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Ok DS2 finished, my feeling on it is shared. In comparison with DS1 there are many good improvements. I enjoyed that there was less linearity than in DS1 and much more and better secondary quests.

But I remember that I had much more fun with DS1 anyway. The major reason is a difficulty level not well managed, game action fighting a lot too easy in general giving action much less fun. Lack of difficulty setting is a wrong choice probably coming from multiplay design. Veteran level was a major deception by being even more easy, quit it before to have patience to finish chapter 1, but played 2 times standard level.

Appart that it's mixed of good and not so good thing. Party member dialogs are quite cool but get them mostly always interupted and that decrease a lot the pleasure. At second play I had found the trick, wait mode, but it doesn't always work and that was too late.

Pets are apealing and nice variation but in practice they don't work enough well. The mage pets just get short in mana and make them boring to use. In fact only Mythrilhorn got me some fun and mule are pratical even if I find them less interesting than in DS1.

For all the item stuff well too much inventory management for me, yeah not really my type of game but I knew that before play it.

Magic is interesting, I particularely enjoyed death magic diversity. But in practice I didn't get the full oportunity to enjoy because of the difficulty level too easy.

Don't know what to say about the "baby" aproach taking you by the hand. I mean arrows to show you where to go, blue points showing mid sicrets, starts showing you objectives, red points showing you what's next, and so on. I feel all of that bad but I used them a lot.

Overall not a great game but a good game except that I lost a lot of fun because of difficulty setting too easy.

[QUOTE=Kenrenk]Don't know what to say about the "baby" aproach taking you by the hand. I mean arrows to show you where to go, blue points showing mid sicrets, starts showing you objectives, red points showing you what's next, and so on.[/QUOTE]
I completely agree !
They could have at least let the choice to you !
[QUOTE=Kenrenk]Magic is interesting, I particularely enjoyed death magic diversity. But in practice I didn't get the full oportunity to enjoy because of the difficulty level too easy.
[/QUOTE]
Aside from the fact I haven't played in elitè yet, I find DS1 magics more and more spectacular, devastating, various ... (for instance: Sun Ray, Implosion, Polimorfism)
in DS2 we have deathray I,II,III leechlife I,II,II fireball I,II,II ... (i'm making wild guess on english names )

[QUOTE=Kenrenk]Don't know what to say about the "baby" aproach taking you by the hand. I mean arrows to show you where to go, blue points showing mid sicrets, starts showing you objectives, red points showing you what's next, and so on. I feel all of that bad but I used them a lot.
[/QUOTE]

This is the one thing I found terribly annoying. What was the point of secret places if lo and behold there is a little blue dot to tell you where they are?! This was really irritating but I think they were going for the players who were not into the classic RPGs but more action so they added those on, as well as the yellow arrows etc.

Another irritant is the difficulty transition - in two ways - there is no difference in the world we cover, I thought new places would open up and two the transition itself - I haven't played Elite because I finished on level 67 and now I have to go up and down Z. to push up to 70 - not interesting at all.

I was disappointed with the armor as well, DS1 was better. The sets and all that look nice but I kept getting the same sets from dif1 in dif2 which were of no use at all... bah.

It's a good game, I was just mentioning the parts I don't like, and I will, eventually finish Elite as well but will I return to it ... to DS 1 yes, as I have quite a few times by now, to DS 2 ... maybe.

[QUOTE=The Balance]Aside from the fact I haven't played in elitè yet, I find DS1 magics more and more spectacular, devastating, various ... (for instance: Sun Ray, Implosion, Polimorfism)
in DS2 we have deathray I,II,III leechlife I,II,II fireball I,II,II ... (i'm making wild guess on english names )[/QUOTE]
On this point I didn't make a comparison with DS1 and DS2 just because I can't remember DS1 details enough well.

For DS2 the I II III thing is just related to power limit, that just force buy/find the new level to upgrade but it's same spell. Perhaps DS1 spells better and there are more, but here few spells in DS2 that got me:
- Skills allow that all death spells has draining life ability even if Leech Life keep the best efficiency for that.
- Skull Spray: It is a totally cool spell, devastating when used at very close range. It makes action more diversify by using moving a lot more. With drain life skill points it is a great spell.
- Soul Lance go through anything from wall to oponents and has some width, again a spell that makes moving more for improving efficieny.
- Leech Life: The healing power of war mage, makes you switch to it or from it to another spell for better efficiency.
- Impale: Well ok area damage spell.
- Infect: Both area curse spell and area damage spell and drain life ability with skill points.

It's not a lot of death spells but they are highly different and found them quite original but well I don't remind that well amgic details of all RPG I have played.

Beside those death spell:
- Embers and Plasma Globes are quite funny. Plasma Globe is a bit the fire version of Skull Spray but in practice they are quite different and no special drain life ability. Plasma globe is the more funny spell of DS2.
- Lightning Blast is a Lightening version of Soul Lance but in fact quite different and it has something special with range, could be a bug but that's quite funny.
- Various curse spells are pratical/interesting.
- Corpse Transmutation could have been nice but it is using too much mana to be of any use, also when it is autocast the engine use it stupidely.

[QUOTE=Ashen]This is the one thing I found terribly annoying. What was the point of secret places if lo and behold there is a little blue dot to tell you where they are?! This was really irritating but I think they were going for the players who were not into the classic RPGs but more action so they added those on, as well as the yellow arrows etc.[/QUOTE]
For this point and also stars, arrow and so on, I'm not sure that all are enough well tuned for me. Yes an option to remove all that but some buttons shoudn't be so hard to see or should get additional clue (visual/sound/anything) that there's something to find. Some direction aren't clear at all, and game borders aren't visually clear and that's very disturbing when you search/move/explore. A few good secret use that las point well but in general it's a pain.

I miss the gom spells one could get, to bad they didnt have unique spells in DS2 to add