Even the parts of Dark Souls II that made it through the troubled development of the game and still came out looking good seem to have had a lot shaved off them in the process.
The three legs actually points to an interesting bit of Japanese mythology, the Yatagarasu, or 3-legged crow. It's a crow god that is a symbol of guidance, appearing in the legend of Emperor Jimmu, having been sent from the heavens to guide his way. So, it is fitting that it serves as something to guide both you to a destination, and a boss to you. The heavens do not play favorites in the Souls series, and are as likely to help you as they are your enemies.
You got it all wrong. Yatagarasu (and Chaos Emperor Dragon) is the reason the Yu-Gi-Oh banlist exists. That's where Japanese mythology took inspiration from 😉
@Sunbro I don't WANT to be down on it. I see a lot of love shining thru. Lots of things are still fun and great to look at. There's just a lot wrong with it.
@ERRO.432 Mourning is what you do after someone you love dies. It means to miss something, to be heartbroken at its loss, to love a thing that no longer exists
A key part of the Dark Souls 2 experience is seeing terrain in the distance, going "Hey, how do I get there?", and then finding out later that it was cut content. Sad.
Such a tragedy, especially after DS1 where you almost always _did_ get there. It seems like it's part of the design philosophy to show the player a place in the distance that they'll get to later, almost nothing in DS1 was just set dressing. DS2 ended up a lot bigger, and didn't wrap around on itself nearly as much as DS1 did, so it ended up with a lot more places you can see, but can't get to, but it may have been planned that you would have gone there at some point.
@@keikei2942 The giant bridge you could see from the shaded woods, in the left path leading to the Shrine of Winter is one example, though i cant really think of more because i dont really pay attention to the surroundings in DS2, just mentioned this one since shaded woods is in this video.
It's not sad, it's heartbreaking. DS2 was my first Souls game and I love it despite all the flaws, but imagining how great it could have been does bring a tear... We possibly lost a game good as its predecessor.
I can't believe I found a soulmate in that regard here... Dude, Dark Souls 2 was my first Souls game as well and for all the frustration I felt, I still loved the game a lot and would never hesitate to play it again. But playing the first game and later on learning about all the many ideas and different concepts that were scrapped from the second one... it really feels like we lost a possible masterpiece. :'( Oh well, at least FromSoftware seems to be realizing many of these scrapped concepts in their more recent games. Specially in Elden Ring, if you look at it from a certain perspective, it's like everything that Dark Souls II once dreamed of being coming into reality!
I don't think you should be sad. The game we got is almost certainly better than the game we were going to get under the first director, and what we missed out on from the final build was due to hardware limitations, aka over-ambitious development. It happens all the time, and what they couldn't do in 2, they did in 3 and BB and certainly will do in Elden Ring. That's just the creative process. You love the version you got, and you may not have loved the version you _think_ you wanted. Be glad that video games are an iterative art form, and that the creators of 2 are still working with the same team (except, again, for the first Director, which is why you're very unlikely to see his comedic vision of the game ever come to lightU2015 not that it was finished in the first place and sitting on FROM's shelves somewhere or anything like that)
Dark Souls 2 will forever be the game that "could have been". I'm not exactly sure how From could have done things differently, but my hope now is that more of the many unrealized ideas DS2 had to offer can make their way into future titles.
Looking at Elden Ring and even the games before it you can clearly see that that's been happening. Even the 'bosses outside their arena' concept probably lead to the mini bosses in Sekiro and the bosses in open fields that we meet in Elden Ring.
@@PrayForTanqueray indeed. it seems Elden Ring is literally the amalgamation of the best parts of Dark Souls 1, 2 & 3 mixed with some new concepts and all of it polished to modern standards.
I think that's exactly what happened, just like Super Mario 128 or the dungeons cut from Wind Waker―Miyamoto told us that we won't ever get those things themselves because we've in fact already seen them elsewhere. It's a pretty cool creative process that movies can't normally pull off (unless they're a film series) but books and games certainly can
From is always implementing ideas they weren't able to see through in earlier games. Ds3 where you fight the dragonslayer armor in dlc doesn't have a boss room, and it looks like we will get alot of open world bosses in elden ring
We can only imagine how MGS V, Dark Souls 2, and Star Wars KOTOR 2 could be if not because those rushed development hell... If only they applied the same rule as how No Man's Sky developer did to their game, updating the games for what they lacked in the original release..
could say the same about dark souls 3. both games are pretty much nothing of what they were meant to be. tho dark souls 2 even more so. its such a shame.
There's always that one game in a series that could have been so much more. I envy the one in a million games taht managed to squeeze out the most they could.
@@RauschenPauli The things changed in DS3 feel a lot more deliberate and just like overall changes, rather than DS2 where it's more compromises and rushed things. Maybe that's just me though - and I'm not denying that DS3 was rushed, but more that it feels much more complete and whole than 2.
As nice as it would be, I'm happy for From to just move on and make new things especially if they end up as great as Elden Ring seems to be. Maybe in like 5-10 years, a full and actual remaster (Looking at you DS1) of the trilogy could be sweet though.
Having the Pursuer just get dropped in from a giant bird before you ever encounter him in his boss room is genuinely one of the best moments in any of the Souls games.
I swear that first version of DS2 is going to haunt me forever. I like DS2, but there was always that feeling of it being not completely done. Then years later i learn that there's parts of an entirely different game left in the data. That early version of the gutter is just nuts
Yeah, people are saying they want a remake with all the stuff they originally wanted to put in, but honestly I think that would end up being a completely different game. It's probably a better idea to take all the cut content and arrange it into something new. For all we know, they already did. It's not uncommon for cut content in one game to end up making its way into a sequel, so unused parts of DS2 could have found their way into Bloodborne, DS3, Sekeiro, and possibly Elden Ring. Still, the content would have needed to be reworked, so you'd never see what the original game could have been.
@@wadespencer3623 none of the games are really, 1 in particular suffered from being forced out earlier than it needed, but it's mostly there. DS2 is just on it's own level.
DS2 was my entry into the Souls series and I do often wonder how the game would have been if all the ideas behind it had materialized in a coherent way. Anyhow, what I like the most about DS2 is that it has such a special "dream-like" or surreal feeling to it, which does set it apart from the other titles.
Yeah. In DS I & III you see a lot of crazy stuff, but they are a result of reality breaking apart. It's still reality. Considering the way we arrive at Things Betwixt, it seems like DS II is set in a wondrous non-place.
@@Leo-pw3kf I think this here is one of the biggest reasons why DS II caused such controversy among the fandom. Some people dig the strange geometry and dreamlike state of the DS II universe, others prefer how the other two games handled it, by connecting the strangeness with reality. I will withhold my opinion so as to avoid getting lynched in this comment section, but I kinda like seeing people's different opinions with different tastes. Although I wish it was usually done in a more civil manner... lol
Majula always felt like this kind of Limbo state, everyone sort of just ends up there, but they're not supposed to stay there for too long. It's peaceful, but yet not a "final destination."
Seems like it was going to be a warp system. Perhaps the Pursuer would need to be defeated in each area in order to unlock the fast travel to that area by the crow/eagle? If the original vision of Dark Souls 2 as an open world game is considered, I think this makes a lot of sense.
The shaded woods with a giant bird swooping in to attack you in the mist would have been so cool. Invisible enemies is fairly memorable too, but not nearly as entertaining as losing the figure of a massive raptor in the mist
Dude, that would've been the most game-breaking and amazing experiences ever! :D Imagine you're used to dealing with everything in your path with sword and sorcery, only to suddenly feel like you're a badger running away from a giant hawk! WITH FOG ALL AROUND to make spotting the bastard 10x harder! Maybe see its giant-ass shadow on the ground approaching you, but only if you're paying enough attention! _Oh, man, we can go wild with this one..._
To deal with the bird you would have to listen to the trees that moan when you hit them as the bird occasionally perches on them. Defeating the bird gives a special bird themed weapon
I doubt people would like that. Its literally the same mechanic in the dlc of ds2 of eleum loyce in the snow desert with those horses, everyone hated it
@@bigenemy000 the horses won't leave and let you heal though iirc. The bird should only be leaving you on edge as your healing items slowly dwindle away as you search the fog for danger and respite. Edit: plus you should really only have to kill the bird once outside of CoC
I absolutely LOVED DS2. It was a superb experience for me, and even if I know it was unfinished in many ways, it satisfied me more than I thought it would. Loving these videos diving deep into the Soulsborne multiverse, they reignite my fascination for these games' worlds.
The eagle having three legs reminds me of the three-legged crow archetype endemic throughout eastern mythology. In China, they're depicted as golden sun crows which fly across the heavens, all but one of which were shot down by the mythical hero Houyi. In Japan, there's the Yatagarasu, a three-legged divine messenger crow of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. It's very interesting to me that this eagle takes up the role of the crow from Dark Souls 1, but has three legs like these mythical crows which are all associated with the sun.
The only other instances of fighting a boss outside it's arena I can recall is the Dukes Dear Freja in NG+ and Darkeater Midir in DS3 on the bridge. Those 3 fights each have different win states. The Pursuer you can outright defeat before his boss room. You can reduce Frejas health to make the next fight easier. Darkeater Midir will just be transported to his boss arena. I think all 3 of those are cool concepts, though defeating them outright is satisfying but kind of boring.
I played it as my last and heard all of the bad things about and was very pleasantly surprised. It's a different experience and clearly very rough around the edges but it's still a great game, just not at all what it could have been.
SotFS was my first proper Souls game after Bloodborne on my PS4, then I went back and realized I had downloaded Demon's Souls free via PSN at some point years ago on my PS3 and I played that one sort of at the same time as 2. I was kinda all over the board there haha. 2 does feel like the most different from BB, so that's interesting
@@TheMirksta It's not the worst From game, but it's clearly less than it could have been. It's also better than 90% of AAA games, because even the half-finished products of FromSoft are much better than the soulless husks most companies churn out.
I said it before I'll say it again. Elden Ring feels like concepts of DS2 are being used to their full potential. I know it takes a lot of things from all the games, but I can't shake off the feeling that in many ways it's going to be DS2 fully realized, in a way showing us what could have been with DS2.
It’s probably because ds2 needs the most redemption. The rest of the souls games are already amazing and nearly fully realized on their own, so you see their influences in elden ring and say “that’s neat, but makes sense.” You see ds2 influence in elden ring and it makes a *lot* more of a mental impact I think. Until I play it and it proves otherwise, I’m wholly convinced that elden ring is the true and complete culmination of everything From has learned in their development of soulsborne games.
I hope to see something like what was implied with the original Gutter concept in the illusorywall video, an "inverse kingdom" of a sort. A kingdom sitting beneath another one, a wretched mockery of the one above it inhabited by those rejected from the regular world. Just a bunch of buried statues, structures, shantytowns, tunnels and other paths. An entire underground world. Like an open world version of Valley of Defilement/Blighttown/The Gutter/Farron Keep The ULTIMATE Miyazaki poison swamp land! But while hoping they keep the BS like Farron Keep fatrolling or the weird movement restrictions of Valley of Defilement to a minimum.
@I Please point to where I said he did? I didn't, I was talking about Elden Ring and the potential of having a full realized area initially conceived in another game but never finished. Lurrn too raeaeedd. But you're right about one thing, he only worked on the Good Shit. Like Fatroll Keep, as I mentioned, Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith and the best boss of all time, Bed of Chaos, The Great Hollow and its fantastic platforming and physics/collision, Crystal Cave, and the BEST DLC of ALL time, Ashes of Ariandel.
Its my most played anf favorite too, even if i hated it when it at release and only gave it a second chance with sotfs. The question is, would it still be my favorite if i could play the planned version, or is it my favorite because DS2 is what it is, hmmmm.
Even with all the development problems Dark Souls 2 is still my favorite by far. I can't imagine how I would feel about it if they actually had the time they needed.
The Dark Souls II, the strange savant child of the Soulsborne universe. It's already something completely else, but it could've been so much more. It's a shame.
This is exactly how I feel. I love it the most out of the 3 because I can *see* that it could've been so much more. Especially when you dig into unfinished assets, the game had magnificent ambitions but just didn't come together.
What Vaati is to lore, Zullie is to design. I'm not sure that really clicked for me until I saw your MtG video. Love your videos. As an aspiring game designer, it's very helpful too.
Dark souls 2 has this underlying melancholy to it, that seems to radiate from "what could have been" areas that sit unfulfilled like the birds nest seem sad
The story of DS2 was more impactful to me than the meta-narrative of 1 or 3. Yeah, the story of the fall of the gods is important to the setting, but the second game felt like a smaller snapshot of the struggles of individual humans living in that dying world. Vendrick was more relatable and tragic than Gwyn ever was, because Vendrick was a man struggling against a destiny set out ages before he was even born. Same with Aldia. The two of them both rose above their role as human pawns and tried taking steps to control their own fates and the fate of the world. Like Gwyn, they were trying to save it, but unlike Gwyn they were not gods and didn't have the power of gods. The two of them were also seemingly the only ones who put serious effort into trying to find solutions that weren't just "keep the Flame burning" or "let it burn out."
@@billbadson7598 The true ending of Dark Souls 2 will always be the most impactful souls ending to me, more so than any of 3's, and especially so with 3's disposition towards the fire. Attempting to become a being that has become powerful enough to ignore it's curse and exist outside the world's cycle is something that was incredible to see and to think about. It's a shame that the Bearer of the Curse was never really brought up in 3, with what they ended up doing.
@@VladDascaliuc the meta-narrative which exists among the whole series, about the futility of trying to prevent death/change. The change is inevitable, and each kindling of the First Flame just creates a paler shadow of the original Age of Fire. The gods' plans were always destined to fail, it's just a matter of how many resets they get before the end. Even in Dark Souls 1, the time that had passed between the start of the game and the age of the gods appeared to be vast. All the gods were absent, dead or hiding, and none of them had any plans other than, hopefully, getting someone to throw their body on the Flame again. Dark Souls 2 had a more human and a more specific story, about human beings trying to find a third way. I was genuinely interested in Aldia's and Vendrick's intertwined quests for finding a new path forward, using human methods and a scientific understanding of the arcane forces of the world. Between them and the crowns of the DLC, Dark Souls 2 gave concrete examples of what sorts of things an Age of Man/Dark might entail.
It always annoyed me how the received opinion for Dark Souls 2 is so often "Oh it was bad because it wasn't Miyazaki directing." As if he's the only one responsible for everything good. So one thing I hope people are getting from Zullie's videos is that there are lots of talented people with great ideas at Fromsoft.
It was better because he wasn't the one directing. DS3 is far too easy and simplified, as if FromSoft, or at least Miyazaki has no faith in the gamers.
After a recent play through of SotFS after not having touched DkS2 in years, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the game, enough to say that it might be my favorite of the Souls games. See what it 'could have been', when I already like it so much is a weird experience.
DS2 was the best of the trilogy in many ways, and far from the only one with massive unrealized potential (The entire zone of Izalith in the first game was a waste and a travesty of design). The only thing holding the broader community back from recognition of this is literally an elevator into a volcano. _edit: 2 did have most of the worst bosses, though. Many of them were way too easy._
Oh wow that's a hot take lol. I mean I disagree with the idea that DS2 was the best in a lot of ways but the elevator comment feels disingenuous. There is a portion of souls fans who cite that superficially and are biased against the game. But also that moment just doesn't work. It's a cool idea but it's underdeveloped (which is a motif with DS2). Going from Maria's clocktower to the fishing Hamlet is one of the most wonderful transitions in the series yet I've never seen anyone mad about how nonsensical it is because it works thematically and the worldbulding appropriately sets up your expectations. If we were to dvise criteria for evaluating the 3 games (story, combat, worldbuilding, aesthetic, music, themes, etc.) it's a really hard sell to say that DS2 would be the best in any of these categories let alone overall.
@@billbadson7598 Dark Souls 2 did the worst thing it could: being different from DS1. It's the underdog story with no good ending. FromSoft B team delivered a decent to good game in spite of all the shit happened during the development
In an alternate timeline Dark Souls 2 ends up being the best game in the series (which is even more impressive because in that timeline Lost Izalith was a finished location).
But in that timeline it still doesn't sell well because the Demon's Souls franchise is winning all the awards and EA produces higher quality content than anyone.
honestly even in that timeline i feel like DS3 would still be the better game, it too lost a lot to scrap content, including all the alternate versions of firelink shrine and stuff. Every souls have has wasted potential in it, some more than others.
I like that someone pointed out Yatagarasu. It's funny how similar it is, not only in the three body parts, but in it's role, to GRRM's three eyed raven/crow and DS1's crow of course. They all are virtually just a symbolic guide for specifically the protagonist, as stated elsewhere, but it's interesting to note that birds many other times have been used as symbolic guides for travel, transport, and passing onto the next life (Herons in asiatic culture and Swans in scandinavian). But despite the previous cultural significance, in both cases of ASOIAF and dark souls (and also Bran's dream in GOT s1), the authors chose to let these animals almost stand alone in a somewhat human-filled world, as they have more symbolic poignance then for being guides of something of great importance. And yet for whatever reason, the bird from ds2 is clearly a raptor, with it's curved claws, unique talon swoleness, and curved beak (ravens even have curved beaks but they are usually black beaks). I'm hesitant to call it an eagle. It might be just a falcon or a kite of some sort. But also eagles are generally kinda the biggest of all raptors so it may be best to just let it be it's own thing, like the rat authority. and ds3s pontiff beasts. If anyone has done more analysis into the birds of dark souls, please do comment, I just felt like now was the time to get all this out. Just thought it would be fun to point out some similarities between Miyazaki and GRRM (and b-team i guess?). Now I only wonder if the Great Eagle Wars will maybe actually show up in Elden Ring and Prod will have called it this whole time.
Don't be sad about the Dark Souls II you didn't get (and that you may well not have liked as much as the one you _did_ get, anyway)―be _glad_ in the knowledge that many of the same people are still at FROM, and that a truly good idea never goes to waste. We should trust FROM's judgement on 2, and any hardware constraints they dealt with those years ago are likely all but vanished for Elden Ring
Hey zullie doubt you’ll see this but dark souls is a big part of my life, I’ve done a ds1 soul level 1 run to completion and I’m doing a ds3 soul level 1 run now ( can give proof lol). Point is content like this genuinely just makes me happy having spent over 1200 hours on ds3 alone my love for the series truly can never die and that also means my love for channels like yours won’t either. Please keep giving the most in depth looks to the quirks of fromsofts game building it’s truly fascinating and entertaining how interesting you make each video.
I'm hoping Elden Ring would be the game for them to realize their ambitions they had in DS2. DS3 was too conservative and safe imo, and adopted a little too much Bloodborne for a game that was a send-off to DS1 and DS in general.
I ACTUALLY TRIGGERED THAT EARLY PURSUER FIGHT IN MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH OF DS2 I told my friend about it, but he thought I was crazy As soon as he dropped in, I ran away (cuz I was too scared to fight him lol) and when I came back, he was gone. But it was just like the event you showed here... He was dropped in by a bird, and on top of that big flat top of that building no less... It wasn't a cutscene or anything, it just happened. No fanfare, he just gets plopped on up there. He didn't even have a health bar show up or anything. It was so weird, but this video brought back this memory from what must have been 6 or 7 years ago
To this day, with countless playthroughs of Dark Souls 2, I still can't understand the hate for it. The ONLY thing I can say against it is the same thing Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation said and that's that it got a little tubby on the dudes in armour. That's it. I can't wrap my head around all the other issues the community has with it.
The level design is often just bad, and I don't think the lore is as good as any other soulslike game. A lot of the game feels like it's trying to sucker punch you by being "hard" and just ends up being annoying instead, and because a lot of the bosses are mediocre, you end up going through nightmare boss runs just to fight a middling "dude in armor" a lot. It's not bad, but it is clearly flawed
@@NeoBoneGirl Ok yes like this right here! I'm not being a dick here in any way but I cannot wrap my head around these reasons. The level design to me is fine. You proceed through areas with different themes and mechanics then fight a boss, just like ds1. For me (and I know a lot of others too) ds2 felt much easier than 1, I don't really have much else to say on difficulty. Lastly, I know I mentioned the "dudes in armour" but there were also a fair amount that were just "dudes with no armour" but I don't hate it for that. I honestly welcomed bosses who's attacks were easy to read rather than wondering "is he winding up a swing of getting ready to piss on a fire hydrant?" before being smacked by a tail that wasn't part of the wind up animation. Again not being a dick just forever confused about the hate.
@@Eyeball117 There’s multiple moments where the game just drops like 7 guys from the ceiling into you, or has a room full of like 5 enemies. They had to have known that this wasn’t good design because they tried to patch it with the permanent despawn mechanic, but added another problem that makes it so you can miss drops forever on a run, and that also still doesn’t make “Here’s this room with 5 guys in it” exactly compelling design
@@NeoBoneGirl But there are multiple points in the other souls games where there's just a load of guys in 1 room or guys that drop on you from above like lower undead berg where a load of doors fly open and suddenly you're surrounded by enemies that can backstab and parry you. So why does 2 get shit on for it? The only level design issue that the others don't have is the whole going from earthern peak to the iron keep thing. Physically it makes no sense but I just say "fuck it, video game" and move on.
@@Eyeball117 The thing is that those undead burg enemies die in 2 hits max, the DS2 thing is to drop like 4 silver knights on you as a funny joke. Every area is basically just the Capra Demon fight
@@Loikarin There’s an entirely different version of the Gutter, an entire time travel story they had to rework, the cut areas suggested by this video, entire bosses that got reworked, removed or cut down for various reasons... and a bunch of other misc content, on top of a lot we likely don’t know about.
Dark souls 2 is honestly my favorite one in the series largely due to it's troubled development. A lot of its designs and concepts harken back to the early days of 3d game development largely cause developers were unsure what they wanted to do, as a result we get this mix match of hodge podged ideas coming together that "works" but doesn't exactly "feel" like it should. One of my very favorite things about games like this is the cut or unused content that is always left behind, never meant to be seen but all ways there hidden as though by an illusory wall.
I've always had a soft spot for games that have a certain unfinished feeling, a distinct sense there are things "lost" forever, with only clues to hint at their existence. DS2 is probably the epitome of this, it just for me has an "x-factor" that the other From games don't
Yeah some of it works but some of it doesn't. It definitely feels like some elements of the game clash with others at times. I still like the game though regardless. It has a lot of cool ideas and systems.
Dang it; I still really like ds2 cuz it was *my* first souls game [ie the one I played through blind by myself not having watched Nothernlion play (like w/ds1)] I'll defend and love this game till I go hoarse.
dark souls 2 will forever be my favorite and it's fitting that the world is so gritty as well as the development, weirdly makes it more likeable to me, even tho It'd be cool to have that scenery
You do such an amazing job uncovering cut content. DS2 has so much content including dlc, there is always something to do. Too bad you could not put out a patch with all the cut content. It could be fun. Thanks for all the really neat videos
FromSoft has always had such large ambitions for their games and it's sad to see they didn't quite have the resources to pursue those ambitions in the past. I'm so glad they were able to fully realize those ambitions in Elden Ring, it truly is a masterpiece. Congratulations FromSoft, you've finally done it.
This is how I feel about bloodborne. I loved BB when it first came out, but with all the cut content we have knowledge of and access to now, I feel like we missed out on a lot.
Yea Bloodborne is awesome but you kinda always want more even if including dlc!!! Imagine how cool castle cainhurst would of been had it been full of content, diff enemies, a few npc’s, and like 3 bosses instead of 1???
Can I just say that I love the zelda music in all your videos. I grew up with Twilight Princess and Wind Waker and hearing the music from my childhood really takes me back.
I'm playing my fifth character right now. Builds are so much viable. And I still have three different character idea. No, DS game gave me that much different run ideas. Only Bloodborne surpassed it (9 different characters) and I still have two different build ideas.
I'm putting off getting back into my first NG+ run to try to get to 100% achievement in DS2, it is going to be weird after playing through DS3 NG++ to get 100% achievement, they are very different games in so many ways. Currently on my first playthrough of Ashen instead...
I subscribed lately not only cause you have some gassy soulsborne videos, but the twilight princess music in the background😭 it brings me back sooooo much
Even though ds2 is my least favourite souls game, I admire the effort and Scale of the world the devs created, as well as all the unique ideas implemented (or cut from release) that served to give ds2 such a unique identity amongst the other games
Having played Demons'Souls first in 2009-2010, DaSo2 feels like a sequel to DeSo more than DaSo1 in a lot of ways - especially the focus on bizarre bosses and multiplayer
FromSoft makes great games in spite of having to cut so much content throughout development, which is a Normal thing that big games do. What's impressive is how they have iterated and re-incorporated so much of their content into their future games, wasting precious little from previous dev cycles. That said, I can't even imagine what must have been cut from Elden Ring. It's the collection of all their past ideas, in one game. What new things could they not fit into it? What ideas were too wild this time, that we will have to wait until next time to see, in Bloodborne 2 or Armored Core 7?
After playing Dark Souls 1 for 2000+ hours, I remember being so hyped up for Dark Souls II. I remember feeling like "there will be many new things to discover and explore, new concepts, dark dungeons, new lore". What we got was a downgraded(graphically and every other aspect) of "what could've been Dark Souls II". I mourn it too. Probably my worst feeling in regards to games was from Dark Souls II. It was such an impact that Dark Souls III did not hype me as much and I played much less. It's like it broke my soul. Dark Souls is still incredible, but Dark Souls 1 is where it's at. Dark Souls 1 is the best of all of them. Hopefully Elden Ring is as good as DS1 as I played the Network Test and it looks really promising. The lore looks crispy as well.
I heard something about another game recently that kinda applies here. Albeit the development of Dark Souls 2 wasn't very public so they didn't really promise features that are missing. "Even the most successful game can fall short of promises once development starts because the difficulties of development always surpass our greatest expectations. However what differentiates the successes from the failures is the willingness to break promises made when it is right to do so." Replace promises with cut-content and you basically have Dark Souls 2. Would the game have been better if all the original plans went through and they didn't have to massively change the game? I very much doubt it. They did those changes because the game they had needed to be changed in order to be a success.
It was changed because the game was scrapped over halfway through development due to not being able to meet the deadline with what it had planned, and another lead dev had to pick up the existing assets and jumblefuck them in wherever they could fit. It's amazing that it even turned out anywhere near as well as it did. Just like Izalith in 1, it was the result of being rushed. It absolutely would've been a much better game, the changes were made out of necessity to meet a cutthroat deadline.
DS2 is easily my favorite part in the series. However it got so much hate from the “real fans” that fromsoft decided to never look back to it and the new ideas they had for the series. It’s kinda sad because you can feel the amount of work and love they have put into it.
The real fans were annoyed that they patched the game into oblivion to balance it for PvP at the expense of PvE, alongside changing the way the NPCs tracked the player. Lightning Spear is the prime example, and it's one of the things that Happy Souls clearly noticed; another thing was the nerf on all Faith-based equipment in general. You were no longer able to just dodge an attack, now you had to dodge an attack while relying on the invincibility window provided while dodging; weird thing to patch in. imo
I hadn't really thought about it before, but the fact that the Pursuer drops in from a bird, and summons like a phantom, both mirror the player, and may indicate some relation or motif to the chosen undead in the first game.
"Sometimes I'm accused of hating on Dark Souls II. I'd say a more appropriate sentiment is that I mourn Dark Souls II." Never before have I so accurate had my own feelings on Dark Souls 2 described.
I remember getting really excited when I saw the Pursuer drop down from that giant bird, because it meant he could appear basically anywhere, whenever you least expect it. Like, you just got through a tough area, you're out of Estus, but it looks like you're safe... and then you hear the bird's wings. It would have been so cool. But then it happens exactly once in the entire game
Yeah he only gets dropped by the bird once, but the rest of the situation you’re describing happened to me multiple times in my first playthru, with the pursuer appearing when I least expected him in the Lost Bastille as well as the Iron Keep. The area in Lost Bastille with the archers and dogs can be particularly brutal when the Pursuer materializes in the middle of all those enemies, and it’s right before you unlock a shortcut as well so you’re probably low on estus by that point.
I feel this way about all Dark Souls games, not just 2; there's always so much cool cut content and I always wonder what an extra year in development would look like.
The eagle's third talon was used to heft the Pursuer's substantial dong, which it used to smack me about before I got the hang of DSII's sloppy controls. Dark Souls 2 would have been odd and polarizing whatever shape it emerged in, but at this point, as a curious observer, I would love to know how Tomohiro Shibuya's vision could have turned out.
Regardless of anyones opinions or the state of the game. I still think 2 is the best. The combat had me sold and I LOVED fighting hordes of enemies. To this day I cant fathom how some of you die to ganks. Git Gud
Different people die to different things all the time, so I can easily fathom how people die to ganks. Also players can easily end up getting killed due to boredom or impatience rather than lack of skill.
@@asiamatron Patience is literally a skill, so is notice or attention. So yes they do die from lack of skill. You dont have to defend why you dont like DS2 its ok, git gud
@@averyyoung6962 When someone on RUclips tells me to git gud I find that quite amusing. However I think it's unwise to assume that I need to git gud at the game or that I dislike DS2. That might reflect badly on you. I also see a difference between mechanical skill, good reflexes, good spacing etc and patience which to me is a different type of skill. Hence why I made a distinction.
Ds2 made me feel like I was in a true fairytale. Its scope was more grand than the other games, and had the most variety. Correcting for a soured throne in a darkened Kingdom was the perfect setting for this sort of game. I enjoy Ds2 for reasons of being different than the others, just as I would praise any of the games for being unique in their own way.
Nice video and thanks for your work. It is so amazing seeing the left overs of other devs. And thinking of left over parts, I think, if someone ever gets his hands on my The Lore of Canis, they will find lots of cool stuff I did like a debug room, were all enemies are placed for testing and every pick-up is stored at least once to check its functionality. I wonder if Miyazaki had a similar room and if the chalice dungeons were kind of relics of unused territories in Bloodborne. Who knows? Maybe you can discover those connections :D
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say something like this or like "Dark Souls helped me with my depression" I could probably buy a PS5 And I feel the same way. The games are so melancholic yet strangely cathartic
I wouldn't go so far as to call it the best one (although apparently the PvP was the best without any real debate), but yeah, it's a good game. If it did have 100% of it's power, I'm pretty certain dark souls 3 would be considered a massive downgrade.
i do mourn it too i think, so many creative ideas compared to 3 or even 1 just stamped out because of time constraints. ashen mist heart memories, alternative ancient kingdoms, a literal forest of giants crossing the ocean, and now perhaps a home for the giant servant birds that ferry the undead and cursed
Hard to say. It's possible that it was doomed from the start, a dream that could never be truly achieved. Sometimes goals are fundamentally incompatible, so one of them has to be scrapped. Sometimes a creator's vision for their project isn't what's best; I know more than one author who declined in the quality of their writing after they became famous and no longer had to bend to the oversight of an editor/publisher. Sometimes it takes something going wrong to steer a project in a better direction. So who can say for sure what could have been. It is pretty sad, because it seems like they had some grand ideas and weren't able to realize them.
Somewhere in another timeline we got whatever game DS2 was supposed to be, fully polished and fleshed out. I love DS2 and even SoTFS but the older I get the more annoyed I feel like we were robbed somewhat due to Sonys own wants.
Honestly, the more I see these vids about DkS2, the more I wish for From to return to it and remake this game into what they wanted it to be. It was certainly one of the most ambitious games they ever created.
I don't know if ambitious is a fair title to put on the game. the entire scope of the game is built around reusing old aspects of the last game and in lots of very unoriginal ways like Ornstein lazily being pasted in along with some of the least interesting bosses in the series from a visual perspective like the iron king which is just a generic diablo demon
Watching your videos makes me wish someone would make a mod that would use these assets and reimagine them. Like imagine how cool it would be to explore dark souls 2 for the first time again
It's impressive how the best dark souls has so much on the cutting room floor. I live for the day dark souls 2 gets a remake it deserves where cut content is realized
Sometimes I feel like the broken and washed out mess of DS2, it's drab visuals and wonky structure... there's a rightness to it I'll never like it as much as 1 but I'll always like it more than 3
What's with that weird pulsing bloodshot effect Dark Souls II does with boss encounters? What are people's head canons for that happening? Is it supposed to be the Bearer of the Curse reacting strongly to these powerful demons? It honestly just seems like a "cool" film effect, like it's non-diegetic rather than something we're meant to understand is actually happening in-universe
As someone who's pretty much played all the souls games and spent the most time in ds2 this content is just sublime. Also props for the zelda themes for your vids. One of my favs is the fire temple st from twilight princess.
"Could-have-beens" always are a double-edged sword. Yes, it might (!) have turned out better than what did happen, but equally likely it could have been less interesting, less enjoyable or otherwise inferior. Even though it is fun to think about, it's a fool's errand to get lost in.
One of the things I have been doing recently is looking at everything they did right for this game, even under time constraints. They built upon the first game in the series, with the addition of Hexes and other new mechanics. They created DLC’s that were not previously announced that the entire community remembers and enjoys, and they were able to create beloved characters such as Alva, The Herald, and even our own Zullie the Witch.
Even the parts of Dark Souls II that made it through the troubled development of the game and still came out looking good seem to have had a lot shaved off them in the process.
Where do you get your information about the cut concepts of DS2?
Dark souls 2 would've been the best dark souls game if it was actually finished and polished and etc, such a shame
I wouldn't say they look good
@@timelessdust3001 Easy, DS2 is already great with what is there, if they fulfilled the true ambitions it would be GOAT
@@Grandmaster-Kush so, you basic just said the exact same thing my comment said already?
The three legs actually points to an interesting bit of Japanese mythology, the Yatagarasu, or 3-legged crow. It's a crow god that is a symbol of guidance, appearing in the legend of Emperor Jimmu, having been sent from the heavens to guide his way. So, it is fitting that it serves as something to guide both you to a destination, and a boss to you. The heavens do not play favorites in the Souls series, and are as likely to help you as they are your enemies.
You got it all wrong. Yatagarasu (and Chaos Emperor Dragon) is the reason the Yu-Gi-Oh banlist exists. That's where Japanese mythology took inspiration from 😉
I remember learning about that from Touhou. One of the characters is based on the Yatagarasu.
I thought Kay Faraday was the Yatagarasu?
@@flightdub6056 The second yatagarasu. This is her dad
no, the real yatagarasu is geometry dash totally
"Sometimes I'm accused of hating on Dark Souls II. I'd say a more appropriate sentiment is that I mourn Dark Souls II." Damn, you nailed it.
@Sunbro I don't WANT to be down on it. I see a lot of love shining thru. Lots of things are still fun and great to look at.
There's just a lot wrong with it.
Its still a great game that imo has only gotten better overtime and has good points to it that seeprates it from ds1 and 3
@ERRO.432 Mourning is what you do after someone you love dies. It means to miss something, to be heartbroken at its loss, to love a thing that no longer exists
exactly, i like ds2 but imho its the worst of the 3
Eh not really, it's bad. But yeah sad to see it could have actually been good
A key part of the Dark Souls 2 experience is seeing terrain in the distance, going "Hey, how do I get there?", and then finding out later that it was cut content. Sad.
Such a tragedy, especially after DS1 where you almost always _did_ get there. It seems like it's part of the design philosophy to show the player a place in the distance that they'll get to later, almost nothing in DS1 was just set dressing. DS2 ended up a lot bigger, and didn't wrap around on itself nearly as much as DS1 did, so it ended up with a lot more places you can see, but can't get to, but it may have been planned that you would have gone there at some point.
You sure? I think literally every area you can see yo ucan go to.
Do you have any examples of this?
@@keikei2942 The giant bridge you could see from the shaded woods, in the left path leading to the Shrine of Winter is one example, though i cant really think of more because i dont really pay attention to the surroundings in DS2, just mentioned this one since shaded woods is in this video.
BUT BUT IN elden ring they made it real you see a place and you can go there
It's not sad, it's heartbreaking. DS2 was my first Souls game and I love it despite all the flaws, but imagining how great it could have been does bring a tear... We possibly lost a game good as its predecessor.
I can't believe I found a soulmate in that regard here... Dude, Dark Souls 2 was my first Souls game as well and for all the frustration I felt, I still loved the game a lot and would never hesitate to play it again.
But playing the first game and later on learning about all the many ideas and different concepts that were scrapped from the second one... it really feels like we lost a possible masterpiece. :'( Oh well, at least FromSoftware seems to be realizing many of these scrapped concepts in their more recent games. Specially in Elden Ring, if you look at it from a certain perspective, it's like everything that Dark Souls II once dreamed of being coming into reality!
It's easily my favourite one, despite it's glaring flaws.
Thankfully Elden Ring is shaping up to be Dark Souls 2: 2
I'm content with knowing that Elden Ring will carry the torch of DS2's legacy.
I don't think you should be sad. The game we got is almost certainly better than the game we were going to get under the first director, and what we missed out on from the final build was due to hardware limitations, aka over-ambitious development. It happens all the time, and what they couldn't do in 2, they did in 3 and BB and certainly will do in Elden Ring. That's just the creative process.
You love the version you got, and you may not have loved the version you _think_ you wanted. Be glad that video games are an iterative art form, and that the creators of 2 are still working with the same team (except, again, for the first Director, which is why you're very unlikely to see his comedic vision of the game ever come to lightU2015 not that it was finished in the first place and sitting on FROM's shelves somewhere or anything like that)
I love this game dearly for all its jankiness, but the what-could-have-beens haunt me forever.
Like my ex lol
@@MeatBunFul same lol..
I long for the not-so-distant future to have a Dark Souls II remake, where all of Miyazaki's dreams for it could be fulfilled.
@@MeatBunFul oooof
@@jacobturner1490 It isn't Miyazaki's project though, he was making Bloodborne while Dark Souls II was being made.
Dark Souls 2 will forever be the game that "could have been". I'm not exactly sure how From could have done things differently, but my hope now is that more of the many unrealized ideas DS2 had to offer can make their way into future titles.
Looking at Elden Ring and even the games before it you can clearly see that that's been happening. Even the 'bosses outside their arena' concept probably lead to the mini bosses in Sekiro and the bosses in open fields that we meet in Elden Ring.
@@PrayForTanqueray indeed. it seems Elden Ring is literally the amalgamation of the best parts of Dark Souls 1, 2 & 3 mixed with some new concepts and all of it polished to modern standards.
I think that's exactly what happened, just like Super Mario 128 or the dungeons cut from Wind Waker―Miyamoto told us that we won't ever get those things themselves because we've in fact already seen them elsewhere. It's a pretty cool creative process that movies can't normally pull off (unless they're a film series) but books and games certainly can
From is always implementing ideas they weren't able to see through in earlier games. Ds3 where you fight the dragonslayer armor in dlc doesn't have a boss room, and it looks like we will get alot of open world bosses in elden ring
We can only imagine how MGS V, Dark Souls 2, and Star Wars KOTOR 2 could be if not because those rushed development hell...
If only they applied the same rule as how No Man's Sky developer did to their game, updating the games for what they lacked in the original release..
We need a proper remake of dark souls 2 with the original ideas and areas added in before it was rushed
The Dark Souls 2 2 we've been waiting for.
could say the same about dark souls 3. both games are pretty much nothing of what they were meant to be. tho dark souls 2 even more so. its such a shame.
There's always that one game in a series that could have been so much more. I envy the one in a million games taht managed to squeeze out the most they could.
@@RauschenPauli The things changed in DS3 feel a lot more deliberate and just like overall changes, rather than DS2 where it's more compromises and rushed things. Maybe that's just me though - and I'm not denying that DS3 was rushed, but more that it feels much more complete and whole than 2.
As nice as it would be, I'm happy for From to just move on and make new things especially if they end up as great as Elden Ring seems to be. Maybe in like 5-10 years, a full and actual remaster (Looking at you DS1) of the trilogy could be sweet though.
Having the Pursuer just get dropped in from a giant bird before you ever encounter him in his boss room is genuinely one of the best moments in any of the Souls games.
so is realizing your lack of I-frames due to low ADP as you get a sudden clip-death while dodging
@@Araneus21 ADP is just the DS2 difficulty slider.
@@Bones_ ADP is just bullshit.
I swear that first version of DS2 is going to haunt me forever.
I like DS2, but there was always that feeling of it being not completely done.
Then years later i learn that there's parts of an entirely different game left in the data.
That early version of the gutter is just nuts
Yeah, people are saying they want a remake with all the stuff they originally wanted to put in, but honestly I think that would end up being a completely different game. It's probably a better idea to take all the cut content and arrange it into something new. For all we know, they already did. It's not uncommon for cut content in one game to end up making its way into a sequel, so unused parts of DS2 could have found their way into Bloodborne, DS3, Sekeiro, and possibly Elden Ring. Still, the content would have needed to be reworked, so you'd never see what the original game could have been.
DS1 isn't completely done either, although possibly not to the same extent as DSII
@@wadespencer3623 none of the games are really, 1 in particular suffered from being forced out earlier than it needed, but it's mostly there.
DS2 is just on it's own level.
DS2 was my entry into the Souls series and I do often wonder how the game would have been if all the ideas behind it had materialized in a coherent way. Anyhow, what I like the most about DS2 is that it has such a special "dream-like" or surreal feeling to it, which does set it apart from the other titles.
Yeah. In DS I & III you see a lot of crazy stuff, but they are a result of reality breaking apart. It's still reality. Considering the way we arrive at Things Betwixt, it seems like DS II is set in a wondrous non-place.
@@Leo-pw3kf I think this here is one of the biggest reasons why DS II caused such controversy among the fandom. Some people dig the strange geometry and dreamlike state of the DS II universe, others prefer how the other two games handled it, by connecting the strangeness with reality. I will withhold my opinion so as to avoid getting lynched in this comment section, but I kinda like seeing people's different opinions with different tastes. Although I wish it was usually done in a more civil manner... lol
Majula always felt like this kind of Limbo state, everyone sort of just ends up there, but they're not supposed to stay there for too long.
It's peaceful, but yet not a "final destination."
Seems like it was going to be a warp system. Perhaps the Pursuer would need to be defeated in each area in order to unlock the fast travel to that area by the crow/eagle? If the original vision of Dark Souls 2 as an open world game is considered, I think this makes a lot of sense.
That would legit be awesome!
The shaded woods with a giant bird swooping in to attack you in the mist would have been so cool. Invisible enemies is fairly memorable too, but not nearly as entertaining as losing the figure of a massive raptor in the mist
Dude, that would've been the most game-breaking and amazing experiences ever! :D
Imagine you're used to dealing with everything in your path with sword and sorcery, only to suddenly feel like you're a badger running away from a giant hawk! WITH FOG ALL AROUND to make spotting the bastard 10x harder! Maybe see its giant-ass shadow on the ground approaching you, but only if you're paying enough attention! _Oh, man, we can go wild with this one..._
There was something like that in an area in Nioh 2- it was quite cool!
To deal with the bird you would have to listen to the trees that moan when you hit them as the bird occasionally perches on them. Defeating the bird gives a special bird themed weapon
I doubt people would like that. Its literally the same mechanic in the dlc of ds2 of eleum loyce in the snow desert with those horses, everyone hated it
@@bigenemy000 the horses won't leave and let you heal though iirc. The bird should only be leaving you on edge as your healing items slowly dwindle away as you search the fog for danger and respite.
Edit: plus you should really only have to kill the bird once outside of CoC
I absolutely LOVED DS2. It was a superb experience for me, and even if I know it was unfinished in many ways, it satisfied me more than I thought it would. Loving these videos diving deep into the Soulsborne multiverse, they reignite my fascination for these games' worlds.
The eagle having three legs reminds me of the three-legged crow archetype endemic throughout eastern mythology. In China, they're depicted as golden sun crows which fly across the heavens, all but one of which were shot down by the mythical hero Houyi. In Japan, there's the Yatagarasu, a three-legged divine messenger crow of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. It's very interesting to me that this eagle takes up the role of the crow from Dark Souls 1, but has three legs like these mythical crows which are all associated with the sun.
The only other instances of fighting a boss outside it's arena I can recall is the Dukes Dear Freja in NG+ and Darkeater Midir in DS3 on the bridge. Those 3 fights each have different win states. The Pursuer you can outright defeat before his boss room. You can reduce Frejas health to make the next fight easier. Darkeater Midir will just be transported to his boss arena.
I think all 3 of those are cool concepts, though defeating them outright is satisfying but kind of boring.
Gotta love the songs you use in your videos. Such a nostalgia feel.. thanks.
This channel has made me appreciate dark souls 2 Alot more than i did back then considering this was my 1st souls game☺
I like to learn about it but I hate to play it
I played it as my last and heard all of the bad things about and was very pleasantly surprised. It's a different experience and clearly very rough around the edges but it's still a great game, just not at all what it could have been.
SotFS was my first proper Souls game after Bloodborne on my PS4, then I went back and realized I had downloaded Demon's Souls free via PSN at some point years ago on my PS3 and I played that one sort of at the same time as 2. I was kinda all over the board there haha. 2 does feel like the most different from BB, so that's interesting
@@TheMirksta dark souls 2 is great. I've always felt people are blindly hating it because another creator made that game and not miyazaki.
@@TheMirksta It's not the worst From game, but it's clearly less than it could have been. It's also better than 90% of AAA games, because even the half-finished products of FromSoft are much better than the soulless husks most companies churn out.
I said it before I'll say it again. Elden Ring feels like concepts of DS2 are being used to their full potential. I know it takes a lot of things from all the games, but I can't shake off the feeling that in many ways it's going to be DS2 fully realized, in a way showing us what could have been with DS2.
True Dark Souls II 2
It’s probably because ds2 needs the most redemption. The rest of the souls games are already amazing and nearly fully realized on their own, so you see their influences in elden ring and say “that’s neat, but makes sense.” You see ds2 influence in elden ring and it makes a *lot* more of a mental impact I think.
Until I play it and it proves otherwise, I’m wholly convinced that elden ring is the true and complete culmination of everything From has learned in their development of soulsborne games.
I hope to see something like what was implied with the original Gutter concept in the illusorywall video, an "inverse kingdom" of a sort. A kingdom sitting beneath another one, a wretched mockery of the one above it inhabited by those rejected from the regular world. Just a bunch of buried statues, structures, shantytowns, tunnels and other paths. An entire underground world. Like an open world version of Valley of Defilement/Blighttown/The Gutter/Farron Keep The ULTIMATE Miyazaki poison swamp land! But while hoping they keep the BS like Farron Keep fatrolling or the weird movement restrictions of Valley of Defilement to a minimum.
@I He did worked on it but not initially.
@I Please point to where I said he did? I didn't, I was talking about Elden Ring and the potential of having a full realized area initially conceived in another game but never finished. Lurrn too raeaeedd.
But you're right about one thing, he only worked on the Good Shit. Like Fatroll Keep, as I mentioned, Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith and the best boss of all time, Bed of Chaos, The Great Hollow and its fantastic platforming and physics/collision, Crystal Cave, and the BEST DLC of ALL time, Ashes of Ariandel.
Whenever i watch your videos you always have twilight princess music playing, it brings joy to my heart that you combine 2 of my favorite game series
I love ds2, it's my favorite game in the DS trilogy. But every now and then I wonder what could have been if not for development hell.
Its my most played anf favorite too, even if i hated it when it at release and only gave it a second chance with sotfs.
The question is, would it still be my favorite if i could play the planned version, or is it my favorite because DS2 is what it is, hmmmm.
Even with all the development problems Dark Souls 2 is still my favorite by far. I can't imagine how I would feel about it if they actually had the time they needed.
This music makes me miss Twilight Princess more than you can imagine. I wish it was available on Switch.
The Dark Souls II, the strange savant child of the Soulsborne universe. It's already something completely else, but it could've been so much more. It's a shame.
This is exactly how I feel. I love it the most out of the 3 because I can *see* that it could've been so much more. Especially when you dig into unfinished assets, the game had magnificent ambitions but just didn't come together.
@I :3
@I bro chill whatsup with you you only spew negativity hop off
@@shinren_ Don't feed the troll, dude's just mad and being provocative on purpose. Let him be, after all everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
@I Yep, that's exactly what I said in that comment up there
What's your problem man
What Vaati is to lore, Zullie is to design. I'm not sure that really clicked for me until I saw your MtG video. Love your videos. As an aspiring game designer, it's very helpful too.
look up the channel illusory wall, he also makes really in depth design videos about the souls series
Huge respect for all the Twilight Princess music you use in your videos, love your content!
Dark souls 2 has this underlying melancholy to it, that seems to radiate from "what could have been" areas that sit unfulfilled like the birds nest seem sad
The story of DS2 was more impactful to me than the meta-narrative of 1 or 3. Yeah, the story of the fall of the gods is important to the setting, but the second game felt like a smaller snapshot of the struggles of individual humans living in that dying world. Vendrick was more relatable and tragic than Gwyn ever was, because Vendrick was a man struggling against a destiny set out ages before he was even born. Same with Aldia. The two of them both rose above their role as human pawns and tried taking steps to control their own fates and the fate of the world. Like Gwyn, they were trying to save it, but unlike Gwyn they were not gods and didn't have the power of gods. The two of them were also seemingly the only ones who put serious effort into trying to find solutions that weren't just "keep the Flame burning" or "let it burn out."
@@billbadson7598 The true ending of Dark Souls 2 will always be the most impactful souls ending to me, more so than any of 3's, and especially so with 3's disposition towards the fire. Attempting to become a being that has become powerful enough to ignore it's curse and exist outside the world's cycle is something that was incredible to see and to think about. It's a shame that the Bearer of the Curse was never really brought up in 3, with what they ended up doing.
@@billbadson7598 What meta-narrative is there in DS1?
@@VladDascaliuc the meta-narrative which exists among the whole series, about the futility of trying to prevent death/change. The change is inevitable, and each kindling of the First Flame just creates a paler shadow of the original Age of Fire. The gods' plans were always destined to fail, it's just a matter of how many resets they get before the end. Even in Dark Souls 1, the time that had passed between the start of the game and the age of the gods appeared to be vast. All the gods were absent, dead or hiding, and none of them had any plans other than, hopefully, getting someone to throw their body on the Flame again.
Dark Souls 2 had a more human and a more specific story, about human beings trying to find a third way. I was genuinely interested in Aldia's and Vendrick's intertwined quests for finding a new path forward, using human methods and a scientific understanding of the arcane forces of the world. Between them and the crowns of the DLC, Dark Souls 2 gave concrete examples of what sorts of things an Age of Man/Dark might entail.
@@billbadson7598 Are we talking about the story or the lore?
It always annoyed me how the received opinion for Dark Souls 2 is so often "Oh it was bad because it wasn't Miyazaki directing." As if he's the only one responsible for everything good. So one thing I hope people are getting from Zullie's videos is that there are lots of talented people with great ideas at Fromsoft.
@I that’s just not true and shows your own ignorance.
@I Better than Miyazaki's work.
It was better because he wasn't the one directing. DS3 is far too easy and simplified, as if FromSoft, or at least Miyazaki has no faith in the gamers.
I love this channel because the videos are so conveniently short that I can watch one whilst poisoning Micolash to death. 10/10
After a recent play through of SotFS after not having touched DkS2 in years, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the game, enough to say that it might be my favorite of the Souls games. See what it 'could have been', when I already like it so much is a weird experience.
Zullie dislikes Scholar compared to OG DS2 iirc.
@@specialnewb9821 That's fine
DS2 was the best of the trilogy in many ways, and far from the only one with massive unrealized potential (The entire zone of Izalith in the first game was a waste and a travesty of design). The only thing holding the broader community back from recognition of this is literally an elevator into a volcano.
_edit: 2 did have most of the worst bosses, though. Many of them were way too easy._
Oh wow that's a hot take lol. I mean I disagree with the idea that DS2 was the best in a lot of ways but the elevator comment feels disingenuous.
There is a portion of souls fans who cite that superficially and are biased against the game. But also that moment just doesn't work. It's a cool idea but it's underdeveloped (which is a motif with DS2).
Going from Maria's clocktower to the fishing Hamlet is one of the most wonderful transitions in the series yet I've never seen anyone mad about how nonsensical it is because it works thematically and the worldbulding appropriately sets up your expectations.
If we were to dvise criteria for evaluating the 3 games (story, combat, worldbuilding, aesthetic, music, themes, etc.) it's a really hard sell to say that DS2 would be the best in any of these categories let alone overall.
@@billbadson7598 Dark Souls 2 did the worst thing it could: being different from DS1. It's the underdog story with no good ending. FromSoft B team delivered a decent to good game in spite of all the shit happened during the development
In an alternate timeline Dark Souls 2 ends up being the best game in the series (which is even more impressive because in that timeline Lost Izalith was a finished location).
But in that timeline it still doesn't sell well because the Demon's Souls franchise is winning all the awards and EA produces higher quality content than anyone.
And multiplayer games are dead. Also Battleroyale dogpoop games doesn't exist there...
it already is
It is the best game in the series.
honestly even in that timeline i feel like DS3 would still be the better game, it too lost a lot to scrap content, including all the alternate versions of firelink shrine and stuff.
Every souls have has wasted potential in it, some more than others.
I like that someone pointed out Yatagarasu. It's funny how similar it is, not only in the three body parts, but in it's role, to GRRM's three eyed raven/crow and DS1's crow of course. They all are virtually just a symbolic guide for specifically the protagonist, as stated elsewhere, but it's interesting to note that birds many other times have been used as symbolic guides for travel, transport, and passing onto the next life (Herons in asiatic culture and Swans in scandinavian). But despite the previous cultural significance, in both cases of ASOIAF and dark souls (and also Bran's dream in GOT s1), the authors chose to let these animals almost stand alone in a somewhat human-filled world, as they have more symbolic poignance then for being guides of something of great importance.
And yet for whatever reason, the bird from ds2 is clearly a raptor, with it's curved claws, unique talon swoleness, and curved beak (ravens even have curved beaks but they are usually black beaks). I'm hesitant to call it an eagle. It might be just a falcon or a kite of some sort. But also eagles are generally kinda the biggest of all raptors so it may be best to just let it be it's own thing, like the rat authority. and ds3s pontiff beasts. If anyone has done more analysis into the birds of dark souls, please do comment, I just felt like now was the time to get all this out.
Just thought it would be fun to point out some similarities between Miyazaki and GRRM (and b-team i guess?). Now I only wonder if the Great Eagle Wars will maybe actually show up in Elden Ring and Prod will have called it this whole time.
Don't be sad about the Dark Souls II you didn't get (and that you may well not have liked as much as the one you _did_ get, anyway)―be _glad_ in the knowledge that many of the same people are still at FROM, and that a truly good idea never goes to waste. We should trust FROM's judgement on 2, and any hardware constraints they dealt with those years ago are likely all but vanished for Elden Ring
Hey zullie doubt you’ll see this but dark souls is a big part of my life, I’ve done a ds1 soul level 1 run to completion and I’m doing a ds3 soul level 1 run now ( can give proof lol). Point is content like this genuinely just makes me happy having spent over 1200 hours on ds3 alone my love for the series truly can never die and that also means my love for channels like yours won’t either. Please keep giving the most in depth looks to the quirks of fromsofts game building it’s truly fascinating and entertaining how interesting you make each video.
If only Dark Souls 2 wasn't so broken. It was my favorite one.
Looks like Elden Ring picked up some of the good stuff from it, though.
What did they add to elden ring? (I’ve watched no gameplay so far)
@@LoverLikeNoOther Powerstance/dual-wielding makes a return in Elden Ring
I'm hoping Elden Ring would be the game for them to realize their ambitions they had in DS2. DS3 was too conservative and safe imo, and adopted a little too much Bloodborne for a game that was a send-off to DS1 and DS in general.
I ACTUALLY TRIGGERED THAT EARLY PURSUER FIGHT IN MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH OF DS2
I told my friend about it, but he thought I was crazy
As soon as he dropped in, I ran away (cuz I was too scared to fight him lol) and when I came back, he was gone.
But it was just like the event you showed here... He was dropped in by a bird, and on top of that big flat top of that building no less... It wasn't a cutscene or anything, it just happened. No fanfare, he just gets plopped on up there. He didn't even have a health bar show up or anything.
It was so weird, but this video brought back this memory from what must have been 6 or 7 years ago
as much as I love dark souls 2, it's fun to imagine what it could have been like with another year or two to work on it
To this day, with countless playthroughs of Dark Souls 2, I still can't understand the hate for it. The ONLY thing I can say against it is the same thing Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation said and that's that it got a little tubby on the dudes in armour. That's it. I can't wrap my head around all the other issues the community has with it.
The level design is often just bad, and I don't think the lore is as good as any other soulslike game. A lot of the game feels like it's trying to sucker punch you by being "hard" and just ends up being annoying instead, and because a lot of the bosses are mediocre, you end up going through nightmare boss runs just to fight a middling "dude in armor" a lot. It's not bad, but it is clearly flawed
@@NeoBoneGirl Ok yes like this right here! I'm not being a dick here in any way but I cannot wrap my head around these reasons. The level design to me is fine. You proceed through areas with different themes and mechanics then fight a boss, just like ds1. For me (and I know a lot of others too) ds2 felt much easier than 1, I don't really have much else to say on difficulty. Lastly, I know I mentioned the "dudes in armour" but there were also a fair amount that were just "dudes with no armour" but I don't hate it for that. I honestly welcomed bosses who's attacks were easy to read rather than wondering "is he winding up a swing of getting ready to piss on a fire hydrant?" before being smacked by a tail that wasn't part of the wind up animation. Again not being a dick just forever confused about the hate.
@@Eyeball117 There’s multiple moments where the game just drops like 7 guys from the ceiling into you, or has a room full of like 5 enemies. They had to have known that this wasn’t good design because they tried to patch it with the permanent despawn mechanic, but added another problem that makes it so you can miss drops forever on a run, and that also still doesn’t make “Here’s this room with 5 guys in it” exactly compelling design
@@NeoBoneGirl But there are multiple points in the other souls games where there's just a load of guys in 1 room or guys that drop on you from above like lower undead berg where a load of doors fly open and suddenly you're surrounded by enemies that can backstab and parry you. So why does 2 get shit on for it? The only level design issue that the others don't have is the whole going from earthern peak to the iron keep thing. Physically it makes no sense but I just say "fuck it, video game" and move on.
@@Eyeball117 The thing is that those undead burg enemies die in 2 hits max, the DS2 thing is to drop like 4 silver knights on you as a funny joke. Every area is basically just the Capra Demon fight
it makes me so sad seeing what Dark Souls II couldve been. theres so much awesome stuff in the cut content
What else do you mean? :)
I’m interested
@@Loikarin There’s an entirely different version of the Gutter, an entire time travel story they had to rework, the cut areas suggested by this video, entire bosses that got reworked, removed or cut down for various reasons... and a bunch of other misc content, on top of a lot we likely don’t know about.
@@SaintMarianne this
@@SaintMarianne Oh, that's definitely interesting, thank you!
It's amazing that it still manages to be better than DS1 and DS3.
Dark souls 2 is honestly my favorite one in the series largely due to it's troubled development. A lot of its designs and concepts harken back to the early days of 3d game development largely cause developers were unsure what they wanted to do, as a result we get this mix match of hodge podged ideas coming together that "works" but doesn't exactly "feel" like it should. One of my very favorite things about games like this is the cut or unused content that is always left behind, never meant to be seen but all ways there hidden as though by an illusory wall.
it feels so much like ps2 fromsoftware level design and I love it
What?3d games have been made since the mid 90s. The game basically was mostly cut/downgraded to get something out the window.
I've always had a soft spot for games that have a certain unfinished feeling, a distinct sense there are things "lost" forever, with only clues to hint at their existence. DS2 is probably the epitome of this, it just for me has an "x-factor" that the other From games don't
@@tagomago2162 in many ways Dark Souls 2 is reminiscent of Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, and perhaps even the first Dark Souls in tone.
Yeah some of it works but some of it doesn't. It definitely feels like some elements of the game clash with others at times. I still like the game though regardless. It has a lot of cool ideas and systems.
Dang it; I still really like ds2 cuz it was *my* first souls game [ie the one I played through blind by myself not having watched Nothernlion play (like w/ds1)] I'll defend and love this game till I go hoarse.
An egg fan, let's go!
I played Demon Souls but didnt make IT trough, then DARK Souls 1 and then 2 but still DS 2 remains some how, as the One i loved the most.
You don't need to defend it. You can like it and still awnknoledge the flaws that it very clearly has.
UGH. Twilight Princess has a great score.
Also, interesting video. I love your finds and your musings.
dark souls 2 will forever be my favorite and it's fitting that the world is so gritty as well as the development, weirdly makes it more likeable to me, even tho It'd be cool to have that scenery
For the first time in my adult life, I've come to be excited about a daily upload. Thanks for the content
You do such an amazing job uncovering cut content. DS2 has so much content including dlc, there is always something to do. Too bad you could not put out a patch with all the cut content. It could be fun. Thanks for all the really neat videos
FromSoft has always had such large ambitions for their games and it's sad to see they didn't quite have the resources to pursue those ambitions in the past. I'm so glad they were able to fully realize those ambitions in Elden Ring, it truly is a masterpiece. Congratulations FromSoft, you've finally done it.
This is how I feel about bloodborne. I loved BB when it first came out, but with all the cut content we have knowledge of and access to now, I feel like we missed out on a lot.
Yea Bloodborne is awesome but you kinda always want more even if including dlc!!! Imagine how cool castle cainhurst would of been had it been full of content, diff enemies, a few npc’s, and like 3 bosses instead of 1???
BB definitely needed 1 more DLC.
Can I just say that I love the zelda music in all your videos. I grew up with Twilight Princess and Wind Waker and hearing the music from my childhood really takes me back.
I’m currently on my seventh run thru of dark souls 2 (scholar of the first sin) and I love it.
I'm playing my fifth character right now. Builds are so much viable. And I still have three different character idea. No, DS game gave me that much different run ideas. Only Bloodborne surpassed it (9 different characters) and I still have two different build ideas.
I'm putting off getting back into my first NG+ run to try to get to 100% achievement in DS2, it is going to be weird after playing through DS3 NG++ to get 100% achievement, they are very different games in so many ways. Currently on my first playthrough of Ashen instead...
I subscribed lately not only cause you have some gassy soulsborne videos, but the twilight princess music in the background😭 it brings me back sooooo much
Still my favorite dark souls game, the whimsy and atmosphere do it for me
i just love how alot of your videos are accompanied by my fav zelda games soundtrack.
Even though ds2 is my least favourite souls game, I admire the effort and Scale of the world the devs created, as well as all the unique ideas implemented (or cut from release) that served to give ds2 such a unique identity amongst the other games
will forever push for this to be remade
I'm not satisfied with Dark Souls 2, I absolutely love it.
A broken, beautiful mess, and after a co-op replay of 1-3, possibly my favourite.
Of all three Dark Souls games, I feel like I had the most fun multi-player in DS2.
Having played Demons'Souls first in 2009-2010, DaSo2 feels like a sequel to DeSo more than DaSo1 in a lot of ways - especially the focus on bizarre bosses and multiplayer
Holy shit I never noticed that pursuer's crow is a Yatagarasu
FromSoft makes great games in spite of having to cut so much content throughout development, which is a Normal thing that big games do. What's impressive is how they have iterated and re-incorporated so much of their content into their future games, wasting precious little from previous dev cycles.
That said, I can't even imagine what must have been cut from Elden Ring. It's the collection of all their past ideas, in one game. What new things could they not fit into it? What ideas were too wild this time, that we will have to wait until next time to see, in Bloodborne 2 or Armored Core 7?
After playing Dark Souls 1 for 2000+ hours, I remember being so hyped up for Dark Souls II. I remember feeling like "there will be many new things to discover and explore, new concepts, dark dungeons, new lore". What we got was a downgraded(graphically and every other aspect) of "what could've been Dark Souls II".
I mourn it too. Probably my worst feeling in regards to games was from Dark Souls II. It was such an impact that Dark Souls III did not hype me as much and I played much less. It's like it broke my soul. Dark Souls is still incredible, but Dark Souls 1 is where it's at. Dark Souls 1 is the best of all of them.
Hopefully Elden Ring is as good as DS1 as I played the Network Test and it looks really promising. The lore looks crispy as well.
So much potential man..
I love all the old OSTs you find
I heard something about another game recently that kinda applies here. Albeit the development of Dark Souls 2 wasn't very public so they didn't really promise features that are missing.
"Even the most successful game can fall short of promises once development starts because the difficulties of development always surpass our greatest expectations. However what differentiates the successes from the failures is the willingness to break promises made when it is right to do so."
Replace promises with cut-content and you basically have Dark Souls 2. Would the game have been better if all the original plans went through and they didn't have to massively change the game? I very much doubt it. They did those changes because the game they had needed to be changed in order to be a success.
It was changed because the game was scrapped over halfway through development due to not being able to meet the deadline with what it had planned, and another lead dev had to pick up the existing assets and jumblefuck them in wherever they could fit. It's amazing that it even turned out anywhere near as well as it did. Just like Izalith in 1, it was the result of being rushed. It absolutely would've been a much better game, the changes were made out of necessity to meet a cutthroat deadline.
Now that you pointed it out, I cannot unsee the third leg...
DS2 is easily my favorite part in the series. However it got so much hate from the “real fans” that fromsoft decided to never look back to it and the new ideas they had for the series. It’s kinda sad because you can feel the amount of work and love they have put into it.
The real fans were annoyed that they patched the game into oblivion to balance it for PvP at the expense of PvE, alongside changing the way the NPCs tracked the player.
Lightning Spear is the prime example, and it's one of the things that Happy Souls clearly noticed; another thing was the nerf on all Faith-based equipment in general.
You were no longer able to just dodge an attack, now you had to dodge an attack while relying on the invincibility window provided while dodging; weird thing to patch in. imo
I hadn't really thought about it before, but the fact that the Pursuer drops in from a bird, and summons like a phantom, both mirror the player, and may indicate some relation or motif to the chosen undead in the first game.
Don't fret, Elden Ring seems to be picking off from where DS2 left
"Sometimes I'm accused of hating on Dark Souls II. I'd say a more appropriate sentiment is that I mourn Dark Souls II."
Never before have I so accurate had my own feelings on Dark Souls 2 described.
I love your DSII videos, it makes me love the game even more than I already do.
After all these years i never noticed the bird had 3 legs.....
why does the pursuer even drop off the bird in the first place, he just teleports in for every other encounter
I remember getting really excited when I saw the Pursuer drop down from that giant bird, because it meant he could appear basically anywhere, whenever you least expect it. Like, you just got through a tough area, you're out of Estus, but it looks like you're safe... and then you hear the bird's wings. It would have been so cool.
But then it happens exactly once in the entire game
Yeah he only gets dropped by the bird once, but the rest of the situation you’re describing happened to me multiple times in my first playthru, with the pursuer appearing when I least expected him in the Lost Bastille as well as the Iron Keep. The area in Lost Bastille with the archers and dogs can be particularly brutal when the Pursuer materializes in the middle of all those enemies, and it’s right before you unlock a shortcut as well so you’re probably low on estus by that point.
I feel this way about all Dark Souls games, not just 2; there's always so much cool cut content and I always wonder what an extra year in development would look like.
I feel so bummed thinking about what the second half of Dark Souls 1 could have looked like if they didn't have to rush toward the end.
Every time i watch one of your videos i want to replay twilight princess
The eagle's third talon was used to heft the Pursuer's substantial dong, which it used to smack me about before I got the hang of DSII's sloppy controls.
Dark Souls 2 would have been odd and polarizing whatever shape it emerged in, but at this point, as a curious observer, I would love to know how Tomohiro Shibuya's vision could have turned out.
I'm always so impressed by the things you find
Regardless of anyones opinions or the state of the game. I still think 2 is the best. The combat had me sold and I LOVED fighting hordes of enemies. To this day I cant fathom how some of you die to ganks. Git Gud
Different people die to different things all the time, so I can easily fathom how people die to ganks. Also players can easily end up getting killed due to boredom or impatience rather than lack of skill.
@@asiamatron Patience is literally a skill, so is notice or attention. So yes they do die from lack of skill. You dont have to defend why you dont like DS2 its ok, git gud
@@averyyoung6962 When someone on RUclips tells me to git gud I find that quite amusing. However I think it's unwise to assume that I need to git gud at the game or that I dislike DS2. That might reflect badly on you. I also see a difference between mechanical skill, good reflexes, good spacing etc and patience which to me is a different type of skill. Hence why I made a distinction.
Ds2 made me feel like I was in a true fairytale. Its scope was more grand than the other games, and had the most variety. Correcting for a soured throne in a darkened Kingdom was the perfect setting for this sort of game. I enjoy Ds2 for reasons of being different than the others, just as I would praise any of the games for being unique in their own way.
There's enough cut out of DS2 to build a different game, i swear
impressive job, watching all your videos, Zullie, thanks for all.
We need a really good modder to make a mod that brings back most of the cut content from DS2 and fixes some of the problems with the game.
Nice video and thanks for your work. It is so amazing seeing the left overs of other devs. And thinking of left over parts, I think, if someone ever gets his hands on my The Lore of Canis, they will find lots of cool stuff I did like a debug room, were all enemies are placed for testing and every pick-up is stored at least once to check its functionality. I wonder if Miyazaki had a similar room and if the chalice dungeons were kind of relics of unused territories in Bloodborne. Who knows? Maybe you can discover those connections :D
"Everything about this game is sad", and maybe that's the reason I like it so much: a kindred spirit of a videogame, that it is.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say something like this or like "Dark Souls helped me with my depression" I could probably buy a PS5
And I feel the same way. The games are so melancholic yet strangely cathartic
Thank you Zulie. I swear you keep showing us all this stuff we would of never found. Thank you for that
ds2 chads rise up
even at 1% of its power level, ds2 is still the best one. if ds2 got released with its full power, nobody woulda lived
I wouldn't go so far as to call it the best one (although apparently the PvP was the best without any real debate), but yeah, it's a good game. If it did have 100% of it's power, I'm pretty certain dark souls 3 would be considered a massive downgrade.
i do mourn it too i think, so many creative ideas compared to 3 or even 1 just stamped out because of time constraints. ashen mist heart memories, alternative ancient kingdoms, a literal forest of giants crossing the ocean, and now perhaps a home for the giant servant birds that ferry the undead and cursed
Wait so if everything went perfectly would dark souls 2 be one of the best soul's game in the franchise?
Hard to say. It's possible that it was doomed from the start, a dream that could never be truly achieved. Sometimes goals are fundamentally incompatible, so one of them has to be scrapped. Sometimes a creator's vision for their project isn't what's best; I know more than one author who declined in the quality of their writing after they became famous and no longer had to bend to the oversight of an editor/publisher. Sometimes it takes something going wrong to steer a project in a better direction. So who can say for sure what could have been. It is pretty sad, because it seems like they had some grand ideas and weren't able to realize them.
I doubt it. It has several design flaws that would still exist regardless of cut content. It was flawed from its conception.
That bird took the slang term "Third leg" way too literally.
Somewhere in another timeline we got whatever game DS2 was supposed to be, fully polished and fleshed out.
I love DS2 and even SoTFS but the older I get the more annoyed I feel like we were robbed somewhat due to Sonys own wants.
Hey, I just wanna say I always love your choice of music you use of your videos
Honestly, the more I see these vids about DkS2, the more I wish for From to return to it and remake this game into what they wanted it to be. It was certainly one of the most ambitious games they ever created.
Yeah I was thinking the other day that a remake could be cool.
I don't know if ambitious is a fair title to put on the game. the entire scope of the game is built around reusing old aspects of the last game and in lots of very unoriginal ways like Ornstein lazily being pasted in along with some of the least interesting bosses in the series from a visual perspective like the iron king which is just a generic diablo demon
I actually think that in some moment in the future, we will get what was planned for Dark Souls 2, I would love to see that
Maybe it could’ve been a good, maybe great game, but they really tried to push the “it’s a hard game” by judging giving you 30 enemies in 10m distance
I can understand a lot of the complaints about Ds2 but this one has always been silly, every soulsborne game does a lot of this
@@elgringosupremo Sure but in Dark Souls 2 its taken to a level where the compliant goes from silly to reasonable.
Watching your videos makes me wish someone would make a mod that would use these assets and reimagine them. Like imagine how cool it would be to explore dark souls 2 for the first time again
I would like to see the game rereleased with better control and with the cut content included.
It's impressive how the best dark souls has so much on the cutting room floor. I live for the day dark souls 2 gets a remake it deserves where cut content is realized
That title pretty accurately describes the entirety of Dark Souls 2 because time constraints.
Sometimes I feel like the broken and washed out mess of DS2,
it's drab visuals and wonky structure... there's a rightness to it
I'll never like it as much as 1 but I'll always like it more than 3
The twilight princess music. Im in love with your content
What's with that weird pulsing bloodshot effect Dark Souls II does with boss encounters? What are people's head canons for that happening? Is it supposed to be the Bearer of the Curse reacting strongly to these powerful demons? It honestly just seems like a "cool" film effect, like it's non-diegetic rather than something we're meant to understand is actually happening in-universe
I always imagined it as your character getting some sort of migraine or headache, perhaps as a result of your curse worsening.
As someone who's pretty much played all the souls games and spent the most time in ds2 this content is just sublime. Also props for the zelda themes for your vids. One of my favs is the fire temple st from twilight princess.
"Could-have-beens" always are a double-edged sword. Yes, it might (!) have turned out better than what did happen, but equally likely it could have been less interesting, less enjoyable or otherwise inferior. Even though it is fun to think about, it's a fool's errand to get lost in.
One of the things I have been doing recently is looking at everything they did right for this game, even under time constraints. They built upon the first game in the series, with the addition of Hexes and other new mechanics. They created DLC’s that were not previously announced that the entire community remembers and enjoys, and they were able to create beloved characters such as Alva, The Herald, and even our own Zullie the Witch.