Man... Why do I feel guilty for not enjoying this? I only had reasonable expectations, while DS1 is one of my favourite games of the past generation, or all time for that matter, DS2 can't even hold a candle to it.
I must've killed more than a dozen bosses and I barely even remember any of them...the bosses in DS1 were infinitely more memorable and
fun to play. I'm racking my brain to figure out more than one boss that I just couldn't circlestrafe, mash my weapon in its butt and beat it on my first one or two tries.
The locations are so dull and boring... the fact that the game was initially designed with a totally different look only to be optimized (downgraded) in the final moments doesn't help it either. I know it's easy to say the game is visually very uneven but frankly at times the game is so ugly I can't believe it...
Shaded Woods is always brought up as the aesthetic low point but going through the Earthen Peak area I saw things, textures, walls, environments etc that really did look like it was from a ps1 game. There's this one place where you can clearly see it was supposed to be obscured by total darkness but in the game's current version you can see all of the green walls ceilings with their infinitely repeated miniature texture and it really takes you out of the experience.
Whatever DS2 is trying to do with its DeS + DS world-hybrid it's failing horribly at both. Never has a sequel made me want to play its predecessor as much as DS2 makes me want to play DS1 prepare to die edition. I find no joy in my disappointment of this game...