Article by Gianluca “DottorKillex” Arena
At the least expected moment, twelve months after the debut and only one week after the arrival on the market of that masterpiece that is Bloodborne, From Software offers us a sort of Goty edition of its Dark Souls II, one of the most acclaimed titles of 2014, and , more generally, one of the most long-lived, difficult and exciting role-playing games of the entire last generation of consoles.
Will it be just the umpteenth, sinister attempt to make money or rather a tribute to a title, which, although highly appreciated, is considered by many to be the least inspired of the series?
Remix totale
Dark Souls II was able to earn excellent grades a year ago these days, thanks to an extremely steep but equally rewarding learning curve, a slow but extremely tactical combat system, and the vastness of a living, pulsating world that tried to sink the teeth in the player's flesh with every step.
All this returns in this Scholar of the First Sin edition, with a series of measures aimed at improving the gaming experience and above all to make it attractive even to those who have already stripped it to goodness on old generation consoles.
The changes are essentially of three orders, and go to alter the balance of the game, as well as groped to rejuvenate a presentation that, already at the debut, was not exactly the state of the art (at least on a purely technical level, because if we are talking about art direction then it's a different matter): 1080p and 60 fps, a combination that now seems indispensable in the current generation of consoles, inclusion of all released DLCs and repositioning of enemies in many of the game maps, so as to take even the most savvy players by surprise.
Of the three, I personally appreciated above all the second and third, not because a faster refresh of the screen is not welcome but because, apart from an initial phase of disorientation, it does not impact the gameplay in the hoped-for way, thanks to the fact that during the hours of tests, in the Xbox One version I tested, there was some drop and flicker here and there, with the framerate losing about twenty frames for a few seconds and then returning stable.
The 1080p clearly give a greater graphic cleanliness to the whole, but the backward technical sector, which looks even more disfigured after the many hours spent playing Bloodborne, only partially benefits from the increase in resolution, adding, here too, very little to the gaming experience itself.
Act of love
If reading so far you are starting to think that you are facing yet another remaster in high definition without heart or soul, however, you are wrong: if the improvements on the technical side do not impress, from the point of view of the contents this Scholar of the first sin edition offers the best of itself, representing a real act of love of the development team both towards his creature and those of the most loyal fans.
Only the latter, in fact, will appreciate the infinite series of small changes to the balance, to the positioning of the enemies, to the greater density of some areas at the expense of others: while the neophyte will simply find himself in front of one of the best role-playing games of the last years, the one who has already spent dozens of hours in Drangleic (like myself) will appreciate the little things, being amazed to retrace roads already abundantly beaten but strewn with new secrets, of known enemies but positioned in such a way as to inflict a couple of blows on betrayal.
The general difficulty level, which was already not joking, following the complaints of many fans of the series created by From Software, has been further raised, bringing it, as far as I was able to see, to the levels of the first Dark Souls, and this without introducing new nemeses but simply by rebalancing the damage of the weapons, the number of opponents per area and their attitude to the player's sight.
As if that weren't enough, the inclusion of The Lost Crowns trilogy, released in the months following its launch as downloadable content, further enriches the package, offering, in addition to at least fifteen hours of gameplay, some of the most successful boss fights. not just Dark Souls II but the entire saga.
Thanks to these additions, the range of players to whom this product can be attractive therefore expands dramatically: those who, like the writer, had already finished the game but had had the opportunity to try their hand at only one of the three DLCs, will find a good reason to return to the desolate lands of Drangleic to die a few more times, as well as those who stopped halfway through the work, discouraged by the difficulty.
Obviously, the category that will benefit most from the work done by From Software is the one to which those who have lost the title at the release belong, since they will be able to try their hand at a truly epic title, but also the owners of only Xbox One, orphans of Bloodborne , they will have something to rejoice.
Design 1 - 0 polygons
Although the development team has tried to polish Scholar of the first sin as best as possible, the origins of the project were firmly rooted in the last hardware generation, so much so that, already thirteen months ago, the bulk of the perplexities concerned the technical side, which today , with PS4 and Xbox One starting to flex its muscles, it feels even more dated than it really is.
Today as then, however, it is the mastery in design that brilliantly makes up for the technical limits, with an incredibly varied, well-designed and animated enemy bestiary, credible in its obsessive hunger for blood, and scenarios that know how to instill fear in the player, dark, inhospitable , of which it is not difficult to smell the fetid smell even through the screen.
The version I tested, as mentioned the Xbox One one, suffers from some drop in the framerate in the most agitated situations, such as during clashes with particularly majestic bosses or in situations with six or seven enemies at the same time on the screen, but they are sudden drops, occasional, that take nothing away from the goodness of the combat system and game dynamics.
You will not be able to take it with the framerate, in short, when, once again, you will see the writing "You are Dead".
Final remarks for the overall duration, which, depending on the desire to explore and immerse yourself in the world created by From Software, can take from fifty to seventy-five hours, to which the three DLCs mentioned above must be added.
Final comment
Among many other collections that aim straight at our wallet, Dark Souls II Scholar of the first sin it stands out for a substantial addition of contents and a total remixing of the canons of its (impressive) playful offer from last year, offering more than valid reasons to return to the Drangleic lands even to those who had already spent tens of hours there.
It goes without saying that those who missed the original release in 2014 have a second chance not to be missed.
