Hard and unforgiving but fair at the same time, Dark Souls 2 is so far the best game iv'e played this year and one of the best RPGs iv'e experienced in my life.
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A small WARNING :
The PC controlls of Dark Souls 2 are very,very bad, it's strongly suggested to use an xbox360 controler to play the game otherwise you will be severely handicapped, please if you do not have a controller around do not buy Dark Souls 2.
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In the other hand, the x360 controls in Dark Souls 2 are very responsive and good, only time they don't feel all that great is in the occasional moment when you have to do some minor platformig , the jumping controlls are weird in the game, they require you to hold down the B button to run and than click in the left analog stick while running towards the direction you want to jump which is a bit of a b***h to do when you don't have much space around yourself.
The PC version runs in a silky smooth 60 FPS on max setings even on a mid range PC, the game is optimized pretty damn good, even a low end laptop should be able to run the game on lower setings with a playable frame rate.
The graphic options are far better compared to it's predecessor, you have a large variety of resolution options, VSYNC, texture quality, SSAO, shadow quality, anistropic filtering, FXAA, water quality, motion blur, deph of field, high quality character rendering, model quality and effects quality, however sadly the amazing lighting we saw in preview builds of the Alpha and Beta stages of the game is not here, so the lighting in the game feels pretty flat, only in some areas of the game such as the main hub area Majula and a few others have actual good dynamic lighting, still even with the graphical downgrade they had to do because of frame rate issues on the old last generation consols it still looks better than the previous game which had very simple dynamic lighting and shadows.
The gameplay Dark Souls 2 is the most satisfying and rewarding experience iv'e ever had in any game, fighting the large variety of unique enemies and bosses is a blast, learning their attack patterns and their weaknesses so you can be victories is great and pretty much every death in the game almost never feels cheap, the game rewards patience and smart players and punishes does who try to play it mindlessly, the level design is great and the game offers you a large quantity of multiple paths you can chose from the very start, every area in the game holds secreats to be discovered, some secreats you might never even find in your first playthru which makes multiple playthrus still intreasting.
I don't want to spoil much but one my favorite and i think the best boss fight in the game is against a boss named the "Looking Glass Knight" who can use his mirror shield to summon other players from their worlds into yours to kill you during the boss fight, this isn't done willingly by the players it happens randomly to the people who are infront of the gates of the looking glass knight boss which leads to a very intreasting fight as you're fighting this big knight and he summons other players to help him defeat you.
The way multiplayer works in Dark Souls 2 is, it's always connected, you occasionally see white spirits walking around which are other players who are playing at the same time, you can touch bloodstains in the game which will show you a memory of sorts of the last few seconds of a player that died in that area which can be usefull to check if there's something dangerous around, it cam also be quite amusing as you can watch a guy roll off a cliff by accident.
Other players can also invade your world using specific items in the game and than try to kill you, you can also do the same to other players however the more you invade the more likely you will get invaded and there's groups(covenants) that punish people who kill innocent players and friendly NPCs, you can also summon and or be summoned by other players for some jolly-cooperation to help each other in the game.
Covenants in the game could be considered like guilds, you can only be in one at a time and each one has it's benefits, there's one for people who like to invade other players and kill them, there's a covenant for people who want to punish invaders by invading their worlds as a good blue sentinal to pass judgment onto the them for theirs sins, there's a covenants that primarly focuses on helping each other in the game and the list goes on, i don't want to spoil all of them but each covenants will rewards you with alot of items as you rank up, also you can leave a covenant and join another one without any issues and you can easilly join back to the covenants you left without any consequences, a fair amount of people like to get to the max rank in one covenant and than move on to another they're intreasted in.
When you die in Dark Souls 2 you will lose all of your currency in the game which is Souls, however you can get your Souls back by going to the exact spot where you died and simply picking it all back up, the spot is marked with a big green glowing orb however if you die before doing so, all of those souls are gonna be long gone.
One tip, when you have no humanity (when you're hollow/undead) you cannot summon or be summoned to do co-op in the game, the reason i'm explaining is because alot of new players don't know this and get confused why they often can't find others players to help em out.
You get humanity back by simply using an item called Human Effigies.
My only big issue is primarly related to the online experience , it's the weird lagg you'll get in some co-op and PVP sessions which can be extreamly infuriating at times as you magicly get hit my attacks which compleatly missed you on your screen.
So my final verdict is, the game is awesome, the game has so much good content it will keep you busy for a long time and once you beat the game, starting it over again in New Game+ adds new and exciting enemies, some different A.I. behaviors, new loot to get and of course new challenges to overcome.
Dark Souls 2 is worth buying even at full price, just note as i told you at the start the M&K controlls are terrible so don't buy DS2 if you don't own a controller.
I would've given the game a 10 if the PC controlls weren't horendes, the lighting was a bit better and if there was far less lagg issues in multiplayer.