Yeah, I have noticed that too. I don’t think DS2 is a terrible game, despite itself. But it does amaze me that you’re more likely to get an essay about how ADP or the level design is actually good instead of a more balanced take that appreciates the good and acknowledges the flaws. Though to be honest, fans like that exist everywhere and in all sorts of fandoms. Ninja Gaiden 2 faces the same problem. It’s a beautiful mess of a game, but its diehard fans just can’t admit that parts of it are unfinished, untested and unbalanced. You can still love the game for its amazing highs even as you acknowledge that some parts are absolute toss.
And the claim about surrealism would be stronger if it would be included in other parts besides only the stitched togetherness of non fitting maps. Inside the maps they are all coherent, which weakens that argument a lot.
Well, yes. That’s the thing. Tanimura basically had to salvage the project halfway through after its very troubled development, and said himself he would have preferred to start over from scratch but didn’t have the time. So yes, it was quite literally stitched together.
DS2 is one of those art projects where I would have really liked to play the original vision. The inclusion of time travel and changing the future in the past would have been an interesting concept for a FromSoft game with their interconnected and freely explorable world.
Yeah, I have noticed that too. I don’t think DS2 is a terrible game, despite itself. But it does amaze me that you’re more likely to get an essay about how ADP or the level design is actually good instead of a more balanced take that appreciates the good and acknowledges the flaws. Though to be honest, fans like that exist everywhere and in all sorts of fandoms. Ninja Gaiden 2 faces the same problem. It’s a beautiful mess of a game, but its diehard fans just can’t admit that parts of it are unfinished, untested and unbalanced. You can still love the game for its amazing highs even as you acknowledge that some parts are absolute toss.
Well, yes. That’s the thing. Tanimura basically had to salvage the project halfway through after its very troubled development, and said himself he would have preferred to start over from scratch but didn’t have the time. So yes, it was quite literally stitched together.
DS2 is one of those art projects where I would have really liked to play the original vision. The inclusion of time travel and changing the future in the past would have been an interesting concept for a FromSoft game with their interconnected and freely explorable world.