Dark Souls II: PS3 Review

Dark Souls II: PS3 Review

Platform: PS3
Published by Bandai Namco

Wow, it's tough.


The sequel to the phenomenally popular Dark Souls is going to require a little patience from you. Actually, scratch that, a lot of patience.

You're an undead soul, who's been cursed and who's basically, trying to find a cure for this curse to make life a little better. Travelling around different worlds, you unlock basic memories from within your past by taking on several challenges and by ensuring you survive (no mean feat, believe you me) as the world around you proffers up nasty challengers to overcome.

AS you negotiate your way around the world of Drangelic (an incredibly dark world, but one which has been beautifully realised within), you will find each death gives you a chance to learn from your demise. Skill mastering early on is a painful process as you die repeatedly within its confines - but re-spawning and starting again, while incredibly frustrating, is a vital part of the learning process and helps you to ensure your longer survival.

There's a real sense of foreboding throughout, an ominous presence that lurks in the background and adds to the menace within. Large parts of the game scape are dark and will require lighting, but sometimes you're not always best rewarded for what you may find within. It's a curious case of style over substance, because there's very little story within and the game relies heavily on your investment into this character and the journey.

But it rewards you with stunning visuals and sense of another world, expertly realised. It may pay though to play the first game before you delve into this one, given that you can get some of the mechanics of the game from the earlier predecessor. There are also training videos on the internet, which I initially scoffed at, but soon found myself heading to get a guiding hand that was sorely needed thanks to my arrogance.

All in all, Dark Souls 2 is a challenging game and one that doesn't reward the casual gamer. If you're willing to invest into this, then you may find yourself particularly and curiously thrilled by what lies ahead - for sometimes, the journey is more about the steps than the ultimate destination.