#2009-2012

the very first sakura x kei picture I ever made when I was 13…

at the time I must have been reading kaichou wa maid sama cause I remember sitting on my bed not knowing what to draw but copying this pose, I must have also been reading vampire knight since sakura’s clothes look a little gothic (in the anime sense)

POLITICAL PARTIES AND INTERNAL DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF CONGRESS FOR PROGRESSIVE CHANGE (CPC) IN KATSINA STATE, 2009-2012

POLITICAL PARTIES AND INTERNAL DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF CONGRESS FOR PROGRESSIVE CHANGE (CPC) IN KATSINA STATE, 2009-2012

Abstract:

The Study examined internal democracy in the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Katsina State from 2009 to 2012. In the course of this study data was sourced from two major sources; the Secondary and the Primary Sources. The Secondary sources were…

Dark Souls II was a rather divisive game in the Souls series. Most fans considered it to be the worst one in the bunch, and I’m among those fans, but to me it is at least playable. It’s got good PVP(not that I’m into that really), unique visuals, NPCs, and monsters, and it’s still fun. More fun than most other games that came out this decade.

I particularly reference the Scholar of The First Sin remaster, as it blurs the line between remake and remaster by offering updated graphical textures, different enemy placement and drop tables, but keeps the core game the same. It also included all three of Dark Souls II’s DLC expansions, and it didn’t cost very much. It’s also the version of Dark Souls II that I actually finished. I mentioned before that I don’t like Dark Souls II very much, and in the original version of the game some of the differences really made me dislike what Fromsoftware’s B team had made. 

Gameplay is action RPG style, with a magical system, and melee system oriented around stamina consumption and choosing to attack, defend, heal, cast, or dodge. IN SoTFS, changes were made to enemy placement to make certain areas more bearable/easier/manageable towards the beginning, and to reduced situations where the player is outnumbered to such a degree that combat goes from fun to chore like. That said, it’s still a fairly challenging game, as in any Souls game, any hostile entity towards the player is capable of killing them. You have an unlimited amount of retries, so the only thing preventing you from winning are glitches or loss of will. 

When you die, you lose your acquired Souls, which are currency that double as experience points towards your next level up. You can grind, and unique to Dark Souls II, all versions, eventually the monsters you encounter will stop re-spawning when you rest at a bonfire. This means if an area before a boss is giving you trouble, you can take the time to remove all impediments between your bonfire checkpoint and the boss gate, so you may face the boss with full resources. 

The game’s style departs from that of Dark Souls 1 in that spell use also consumes stamina, attempting to balance out magic in PVP, as before you could just spam it with no penalty, or do things like trap someone in Tranquil Walk of Peace and then kill them with an immediate cast of something else, like Wrath of The Gods. Healing items heal you gradually, so you have to be careful after healing, though there are more healing items and options, particularly early on. When you die, Dark Souls II harkens back to Demons’ Souls in that your maximum health is reduced, though instead of reducing it to 50% like Demons’ Souls it’s reduced at 5% intervals each time you die, or something akin to that. Your body also gradually zombifies, skin turning green, eyes go white, more and more hair falling out with each death. If you wear full armor, you won’t really notice much of a difference though. 

Dark Souls II has more bosses than any other Souls game, but most of them are glorified regular enemies or not much harder than troublesome mini-bosses. Some of the DLC/Expansions bosses are quite challenging, however, such as The Fume Knight or Sinh, a dragon with toxic fire breath.

The theme of Dark Souls II is trying to overcome the burden of being cursed to be undying. I played the game at a time where I was diagnosed with clinical depression by an Airforce psychiatrist working at the USN joint Naval-air base close to my command station. That was on its initial release in 2014, and I put it down due to it still carrying on convoluted NPC side quest design, where I lost track of Lucatiel and she stopped appearing. I didn’t go back and beat it until late 2017/early 2018 while FFXIV Stormblood was in a patch lull. At that time, I was coming out of my depression, which had lasted, at that point, for 6 years(it went undiagnosed for quite some time). The theme of the game and its story resonated more with me then, as I felt like I was finally getting back to a more stable and happy state of mind. It felt like I had found a way to lift a curse, of sorts, and it made me immerse myself in its story.

I still say, that as far as Souls games go, Dark Souls 2 is the bottom of the barrel. It’s still in the barrel of fantastic games that are worth playing all the way through, however, and that’s why it gets on this list! This very fun list!