Hi guys! Today I will talk about Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin and Dark Souls 3. I will do a comparison between them and I will let you be the judge of which game is better. First I will talk about the storyline of those 2 games, then I will talk about the difference or similarities in their gameplay, and lastly, I will compare the visuals and tell you my final thoughts. Now let’s begin.
Table of Contents
Storyline
You probably have an idea of the kind of storytelling dark souls games have, but I will explain it here again. Dark Souls games want you to discover the story on your own through reading item descriptions and talking to NPCs and even if you do all that you will probably understand 50% of what’s going on, the other 50% is theory crafting.
Both Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin and Dark Souls 3 follow this kind of storytelling, though I have to say I prefer the story of Dark Souls 2 a little more. That’s just personal opinion though, and I can’t recommend one game over the other based on the story.
Gameplay
Even though both games are from the same franchise and Dark Souls 3 is the sequel to Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, I believe as far as combat goes, Dark Souls 2 has a better combat system than Dark Souls 3 and more specifically the system that Dark Souls 2 has that is far better than Dark Souls 3 is the dual-wielding.
The dual-wielding system is truly amazing in Dark Souls 2. It very intuitive and the fact that you can use different kinds of weapons and the only limit is that they have to have the same types of attacks is truly amazing.
The power-stance is also very well implemented. It’s too bad that they decided to scrap this system in Dark Souls 3.
Besides this system, the games play the same when it comes to combat, but this system is by no means something minor, it is a very important system that can severely impact your experience if you want to dual-wield weapons.
As for the weapons, both games have a huge variety of weapons you can use and this extends to armors and other equipment also. One additional thing that I feel the need to address is the death punishment system that Dark Souls 2 has.
You see Dark Souls 2 has a unique mechanic that doesn’t exist in any other Dark Souls games. Each time you die the maximum HP bar you have available is reduced by a percentage and if you die a lot of times your max HP can drop to 50%(there is a ring that can increase the minimum percentage that your HP can drop to 70%) of the original. The only way to restore the maximum HP to the one that you are supposed to have based on your stats is to consume an item.
This system gives more difficulty to the game since those consumables that you can use to restore your max HP aren’t so easy to get that you can just use them whenever you feel like it. You have to somewhat adjust your playstyle so that you don’t die so often and use those consumables only when it’s necessary for your progression.
Both games have a lot of variety when it comes to mobs and bosses, though Dark Souls 2 has more bosses for you to fight.
Lastly, if you want the more challenging game then Dark Souls 2 is more challenging because of the HP system I mentioned above. Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin also has more content and it will take longer to complete. As for the replayability, both games are at the same level.
Visuals
Since Dark Souls 3 came out later it has better visuals overall but the difference isn’t big and it’s not worth considering when you are deciding which of these two games to pick.
Dark Souls 2 has somewhat better scenery than Dark Souls 3, but that’s because of the story.
When it comes to customization, neither game has an equipment transmogrification system and for those of you that don’t know what this is, it basically means that you are able to change the appearance of all your equipment and keep the stats.
Even though neither game has this system, I believe Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin has better customization because the armors that are available in this game look a lot better than the armors available in Dark Souls 3.
Visually I believe Dark Soul 2: Scholar of the First Sin is the better choice, even though Dark Souls 3 has better graphics.
Final Thoughts
Let me summarize what you should keep from this article.
First, both games have stories that are around the same level of quality and you can’t really say that one game’s story is better than the others.
Second, when it comes to gameplay I believe the combat system of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is superior compared to the combat of Dark Souls 3 and that is because of the dual-wielding system Dark Souls 2 has.
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin also has more content and is more challenging than Dark Souls 3.
Finally when it comes to visuals Dark Souls 3 has better graphics, but Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin has better-looking armors.
Whichever game you choose I recommend waiting for sale because they are pretty old.
That’s it for my article guys. I hope you liked it. What game do you think is better and why? Write down your opinion in the comments below. See ya in the next article.
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Follow @GamerWelfareHere are the links for the images I used:
https://www.igdb.com/games/dark-souls-ii-scholar-of-the-first-sin/presskit
I don’t know how I got here but you are smoking absolute dick to say that ds2 has better visuals than ds3. That is all, peace.