are limited), as by leveling up later you can adjust any of your abilities. On top of that you can always return to the first cabin of the game and respec with the nice creepy ladies inside. That is of course if you don’t kill them like some animal (oops) in a fit of rage. You can essentially end your game without knowing it, as you have the ability to kill most any NPC in the world. Kill the nice lady that won’t shut up in the hub world and you can kiss leveling up goodbye. This is classic hard, and not getting any indication that the game is impossible to complete because you killed someone makes it feel like an old Sierra adventure game in a way.
Another thing that I absolutely enjoyed was Dark Souls 2’s integration of multiplayer. I am the last person you will find enjoying or praising multiplayer, especially with console games as the PC perfected them years ago, but Dark Souls 2 nails it. You can have up to two players join you through the game up until a boss fight. This is done by leaving a sign/sigil marker, most usually by the entrance to a boss battle. This sort of drop in drop out kind of mulitplayer feels naturally integrated into the game, as opposed to a tacked on secondary feature. This works with dark spirits as well, allowing for PvP duels with real players throughout the game world.
Like many old games, respawning enemies can be the bane of many a player. Dark Souls 2 does have many enemies that respawn, but not indefinitely. What this means is that after certain enemies are beaten a set number of times, they will be removed entirely from the area. This makes frustratingly difficult parts a bit easier as the baddies you’ve killed hundreds of times will disappear making the path leading to your past death less of a challenge.
Magic also plays a big part in dark Souls 2, if you want it to. You can go about everything as a hack-and-slasher (yes, please) or as a magic user. Choosing magic can actually be a large boon while playing, as many enemies and bosses are weak to certain types of magic making battles easier when you learn said weaknesses.
With all this said, you are going to be losing hours upon hours to Dark Souls 2. Even with a strategy guide in hand, you can expect some 40 plus hours and going in blind, 100 plus is a reasonable expectation. Yes, this is a game for the hardcore, for the players that want a brutal challenge that still feels fair.
Dark Souls 2 for the PC is a great game, one that puts the console versions to shame. Seriously, if you play it on PC on full settings then go and play it on the consoles, you are going to be disappointed. It’s by no means a perfect game, and I feel like many reviewers are throwing around ridiculously high scores of 90 and up simply to appease their reader base, but the core gameplay in Dark Souls 2 is just so good that it does manage to brush aside much of the games shortcoming.
J. Luis