What should we write about a game so massive, variable and impenetrable as Dark Souls II? Instead of providing an overview or comprehensive review, we can offer nothing more than a few fragments (shards, maybe), hoping that some of you can add your own experiences and oppinions.
Shard 1: Dark Souls II is like learning Japanese (esp. Kanji)
Finally, I’ve taken the throne. What a comical moment after all these hours of playing. Beating the endboss still left me clueless as to the story and the meaning of my ascent, and quite aware of the many hints and mechanics of the game I must have missed playing the way I played. At least I had the complete Dark set equipped, which made for a nice picture.
Dark Souls II is a game about a kind of underworld in which the player has to fight a great number of tough enemies in order to: a.) become stronger? b.) save the world? c.) remain human? d.) become the king? e.) I’m not sure yet…
Set in a vast middle-age-styled world, the gameplay largely consists of exploring the map, developing a character and equipping it with defensive and offensive gear, and, repeating the same mistakes many times. There is also the story of this world, which can be explored by conversing with npc characters spread across the land, but mostly, you die, start again, die again and start again… What makes the game so deadly for first-timers is that even regular enemies in the game can be tough challenges and even if not may catch you off-guard and become deadly opponents. The game feels very much like learning Japanese characters: Almost impossible at first, one gradually develops strategies and the right kind of (muscle) memory to prevail.
The game involves two (or more) reversals of logic I find interesting. The first one has to do with the theme of the game, namely playing in a kind of underworld that takes the protagonist’s soul whenever he (or she if you use the “gender-switch” in the second area) dies, gradually turning him hollow. With each death, your max health points are reduced by some percentage until you have only 50% of your total health points left. Reversing the hollowing turns him/her human again and restores full health, at which death then starts chipping away again. The problem with this is that my ignorant way of playing did not result in enough reasons for staying human – there are some benefits, yes, but these are actually not that great considering that this clinging onto humanity requires much more care while playing (and is quite impossible in some situations without constantly consulting walkthroughs). So in consequence, I stayed hollow at 75% of my health – thanks to a special ring that decreases the maximum health reduction – for most of the time during the game and stopped worrying about the hollowing. Other players may have a different experience, but in my opinion, this turns a great idea ineffective.
Nonetheless, the game draws you in since it rewards practice and is a lot of fun once you’ve mastered the basic principles. When I started a new character recently (why would you do that!!!???), I was startled by the ease with which I played through the first parts of the game, especially the boss fights. This may be called the second reversal the game involves: It actually gets easier towards the end. The hardest part is realizing that it may not always be about increasing your character’s strength or weapons damage (the latter has a cap anyway), but rather increasing your player skills and choosing the right strategy and tactics during the fights. For all those who like to labour, Dark Souls II is quite fun. I should point out that I made little experiments with covenants and other online playing across worlds (other than from being ripped apart a couple of times by invaders) – another promising feature I am hoping to explore in the future.
Finally, a warning: Don’t start watching youtube videos of this game…
Shard 2 – Lorehunting
The whole Souls Series has been a very long journey, filled with hardship, experience and joy in ever repeating circles. Dark Souls 2 amazed me in different ways. Leaving the starting area through a promising crack in the far wall and discovering Majula for the first time felt like an Anor Londo effect (something probably every Dark Souls 1 player experieced) right at the start of the game. Majula felt like home. A place you want to come back to, where you could calm your strained nerves at the cliff, watching the sunlight shining on the endless ocean. The NPCs inhabiting the area seemed to enjoy the calm, forgetting their previous lives (father and daughter not recognizing each other, for example), co-existing there in peace. Compared to the firelink shrine from DS1 it had the same homely character, but brighter and warmer.
Majula
And then the game continued and the graphics dropped. Having played other PS3 games like God of War or Far Cry, I was really disappointed about the representation of background areas. About 16-20 trees on one hectare representing a wood ..? Amazing…
But to return to one of many good aspects, for which I endured dying and exploring and dying for a long time: The way the game hints at parts of the actual and background story. The narrative doesn’t hand out the lore to you as you progress like other games, books or movies do. You have to actively search for it. In dialogs with NPCs, in item descriptions and in architecture. What happened in the world? Where is the connection between the characters you meet and those from the past? Why the heck are you even on this journey? You can find it out by searching, looking for every bit of lore you can find and connecting the pieces. And obviously through the Dark Souls wikia and other fan based websites as well. This is not saying that I think I understood all pieces of the lore.
The creator Hidetaka Miyazaki is often quoted explaining this way of narration. As a child he used to read many a book. And whenever his reading capabilities couldn’t provide meaning to what he read, he just filled the gaps in the story with the help of provided illustrations or his imagination, thus acting as a co-author. Whether this statement is true or a marketing strategy, this method can be applied to the lore of Dark Souls.
I played Dark Souls 2 after finishing the first installment. Obviously the four bearers of “great souls” from Dark Souls 1 were still palpable in my mind when playing. After finishing Dark Souls 2 and attempting a new go on it, four major bosses suddenly dropped different items. (Although only recognizing it after beating the 3rd of those bosses, wikia helped me finding the rest). Being a sequel but barely having other direct connections (bonfires and undead and so on) to the story of the first game, this brought up one of those “ahhh, thaaaat happened?” feelings.
One of those items is a soul called “old paledrake soul”. In the item description it is mentioned that “This once-magnificent soul continues to exert influence over the land, even after the eons have reduced it to these remnants”, hinting to it having belonged to Seath the Scaleless, a white dragon boss from the first game holding this soul (one of the four bosses mentioned above). The items one can craft out of those souls resemble each other and thus bear other connections.
And for me and probably many other players this is it. Finding out about the hidden mechanics of history behind the playable story by looking and searching for it. By connecting, talking about it online and finally coming up with something which makes sense. Other games have narratives as well, impressive and well written ones. Compared to some of them, I would agree that Dark Souls 2 does not have the deepest story to be found. But it has a way of making one want to understand what happened. It makes you want to know why you are enduring these countless hours of repeated death. One can play a game for its qualities as a game, for the thrill of fighting and overcoming obstacles. And one can play for the story. The difference here to other games, books and movies is, I think, that you really have to play in order to get the story. Bloodborne, the next Miyazaki game did this even better. The internet is rendering this effect redundant to some extent, because once people find some clues, they post them online making them accessible without playing. But fortunately one can decline going online and looking for the story. As one can decline to look for too much story inside the game itself. Games can be played on many levels and Dark Souls 2 (as with the whole Souls Series including Bloodborne) offers a fresh one to enjoy.
Feature Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xC8RMZ_wSJ8/maxresdefault.jpg
