4/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin.

It’s Dark Souls again! Almost identical gameplay as the first one with a few notable changes for both the better and worse, but if you enjoy Dark Souls then I can’t imagine any of the changes preventing you from enjoying this one. First off, it’s a whole lot smoother. As someone who started my Fromsoft adventure with Elden Ring, jumping backwards to the first Dark Souls was a bit jarring. This more matches the feel of Elden Ring in terms of fluidity of motion and speed. I was also ecstatic at the ability to fast travel right from the get go, as running around for the first half of the original game was my biggest detraction. Perhaps in the effort to balance the slight ease in difficulty, a new system was put in place. Whereas in every other entry, you can kill enemies to your heart’s content, this game has put a limit on that, stopping enemies from spawning after a certain number of kills. This is to prevent the farming of souls so you don’t over level yourself, but if you keep dying and losing your souls, then all it means is that you have no way of recovering them. Now there are workarounds to this. You can use rare items called Bonfire Ascetic to refill an area with enemies, but they come back stronger. Also, in my case, their farming plan had the opposite of its intended effect. Because souls were now precious, I never wanted to enter a boss fight with any good amount of souls, so I ended up clearing each area until no enemies remained permanently before engaging most bosses. This way I wouldn’t lose what I had gained on the way to boss, and I was usually fairly overpowered as a result. Admittedly, this also meant that I never truly felt stuck. Even if I had a hard time getting through an area, I knew that each kill ultimately brought me closer to the end, because eventually those enemies would be gone forever. While I generally prefer to have infinitely respawning enemies, this game had its own benefits that didn’t detract too much from that experience. I’m sure there are other gameplay differences, but those are the major ones I noticed. Again, my feelings are pretty much the same as the first Dark Souls in that it’s a very good game that is very difficult, but equally rewarding. Time to move on to part 3.