Have You Played... Dark Souls 2?

Have You Played?is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.

Dark Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Demon's Souls > Dark Souls 2.

But if you like the rest, you should still play number 2. It's good. Being good just isn't quite enough when you're born into a family of geniuses.

First of all, let's acknowledge the blood-starved elephant in the room. Bloodborne isn't on PC and that is a horrible, terrible, no-good shame. It upsets me so much, in fact, that I sometimes have to storm away from my computer in disgust and flounce onto my couch where I play Bloodborne on my PS4 for the rest of the night. It's a hard life.

Dark Souls 2 is on PC though. I reviewed it and I remember frowning a lot while I was writing the review. As I've said, it's not a bad game, but it doesn't have the spirit of its predecessors (I'm including Demon's Souls as well). It feels like a cover version.

Strangely, the rather brilliant Dark Souls 3 made me like Dark Souls 2 more. I think it's because now I know that the disappointing middle chapter will never stand as the final word in Souls. It's a stumble but it manages to turn that stumble into the kind of satisfying roll that the series does so well. And now you can get a complete version, Scholars of the First Sin, which improves the base game as well as including all of the rather excellent DLC.

Yeah, Dark Souls 2 is the worst Dark Souls game. That's not a bad thing to be though.