I bought this game after having played it for years on Xbox One. I have to say any positive thing I could say about this game was all nostalgia or Stockholm syndrome. If you want a good Dark Souls game you're better off overpaying for DS: Remastered.
If you're looking for an RPG with interesting mechanics, however, you have come to the right place. Dark Souls 2 takes everything you like about Dark Souls and adds a twist for better or for worse. If you like the combat of Dark Souls you may like this entry's slower take on it. If you like fashion souls you'll love the fact that most armor ends up being completely irrelevant outside of some pieces providing passives or stat boosts. If you like the world design of the original Dark Souls but hated running back and forth to places until mid-game, DS2 has you covered. You get the ability to teleport right from the start as long as you have one other bonfire discovered. Sure this means that the world design creativity suffers heavily, but no more annoying run backs to Andre to upgrade (even though the design of the map always made that quite easy, but I digress). If you enjoyed picking and choosing which stats you want to level for that cool sword you picked up earlier, there are a ton of options available, even without infusions, which adds for quite a bit of variety in builds.However, you also need to burn a couple levels into adaptability so that rolling can feel half as good as it does in any other souls game. The only thing DS2 has that beats out the other entries, hands down, is power-stancing, which we wouldn't see again until Elden Ring.
If you enjoy a challenge that is fun and fair, I would not recommend DS2: SotFS, there's a laundry list of flaws that keep this game from being as good as the original release of DS2. If you haven't played Dark Souls or Dark Souls 3 yet I strongly recommend skipping this entry until it goes on sale because paying $40 for a game that feels this awful to play is a waste of time and money.
Also, Miyazaki didn't even direct this game why are there like four poison areas?

I bought this game after having played it for years on Xbox One. I have to say any positive thing I could say about this game was all nostalgia or Stockholm syndrome. If you want a good Dark Souls game you're better off overpaying for DS: Remastered. If you're looking for an RPG with interesting mechanics, however, you have come to the right place. Dark Souls 2 takes everything you like about Dark Souls and adds a twist for better or for worse. If you like the combat of Dark Souls you may like this entry's slower take on it. If you like fashion souls you'll love the fact that most armor ends up being completely irrelevant outside of some pieces providing passives or stat boosts. If you like the world design of the original Dark Souls but hated running back and forth to places until mid-game, DS2 has you covered. You get the ability to teleport right from the start as long as you have one other bonfire discovered. Sure this means that the world design creativity suffers heavily, but no more annoying run backs to Andre to upgrade (even though the design of the map always made that quite easy, but I digress). If you enjoyed picking and choosing which stats you want to level for that cool sword you picked up earlier, there are a ton of options available, even without infusions, which adds for quite a bit of variety in builds.However, you also need to burn a couple levels into adaptability so that rolling can feel half as good as it does in any other souls game. The only thing DS2 has that beats out the other entries, hands down, is power-stancing, which we wouldn't see again until Elden Ring. If you enjoy a challenge that is fun and fair, I would not recommend DS2: SotFS, there's a laundry list of flaws that keep this game from being as good as the original release of DS2. If you haven't played Dark Souls or Dark Souls 3 yet I strongly recommend skipping this entry until it goes on sale because paying $40 for a game that feels this awful to play is a waste of time and money. Also, Miyazaki didn't even direct this game why are there like four poison areas?