Dark Souls 2 is an interesting game. It has a great many mechanics that people, including myself, struggle with. It definitely plays pretty differently to DS1, especially in the early game. I was initially super frustrated with stuff like the health penalty or the sheer number of enemies per level (I do enjoy the thematic importance of the health penalty, but it definitely didn't help my early game experience of beating my head over and over). But I feel like once I actually got past the first area, and got an item that was able to mitigate the health penalty, I started to enjoy it a lot more.
Dark Souls 2 is a different game to 1 immediately in terms of the world design. You get the ability to warp anywhere from the outset, and so each area ends up feeling more disconnected from the whole. But I think this really works for what 2 is going for! One thing I really enjoy about this game is that is that the vibes of the world while being very atmospheric and cool, also can change quite a bit depending where you are. At the end of the day, a souls game is an adventure game where you go through many areas vanquishing bosses and overcoming your inexperience, and to that end Dark Souls 1 had a clear artistic vision with its interconnected and cohesive world where everything fit together somehow, but I think 2 being disconnected also works because I feel like the game has a general dream-like quality to it that I think its world design contributes to. Some of the areas being next to each other makes just like no sense but I think I enjoy that, because it manages to continually make the areas feel different and you never feel safe, you never feel like it falls into a pattern. They all feel isolated and in their own pocket and I feel like this makes the areas feel that much more creepy and fantastical. Which really helps.
The atmosphere and vibes of the world in general are awesome. It feels like each time you discover something you've found something that isn't right, that doesn't feel comfortable. Which yeah, it's not supposed to and it rules. I think it helps even more that the rules of the lore of DS1 are played fast and loose with, because I feel like the cryptic storytelling of Dark Souls fits with this perfectly. Not just because I feel like the freedom afforded by this allows Dark Souls 2's general narrative to come into its own in a really good way - it is able to build on the general framing of Dark Souls 1 and uses it to build and enhance on its themes that manages to create something I actually care about a fair bit and think is philosophically awesome - it also means that Dark Souls 1's events feel like this half forgotten dream, that adds further to the unsettling vibes of the areas in general. Events are not that set in stone and they're not supposed to be in a world where thousands of years can pass before you get to see their effects. And they loom like this shadow of myth that I think really perfectly captures a really unique approach to the feel of a world where gods and monsters and magic continually influence it that I don't think I've seen very much. I don't know how better to explain why the atmosphere is this good, but it's just really cool. I haven't been commenting on the individual lore of this series so far because I didn't find a good place to, but I really also enjoy piecing together this world from item descriptions, cryptic NPC dialogue, etc. It makes me feel like an archeologist observing a world where there are a million things more important than me.
Now when it comes to the gameplay of this game, I feel like I don't have much new things to say about why the loop of this hyper difficult style of game appeals to me so much that I didn't already say in the previous review for DS1. So I'll instead jump into trying to describe why DS2 was a more fun game to me than 1. DS2 may have some bad mechanics but it also has some awesome ones. Power stancing added a whole new dimension to this game that made me care a lot more about my weapons in general. Stat reallocation actually allowed me to strategize much more interestingly as I would use different loadouts for different bosses and I'm so stoked I was allowed to do this. There are definitely some other mechanics I am not mentioning, too.
The area design of DS2 is also just, really enjoyable, and I'd say on an individual level even better than 1? It feels more Zelda coded than 1, in some areas even very directly, which was a big plus for me as a big Zelda fan. But in general I feel like, the 50 million enemies notwithstanding (which I do understand is a big issue), that they're more satisfying to overcome and traverse.
The bosses are probably similar in quality to 1. Overall it has a slight edge over DS1 I think, but only slight, considering it has much more than 1 and as a result also has more bad bosses than 1. But it isn't a number that is unforgivable to me, so it's fine.
The DLC is the one area I would make an exception for the above point. Even with each DLC optional area and optional boss that managed to be just. really miserable. The main parts of all of the three DLC were so good that I don't care. The bosses are all just fucking awesome and the areas are so so fun to go through, definitely my favourite areas in the series so far and having my favourite bosses in the series so far.
Overall I'd say the reason I prefer 2 to 1 is that it has a lot of little differences that coalesce into a game that's much more sricore as a result. Cannot wait to play the rest of the series.

Endwalker, which is the second Ishikawa-written expansion and the conclusion to the long Hydaleyn/Zodiark saga, is probably the most ambitious and story/cutscene heavy expansion so far. The question of whether it lived up to its potential thus becomes threefold:

1) Did it satisfy as a story on its own?
2) Did it satisfy as a concluding arc to everything that was built up until now?
3) Did it live up to the first major expansion written by Ishikawa?

The answer to all of these ultimately is yes for me, but some of them have asterisks to them, more than others. Endwalker is an absolutely fantastic story that is worthy of the quality threshold that Shadowbringers set, but it also has a fair bit of narrative issues in a way that Shadowbringers somehow magically avoided in every way. At the same time, it has some of the most emotionally potent storytelling and the best scenes in the game so far, which is to say the story of its quality is far from simple.

Let's start off with what I liked, which is a lot. I think Endwalker has excellent themes that are explored and reinforced with a level of extensiveness that feels really unique for this game, it's present in every single section of the game in one way or another, and as a result it is allowed to get a lot of different and varied depictions that really play into each other and makes it all the more emotionally powerful and valuable for me, it really sounds like something that would be simple but it manages to be a beautiful celebration of the strength of the human will and the things worth fighting for in life. Again, I know this sounds simple but the places Endwalker takes it are great. Whenever this aspect is in the forefront I pretty much have no issues, it even manages to give of one of the villains some pretty interesting screentime. Endwalker is just as a story filled with so much love and empathy and it's hard to dislike any of that.

But it isn't like any of this is not concrete either, I think it leads to some storytelling sections being really effective. In particular one of them stands out as the best part of Endwalker and probably the game in general as a result.

Which leads into another aspect I want to talk about, I love that Endwalker remembers the themes and lessons of the past expansions and all of them are displayed here really interestingly in the context of the story going on. There were definitely also plot moments where a lot of the allies from previous stories came together, as you would expect of something like this, but I found myself consistently more charmed with this as it applied to the main characters and themes.

In particular, I think Endwalker as a sequel to Shadowbringers is like absolutely excellent, I think the themes of Endwalker do a lot to complement Shadowbringers' and it also has a lot of incredible things that address a lot of questions some of which you didn't even know you had with Shadowbringers that overall makes me satisfied with the way Shadowbringers was treated here.

As far as character writing goes.. I'd say Endwalker is largely really good. The scions have some of their absolute best stuff yet, and some of the side characters are kind of mindblowingly excellent here, one in particular serves as the ultimate expression of Endwalker's main themes and left me thinking about them for a long time (and I still am.) However, unfortunately I would also say that Endwalker has a few duds in the side cast, where they have interesting ideas and writing but unfortunately fail to properly pay them off, and it's especially frustrating in the case of one particular character and sours my opinion of some of the story sections.

Which leads nicely into my thoughts on Endwalker's issues. I think the main theme is that it is really good at giving you set up to things but is just not good at paying some of them off. I was quite disappointed with the way they handled some story sections and it made me wonder why they set this up in this way at all. I am at least glad that the final trial and everything surrounding it is filled with the same emotional weight that I mentioned loving in the themes, and to me it is a moment that is almost as hype as base Shadowbringers' final trial.

Anyways once we have the complicated stuff out of the way, I would like to say the music is fucking excellent of course it was did you really expect anything else.

The duties are also genuinely the best duties in the game, I'd surprisingly say I love most if not all of them and I think they just are really good at making them consistently fun now.

The areas are also very memorable here, while I may have issues with story resolutions I think they are just really good at being atmospheric and great locations to explore.

Now, in this review I will switch to talking about Post-Endwalker. Despite me considering it a different entity entirely in terms of MSQ I still think this is a better place than any to discuss it.

The trial series... doesn't exist for this one, as they seem to have put all of that into the MSQ itself this time around. Which is a good time to talk about the MSQ - it's okay. It has some nice aspects and it is definitely decently written but to me it's the biggest lull we've had since Post-ARR (though like do not get me wrong it is definitely better than that for sure). At least the trials are pretty damn fun, like I said great duties.

The normal raids are quite fun too. While I overall prefer Eden, Panda is still an enjoyable story tackling a really novel concept that I am glad that they are addressing, and the fights are satisfying and fun as expected of them. The music in them in particular is also really good.

The (unfinished, so some of this will change when we get the third one) alliance raids are really really fun, I enjoy them both in terms of mechanics and especially music which is honestly shockingly good (and that's saying something for this game). Story wise it has been okay so far but I really like the potential for the lore because it has been giving us a lot of interesting stuff to think about.

And yeah.... I think that's about it? Endwalker is really damn good and super worth playing. It is not the cohesive and well put together masterpiece that Shadowbringers quite is, but it makes up for it nonetheless!