When comparing Dark Souls Remastered vs The Escapists 2, the Slant community recommends The Escapists 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best games for the Nintendo Switch?” The Escapists 2 is ranked 31st while Dark Souls Remastered is ranked 63rd. The most important reason people chose The Escapists 2 is:
There is no right or wrong way to do anything, and it's entirely a risk vs reward scenario for anything you want to try. You are only limited by your creativity in escaping, as each prison has almost endless possibilities and encourages the player to make the best use of their inventory and be creative in handling every situation. Bed sheets can be used to cover cell windows from the prying eyes of guards, desks can be moved to reach out of reach vents, crafted tools can be used for various purposes such as breaking through walls or doors, and shovels can be used to dig holes. You can try to sneak around guards, or opt to hide in vents until they're out of sight. If you're feeling especially brave, you can even attempt to fight the guards and take their keys allowing easier access around the prison.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Brutally challenging real-time combat that rewards patience
Dark Souls is a hard game at its core because of the combat. It's "difficult but fair", as in, the enemies are relentless and hit like a truck, but they're not overpowered or cheap to defeat. If you take your time to trade blows, dodge, and parry as needed, you can get through.
Making your way slowly through new levels and taking on enemies one at a time, whenever possible, is the best approach. Unless you're a seasoned veteran, if you're try to bum rush your foes, you may find yourself getting quickly destroyed. It seems impossible at first, but if you keep at it and learn from your mistakes, you'll surprise yourself with how far you can get in this game.
Pro Gives you a great sense of discovery from exploring
There's an unrivaled sense of exploration you get just from traversing normally through the game's medieval fantasy world. Simply going from one area to the next is astounding, because you get to see exactly how far you've come. After travelling a distance and defeating challenging enemies, you can find a shortcut that takes you down to a previously-visited location, for example, showing you that all of the levels are interconnected in a labyrinthine-like way. Thanks to this well-implemented level design, the world feels like a grand place that's full of mystery and adventure.
Pro Epic and meaningful boss battles
Bosses in Dark Souls are huge, terrifying, and intriguing in ways that don't feel forced at all. They have stories to tell without words, showing their lore and history through awe-inspiring designs and setpieces. Seeing a tower off in the distance, getting there many hours later, and finding a gigantic boss there also builds up the sense of anticipation once you arrive to the fight. Ranging from dragons, hulking armored knights, mythological beasts, and tons more, the variety of boss types are creative, with their own unique movesets for you to learn. Alongside the combat, the bosses make the game what it is.
Pro Incredible soundtrack and atmosphere
The music in this game is astounding because of how well it fits any given situation. Moments where the music stands out most is during boss battles, with sweeping, booming choruses where it works, and quieter pieces where you may not expect them. The warm but sorrowful wind instruments you hear at the main home base area is your cue that you're in a safe location after all of your grueling battles, letting you take a moment to reflect and unwind.
Most playable areas have no music, letting you focus on the atmosphere from all of the little sound effects from enemies' footsteps and your own clanking armor as you go along. So whenever a song does start playing, it stands out more than it would have otherwise. Overall, the music definitely helps to give you long-lasting emotional memories of everything you experience.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro You can bring two friends along for online co-op
It's possible to play through most of the game with up to two friends. If you need help with a boss or if you just want to run things with other people, there's a simple online setup for the other players to join your world through password matching. They will return to their world once you defeat a boss or if you die, but it's easy enough to invite them back.
Pro Encourages experimentation and creativity
There is no right or wrong way to do anything, and it's entirely a risk vs reward scenario for anything you want to try. You are only limited by your creativity in escaping, as each prison has almost endless possibilities and encourages the player to make the best use of their inventory and be creative in handling every situation.
Bed sheets can be used to cover cell windows from the prying eyes of guards, desks can be moved to reach out of reach vents, crafted tools can be used for various purposes such as breaking through walls or doors, and shovels can be used to dig holes. You can try to sneak around guards, or opt to hide in vents until they're out of sight. If you're feeling especially brave, you can even attempt to fight the guards and take their keys allowing easier access around the prison.
Pro Good balance of game systems make for a rewarding simulation
Taking action in the game uses up your stamina, so you'll still have to make time for things like eating and sleeping if you want to have energy for things like digging through walls, fighting other inmates, or cutting through vents and gates.
Items such as shovels and cutters have limited durability, so they can't be used endlessly. Raw materials can be found around the prison to craft items, or you can buy items from fences using money earned by running fetch quests for other inmates. No matter how you acquire them, crafting materials and finished goods are limited so you'll have to use your items wisely.
Time is an important factor that has to be managed too, with certain activities having to be done at certain times. This limits the amount of time you have to roam the prison, since you have to show up for meal times and roll calls. Free time can be used to craft, roam the prison to determine the guard patterns, or finally put your ultimate escape plan into action.
Juggling each and every one of the various aspects of the game results in a very deep and rewarding simulation experience.
Pro Solid progression of difficulty
The difficulty increases as you progress, with each prison becoming just a little more intricate and more challenging to escape from than the previous. The prisons themselves get more complex with more obstacles to overcome such as tougher guards which results in more ways things can go wrong. The progress feels good and natural, as you're always building on what you learned in previous prisons to escape from the newest one.
Pro Great pixel art style for retro fans
If you enjoy a more retro style, then this game is pure eye candy. Simple but charming, the pixel art is colorful, with the sprites having a nice variety in animations when they're shoveling, searching, running around, fighting, or partaking in any kind of activity that would require movement. The tile sets for the game world are nicely detailed, colored and shaded. You won't get tired of looking at the same tiles over and over due to the sheer amount and variety of the art assets created for the game.
Pro Lots of replayability
No two games will play out alike. Each prison is an open sandbox, so it's definitely not a linear experience with a defined escape blueprint. Prisons can be replayed over and over to beat your previous time, measured in how many in-game days it took you to escape, which leaves plenty of room for trying new things on each successive playthrough.
Pro Co-Op multiplayer mode adds a new depth to gameplay
Working together creates a whole new experience with loads of possibilities. In co-op mode, you play with up to 3 teammates either online or locally as you work towards escaping the prison together. This adds a whole new dynamic to gameplay as working together creates experiences that just aren't possible when playing solo. Someone could distract the guards, while another searches rooms for crafting materials. One player could run around collecting items, while another scopes out the guard's patrol patterns. Some can complete quests to collect money while others are working on digging tunnels.
Pro A couple of alternative prisons add a change of scenery
Tired of bricks, cold floors, and cement cells? For those who want a change of scenery, there is a prison set in the wild west, and even a futuristic space prison. This adds a little bit of variety to the look of the game while keeping the same gameplay mechanics. It's a nice touch and gives your eyes a break from staring at the same tilesets over and over.
Cons
Con Lazy remaster that isn't worth it if you already own the original version
This is more of a port than a true remaster. Despite the couple of added online capabilities, there isn't anything new here to entice existing fans of the Dark Souls series. The textures still look like they're from the original game, and the devs butchered the lighting scheme in an attempt to update the visuals. If you were unfortunate enough to only own the game on consoles while suffering through the performance issues, or if you're new to the series, then there's nothing wrong with picking this up. But for PC players especially, this is basically a port with the DS Fix mod that fixed the performance issues.
Con Unforgiving and discouraging learning curve
Even though Dark Souls is technically fair, it's still really hard to get into. From the start, there's a minimal tutorial where you read messages scattered around the area for tips on the controls, and then you're forced into an immediate challenge that you have to figure your way out of. The game is clever in the way it pushes you into seemingly impossible situations and makes you think on your feet, but gamers who are new to the genre will more than likely find a serious culture shock here. Because the learning curve is so incredibly steep, you may struggle for a while before things finally click.
Con Certain mechanics leave new players open to unfair PvP invasions
There are a few ways you might find yourself invaded by another player even when you don't want to be. The method for inviting co-op players into your world also leaves you open to PvP invasions, which you can't turn off. The other one involves how you can only carry five healing items with you at the start; there's a way to increase this to ten, but by doing this, it becomes possible for PvP-minded players to enter your world to challenge you to battle whether you like it or not. There's also an area a couple of hours into the game that's notorious for high-level players seeking out oblivious newbies to tear them apart, so beware.
Con Getting caught by guards can be overly punishing
It's frustrating when you spend several hours grinding quests for other inmates, collecting items, crafting, and carefully planning your escape, only to get caught by guards and lose all your items or killed. This effectively means you have to start over, wasting hours of your own time and days of in-game time.
Con Can feel grindy at times
Running around doing fetch quests for other inmates, or searching for crafting materials for hours on end can get stale after a while.
Con Tutorial doesn't cover much
The tutorial will only walk you through the barest of basics, resulting in the player having to learn the game's various mechanics on their own.