The things people hammer Ds2 for are the very things the games have always excelled at.
- Interesting looping level and world design.
- Excellent environmental storytelling
- Combat that forces you to commit to your actions but not so much that it makes fighting enemies a slog
- Interesting and diverse and challenging boss design
- Challenging but fair encounter design
1. I think the areas are beautiful and interesting too. I agree there are way less areas with interesting looping design but they came back in the DLC.
2. There's environmental storytelling in DSII too. Still, I've seen many people say the lore and story in DSII is uninteresting.
3. I think this is true for all the games in the series, including DSII.
4. Boss design is one of the few things I agree is better done in the other games. That being said, DS II has some of my favourite boss battles in the entire series: The fights against Sir Alonne, Fume Knight, Sinh, The Ivory King.
5. The things that I find pretty bad in DS II are some bad hitboxes that really stand out. In terms of encounter design, though, while many people find fighting mobs unfair I got used to it pretty fast. I just prefer fighting mobs in large spacious areas in DSII rather than in small places where your weapon hit the walls but enemies can punish you without restrictions as the ones in the first dark souls.
Dark Souls 2 throws much of the originals design philosophy to the wayside and adopts systems that make the game feel far too foreign from its predecessors. BB came along and reminded everyone that FROM Is still capable of delivering that design and Miyazaki happens to be the common denominator in all 3 games. That should tell you something. Not to mention the fact that Ds3 is also going back to what made the games such a joy to playthrough
I think the only two games that are very similar to each other in terms of combat are Demon's Souls and Dark Souls; DSII and Bloodborne twisted the formula to create something that feels different to those two games: I mean, BB is faster, has less builds, punishes you for playing defensively and rewards you for fast reactions, etc., DS II has ADP, soul memory, has tons of viable builds, armours are less important when it comes to defense, it has "power stance" (the best combat addition they've made), etc. So far, DSIII looks like a hybrid of things from BB, DS, DSII and Demon's. It is going to be played differently than how you play DS.
For me Dark Souls 2 world design is bland. Far too many square rooms with nothing of note within them. Bosses are boring and rarely a challenge save for a few greats in the DLC. My biggest gripe is the combat and movement plus adp. Whoever thought it was a good idea to add ADP, slow down estus and item usage, and make it so your character faces away from your enemy when rolling while locked on need needs to be fired. Those changes completely dampen the excitement of combat and make encounters more of a struggle against the game's mechanics. The lore is forgettable, and course the level design is lacking.
Of coura
I don't agree with most of the things you wrote here either, but I think I covered all those things previously. Except the lore, and I also think the lore is great too.
