Recent reviews by Glyphic

Fun, challenging, sometimes silly physics-based combat. Pretty amazing once you get the hang of it.

Unbelievably fun and chaotic. Great netcode.

Quite possibly the closest thing to the "perfect game" I can imagine.

Yes, it is flawed. It has all the fromsoft quirks:
* Unforgiving, unintuitive, unintelligible side quests.
* BUGS. Bugs bugs bugs. Sometimes parts of quests won't load (though they fix these quite a bit)
* UI from 1999 with all the UX of the same era.

But it's also a game that makes you want to see EVERYTHING. You'll ride off in random directions and find fights, or cool landscape, or bits of lore, or a dozen bosses. Then you'll do it again. The combat is buttery smooth (most of the time) and bosses feel fair, and then at the difficulty spike near end-game they feel a BIT unfair.

Dunno. It rules. If you've wanted to try a fromsoft game, this is the best entry point.

Controls are horrid. Just unbelievably bad. Missions are all the same. Find four things. Defend the things. Move to the next place. The open world feels useless now. What a disappointment.

Awesome music. Like, really awesome. Fantastic gun feel (If you've played other Vlambeer games, you know they get this stuff right). Ludicrously hard. Addicting "just one more run" gameplay.

Just misses the atmosphere of the original. It's a very close miss, though. The world feels super linear, with some areas seeming vast and awesome but only taking 15 minutes to complete. All without seeing a lot of the awesome scenery.

The combat is as great as ever. As unforgiving as ever. There do seem to be a lot more ambushes in this game. With a lot more enemeies to an ambush. Sometimes it's a cheap death out of nowhere. Sometimes it's an awesome "I can't believe I survived" moment.

I'm thoroughly enjoying my time in DS2. I'm getting ready to NG+ and we'll see what new challenges that brings.