Hi guys! Today I will talk about Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin. As always, the review will have four parts, firstly I will talk about the storyline, then about the gameplay, afterward, I will talk about the visuals and finally, I will tell you my personal thoughts and give you a rating for the game from 0-10 (10 being the best).
Table of Contents
Storyline
The storyline is the typical Dark Souls storyline, meaning that you have to figure out what is going on through reading item descriptions, exhausting the NPCs dialogue, and looking at the environment.
As I have said in previous articles this is neither good nor bad, it comes down to personal preference, so if you are the type of person that likes this type of storytelling then this is a game for you.
Gameplay
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin has the best combat system out of all the Dark Souls games in my opinion. The highlight of the combat system is how it handles dual wielding.
Instead of giving you weapons who are meant for dual wielding as a set as Dark Souls 3 does, it allows you to combine whatever weapons you want. Of course, there are some rules you need to follow, but I can say that there are a lot more options and variety to this than Dark Souls 3.
There is also a certain stance for dual-wielding called Power Stance that you can activate if you have the necessary stat points depending on the weapons you have chosen (I won’t go further into this since you can find more information about this easily through a simple google search and also this isn’t the purpose of this article).
This game has a mechanic that no other Dark Souls game has. When you die you lose a portion of your available HP and that stacks up to 50% so you die many times you will end up playing with 50% of your original HP as your max HP.
There is a ring that can limit the HP loss from this mechanic to 70% of your max HP and there is also a consumable that you can use to regain your original HP limit but this mechanic, in general, can make the game a lot more challenging compared to the other Dark Souls games and it sure gets frustrating sometimes because you know if you had a little more HP and this mechanic didn’t exist you could have beat a lot of the bosses sooner.
The game offers a lot of variety when it comes to weapons armor and equipable items in general. There are a lot of different types of enemies for you to face. You won’t ever feel like you are fighting the same enemies over and over again.
This game also has the most bosses compared to the other Dark Sous games. The bosses feel unique and interesting and you will certainly have fun fighting them.
One thing that I find frustrating about this game is the bonfire placement. In the old From Software games, there is this false logic that putting a bonfire a mile away from the boss area somehow makes the game harder, but in reality, it just makes it frustrating and there is no reason to it. They figured it out in their recent games but this game isn’t one of those.
In a DLC area, in particular, there is a bonfire that is placed so far from the boss area that you have to walk for 3 minutes to reach the boss (bosses in this case since there are 2 bosses that you have to fight together), also there is fog in the area so you barely see anything and there are a lot of enemies that you can’t outrun on the way to the bosses. I thank God I managed to beat the bosses in the second try because I would probably go insane from the frustration.
To conclude, this section, Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is a little harder than the other Dark Souls games but that is only due to that mechanic I mentioned where you lose some of your max HP every time you die. The game takes around 50 hours if you want to beat all the bosses available(including the optional). It also has a lot of replayability since there are a lot of classes and builds you can try.
Visuals
The visuals of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin aren’t very impressive, and that is understandable since the game was released back in 2015. They aren’t horrible, but they aren’t eye-pleasing either.
If you won’t amazing visuals that help you immerse in the game, you won’t find them here.
One thing that the game has going for it though is the amazing armor sets that you can wear. Out of all the Dark Souls games, this game has the best looking armors to wear. This is a significant thing since looking cool makes the game a lot more enjoyable (at least for me).
Final Thoughts
The things I want you to remember from this article are the following.
First, the story is good if you are into this type of storytelling, second this game has the best combat system out of all the Dark Souls games, it’s also harder than the other Dark Souls games due to the HP mechanic I mentioned. It also has a lot of replayability and content.
Lastly, the graphics are average, but it has good customization since this game has the best looking armors out of all the other Dark Souls games.
I recommend getting it on sale since it isn’t worth full price in my opinion.
Final Verdict
Storyline: 8
Gameplay: 9
Visuals: 8
General Rating: 8
That’s it for my review guys, I hope you liked it. If you liked the game leave a comment down below and tell me what you liked the most about this game. See ya in the next article.
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Follow @GamerWelfareHere is a link for the images I used:
https://www.igdb.com/games/dark-souls-ii-scholar-of-the-first-sin/presskit