I'll preface this and say that unlike DS1 I haven't gone for the 100% run right now and will certainly update my review whenever I decide to do so.
As it stands, DS2 I have to give a recommendation, although barely. Very much wish steam had a mixed review option still.
Overall I think the game looks great with some awesome boss designs and area designs, however in terms of functionality and playability, that is where the problems surface. I'll begin with the positives, there are some really cool boss fights and the whole memories section is genuinely fun, a number of the boss arenas can be affected by actions taken by you before entering whether that be lighting the area beforehand, getting rid of the poison water or based on how you approach certain duo bosses. Some of the appearances of the bosses and the lore behind them is seriously cool and generally the arenas all give you space to move and breathe unlike certain bosses in the first game. The music as always hits very well and Majula is certainly a beautiful hub area.
However that's where the positives really end. The main negative I have here is the gank fights. My god does this game love them, and from what I can tell part of this is due to increased enemy placement in SOTFS, however some bosses lean heavily into the gank nature, Abyss Watchers I look at you in particular. While I know the common point is jank hitboxes however I won't criticise these as much after seeing how precise the vast majority actually are, but the hit detection certainly feels wonky especially due to the ADP stat, even a light touch with your pinkie toe on the tail end of a swing still does full damage which can really feel unfair due to some desync in terms of animations vs hitboxes on some bosses. Attacks are generally choreographed well enough, but some really aren't which makes some attacks hard to predict. Some bosses are simply lazy however, either relying on cheap methods to slow down the fight like Aldia, or just being plain boring like Covetous Demon. DS2 really went for quantity over quality on a number of the bosses and you feel it. Another point is the NPC invasions are simply hugely intrusive, some of these are easy to deal with while quite a few others have the classic cheating NPC's for the sake of difficulty, or spawn in really bad areas. As far as areas go most are fine, but some are again ganky to the point of being unfun, Iron Keep isn't the worst one once you clear it out, but Shrine of Amana certainly brought me close to quitting for good. Finally the return of the health loss mechanic from Demon Souls was not enjoyable here either, being punished so hard when learning areas and bosses makes the already ganky enemy placements even more of a pain. And a small one, a simple but annoying glitch I kept running into was the double mouse click option, usually breaking and having to reset it to allow me to even attack an enemy. Not sure why this happens but it's an annoyance I often forgot to rebind after launching the game again.
Overall I'd say DS2 is worth playing, although certainly less enjoyable in my opinion compared to DS1. I will come back to 100% this later on, but it will not be soon. If you are a lover of DS2, your opinion is yours and I respect that, but personally I don't think I'll come back to this one at all once I've 100%'ed it.
