Incredibly consistent, but homogenized in that pursuit. This game is entirely focused on boss fights, which were never what drew me to the series. I was drawn from the excellent level design and world design that Dark Souls 3 lacks in spades. The bonfire placement ruins the pacing so much that levels feel shorter than they would otherwise. The shortcuts are also always telegraphed, making them unsurprising and not as climactic as if they were hidden. There was never any click moments like looping back to the central bonfire in Undead Burg from the Hellkite bridge, it was all expected which slightly hindered my enjoyment. Sure, this game’s bosses are mostly quality, (aside from Halflight, the bastard) but they’re all incredibly samey. Most of them are big guys with swords who you dodge to the right to avoid. In principle this isn’t a bad thing, it helped the game have a better learning curve, but it makes a lot of encounters unspecial in my opinion. Even the spell-casters and bosses with unique draws to their design feel underdeveloped. The ones that drew me the most were the ones with unique mechanics that changed the way you fought them, Abyss Watchers for the boss fighting itself and the Twin Princes for their teleportation which forces you to read the animations correctly. The art direction is also barebones, with intensely desaturated colors and incredibly homogenous imagery. The only visually stimulating levels in this game for me were Irythyll and the levels in the DLC. Other than that, this game uses gray and brown mostly. In general, it comes down to priorities, and if you like this game more than the first, that’s fine. But I won’t forgive this game for being exceptionally uncreative.