Dark Souls Review

[Boro]

So is 2 still the best way to.get into it?

I feel so, yes. Many ways to go, not all are optimal for all builds. Heide's tower is good for mages since they can get easy soul levels there off the lag knights of the bad connection order. Melee players would probably prefer going to the Forest of the Fallen Giants. Some skip ahead to the rat king.

And yes, Offline only. Can't have some Soul Memory optimizer with +10 endgame weapons and NG++ rings come and use me for easy tokens. No siree. It's the firewall for you!

One thing to note: Lightning spears are nerfed so hard they feel useless. Not enough spell charges, and not enough damage per charge to make them worthwhile. I imagine they'd make for interesting variant play, very focused on spell charge restoring herbs.

As in, yes, you can farm up a whole lot of them and lifegems to make sure you have enough supplies till the next bonfire.

It's very much fun and relaxing.

[Gustaran]

So is 2 still the best way to.get into it?

My opinion is different: I think the best game of the series is DS3. Besides from the obviously much prettier graphics, I feel the controls are more responsive. In the souls game, if you whiff a heavy attack, you might be in for major retaliation, since the recovery period is so long. While this holds true for DS3 to some extent as well, I went back to DS2 after beating DS3 and hated the controls, since they felt sluggish in comparison - but YMMV.

In addition, I think DS1 and DS2 have a few rather strange mechanics and easy to miss bonfires. DS3 is also a bit more streamlined, which means you can't accidently wander into rather difficult areas right from the beginning, which is very well possible in the earlier parts of the series. Moreover, I feel the level design in DS3 is superior, IMHO there is only one annoying area (the swamp) and I had a blast playing through all other locations, which at least in my case certainly can't be said for DS1 and DS2.

Then again, all this is just my personal opinion. You can probably find proponents for starting out with either of the 3 parts. If you like the Dark Souls genre, you are very likely going to buy all 3 anyway. The earlier parts are obviously cheaper, though I just saw Steam currently still charges $40 for each of the first two parts - it might be beneficial to look for a cheaper option (retail/key or wait for a sale).

[Quagma Blast]

So is 2 still the best way to.get into it?

And I'll pop in to complete the trifecta - I think DS1 is the best place to start. Dark Souls Remastered came out fairly recently, so the online components will be more active than the other two. The first half of DS1 has the absolute best large-scale world design in the series and it's more generous about early-game weapon upgrades which lets you switch weapons more easily. They had to rush development on the second half of the game and it shows, but overall it's still a very good game.

DS2 is widely regarded as the worst of the three - the handling and hitboxes are clunkier than the other two, and on several occasions, especially in the Scholar of the First Sin edition that integrates all the DLC, the enemy placement is designed to swarm you, which forces you into a slow backpedal-and-wait-for-multiple-openings-to-line-up gameplay. I also feel that it's worse at signposting where to go next if you try to play it blind.

DS3 has faster, more fluid combat than the others and probably the highest level of polish considering the game taken as a whole. However, it's my opinion that the early-game bosses are more difficult than in 1 or 2 (and by 'early-game' I mean 'at the end of the tutorial section before you find the hub'), and a lot of the highest emotional impact moments are callbacks to things from DS1 which will lose their power if you don't recognize them.

[scooter]

So is 2 still the best way to.get into it?

I haven't played 2 and 3, so obviously I'm worthless for comparisons, but I'm happy I started with this one. The world design I've heard so much about is honestly incredible (I'm aware it tapers off later). The moment to moment combat still feels pretty good despite the age of the game (and the exploitability of the AI). The game is definitely a bit buggy/glitchy, but I don't feel it really detracts from the experience. I've also liberally used the wiki for game mechanics given how obtuse they are in the game along with a few "what am I supposed to do" moments, and I'm happy I did that. I think that's helped a ton for me in the "getting over the hump" of the game, and getting minor spoilers here and there didn't hurt the experience much at all IMO. Of course, I say that before I get to Tomb of the Giants, so stay tuned for me to possibly change my mind. 


My current internal debate is whether to play 2 next, skip it entirely for 3.... or go with Bloodborne instead. A lot of things I've heard about 2 don't really appeal to me (particularly the enemy grouping frequency), but I also know that if I don't play it next, I possibly never will. If someone has a strong opinion there, I'm all ears.

[SevenSpirits]

I really enjoyed DS2 and I still recommend it.

DS3 heads in an action game direction - smooth controls, fast-paced combat, but fewer viable builds. Roll a lot, hit people with your 1 handed sword, don't bother with poise. It's a shorter game but the levels and bosses are pretty polished.

DS2 heads slightly in an RPG direction (in the sense of character progression, not story). It keeps DS1's slow combat pace, makes it a bit messier with more group fights and more chip damage, and has by far the most different weapons, spells, and viable builds. It's a longer game with many varied environments, but a world design that's less connected.

For me, I thought DS3 was higher quality, but DS2 kept me interested longer. I had next to no desire to play DS3 more than once.

I haven't played Bloodborne but as I understand it, it's even farther in the direction that DS3 took. You also now have Sekiro with a similar philosophy taken to an even farther extreme. It seems they've landed on their main audience as liking super hard action games, which I find unfortunate because I mostly enjoyed the games for their relatively deliberate and patient combat (for a 3d action game), character building, and exploration. And I'm not actually very good at fast action games. 

[Gustaran]

My current internal debate is whether to play 2 next, skip it entirely for 3.... or go with Bloodborne instead. A lot of things I've heard about 2 don't really appeal to me (particularly the enemy grouping frequency), but I also know that if I don't play it next, I possibly never will. If someone has a strong opinion there, I'm all ears.

If you have played and liked DS1, I would suggest going DS2->DS3->Bloodborne->(Sekiro), because tackling the games in this order will make sure the game mechanic changes are easiest to adapt to.

IMHO, DS2 is still a great game and a classic. A Steam key for the "Scholars of the First Sin Edition" can be purchased for less than $10 if you don't mind using key resellers. And as can be seen in this thread, opinions on what the best Souls game is really depend on your preferences.

DS2 has also DLCs worth looking at, I especially liked the "Crown of the Ivory King" DLC, which featured a city in a snowstorm IIRC.

[Gustaran]

You also now have Sekiro with a similar philosophy taken to an even farther extreme. It seems they've landed on their main audience as liking super hard action games, which I find unfortunate because I mostly enjoyed the games for their relatively deliberate and patient combat (for a 3d action game), character building, and exploration. And I'm not actually very good at fast action games. 

Completely agree. When I read that professional playtesters sometimes needed hours for a single boss and rave about the "split second" blocks you need to execute perfectly in rapid succession, I think I am too old for this stuff. 
I believe a somewhat similar parry mechanic is implemented in DS2 when using certain smaller shields, but I tried a build like that once and discovered quickly this was not for me (miss parry timing once->dead).

[Boro]

My current internal debate is whether to play 2 next, skip it entirely for 3.... or go with Bloodborne instead. A lot of things I've heard about 2 don't really appeal to me (particularly the enemy grouping frequency), but I also know that if I don't play it next, I possibly never will. If someone has a strong opinion there, I'm all ears.

I can second playing 2 if you are ever interested in playing archer or mage. 3 cripples casters needlessly by reducing the amount of spell uses per bonfire rest (and you have to chug blue soda to keep up, which cuts into your regular estus supply). It also cripples you by putting a boss before you can buy arrows or reallocate your belt (estus/mana estus) AND has a small limit for ammo carried per type: 99

Having a bow or spell largely negates ambush problems, as you can usually retreat and pick off enemies one by one.

And since respawns stop after 10 or so kills of the same enemy (champion covenant forces respawns while active, ascetic resets respawns onto next ng difficulty.), you can always clear a path forward even if slowly.

I'm currently using the "crippled to useless" faith offensive spells on a pure faith caster. It is a blast!

[Gustaran]

And since respawns stop after 10 or so kills of the same enemy (champion covenant forces respawns while active, ascetic resets respawns onto next ng difficulty.), you can always clear a path forward even if slowly.

Ah yes, I remember they introduced that to prevent people from farming souls, didn't they? It was a rather silly mechanic, since they started to match online players by "soul memory" at the same time, IIRC.
That meant not the actual soul level was used to match players, but the acquired souls, even if you lost them through death before being able to spend them. So a bad player was punished several times: If you die more often, you lose souls which you can't even refarm and your soul memory goes up, despite your character not becoming stronger at all....

[Boro]

And since respawns stop after 10 or so kills of the same enemy (champion covenant forces respawns while active, ascetic resets respawns onto next ng difficulty.), you can always clear a path forward even if slowly.

Ah yes, I remember they introduced that to prevent people from farming souls, didn't they? It was a rather silly mechanic, since they started to match online players by "soul memory" at the same time, IIRC.
That meant not the actual soul level was used to match players, but the acquired souls, even if you lost them through death before being able to spend them. So a bad player was punished several times: If you die more often, you lose souls which you can't even refarm and your soul memory goes up, despite your character not becoming stronger at all....

I don't know why they introduced it, but I'm glad they let the champions covenant infinitely respawn them without the use of an ascetic. Helps with wilted dusk flower farm in harvest valley from the fire sorcies..

Yes, soul memory was/is bad. I get that it's a supposed to be a way to match the low SL with upgraded to +15 gear PKers in Undead Burg with stronger characters and not complete newbies, but it somehow accomplishes similar "gaps" through the unretrieved soul losses upon death you mention, and purchasing spell scrolls/consumables.

It's no surprise they went with an SL bracket + Highest weapon enhancement bracket system for the third dark souls.