the essential
DS2 experience, the difficulty is fixed, graphics a bit better, bug
fixes, etc. the setting of this game is nice and i do find majula to be a
beautiful hub location. theres a lot of bosses in here, some memorable,
some not. the combat feels good and the gameplay is rewarding. a good
souls game.
7.5/10
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EDIT:
Replayed and finished again during Mid/late 2023
Just 9 or so months after the initial release of DS2 they were already announcing this new version, I guess mostly due to the upcoming newer generation of consoles and they wanted to get their game released on those, and partly due to the intial reception of the game? Who knows. But basically they promised this whole new remixed version of the game with "improved graphics" "completely rearranged enemies and items" and a few new npc's and bits and bobs around the levels. How does it compare to the original? It also comes packaged with all the DLC's, and this time around it doesnt just give you access to the DLC keys from the beginning of the game, theyre actually incorporated into the levels randomly around the maps , you have to find the keys, and figure out where to access the DLC so its almost like theyre an integral part of the campaign now. Was it worth forking over another $60 for this new edition?
Mostly whats changed here is the remixed enemies. Just every area has probably double the amount of enemies, or different surprises like stronger mobs earlier off in the levels. Like the Pursuer boss fight now pops up as a regular encounter that almost jump scares you in various places, which is pretty cool and gives a lot of excitement. Once again I played the whole game in co-op as magic duo, I think actually Scholar would be a much better co-op game, due to the increased mob count accounting for the two players, whereas maybe the original DS2 would be a better single player experience because I think in Scholar there are so many segments where you'll get ambushed or cornered by 10 mobs at once and its hopeless to do anything. People commonly call it 'gank squads' because you just get ambushed out of nowhere and you find yourself surrounded, its a trope the game constantly pulls on you.
That's not to say every level has just increased enemy counts, some levels actually take memorable enemies away for seemingly no reason or change things up in unfun ways. For example, Shaded Ruins the memorable giant basillisk is deleted and the whole level is now infested with these ghost characters that yuo cant even target and all sorts of huge health enemies where it becomes almost tedious and annoying to even bother fight so you find yourself just sprinting past all the enemies. There are a few other levels in the game where its changed up for the worse like this, but mostly it does add a fresh spin on the game and a lot of new excitement to the levels. For example they like to reintroduce bosses youve already killed as normal enemies now, such as the walk to the Lost Sinner boss has regular enemy versions serpent bosses with swords from the ship.
I don't really think about it in terms of if Scholar is better or worse than the original DS2, its more like a 'Remixed' mode or 'Rearranged mode' similar to something like Resident Evil. Just an alternate way to playthrough the game, a fun addition to experience after you've already completed it. Would I suggest Scholar to someone playing the game for the first time? Ehh..maybe not? the original feels a bit more consistent and easier to manage, especially when you consider that they've also added tons of those statues which require Fragrant branch of Yore all around the map, sometimes mandatory for progress, so you really need to be good about finding these branches and when to use them. A strange change, but again I dont think its better or worse really just different.
There is also a lot more NPC invasions and red phantoms, like a ton of them. Again, it adds excitement to familliar maps. You'll be going around and then you get a surprise by this random NPC invasion, I feel like it adds a lot of life and personality to the game and its a welcome addition. It almost makes it feel like playing online against real people, even if youre playing offline mode.
As for the rearranged items, I didn't notice it all that much. Yeah maybe its just because I was playing sorcerer, and the sorcerer item selection in DS2 is kind of limited because you just use the Lion Mage set the whole game for cast speed and either the Witch tree branch or the Staff of winter. Atleast with Staff of Winter they put it in Brightstone Cove Tseldora now, in the will, instead of right at the end of the game, so it was nice that you can get a good staff without having to essentially beat the whole game first.
I played all 3 DLC again and I'll quickly go over my thoughts once more, they arent changed in Scholar, by the way, nothing different.
Crown of Sunken King
-This one was basically just really annoying. Visually looks interesting with the high cliffsides and castles in the distance, but its an annoying platforming gimmicky puzzle thing where you go around flipping switches changing up the platforms in the maps. The enemies are super tanky and in all 3 of the DLC they made all the enemies super resistant to Magic so you barely do any damage making us mostly just want to run past everything. Eventually you go through some crypts which have almost a dungeon crawling vibe to them, that was the best area of the DLC. Definitely much harder than anything in the base game so it was fun to have some challenge because we were just breezing through the main levels.
The bosses are this arena with 3 NPC type guys which is a fun but nothing special fight.
You have another boss, Elena, which is a mage that shoots magic across the map at you. Decent fight, decently challenging and fun. Then you have this big dragon fight which was pretty great hes got a fun move set and thankfully the fire doesnt fuck you up instantly unlike Ancient Dragon from base game. But overall the puzzle platformer type elements of the DLC and some of the aesthetics disappoint me
Crown of the Old Iron King
This one starts off outside in some snowy area then you slowly climb down into this big fortress full of elevators and castle interiros. I mostly like this DLC it has less gimmicky puzzle shit from the last one, all the elevators are kind of annoying and boring though, but I like the asethetics of the 'castle in the sky' type trope and climbing across giant chains in the sky to different buildings and the fire themes throughout were good. The enemy variation and designs in this DLC are good and interesting, knights and armoured soldiers type stuff, this is my favorite DLC of the 3 but its still not an amazing dlc or anything cause of all the annoying elevators. The boss Fume Knight is one of the best bosses in DS2 though its a really intense fight with awesome moveset where he flies all all across the arena attacking you testing your dodging skills. Unfortunately theres a bullshit thing where you have to collect these items to use on these statues outside the boss fight to weaken him and its not obvious at all that you should preserve these because you find them throughout the DLC so you go around accidentally using these items on other optional places and then you get to the boss and realize you wasted them so you have to backtrack (or look up on google) where to find more of the damn things. It sucks, why do they have to fuck up the DLC's with these dumb gimmicks? thats the biggest complaint with this dlc in particular we had to backtrack the whole level searching for this item to weaken the boss to make him actually beatable because the game essentialy tricked us making us waste them.
Crown of the Ivory King
this one takes place in frozen winter type land where you go inside a giant castle but its more like series of courtyards and hallways in the sky,you can see in the distance some nice visuals of snowy mountains so the aesthetics are great and memorable but unfortunately this DLC is a pain in the ass mostly because the enemies are just too resistant for magic so theyre all 'bullet sponges' and also you have to constantly backtrack and repeat areas because you end up burning down these blocked off ice places so you have to keep going around in circles searching for what new areas opened up while dodging and runing past the bullet sponge enemies so it becomes this tedious annoying process to deal with. You can find these Knights sitting on chairs which you can rescue to help fight you the final boss fight, its optional to find them but of course I wanted to. Eventually you get to the final boss and you plummet into this big fire arena that looks like something out of Lord of the Rings and you fight waves of enemies then their portals freeze over and the boss of the DLC shows up. This guy is also a really good boss fight and fun challenge so for the most part the DLC has good bosses, well except the other bosses of this dlc are just some tigers. One fight you enter an arena and its a singular tigar thats pretty underwhelming and nothing special ,aavia. Then you do this other optional area Frigid Outskirts which is apparently the most hated area in all of Souls franchise, where you walk around a barren frozen snowstorm with brief pauses every 15 seconds while youre getting chased by horses that seemingly infinitly respawn its a total pain in the ass you kinda just walk around while being constnatly flashbanged by snowstorm no idea where youre going until you eventually find the path to the boss and its just another tiger boss but this time theres two of them, Zud and Zallen, its a fun fight but yeah the area leading up to it is bullshit.
If i had to rank the DLC's i would probably say Iron King > Ivory King > Sunken King
As for the verdict on Scholar, yeah maybe it wasnt worth full price $60 just 9 months after initial release of DS2, but nowadays if you just want a curious 'Rearranged' mode spin on a game you already like, its a fun time. I guess I would give it the same score as DS2 for that reason, it does some things better, it does some things worse, but overall I'd say I enjoy them both the same amount
8/10
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