Recent reviews by Pheonise

Great story, great combat, great game!

Some performance issues due to the Global Illumination, so a 3rd party fix is necessary for decent frames on older hardware.

That aside, every other element of the game feels well designed and polished, and I can't recommend the game enough!

Edit: I've since played this game for 25+ hours. While I still don't like most of the new enemy placements, the game has held me for that long. For a $20 upgrade, I'd say its worth it (though I'd have preferred if the enemies were balanced for their new numbers and placements).

I'll leave the original review, as most of those issues still stand. But I'm recommending the game now, due to the amount of time it's held me for.


Original review:
I would not recommend this to players new to the Souls series, or even to those who haven't yet bought the DLC for the original DS2.
As it is now, the game is not challenging, it's just unfair.

Dark Souls 2 arguably wasn't as good a game as Dark Souls 1, but it was still a great game.
Scholar of the First Sin is a bad refresh of that great game.

Graphics aside, the new enemy placements are horrendous, especially in the starting zones. While FROM were keen to show how many enemies they can put in the area, they didn't rebalance the strength of those enemies, or the durability of your weapons.
It's now not uncommon to face 15+ enemies in a single area, with your weapon breaking from durability loss in the process.
Strong enemies are in places they shouldn't be, and others just in areas that make no sense.
The Heide Knights used to be a test of strength and skill, but now they're just a reoccurring nuisance.
Many enemies are now hidden around corners, impossible to predict, catching you with cheap attacks.

Imagine the clearing in Forest of the Giants, where you see the first Heide Knight sitting by the tree in the middle. Imagine your first playthrough, running around, alerting the 5 or 6 enemies laying down, and how much difficulty you probably had.
Now, imagine that instead of 5 or 6 enemies, it was over 15. With the same health/damage/behaviors as the 5 or 6.
Or, if your imagination isn't that good, take a look for yourself: http://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=418260972

For a starting area, this is just plain stupid. I can't imagine new players will have much luck with this at all.

Some areas have new, much-needed shortcuts added, but not many that I've found so far.

Graphically, it looks pretty good - a little better than the original DS2, but with better lighting (in most places).

Good game, dead playerbase, good graphics, easy-to-learn gameplay with variety.
Not being able to change class mid-match is a pain.

If there were more players, it'd be a lot more fun.
Outside of the meta issues with very small playerbase, the game itself is pretty good.