Dark souls 2 needs a remake (again)

Discussion

I'd like to restate my post from before where I made this claim, as I didn't go far enough into the issues and felt disappointed by the way it turned out. Im not posting this in r/darksouls2 because the general consensus there is that nobody seems to be able to take criticism and takes everything to heart, no good in dealing with that. So anyways...

Dark souls 2 has the potential to be great but it is fundamentally flawed but very simple to fix, let's start by listing some very obvious issues with very obvious fixes.

  1. Adaptability The adaptability stat is ridiculous, we all know this. It quite literally diminishes a core gameplay mechanic and locks its usefulness behind an arbitrary stat. Theres a reason only ds2 did this and no game after, because it is a bad mechanic, theres no arguing that. Until you let it eat up a ton of souls, your roll is almost useless, as you can get damaged during the middle of the animation because of how little invincibility frames you start with. The most obvious fix is to remove it entirely and restore your i-frames and item usage speed back to how they were in ds1 and every game following. Speaking of i frames...

  2. Lack of i-frames Whenever performing an action like a backstabbing, which is usually a rewarding attack that not only gives you a short breather but also massively damages your foe. Well, not here. You stay vulnerable during the animation which means the game literally punishes you for doing it. Accidentally do it while in the midst of a gank? Well you're fucked sorry. Also how about traversing the fog gates. Finally completed the long arduous runback to the boss for the third time? Well you'll have to kill every single one of them every single time you die or else they'll stab you out of the fog and make you do it all over again, a problem that was absent in dark souls 1.

  3. Controller deadzones The game has this really gross way of deadzoning your movement stick that acts almost like snap points and don't allow for 360º analog control. It limits your movement and feels super clunky, almost like you're snapped to a grid. It just feels awful to control and theres mods that change this thankfully but it shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

  4. Durability Weapons tend to break lightning fast and sometimes barely even last for 1 whole boss. Im not kidding it's a common occurance to have your weapon break on you mid fight forcing you to run around like a dunce until you find an opportunity to use repair powder which you might not even have. Thankfully again theres a mod that fixes this, but it shouldn't be a problem IN THE FIRST PLACE. Theres so many weird and unnecessary game design choices it actually makes me wonder if the devs were actual junkies and high off their nuts while coding some of this.

  5. Gear breaking mist Now I will say ds1 had this bullshit as well but it was much much rarer. There are several places in dark souls 2 where enemies and the environment will spray you with this weird dumb gas that breaks all your equipment almost instantly and its just plain old artificial difficulty and extremely annoying. No, it is not a skill issue, it simply just happens and I dont think anyone would complain about the removal of it. Replace it with poison for all I care atleast that's able to be dealt with fast and doesn't require going back to the bonfire and spending tons of souls to repair everything.

  6. Fragrant branches of yore Fragrant branches are items in dark souls 2 that allow you to break petrified statues blocking entrances to optional areas, but sometimes also required areas. The problem? There are more statues than there are branches... like alot more. Im sure you can put two and two together and realize why this is an issue. You dont know whats behind the statues unless you look it up and if you use one and it turns out to be horse shit well you're out of luck man. Its just so lame man, nothing else to say about it its just pure lame.

Before I get hate comments telling me its all a skill issue and that I need to "git good" or just adapt to the game's bullshit, you can leave now, your opinion does not matter to me If you're going to be an obtuse sunlight-maggot-headed pain in the rump. I've beaten dark souls 1 many times and played the others plenty, I promise you I am not bad lol.

And now for the good. Theres no doubt this game did alot of things great and introduced many household ideas into fromsoftwares catalog. Also the art direction, visuals, lore, music, and overall vibe of this game is just awesome. It feels like you're playing through a fairytale and its a vibe no other souls game has. It makes dark souls 2 unique and I can see why alot of people love this game. I like it too, it just has clear issues that it would be better off without. And although its probably never going to happen, i really hope fromsoftware makes a remake of this game and fixes all the aforementioned problems while upgrading everything that's already good about it as well. Thats about it for this post though, definitely some things I missed and a lack of effort put into some parts but I'm tired as hell so its to be forgiven (hopefully) and I hope every dark souls 2 fan that might be mad up to this point understands this comes from passion and not hate. Anyways yeah that's all. What do you guys think, should they make it or should the original remain a piece of history?

Posted Jun 3, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

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