While in some ways it improved on the combat system of its predecessor allowing for more varied playstyles, Dark Souls II was not nearly as enjoyable.

I attribute this to two major issues, the first of which being that Dark Souls II was difficult for all the wrong reasons. In Dark Souls, difficulty stemmed from creative enemy placement and challenging boss fights which required the player to learn attack patterns and react accordingly; this rewarded observant and skillful gameplay. However, much of Dark Souls II's difficulty stemmed from excessive enemy placements and whack hitboxes which made it feel like the player was fighting the game itself. This resulted in tedious stretches of fighting through hoards of enemies which took away much of my enjoyment.

The second reason would be the lack of boss diversity and boss quality. Many of the bosses in Dark Souls II fell under the category of "man with sword" with little to no unique mechanics to differentiate them. This allowed for the same simple strategies to work on the majority of boss encounters leaving little room for player creativity. Furthermore, multi-enemy boss encounters saw heavy use throughout the game but not in any meaningful way or for interesting reason other than "to be difficult".