Dark Souls II

• Pressing the Select button (or equivalent) in a menu allows you to view explanations of the various icons and stats relating to your items and character.

• From the available starting gifts, the Healing Wares or the Petrified Something (exchangeable for an item) are likely to be the most useful. Life Ring's effect is miniscule, Seed of a Tree of Giants (turns enemies against human/NPC invaders) is very situational, and the three other choices are all commonly found.

• Exhaust all dialogue with NPCs when you meet them to not miss out on anything. Many NPCs also give you items if you talk to them after having met a certain prerequisite, most commonly after you've bought enough stuff from them.

• The first Estus Flask Shard, which grant more Estus Flask charges when given to the Emerald Herald, can be found by knocking down the rock attached to a rope on the small well in Majula.

• Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower of Flame are the first two starting areas accessible from Majula. The former is likely to be an easier starting point, but the two paths eventually converge and it's worth returning to go through Heide's once you're done with the Forest.

• Merchant Hag Melentia sells an infinite stock of Lifegems once she moves to Majula. These are an excellent way to heal up between fights, saving precious Estus Flask charges for in-combat healing.

• Maughlin, Majula's armorer, gains better stock the more you spend at his store so it can be worth some investment even if you don't need his initial wares. He will also sell armor sets related to certain bosses after you've defeated them.

• Barring one or two exceptions, secret doors are opened with the loot/talk button rather than by attacking the wall as in the previous game. A few walls can also be collapsed using something found in the nearby environment.

• Agility, primarily increased by the Adaptability stat, governs how many frames you're invincible when rolling. 92/96/99 Agility are good breakpoints to aim for as below that the invincibility window is quite brief, making dodging difficult.

• To revert hollowing after death, simply use a Human Effigy from your inventory instead of burning it at a bonfire. Completing your duty as a summoned phantom will also reverse hollowing.

• Unlike in the first game, your rolling speed is always the same up until 70% Equipment Load when it turns into the clunky "fat roll". Equipment Load still governs how fast your Stamina regenerates and how far you'll roll.

• Two-handing a weapon reduces its Strength requirement by 50%.

• To "Power Stance" dual-wielded weapons which allows you to hit with both weapons at once, you need to have Strength and Dexterity equal to 1.5x the weapons' requirements. To enter Power Stance, have compatible weapons in each hand and hold down Triangle/Y.

• Reinforcing your spellcasting tool at a blacksmith empowers your spells. Elemental infusion also empowers spells of that element.

• A pair of binoculars are hidden on a cliffside in Majula which can be used to aim spells in first person.

• If you're unhappy with how you've leveled up, you can reallocate your attributes by giving a 'Soul Vessel' item to one of the old women in the starting area.

• Prism Stones, Smooth and Silky Stones (Small or normal) and Petrified Somethings can be exchanged for items with a pair of talking crows by leaving (not discarding which deletes the item) them in their nest located past one of the tutorial areas in Things Betwixt. Petrified Somethings yield the rarest items.

• In the Scholar of the First Sin -version of DS2, the keys required to access the three DLC areas are hidden in the game. The key to the third DLC (Ivory King) is easily found, but the first two (Sunken King & Old Iron King) are very well hidden. If you still haven't found them by the end of the game, you might need to look up their locations.