Forum Overview :: Demon's Souls :: Attack variety and enemy variety in general are both obviously lacking.

[quote name="Worm"]Bonfires are definitely an issue. I actually was running past the second bonfire in Harvest Valley for awhile while zerging the Covetous Demon It basically made no difference beside maybe 30 seconds of walking. I really don't know if I'm right in calling the game smaller, but it sure feels smaller. There is less dead space and open areas. Even though encounters consist of many more enemies they feel less dense. Though I think the major issue is that enemy design, placement, and overall pacing are really lacking. Heide's Tower of Flame is one of the rare areas that has a few enemy types and probably a good example of my issues with the game. Assuming you come in from the Pursuer's nest, you've got the scythe guys, dogs, archers, and great sword wielders. After the area boss there are exploding zombies and those are the things you run into first if you take the No Man's Wharf shortcut. I don't even think I'll mention archers since they're really meaningless beyond the 3 right next to the Sinner's Rise bonfire. Scythe guys are basically only a problem because they have 240 degree swings (like the area boss) once you get over that and calmly attack them they're pretty easy to deal with, they do have a few other attacks like a fire bomb, 2 choke slams (same starting animation as fire bomb, and a few different slashes. Dogs will decide to lunge based on RNG, it feels like as you're walking toward McDuff's Workshop the dogs don't leap but when you're leaving toward the boss they'll leap all over you. The Royal Greatsword Users are generally worthless unless they mob you and the first room with a significant number of them basically requires a special tactic to pull them separately, all of which feel just as cheap. You can kill some through the window opposite them, they'll just run to the door and get stuck there, since they can't open the door, you can walk very carefully in the door way and to the right and the 3 extras to your left won't pull, or you can have a summoned friend close the door on them. Even as they're mobbing you if you can wait for their recovery frames to line up you can probably kill quite a few easily. After that there are a few extra great sword mobs and a boss door. Once you beat the boss you basically go into an area that is all exploding zombies. This area actually felt a little tense and used some audio cues for the zombies. However they're easily oneshot and the whole area becomes trivial if you just offhand a crossbow. It didn't quite stick in my craw that much being so early into the game, but this whole feeling of simplicity doesn't go away. It's really hard for me to get a grasp on since I don't think Anor Lando was much if at all better, but all the same it had better pacing and felt more like an area I'm actually exploring. Tower of Flame has really weird corrals here and there to keep the enemies from spilling out where they're not supposed to go. There really aren't shortcuts or anything like that and well there don't have to be since the area is just tiny. It might be unfair to be comparing such an early area of DS2 to such a late area of DS1 but I'm trying to think of some of the most irritating single pull mmo-ish areas of DS1. I'd compare Tower of Flame to Undead Burg but I don't think I could do that since Undead Burg is just wildly superior. Bosses are another thing that ultimately feel really disappointing. Royal Rat Authority is just awful, Duke's Dear Freja at a glance looks difficult but gets ridiculously easy if you don't treat it like it's hard, and Covetous Demon literally is the easiest fight in the game if you shoot a couple of arrows at the pots hanging above him before you fight. I can't quite tell if it was a conscious decision or an overall lack of craftsmanship but just so many things feel off. I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm up my own ass with regards to this, and I don't think DS2 is as bad as it sounds I think it is. However I think the real problem I have with this game is that it reminded me how great DS1 was. I guess I'll go try Demon's Souls eventually, since Dark Souls 2 really is leaving me unsatisfied.[/quote]