Is Dark Souls II the best in the trilogy?

[Patches]

I am picking up a vibe and after my brother from another mother, Pate gave you all that white soapstone. Prithee thee take thine poll?

 

[DunkeyKong]

This vote is interesting
I would say it was really good I mean, even Miyazaki himself said it was the best one he made. Definitely if not the hardest then one of the hardest souls game

 

[vitad00d]

Definitely. It's basically King's Field Souls, and the final *early* From Soft game, in a certain sense.

 

[RuckusMcGuckus]

Lots of hate. The number one thing I always hear people say is, "Dark Souls 2 is the worst souls game, but the PvP is the best in the series."
Haven't played it YET so I'm not voting, but all the hate has always made me very curious and want to play it more.
Edit: Nevermind I see the poll is rigged, you have fooled me again...

 

[Patches]

Lots of hate. The number one thing I always hear people say is, "Dark Souls 2 is the worst souls game, but the PvP is the best in the series."
Haven't played it YET so I'm not voting, but all the hate has always made me very curious and want to play it more.
Edit: Nevermind I see the poll is rigged, you have fooled me again...

To be fair this is even more foolery because even I have not played dark souls ii, but I did play Dark Souls ii SOTFS which some say is even easier ?. I do recommend anything fromsoft they really have a method to their works I think most would enjoy.

 

[moonbits]

no, it is the worst possible sequel that Dark Souls could've gotten. An absolute disgrace

 

[LUNARMYTH]

It's my favorite of the three, although I think DS3 is the better game. But the environment/atmosphere of Majula alone in DS2 makes it hard to rival. The entire game is beautiful and the background music is wildly good. I come back to replay 2 more than either of the other games.

 

[Trax024]

I gladly agree. I did play all 3 Dark Souls games back to back last year for the first time and out of those games I did like DS2 the most.
It takes a while to get used to the mechanics but it's a very unique experience in itself imho.
I didn't like DS3 much though - it felt like they did run out of fresh ideas and just reverted back to Dark Souls 1 with some adjustments.

 

[Yousef]

I love DS2

 

[Pockets]

I played OG Dark Souls 2 a little when it came out but quickly dropped it, mainly due to not really understanding how Souls games worked. But a few months ago I finally went back and played through it and had a blast. This might be a hot take, but I think a majority of SOTFS's changes make the game a lot worse. It seems like for every good change they made there are two or three bad changes that make the game more tedious and annoying.

Having played both now, I'm fully convinced that SOTFS being the most version that's been pushed for that past 10 years has severely tarnished DS2's reputation.

 

[Anim8rDude]

The hate for DS2 will forever be foreign to me. Fundamentally they're the same so where do you hate it? The world structure? Leveling up to dodge? Because no Patches?
Lore-wise they're equally interesting & area-wise, I strongly believe DS2 has some of the most exciting levels of the series, & twice as much at that. All the DLC is peak, the weapon/spell selection is off-the-charts, great fashion choices & NG+ additions. H-How can you not be entertained!?

 

[Patches]

I will share with you all my own feelings on dsiisotfs. I only fairly recently realized that its very different from the original dark souls ii and ever since I really want to plau the original. Once dark souls finally clicked for me after many attempts at playing various titles with the wrong attitude, outlook I finally realized what made it so great and marathon through the trilogy. Sadly until recently I never had a ps3 or ps4. So I haven't got to play demons souls or bloodborne and my pc is not good enough to do it that way. Dark souls ii sotfs takes any inconvenience from dark souls and turns it up to 11. If theres a guy in blight town that toxics you in dark souls, there will be a whole dungeon of toxic spitting dudes in sotfs. Dark souls almost has like a early metal gear solid methodology to it where it may be really puzzling or challenging, but once you finally solve whatever the issue may be the dopamine hits are so crazy off of it. On top of that there was so much content in dsiisotfs and it was still fairly similar to the world design of dark souls one less realistically if you think about it, but firelink shrine or Majula take you to damn near anywhere in the game which is always a fun part of the dark souls titles not so much in the third title. I truly feel like a lot of the hate comes from our Sony Sisters who have played demons souls and bloodborne and they know how the b team made dark souls ii while the a team made bloodborne. Dark souls iii comes in with combat that is much more similar to bloodborne and its just a whole new gameplay with all of the new skills and the new ways in which enemies can move. I like all of that, but it does make the healing and dodging aspects more like the first title. I actually highly enjoyed the subtle differences in darksoulsiisotfs because at first it sucked that drinking my juice took a little bit longer and life gems what the heck are those. 8 directional rolling. I feel like those little changes made the game both more challenging and simultaneously you a better souls player if you can conquer all of that and solo the darklurker then you can solve anything fromsoft can throw at you. I beat all three titles with a lightning infused halberd before I ever touched a filthy spell or incantation. All three titles are solid and none of them are bad. With all of this being said my favorite FromSoftware title to date is Sekiro and I really hope it gets a sequel someday.

 

[happymasksalesman]

DS II is my favorite game. It had a lot of good stories. I can tell you this game with all DLCs is bigger than elden ring! It have a lot of side stories. In dark souls 3 there is not much people do the right work. In dark souls 2 everyone try but only one of them made it, Ivory King of Eleum Loyce. He was only one defend his lands and people from chaos and darkness. Well I can even say elden ring base isn't dark souls1 or dark souls3. I think elden ring were made on dark souls2,why?they have a lot of connections. The elden tree, remind me great tree in dark souls 2 before mirror knight. A lot of things on dark souls 3 came and were great was from dark souls2. My favorite part is you can buff your fussed weapons! Dlcs are so great! My favorite is sir alone. I didn't use his sword for boss fight but I heard it have a heavy damage with its sepoko skill on them.

 

[Zarathusta]

No its awful its nothing like kings field at all anyone that says this has not played a kingsfield game.
Also you put a git good joke in 2025 really?

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Completed Dark Soul in VR with LukeRoss mod... Maybe there's a VR mod for this one too.

 

[Vaggplus]

I played the original version of Dark Souls II, I wouldn't say it's a bad game just the weakest in the series. Granted I haven't played DS II since it's initial release. Back then I felt the game was decent besides nerfing rolling in Combat, that meant you had to approach things differently. I also didn't really like exploration walls like pharros lockstones and fragrant branches, I remember being lost for hours once because I didn't know an NPC can turn an underground room to open up a new path which made me stop playing for a while.

I have friends that defend the game and they say it's their favorite in the series but in my opinion compared to the other 2 games it's the least memorable to me.

I might play the SotfS version at some point or replay the game again to see if all these critisisms hold up. It could be that alot of people hate the SotfS version because it changed enemy placements and made the game much harder and frustrating.

Edit: Another thing that people disliked including me about DS II was that the world wasn't as interconnected as the first game. Being able to see Blight town from Firelink Shrine for example. DS II took a hit there because fans expectations were not met for a hyped up sequel.

 

[happymasksalesman]

I know who you mean. She can be find in flame tower. In dark souls 1 this happens to.

No its awful its nothing like kings field at all anyone that says this has not played a kingsfield game.
Also you put a git good joke in 2025 really?

Well I mean dark souls 2 wasn't so good but not awful.
About joke I don't get it. I mean basically in elden ring you a lot of enemies or npc didn't come from dark souls 3 or 1. A lot of things used in ds2 have used in elden ring. I mean connections between ds2 and ds3 was more than ds1.
Well maybe joke perhaps.

 

[FrayGuillermo]

It was my first souls so it has a special place in my heart. World design might be miles away from ds1 but the atmosphere is among the best ones and I like the even slower combat

 

[Varyag]

Oh you. Took me a second to notice the username and profile picture.

 

[queensquest]

I loved it when I first played it on PS4 via the sotfs release. At the time I just wanted more Souls and it gave me a mountain of it. The DLC areas were definitely the highlight but I liked the main game content too, and didn't really mind the disconnected nature of it all, with the distinct and linear pathways out of Majula. In a way it was a step-back from Dark Souls, but it wasn't that dissimilar to Demon's Souls, after all. I also loved the PVP - the only Souls game where I've ever spent a lot of time on that aspect.

Would be curious to know what I'd think of it today on a replay - whether the flaws that everyone else seems to see in it would be more obvious to me or if I'd still love it. I've had it in my Steam wishlist for ages so I can give it a playthrough on Steam Deck, but the Souls games never seem to get decent sales these days.