Bloodborne might be taking the headlines, but fans won't be forgetting that Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin is now also available. The re-release of Dark Souls II is the PS4 and Xbox One debut, and brings upgraded visuals and new features to the title.
Read The Reviews For From Software's Spiritual Dark Souls Sequel, Bloodborne
On last gen consoles and PC, the game has been tweaked and upgraded in various aspects, and all versions of the game have the past DLC included. How did the new release fare with reviewers? Here are some excerpts from around the web:
IGN, 9/10: "Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin does more than wrap up the original game and its DLC for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It's taken everything that worked so well in the original version: the intriguing world, fantastic combat, and rewarding challenge, and noticeably improved them with a handful of much-appreciated adjustments and additions.
"Over a year after its initial release, Dark Souls II still manages to impress. The visual enhancements make Scholar of the First Sin feel right at home on a new-gen system, while the additional enemies and reshuffled placement deliver a powerful dose of that special kind of torture that Souls fans clamor for. With the included DLC, Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin is an even better version of one of our favorite games of 2014, but maybe a bit tougher to get into. Trust me though: it's worth it."
Gamespot, 9/10: "And it's a hard-won love that Dark Souls II has you earn, a love that took a second, enhanced port to truly find. It is a demanding and seemingly interminable game that puts up its most beautiful and its most evil machinations right at the outset. Its greatest spectacles are the ones that will kill you the fastest. It will taunt. It will demoralize. And yet, it has never done a better job than now of beckoning you on than in Scholar of the First Sin. It will never offer you true power, but those who seek it with enough conviction will at least find satisfaction. That's a feeling that few games offer and few even should. And yet, the exultation of hard-earned victory here, of saying "What's next" with all the fear, fascination, and excitement of any good, bloody fight, has more joys than most, and even though the game is won, I find myself itching to go back."
Game Informer, 9/10: "Dark Souls II looked great on last-gen hardware, but the occasional muddy texture or slogging framerate slightly detracted from the experience. The current-gen -iterations of the game give the entire visual side a re-invigorating shot in the arm. The silky frame-rate smooths out the process of using the camera to pan around the environment or track enemies.
"Scholar of the First Sin is best suited for two types of player: Complete Souls newcomers that insist on playing with the latest hardware, and returning warriors who soaked up every bit of new game-plus content loaded into the original. While I don't think the encounters are quite up to the level of the original, it's hard to argue with more of one of 2014's best games."
OXM, 4.5/5: "Another winning reason to get involved with Scholar is the fact that it includes all of the DLC expansions as standard. This might be a side dish bonus for most other games, but these three slices of content, each one taking you to a new area filled with brand new enemies and terrifying boss fights (honestly, we lost controllers to the Fume Knight), are essential. If you've never played a Souls game before, and are keen to get involved, then this is the place to start. If there were complaints to make about the first edition then most of them have been ironed out this time around. If you've already bested Vendrick a million times, however, there's still plenty of reasons to poke your binos in Scholar's direction. Now, where did we put that zweihander?"
