeping your eyes open and looking around the screen for approaching enemies. Wanna make a bigger change in where you're looking? Lock off and lock on the enemy in the direction you wanna look in. It sounds stupid, but it's very intuitive once you get the hang of it

Has this video become a comfort video for anyone else?

Just came here after watching the 10h response... I like your vid on fallout new vegas though prtty good

How is it possible to be such a condescending, selfrighteous, contentious little prick? Asking for a friend…

Artorias is the platonic ideal of a souls boss?

Slave night Gael takes that title, for me.

I love this video and find myself wanting to make my own review on the successes and failures of the videogames I like.

i like to play with a shield AS the dude-in-armor to enemies

The Beatles slander here is unforgivable

This video was the perfect length for mowing

When you need to do the demon ruins there’s no reason you should go into blight town again for the rest of your run after you killed Quelaag unless you want to go to Ash lake. You can teleport to The Daughter of Chaos bonfire 😂

In regards to the Bloodborne shield's description text, i'm fairly certain that's NOT meant to be a critique of shields in Souls or how players use them, but rather a somewhat meta statement about Bloodborne being a different game from Demon/Dark Souls with different mechanics. Just because the two IPs share similarities in their gameplay, they aren't meant to be played the same way, and the game is letting you know that BB is marked by aggression, evasion, and fast-paced combat -- in contrast with the slower and strategic gameplay of Souls. If the developers really intended you to never use shields in Souls, and solely rely on rollspamming to prevent damage, they wouldn't have bothered to include them at all; especially not with such variety and usefulness.

Funnily enough, this same mentality of "there is only one way to play Souls" is what has led so many series "veterans" to be monumentally bad at Elden Ring and whine about it being "unfair". They refuse to learn any of ER's new mechanics, particularly in regards to combat mobility (for instance, jumping to avoid ground-based AOEs rather than rolling), and instead insist that R1 and dodge roll are all they need. The refusal to engage with the full extent of the game's systems and instead cling to their old "tried and true" strategies from previous titles leads to their suffering, and that's exactly what the shield in Bloodborne is remarking on.

that's some well-articulated copium 10/10

Going back to this video, as well as the Bloodborne video, I'm really starting to see play conditioning and expectations as being a major hurdle for a lot of people to get into certain games that are somewhat different than what they normally play.

Your takes are all so good except fucking this one. There isn’t a single aspect of this game that I find enjoyable

Dislike gang LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I played scholar as my first dark souls game which is apparently not advisable.

Great video until the part about summoning being okay, it feels like shooting an animal stuck in a trap.

People say DS are to hard, I grew up playing table top DnD 1.0.
Now that's an unforgiven game.

Literally a regular cobold (one of the first easiest enemies.) Could straight up kill your character.
Also character death = make an entire new lv 1 character and lose everything.

Who'd have thought that a video that's just under 1 ½ hours would spawn a response series that decimates the arguments over a ridiculous 9 hour span.

an hour and 20 minutes of someone trying to convince you in a roundabout way that subversion is good without actually explaining why

Nope, this game is dog shit.

i rape dogs