10/10 Video Games The Public REJECTED
4. Dark Souls II
Dark Souls II, or as it is now known ‘the bad Souls game’ by the fanbase, actually has stellar review scores. Believe it or not the most polarising game in the series for FromSoft fans has a better Metacritic rating than Dark Souls, Dark Souls III, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
It sparked controversy among those who weren’t a fan of the Souls threequel for pacing issues, random spikes in difficulty coupled with breezy encounters, irritating ambushes, and an overload of bosses, while some also took issue with the game’s comparatively shallow narrative and more linear map design.
This is a tricky one, because while the majority of fans statistically seemed to come away feeling favourable about the game, the group who were more critical were certainly a lot more vocal. In this case, one man’s pleasing complex systems, improved spell integration, and exceptional bosses were another’s gripes over the combat and health mechanics. There’s a little suspicion over whether professional critics might have been influenced by the groundswell of public belief that Souls games could do no wrong.
Similar to Dragon Age II, while the review scores backed both sequels as true to form entries from the heavy hitter studios, enough people took to Reddit to express their frustrations, cementing both in the realm of infamously divisive.